The Gunpowder Plot (History/16th/17th Century History)

by Haynes, Alan

  ‘I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, this damnable doctrine and position, that princes which be excommunicated or deprived by the pope may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or any other whatsoever.’

  This is a typical example of the perplexing ambiguities contained in the formula, since a Catholic was bound by his faith to deny that a prince could be murdered. Refusal to swear then would mark a person as potentially a denizen of evil, while the clause is threaded with other decidedly objectionable declarations. To pronounce the sentence cited, without qualification, would be tantamount to declaring that for centuries the Church had taken a benign view of heretical doctrine. Moreover, since the oath was sanctioned by the monarch and administered in his name, the juror seems to be locked into acknowledging a Protestant monarch’s right to set the bounds of orthodoxy. James could and did scoff at this reading, but Catholics had no reason to be optimistic that such would not be the official response once they had submitted. The immediate reaction of the laity to the proclamation of the oath ranged from desperation to uneasy bewilderment. We have seen how Sir Henry James flung himself into the effort to quit an already persecuted minority, but according to the view of the French ambassador ‘[Catholics] are still incredibly numerous, and are resolved for the most part to suffer anything rather than give up their religion.’3 Yet the harshness of the new laws was a profound shock to most of them and caused widespread fear and anxiety. Boderie again: ‘Many Catholics are preparing to go into exile, and among them some so old that I think they are seeking foreign shores merely to find there a peaceful grave.’ He admired those who stalwartly remained, feeling a surge of pride that they showed so much fervour and zeal. He recorded too some surprise at unexpected signs of religious vitality, with clandestine Catholics declaring themselves openly every day. It was a resolute response that fell away somewhat during the summer months, for a different assessment was recorded in August by the Venetian ambassador who described the courageous efforts of the majority of the clergy to stiffen the shrinking Catholic resistance. The retreat from confrontation was apparent to Father Jones writing to Robert Persons in October: ‘It is scarce credible what difficulty we have to keep up and underprop poor afflicted souls from ruin, and falling into errors and disorders, and all by reason of these late cruel laws.’4

  This shift of opinion and resolution among lay Catholics requires some explanation. The agent for such a transmutation was Archpriest George Blackwell, one of whose assistants, Father John Mush, arrived in London shortly after the prorogation of Parliament. Mush found his co-religionists in turmoil over the oath legislation with divisions in their opinions as to whether Catholics could in good conscience pronounce the formula. In a series of conferences Blackwell strongly resisted the opinion of some he canvassed that there had to be a way of satisfying the government without compromising their own tenets of faith, and he was supported by Mush, the Benedictine Thomas Preston and the Jesuit superior, Richard Holtby. By Mush’s account he tried to persuade Blackwell at this time to send a delegation to Rome for papal scrutiny of this and other matters causing woe, or to hold a conference of representatives of the secular clergy, Jesuits and Benedictines to fashion a binding response for all. Blackwell refused these courses, saying it was too dangerous for him personally. This did not sit well with the others who naturally protested that they too were in jeopardy. With the whole future of the Catholic Church in England under threat, they were willing to risk arrest and exile for the sake of ensuring a united sacerdotal cluster against a hostile government.5

  What a shock then for all, perhaps even for the agent of it, when Blackwell suddenly shunned his former ardently held position, and presented the reverse view. Having inveighed against the oath he now equally vigorously defended taking it. Much persuasion was required to get him round now to the idea of a conference – which actually meant a roundtable discussion with three of his assistants, Bishop, Broughton and Mush – together with Preston and Holtby. To them Blackwell explained his dramatic volte-face: the Church would be harmed rather than helped as a result of a pontifical declaration of deposition against the king, so the Pope had not the power to depose him. With this in mind they could swear that the Holy See was without authority and jurisdiction. Not so, said Mush, Holtby and Preston, as Bishop and Broughton sided with the archpriest, now very reluctant to hear any arguments that contradicted his view. Evidently the exchanges went on for some time and the encounter finally petered out with the opposing parties still divided over how to proceed. It was a muddled business that had dangerous elements of future schism in it unless promptly resolved by an authoritative pronouncement, so Mush and his colleagues put the business before Rome.

  There was in the interim no possibility of a news blackout in London where word spread rapidly that the archpriest had now sanctioned the taking of the oath. It was a source of wonder to many and to ease the flap the three priests who had opposed Blackwell felt obliged for the sake of peace and unity to explain the superior’s attitude to anyone seeking advice and comfort. They were, of course, permitted to follow him if they chose, but within a few days Blackwell was taken aback by reports that many of the secular clergy, all of the Jesuits and Benedictines, as well as a hefty number of the laity found his interpretation of the oath quite unfathomable. It was an impressive response and so Blackwell edged back to a more neutral position – that Catholics would do better to refrain from taking the oath until the Pope’s decision was known to London. But in the matter of timing of his earlier pronouncement something unlooked for had happened, and now it was too late to counteract as effectively as he would have wanted the second response to his original statement. Already the Catholics who had journeyed to London for the Trinity session of the law courts were on their way home spreading the first report through the country. In a surge of relief, many Catholics, particularly those geographically isolated, took the oath without faltering when it was first administered to them. Those in doubt about their duty were naturally inclined to accept the report of the archpriest’s decision as final and conduct themselves accordingly. Even those who had determined not to take the oath would be strongly counter-inclined if pushed to change their mind, by the thought of protecting themselves against the heavy penalties. In addition all of them had to be very cautious in using the few means of communication that were open to them to circulate the reversed decision, which many were slow to believe. Indeed, Blackwell seems to have skipped official notification of his people of the new plan, which is surely very suggestive of the way he was thinking. When Holtby wrote to Persons in Rome on 30 October he remarked: ‘The customer [code for Blackwell] doth now insinuate unto his friends that his opinion is contradicted, and excuseth his error: yet doth he not apprehend it so sensitively that he thinketh himself bound to reveal it, though it hath caused an exceeding scandal, and will do still until the breve come: until which time he will rest quiet.’

  The keenly awaited papal letter of Paul V must have arrived shortly after, since it was dated 22 September 1606. In it, the Pope declared that Catholics could not lawfully take the oath because it contained ‘many things contrary to faith and salvation’. Holtby, who had sent a copy of the oath formula to Rome immediately after its publication, seems to have been the first to have received an authentic copy of the papal document. He passed it to Blackwell who showed it to a few of his friends, but declined to act despite the restrained clamour of others. His excuse was that at seventy he was unwilling to thrust his head knowingly into a noose. He made this statement to Archbishop Bancroft and a panel of bishops at a Lambeth Palace examination in the summer of 1607. The many intelligencers and spies who sought sensitive information and items for the government were busy, and someone came upon a copy of the papal brief as the Catholic population entered a period of severe anxiety. They were waiting for a dramatic and crushing enforcement of the new laws. Yet for weeks on end nothing happened and the imagined oppression was held off. The likeliest expl
anation for this mild hiatus appears to be that Bancroft had won over James, inducing him to hold the laws in suspension until he could prevail upon a sufficiently large number of the secular clergy, with whom he had clandestine contacts, to approve the oath, hoping after to mop up the laity. The progress of this faltered early in 1607 when Bancroft was alerted to evidence that the missionaries had succeeded in persuading many to stand firm in their deep coupling to Rome. The archbishop tried then to counter this by inducing an unhappy and agitated archpriest to write to his clergy: ‘I persuade myself that you, my assistants and dear brethren, will take the oath as I have done, and that you will instruct the lay Catholics that they may do so when it is offered to them.’ So when Zorzi Giustinian wrote a despatch in August of that year it is no surprise to read: ‘The Catholics here are in a flutter since the archpriest has taken the oath of supremacy [i.e. allegiance] and has exhorted others to do the same, a step that is directly contrary to the brief which was addressed to the English Catholics. Everyone is in doubt about the matter. . . .’

  But then no one was in doubt by 1610. On 2 June a royal proclamation was issued with a lengthy but usefully detailed title: A proclamation for the due execution of all former laws against recusants, giving them a day to repair to their dwellings, and not afterward to come to the court, or within ten miles of London without special licence; and disarming them as the law requireth; and withal, that all Priests and Jesuits shall depart the land by a day, no more to return into the realm; and for administering the oath of allegiance according to the law. A statute reinforced the decree (7 Jac 1, c. 6, Statutes of the Realm) and required the oath be taken ‘by all and every person and persons’. This time no exemptions were made in favour of the nobility as had been done in 1606. The penalty of praemunire was called up for them as for all others who refused to submit within six months of the passage of the bill. No time was now wasted and the privy council had themselves immediately to take the oath in James’s presence as a way of setting things in motion. After them everyone within the palace was sought out, and all government officials in high as well as low positions, professional men and students were required to follow suit. Even servants of those in the House of Lords who took the oath were obliged to follow their employers, and anyone who refused was sacked.

  Making an estimate of the number of Catholics in Parliament during the post-plot reign of James, has its pitfalls. Scrutiny of the parliamentary Journals suggests that very few Catholics sought a seat in the Commons. Apart from the fact that their faith made their chances of success rather meagre, there was another deterrent – the House rule that all MPs should receive communion in an Anglican church. But there was no requirement in law for this and quite often the matter was disregarded. Moreover, although the oath was administered at the beginning of every session, a nimble Catholic could avoid this and after occupy his seat. So in 1610 it was only after twenty members had simply repeated the formula which was read by the clerk that someone questioned the legality of such procedure. Discussion followed and although some remained dubious it was generally thought to have been lawfully administered. The first day of the session was always confused and buzzing, and as John Pym noted much later in his diary ‘Divers did escape without taking the Oath at all.’ It is similarly impossible to be exact about numbers of Catholic peers in the House of Lords, although early in the nineteenth century the figure of twenty was regarded as reasonable. Of these, eight subscribed sometime during the session of 1610, but an almost equal number stalled and took years to comply, while still others refused. Lord Lumley, who was listed as present in 1610, had died the previous year, so that leaves four, including the earls of Shrewsbury and Worcester, declining to take the oath in public. By 1624 the personalities had changed but the numbers remained the same, with four being expelled from the Lords for persistently refusing the oath. Before the end of the session three (Lords Morley, Montagu and the Earl of Arundel) were induced to submit, but Francis Manners, Earl of Rutland, held out for over two years. For years he had haunted the court and become something of a curiosity, even a privy councillor in 1617 when James was trying to impress the Spanish ambassador. But Rutland’s religion undoubtedly held back his public career as he profited little from his ambitions. Perhaps because of this he was ready to pay a very heavy price for the marriage of his daughter Katherine to James’s favourite, the Marquis of Buckingham, who got £10,000 in cash and the reversion of lands that had a yearly rental in thousands and an income of even more. Clearly some Catholic aristocrats could still muster huge sums even after years of legislation devised to be punitive.6

  Those privileged by birth and great wealth could in some measure remove themselves from heavy scrutiny. As for the great majority of Catholics, Father George Birkhead, appointed in 1608 to replace the imprisoned Blackwell and writing in July 1610 to Rome, noted ‘The new oath is so pressed by the king that it causeth many to stagger.’ The Venetian ambassador thought the same: ‘They are proceeding against the Catholics with unusual vigour’ he wrote in December that year. Such anecdotal evidence was corroborated by many missionaries. At the March sessions of gaol delivery in 1612, twenty-two Catholics were imprisoned in Newgate, having been tried and condemned to praemunire for refusing the oath. Eleven other prisoners listed as ‘recusant papists’ seem to have been committed for the same offence, though not yet convicted. In the following year they were all still there and their number had increased by seven. Out of London – in, for example, Nottinghamshire – the majority of Catholics who were called to take the oath preferred instead to suffer the penalties rather than violate their consciences. In the southwest of England in contemporary calendars for Devonshire (which can be regarded as representative), there were many instances of people being imprisoned for praemunire stemming from refusal to take the oath. It was tendered without partiality to anyone who had given cause for suspicion, and the general picture formed from an examination of a variety of records has revealed that the oath was imposed with much greater rigour in the south than the north. For a brief period after the enactment of the legislation officials were mostly prompt in directing it as necessary. So in September 1607 the Bishop of Durham informed James that he had summoned more than twenty noted recusants of whom six took the oath at once, a few others promised to take it, and the rest were undecided. The following year in Yorkshire it was reported that ‘Thirty persons have been stripped of their goods and condemned to imprisonment for life for refusing this oath.’ Subsequently, however, the justices slackened so much in their duty that they were frequently called to task by the judges of assize. One of the most intriguing items of evidence in this period stems from a performance in Yorkshire in 1609 by a travelling company of provincial actors. Their play set out the life of St Christopher and the players and audience alike were Catholics. All responded robustly to the ridicule heaped on the state Church, and the play spread disaffection among its hearers.7

  In one respect the legislation was even-handed, for women were treated no more lightly than men. In 1612, Thomas Chamberlain, who later became a judge, reported to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere on his efforts to enforce it.

  ‘I, with the Justices of the division beyond Oxon, went to Sir Francis Stonor’s house, [the Chamberlains and Stonors were kinsmen] when his lady, the Lady Lentall his daughter, Mrs Crouch his sister, and the Lady Lentall’s woman, refused to take the oath of allegiance, and thereupon we committed them all to prison.’ They went on to Henry Stonor’s residence and his wife had quit the home in advance of their arrival ‘because she would not take the oath’. From there they passed on to Mr Symonds, ‘a man of great estate’ who reported the same about his wife. Chamberlain and Sir George Tipping then continued their sweep to Mr Belson’s, where the husband and wife were both recusants. This time Belson had removed himself, and his wife, his mother, the wife of a Mr Lovatt and a Mrs Belson tactfully classed as ‘an ancient maid’, all refused to take the oath and were briskly sent to prison.8 There were many such instanc
es of women being subjected to real suffering as a result of oath legislation. Catholic women married to non-Catholic men saw their families plunged into distress because they held firm to their beliefs. One woman (the story was told by John Chamberlain in a letter to Dudley Carleton) was so tormented by her husband’s unremitting insistence that she submit and ‘have her children otherwise educated’, that she killed them and was herself then condemned and executed. Even the courtroom gave such women no protection from ill-considered vilification, and on one recorded occasion when drunk, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Edward Philips, berated a woman by ‘calling her all the lewd names of whore, drab, queen, which he could devise’. Having asked if he could hang her, he settled eventually for praemunire ‘and committed her to perpetual imprisonment.’ The rigours of prison existence often hastened the death of those detained, and penalties were only rarely lightened in favour of the aged and infirm; Father Mush’s sister and brother, approaching seventy years, were likewise condemned ‘and suffered utter shipwreck of lands and goods . . .’.