Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T03:24:51.329Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Devotional Landscape of the Royalist Exile, 1649–1660

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Mark R. F. Williams
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study aims both to build upon and to challenge recent historiographical interest in the cultural origins and religious associations of royalism in the midseventeenth century by examining the devotional character of the exiled royalist community of the 1650s. Focusing primarily upon those royalists closely affiliated with the court of Charles II, it assesses the impact of disillusionment, dislocation, penury, and forced mobility upon the subsequent framings and reframings of religious identities. It considers the multiple venues in which these articulations appeared and were negotiated—through personal correspondence, print, diplomacy, rumor, and conversion—in order to illuminate the challenges posed to the maintenance of clear confessional boundaries and community ideals. In doing so, this article argues for the incorporation of a much broader sense of the impact of the “English Revolution” that considers the full geographical, chronological, and cultural scope of these upheavals across Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , October 2014 , pp. 909 - 933
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Watson to Edgeman, 12 May 1650, Breda, Clarendon State Papers (hereafter CSP), vol. 39, f. 196, Bodleian Library.

2 Hutton, Ronald, Charles II: King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Oxford, 1989), 45–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Watson to Edgeman, 12 May 1650, Breda, CSP, vol. 39, f. 196, Bodleian Library.

4 Hutton, Charles II, 48.

5 Watson to Edgeman, 12 May 1650, Breda, CSP, vol. 39, f. 196, Bodleian Library.

6 See, for instance, “Names of the Irish to be excepted out of the General Pardon 18 May 1652,” Carte Manuscripts (hereafter “Carte”), vol. 67, f. 305–06, Bodleian Library.

7 See, respectively, “Deane Cousen in our Chapell Paris,” 4 September 1650, British Library (hereafter BL) Add MSS 78634 (Evelyn Papers), f. 3; “Deane Stuart, D: of St Paules & Clearke of the Closet in Our Chapel at Paris,” 10 September 1651, BL Add MSS 78634, f. 21–23; “Deane Cousen in our Chapell Paris,” 27 November 1650, BL Add MSS 78634, f. 6–7; “Deane Cousen in our Chapell Paris,” 12 February 1651, BL Add MSS 78634, f. 9. Among those who preached in Paris, in addition to Cosin, were Dr. John Earle, Dean Stuart, and a “Mr Hamilton.”

8 “The Deane of Peterborough, in our Chapell at Paris, afterwards Bishop of Durham,” 12 June “Pomerid” [Pomeriggio], 1650, BL Add MSS 78634, f. 1.

9 Cosin to Browne, 27 March 1657, “Palais Royale,” BL Add MSS 71899 (Evelyn Papers), fol. 176.

10 See, for instance, Gillespie, Raymond, Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester, 1997)Google Scholar, especially chapter 1; Gillespie, , “Devotional Landscapes: God, Saints and the Natural World in Early Modern Ireland,” Studies in Church History 46 (2010): 217–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walsham, Alexandra, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 4; Walsham, , “Sacred Topography and Social Memory: Religious Change and the Landscape in Early Modern Britain and Ireland,” Journal of Religious History 36, no.1 (March 2012): 31–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whyte, Nicola, Inhabiting the Landscape: Place, Custom and Memory, 1500–1800 (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar.

11 See Massey, Doreen, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis, 1999), 120–22Google Scholar.

12 Smith, David L., Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement, c.1640–1649 (Cambridge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These categories have recently been questioned by David Scott: see Scott, David, “Rethinking Royalist Politics, 1642–9,” in The English Civil War: Conflict and Contexts, 1640–49, ed. Adamson, John (Basingstoke, 2009), 36–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For ethnicity and royalism, see Bowen, Lloyd, “Royalism, Print, and the Clergy in Britain, 1639–1640 and 1642,” Historical Journal 52, no. 2 (2013): 297–319CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ó hAnnracháin, Tadhg, “Conflicting Loyalites, Conflicted Rebels: Political and Religious Allegiance among the Catholic Confederates of Ireland,” English Historical Review 119, no. 483 (2004): 851–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stoyle, Mark, Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War (New Haven, 2005)Google Scholar; Williams, Mark R. F., “Between King, Faith and Reason: Father Peter Talbot and Catholic Royalist Thought in Exile,” English Historical Review 127, no. 528 (October 2012): 1063–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, Mark R. F., The King's Irishmen: The Irish in the Exiled Court of Charles II, 1649–1660 (Woodbridge, 2014)Google Scholar.

13 See, for instance, Sheils, William, “English Catholics at War and Peace,” in Religion in Revolutionary England, ed. Durston, Christopher and Maltby, Judith (Manchester, 2007): 137–57Google Scholar.

14 Hopper, Andrew, Turncoats and Renegadoes: Changing Sides during the English Civil Wars (Oxford, 2012), 208–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 On popular royalism and languages of allegiance, see Bowen, “Royalism, Print, and the Clergy in Britain, 1639–1640 and 1642;” Bowen, , “Seditious Speech and Popular Royalism, 1649–60,” in Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum, ed. McElligott, Jason and Smith, David L. (Manchester, 2010): 44–66Google Scholar. For royalism and cultures of honour, see Donagan, Barbara, “The Web of Honour: Soldiers, Christians and Gentlemen in the English Civil War,” History Journal 44, no. 2 (2001): 365–89Google ScholarPubMed.

16 Scott, “Rethinking Royalist Politics, 1642–9,” 60.

17 On exile more generally, see Said, Edward, “Reflections on Exile,” in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (London, 2001), 177Google Scholar; 181.

18 Anna Keay's compilation of officers in Charles II's court in exile shows a royal retinue in October 1654 numbering in the mid-30s; by 1657, a “court list” drawn up in Bruges shows more than 150 within the court. See Keay, , The Magnificent Monarch: Charles II and the Ceremonies of Power (London, 2008)Google Scholar, appendix 2, 220–31.

19 Dublin Jesuit Archives, Macerlean Transcripts, N17/1/1[12], Talbot to Nickel, Cologne, 17 Nov. 1654 (see Historical Manuscripts Commission 10th Report Appendix, 5:356–58); “Names of the Irish to be excepted out of the General Pardon 18 May 1652,” Carte, vol. 67, f. 305–06, Bodleian Library.

20 Fincham, Kenneth and Taylor, Stephen, “Vital Statistics : Episcopal Ordination and Ordinands in England, 1646–60,” English Historical Review 126, no. 519 (April 2011): 319–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fincham and Taylor, “Episcopalian Conformity and Nonconformity, 1646–60,” in Royalists and Royalism During the Interregnum, 18–43.

21 See Wright, J., “Marian Exiles and the Legitimacy of Flight from Persecution,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 52, no. 2 (2001): 220–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janssen, Geert H., “The Counter Reformation of the Refugee: Exile and the Shaping of Catholic Militancy in the Dutch Revolt,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63, no. 4 (2012): 671–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corp, Edward, The Jacobites at Urbino (Basingstoke, 2009), 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For recent research on mobility among English Catholics in this period, see Corens, Liesbeth, “Saints beyond Borders: Relics and the Expatriate English Catholic Community,” in Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800, ed. Sponholz, Jesse and Waite, Gary K. (London, 2014), 25–38Google Scholar.

22 In keeping with recent historiography, I use the term “Protestant” throughout this article to refer to adherents of the established church (whether the Church of England or Church of Ireland).

23 Colin Brennen, “Isaac Basire de Preaumont,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition [hereafter ODNB]. Accessed August 16, 2013.

24 Basire to Browne, 12 March 1651, “from the Isle of Zante,” BL Add MSS 78199 (Evelyn Papers), f. 43.

25 Brennen, “Isaac Basire de Preaumont,” ODNB.

26 Collins, Jeffrey, The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, 2005), 244Google Scholar.

27 Milton, Anthony, “The Creation of Laudianism: A New Approach,” in Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain, eds. Cogswell, Thomas, Cust, Richard, and Lake, Peter (Cambridge, 2002), 163Google Scholar.

28 Austin, John [pseud. William Burchley], The Christian Moderator: or, Persecution for religion condemned, by the Light of Nature (London, 1651), 43Google Scholar.

29 See Cheynell's, FrancisThe Beacon Flameing (London, 1652)Google Scholar and Lee's, Legenda Lignea (London, 1652)Google Scholar.

30 Cheynell, The Beacon Flaming, 18.

31 “R. W.” [Richard Watson] to William Edgeman, 4 April 1652, ClSP, vol. 43, f. 51.

32 Watson, Richard, Akolouthos, or, A Second Faire Warning (The Hague, 1652)Google Scholar.

33 Ibid.

34 [Hatton] to Nicholas, 3/13 August 1650, Paris in Warner, G. F., ed., The Nicholas Papers: Correspondence of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State (hereafter NP), 4 vols. (London, 1886–1920)Google Scholar, 2:190.

35 Ormond to Nicholas, 9/19 October 1651, Caen, Historical Manuscripts Commission, Ormonde New Series (hereafter HMC Ormonde NS), 8 vols. (London, 1902–20)Google Scholar, 2:218.

36 Ormond to Nicholas, 28 March 1651, Caen, NP, 1:228–29.

37 Ormond to Nicholas, 6 April 1651, Caen, in Carte, Thomas, ed., A Collection of Original Letters & Papers Concerning the Affairs England from 1641 to 1660 (herafter COP) 2 vols. (London, 1739)Google Scholar, 1:439.

38 Milton, Anthony, “‘Vailing his Crown’: Royalist Criticism of Charles I's Kingship in the 1650s,” in Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum, eds. McElligott, Jason and Smith, David L. (Manchester, 2010), 101–2Google Scholar.

39 Ormond to Nicholas, 6 April 1651, Caen, COP, 1:434. I am grateful to Ken Fincham for pointing out the allusion here.

40 Ormond to Nicholas, 6 April 1651, Caen, COP, 1:439. On counsel and kingship, see Rose, Jacqueline, “Kingship and Counsel in Early Modern England,” Historical Journal 54, no. 2 (2011): 69–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Ormond to Nicholas, 30 March 1651, COP, 1:430.

42 Such considerations are suggested in Daybell, James, The Material Letter in Early Modern England: Manuscript Letters and the Culture and Practices of Letter-Writing, 1512–1635 (New York, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 A Forme of Prayer Used in the King's Chappel, Upon Tuesdayes, In These Times of Trouble and Distresse, (The Hague, 1650)Google Scholar. For Browne's role in the wider royalist print effort, see Peacey, Jason, “Reporting a Revolution: A Failed Propaganda Campaign,” in The Regicides and the Execution of Charles I, ed. Peacey, Jason (Basingstoke, UK, 2001), 161–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 ‘F. Crowther’ to Browne, 16 February 1657, Bruges, BL Add MSS 78199 (Evelyn Papers), f. 174.

45 The full title reads La Victoire de la Verite Pour la Paix de l'Eglise, sur la Controuersie de la Transsubstantiation … Avec une breue & evidente demonstration pour faire voir aux Protestans qu'ils n'ont ny l'Eglise ny la Foy (Paris, 1651).Google Scholar

46 “Jugement de Monseigneur l'Evesque de Grasse sur le livre de Monsieur dela Milletiere [sic]” and “Jugement de Monseigneur l'Evesque de Couserans sur le livre de Monsieur de la Miletiere [sic],” Bodleian Library, 8° M 3 Th.BS. with La Victoire de la Vérité Pour la Paix de l'Eglise.

47 Van de Schoor, R. J. M., The Irenical Theology of Théophile Brachet de La Milletière (1588–1665), Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 59 (Leiden, 1995).Google Scholar

48 Kleinman, Ruth, “Belated Crusaders: Religious Fears in Anglo-French Diplomacy, 1654–5,” Church History 44, no. 1 (March, 1975): 34–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Victory, (The Hague, 1653): 15–16Google Scholar. All subsequent references are drawn from the 1653 English edition, unless otherwise specified. The 1653 edition is a true translation of the opening epistle to Charles II, despite not including La Milletière's Second Discours.

50 Ibid., 14.

51 Ibid., 67–68.

52 Ibid., 7–8, 28, 33–39.

53 Ibid., 40. La Milletière clearly used the term “conversion” with respect to Charles. It is also clearly asserted on pages 22 and 24, among others, of La Milletière's Second Discours. Cf. Jackson, Nicholas D., Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity (Cambridge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 81.

54 Victory, 40–41.

55 Ibid., 52.

56 See, for instance, Glickman, Gabriel, “Christian Reunion, the Anglo-French Alliance and the English Catholic Imagination, 1660–72,” English Historical Review 128, no. 531 (2013): 263–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Elizabeth Butler, Marchioness of Ormond to Richard Browne [at Paris], 24 March [1650], Caen, BL Add MSS 78199 (Evelyn Papers), f. 30.

58 Ormond to Bochart, 9/19 January 1652, Paris, HMC Ormonde NS, 1:253.

59 Bramhall to Ormond, 9 March 1652, Calais, HMC Ormonde NS, 1:262. Also quoted in Jackson, Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity, 183.

60 Keblusek, Marika, “The Exile Experience: Royalist and Angli[c]an Book Culture in the Low Countries (1640–1660),” in The Bookshop of the World: The Role of the Low Countries in the Book-Trade 1473–1941, ed. Hellinga, Lotte, Duke, Alastair, Harskamp, Jacob, and Hermans, Theo (Goy-Houten, Netherlands, 2001), 151–58Google Scholar; Cunningham, Jack, “John Bramhall's Other Island: A Laudian Solution to an Irish Problem,” Irish Historical Studies 36, no. 141 (2008): 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Bramhall, Answer, 10.

62 Ibid., 58

63 Ibid., 45.

64 Ibid., 92.

65 Collins, Jeffrey, “The Restoration Bishops and the Royal Supremacy,” Church History 68, no. 3 (1999), 549–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Answer, 38–39. The specific citation Bramhall provides is 1 Samuel: 15.1: “Samuel also said unto Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord.”

67 Ibid., 71.

68 Ibid., 54.

69 Ibid., 34–35.

70 Ibid., 35.

71 Ibid., 107; 115.

72 Ibid., 57.

73 “R. W.” [Richard Watson] to William Edgeman, 4 April 1652, ClSP, vol. 43, f. 51.

74 A Letter Farther and More Fully Evidencing the Kings Stedfastnesse in the Protestant Religion, (London, 1660)Google Scholar, Royal Irish Academy (hereafter RIA), Haliday Tracts, 13; Lettre de M. de L'Angle à un de ses amis touchant la religion du sérénissime roy d'Angleterre (Geneva, 1660).Google Scholar

75 “A Catalogue of ye Bishopricks of Ireland, with yeir respective values, as they were upon improvements at the later end of my Lordship of Straffords Government,” BL Add MSS 15856 (Official Documents), fol. 86b. The date reads: “This list was made by the Bpp of Derry the 19th of September 1655 at Cologne.”

76 Hyde to Berwick, 29 June/9 July 1659, ClSP, vol. 61, f. 350–51.

77 “R. W.” [Richard Watson] to William Edgeman, 4 April 1652, ClSP, vol. 43, f. 51.

78 “Henrietta Maria to ‘Monsieur l'Archevéque d'Athenes Nonce de sa Santeté [sic],” 23 Oct 1649, Paris, Cambridge University Library (hereafter CUL) Add MSS 4878 (Acton Collection), fol. 533; “Henrietta Maria to Cardinal Mazarin, Paris, 11 May 1647” in Green, M. A. E., ed., Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria (London, 1857)Google Scholar, 343.

79 O'Connell, Patricia, “The Early-Modern Irish College Network in Iberia, 1590–1800,” in The Irish in Europe, 1580–1815, ed. O'Connor, Thomas (Dublin, 2001): 49–64Google Scholar; Cunningham, Bernadette, The World of Geoffrey Keating: History, Myth and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Ireland (Dublin, 2004).Google Scholar

80 Meynell to Cottington and Hyde, 24 June 1650, Rome, ClSP, vol. 40, f. 66; Father John Wilfrid [Wilford] to Hyde, 8 September 1650, Rome, ClSP, vol. 40, f. 182–83. Wilford would later assume the pseudonym of Richard Clement in correspondence with Hyde; Taaffe to Ormond, 3 January 1650/1, “Bruxells,” Carte, vol. 29, f. 152–53; Mark R. F. Williams, “Between King, Faith and Reason.”

81 Talbot to Hyde, Cologne, 14 Dec. 1654, ClSP, vol. 49, f. 200; Williams, “Between King, Faith and Reason,” 1075–91.

82 Ormond to Dromore, “September 1656,” ClSP, vol. 52, f. 240–43. A printed copy of 11 June 1657 contained in BL Thomason Collection E. 912 (8) dates the letter to 20 September 1656.

83 Ormond to Nicholas, 8 June 1651, Caen, Carte, vol. 29, f. 530.

84 Williams, “Between King, Faith and Reason,” n. 151.

85 Hatton to Nicholas, 20/30 October 1654, Paris, NP, 1:109–14.

86 Ormond to the King, 27 November 1654, Paris, ClSP, vol. 49, f. 168.

87 Talbot to Charles II, Anvers, 24 Dec. 1655, ClSP, vol. 50, f. 234.

88 “Intercepted Letter sent to the Marquis of Ormond by Ro. Allen on 24th May, 1651, and Enclosing another Letter to the Same Marquis from his Agent in Ireland,” in Moran, P .F., ed., Spicilegium Ossoriense, 1st series, (Dublin, 1874), 369–72.Google Scholar

89 Ormond, for instance, had bought the 1647 edition of Davila's work while in London during the Civil Wars: see Carte, vol. 30, f. 339–49., “Stephen Smith's Accompts ‘Receipts & Disbursements of all such sums of money as I received for your Lodps use, ether [sic] from the Parliament o others, whilst I was in London attending your Lodps businesse, 1647 & 1648,’ written 8 June 1651.”

90 The King to Inchiquin, 2 April 1651, “At the Louvre,” ClSP, vol. 43, f. 49.

91 “French to the Agents with the Duke of Lorraine,” 10/20 July 1651, Brussels, HMC Ormonde NS, 1:173.

92 Inchiquin to Ormond, 14 January 1656, Paris, Carte, vol. 113, f. 40.

93 Sir Edward Hyde to Richard Bellings, 12 June 1654, Paris, ClSP, vol. 48, f. 268.

94 Hyde to Ormond, 6 July 1657, Bruges, ClSP, vol. 55, f. 114.

95 “A letter of intelligence,” 29 June 1657, in Birch, Thomas, ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq (hereafter TSP), 7 vols. (London, 1742)Google Scholar, 6:374–75. This rumor was spread to Thurloe's agent by a “Father Quince.”

96 Lockhart to Thurloe, 19/29 July 1657, Sedan, TSP, 6:414.

97 de Vechii to Rospigliosi, 9 September 1656, Brussels, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segretario di Stato Fiandra (hereafter ASV.Segr.Principi), vol. 40, f. 366.

98 de Vechii to Chigi, 21 December 1658, Brussels, ASV.Segr.Fiandra, vol. 42, f. 487–88.

99 “George Digby Conte de Bristol” to Cardinal Chigi, 21 December 1658, “Bruxelles,” ASV.Segr.Principi, vol. 82a, f. 437; Bristol to ‘sa Sainctete,’ 21 December 1658, “Bruxelles,” ASV.Segr.Principi, vol. 82a, f. 439–40.

100 [Bristol] to Hyde, 20/30 September 1658, Ghent, ClSP, vol. 58, f. 396.

101 O'Neill to Hyde, 13/23 November 1659, Bordeaux, ClSP. vol. 66, f. 263–64.

102 For Cosin, see [Ornsby, G.], ed., The Correspondence of John Cosin, D.D., Lord Bishop of Durham, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1869), 1:278–302Google Scholar.

103 See, for instance, Inchiquin to Ormond, “Rec'd 29 July 1659,” Paris, ClSP, vol. 62, 143–44; [Marcés] to [Hyde], 16/26 July 1659, Paris, ClSP, vol. 62, f. 127. For Goffe more generally, see Thompson Cooper (rev. Jerome Bertram), “Goffe [Gough], Stephen, (1605–81),” ODNB, accessed January 15, 2014.

104 Clark, Ruth, Strangers & Sojourners at Port Royal (New York, 1932)Google Scholar, 61.

105 Henrietta Maria to Alexander VII, 29 November 1657, “De Paris,” ASV.Segr.Principi, vol. 81, f. 349[r].

106 “Intercepted Letter sent to the Marquis of Ormond by Ro. Allen on 24th May, 1651, and Enclosing another Letter to the Same Marquis from his Agent in Ireland,” in Moran, ed., Spicilegium Ossoriense, Letter 190:369–72.

107 Talbot to Ormond, 10 January 1660, Madrid, Carte, vol. 213, f. 504–05.

108 For conversion in its domestic contexts, see Fleming, David, “Conversion, Family, and Mentality,” in Converts and Conversion in Ireland, 1650–1850, ed. Brown, Michael, McGrath, Charles Ivar, and Power, Thomas (Dublin, 2005), 290–31Google Scholar; Questier, Michael, “Crypto-Catholicism, Anti-Calvinism and Conversion at the Jacobean Court: The Enigma of Benjamin Carier,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47, no. 1 (1996): 45–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Questier, Michael , Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580–1625 (Cambridge, 1996).Google Scholar

109 Milton, “Anglicanism and Royalism in the 1640s,” in The English Civil War: Conflict and Contexts, 1640–49, ed. Adamson, John (Basingstoke, 2009), 79.Google Scholar