Global Crisis

by Parker, Geoffrey

  22. Curtis, ‘Alienated intellectuals’, 299, quoting Lord Chancellor Ellesmere; Quevedo, La fortuna con seso y la hora de todos (1632), I, 264; Roberts, ‘Queen Christina’, 217, quoting Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie in 1655; Zeman, ‘Responses to Calvin’, 45, quoting Ferdinand II. In his essay ‘Of seditions and troubles’, drafted c. 1610, Francis Bacon also predicted rebellion ‘when more are bred schollers, then preferments can take off’ Essayes, 47.

  23. Amelang, ‘Barristers and judges’, 1,281–4 (suggesting that one might call the revolt of the Catalans ‘the revolt of the lawyers’); Marques, A parenética portuguesa e a Restauração, I, 56. On Bohemia and Sweden, see ch. 8 above, on the Fronde, see ch. 10.

  24. Hobbes, Behemoth, 40, 70–1, 144, 147–8.

  25. Argyll, Instructions, 6, written in prison shortly before his execution for treason; Balfour, Historical Works, III, 426–7, final ‘nota’ to his ‘Shorte memorialls and passages of this yeire 1649’.

  26. Saltmarsh, The smoke in the temple (1646), 62; Anon., Persecutio undecima (published, perhaps significantly, on 5 Nov. 1648), 57.

  27. Groenhuis, Predikanten, 31–2, from a sermon in Jan. 1626. Like many other self-righteous preachers, Smout sired an illegitimate child, which provoked much mirth among those he had criticized.

  28. On the Dutch Republic, see ch. 8 above; on Scotland, Makey, Church of the Covenant, 102–3, Stevenson, ‘Deposition of ministers’, and Donaldson, ‘The emergence of schism’; on England, see Green, ‘The persecution’; idem, The re-establishment, ch. 8; and Holmes, The Suffolk committees.

  29. Marques, A parenética portuguesa e a Restauração, I, 69, quoting Valenzuelo, Portugal unido; 54–6, statistics on 79 preachers; and II, table 1.2, sermons on 23 Dec. 1640 and Oct 1641, and table 2.1, analysis of five sermons from Dec. 1640. On the ‘bonnets rouges’, see pp. 322–3 above.

  30. Neumann, Das Wort als Waffe, 206 (quoting Triomphos del Amor, 1642).

  31. Monod, Power of kings, 181 (Torano and Nardò); Capograssi, ‘La revoluzione’, 211, Rosso to Doge, 17 Sep. 1647 (Naples).

  32. Hugon, Naples, 153–6, and idem, ‘Le violet et le rouge’ (citing Capecelatro). The Primate of Naples occupied a unique position, because the kingdom was a papal fief, for which the king of Spain paid homage. Both before and after the revolution, Filomarino and the viceroys engaged in bitter disputes over jurisdiction. Hugon notes that the archives of the Spanish government at Simancas have an entire dossier entitled ‘Filomarino’, documenting disputes.

  33. Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak, 231, quoting a Jesuit chronicle of the rebellion, Dec. 1641; TCD Ms 817/37v, deposition of Rev. Thomas Fleetwood, Westmeath, 22 Mar. 1643; TCD Ms 816/8v, deposition of Charles Campbell, Monaghan, undated; Ms 831/191, deposition of Rev. Thomas Johnson, Mayo, 14 Jan. 1644, and Ms 821/154, deposition of Elizabeth Nelson, Tipperary, 16 Dec. 1642. All the deponents were Protestants, and so may have exaggerated the involvement of Catholic clerics, but it is unlikely that all their claims were false.

  34. O'Mahony, Disputatio apologetica, discussed by ó hAnnracháin, ‘“Though hereticks and politicians”’, 159–63.

  35. Linz, ‘Intellectual roles’, 81–3, assumed 150,000 clerical positions to produce his 5 per cent estimate. Of his database of 116 elite intellectuals active in the seventeenth century, 33 per cent were in religious orders and a further 22 per cent were either secular clergy or in minor orders. Book production calculated from Antonio, Biblioteca Hispana Nova.

  36. Santoro, Le secentine napoletane; Duccini, Faire voir; Reis Torgal, Ideologia política.

  37. Marshall, Meroz cursed. See also the discussion of this text in Hill, The English Bible.

  38. Cunningham, ‘“Zeal for God”’, 116–18; Croix, La Bretagne, 1,238. Villari, Baroque personae, 185–7, describes a theatrical sermon. Catholic priests also exerted influence as ‘spiritual directors’ to the rich and famous.

  39. Cregan, ‘The social and cultural background’; Walsh, The Irish Continental College Movement; Bergin, The making of the French episcopate, 187–8; Marques, A parenética portuguesa e a Restauração, I, 56.

  40. ODNB, s.v. ‘Henderson’, quoting John Maxwell, deposed bishop of Ross, The Burden of Issachar, n.d.; analysis from Makey, Church of the Covenant, ch. 7.

  41. See García Cárcel, Pau Claris, and ó hAnnracháin, Catholic reformation, and also chs 9 and 12 above, on the two protagonists. Although Giulio Genoino was a priest when he took control of the Naples revolution in 1647, he had achieved prominence as a lawyer.

  42. Rycaut, Present state, II, 128 and 135 (italics added). Rycaut's hatred of English Puritans (who had forced him into exile) no doubt coloured his judgement: Darling, ‘Ottoman politics through British eyes’.

  43. Katib Çelebi, Balance of truth, 99. See ch. 7 above for more detail.

  44. Clarendon, Brief view, 319–20 (‘dirty people of no name’); Hill, Puritanism, 204–5 (the rest); ODNB, s.v. ‘Pym’; Adamson, The noble revolt, 387, 582 and 681; Aston, A collection, sig. A2 (preface).

  45. See ODNB, s.v. ‘Sexby, Edward’, and chs 12 and 19 above. Enemies of Cromwell belittled his origins by referring to him as ‘King Copper-nose, Beelzebub's chief ale-brewer’: Knoppers, Constructing Cromwell, 19–20.

  46. Cressy, ‘Protestation protested’, 272, return from Middleton, Essex. Cressy adds: ‘Female subscription occurred occasionally in more than half a dozen counties.’ See also chapter 11 above.

  47. Walsham, Providence, 213; Mack, Visionary women, 78–9 and 90–1. For more on Elizabeth Poole, see Firth, Clarke Papers, II, 150–4 and 163–70 (the minutes of the council meetings at which Poole appeared); Poole, A vision (her own account); Brod, ‘Politics and prophecy’; Davies, Unbridled spirits, 137–41; and ODNB s.v. Poole and Cary. Many more women participated in the war by paying taxes, tending the sick and sustaining businesses and families.

  48. BNE Ms 2371/21, draft history of the year 1640 by Jerónimo de Mascarenhas, on the ‘Beata Paula’; see ch. 9 above on Philip IV and his prophets, some later imprisoned by the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy.

  49. Hill, World turned upside down, 366; Smith, ‘Almost revolutionaries’; Nicolas, La rébellion, 443. Not all insurgent leaders were young: Pierre Broussel was 73 when his arrest provoked the Day of the Barricades in Paris; Giulio Genoino was over 80 when he led the Neapolitan Republic in 1647.

  50. See Terzioğlu, Sufi and dissident, 291–2 and 299, on Mīşri's use of Alexander and Aristotle. See ch. 19 below for some of his other views.

  51. Wakeman, Great Enterprise, I, 625–6, quoting a Jiangxi county Gazetteer.

  52. Des Forges, ‘Toward another Tang or Zhou?’, 75.

  53. Burkus-Chasson, ‘Visual hermeneutics’, 384 and 414 n. 37, records the paintings and playing cards; Ho, ‘In defense of Sinicization’, 142 n. 5, notes Nurhaci's knowledge of Chinese Classics. Crossley, A translucent mirror, 244–5, 287, notes Manchu editions of the Romance in 1647–50; Di Cosmo, Diary, 42, 82, 116, proves that Manchu soldiers read it. Brokaw, Commerce and culture, 570, notes that Mao Zedong, too, read and used Water margin.

  54. Elliott, ‘Whose empire?’, 39, letters of Nurhaci to the Chinese inhabitants of Liaodong, late 1621 (see also ibid., 38, letter of Nurhaci to the Khalka Mongols, 1620, making a similar argument); Wakeman, Great Enterprise, 316–17, Dorgon's edict of 5 June 1644.

  55. Des Forges, ‘Toward another Tang or Zhou?’, 82–9. Ch. 5 above notes the search of Li Zicheng and other protagonists in the Ming-Qing transition for historical precedents to justify their conduct. The commonest word for ‘revolution’ in China today remains geming: ‘changing the Mandate’.

  56. Hickson, Ireland in the seventeenth century, I, 194, deposition of Rev. John Kerdiff, Co. Tyrone, 28 Feb. 1642 citing Meredith Hanmer's Chronicle of Ireland (1571); TCD Ms 839/134v, deposition of Mulrany Carroll, Co. Donegal, 26 Apr. 1643.

  57. Rutherford, Lex, rex, 449–53 (more examples in Cowan, ‘The political ideas’); Rushworth, Historical Collections the fourth and last p
art, II, 1,420–1, President John Bradshaw to Charles I, 27 Jan. 1649.

  58. Hill, ‘The Norman Yoke’; Morrill, Revolt in the provinces, 143 (the Clubmen); Fincham, ‘The judges' decision’, 234 (with other examples of Fortescue's use by critics of the crown in the 1630s).

  59. Neumann, Das Wort als Waffe, 107–11 (Catalonia); Truchuelo García, ‘La incidencia’, 89 (Guipúzcoa).

  60. Bercé, Histoire des Croquants, II, 635–6 (Croquants); Foisil, La révolte (Nu-Pieds); Hugon, Naples, 108, 114, 146, 235 and 294; Bercé, ‘Troubles frumentaires’ (communal aspirations); and chs 14 and 8 above (on Palermo, Naples and Tell).

  61. Marques, A parenética portuguesa e a Restauração, II, table 2.1, on Portugal; d'Alessio, Contagi, 88–93; Hugon, Naples, 85–6, and Benigno, Specchi, 242, on Naples; Simon i Tarrés, Orígens, 216, and Lucas Val, ‘Literatura’, 175, on Catalonia.

  62. Fairholt, Poems and songs, xxviii and 70, and Braddick, God's fury, 43–5 and 53–4 (lionizing Felton); Adamson, ‘Baronial context’, 107 (Essex as John the Baptist); Hill, The English Bible, 453–5: an ‘Index of Biblical persons and places’ cited by seventeenth-century English authors.

  63. Schama, The embarrassment of riches, 113 (Vondel's Passcha of 1612); Groenhuis, De predikanten, 81 (Lydius, Belgium Gloriosum, 1667); Paul, Diary, I, 344 (Feb. 1638).

  64. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Fast Sermons’, 280–1, quoting Samuel Fairclough, Troublers of Israel (with other texts); German examples in Theibault, ‘Jeremiah in the village’, 444–53.

  65. See, for example, Carrier, La Fronde, II, no. 36, Lettre du père Michel (1649), which made an explicit comparison. For France's ‘Egyptian bondage’ under Mazarin, see Benigno, Specchi, 133.

  66. Lenihan, Confederate Catholics, 73, quoting Fr Anthony Geoghegan, Sep. 1642; Casway, ‘Gaelic Maccabeanism’, 178, speech by Owen Roe O'Neill (hailed by others as ‘your present Maccabean and only champion’); O'Mahony, Disputatio apologetica.

  67. Comparato, ‘Barcelona y Nápoles’; Hobbes, Leviathan, 225–6, written just after the English regicide.

  68. Parsons, Peasant rebellions, 189–99.

  69. Mitchell, ‘Religion, revolt’, ch. 5, quoting the Resumen de la vida de Sor Eufràsia Berenguer.

  70. Paul, Diary, I, 393, 395, 396 and 397 (Oct. and Nov. 1638). Wariston, who recorded these details, dutifully prayed that ‘the Lord would continue Margaret's raptures and expressions till this great business were settled’. At the same time, in northern Ireland, a bishop complained that ‘I have had Anabaptistical prophetesses come gadding up and down’: CSP Ireland, 1633–47, 182, Bishop Bramhall of Derry to Laud, 23 Feb. 1638 OS. Further examples in Gillespie, Devoted people, 137–42, and Groenhuis, De predikanten, 98–102. See also page 550 above on Elizabeth Poole.

  71. Hill, The world turned upside down, 87–106 (‘A nation of prophets’), quotation from p. 90. Thomas, Religion, 371–2 and 441–4, lists prominent political figures (including Charles II) who consulted Lilly.

  72. Foster, The sounding of the last trumpet, 17–18; Foster, The pouring forth of the seventh and last viall, 64–5. Foster's predictive powers should not be underestimated: Pope Innocent X did die in 1655 while Sultan Mehmet IV was almost overthrown in 1655–6. Hill, The world turned upside down, 223–4, and ODNB s.v. George Foster, both provide a short sketch of the man and his writings.

  73. Wilflingseder, ‘Martin Laimbauer’; ODNB s.v. ‘James Nayler’. The Puritan minister Ralph Josselin noted in his Diary the common prediction that the world would end in 1655 or 1656 (Macfarlane, Family life, 23–4, 185, 189–91). Those who predicted this included François Davant (see Labrousse, ‘François Davant’). In 1658 John Bunyan began to predict that ‘the Day of Judgment is at hand’. On Shabbatai Zvi and the predictions that the world would end in 1666, see chs 7 and 19.

  74. Price, Marroon societies, 37 (the king of Guinea); page 465 above on Bohorqués; Guijóo, Diario, I, 143–4 (26 Dec. 1650) and 220 (20 July 1653) on Lombardo. The fact that Guijóo, an ordinary priest, heard so much about Don Guillén shows how widely his fame spread. On Don Guillén's supposed metamorphosis into Zorro, see Troncarelli, La spada e la croce, 256–339.

  75. TCD Ms 835/158, deposition of John Right, Co. Fermanagh, 5 Jan. 1642. Hickson, Ireland, I, 114–15, prints O'Neill's alleged royal commission, dated Edinburgh, 1 Oct. 1641, and at pp. 169–73 and 188–9, reveals how well the forgery worked. Gillespie, ‘Political ideas’, 113, quotes a Catholic bishop's admission that the document had been forged expressly to lead ‘the common sort of people … into those forward actions and cruelties’.

  76. On Guise's fraudulent letter, see ch. 14 above; on those of Khmelnytsky and Razin, see ch. 6 above. Not all anti-government letters published by rebels were false: those of Olivares published by the Catalans and those of Charles I published by his English opponents were both genuine: see chs 9 and 12 above.

  77. Paul, Diary, I, 348 and 410–11 (19 May 1638 and 8–10 Feb. 1639). On the popularity in Scotland of Althusius's Politica Methodice Digesta (1603; expanded edn 1614), see Cowan, ‘The making of the National Covenant’; and von Friedeburg, Self-defence, ch. 3. ODNB, s.v. ‘Archibald Johnston’, notes the other books in which Wariston ‘set out to dig for corroborative arguments’.

  78. Laing, Letters and journals, I, 116–17, Baillie to William Spang, 12 Feb. 1639; Paul, Diary, I, 411 (24 Feb. 1639).

  79. Dunthorne, ‘Resisting monarchy’, 136–40, discusses Henderson's use of Grotius; Paul, Diary, I, 390 (Wariston's account of his discussion with Henderson and David Calderwood on foreign texts about resistance, 20 Sep. 1638).

  80. Downing, A discoursive coniecture, 38 (which Adamson, The noble revolt, 207–9 and notes, dates to early 1641). Salmon, French religious wars, studies the reception of Althusius, Grotius and other writers in England.

  81. Prynne, Soveraigne Power, Part IV, 153–99, is mostly a translation of the Vindiciae (the full English translation appeared in 1648).

  82. On the series, in the compact 24° format published between 1626 and 1649, see Conti, Consociatio civitatum.

  83. Hugon, Naples, 217–23; Mastellone, ‘Holland as a political model’; idem, ‘Les révoltes de 1647’, 177–84; and Musi, La rivolta, 203–4, all provide a detailed discussion.

  84. Casway, ‘Gaelic Maccabeanism’, 180–1, quoting a proposition sent to Philip IV of Spain in 1627; TCD Ms 829/311, deposition of William Fytton, Limerick, 8 July 1643.

  85. Jusserand, Recueil, XXIV/1, 35–6, Instruction to M. de Bellièvre, 27 June 1646.

  86. See ch. 12 above on the Levellers, and Peters, Print culture, ch. 8, on the ‘Nayler Case’.

  Chapter 19 ‘People of heterodox beliefs … who will join up with anyone who calls them’

  1. This chapter owes much to lively discussions with Cynthia Brokaw and David Cressy. As with chs 17 and 18, the title incorporates the typology of rebellions suggested by Lü Kun of China: page 508 above.

  2. Gladwell, The tipping point, 30–4 and 57–60. The ‘most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic’ in Europe occurred 14 years later: the ‘Great Fear’ of 1789 in France. See Lefebvre, La Grande Peur, especially Part III.

  3. Quevedo, La rebelión de Barcelona, in Obras, I, 284; Birago Avogadro, Turbolenze, 369–70; CSPC 1675–1676, 368, Sir Jonathan Atkins to Secretary Williamson, 3 Apr. 1676; and Trevor-Roper, ‘General Crisis’, 61. Burke, ‘Some seventeenth-century anatomists’, 25–6, lists others who used similar metaphors.

  4. Brigham, British royal proclamations, 53, ‘A proclamation for settling the plantation of Virginia’, 13 May 1625 OS; PRO SP 16/527/103–7, draft proposal for a British Union of Arms (1627). For the Spanish precedent, see ch. 9 above.

  5. Lamormaini in 1630 quoted in ch. 8, Charles I in 1638 in ch. 11; and Olivares in 1639 in ch. 9 above.

  6. Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and reform, 99, Palafox to the count of Castrillo, 1648 (translation slightly amended); Rothes, Relation, 10, reporting a conversation in which the archbishop of St Andrews mentioned
the enthusiasm of an Irish bishop for ‘Laud's liturgy’; and ch. 11 on the plans to invade Scotland.

  7. Foisil, Révolte, 231, quoting the memoirs of Bigot de Monville; AMAE (P), CPE Supplément 3/240v–241, Duplessis-Besançon, ‘Première négotiation des françois en Cathalogne’; Co. Do. In., LXXXIII, 313, count of Peñaranda, chief negotiator at Münster, to the marquis of Caracena, Governor of Milan, 27 June 1647.

  8. Pérez Samper, Catalunya, 265 and 268–9, 271–2, 275, details the links with Portugal; Boxer, Seventeenth-century Macau, Part II, narrates the odyssey of Antonio Fialho Ferreira.

  9. Hugon, Naples, 92–100, on the spread of revolution in Naples; Lionti, ‘Cartelli sediziosi’, charted the spread of revolt in Sicily from the dates of the ‘seditious posters’ in each place, some of which he printed. See also ch. 14 above.

  10. [Howell], A discourse, 15. See also ch. 11 above, and Merriman, Six contemporaneous revolutions, 115–208.

  11. Ros, Cataluña desengañada; Di Marzo, Bibliote storica, III, 206–11 (citing books by Assarino, Birago Avogadro and Collurafi). See also Villari, Elogio, 60–1.

  12. CSPI 1633–1647, 182, Bishop Bramhall of Derry to Laud, 23 Feb. 1638 OS; Braddick, God's fury, 30, quoting John Castle to the earl of Bridgewater, 24 Oct. 1639.

  13. Castlehaven, Memoirs, 13 (with corroborating statements at 14–16); TCD Ms 834/18, deposition of Gerrard Colley, Co. Louth, 2 May 1642; Ms 828/194v, deposition of Thomas Dight, Co. Kerry, 24 May 1642, quoting an Irish priest; Ms 836/64, deposition of John Parrie, gentleman, Armagh, 31 May 1642 (quoting ‘George Sexton, Provost Marshall to the rebells of Ulster’); and Ms 833/228v, deposition of Rev. George Creighton, 15 Apr. 1643 (quoting Richard Plunkett). Italics added.

  14. Birago Avogadro, Le turbolenze, 369–70.

  15. Solomon, Public welfare, 160; Berghaus, Aufnahme, 24 and 109–402; Haan, ‘The Treatment’, 28–9; Mitchell, ‘Religion, revolt’.

  16. Te Brake, Shaping history, 109–10, quoting Ambassador Nani to the Doge and Senate of Venice, Sep. 1647; ch. 10 above (the French echo); Bercé, ‘Troubles frumentaires’, 770 (the magistrates of Fermo on the ‘esempio forse de sollevati di Napoli’), and 772 (Cardinal Montalto, 7, 8, and 17 July 1648); 775 (map of rebellious areas of the Papal States in 1648) and 779 (‘i Masanielli’); and idem, La sommossa, 53. Bisaccione, Historie delle guerre civile (1652), included a special section on the revolt of Fermo four years before.