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Robert Persons and an Unknown Political Pamphlet of 1593

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

P.J. Holmes
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Extract

In November 1591 a royal proclamation was published denouncing the activities of seminary priests and Jesuits which inspired a surprising number of Catholic authors to undertake its refutation. Robert Persons, Joseph Cresswell, Richard Verstegan, Thomas Stapelton, and Robert Southwell all attacked it in works printed in English or Latin; a short, anonymous tract on the subject survives in manuscript; and two Spanish writers also dealt with the proclamation, which had touched the honour of Philip II. There was perhaps something of a tradition among Catholic authors of writing refutations of royal proclamations, and the edict of 1591 was indeed strongly worded, but it is clear that its appearance was largely a welcome excuse for the authors of these books to publish their views, which ranged wide in their attacks on Elizabethan policy and formed part of a sustained Catholic propaganda campaign which reached its height at around this time. Robert Persons continued to discuss the proclamation, although at much less length, in two tracts published in 1592 and 1593, which deal with other subjects.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , May 1985 , pp. 341 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1985

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References

Notes

1 Hughes, P. L. & Larkin, J. F., Tudor Royal Proclamations III (London, 1969), 86–93 (−95)Google Scholar.

2 R. Persons, Elizabethae, Angliae reginae haeresim Calvinianam propugnantis, saevissimum in Catholicos sui regni edictum (several eds., 1592); idem, An advertisement written to a secretary of my L. Treasurer’s (trans. Verstegan, 1592); J. Cresswell, Exemplar literarum (1592); R. Verstegan, A declaration of the true causes of the great troubles (1592); Stapleton, T., Apologia pro Rege Caiholico Philippo II (1592)Google Scholar.

3 ‘The copye of an answer unto a Protestant’s letter to his friend beyond the seas, concerning a proclamation published in London in November last,’ British Library, Add MS 39828 (Tresham Papers), ff. 154–165.

4 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Third Report Appendix, 338; P. de Ribadeneyra, Historia de la Contrarreforma (ed. E. Rey, Madrid, 1945), 1229 ff.

5 Cf. W. Allen, An apology (1581); idem, A true, sincere and modest defence (1584); Leslie, J., A treatise of treasons (1572)Google Scholar. I have discussed these works more fully in my Resistance and Compromise (Cambridge, 1982), see esp. chaps. 3, 4, 11, 12.

6 Persons, R., News from Spain and Holland (1593)Google Scholar, idem, A relation of the King of Spain’S receiving in Valliodolid (1592)

7 It is mentioned in Allison, A. F. and Rogers, D. M., A catalogue of Catholic books in English printed abroad or secretly in England 1558–1640 (London, 1968), p. 50,Google Scholar with the comment that ‘this Latin book was printed at Antwerp by Joachim Trognesius, and has no place in the present catalogue.’

8 Persons, R., Elizabethae Angliae reginae (Augusta, 1592), 34 Google Scholar; Cresswell, J., Exemplar literarum (1592), 35.Google Scholar

9 Acta in comitiis parlamentaribus (1593), A2–A3v.

10 Ibid, 1–1v.

11 Dasent, J. R. (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England 23 (London, 1901), 289.Google Scholar

12 Acta in comitiis parlamentaribus, 2–3.

13 Stonyhurst College Archives, MS Anglia I, 117; printed in Pollen, J. H., Acts of English martyrs (London, 1891), 123–6.Google Scholar

14 Acta in comitiis parlamentaribus, 3v–9; 35 Eliz. I, c. 2 (Statutes of the Realm (London, 1819), 4, II, 843–6); 35 Eliz. I, c. 1 (Statutes, 841–3)

15 Acta in comitiis parlamentaribus 9v–16.

16 Alison, R., A plain confutation of a treatise of Brownism (1590)Google Scholar; Sutcliffe, M., An answer to a certain libel supplicatory (1592)Google Scholar; Bancroft, R. (not identified as author), A survey of the pretended holy discipline (1593)Google Scholar. Reference is also made to a work entitled‘Genevatio Anglicana, qua disciplina Genevensis et Scotica per molitiones seditiosas; minas et vim quaeritu’.

17 Cf. News from Spain and Holland (1593), 21v ff.; A Conference (1594), II, 236 ff.; A temperate ward-word (1599), Preface.

18 Cf. Allison & Rogers, loc. cit.; I depart (probably foolishly) from their bibliographical description.

19 A. G. Petti (ed.), The letters and despatches of Richard Verstegan (C.R.S. 52).

20 Ibid Introduction.

21 Ibid, 135.

22 Ibid 187.

23 Ibid, 155, 120–3.

24 Ibid 104, 119, 126, 130–1, 150, 159–60, 164.

25 Ibid, 187. It may be that Persons received a list of the Brownists’ opinions from Henry Walpole in 1591; see Jessopp, A. (ed.), Letters of Fa. Henry Walpole, S. J. (Norwich, 1873), letter 13.Google Scholar

26 Petti, op. cit., 119, 141, 134–5.

27 Ibid, 144–7; cf. 135.

28 Ibid, 168–70.

29 Ibid, 114, 131, 151.

30 Ibid, xi; four of Verstegan’s despatches are, like White’s letter, in Stonyhurst Archives, Anglia vol. I.

31 Petti, op. cit, 134, where Verstegan tells Persons that he has some letters and papers which will help him in Persons’ ‘intended work’ (probably his unpublished account of Anthony Tyrrell’s escapades: see Morris, J., The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers 2, London, 1875, pp. 287–501.)Google Scholar

32 Petti,op. cit. 142.

33 News from Spain and Holland (1593), 14, 25, 30 [vere 29], 32v.