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Priestly Perseverance in the Old Society of Jesus: The Case of England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Thomas H. Clancy S.J.
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Extract

Bishop John Milner once observed, ‘a detailed history of the converts to and the apostates from the Catholic Church … would form a most interesting and useful work.” Since that time more attention has been paid to Jesuit converts than to Jesuit apostates. This article seeks to redress, if ever so slightly, the balance. A look at the underside of one portion of the Society before the Suppression reveals new aspects of her life and history.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , May 1989 , pp. 286 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1988

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References

Notes

1 A Post-Script to the second edition of the Address to the right reverend Lord Bishop of St. David's (London, 1819) p. 11 Google Scholar n. This page is the source of many of the quotations on apostates in Kirk.

2 Canon # 751 in Code of Canon Law (Washington, 1983).Google ScholarPubMed This is the narrower definition used by Patrick, McGrath in his ‘Apostate and Naughty Priests’ pp. 50–80 Google Scholar in Opening the Scrolls (ed. Dominic Bellenger, Bath, 1987) which appeared after the present article was written.

3 We shall be dealing with England and Wales throughout, but we have not thought it necessary to repeat the pairing in every instance.

4 Controversies, 4th general controversy, Bk IV, ch. 17, p. 405 in Vol. II Opera Omnia … Bellarmini (Paris, 1870).Google Scholar

5 C.R.S. 2, 202-211. See also the MS treatise at Stonyhurst on the sad ends of those involved in the accusations around 1679. See Foley 5, 74 f.

6 A.R.S.F. F G 685.

7 Post Script (see n. 1 supra.) p. 11n.

8 Anstruther, I, 153. Hart's fall was not known to contemporaries. See e.g. Henry, More, Historia Missionis Anglicanae (1660) Bk. 4, # 13 (p. 176 Google Scholar of Edwards’ 1981 translation ). It was discovered by John, Morris. See his Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, second series (London, 1875) pp. 28–34.Google Scholar

9 Anstruther I, 262.

10 Letters of William Allen and Richard Barret, ed. Renold, P. (C.R.S. 58) p. 49.Google Scholar

11 Kirk, 137; George, Oliver, Collections … of the Society of Jesus (London, 1845) p. 121; Duffy, 23f.Google Scholar

12 Anstruther I, 295. See also the case of Francis Shaw (Anstruther I, 306). Bellenger does not list those who finally repented as apostates. For this and other reasons there are twelve names in the Appendix not noted as apostates by Bellenger: Bowland, Davies, Evans, Gaunt, Gibson, Jenison, Lamb, Nolan, Rowse, Shaw, Simpson (T.), and Tyrrel. There are two more names in the Appendix not in Bellenger: Berry and Doran.

13 Duffy, 6. Milner in the passage cited in note 1 quotes the remark of Dean Swift, ‘I wish when the Pope weeds his garden, he would not throw his nettles over our wall’

14 Quoted in Francis, Blackborne, Works, Vol. III (London, 1805) p. 97.Google Scholar

15 Quoted in Godfrey, Goodman, The Court of King James I (London, 1839) p. 353n.Google Scholar Noel, Malcolm's De Dominis (London, 1984)Google Scholar is the latest and best biography.

16 E.C.B, # 394.

17 A&R #907.

18 Fr. Bellenger has kindly made available to me special computer runs of some of his data.

19 See Thomas, McCoog S.J., ‘The Establishment of the English Province of the Society of Jesus’ RH Vol. 17 (1984) 121–139.Google Scholar

20 Patrick, McGrath and Joy, Rowe, ‘Anstruther Analyzed’ RH Vol. 18 (1986) p. 8.Google Scholar

21 T., G. Law, Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars (London, 1889) p. 120.Google Scholar

22 ibid. See also Persons, Manifestation of Great Folly (1602) p. 9.

23 Noel (see n. 15 supra.) p. 11.

24 A.R.S.J. Francia I fol 155v & 156. Aquaviva to Allen 27 March 1583. On his earlier life see Mario, Scaduto S.J. Catalogo del Gesuiti d'ltalia (Rome, 1968) p. 81.Google Scholar

25 Anstruther I, 120. Leo, Hicks S.J. ‘The English College in Rome and Vocations to the Society’ in Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu Vol. 3, p. 23n.Google Scholar Martin, Cleary, A Checklist of Welsh Students (Cardiff, 1958) p. 20 Google Scholar n. 52. See also Allison in RH VII (1964) p. 189.

26 Richard Verstegan to Roger Baynes 4 June 1594 in Letters … of Richard Verstegan (C.R.S. 52) p. 211. The best account of Perkins (Parkins) is in Hasler, P. W. (ed.) The History of Parliament, The House of Commons 1558-1603 (London, 1981).Google Scholar

27 Scaduto (supra n. 24) p. 77. See also Anstruther I, 184 and The Wisbech Stirs ed. P. Renold (C.R.S. 51) p. 32.

28 Anstruther I, 271.

29 McGrath-Rowe (n. 20 supra) p. 7.

30 Anstruther, A Hundred Homeless Years (London, 1958) pp. 24–27.Google ScholarPubMed

31 Walter, Gumbley O.P. Obituary Notices of the English Dominicans (London, 1955) p. 198.Google Scholar Thisletter was discovered by Godfrey, Anstruther. See Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum Vol. 27 (1957) pp. 359–402.Google Scholar

32 Knox-Allen, p. 32.

33 On Williams, alias Rice Griffiths, beside the account in Anstruther see Roland, Mathias, The Whitsun Riot (London, 1603) p. 27.Google Scholar He was apparently a double agent who worked as a priest evenafter conforming.

34 Philip, Hughes, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in England (London, 1942) p. 345, 338.Google Scholar

35 Anstruther, A Hundred Homeless Years, pp. 92 & 135 with references to the Archives of Propaganda( = AP) Scrit. Rif. Ang. I, f. 160v. See Also A.A.W. A, IX, 115 for a list of apostates dating from about 1610.

36 See Antony, Allison, ‘John Gerard and the Gunpowder Plot’ in RH Vol. 5 (1959) p. 62 Google Scholar n. 37 and references there to AP and A.A.W.

37 Foley 7, 620; T.G. HOlt, S.J., St. Omers and Bruges Colleges (C.R.S. 69) p. 212.Google Scholar

38 A.A.W. A, XXVIII, no. 68 is a list dating from about 1635 of priests leading scandalous lives. Anstruther makes frequent reference to this document, which he designates as List 75, in his second volume.

39 Robert Rookwood I in Anstruther II, 271.

40 Other aliases for Jukes besides Dukes were Buston and Symonds. See Foley IV, 21-2. Contrary to Foley he was indeed a Jesuit if only for a short time. See Anstruther II. 175.

40a It appears from a letter of 30 July 1616 from Thomas Owen S.J., then superior of the English mission in Rome, to Joseph Creswell in St. Omer that Pole was admitted to the Jesuits as a temporal coadjutor, i.e., lay brother, but that John Gerard S.J. imprudently urged him to study for the priesthood. See A. Allison in RH vol. 15, p. 87 and references there cited.

41 He was known as Anthony Smith after he left the Jesuits and is not to be confused with Anthony Pole S.J. (1627-1692). Anthony Pole I is described in List 75 (see n. 38 supra.) as being an apostate from his order. He was living with the mother of his children in London. For his part in the dissemination of Anti-Bishop see Suzanne, Gossett (ed.): Hieromachia or the Anti-Bishop (Brunswick, E., 1982) p. [26].Google Scholar

42 See Antony, Allison, ‘John Gerard’ (n. 36 supra) pp. 52–55.Google Scholar

42a The common accusation was that the desire to marry was the root cause of most apostasies. Thus John, Floyd S.J. in a 1612 work, Overthrow of the Protestant Pulpit-Babels (p. 276)Google Scholar addresses his Protestant opponents, “… when any of our Priests can be kept no longer from the stewes, they run incontinently unto your churches.”

43 Anstruther II, 1. Among his aliases were Ashton, Augustine Rivers, and N. Rivers. For his writings see David, Rogers in Biographical Studies I, 22-23 & 245–250.Google Scholar

44 This is Thomas Pulton I (1577-1637). See Bernard, Basset S.J. The English Jesuits (New York, 1968) pp. 180–181.Google Scholar Antony Allison has very kindly lent me his unpublished paper on this incident towhich he refers in his John Gerard article p. 58 f. The incident is also referred to in the play Hieromachia written about 1630, lines 2468 & ff. p. 201 in Suzanne Gossett's ed. referred to aboven. 41.

45 For his books printed in England see E.C.B. 613-5. There is a sketch of his life in Ceyssens, L., ‘Francois de Saint-Augustin de Macedo’ Archivum Franciscanum Historicum Vol. 49 (1956) 1–14.Google Scholar

46 Anstruther II, 258.

47 Foley VII, 757.

48 See C.R.S. Vol. 69, p. 18. He was born c. 1613 and entered the Society in 1631. For his writingssee E.C.B. 1147-9. Blom, J. M. in The Post Tridentine English Primer (C.R.S. monograph series #3, 1982) p. 128nGoogle Scholar says that Anderton was an apostate, but that is not evident. The fact that Barton wasa widely used alias makes this man hard to trace. I wish to thank Fr. Thomas McCoog for theinformation he supplied to me.

49 Holt in C.R.S. 69, p. 142; Foley V, 216 & VII, 302. There is further information in Thomas McCoog's unpublished paper on John Travers delivered at the Conference on Post-Reformation Catholic History in Oxford July, 1985. The only authority known to me for his apostasy is the notation in Bellenger.

50 McCoog reference, previous note.

51 On Philip Gage, vere Journo, see Holt in C.R.S. Vol. 69, p. 97 and the references to the Calendar of State Papers there cited.

52 Holt in C.R.S. Vol. 69, p. 32; Foley VII, 32; Hubert, Chadwick, St. Omers to Stonyhurst (London, 1962) p. 184.Google Scholar

53 Wood in Athenae Oxonienses (ed. Bliss, 1815) II, 419 Google Scholar gives more colourful details than Anstruther II, 45.

54 Andrew Stonehouse, alias Stone, alias Town, alias John Cuthbert, alias John Fairfax was born c. 1597, ordained in 1621 and entered the Jesuits in 1634. He died in 1663 in Yorkshire. See Anstruther II, 311; Holt in C.R.S. Vol. 69, p. 251; Foley VII, 740.

55 Anstruther III, 54; Holt C.R.S. Vol. 70, p. 85.

56 Foley VII, 488; Anstruther II, 373. The reference in Bellenger p. 209 should be corrected.

57 Holt in C.R.S. Vol. 70, p. 190.

58 Anstruther I, 273 does not mention his entrance into the Jesuits, nor does Foley, but he is listedamong them in Caraman, P. Henry Garnet (London, 1964) p. 247.Google Scholar

59 This is John Salkeld I, Anstruther II, 276. He is called a Jesuit in Dodd III, 420 and in A.A.W.A, XXIV, 41.

60 Clancy in Introduction to Jesuit Life (St. Louis, 1976) pp. 187 ff.;Google Scholar Raymond, Hostie S.J., Vie et Mort des Ordres Religieux (Paris, 1972) p. 194 Google Scholar and statistical tables on pp. 348 & ff.

61 Thaddeus, (Hermans) OF M, The Franciscans in England (London, 1898)Google Scholar and Zimmerman, B., Carmel in England (London, 1899).Google Scholar

62 John, Bossy, The English Catholic Community (London, 1975) ch. 8 & p. 422.Google Scholar

63 Anstruther III, 253 f.

64 William, Bassett and Peter, Huizing (eds.) Celibacy in the Church (New York, 1972) p. 64.Google Scholar Augustinus de Roskovany's 17-volume work, De Coelibatu et Breviario (Pest, 1861-1890), lists literally thousands of works on these two topics.

65 Bullarium, Vol. 22 (Turin, 1871) p. 138 f.Google Scholar

66 Ludwig, von Pastor, History of the Popes, Vol. 35 (St. Louis, 1949) p. 394.Google Scholar See also Vol. 33,p. 335.

67 Anstruther III, 64, 196, 211.

68 Anstruther III, 240.

69 Fanaticism Fanatically Imputed (1672, E.C.B., # 264) p. 128.

70 Lewis married a maid servant (Kirk 151), Simpson an adventuress who left him (Duffy 23n.). Doran married a rich widow (Kirk 65), McCarly the daughter of a Lord (Kirk 154). The wives of both Aspinall and Hawkins were well-connected and both prospered (Duffy 11f., 18).

71 Oskar Kohler, ch. 19 of Jedin et alii, H. (eds.) History of the Church Vol. 5 (New York, 1980);Google Scholar Owen, Chad wick, The Popes and the European Revolution (Oxford, 1981) pp. 406 Google Scholar ff., 611 f.

72 Duffy, p. 17.

73 Duffy, pp. 23 f.; Kirk, 137.

74 Thomas, Hughes S.J. History of the Society of Jesus in North America, Text Vol. II (New York, 1917) p. 132n.Google Scholar

75 Patrick, J. Corish, The Catholic Community (Dublin, 1981) p. 110.Google Scholar

76 See Alger's, B. two-part article on Hitchmouth in Northwest Catholic History Vol. I (1969).Google Scholar In alist of Northern clergy reprinted in Kirk p. 261 occurs the following notation on Hitchmouth: ‘Hewas cracked.’

77 But note that in 1676 the Chapter enacted a rule that no ex-Jesuit was to be received into the body of the (secular) clergy nor to be given faculties except by unanimous consent (Basil, Hemphill, The Early Vicars Apostolics, London, 1954, p. 163).Google Scholar Leaving aside the legal force of this rule, it is a fact that the phenomenon of Jesuits leaving the Society and continuing to function as priests afterwards is much rarer in the eighteenth century.

78 Francis, Edwards S.J. The Jesuits in England (Tunbridge Wells, 1985) p. 135.Google Scholar

79 Charles Wharton and John Joseph Kelly. On Wharton's later career, which included the presidency of Columbia University, see the Dictionary of American Biography. On the fate of ex-Jesuits in general see Geoffrey, Holt's article in Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu Vol. 42 (1973) 288–311 Google Scholar which does not, however, mention Kelly alias Stafford.

80 Brady, W. Maziere: Annals of the Catholic Hierarchy (London, 1883) p. 119.Google Scholar In this final sectionwe treat all Catholic priests with no special emphasis on Jesuits.

81 Willoughby and Wharton to America, Pole and Archbold to Ireland, Jenison and Evans to Scotland.

82 English Catholic Refugees on the Continent (London, 1914) p. 109.Google Scholar

83 Morris Chauncey seems to have been among the first to make this complaint. See Allen's reply in Knox-Allen pp. 31ff.

84 Letters of William Allen and Richard Barret, ed. Renold, P. (C.R.S. 58) p. 98.Google Scholar

85 Letters of Thomas Fitzherbert ed. Leo, Hicks S.J. (C.R.S. 41) pp. 103/135, 112/144.Google Scholar

86 C.R.S. Vol. 41, p. 53 & n.

87 Uncertain Trumpet (New York, 1968) pp. 21 f.Google ScholarPubMed

88 Knox-Allen, pp. 31-37.

89 ‘Oportet meliora non expectare sed facere’, he is reported to have said (Knox-Allen, p. 367).

90 Seville and Lisbon did not equal this record, but most of their priests were ordained after the period of heaviest persecution.

91 They number 19, i.e., 13.3% of the names in the Appendix.

92 Anstruther I, 348.

93 See Wolfgang Muller in Jedin (supra n. 71) V, 532. Richard Challoner was a skillful physician(Eamon, Duffy in Studies in Church History Vol. 15 [1978] p. 298).Google Scholar

94 Anstruther II, 33 & 51. John Smith S.J., alias Thomas Harrison, was executed for robbery in 1650, but he seems to have been falsely accused. See Foley I, 664f. He was dismissed from the Jesuits the same year (A.R.S.J. Anglia 34, 224). There is no evidence of his apostasy.

95 Duffy, p. 7.

96 Duffy, pp. 4-5 from the Egmont Diaries (Historical Manuscripts Commission) II (1923) pp. 219 f.

97 See Zimmerman's account of Blyth pp. 373 ff.

98 A 1737 document by Bishop Petre or his coadjutor attributes the large number of apostates to the faults of the landed gentry and the lack of zeal on the part of priests, but this document is discussing leakage among the laity rather than among priests. See Hemphill (n. 77 supra), p. 96.

99 Basset-Huizing (supra n. 64) pp. 135f. It should be noted that many of these cannot be accounted apostates because they were reduced to the lay state with permission to marry. Only three times previously in the history of the church since the reformation has there been a large-scale regularization of the canonical status of married priests. These occurred in 1548 in Germany, 1554 in England, andin 1801 in France. See John, Abbo, ‘The Problem of Lapsed Priests,’ The Jurist Vol. 23 (1963) pp. 153–179.Google Scholar

100 The Jesuits Memorial, Part I, ch. 1, p. 4 in Edward Gee's 1690 edition. See Clancy in RH V, pp. 19 ff.