Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550–1700 (St. Andrew's Studies in Reformation History)

Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550–1700

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Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550–1700 Edited by

ELIZABETHANNE BORAN Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and

CRAWFORD GRIBBEN University of Manchester, UK

© Elizabethanne Boran and Crawford Gribben, 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. The editors have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hants GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Enforcing reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550–1700. – (St Andrews studies in Reformation history) 1. Reformation – Ireland 2. Reformation – Scotland 3. Ireland – Church history 4. Scotland – Church history I. Boran, Elizabethanne II. Gribben, Crawford 274.1'106 ISBN – 10: 754655822 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550–1700 / edited by Elizabethanne Boran and Crawford Gribben. p. cm. – (St. Andrews studies in Reformation history) ISBN 0–7546–5582–2 (alk. paper) 1. Reformation – Ireland 2. Ireland – Church history. 3. Reformation – Scotland. 4. Scotland – Church history. I. Boran, Elizabethanne. II. Gribben, Crawford. III. Series. BR380.E64 2006 274.11'06—dc22 2005024023 ISBN 0 7546 5582 2 This book is printed on acid-free paper Typeset in Sabon by Express Typesetters Ltd, Farnham Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow

Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Introduction Elizabethanne Boran 1

Sir Henry Sidney and the Reformation in Ireland Ciaran Brady and James Murray

2

Printing in Early Seventeenth-Century Dublin: Combating Heresy in Serpentine Times Elizabethanne Boran

3

The Problem of ‘Scottish Puritanism’, 1590–1638 John Coffey

4

‘Force and Fear of Punishment’: Protestants and Religious Coercion in Ireland, 1603–33 Alan Ford

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6

vii ix xi 1

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40 66

91

The Covenanters and the Scottish Parliament, 1639–51: The Rule of the Godly and the ‘Second Scottish Reformation’ John R. Young

131

Robert Leighton, Edinburgh Theology and the Collapse of the Presbyterian Consensus Crawford Gribben

159

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Godly Order: Enforcing Peace in the Irish Reformation Raymond Gillespie

184

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Enforcing the Reformation in Ireland, 1660–1704 Toby Barnard

202

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Conformity and Security in Scotland and Ireland, 1660–85 Richard L. Greaves

228

Index

251

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Acknowledgements The papers in this collection were initially prepared for a conference held at Trinity College, Dublin, in December, 2001. The editors wish to thank the Department of Modern History and the Centre for Irish–Scottish Studies for the provision of funding that made this conference possible. We would also like to thank our contributors and series editors for their ready assistance in the production of this book. This collection pays tribute to the life and scholarship of one of its contributors, Professor Richard L. Greaves (1938–2004), one of the most generous historians of early modern religion. Elizabethanne Boran Crawford Gribben

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Abbreviations Anc. Rec. Dublin APC APS

BL CSPI HMC NAI NLI Oxford DNB RC RCGA

RPCS

RIA Proc SP TCD UW

The Calendar of the Ancient Records of Dublin, edited by J.T. Gilbert (19 vols, 1889–98) Acts of the Privy Council 1542–1604, edited by J.R. Dasent (32 vols, London, 1890–1907) The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, edited by Cosmo Innes and Thomas Thomson (12 vols, Edinburgh, 1814–75) The British Library, London Calendar of State Papers relating to Ireland (24 vols, London, 1858–97) Historical Manuscripts Commission National Archives, Dublin, Ireland National Library, Ireland Dictionary of National Biography Record Commission The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland 1646–1653, edited by Alexander F. Mitchell and James Christie (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1892–1909) The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, edited by P.H. Brown (8 vols, Edinburgh, 1899–1906) Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy State Papers Trinity College, Dublin The Whole Works of the Most Reverend James Ussher, edited by C.R. Elrington (17 vols, Dublin and London, 1847–64)

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Notes on Contributors Toby Barnard is Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Hertford College, Oxford. Elizabethanne Boran is IRCHSS Research Fellow on the Ussher Project, Department of History, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Ciaran Brady is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. John Coffey is Reader in Early Modern History in the School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester, UK. Alan Ford is Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham, UK. Raymond Gillespie is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern History, NUI Maynooth, Ireland. Richard L. Greaves was Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor in the Department of History, Florida State University. Crawford Gribben is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature and Culture in English and American Studies, University of Manchester, UK. James Murray is Development Officer for the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland. John R. Young is Senior Lecturer in Scottish History in the Department of History, University of Strathclyde, UK.

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Introduction Elizabethanne Boran ‘Vade, vade, Satana, pro universo mundo non facerem quod postulas’.1

This defiant response of the Roman Catholic Robert Fitzgerald to his interrogators reflects the polarization of Catholicism and Protestantism in later sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Ireland. It likewise points to the difficulties inherent in enforcing reformation in early modern Europe at a time when the various denominations were becoming increasingly intransigent in their doctrinal identities. The ability – or at times inability – of the early modern state to impose reformation continues to fascinate historians, and in recent years the issue of confessionalization had dominated the debate. This collection of essays investigates the related theme of the enforcement of reformation in early modern Ireland and Scotland, in an attempt to identify the motivations, methodologies and ultimate effectiveness of this process. Adopting an international perspective, it seeks to analyse the factors affecting implementation of the Reformation – factors which would eventually determine its success or failure.2 While conscious of the three-kingdoms dimension, which forms the backdrop to Richard Greaves’ comparison of the processes of reformation in Ireland and Scotland, the emphasis is on the latter nations, Ireland, where the protestant Reformation ‘failed’, and Scotland, where it ‘succeeded’.3 1 ‘Depart, Satan! I would not do what you ask for the whole world’, cited in Colm Lennon, ‘Taking Sides: The Emergence of Irish Catholic Ideology’, in Vincent P. Carey and Ute Lotz-Heumann (eds), Taking Sides? Colonial and Confessional Mentalités in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), p. 93. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences. 2 Previous articles on this issue include the celebrated debate between Brendan Bradshaw and Nicholas Canny: Bradshaw’s ‘Sword, Word and Strategy in the Reformation in Ireland’, Historical Journal, 21 (1978), pp. 475–502, was quickly followed by Canny’s ‘Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: “Une Question Mal Posée”’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 30 (1979), pp. 423–50, which in turn drew forth Karl Bottigheimer’s ‘The Failure of the Reformation in Ireland: “Une question bien posée”’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 196–207. 3 The necessity of viewing events in Ireland or Scotland in the context of the three kingdoms or four nations of these islands is now such an accepted theme that it forms the bedrock of the majority of recent analyses and has been a spur to the creation of this collection. A number of influential articles have been written exploring the possibilities of

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Perhaps the most crucial theme in the collection of essays is the concept of identity, both of the enforcers themselves and their intended targets. This issue lies at the heart of John Coffey’s chapter on Scottish Puritanism in the period 1590 to 1638, which seeks to pin down the elusive term ‘Puritan’ and analyse how it was used by contemporaries, particularly in the turbulent 1630s.4 Concepts of identity also pervade Elizabethanne Boran’s examination of the self-perception of the Dublin élite and its subsequent impact on their ability to enforce reformation. Unlike their Scottish counterparts, the Calvinist reformers based in Ireland lacked cohesion and, by defining themselves solely in negative terms as opponents of the ‘other’, had little to offer potential converts. For them, as sermonic warnings of a theological ‘fifth column’ suggest, the real danger lay within the Church of Ireland. One might not be able to enforce conformity among the Roman Catholic population but one could at least try to maintain conformity of belief among the ‘godly’. There were, then, a number of possible targets for the enforcers of reformation. Foremost in both nations were Roman Catholic subjects who, by their allegiance to Rome, not only undermined the spiritual health of the body politic but also posed a distinct political threat. This group forms the focus of Alan Ford’s chapter on secular and ecclesiastical attempts to coerce religious unity in Ireland from 1603 to 1633. Writers concentrating on the later period turn their attention to protestant nonconformists: Toby Barnard examines the battles between the hierarchy of the Church of Ireland and protestant dissenters after the Restoration, while Richard Greaves compares the measures taken in Ireland and Scotland over the same period. Elizabethanne Boran and Crawford Gribben suggest that we consider a third possible target audience – the godly themselves. After all, enforcement of reformation, the approach since J.G.A. Pocock’s ‘British History: A Plea for a New Subject’, Journal of Modern History, 47 (1975), pp. 601–28 initiated the debate: J.G.A. Pocock, ‘The New British History in Atlantic Perspective: An Antipodean Commentary’, American Historical Review, 104 no. 2 (1999), pp. 490–500; Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts (eds), British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533–1707 (Cambridge, 1998); Glenn Burgess (ed.), The New British History: Founding a Modern State, 1603–1715 (London, 1999); Michael Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Ireland and the Monarchy in the Early Stuart Multiple Kingdom’, Historical Journal, 34 (1991), pp. 279–95; Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer (eds), Uniting the Kingdom? The making of British History (London, 1995); Jane Ohlmeyer, ‘Seventeenth Century Ireland and the New British and Atlantic Histories’, American History Review, 104 (April 1999), pp. 446–62; Michael Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Ireland and Scotland, 1638–48’, in John S. Morrill (ed.), The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context 1638–51 (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 193–211. A recent valuable collection of essays has been edited by Ciaran Brady and Jane Ohlmeyer, British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2005). 4 Coffey’s chapter in this collection takes issue with the most recent work on the subject, David Mullan’s Scottish Puritanism, 1590–1638 (Oxford, 2000).

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though it invariably has negative overtones of imposition, need not necessarily suggest forced attendance at service. It was as important to remember the sheep in the sheep-fold as it was to corral any ‘lost’ sheep in the wilderness. In this context, enforcement meant strengthening the hearts and educating the minds of the favoured few, rather than trying to reclaim the bodily presence of the unregenerate majority. Alan Ford and Richard Greaves each address the crucial issue of motivation. Ford offers a comprehensive disquisition on the varying motivations governing the actions of the secular and ecclesiastical Dublin élite – religious, political, legal and financial. He reminds the reader that eschatological beliefs, coupled with the polemic of early Christian heresy, were not solely the preserve of Church of Ireland bishops but might also be utilized by lay administrators such as Henry Brouncker in Munster. For Ford, there was no split between lay and ecclesiastical motivations, only a shifting of alliances which eventually led to a crisis in the 1620s when secular lords and Church of Ireland bishops found themselves on opposite sides of the debate about toleration and conformity. Greaves, writing about the later seventeenth century, concentrates on political motivations, in the context of the Anglo-French war. Here, conformity is the corollary of state security. Many of the contributors examine the agents of enforcement of reformation and the methodology they employed. While Ciaran Brady, James Murray and Richard Greaves concentrate on the actions of secular state officials, Barnard and Ford present an examination of the concerns of the hierarchy of the Church of Ireland. Barnard delineates the impact of appointing English bishops to Irish bishoprics and examines in detail the implications of the career of one influential late seventeenth-century Irish bishop, William King. The role of the individual reformer is a leitmotif throughout the chapters of Brady and Murray (who concentrate on Sir Henry Sidney), Greaves (James Butler, Duke of Ormond) and Gribben, who examines the education and impact of Robert Leighton, a pivotal figure in the perceived mid seventeenthcentury challenge to Scotland’s covenanted reformation. Leighton’s personal reform is linked to his attempts to consolidate reformation in the University of Edinburgh in the 1650s. The role of the university as an agent of reformation and an indispensable projector of conformity is highlighted both by this chapter and Barnard’s exploration of the role played by Trinity College, Dublin, in the creation of the ideology of conformity. Parliament, another essential purveyor of conformity, is examined in its Scottish incarnation by John Young who concentrates on the period 1639 to 1651, Scotland’s ‘second reformation’. Young examines the role of the élite, both secular and ecclesiastical, in the formation of legislation which would institute a

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godly society – how, in effect, Parliament sought to make Scotland ‘a pure Covenanting kingdom’. University and Parliament are not the only purveyors of reformation which attract attention. Boran argues that the printing press in early seventeenth-century Ireland also deserves more attention than it has previously received as a mirror of reformation. She maintains that by analysing the treatment of heresy in the sermons and treatises published in Ireland we can gain a greater understanding of the methods by which the élite sought to control the debate about heresy and impose conformity. Her examination of the para-textual material of Irish printing in the period 1590 to 1641 indicates, ironically, that marked similarities existed between the strategies adopted by Catholics and protestants to respectively combat or control the enforcement of reform. This emphasis on the varying motivations of the many agents of enforcement of conformity has a bearing on the current debate concerning the utility of confessionalization as a hermeneutic tool for historians of early modern Ireland and Scotland. The inherent linkage of reformation and state-building, which lies at the heart of the concept of confessionalization, has ensured that as an investigative approach it has much to offer reformation research.5 The relevance of this overarching explanation of social change in early modern Europe, one which, in the words of Heinz Schilling, ‘focuses both on the cultural, intellectual, social, and political functions of religion and confession within the early modern social order’, is readily apparent in the chapters of this collection.6 This is particularly evident in the close correlation between a number of the key characteristics of confessionalization and the themes developed here. Chief among these is the establishment of dogmatic principles – which gives confessionalization its name. Boran’s chapter on the printing press examines its role in the consolidation of dogma and its use as a propagandistic tool of the state; Barnard and Gribben elucidate the role of the university in both the creation of a learned clergy and the development of doctrine; all the chapters focus on the challenges faced by those entrusted with the task of imposing conformity.7 Barnard’s 5 Heinz Schilling, ‘Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich: Religiöser und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Deutschland zwischen 1555 und 1620’, Historische Zeitschrift, 246 (1988), pp. 1–45. A summary of his position may be found in Heinz Schilling, ‘Confessional Europe’, in Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy (eds), Handbook of European History, 1400–1600: Later Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, ii: Visions, Programs and Outcomes (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1995), pp. 641–81. 6 Schilling, ‘Confessional Europe’, p. 642. 7 Wolfgang Reinhard, applying the concept of confessionalization to the Catholic reformation, suggests seven key characteristics of the methodology of confessionalization: the establishment of dogmatic principles (hence the term ‘confessionalization’); the

INTRODUCTION

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chapter, with its emphasis on the centrality of the parish in enforcement of reformation, has much in common with Schilling’s focus on the role of the priest/minister as its local purveyor. The latter’s late sixteenthcentury timescale and two of his three broad themes (the role of the state, the expansion via social disciplining, and the encounter with modernity) provide a historiographical backdrop to a number of chapters, particularly those of Brady and Murray, Ford, Boran and Young.8 But these attempts by secular and ecclesiastical advocates of reformation to instil conformity were only one side of the coin. The other side is glimpsed in Raymond Gillespie’s chapter, which serves as a counterpoint to the tendency to concentrate on élite political acts and preoccupations. His research, focusing on the local reception of reformation, points to an enduring, conservative, consensus which at times proved more influential than élite dogmatic debates. Here the theories of the academics give way to the social realities of the common man. In the locale, old kinship loyalties might prove more valuable than new ideologies. Maintenance of social peace outweighed everything else – conformity was secondary to custom. If tradition required that a Catholic should be buried in the grave plot of a protestant church, then accommodation could take place. As he reminds us, in certain circumstances ‘the reformation could not be enforced but rather negotiated’. At the local level conformity was not ignored but doctrinal considerations were very much secondary to social practice – a fact acknowledged and deplored by both protestant and Catholic reformers. His chapter challenges the reader to reconsider how conformity worked in practice. If it was dependent on supporters in the locale, then the position of a local sheriff might well prove as important as the disquisitions of learned archbishops.

implementation of these principles by enforcers; the use of propaganda as a methodology to ensure such enforcement of reformation; the rise of an educated clergy leading to the professionalization of the ministry; the intensification of disciplining the community of believers; the importance of language; and, finally, the use of rites: Wolfgang Reinhard, ‘Was ist katholische Konfessionalisierung?’ in Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling (eds), Die katholische Konfessionalisierung (Gütersloh, 1995), p. 426. 8 Randolph C. Head argues that the emphasis on social disciplining and the linkage to modernity demonstrates the Weberian context of the paradigm: ‘Catholics and Protestants in Graubünden: Confessional Discipline and Confessional Identities without an Early Modern State’, German History, 17 (1999), pp. 321–45. For Reinhard’s advocacy of the counter reformation as a form of modernization see the latter’s ‘Gegenreformation als Modernisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 68 (1977), pp. 226–52, and, more generally, his ‘Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and the Early Modern State. A Reassessment’, The Catholic Historical Review, 75 (1989), pp. 383–404.

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Crucial here is the experience of conformity and, more generally, confessionalization. Gillespie’s chapter forces us to consider other aspects of popular reformation on the ground. We need to know far more than we do about the experience of enforcement, and the strategies by which it might be combated. How did conformity operate on the local level and how could it be circumvented? It was easier to issue a proclamation about church attendance than to enforce it, and even were force available and applied, one had still to combat not only outright refusal but also more subtle forms of nonconformity. Roman Catholic authors such as John Copinger might urge their readers toward the crown of martyrdom but not everybody was rushing to be first in the queue.9 Indeed Wright argues that the tendency among confessional historians writing in the early seventeenth century to emphasize the bravery of past ancestors should be seen as an attempt to off-set the contemporary preference for surviving the Reformation.10 A number of problems faced the zealous Calvinist preachers of early modern Britain and Ireland. Chief among these was the sometimes bewildering, or at times unscrupulous, reaction of the laity to their efforts at enforcement of reformation. The story of Lady Monteagle, who was happy enough to attend a protestant service before hearing Mass, was disquieting – even though she discontinued this practice once the error of her ways had been pointed out.11 More common still was the ‘church papist’, ‘who parts religion between his conscience and his purse and comes to church not to serve God but the King … He loves Popery well, but he is loath to lose by it.’12 Nicodemism as a lay strategy was deplored by both protestant and Roman Catholic clerics, the former fearing the mockery of the conversion process, not to mention the added political threat inherent in a subject who only pretended to be a good protestant (and hence a good subject), the latter fearing that attendance at protestant church services might in truth lead to spiritual as well as bodily acquiescence.13 9 John Copinger, A Mnemosynum to the Afflicted Catholickes of Ireland (Bordeaux, 1606). 10 Jonathan Wright, ‘Surviving the English Reformation: Commonsense, Conscience and Circumstance’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 29 (1999), pp. 386. 11 Philip Caraman (ed.), The Other Face: Catholic Life under Elizabeth I (London, 1960), p. 62. 12 Ibid., p. 272. 13 Gregory Martin and Nicholas Sanders were among a number of Roman Catholic writers to condemn attendance at protestant church services: Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (London, 1990), p. 135. Colm Lennon argues that the Roman Catholic Archbishop Richard Creagh was particularly anxious to stem the tide of Catholic attendance at protestant services, a phenomenon which, Lennon notes, continued into the 1570s; ‘Taking Sides’, p. 80.

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Dissimulation, in all its various manifestations, was a problem acknowledged by clerics on both sides of the denominational divide. According to Robert Wolcome, writing in 1612, ‘All true christians are appearing christians … But on the contrarie, all appearing christians are not true christians.’14 But distinguishing the godly from the ungodly was not an easy task. Even the use of attendance at communion services as a marker of conformity, and its worthier but more opaque sister conversion, was problematic. There were too many ways in which it might be circumvented. Some, in order to avoid attending services, would declare themselves temporarily unfit to partake of the sacrament. Others would make sure that they were visiting in another area over Easter, the time when absence from services would most likely be noticed. Those who did attend might avoid communion.15 To make matters more difficult, such avoidance could not necessarily be taken as a sign of secret Catholic sympathies. Refusal to communicate was not always an indication of antipathy to the sacrament but might, conversely, be an indication of increased reverence for it. The injunction of 1 Corinthians 11:27–9 not to communicate while in an unworthy spiritual state was sometimes taken very seriously indeed. The experience of Dives Downes, Bishop of Cork, in the parishes of Ballymoney and Bandon, county Cork in 1700, where only 20 out of a possible 150 partook of the eucharist, was not unique but it certainly muddied the waters when it came to the identification of true believers.16 Gillespie’s socially cohesive laity has parallels elsewhere.17 In 1565, Adrian de Saravia informed William Cecil, Lord Burghley, of the difficult of enforcing reformation in sixteenth-century Guernsey: the ‘people are made of fraud; you cannot believe a word they say and they have no scruple about perjuring themselves: they would unite a thousand 14 Patrick Collinson, ‘The Cohabitation of the Faithful with the Unfaithful’, in Ole Peter Grell, Jonathan I. Israel and Nicholas Tyacke (eds), From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England (Oxford, 1991), p. 52. 15 Zagorin, Ways of Lying, pp. 134–5. 16 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Differing Devotions: Patterns of Religious Practice in the British Isles, 1500–1700’, in S.J. Connolly (ed.), Kingdoms United? Great Britain and Ireland since 1500: Integration and Diversity (Dublin, 1999), p. 73. 17 See, for instance Christopher Marsh’s research on the experience of members of the Family of Love in the Cambridgeshire village of Balsham, cited in Collinson, ‘The Cohabitation of the Faithful with the Unfaithful’, p. 75, and Marsh’s Popular Religion in Sixteenth-century England: Holding their Peace (Basingstoke, 1998). Hans Hillerbrand makes a similar point about the integration of Anabaptists in early modern Germany in his article ‘The “Other” in the Age of the Reformation. Reflections on Social Control and Deviance in the Sixteenth Century’, in Max Reinhart (ed.), Infinite Boundaries: Order, Disorder and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies (Missouri, 1998), p. 266.

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perjuries rather than injure a friend’.18 Even when the laity attended services one could not always be sure that they did so in the correct spirit. Edwin Sandys, like many others, acknowledged the existence of such ‘deep dissemblers, double-hearted, double-tongued, double-faced; speaking them full fair whom them hate full deadly; promising and not performing; shifting off and seeking time’.19 Conformity and conversion were two very different things and the gap between the two was redolent of fear and distrust. Ultimately, for contemporaries, the success or failure of the Reformation lay in the success or failure of conversion, not conformity.20 The tension between Gillespie’s focus on the reception of reformation by the common man and a number of papers in the collection which investigate the phenomenon from an élite perspective is symptomatic of recents trends in confessionalization research also. Heinrich Schmidt, in a celebrated debate, has questioned Schilling’s reliance on the role of the state and argues that this tendency towards ‘etatism’ ignores a fundamental process of confessionalization from below.21 Case study after case study have been produced which apply the state-run model of reformation and find it wanting. Historians such as Head and Forster have argued that in some areas where ‘confessionalization’ takes place it does so despite the state, rather than because of it.22 18

Wright, ‘Surviving the English Reformation’, p. 391. Ibid., p. 385. 20 Karl Bottingheimer and Ute Lotz-Heumann suggest the opposite view in Karl S. Bottigheimer and Ute Lotz-Heumann, ‘The Irish Reformation in European Perspective’, Archive for Reformation History, 89 (1998), p. 270. 21 For this debate see the following articles: Heinz Schilling, ‘Disziplinierung oder “Selbstregulierung der Untertanen”? Ein Plädoyer für die Doppelperspektive von Makround Mikrohistorie bei der Erforschung der frühmodernen Kirchenzucht’, Historische Zeitschrift, 264 (1997), pp. 675–91; H.R. Schmidt, ‘Socialdisziplinierung? Ein Plädoyer für das Ende des Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungsforschung’, Historische Zeitschrift, 265 (1997), pp. 639–82. 22 Head, ‘Catholics and Protestants in Graubünden’, pp. 321–45. Marc Forster, The Counter-Reformation in the Villages: Religion and Reform in the Bishopric of Speyer, 1560–1720 (Ithaca, New York, 1992). Euan Cameron, while acknowledging the importance of confessionalization as an interpretative tool for historians, exhibits reservations of a different kind, arguing that too rigid an adherence to the framework of confessionalization can lead to historians assuming sharp distinctions between different confessional groups, ‘confessional barriers’ which are not immediately obvious to historians studying cross denominational co-operation during the Thirty Years War: Euan Cameron, ‘One Reformation or many? Protestant Identity in the Later Reformation in Germany’, in Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge, 1996), p. 126. A variety of historians working on the topic in Eastern Europe have also questioned its utility: Bruce Gordon, ‘Konfessionalisierung, Stände und Staat in Ostmitteleuropa (1550–1650)’, German History, 17 (1999), pp. 90–94. 19

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How applicable these finding are in the context of early modern Ireland and Scotland remains to be seen. The chapters in the present volume clearly have more points of contact with the original conceptualization of confessionalization than these later modifications. Despite a recent brave attempt to apply the concept of double confessionalization – incorporating both élite and popular – to early modern Ireland, much work remains to be done in the area of Roman Catholic evangelism before we can definitively argue for a binary confessionalization in an Irish context.23 The transplantation of themes in Continental Reformation research to the context of early modern Ireland and Scotland may not always be an easy one but it is one which is worth attempting. Serious questions remain to be addressed, not least being an unravelling of the thorny relationship between ‘popular reformation’ and the term ‘confessionalization from below’. Early modern Ireland, with its unusual combination of a Roman Catholic majority ruled by a protestant minority, is a useful, if problematic, test case for such an appraisal. As Colm Lennon has argued, some decades before the imposition of resident Catholic bishops, one finds a resurgent Catholicism in the Pale and beyond.24 This rise of recusancy, so apparent in the Pale from the 23 Ute Lotz-Heumann, Die Doppelte Konfessionalisierung: Konflikt und Koexistenz im 16. und der erster hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 2000). She balances a failed protestant confessionalization led by state authorities on the one hand, and a triumphant Catholic confessionalization emerging from the common man on the other. For a comprehensive review of this see Helga Robinson-Hammerstein, ‘The confessionalisation of Ireland? Assessment of a Paradigm’, Irish Historical Studies, 32 no. 128 (2001), pp. 567–78. A synopsis of Lotz-Heumann’s position may be found in her article ‘Social Control and Church Discipline in Ireland in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries’, in Heinz Schilling (ed.), Institutionen, Instrumente und Akteure sozialer Kontrolle und Disziplinierung im frühneuzeitlichen Europa/Institutions, Instruments and Agents of Social Control and Discipline in Early Modern Europe (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), pp. 275–304. 24 Colm Lennon, in a series of articles, has placed the Old English laity at the forefront of recusancy from the 1570s onwards: see, for example, his aforementioned ‘Taking Sides’, pp. 78–93, and his seminal ‘The Rise of Recusancy among the Dublin Patricians, 1580–1613,’ in W.J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History 25 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 123–32. Tadgh Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Reformation in Ireland. The Mission of Rinuccini, 1645–1649 (Oxford, 2002) investigates the unenviable state of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland prior to Rinuccini’s arrival and demonstrates how the implementation of church discipline might be undermined by clergy who were more willing to denounce their bishops to the state authorities than follow their orders (pp. 42–54). He points out that the early seventeenthcentury Catholic episcopal drive to reform parishes might sometimes lead to more heat than light since the imposition of diocesan clergy inevitably meant a diminuition in the position of the regular clergy who had a greater role in the local cure of souls prior to this (p. 53).

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1570s onwards, is a testament to the communal identity of the Catholic laity, which held control of the patronage systems of the Catholic Church. This lay resurgence, with its characteristics of lay control of church property, continued identification with Roman Catholic loci and refusal to attend protestant church services, is reminiscent of some trends in popular reformation elsewhere.25 More work needs to be done on the explication of lay engagement with Catholic reformation but it is clear that the role of the Old English and Gaelic Irish laity in upholding traditional Catholic values is a fruitful area of investigation.26 But did the Irish Catholic laity play a role in the construction of doctrine?27 This is a crucial question if we are to equate ‘the rise of recusancy’ and ‘confessionalization from below’. If confessionalization is first and foremost about enforcement of dogma – and not just a conservative reaction to state imposition of conformity – we may have to look elsewhere for the doctrinal stimulus. One can argue for a popular Catholic resurgence in late sixteenth-century Ireland but the evidence for an accompanying catechetical revolution is not readily apparent. To judge by the frequency of provincial and diocesan synods in the seventeenth century, whatever was emerging from below was not in total accord with Tridentine practices. Certainly the proliferation of Roman Catholic catechisms, both in Irish and Latin and sometimes both languages, reflect an ecclesiastical uneasiness about the dogmatic purity of their flock. The catechisms produced by the Irish Franciscans at Louvain in the first half of the seventeenth century not only sought to inculcate the norms of the Catholic Reformation to the populace but were an indication that this had not already happened, despite the rise of recusancy in the later sixteenth century.28 Theobald Stapleton, the author of a 1639 bilingual catechism, produced his catechism precisely because he felt that the common man was being ignored in the doctrinal flourishes of his colleagues, and so was reduced to merely parroting 25 The esssentially conservative nature of the response of the laity is, however, slightly at odds with some elements of popular reformation in the rest of Europe. 26 Ó hAnnracháin suggests that the role of the Old Irish bishops should no longer be ignored: ibid., p. 61. See a recent valuable thesis by Brian Mac Cuarta on the subject: ‘Catholicism in the Province of Armagh, 1603–1641’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Dublin, 2004. 27 Gillespie argues there were ‘two types of cultural communities’ within Catholic Ireland – a conservative laity and a progressive, confessionalizing, clergy: Raymond Gillespie, ‘Differing Devotions: Patterns of Religious Practice in the British Isles, 1500–1700’, in S.J. Connolly (ed.), Kingdoms United? Great Britain and Ireland since 1500: Integration and Diversity (Dublin, 1999), p. 71. 28 See, for example, the catechism of Bonaventure Ó hEodhasa, An Teagasg Criosdaidhe (Antwerp, 1611); On this theme see Bernadette Cunningham, ‘Geoffrey Keating’s Eochair Sgiath an Aifrinn and the Catholic Reformation in Ireland’ in Sheils and Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, pp. 137–43.

INTRODUCTION

11

prayers without knowing their true meaning.29 The continentally-trained clergy who returned to Ireland did their best to spread the doctrines of the Council of Trent, to confessionalize their co-religionists, but it was a long process and, though supported by Irish Catholics, the doctrinal and educational impetus necessarily came from outside. We need to be able to apply questions, similar to those offered in the chapters of this collection, to the growth of the Catholic reform movement before we can truly understand the enforcers and mechanisms of the late sixteenth century Catholic Reformation in Ireland. Yet despite these reservations it is clear that confessionalization as a model cannot be ignored by historians of early modern Ireland and Scotland. Above all, the application of the norms of confessionalization, problematic though they may sometimes be as an investigative tool for researches in early modern Britain and Ireland, reminds us of the richness of material available with which we may compare the process of enforcement of reformation in Ireland and Scotland. Bodo Nischan’s work on the second reformation in Brandenburg, an essentially élitist movement limited to court circles, provides one model, while the work of Auke Jelsma on the problems faced by the imposition of reformed Protestantism in the northern Netherlands in the second half of the sixteenth century, likewise suggest useful parallels for those historians interested in the enforcement of reformation in the islands to the north west of the European continent.30 The aim of the present volume has been to encourage comparison between Ireland and Scotland, but the process cannot stop there and should, eventually, incorporate European paradigms and transatlantic models. The problems faced by the enforcers of reformation in early modern Ireland and Scotland were immense – and were not helped, at least in the Irish case, by an uncertainty of purpose.31 The Scottish Covenanters might attempt to impose a godly reformation of society but such a process was unthinkable in early modern Ireland. The best that could be hoped for there was a semblance of conformity – with all its attendant internal contradictions – but which, theoretically, might lead, eventually, 29

Ibid., pp. 138–9. Nischan has a number of interesting articles on John Sigismund’s ‘second reformation’ in Brandenburg in his collection of papers: Lutherans and Calvinists in the Age of Confessionalism (Aldershot, 1999). For the case of northern Netherlands see Auke Jelsma, ‘The attack of Reformed Protestantism on society’s mentality in the northern Netherlands during the second half of the sixteenth century’ in Auke Jelsma, Frontiers of the Reformation: Dissidence and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 110–32. 31 See Aidan Clarke’s seminal ‘Varieties of Uniformity: The First Century of the Church of Ireland’, in Sheils and Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, pp. 105–22. 30

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to reformation.32 The reformers of late sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ireland provided the ideological apparatus for this imposition of conformity. The anti-Catholic polemic emanating from the Dublin and London presses identified the vast majority of the population of early modern Ireland as agents of the Antichrist. This hardening of the confessional battle lines might engender a feeling of insecurity among the protestant élite, but it was, crucially, one they might all share. The very homogeneity of the Church of Ireland during a time when its sister church in England had been undergoing massive upheavals was a testament not so much to internal cohesion as to external threat. There was far less internal church polemic precisely because the external enemy of Roman Catholicism was so prominent. Conformity, then, was as much about the enforcer as it was about their targets – be they Catholics or Presbyterians. As Patrick Collinson has argued for sixteenth-century England, ‘the irreligious were needed’ because they provided the foil against which the godly protestant might locate his own identity.33 This was, of course, part of a larger process of societal re-fashioning taking place in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Hillerbrand’s examination of this ‘construction of a new Other’ in the repressive legislation targeting various ‘deviant’ groups, such as witches, prostitutes and Jews, in early modern German society, finds echoes in this collection.34 The late sixteenth-century attempt to define and confine the ‘other’ in religious terms should be seen in this wider social context. Ironically the enforcement of conformity led precisely to what it was meant to avoid – a rise of recusancy in the case of Irish Roman Catholicism, and the development of Scottish Presbyterianism in Ulster as an unconquerable challenge to the Church of Ireland in the later seventeenth century. Colm Lennon argues that the rising recusant identity of the Roman Catholics of the Pale, far from being submerged by early seventeenth-century attempts at imposition of conformity by force, was, in fact, nurtured by such an approach. As Lord Deputy Chichester ruefully related, the executions of bishops like Conor O’Devany served not to cow the Catholic population but instead 32 Not least among the internal contradictions of the policy on conformity was the fact that the imposition of recusancy fines might well become an end in themselves, valuable as they were (potentially at least) to the royal coffers. Brady and Murray likewise point to the unacceptable effects a full conversion of Roman Catholics in early modern Ireland would have had on the socio-political hegemony of the colonial élite. 33 Collinson, ‘The Cohabitation of the Faithful with the Unfaithful’, p. 56. 34 In particular, John Young’s discussion of the reforming programme of the Scottish Covenanters, where a host of social ills were targeted alongside more obviously ‘religious’ legislation, reminds us that religious and moral panics were symbiotically interconnected.

INTRODUCTION

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provided providential martyrs for a renewed Catholicism.35 Lennon is right when he says that the sporadic attempts at enforcement led to a consolidation of the ‘confessional integrity’ of Irish Roman Catholics but we should also be aware that the very act of enforcing conformity might have a similar impact on the identity of the enforcer.36 To paraphrase Hillerbrand, by making the recusant ‘visible’ they might also render themselves visible.37 What could not be made visible was the conversion process. The difficulty for contemporaries was that there really was no way by which they could make windows into men’s souls. One could never really know whether conversion had been successful whereas conformity was such a very visible phenomenon – either people were in church or they were not. Perhaps for the same reason, historians of the period have concentrated on the slightly more accessible theme of conformity as an indicator of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ of reformation, since it is seemingly so much more quantifiable.38 But this may be another illusion. Just as ‘confessionalization’ as a term initially appears amorphous but in reality may be too rigid, so ‘conformity’, a seemingly rigid term, may eventually prove to be too amorphous a conceptual term to address the many layers of reformation in early modern Ireland and Scotland. And yet, though the task of mapping the course of the Reformation in Ireland and Scotland may well appear daunting, this collection demonstrates that some headway may be made in this craggy intellectual terrain.

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PRO, SP 63/232/8. For a seventeenth-century viewpoint on this see George Downham’s comment on p. 65 of this collection. Lennon, ‘Taking sides’, p. 93. In their chapter Brady and Murray argue that the effect on the enforcer might be to shatter communal identities. 37 Hillerbrand, ‘The “Other” in the Age of the Reformation’, p. 264. 38 Geoffrey Parker questions the reliability of visitation records in his ‘Success and Failure during the First Century of the Reformation’, Past and Present 136 (1992), pp. 43–82; Callum G. Brown revisits secularization theory with this kind of statistical scepticism in The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation, 1800–2000 (London, 2001), passim. 36

CHAPTER ONE

Sir Henry Sidney and the Reformation in Ireland Ciaran Brady and James Murray The starting point of this chapter lies in an odd dichotomy that has long persisted between the way in which political historians and historians of religion have viewed the course of sixteenth-century Irish history. For the former, the events of the century have long fitted into one essentially simple pattern: that is the sequence of challenge, confrontation, conquest and dispossession, often summarily expressed under the rubric of ‘the Tudor Conquest’ or ‘the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland’. For historians of religion, however, no such simple narrative of completion and success (for the English Crown at least) has been available. Instead they have been obliged to rehearse a rather unsatisfactory account of the defeat of the apparently dominant side, and the curious triumph of the defeated and the dispossessed.1 1 The unresolved paradox underlying much of the traditional historiography is neatly epitomized in the tantalizing title of the narrative chapter dealing with Ireland in the later sixteenth century in vol. 3 of T.W. Moody et al. (eds), A New History of Ireland (Oxford, 1976), G.A. Hayes-McCoy’s ‘The Completion of the Tudor Conquest and the Advance of the Counter-Reformation, 1571–1603’, whose text is notable for the fact that it neither discusses or remarks upon the contradiction it proclaims. It can be seen at work also in the contradictory assertion in R.D. Edwards’ Church and State in Tudor Ireland (Dublin, 1936) that the Counter-Reformation had triumphed in Ireland long before the Reformation had been introduced, which seems to have rendered all the rest of his book redundant. But the dichotomy continues to embarrass the present generation of historians. Thus, having argued in The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: a Pattern Established (Hassocks, 1976) that the English conquest of Ireland arose out of a complete ideological confrontation between natives and newcomers in Ireland in the 1560s and 1570s, Nicholas Canny went on to claim just a few years later that the prospect of the Reformation’s success in Ireland remained an open issue right to the end of the century and beyond: Canny, ‘Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: ‘Une Question Mal Posée’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 30 (1979), pp. 423–50. Similarly, Brendan Bradshaw, while demonstrating the persistence of liberal reformist attitudes toward the extension of the reformation in Ireland until the last decade of the century in ‘Sword, Word and Strategy in the Reformation in Ireland’, Historical Journal, 21 (1978), pp. 475–502, could nevertheless argue in The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979) that the last liberal reformist views on the anglicisation of Ireland had been snuffed out in the 1540s. Other scholars have not entirely escaped the difficulty. Thus the principle proponent of the case for effective administrative reform and expansion in early Tudor Ireland nevertheless

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The problem entailed by these divergent narratives resides not simply in the inherent paradox that the same agencies which so successfully executed the political and military conquest should have failed so markedly in the cultural or religious aspects of their programme. Or, to put it conversely, the problem is not simply that the native Irish who had failed so manifestly to withstand the encroachments of the English state should have so thoroughly succeeded in building an increasingly strong and unified cultural resistance. A more troubling contradiction confronting historians has been the undeniable fact that the programme of religious reformation was from the outset conceived and designed to be far more moderate, conciliatory and less confrontational than the drive to establish political control. This contrast in the fortunes of the two different programmes – a tough one which succeeded and a soft one which failed – has raised the uncomfortable, almost Spenserian, suggestion that the native Irish would respond only to policies of the most violent and repressive kind that few historians since the nineteenth century would have been willing to contemplate and still less to pursue.2 But, likewise, few have been willing to engage directly with this dichotomy, and have preferred rather to pass over the matter in silence. This simultaneous recognition and refusal to engage has given rise to some discomfort in the writings of Irish historians.3 But underlying and supporting this sustained evasion two different but closely dependent working assumptions may be discerned. The first of these – a comfort to the political historians – has been the simple assertion that the men of action, the governors, judges, soldiers and lawyers, simply did not care about the advance of religious reformation, and that whatever their favoured approaches – be they aggressive and coercive, diplomatic or conciliatory – were all agreed on the primacy of the political over the religious, of reform over reformation, of conquest over conversion; and that while they each pursued their preferred political strategies, they explains the failure of the reformation in Ireland on precisely the opposite grounds – the structural and institutional inefficacy of the ecclesiastical system: see also Steven Ellis, Reform and Revival: English Government in Ireland, 1470–1534 (Woodbridge, 1984), and Steven Ellis, ‘Economic Problems of the Church: Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 41 (1990), pp. 239–65. 2 The locus classicus of such an unreconstructed coercionist view is to be found in the Irish chapters in James Anthony Froude’s History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada (11 vols, 1856–70), especially vol. 2, ch. 8, and vol. 5, ch. 28; Froude’s views never commanded much support among Irish historians of the Reformation whether confessionally-committed or secular. 3 See, for instance, the manner in which the Elizabethan Reformation has been treated in isolation from social and political developments in the standard textbooks: Colm Lennon, Sixteenth Century Ireland: The Incomplete Conquest (second ed., Dublin, 2005), ch. 11, and Steven Ellis, Ireland in the Age of the Tudors, 1470–1603 (London, 1998), ch. 12.

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allowed the obligation to enforce the Reformation to languish in the hands of ineffective, treacherous and divided ecclesiastics, until it was too late.4 The second working assumption employed by those historians who have actually sought to investigate the operation of these ineffective and divided ecclesiastics has been the belief that the problem of the reformation was essentially a problem of competing strategies derived from opposing ideological and religious positions.5 Thus, even when they were let go about their business, the reforming ecclesiastics were themselves deeply divided as to how the Reformation was to be enforced: by preaching, conversion and education (the Word); or by the rigorous enforcement of conformity, by statute, ecclesiastical commission and even persecution (the Sword). And as they struggled among themselves to assert the best strategy for reform, the outcome of their debate was itself rendered irrelevant by the emergence of a powerful and coherent Counter-Reformation resistance. Together the two interpretative predilections have had the happy effect of allowing the dichotomy between the political and religious to persist unquestioned, as both tended to support the view that the political always predominated in English policy, and that strategies of religious reform were hampered by their own intrinsic divisions. Yet both points of view are afflicted with problems, both evidential and methodological. In the case of the latter, for example, the manner in which evidence for strategic division has been gathered and synthesized over long chronological spans, stretching at times to a century or more, creates obvious problems of assessment. The adoption of similarly broad geographical spans, relating, for example, the attitudes or statements of opinion made, say, in Dublin in the 1530s or Cork in the 1580s with those made in Ulster in the 1640s without sufficient attention to the particular contexts of time, circumstance and event within which they were produced is equally problematic. And perhaps most unsatisfactory of all is the manner in which these disparate expressions of opinion or religious outlook have sometimes been regrouped to fit into abstract taxonomic categories or preconceived models.6 4 This, for all their differences in approach, is the working assumption underlying both Canny, Elizabethan Conquest, and Ciaran Brady, The Chief Governors: The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland (Cambridge, 1994). 5 Bradshaw, ‘Sword, Word and Strategy’; Karl S. Bottigheimer, ‘The Failure of the Reformation in Ireland: “une question bien posée”’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), pp. 196–207. 6 See, for example, the comparative methods applied in Samantha Meiggs, The Reformations in Ireland: Tradition and Confessionalism, 1400–1690 (Dublin, 1997); Raymond Gillespie, Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland

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More serious, however, than methodological reservations of this kind are the simple evidential objections which apply to the second wing of this interpretative dichotomy – the presumed neglect of the secular men of action. The assumption that the viceroys – the principle agents of English policy in Ireland – disregarded or diminished their responsibility to oversee the introduction of religious reform is largely unfounded. From Lord Leonard Grey in the 1530s to Sir John Perrott in the 1580s, almost all of those who held the vice-regal office took their obligation to the enforcement of the reformation with great seriousness. It was Sir Anthony St Leger, and not Archbishop Browne, who took the initiative in enforcing the first Book of Common Prayer.7 It was Sir John Perrott, and not Archbishop Loftus, who insisted upon the enforcement of the oath of supremacy for holders of public office.8 Viceroys, like Sir Edward Bellingham and Sir James Crofts in the 1540s and 1550s, frequently bemoaned the lack of support they were receiving in their efforts to enforce conformity.9 The Earl of Sussex regarded the re-establishment of the Reformation by statute in 1560 as the principal reason of his resuming office, and it was his successor, Sir Henry Sidney, who, in his elaborate programme devised for the reform of Ireland in 1565, placed the enforcement of the Reformation at the very top of his priorities.10 The misfit between interpretations of the century from political and religious perspectives is most fully embodied in historians’ accounts of Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland. That he was in general an energetic, forceful and inventive administrator, almost all historians are agreed.11 But how such characteristics affected his attitude toward the development of religious reform is a matter which has produced little consensus. Thus for some his status as an inner member of the Dudley circle has been (Manchester, 1998); and Ute Lotz-Heumann, Die Doppelte Konfessionalisierung: Konflikt und Koexistenz im 16. und der erster hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 2000). For a review of the latter see Helga Robinson-Hammerstein, ‘The Confessionalisation of Ireland? Assessment of a Paradigm’, Irish Historical Studies, 32 no. 128 (2001), pp. 567–78. 7 J.R. Gastin, The Book of Common Prayer in Ireland (Dublin, 1871), pp. 5–9. 8 Sir John Perrot to Burghley, 25 October 1585, in Charles Mc Neill (ed.), ‘The Perrot Papers’, Analecta Hibernica, 12 (1943), pp. 23–4; D.B. Quinn (ed.), ‘Calendar of the Irish Council Book, 1581–86’, Analecta Hibernica, 24 (1967), p. 163. 9 Richard Brasier to Protector Somerset, 14 November 1548, PRO SP 61/1/122; John Alen to Sir William Paget, 21 April 1549, SP 61/2/32; Croft to Northumberland, 11 November 1551, SP 61/3/63. 10 Sussex’s ‘Instructions’, 19 July 1559, 28 May 1560, SP 63/1/57; 2/18; Sidney’s ‘Instruction’, 5 October 1565, SP 63/15/4. 11 For different views of Sidney’s aims and achievements see Canny, Elizabethan Conquest; Brady, Chief Governors; and Brady (ed.), A Viceroy’s Vindication? Sir Henry Sidney’s Memoir of Service in Ireland (Cork, 2002).

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assumed as being sufficient to identify him with the so-called advanced protestant interest at the English court; while for others Sidney’s friendship with decidedly deviant figures, such as Edmund Campion and Richard Stanyhurst, and his notorious protection of recusants in Wales, has led to the rather opposite view that Sidney was quite cold on religious issues.12 Such differences in assessment have in large part, however, gone unreconciled, perhaps because neither position can remain entirely comfortable with the first major initiative in regard to advancing the Reformation in Ireland with which he can be credited: his introduction in 1567 of a slightly adapted form of the Eleven Articles of religion drawn up by Archbishop Parker in 1561.13

Sidney’s programme of reformation The significance of Sidney’s decision to promulgate the 1561 articles as the doctrinal and catechetical foundations of the Elizabethan Church of Ireland can easily be underestimated. On the surface it may appear to have been a highly conservative, even timid, move. It seemed already to lag far behind developments in England where, in 1563, the Church of England had settled upon a far more radical statement of its fundamental doctrine in the form of the Thirty-Nine Articles.14 In contrast to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, with their pungent antiRoman declarations, their unambiguous endorsement of avowedly protestant theological doctrines such as justification, and their approval of such controversial practices as the clergy’s right to marry, Sidney’s version of Parker’s early compromising position was distinctly mild.15 12 Bradshaw ‘The Elizabethans and the Irish’, Studies, 65 (1977), pp. 38–50; Colm Lennon, The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation (Dublin, 1989); Penry Williams, The Council in the Marches and in Wales under Elizabeth I (Cardiff, 1958). 13 ‘A Brefe Declaration of certeine Pryncipall Articles of Relygion: set out by order & aucthoritie aswel of the ryght Honorable Sir Henry Sidneye Knyght of the most noble order, Lorde president of the Councel in the Principalitie of Wales, & Marches of the same, and generall Deputie of the Realme of Irelande. As by Tharchebyshopes and Byshopes: with the rest of her maiesties Highe Commissioneres for causes Ecclesiasticall in her Realme of Ireland, for the unitie of Doctrine to be holden and taught of all Persons, Vicars, and Curates …’, reproduced in full, from the unique surviving copy in the library of Trinity College Dublin, in B. Ó Cuív (ed.), Abidil Gaoidheilge & Caticiosma. Seán Ó Ceanaigh’s Irish Primer of Religion published in 1571 (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1994), Appendix 2, pp. 185–9. Sidney’s articles split Parker’s final article into two, thus making twelve in total. 14 On the adoption of the Thirty-Nine Articles in England, see W.P. Haugaard, Elizabeth and the English Reformation: The Struggle for a Stable Settlement of Religion (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 247–57. 15 The Thirty-Nine Articles are analysed in detail in ibid., pp. 258–72.

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For subscription to the Church of Ireland, the new Irish articles merely required from the clergy and laity a general conformity to the royal supremacy and the prayer book services, while at the same time studiously avoiding any definitions of the sacraments or the doctrine of justification. By the same token, their rejection of papal supremacy and the worshipping of images were mild-mannered in tone, and deliberately phrased to avoid causing offence.16 The decision to ignore the established doctrine of the Church of England and to revert to the Twelve Articles would seem to offer clear evidence that the new viceroy was not prepared to court theological controversy and political confrontation, and that he was instead anxious to achieve consensus on a basic set of religious beliefs that were so conservative in tone as to be likely to win at least nominal acceptance throughout English and Gaelic Ireland alike. Thus read in isolation, Sidney’s adaptation of the 1561 articles may be seen as a cautiously conservative move. But his initiative acquires a rather more assertive character when set in relation to a whole series of reformist measures with which it was accompanied when Sidney assumed the government of Ireland in 1566. In his elaborate ‘Instructions’ for the revival of the Reformation in Ireland which Sidney himself developed over several drafts throughout 1565, the promulgation of the Twelve Articles was indeed a crucial element, but only one amongst several. Their principal significance, moreover, lay not in their content, but in their form, in their role, that is to say, as part of a much larger programme of propaganda and public dissemination. Among the several elements in this project were printed proclamations justifying policy against Shane O’Neill, the suppression of rebellion in Leinster and Munster, the preparation and publication of a major digest of Irish statutes, and the publication of John Kearney’s Aibidil Gaeilge agus Caiticiosma which, in addition to translating extracts from the Book of Common Prayer and some meditations and prayers selected from John Carswell’s prayer book, contained a full translation into Irish of the Twelve Articles themselves. If the message being broadcast was ostensibly mild, the medium in which it was carried was to be intensely evangelical in its energy.17 16

Articles 5–11; Ó Cuív (ed.), Abidil Gaoidheilge & Caticiosma, pp. 187–9. See among Sidney’s published proclamations his ‘Ordinances for the government of Leinster (April 1566) SP 63/17/13 (i); ‘Instructions for the government of Munster’, February 1566, SP 63/16/22; his outlawry of Shane O’Neill, 2 August 1566, in Historical Manuscript Commission, Fifteenth Report (1893) appendix (3), pp. 172–5; a digest of Irish Statutes was published under Sidney in 1571; Ó Cuív (ed.), Abidil Gaoidheilge & Caticiosma, passim (the Irish translation of the Twelve Articles is on pp. 128–53). On the general context of Sidney’s propaganda campaign, see D.B. Quinn, ‘Government Printing and the Publication of the Irish Statutes in the Sixteenth Century’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 49 sec. C, (1943), pp. 415–24. 17

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Publication of the good news, however, formed only one part of Sidney’s reformative programme. He had several other, more directly interventionist, plans to implement. He wanted, for example, all the vacant bishoprics and other ecclesiastical dignities throughout the island filled immediately and wanted minor or vacant sees to be amalgamated into larger ones. Thus he personally made nominations for the sees of Dublin, Armagh, Cork, Ferns, Kildare and Down and Connor; he had Emly united with Cashel and Clonmacnoise with Meath; and sought parliamentary sanction for a bill authorizing the Lord Deputy to appoint to ecclesiastical dignities in Munster and Connacht for a period of ten years.18 Within the dioceses themselves he wanted absentee clergy to surrender their benefices and to have the alienation of clergy of their benefices proscribed.19 He was determined to see the repair of church fabric and drafted legislation to ensure that both clergy and laity assumed their responsibility in this regard.20 He was also eager to renew and strengthen the ecclesiastical commission in Ireland, the principal tribunal through which the Reformation had been enforced in England after the passing of the acts of Supremacy and Uniformity in 1559; and to this end he recruited Dr Robert Weston, a senior ecclesiastical lawyer and experienced English commissioner, to head it.21 Most controversially, he wanted the cathedral of St Patrick’s to be dissolved, to have its chapter house converted to the use of the governor and council, and to have its extensive rents employed to defray the costs of the garrison and to pay off the army’s debt to the country.22 Though his proposals for St Patrick’s may seem to run directly contrary to his plans for ecclesiastical renewal, an important underlying consistency can be found in Sidney’s particular approach to the troubled cathedral. He was by no means the first to recommend its dissolution. But his plans for the cathedral certainly differed markedly from previous reformist suggestions that its confiscated wealth should be used for the establishment of an endowment for a university.23 Sidney’s outlook was 18 ‘Memoranda for Ireland’ May 1565 and [?]1565, SP 63/13/51; 15/85; Sidney to Cecil, 24 November 1565 and 26 December 1569, SP 63/15/51 and 29/84; Brief abstract of bills certified by Lord Deputy Sidney and the Council to the Queen, c. January 1569 (SP 63/27, nos. 12, 13); Victor Treadwell, ‘The Irish Parliament of 1569–71’, R.I.A. Proc., 65 sec. C (1966–7), pp. 63, 73. 19 Sidney’s ‘Opinion’, 4 July 1565, SP 63/14/3. 20 Brief abstract of bills certified by Lord Deputy Sidney and the Council to the Queen, c. January 1569 (SP 63/27, nos. 12, 13); Treadwell, ‘The Irish Parliament of 1569–71’, p. 63. 21 Sidney and Council to Privy Council, 13 April 1566, SP 63/17/8; Weston to Elizabeth, 8 October 1567, and to Cecil, 3 April 1568, SP 63/22/5; 24/2. 22 Archbishop Loftus to Cecil, 16 July 1567, SP 63/21/62. Instructions to Sir Henry Sidney, 28 May 1565, SP 63/13/46. 23 On the earlier schemes to found a university out of the revenues of St Patrick’s

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altogether more radical. As well as offering much needed relief to the inhabitants of the Pale and improving thereby the popularity and authority of his government, the pensioning off of the cathedral’s prebendaries would remove one of the principal sources of resistance to change which the reformers had encountered since the initiation of the religious change under Henry VIII. But, even more importantly, Sidney had clear and very different views on the manner in which an Irish university should be founded. For him, the university was best established neither by the dissolution of a cathedral, nor by private endowment, but by means of statute, which he envisaged was to originate in a motion arising voluntarily in the Irish House of Commons that such a bill might be drafted and made law. An Irish university, seminary for the Irish Reformation, would then be founded in precisely the same way as the Irish church had been established, as a national institution sanctioned by an act of the Irish Parliament.24 Propaganda, diocesan reorganization, clerical reform, the refurbishment of churches and the establishment of a university can now all be seen not as a set of separate initiatives but as elements of a coherent reformation strategy. And when viewed in this manner, it becomes evident that Sidney’s approach to the problem of advancing the reformation in Ireland was at once far more active and far more subtle than historians have commonly allowed. Departing from the narrow perspectives of the churchmen, Sidney’s innovations reveal his acute recognition that the challenge of the Reformation lay not primarily in the substance of its doctrinal or liturgical changes but in the imperative of enforcing uniformity of practice throughout the country, and in the massive institutional and administrative demands which that objective entailed. Thus, on the basis of a minimal but open-ended doctrinal requirement which was to be promulgated in English and in Irish throughout the entire island, he would set about building a uniform ecclesiastical structure in which all viable dioceses would be revitalized by new royal nominees, and all unviable ones suppressed. At the same time, by means of a royal commission for ecclesiastical causes, he would acquire the necessary administrative and judicial tools to enable him to enforce a common code of conduct on both clergy and laity in regard to their mutual obligations; and finally, a means by which this artificially engineered uniformity would naturally be reinforced over the cathedral, see James Murray, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral and the University Question in Ireland, c. 1547–1585’, in Helga Robinson-Hammerstein (ed.), European Universities in the Age of Reformation and Counter Reformation (Dublin, 1998), pp. 1–21. 24 Edmund Campion, Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland, ed. A.F. Vossen (Assen, 1963), pp. 94–5, 145–6. See also Murray, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral and the University Question’, pp. 21–5.

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generations was to be found in the establishment of a national university. The ambition of Sidney’s programme of general reformation through institutional renewal is thus clear. Yet it is easy to understand why it has been so long neglected by historians, for in almost all of its aspects it failed. Sidney’s early nomination for the dioceses of Dublin and Armagh, Hugh Brady and Terence Donnelly respectively, were overturned.25 The successful placing of Richard Dixon in Cork was spoiled by deposition.26 The ecclesiastical commission, which he envisaged as a powerful instrument of his governance, was handed over instead to Archbishop Loftus, who treated it as an appendage of his local diocesan administration.27 His urgent requests for the dissolution of St Patrick’s were ignored. His bills for the repair of churches and authorizing him to appoint to ecclesiastical dignities in Munster and Connacht were dashed.28 And his subtle plan that a petition for the establishment of a university should emerge independently from the Irish commons, having at first gained some momentum, rapidly lost appeal in the turmoil of the Irish Parliament of 1569–71.29 The causes of Sidney’s failure to secure the implementation of his great reformative programme seem, therefore, readily explicable when its components are viewed separately. For each aroused opposition in different quarters, which individually the deputy was unable to overcome, and which collectively engulfed his programme. Thus, his plans for the filling of vacant sees ran aground amongst the factional intrigues and bureaucratic complexities of Whitehall. His plans to rebuild the church’s decrepit fabric were stymied by the reluctance of local property owners to back a statute that would have obliged them to sink the profits of their monastic booty into the parochial system. His plans to suppress St Patrick’s collapsed when Archbishop Loftus, under the influence of Lord Chancellor Weston, the Dean of St Patrick’s – a man ironically that Sidney himself had sought out and appointed to those offices – abandoned his erstwhile distaste for the institution, and 25 Elizabeth to Sidney, 31 May 1566, 11 June, 6 July 1567, in Tomas O Laidhin (ed.), Sidney State Papers (Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1967), numbers 13, 41, 42; Sidney to Cecil, 26 December 1569, SP63/29/84; Archbishop Loftus to Burghley, 26 November 1571, SP 63/34/30. 26 Lord Chancellor Weston, Archbishop Loftus and Lord Justice Fitzwilliam to Burghley, 16 April 1571 (SP 63/32, no. 10); Archbishop Loftus to Burghley, 26 November 1571 (SP 63/34, no. 30). 27 On Loftus’s control of the ecclesiastical commission, see James Murray, ‘The Tudor Diocese of Dublin: Episcopal Government, Ecclesiastical Politics and the Enforcement of the Reformation, c. 1534–1590’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Dublin, 1997, pp. 247–53. 28 Treadwell, ‘The Irish Parliament of 1569–71’, p. 74. 29 Murray, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral and the University Question’, pp. 21–5.

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chose to govern his diocese in a conventional manner on the model of the Church of England, replete with the full panoply of church courts and a fully functioning secular cathedral. Finally, his plans to establish the university by parliamentary acclamation and private donation were defeated by an unlikely coalition of the Palesmen, who showed the same reluctance to invest in this educational enterprise as they had in the scheme to rebuild church fabric; and by the Weston–Loftus nexus, who thought that Sidney’s university, based as it was on partly on private investment, would be unduly subject to the influence and control of the likely donors, many of whom would have been papists.30 It is easy, then, to view the resistance to Sidney’s reformation strategy as merely the aggregate of a number of disparate oppositions: the vested interests of the clergy, the reluctance of the Palesmen to contemplate further taxation, the ambition of individual administrators and the malign influence of court faction. Yet the comprehensive nature of this opposition to Sidney’s programme was itself a reflection both of the coherence of Sidney’s particular view of enforcing reformation and, among the English in Ireland, of its unacceptable radicalism. For underpinning this coherent plan of action of enforcing uniformity, and rendering it so challenging to those to whom it was first presented, there lay the recognition that the institutional uniformity which was the essential prerequisite to the success of reformation in Ireland could be attained only if the claims of 1536 were realised, and that the Church of Ireland established by statute in that year should become a reality, in a national Church whose authority, teachings and liturgical practices would be accepted throughout the island as a whole.

A national Church The idea that the Church of Ireland was both in essence and potential a national institution did not originate with Sidney. Its origins lay in the very manner in which the institution was established by statute in the Irish Parliament of 1536–37. There is little evidence to suggest that the establishment of the Church of Ireland was accompanied with anything like the same historical and ecclesiological arguments which preceded the declaration of the Church of England in 1534.31 There was no officially 30 Treadwell, ‘The Irish Parliament of 1569–71’, pp. 55–89, especially pp. 63, 74; Murray, ‘Tudor Diocese of Dublin’, pp. 239–32; idem, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral and the University Question’, pp. 21–5. 31 See, inter alia, John L. King, English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition (Princeton, 1982); Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: a Life (Cambridge, 1996, chs 3–6); Virginia Murphy, ‘The literature and propaganda of King

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inspired propaganda campaign, no scholars were enlisted to make the case of the Crown’s behalf, and such controversy as was provoked by opponents of the proposed reformation was studiously ignored, and the critics either bought off or silently repressed.32 The decision to establish the Irish Church by statute was easily arrived at. It was, in part, determined simply by the reflex of replication, a desire to follow the pattern laid down at Westminster. But it was in part also influenced by the pressure of events in post-Geraldine Ireland. The papalist claims made by the Kildare rebels legitimizing their actions in 1534, and the very real appeal which they exerted over the English colonial community in Ireland at that time, demanded a powerful response on the part of the English Crown to reaffirm its own authority over its English subjects in Ireland.33 Thus the summoning of Parliament and the establishment of supremacy by statute was, in addition to being a copy of the way things had been done in England, a timely reassurance to the English of the Pale that the break with Rome in no way threatened their identity as the natural rulers of Ireland. It was then a politically realistic decision. But it was not an inevitable one. It would have been perfectly possible in the 1530s to proceed with the introduction of ecclesiastical and liturgical changes, without parliamentary sanction, in those parts of the Irish Church that, in political terms, were loyal to the Crown such as the diocese and province of Dublin – there had after all been no attempt to establish a Church of Wales. Indeed, as early as 1532, the Archbishop of Dublin, John Alen, readily acknowledged himself to be the primate of Henry VIII’s Church in Ireland and, had his view that his own ecclesiastical jurisdiction was the ‘handmaid’ of the English Church gained official sanction, the assertion of royal supremacy over the Church in English Ireland would have been technically feasible without resort to statute.34 As it happened, however, the decision to proceed by means of an Irish Henry’s divorce’, in Diarmaid MacCulloch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety (Basingstoke, 1995), ch. 6; G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (Yale, 2005), pp. 1–247; and for the enforcement of the propagandist message, G.R. Elton, Policy and Police (Cambridge, 1970). 32 R.D. Edwards, ‘Venerable John Travers and the Rebellion of Silken Thomas’, Studies, 23 (1934), pp. 687–99; Brandan Bradshaw, ‘The Opposition to the Ecclesiastical Legislation in the Irish Reformation Parliament’, Irish Historical Studies, 16 (1969), pp. 285–303. 33 On the Fitzgeralds’ papalist claims, and the fears that they engendered within the Tudor regime, see State Papers, Henry VIII (11 vols, London, 1830–52), ii, 2, pp. 197–8, 219–24; S.G. Ellis, ‘The Kildare Rebellion and the Early Henrician Reformation’, Historical Journal, 19 (1976), pp. 807–830; M. O’Siochrú, ‘Foreign Involvement in the Revolt of Silken Thomas’, R.I.A. Proc., 96 C (1996), pp. 49–66. 34 SP Hen. VIII, ii, p. 159; James Murray, ‘Archbishop Alen, Tudor Reform and the Kildare Rebellion’, R.I.A. Proc., 89 C (1989), pp. 9–10.

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statute was heavy with implication. Whether they were conscious of it or not, the establishment of the Church of Ireland obligated its founders in several momentous respects. First it committed them to a particular, and far from self-evident, claim which affirmed that from its beginnings the history of Christianity in Ireland had displayed distinctive characteristics, independent of the Church of Rome, as was the case in Anglo-Saxon England.35 Next it involved them in potential contradiction of the traditional English interpretation of the twelfthcentury conquest of Ireland which had justified the event in relation to the corruption and decay of the original Celtic Church.36 More practically, and arising urgently from the historical and conceptual revisions just noted, it compelled them to address the problem of integrating the different ecclesiastical structures which existed within the island as a whole. And finally, and most difficult of all, it brought them face to face with the problem of redefining the role of the clergy and laity of the English colonial community within these newly integrated structures. Given their daunting complexity, it was perhaps understandable that such difficult matters should have been hastily covered over by a convenient political fiction. All of these problems would be resolved when the English conquest of Ireland, which began in the twelfth century and was neglected thereafter, would be revitalized and completed under the Tudors. This having been accomplished, the Church of Ireland would be recognized as simply the latest manifestation of the English reforming mission to recover the Irish Church from corruption that had first been instituted by the twelfth-century synods of Cashel and Armagh and enshrined in the papal bull Laudabiliter. In its earliest days this was precisely the message which the agents of Tudor policy in Ireland wished to convey to the loyal subjects of the English Pale.37 And it was out of these pressing concerns that a major constitutional initiative was essayed by the government of Sir Anthony St Leger in the Parliament of 1541. This was the establishment of Ireland as a kingdom in its own right by means of the ‘act for the kingly title’ of 1541 which at once denied papal authority and declared the English conquest of Ireland to be complete 35 On the claims of the ancient separation of the Church of England, see Graham Nicholson, ‘The Act of Appeals and the English Reformation’, in Claire Cross et al. (eds), Law and Government under the Tudors (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 19–30; also MacCulloch, Cranmer, pp. 164–79. 36 On the importance of this tradition in the ecclesia inter anglios, see J.A. Watt, The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970); and James Murray, Reformation in Ireland: Clerical Resistance and Cultural Conflict in the Diocese of Dublin 1534–1590 (Cambridge, forthcoming), chs 1 and 2. 37 Bradshaw, Constitutional Revolution, part 2; ‘Expositions of the State of Ireland’, Sept 1537, SP Henry VIII, ii, part 3, pp. 480–509.

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and can be seen as a particularly grandiloquent effort to sustain such comforting inventions.38 Yet, for all its political pretensions and legal affirmations, the English conquest of Ireland remained more or less a fiction and, even as they paid lip-service to it, the viceroys of Ireland, Grey and St Leger, recognized that they must work in a different reality. In negotiating their treaties with the great families of Ireland, the viceroys realized that, given the impossibility of launching a new and total conquest of Ireland, tolerance of and compromise with the political and cultural mores pertaining in the provincial lordships was inevitable. Key priorities could be assured from the start. A formal declaration of surrender was, of course, mandatory. And it is significant that the very first article in each of the treaties which they negotiated with the great lords required the acknowledgement of royal supremacy as a basic principle without which no further progress could be made. But other details, such as the nature of seigneurial authority, forms of land tenure and even the process of dynastic succession, could be determined later on and then on a case-bycase basis.39 This was a realistic way to proceed, to be sure. Yet the willingness of the government to accommodate local variation implied a deviation from the notional pretence of a completed English conquest, which, though perfectly pragmatic in character, raised fundamental problems in regard both to the kingdom of Ireland and especially to the Church of Ireland which had just been established. At first such a realistic divergence of practice from theory appeared to present no real problems. Over a generation, it was presumed, the leading dynasties of Gaelic Ireland might be persuaded through inter-dynastic arbitrations, intra-familial settlements, and education to reconstruct themselves as a form of English nobility. By the close of the 1540s, however, the complexity of dynastic politics had already begun to expose such expectations as hopelessly optimistic, and it was clear that serious adjustments would have to be made. This process of revision on the part of the English government was never comfortable, as the conflict with the O’Mores and O’Connors and the war with Shane O’Neill attested.40 Yet over the twenty years between 38 Bradshaw, Irish Constitutional Revolution; but see also the older emphasis on the importance of historical and ecclesiological factors in Robert Dunlop, ‘Some Aspects of Henry VIII’s Irish Policy’, in T.F Tout and J. Tail (eds), Owens College Historical Essays (London, 1902), pp. 279–305. 39 See the treaties made by St Leger with several Irish lords in the early 1540s, printed in Calendar Carew MSS 1515–74, pp. 188–93; Calendar of Patent Rolls (Ireland), Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, pp. 81, 87. 40 Brady, Chief Governors, pp. 56–7; Ciaran Brady, Shane O’Neill (Dundalk, 1996), chs 2 and 3.

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the late 1540s and the late 1560s real concessions were made. This willingness to compromise can be seen in the gradual understanding that the Irish lords were not after all embryonic English nobles to be reconstructed overnight, but were representatives also of complex dynastic systems whose structures needed careful analysis and address.41 It could be seen also in the recognition that coyne and livery was not just an evil excess to be abolished forthwith but a mediating mechanism essential to the stability of the lordships. 42 But most fundamentally it can be seen in the growing realization that the conventional institutions and procedures of English law were in themselves a wholly insufficient means of effecting political and cultural change in the lordships and that new and specifically Irish institutions would need to be developed to attain that objective.43 By the end of his first term in office, Sidney himself had become aware of the full extent to which such accommodations would have to be made by administrative and legal adaptation to the mores of Gaelic Ireland: but his education simply marked the latest stage in a learning process which had begun with St Leger and which had affected every subsequent Viceroy including the inflexible Sussex. The challenge which this practical but largely unformulated process of political and cultural accommodation to Gaelic ways posed to conventional theoretical assumptions of English cultural superiority in Ireland was bound eventually to give rise to serious tensions within the English community in Ireland. But even as it had begun to take shape a more overt threat to the cultural claims of the English colonial community emerged in regard to religious reformation in the form of a new set of demands which emanated not from the viceroys in Dublin, but from the centre of English government in Whitehall. The insistence of successive demands of the Edwardian regimes that major doctrinal 41 This process of education can be seen at work at local level in the attempts of the Crown to come to terms with the complexities of individual lordships; see, for example, Sidney’s settlement with the O’Farells in the Annalley (Longford), in 1571, SP 63/31/9, 10; and for a case study see Ciaran Brady, ‘The O’Reillys of East Breifne and the Problem of Surrender and Regrant’, Breifne, 6 (1985), pp. 233–62. 42 The realization that ‘coyne and livery’ was essential to the maintenance of order within the Irish lordships is most commonly identified with the various writings of Sidney’s sometime secretary Edmund Tremayne, see his treatises in British Library Add. MS 48015, fols 274–9, and Cotton MS Titus BXII, fols 357–60; but some anticipations of this position are already present in the legislation concerning coyne presented to the parliament in 1569, SP 63/ 26/74–5 and the contemporary ‘Discourse’ in defence of ‘coyne’, SP 63/26/68. 43 This development of Sidney’s thought is traced in Brady, ‘The Attainder of Shane O’Neill, Sir Henry Sidney and the Problem of Tudor State-Building in Ireland’, in Ciaran Brady and Jane Ohlmeyer (eds), British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 28–48; and in Ciaran Brady (ed.), A Viceroy’s Vindication? pp. 1–33.

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and liturgical changes – in particular, the abolition of the mass and the introduction of the Prayer Book services – be implemented immediately and if necessary by force in Ireland presented the administration in Dublin with a problem that was particularly acute.44 The ready adoption of such changes in liturgical practice by the priests and laity of Gaelic Ireland, where neither enthusiastic support nor firm resistance was much in evidence, was not immediately expected by the Edwardian regime. Instead, ready and willing conformity was demanded not from the lukewarm Irish but from the loyal English of the old colonial community. And it was in this that the crux of the viceroys’ problem lay. The new changes entailed more than a further burden of administration and cost, already a source of grievance in the Pale; and more than an affront to the theologically sensitive minds among the clergy of the Dublin archdiocese. They constituted rather a fundamental challenge to the historic role of the English in Ireland: the mission, that is, to reform Gaelic Ireland according to conventional canonical norms and the uses of the medieval English Church. The manner in which they did so requires examination. Among the new requirements two, inextricably related, measures undermined this historic role in a way that no convenient argumentation along the lines of the act for kingly title could obscure. The first of these was the abandonment of transubstantiation in the sacrament of the eucharist and its consequent implications for the scriptural and pastoral role of the priest. In this, the English Irish community was faced, in effect, with the comprehensive destruction of the theology, liturgy and ecclesiology of medieval English Catholicism, a system of beliefs and values which had provided the philosophical underpinning for the original English conquest of Ireland since the reforming synods of the twelfth century. Most particularly affected here were the English Irish clergy, who still identified this system of beliefs as the basis for imparting civility to the unreformed Irishry.45 This change in the spiritual status of the priest was perhaps a somewhat esoteric matter, but its implied threat to the clergy’s status was made unmistakeably overt through the second of the Edwardian regime’s innovations: the sanctioning of clerical marriage. Thus even as the reforming role of the English Irish clergy in relation to the native Irish was being undermined, so too was their status in regard 44 See Brendan Bradshaw, ‘The Edwardian Reformation in Ireland, 1547–1553’, Archivium Hibernicum, 34 (1976–77), pp. 83–99; and Bradshaw, ‘The Reformation in the Towns: Cork, Limerick and Galway’, in John Bradley (ed.), Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1989), pp. 220–52. 45 J.A. Watt, The Church in Medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1972), pp. 14–26, 171–202; Murray, Tudor Reformation, ch. 2; Henry Jeffries, Priests and Prelates in the Diocese of Armagh in the Age of Reformations, 1515–1558 (Dublin, 1999).

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to the laity as a whole. At mid-century, therefore, long before the consequences of accommodating to the realities of Gaelic Ireland had begun to dawn, the implications of acceding to a Church of Ireland under royal supremacy were first made clear to the English colonial community in Ireland, and to their clergy in particular. Among the first to realize the threat was the leading ecclesiastic, Archbishop George Dowdall of Armagh.46 Having at first accepted supremacy and acquiesced in the liturgical changes of the Henrician reformation, Dowdall, a deeply conservative priest and a powerfully influential figure in the Pale, refused to accept the consequences of the abolition of the mass, the official promulgation of the Prayer Book services and the toleration of clerical marriage. He challenged their legitimacy in public debate, and having made his stand went into exile in 1551. But just as his departure brought an end to the advance of the Reformation in Edwardian Ireland, so his triumphant return after the coronation of Queen Mary in 1553 instituted a vigorous revival of traditional ecclesiastical practices and institutions – most notably, St Patrick’s cathedral, which had been suppressed in the winter of 1546–7 – and a renewed determination that the English Church in Ireland would never again be so vulnerable. The inherent tensions between the English colonial community in Ireland and the English governors concerning the nature of reformation revealed briefly in the Edwardian period, were obscured once again by the triumph of counterreformation in the reign of Queen Mary. Determined that the Church in English Ireland would never again be so vulnerable to the threat of protestant depredation, Dowdall and his adherents had instituted a programme of revivification, most notably in St Patrick’s cathedral, which re-established the old religion and the traditional ecclesiastical structures in a manner which seemed to restore their medieval and colonial identity.47 Had the Marian revival been sustained, the tensions which had arisen between the English in Ireland and their governors might have been laid to rest. But the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the re-establishment of Protestantism in England ensured that they would again resurface, and in a no less virulent form. In the early 1560s Lord Lieutenant Sussex’s preoccupation with Shane O’Neill and his unwillingness to dislodge the Marian Archbishop of Dublin, Hugh Curwen, allowed for a brief respite. But between 1563 and 1565 the damning reports of Commissioners Wrothe and Arnold 46 Jeffries, Priests and Prelates, pt. 1; L.P. Murray (ed.), ‘A Calendar of the Register of George Dowdall’, Journal of the Louth Historical and Archaeological Society, 6 (1925–8), 7 (1929–32). 47 Murray, Tudor Reformation, ch. 5.

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and the High Commission established after their departure, which detailed the appalling state of the Church in the Pale made action inevitable.48 With the fundamental doctrines of the Church of England now stated and the character of the Elizabethan settlement now firmly established in England, the great men at Whitehall looked to see a similar process instituted in Ireland. And in 1566 it was on Sir Henry Sidney that the task devolved.

A local resistance Developments in the Pale over the previous two decades ensured, however, that the task facing Sidney was considerably more difficult than that presented to any of his predecessors. The resistance provoked in the Pale by the abortive changes of the Edwardian regime had been consolidated in the triumphant years of Queen Mary. Now it was clear that the principal obstacle to the realization of a genuinely reformed Church of Ireland would be found not in the Irish provinces, but at the very core of English Ireland, the Pale. In this context, the imperative of making the Reformation more general, of establishing uniform institutions, appointing dependable personnel and standardizing modes of administration and control across the entire country now appeared to be a matter far more important than the working out of the aspirations inherent in the legislation of 1536. It was now an urgent means of circumventing resistance to an English policy which had appeared from the most unexpected of quarters. The successful establishment of a national Irish Church was the best means of overcoming local English resistance. It is in this light that a further and hitherto unremarked-upon aspect of Sidney’s reformation programme acquires particular significance. This was his determination to separate the laity from their clergy in the Pale, by placating the former, while directly confronting the latter. In regard to the laity of the Pale, Sidney was prepared to extend the same tolerance and accommodation as he would apply elsewhere in Ireland: acceptance of the Twelve Articles and no more. But concerning the recalcitrant clerical elite of the diocese of Dublin, who resided within the cathedral of St Patrick, there would be no compromise. Here his proposal to abolish St Patrick’s altogether could be seen as a strikingly symbolic act. Representing an all-out attack on the bastion of conservative clerical resistance that had emerged in the Marian period, it supplied also a way 48 E.P. Shirley (ed.), Original Letters in Illustration of the History of the Church of Ireland (London, 1851), pp. 187–99, ‘Memoranda for Ireland’, 1565, SP 63/13/51.

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of easing the burden of the army on the community as a whole. His intent was plain: just as in the 1530s and 1540s the Henrician administrations had exploited the confiscation and redistribution of monastic lands to attract the support of the English laity to the Reformation, so Sidney was intent on buying off the laity from their clerical superiors with promises of material award. By the late 1560s, however, this frank attempt to separate the laity from the clergy in English Ireland was inherently dangerous. Offering relief from oppression is a correlative of dispensing largesse; and the ancient cathedral attracted deeper and broader loyalties than individual and moribund monastic institutions. Sidney’s attack on one segment of the English community in the Pale thus lacked the crucial compensations which St Leger’s initiatives had enjoyed. And his proposal soon attracted a new version of that deadly coalition of overt local opposition and the covert criticism of the officialdom of Church and state which had ruined Lord Deputy Grey and brought St Leger close to destruction. Though they may have agreed on little else, Sidney’s opponents in the Pale – in Dublin Castle and in St Patrick’s – found common cause in one shared commitment. This was the belief that the preservation of St Patrick’s cathedral was essential to the survival of English identity in Ireland as a whole. The basis of this consensus was indeed fragile. Whereas Sidney’s opponents within the Pale defended St Patrick’s on grounds of sheer conservatism and vested interest, his principal critics within the administration, Lord Chancellor Weston and Archbishop Loftus, actually agreed with Sidney that the resistance of the prebendaries of St Patrick’s presented the most serious problem for the Reformation. Where for Sidney this was sufficient justification to justify outright abolition, Weston and Loftus adopted a significantly different perspective. Looking to traditional disciplinary procedures and the Ecclesiastical Commission, they proposed a more subtle strategy, which sought to marginalize the old Marian clergy of St Patrick’s on the basis of individual examination and judgement. In this light, the preservation of the existing structures of the Irish Church, the cathedral included, was of vital importance in appropriating a canonical legitimacy for their actions which the survivalist clergy, and ultimately the laity, would find difficult to deny. In this way Weston and Loftus had sought to establish, in a gradualist manner, a foothold for ‘godly’ reform within the narrower confines of English Ireland, believing this to be an essential first step in the reform process, and one which had to be achieved before any attempt to institute a protestant religious settlement in Gaelic Ireland could be effectively undertaken.49 49 On the Weston–Loftus strategy generally see Murray, ‘Tudor Diocese of Dublin’, pp. 241–53.

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On the surface this might seem simply to have been a matter of technique, insufficient to separate them from Sidney or to ally them with the administration’s critics in the Pale. But it expressed, in fact, a more fundamental difference as to how the advance of the Reformation would proceed. For Sidney, with his larger viceregal view of the long-term problem of establishing uniformity beyond the confines of the English Pale, the institution of St Patrick’s cathedral was an obstacle to be brushed aside. A new source of sustenance for his civil and military administration which would at once remove a grievance of the Palesmen and grant him leverage for greater freedom of action in the country as a whole was well worth the sacrifice of a recalcitrant and subversive institution. For Weston and Loftus, however, the cathedral represented a superior English ecclesiastical institution which could, indeed should, be harnessed to enforce reform within English Ireland after the manner of the Church of England. Thus for all their mistrust of the religious conservatism of the clergy of the Pale, in their insistence upon the necessity to preserve the cathedral as a distinctively English institution, Weston and Loftus were at one with them on this fundamental cultural issue.50 This alliance between Sidney’s critics within and outside of his administration was certainly uneasy. But as on previous occasions, in the 1530s and 1540s, it found unexpected support through the intervention of one of the most significant forces in Irish politics: the house of Ormond. This time, however, such support was unintended and adventitious. The outbreak of the Butler revolt in 1569 preoccupied Sidney for the rest of his viceroyalty, tarnished his reputation at Court and rendered him largely incapable of resisting the attacks on his reform strategy by opponents in all quarters. The parliament of 1569–71 proved to be a graveyard for his most cherished projects, including the refurbishment of churches and the establishment of a university. And, as was the case in regard to his secular reform proposals, Sidney left office in 1571 bitterly disappointed with the results of his efforts, but not defeated. And as he was to return to resume the viceroyalty four years later with a plan for fiscal, tenurial and political reforms of a profoundly radical nature, so when he turned again to the problem of enforcing the Reformation in Ireland it was to be by means of an equally bold strategy of direct confrontation with those interests, English and English Irish, that had successfully frustrated him in the past.51 Between 1571 and 1575 Weston and Loftus had exploited the vacuum 50

Ibid. Treadwell, ‘The Irish Parliament of 1569–71’: pp. 55–89; Brady, Chief Governors, pp. 136–46. 51

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created by Sidney’s departure to develop their strategy of interrogation and judgement of the recalcitrant clergy by means of the High Commission and the ordinary courts of the diocese of Dublin. Their efforts were by no means insignificant – some notably conservative clergymen were deprived. But progress was inordinately slow, largely on account of Weston’s frequent illnesses and untimely death in 1573, and the consequent and spirited attempts of the old prebendaries of St Patrick’s to reassert their traditional ascendancy in the local church.52 For Sidney, however, the entire Weston–Loftus strategy was entirely beside the point. The isolation and removal of clergy from a single diocese counted little in relation to the larger imperative of establishing a uniform Church throughout the island, to which the majority would pay allegiance. In regard to this, the utter neglect of the laity, in the Weston–Loftus strategy, who had been left largely unmolested, was for Sidney particularly galling. Yet it was the very moderation of that strategy which had allowed it to continue without provoking criticism from either the English of Ireland or the authorities in Whitehall. Thus if Sidney was to re-launch his plan to build a genuinely national Church throughout the island, he would have to challenge directly the achievement of those who had come to power in his absence by overtly criticizing and discrediting their most recent endeavours. The lines of battle were thus drawn. Significantly, in contrast to his first lord deputyship, Sidney’s second strategy was announced through no official instructions regarding religion or any declarations of intent. The means which he was to employ were at once more subtle and more intensely subversive.53

Sidney’s second programme of reformation Sidney opened his campaign with the now well-known letter which he wrote to the Queen on 24 April 1576.54 Based primarily on information provided by Bishop Brady of Meath on the state of his own diocese, but personally attested to by Sidney himself as being representative of the entire institution, the memo described in graphic detail the ‘lamentable estate’ of the ‘foul, deformed, cruelly crushed’ Irish Church. Re-invoking the ecclesiastical concerns that had exercised his mind in his first 52

Murray, ‘Tudor Diocese of Dublin’, pp. 253–65. Sidney, ‘Plot for the government of Ireland’, July 1575, SP 63/52/83. 54 Sidney to the Queen, 28 April 1576 (SP 63/55, no. 38). Other copies of the letter are printed in A. Collins (ed.), Letters and Memorials of State – from the De Lisle and Dudley Papers (2 vols, London, 1746), vol. 1, pp. 112–14, and W.M. Brady (ed.), State Papers concerning the Irish Church in the time of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1868), pp. 14–19. 53

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deputyship, he wrote of a Church that was in such a dire state that its fabric had literally collapsed – ‘the very walls of the churches down, very few chancels covered, windows and doors ruined or spoiled’; a Church that was ministered to by poorly paid, unlearned curates, ‘Irish rogues’ who could not speak English, had little Latin and lived ‘upon the gain of masses, dirges, shrivings and such like trumpery, godly abolished by your majesty’.55 Historians have traditionally seized upon Sidney’s memo as hard and irrefutable evidence of the failure of the Reformation in Elizabethan Ireland. But preoccupation with its ostensible content has seriously obscured its deeper import. The real point of Sidney’s letter was not to bemoan the fate of the Reformation, but to present directly to Elizabeth the proposal that control of the reform process should be taken away from the episcopal bench, and given to him, because the blame for the sorry state of the Irish Church lay firmly with the bishops and their palpable administrative ineffectiveness. Whether through inaction or incompetence, it was the bishops, Sidney suggested, who had failed to provide for some of the Church’s most basic needs, in particular the maintenance of a competent, reformed ministry, and the reparation of its decrepit fabric. Thus he recommended that the Queen should bypass them altogether and send over ‘three or four grave, learned and venerable personages of the clergy’ from England, an ‘apostleship’ to be supported by the English bishops, ‘who in short space, being here, would sensibly perceive the enormities of this overthrown church and easily prescribe orders for the repair and upholding of the same’. Significantly, Sidney undertook to guide and guard the ‘apostleship’ from place to place throughout the country. Even more significantly, he nominated himself as the man to execute whatever measures they prescribed for the reform of the Church: ‘I find no difficulty but that your Officer here might execute the same.’56 In other words, they would act as a new ecclesiastical commission under his direct tutelage and without any reference to the local ecclesiastical authorities. Sidney’s critique was a devastating indictment of the bishops. Brady of Meath was clearly complaisant. But his old rival Archbishop Loftus of Dublin, in particular, felt that his position was now quite untenable and, with Sidney’s eager support, attempted to secure an honourable discharge from Irish ecclesiastical service after ‘sixteen years pilgrimage’ by seeking preferment to an English bishopric.57 But Sidney went further. 55

Sidney to the Queen, 28 April 1576 (SP 63/55, no. 38). Ibid. 57 Sidney to Walsingham, 15 June 1576 SP 63/55, no. 59); Loftus to Walsingham, 14 September 1576 (SP 63/56, no. 27); Sidney to Walsingham, 20 September 1576 (SP 63/56, no. 33). 56

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As instructed by the Queen, the deputy consulted with his conciliar colleagues about the state of religion in Ireland, but what he presented to them, and to Archbishop Loftus, was not so much a series of points for discussion, as a series of measures and initiatives which he expected them to accept, and for which he was already well advanced in securing the Privy Council’s support. Like his cess policy, these ecclesiastical initiatives were grounded upon his own highly personal conception and utilization of the royal prerogative; while their intended end was nothing less than the construction of a genuinely national Church, that, at the very least, would have the bare essentials of a repaired church fabric and a properly constituted parochial clergy, and which would ultimately be subject to all the religious and ecclesiastical legislation passed since the accession of Elizabeth. The first of Sidney’s ecclesiastical initiatives was the recruitment of Dr George Acworth, a noted scholar, civil lawyer, and apologist for English Protestantism, whom the deputy had long admired, and who was now in a position to join his staff as his chief ecclesiastical official following the death in 1575 of Acworth’s patron, Archbishop Parker of Canterbury.58 In February or early March 1577, the deputy forced Archbishop Loftus to appoint Acworth as Official Principal and Vicar General of Dublin.59 Thus, with Sir William Gerrard, his colleague from the Council of Wales, already ensconced as Dean of St Patrick’s, it became apparent that Sidney, even if he could not abolish St Patrick’s, was still fully intent on establishing a controlling influence over the Dublin diocesan administration. Sidney’s ambition was strikingly represented by the activities of Acworth, who in a remarkable display of insubordination, ignored his archbishop and oversaw the judicial sacking of Loftus’s favoured Diocesan Registrar, John Bird.60 The ultimate aim of these measures was to forestall the possibility of any politically harmful opposition emerging to the deputy’s plans from within the Dublin diocesan administration. Sidney was not content, however, with subverting Loftus’s authority from the inside. He also sought to override it, and that of the other bishops, externally through two spectacular viceregal executions of the royal prerogative. On 18 March 1577 he erected a new Court of Faculties in Ireland, to which he appointed Acworth and the Irish-

58 On Acworth see Murray, ‘Tudor Diocese’, p. 269; L.G. Horton-Smith, George Acworth. A full account of his life together with a translation of his letters written in Latin and a complete refutation of all aspersions (St Albans, 1953). 59 Murray, ‘Tudor Diocese’, pp. 269–70. 60 J.R. Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council 1542–1604 (32 vols, London, 1890–1907), 1592, pp. 85–7; also Murray, ‘Tudor Diocese’, pp. 270.

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speaking civil lawyer, Robert Garvey, as judges.61 The new court was an amalgamated imitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faculty Office and Prerogative Court, but one which had national jurisdiction unlike the Canterbury versions. It was also ceded substantial parts of the bishops’ ordinary jurisdiction, including the right to visit all clergy and search for defects in their titles; the right to prove and insinuate wills and testaments, and to hear all testamentary causes; and the right to give dispensations for a wide variety of defects and ecclesiastical offences. For Sidney, it was a tribunal that was not only ultimately answerable to him, as the Queen’s viceroy, but one which he intended to use to make the established Church visible on the ground, in particular, by making available to the Irish clergy an alternative forum to the papal court for the acquisition of dispensations. Further, once such relationships were established between the court and the clergy, it would also provide an effective means of instituting basic reforms, particularly in relation to the maintenance of church fabric, and in improving the quality of the clergy. The erection of the Court of Faculties did not mark the end of the deputy’s assault on episcopal authority. In May 1577, Sidney disbanded the 1568 ecclesiastical commission, which had long been presided over by Archbishop Loftus, and administered by his diocesan officials, on the grounds ‘that her majesty had not been anything answered of the fines assessed by those commissioners’. Furthermore, under his own fiat, he established a new High Commission, and made sure that he was the dominant influence on it by packing it with supporters like Gerrard, Acworth, President Malby of Connaught and the vice-treasurer, Sir Edward Fitton.62 The radicalism and sheer aggression of Sidney’s assault upon the very institutions of English ecclesiastical administration in Ireland is best attributed neither to personality nor to some prevenient ideological disposition, neither of which is demonstrable. It is best viewed rather as a consequence of his previous efforts to initiate Reformation in Ireland a decade before. At that time he had recognized that the shock of the Edwardian innovations had lost the Crown the support of the one group from whom it might have expected support; and he had had sufficient experience of Ireland in the later 1550s to realise that the success of the Marian restoration made the task of re-instituting change more difficult 61 Fiants Ire., Elizabeth, no. 2996; ‘The contents of certain letters patent granted to George Acworth, doctor of the civil law, and Robert Garvey, for ecclesiastical jurisdiction, by them, and the survivor of them for the term of life to be exercised in Ireland’, c. December 1578 (SP 63/63, nos. 49, 50). 62 Fiants Ire., Elizabeth, no. 3047; ‘The opinion of her majesty’s learned council in the laws touching the validity of the ecclesiastical commission in Ireland’, n.d., c. winter 1579–80 (SP 63/71, no. 12).

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than ever. Out of this gloomy assessment he had, however, devised his own audacious strategy. First he would establish minimum standards of conformity. Then, through the utilization of key appointments, and key institutions, through intensive propaganda and constructive parliamentary legislation on schools, churches and a university, he would revitalize a broad coalition of support (or mere acceptance) among the laity of Ireland, English and Irish. And, finally, capitalizing on this broad foundation of support, he would move by force against the one corporate interest from whom he expected serious resistance, the clergy of the English Pale. In the crisis years of 1568–71, each of the components in Sidney’s carefully laid strategy was dismantled. Worse, his opponents had not only survived, they had been aided in their resistance by the well-meaning but, for Sidney, wholly misguided alternative strategy, devised by Chancellor Weston and Archbishop Loftus, which still believed it possible to harness the existing institutions of the English Church in Ireland to the cause of reformation by piecemeal intervention. It was the very ascendancy of this moderate and gradualist approach in the intervening years that convinced Sidney of the immediate and urgent need to undermine it, and the personal authority of the Archbishop upon which it rested, even before the programme of reformation was resumed. Not only were his initiatives designed to bring an end to the conciliatory tactics espoused by Weston and Loftus – a development which he hoped would soon be made plain in the actions of the newly manned High Commission. They were also calculated to cut across their carefully modulated efforts to present the reformation in non-innovatory, traditionalist, canonical terms. The claim that a mere viceroy – a secular officer who, as Archbishop Loftus tartly observed, exercised his office during the Queen’s pleasure only – could presume to create and rule over such august bodies as a High Commission and a court of faculties, was, of course, a brazen challenge to the general precept of the separation of Church from state.63 But in regard to Ireland in particular it gave the lie to the essential principle of the Weston–Loftus strategy that the Reformation there could be built upon the same ancient and authentic ground that the conservatives claimed for the old religion. It was inevitable, of course, that such a radical challenge should not go unopposed. And even as the resistance to his equally controversial plans for the transformation of cess was gathering in the Pale, aided by the conversion of another figure within the English administration, Sidney’s own Lord Chancellor, Sir William Gerrard, so the intended 63 Loftus to Walsingham, 16 March 1577, and to the Privy Council, 20 Feb 1579, SP 63/57/36; 65/42.

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victims of his attack on the established Church gained in strength. His proposal for the ‘English apostleship’ to investigate the state of the Irish Church was buried by the Privy Council; the legal and constitutional basis of his claims to establish a viceregal court of faculties and high commission were each vigorously challenged and subjected to the most damaging of criticisms before the Privy Council; the standing and conduct of his agents – especially George Acworth – were impugned.64 And together with the scandal of his conduct in regard to the cess, allegations of his high-handed behaviour to the Church all contributed to the fatal charge that Sidney had sought to take Ireland to farm as his own personal fiefdom.65 The combination of allegations that Sidney had over-reached his political, constitutional and ecclesiastical authority made his recall inevitable; and in its aftermath the elements of his second programme of reformation were dismantled as carefully and as thoroughly as those of the first. The Ecclesiastical Commission survived, of course, and with it the Court of Faculties, but crucially both now returned under the direction of Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, the very figure against whom Sidney had sought to employ them against. No action was made in relation to the churches; and George Acworth, again without a patron, was summarily dismissed.66 A sorry repetition. But what had been revealed in this increasingly bitter internal conflict that took place between the agents of English reform in Ireland in the 1560s and 1570s was more than a matter of personalities. The repeated failures of Sidney to enforce his strategy for reformation revealed the ultimate weakness of the viceroy as an agent of religious change: the subordination of state to church in policyformulation even as the Church itself lacked the power to offer effective alternatives in practice. But from with this even graver implications arose. From the beginning, the introduction of reformation in Ireland had provoked serious tensions within the English community in Ireland which functioned on several levels. At its simplest it arose in the material and political strain imposed by the English government’s increased intervention in the lives of the old colonial community. But problems of a more profound nature applied. The urgent need to secure a general assent throughout the island to the constitutional and 64 Notes on the validity of the commission for faculties passed in Ireland, 1578, SP 63/63/49–56; Garvey’s justification of the governor’s commission, Loftus’s answer to Garvey’s justification, January 1579, SP 63/65/2,8; Privy Council to Lord Justice Drury, 22 February 1579, SP 63/65/43. 65 See Gerrard’s ‘Observations on the government of Ireland’, March 1578 and his ‘Treatise on the reformation of Ireland’, c.1578: SP 63/60/29, British Library Cotton MS Titus B XII, fols 229–30. 65 Elizabeth to Lord Justice Drury, 4 March 1579, SP 63/66/7; PRO C82/1243.

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ecclesiastical changes consequent on the breach with Rome compelled the governors to adopt a far broader and more inclusive attitude toward the tasks of their office, even at the cost of diminishing the special place which had been traditionally accorded in their responsibilities to the descendants of the old colony. The dramatic changes of the mid-century had deepened the rift, making explicit what had been inherent in the constitutional and liturgical changes of the 1530s and early 1540s: that the successful establishment of the Reformation in Ireland would ultimately render the English colony’s claims of cultural superiority over the Irish irrelevant and anachronistic. And finally the very success of the English clergy in resisting change and in asserting their distinct identity sharpened the character of the intra-cultural conflict that was now gathering force. It is unnecessary to attempt to separate which among these elements was of greatest political force. Their cumulative strength was sufficient to provoke a split within the governing institutions themselves in which those who pursued the logic of reformation in all its radicalism were prevailed over by good counsels of moderation and caution. The victory of a cautious strategy of advancing reformation in Ireland through the traditionalist forms and institutions no doubt seemed the sensible approach to conservative right-thinking individuals like Weston and Loftus. But unbeknown to them it embodied also the desperate acknowledgement that the hope of constructing a genuinely unified Church in Ireland was an impossibility, and that the pretensions of the Church established by law in 1536 would forever remain a chimera.

CHAPTER TWO

Printing in Early SeventeenthCentury Dublin: Combating Heresy in Serpentine Times Elizabethanne Boran Stephen Jerome, writing in 1623, described Ireland as a ‘little bookish’ country and, when one examines the output of the printing press at Dublin in the early seventeenth century, one is initially inclined to agree.1 Scholars interested in printing in early modern Ireland casually dismiss the local printing operation in Dublin in the knowledge that it made far less impact on the home market than did the waves of imports coming in primarily from England, but also from mainland Europe.2 Our evidence for reliance on imports is substantial, as are derogatory contemporary comments on the state of the Irish book trade.3 Certainly the output of the Dublin press, only 109 titles for the period 1601 to 1 Stephen Jerome, Irelands Iubilee, or Ioyes Io-Paean, for Prince Charles his welcome home (Dublin, 1623), p. viii. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. 2 The standard work on the book trade in early modern Ireland is by Mary Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books 1550–1800 (Oxford, 1989), particularly ch. 1. A recent useful article is by Raymond Gillespie, ‘The Book Trade in Southern Ireland, 1590–1640’, in Gerald Long (ed.), Books beyond the Pale: Aspects of the Provincial Book Trade in Ireland before 1850 (Dublin, 1996), pp. 1–18. E.R. McC. Dix’s Printing in Dublin prior to 1601 (Dublin, 1932), and his Catalogue of the Early Dublin Printed Books, 1601–1700 (Dublin, 1898), are still relatively useful as a listing of works printed in Dublin in the period. On the troubled career of John Franckton, see R.J. Hunter, ‘John Franckton (d.1620): Printer, Publisher and Bookseller in Dublin’, in Charles Benson and Siobhán Fitzpatrick (eds), That Woman! Studies in Irish Bibliography: a Festschrift for Mary ‘Paul’ Pollard (Dublin, 2005), pp. 2–26. 3 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Irish Printing in the Early Seventeenth Century’, Irish Economic and Social History, 15 (1988), pp. 81–8; R.J. Hunter, ‘Chester and the Irish Book Trade, 1681’, Irish Economic and Social History, 15 (1988), pp. 89–93, though this article looks at the later period we have ample evidence in the developing collection of the library of Trinity College, Dublin, for the important role of the port of Chester; see J.P. Mahaffy (ed.), The Particular Book of Trinity College, Dublin (London, 1904), fol. 33v. This dependence on imports was not unusual, as one sees much the same phenomenon for example in Hungary; see David P. Daniel, ‘Publishing the Reformation in Habsburg Hungary’, in Robin B. Barnes, Robert A. Kolb and Paula L. Presley (eds), Books Have Their Own Destiny: Essays in Honor of Robert V. Schnucker (Missouri, 1998), pp. 57–60.

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1641 (a figure not including proclamations), compares badly with other centres of printing. Modern commentators have neglected the topic, convinced that the country ‘could produce at home little more than government proclamations’ and works by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher.4 However, the theological publications of the Dublin press, though slight in comparison with more active neighbours, illuminate the chief preoccupations of the colonial élite and in particular shed valuable light on their attitudes to heresy. Heresy in Ireland was perhaps an even thornier topic than usual as the colonial élite was far outnumbered by the Catholic Gaelic Irish, and was itself divided between the Catholic ‘Old English’ and protestant Anglo-Irish and New English settlers.5 In such a situation the role of the élite in defining what heresy was, and in developing strategies to combat it, was bound to prove difficult. As one polemicist, Sir Christopher Sibthorp, stated the problem in 1625, ‘The right Christians and true Catholickes ye call heretickes; & they that be the heretickes ye call the right Christians and true Catholickes.’6

Recusant works in early modern Ireland Our sources for heretical publishing in Ireland – that is, works by Catholic authors – are limited. That the rise of recusancy in early seventeenth-century Ireland was dependent on international imports seems clear.7 Sibthorp forlornly attempted to engender a panic among protestants by alluding to the ‘the Presse, which some say, the Papists have of their owne, within this kingdome’ but could not keep up this pretence for long, and in the following sentence went on to say that ‘if they have no Presse within this Kingdome, he [his opponent] might have sent or carried his Answere unto Doway, or to Rhemes, or to some other 4 Pollard, Dublin’s Trade, p. 1. Gillespie says that ‘most of the theological output of the Dublin presses was the work of one man, James Ussher’; ‘Irish Printing’, p. 85. 5 Alan Ford, ‘James Ussher and the Creation of an Irish Protestant Identity’, in Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts (eds), British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533–1707 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 186. 6 Christopher Sibthorp, manuscript answer to William Malone incorporated into his A Reply to an Answere, which a Popish adversarie made to two Chapters conteined in the first part of that Booke, which is intituled a Friendly Advertisement to the Pretended Catholickes of Ireland (Dublin, 1625), fol. 3v. 7 Colm Lennon has provided an excellent investigation of the role played by the Irish diaspora in the re-fashioning of confessional identity in his essay ‘Taking sides: The Emergence of Irish Catholic Ideology’, in Vincent P. Carey and Ute Lotz-Heumann (eds), Taking Sides? Colonial and Confessional Mentalités in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp. 78–93.

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place beyond the Seas, where it might have beene printed, if they had held it worth the Printing’.8 Sibthorp seemed content to refer to the Dublin press by the term ‘Protestant Presse’ and was aghast at his adversary’s audacious suggestion that his refutation of Sibthorp should be printed there – a suggestion which Sibthorp considered to be ‘a verie bold, unseeming and strange request’ since ‘the very name of a Protesant Presse (if there were no more) might have been sufficient to tell you, that it were utterly unmeete, for Popish workes to come into it’.9 Catholic authors agreed with this assessment. Henry Fitzsimons, the Jesuit controversialist, derided his opponent John Rider in his polemical battling by saying that though Rider had provoked the controversy he had debarred Fitzsimons from publishing his work.10 His fellow Jesuit apologist, William Malone, in his attack on James Ussher, apologized for the delay in publishing his work but commented that he was sure of being excused since the reader well knew that ‘it could not obtaine the benefit of the Print at home, and therefore was constrained to undergoe a long and dangerous iourney to speed elsewhere’.11 Roman Catholic authors, then, while not entirely banished from the ‘Protestant Presse’ (for reasons which we will examine later), were unlikely to gain access for the vast majority of their works. It seems unlikely that they had their own presses in Dublin.12 References are 8 Christopher Sibthorp, Manuscript answer to Malone the Jesuit, incorporated into his A Reply to an Answere, Preface to the Reader. 9 Christopher Sibthorp, A Surreplication to the Reioynder of a Popish Adversarie. Wherein, The Spirituall Supremacy of Christ Iesus, in his Church; and the Civill or Temporall Supremacie of Emperours, Kings, and Princes within their owne Dominions, over Persons Ecclesiasticall & in causes also Ecclesiasticall, (Aswell as Civill and Temporall) be yet further declared, defended, and maintained against him (Dublin, 1627), Preface to the Reader, pp. 8–9. 10 Henry Fitzsimon, A Catholike Confutation of M. Iohn Riders clayme of antiquitie and a calming comford against his caveat. In which is demonstrated by assurances, even of Protestants, that al Antiquitie, for al points of Religion in controversie, is repugnant to Protestancie (Rouen, 1608), Epistle of the Autour to Master Iohn Rider, Sig. O1r. For a discussion of this particular dispute see Brian Jackson, ‘The Construction of Argument: Henry Fitzsimon, John Rider and Religious Controversy in Dublin, 1599–1614’, in Ciaran Brady and Jane H. Ohlmeyer (eds), British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 97–115. 11 William Malone, A Reply to Mr. James Ussher his Answere. Wherein it is discovered hovv Ansvverlesse the said Mr. Ussher returneth. The vniforme consent also of Antiquity is declared to stande for the Roman Religion: And the ANSVVERER is conuinced of vanity in challenging the Patronage of the Doctors of the Primatiue Church for his Protestancy (Douai, 1627), The Preface to the Christian Reader, Sig. E2v. 12 Bruce Dickins, ‘The Irish Broadside of 1571 and Queen Elizabeth’s Types’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 1 (1949), p. 60, suggests that damage caused to the types may indicate ‘some slight evidence that a clandestine press which printed in Irish was (as might have been expected) at work in Dublin in the

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indeed made to publications flooding ‘all the Oratoryes of Dublin’ but these may well have been printed on the Continent and unfortunately broadsheets have a poor record of surviving.13 Contemporary references refer solely to works being smuggled in from either England or recusant centres in primarily Belgium and France.14 The works produced in Louvain, Brussels, Douai, Salamanca and Rome, to name but the most obvious centres of recusant printing, were predominantly in Latin and were hence, with few exceptions, intended for a much wider audience than a solely Irish or English one. The Jesuit Henry Fitzsimons refers to this in his A Catholike Confutation of M. Iohn Riders clayme of antiquitie and a calming comfort against his caveat (Rouen, 1608) when he says that his choice of the English language is partly because he wishes to hide the low quality of Rider’s debate from the rest of Europe.15 Notwithstanding the obvious polemical note here I think that in the vast majority of cases, with possibly such exceptions as some of Christopher Holywood’s and Richard Stanihurst’s texts and Fitzsimons’ own Britannomachia ministrorum in plerisque et fidei fundamentis et fidei articulis dissidentium (Douai, 1614), works in Latin were generally not intended solely for the laity in Ireland. Catholics in Ireland were more usually targeted by the use of either Irish or English, depending on the constituency involved in production and the intended audience. The Franciscans, for example, were at the forefront of the drive to print devotional works in Irish for the Gaelicspeaking part of the Irish Catholic Church. Bonaventure O’Hussey’s two works, An teasasg criosdaidhe (Antwerp, 1611, 2nd edition 1615 at Louvain) and Dan do rinne an brath bos dord S. Proinsias Bonabeantura Ó Heodhasa (also printed at Louvain in 1615), were two of the first Gaelic texts to emanate from the press of the Irish Franciscans in Louvain and were soon followed by such works as Florence Conry’s seventeenth century’. However, his evidence for this in itself seems slight and it is highly unlikely that the type would have been loaned to recusants in this manner. In England, for example, there had been a dramatic clampdown on illegal printing presses by this time; see David Loades, ‘Illicit Presses and Clandestine Printing in England, 1520–90’, in David Loades (ed.), Politics, Censorship and the English Reformation (London, 1991), pp. 109–26; Leona Rostenberg, The Minority Press and the English Crown: A Study in Repression, 1538–1625 (Nieuwkoop, 1971), pp. 31–9, 43–50. 13 Paul Harris, The Excommunication Published by the L. Archbishop of Dublin Thomas Fleming, alias Barnwell, Friar of the Order of S. Francis, against the Inhabitants of the Diocese of Dublin, for hearing the Masses of Peter Caddell D. of Divinity, and Paul Harris, Priests, is proved not onely injust, but of no validity, and consequently binding to no obedience (Dublin, 1633), Preface to the judicious Reader. 14 James Ussher to Samuel Ward, 15 Sept 1635, in C.R. Elrington (ed.), The Whole Works of the most Reverend James Ussher D.D. (17 vols, Dublin, 1864) [hereafter UW], vol. 16, p. 9. 15 Fitzsimon, Catholike Confutation, Epistle of the Autour to Master Iohn Rider, Sig. Or.

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Emanuel leabhar ina bhuil modh iarrata & fhaghala fhoirbhtheachda na beathad raighaltha ar attugadh drong airighte sgáthan an chrábhaidh drong oile Desiderius (Louvain, 1616); Hugh Mac Caghwell’s Scathan shacramuinte na haithridhe (Louvain, 1618) and John Stuart’s Suim riaghlacha S. Phroinsiais go hathchum a nGaoidhilg (Louvain, c.1616).16 Not only the language involved but also the format of these particular works indicate their intended audiences. Florence Conry’s octavo was the largest of the works – the others predominantly being produced in either duodecimo or sixteenmo. Books geared towards the Irish and English markets were invariably produced in these smaller sizes, octavos or duodecimos, compared with the much larger folios and quartos used for publication of recusant works in Latin.17 The reason for this was not only that the smaller size made the operation much cheaper and hence more copies could be printed, but also, and perhaps more importantly in the political situation in England and Ireland, such smaller works were more easily hidden on the person – a small duodecimo could be easily put in a pocket as opposed to the more unwieldy octavos and folios. If, as Gilmont has said, the size of a book affected how one read it, then the opposite might be equally valid.18 In Ireland, where possession of such recusant works could prove dangerous, it made sense to produce clandestine works in these smaller formats.19 This trend can also be deduced in the recusant works produced in English for the other part of the Catholic market in Ireland – the Old English. John Copinger’s A Mnemosynum or memorial to the afflicted Catholickes in Irelande (Bordeaux, 1606) was also published in a small format octavo and was evidently intended to be easily carried on the person in order to be of more use as a devotional text in times of trouble. Copinger’s other work (likewise printed in octavo) was A theatre of catholique and Protestant religion (St Omer, 1620). Both these works were unabashedly written for a Catholic audience, with little thought to possible conversion of the protestant part of the population in Ireland, and as such they continued a trend prevalent in the Gaelic works 16 It has been suggested that the Franciscan drive to print works in Irish at this time was not only a response to earlier protestant initiatives but also, as Hugh Mac Caghwell says in his Scathan shacramuinte na haithridhe (Louvain, 1618), ‘because of the violence of the persecution, we are not allowed to engage in oral instruction’. 17 See M.O. Walsh, ‘Irish Books Printed Abroad 1470–1700’, The Irish Book, 2 no. 1 (1962–63), pp. 1–36. Walsh does, however, inadvertently include at least one work by a Puritan – William Temple – in this list. 18 Jean François Gilmont, ‘Printing at the Dawn of the Sixteenth Century’, in J.F. Gilmont (ed.), The Reformation and the Book (Aldershot, 1998), p. 16. 19 The format of these works produced by the recusant presses may also be contrasted with those of the Dublin press, which evidently favoured quartos and some folios, with octavo formats evidently less well liked for theological publications.

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mentioned above. Copinger’s Mnemosynum clearly addressed the ‘afflicted Catholickes’, urging them to embrace their afflictions as a sign of divine grace, since ‘there is no greater temptation, then not to be tempted, no greater trouble then not to be troubled, no greater chastisment, then not to be chastised, nor no greater whip then not to be scurged of God’.20 His decision to end his work with Cyprian’s exhortation to martyrdom, while consequent with the rest of his work, was perhaps not likely to appeal to his audience! Though he declared in his 1620 work that the aim of this book was to ‘serue for the reclaiming of deceaued soules into the sheepfould of Iesus Christ; for the confusion of Heretiques, and consolation of Catholiques’, the work continued this trend of concentrating on his core audience at home rather than trying to convert Calvinists.21 Indeed, rather than initiate encounters with protestants in order to convert them, Copinger urged his readers to shun all Calvinists since heresy was ‘an infernall and contagious mischieffe … neither is there any other remedie but to flie’.22 Far from entering the lists of religious polemic, Copinger’s readers were instead advised that they ‘should be loath to dispute with Protestantes’ and that ‘every man ought not to dispute or doubte of the cheefest misteries of Catholike religion, but believe them simply with the universall Church’.23 In his view there was ‘no other security, then to be far from such an infernall and contagious mischeefe, which with the name of Christe, destroyeth Christ in our hartes’.24 This decision of Copinger’s to maintain a distance between the intellectual ramparts of Catholicism and Protestantism was not the dominant strategy of Catholic apologists writing for the Englishspeaking Catholic market in Ireland. Given their own kinship links with the Old English, the Jesuits were at the forefront of attempts to hold the Old English constituency safe from the inroads of Calvinist polemic, and identified controversy as a key weapon in this regard.25 Far from hiding away in an attempt to maintain ‘purity’ of faith, the Jesuits felt that they had to go on the attack and convince the Old English of the essential truth of Catholicism. The two great controversial set piece battles between Catholics and protestants in early seventeenth-century Ireland 20 John Copinger, A Mnemosynum or memorial to the afflicted Catholickes in Irelande (Bordeaux, 1606), p. 27. 21 John Copinger, A theatre of catholique and Protestant religion (St Omer, 1620), Epistle Dedicatory, p. 8. 22 Ibid., Preface to the Reader, p. 21. 23 Ibid., pp. 22 and 23. 24 Ibid., p. 21. 25 See Fergus Michael O’Donoghue, ‘The Jesuit Mission in Ireland, 1598–1651’, unpublished PhD thesis, Catholic University of America, 1981, on this point.

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were initiated by the Jesuits – Henry Fitzsimon against John Rider in 1608, and William Malone against James Ussher in the 1620s. The works produced by these writers were initially for the Old English market, and in the case of Fitzsimon’s later work, The Iustification and Exposition of the Divine Sacrifice of the Masse, and of al rites and ceremonies (Douai, 1611), quite distinctly sought to appeal to Old English families in Dublin. However, being works of polemic it was recognized that their readership would necessarily extend to Calvinists. The importance of these works and their slightly different function in the eyes of their progenitors was mirrored by the decision to print them in the more costly but slightly more durable quarto format – a format which would also allow the borders of these works to be annotated by commentators. Language, format and above all else para-textual material can tell us much about the intended audiences of these recusant works published on the Continent for consumption in Ireland. What they cannot tell us is whether these works actually reached their target audiences. The broad references to works being smuggled into Ireland are too general to admit much interpretation. We are equally hampered in our investigations concerning the dissemination of heretical material in Ireland by the lack of library collections which survive and hence, while we have much evidence for projected audiences, we have little for actual ones. We can, however, examine their impact by examining the issues raised in protestant refutations of them printed in Dublin. Through this rather darkened glass one can investigate the key areas of contention but also, and perhaps more importantly, see how the élite in Dublin sought to deal with heretical positions – in effect how they tried to control the debate about heresy – and enforce intellectual conformity. Naturally not all the publications of the Dublin press were specifically designed to target heresy, the 1621 edition of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia being only the most obvious example. We must also be careful in assuming that all works published in Dublin were intended to have a solely local audience. Though financial considerations usually deemed it more lucrative to print nearest one’s market, other factors might play a role in determining the choice of the Dublin press by an author. Presses in England might not be open to some of the works issuing from Ireland.26 Dr John Prideaux, Rector of Exeter College, writing to James 26 Certainly when George Downham, Bishop of Meath, published his Covenant of Grace (Dublin, 1631), it met censure and indeed censorship in England. Perhaps distance from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s investigative system may have encouraged those disagreeing with the increasingly anti-Calvinist nature of the doctrinal position of some members of the English hierarchy to print their works in Dublin.

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Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, on 27 August 1628, stated the situation for Oxford: Of your purpose of printing Ignatius here, I never heard. It had been little civility in men, not to have answered so gracious an invitation. I am loath to speak, but the truth is, our Oxford presses are not for pieces of that coin. We can print here, Smiglecius the Jesuit’s metaphysical logic, and old John Buridane’s ploddings upon the ethics. But matters that entrench nearer upon true divinity, must be more strictly overseen.27

Certainly Ussher’s decision to publish a number of his works in Latin suggests a wish to reach a wider audience than a merely local one. However, these caveats being noted, it seems clear that the vast majority of texts printed in Dublin were designed for the home market. The fact that many of the theological treatises had their genesis as sermons, delivered to particular congregations in Ireland, makes them even more valuable for our purpose, notwithstanding the inherent divergences between a sermon and the revised publication version for the press. It is this section of the press that I have chosen to concentrate on, not only because of its numerical predominance but also because it is in these publications that we see the elaboration of the Church of Ireland’s concept of and methodology for combating heresy.28

Defining heresy in early modern Ireland The principal task of protestant commentators was, of course, to define what constituted heresy. Church of Ireland writers were agreed on the chief characteristics of heresy – characteristics which in the main were also used by recusant authors. For Sibthorp, just as for his Catholic opponents, heresy was one of the marks of the Antichrist.29 It was both 27

UW, vol. 15, p. 419. Needless to say many of the proclamations also attempted to deal with heresy – mainly by banishing priests from the realm. For governmental policy see Alan Ford, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland 1590–1641 (Dublin, 1997), and John McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester. Lord Deputy of Ireland 1605–16 (Belfast, 1998). For the earlier period see Brendan Bradshaw, ‘Sword, Word and Strategy in the Reformation in Ireland’, Historical Journal, 21.3 (1978), pp. 475–502. Declan Gaffney, in his article ‘The Practice of Religious Controversy in Dublin, 1600–1641’, in W.J. Sheils and Diana Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History 25 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 145–58, rightly points out that manuscripts played an important role in religious controversy in Dublin but given the increased potential of printed works to reach wider audiences I have decided in this chapter to limit my remarks to printed works. 29 Christopher Sibthorp, A Friendly Advertisement to the pretended Catholickes of Ireland (Dublin, 1623), p. 30. 28

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devilish and pestilential and in George Andrewe’s eyes, unless the government in Ireland intervened to ‘carrie the filth out of the Sanctuarie’, would spread throughout the entire Church.30 This theme of infection was particularly popular and Stephen Jerome, in his sermon of 1623, ostensibly written to celebrate the safe return from Spain of Prince Charles, declared his relief that the prince was now no longer in a place where ‘any corrupted Popish ayre’ might ‘infect his royall bloud’.31 The concept of heresy as disease had been a commonplace in the writings of St Augustine for whom heretics ‘sua pestifera et mortifera dogmata emendare nolunt’, and the authority of such a source made this analogy of disease a popular one in both Catholic and protestant typologies.32 As might be expected, New Testament analogies of the Church as a sheepfold were widespread, and naturally led to a portrayal of the enemies of the Church as ‘raving wolves’ and goats.33 This theme was also used by Jesuit controversialists such as Fitzsimon who suggested to his reader that Rider’s Friendly Caveat of 1602 was a ‘wolueishe hypocrisie under a lambs contenance’, thus combining the themes of lupine behavior with hypocrisy, the latter a charge that Church of Ireland writers were equally willingly to lay at the door of their opponents.34 Though both groups identified heresy with ‘synagogues’ they were far more interested in the identification of a heretic as a rebellious member of the Church and society.35 Church of Ireland writers such as Sibthorp, Ussher and George Synge paid particular attention to this theme, given its peculiar resonance in early modern Ireland where the Catholic Old English proclaimed their allegiance to the Crown but refused to take the oath of supremacy. Their refusal to either take the oath or indeed listen 30 George Andrewe, A Quaternion of Sermons preached in Ireland in the Summer season 1624, The First Sermon, viz. The Temple Purger, preached at Christ Church in Dublin on Whitsunday May 16 1624. Before the Most Honourable the Lord Deputie of Ireland and Councell of State in that Kingdome (Dublin, 1625), p. 22. 31 Jerome, Ireland’s Jubilee (Dublin, 1623), p. 212. 32 ‘Refuse to amend their pestiferous and deadly dogmas’; St Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, Bk. 18, ch. 51; see R.W. Dyson (ed. and trans.), The City against the Pagans (Cambridge, 1998), p. 898. 33 George Andrewe, The Third Sermon, viz. The Shepheard and the Sheepe, Preached at Ennis in Thomond, and In the Diocese of Killaloe. In the time of the generall Assizes, holden there, for the Countie of Clare. Iuly the xx, 1624. Before the Right Honourable the Earle of Thomond, And before the Lords Iustices of Ssize for that Countie, and before the Reverend Father in God, Iohn, Lord Bishop of that Diocese (Dublin, 1625), p. 51. 34 Joshua Hoyle, A Reioynder to Master Malone’s Reply concerning Real Presence (Dublin, 1641), p. 662. Fitzsimon, Catholic Confutation, Preface: To the Catholiques of Irland of all Estates, and Degrees. 35 Christopher Hampton, An Inquisition of the true Church, and those that revolt from it. Being a sermon pronounced at the second Session of the Parliament (Dublin, 1622), p. 6; Fitzsimon, Catholike Confutation, Dedication to the Catholickes of Ireland.

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to the preaching of reformers was yet another sign of their heresy, for obstinacy was one of the chief signs of a heretic.36 While these characteristics might, to the discerning eye, be quite obvious, there were more specific methods of identifying heretics. In order to successfully do this, one had, in the words of George Synge, writing against the Jesuit Malone, to ‘point out their beginning’, and for many protestant commentators the beginning of all heresy was the incorrect reading of Scripture.37 Sibthorp spoke for many when he declared that: For an Hereticke is hee, that stifly and obstinately holdeth & maintaineth an error in matter of Faith, against the manifest authoritie of the Canonical Scriptures. So that, not what men hold, but what God holdeth to be error & heresie, is so to be reputed … yea, by this rule, Papists cleerly are to bee iudged Hereticks.38

The over-dependence of Roman Catholics on authority other than Scripture – their obsession with unwritten traditions – was likewise another mark of a heretic. Roger Puttock was anxious to point out that this dependence on unwritten traditions was, one might say, a traditional mark of a heretic, and that just as Irenaeus had fought against a similar heresy, so he too was fighting a successor to these ancient heretics.39 Coupled with attitudes to the Bible and tradition was the third indicator of heresy, attitude to patristics. This third method became more popular in the 1620s in the Irish publications, particularly following the Malone–Ussher debate which examined this very theme. Ussher advocated a fourth method of dividing heretics from the godly by examining the stance taken on the sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper. In a sermon which was both preached and printed in London, but which was equally applicable to the situation in Dublin, he appealed to his auditors, in this case the members of the House of Commons, to look on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as an ‘ignis probationis which would both congregare homogenea, and segregare 36 For example, Stephen Jerome wondered in 1623 what was the source of ‘all this obstinacie? Obdurancie? Refractorie pervernesse?’; see Ireland’s Iubilee (Dublin, 1623), p. 42. 37 George Synge, A Reioynder to the Reply published by the Iesuites under the name of William Malone (Dublin, 1632), p. 18. Synge is paraphrasing St Jerome on the method of identifying heresies – this tactic was agreed on by both sides, as William Malone’s use of the same argument demonstrates; Malone, Reply, p. 1. 38 Sibthorp, Friendly Advertisement, p. 414. 39 Roger Puttock, A Reioynder unto William Malone’s Reply to the First Article, wherein The Founders of unwritten Traditions are confounded, out of the sure foundation of Scripture, and the true Tradition of the Church (Dublin, 1632), p. 137. This tactic of assimilating one’s opponents’ views with earlier heresies was a favourite with both sides. See Alan Ford’s chapter in this collection for a detailed examination of this theme.

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heterogenea’.40 This ‘ignis probationis’ was linked to the fifth method of segregating godly from ungodly – their attitudes to idolatry. The latter was a theme especially developed by Ussher who argued that in their superstitious view of the sacrament of the Eucharist, Catholics were in effect demonstrating their idolatrous nature: Whereby we may collect thus much, that as the Lords Supper is a seale of our coniunction one with another, and with Christ our Head; so is it an evidence of our disiunction from Idolaters, binding us to disavow all communion with them in their false worship.41

Divisiveness might also be construed as an indicator of a heretical tendency but at times Church of Ireland authors were eager to use division, if not divisiveness, as a plank in their polemical platform. Far from arguing that all Catholics were heretics, Sibthorp argued that God has given him the ability ‘to defend and maintaine the true and Christian Religion I professe, against that which is untruly called the Christian and Catholike, and is, indeed the false, erroneous, and Antichristian’.42 In his view, ‘the terme of Catholicks, which Papists have put upon themselves, their calling themselves so, doth not therefore prove them to be so’.43 For Sibthorp the question was ‘who be the right Catholickes?’44 Protestant polemicists were eager to make a distinction between the early Church and the later ‘Popish Church’ dominated by the papal Antichrist, and argued that dependence on unwritten traditions had not always been the dominant characteristic of the Catholic Church. Christopher Hampton, the Archbishop of Armagh, led the way in this regard, declaring that he dared not ‘wholly take away the name of a Church from it’.45 It was ‘a Church but miserably deformed and infected with infinite errors’.46 Such arguments, designed as they were to separate the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘papist’, was not only part of a general European-wide attempt on the part of the various protestant denominations to claim descent from the early Church, but in Ireland was considered more likely to appeal to the sensibilities of the Old English, allowing them in effect to maintain their allegiance to the ‘Catholic Church’, but severing any links with the Church of Rome. Controversies such as the Fitzsimons–Rider polemic and the 40 James Ussher, Sermon preached before the House[s] of Parliament, St. Margaret’s Church at Westminster, the 18th of February 1620 (London, 1621), p. 2. 41 Ibid., p. 26. 42 Sibthorp, Friendly Advertisement, preface, p. 3. 43 Ibid., p. 30. 44 Ibid., p. 49. 45 Christopher Hampton, An Inquisition of the true Church, and those that revolt from it. Being a sermon pronounced at the second Session of the Parliament (Dublin, 1622), p. 18. 46 Ibid., p. 19.

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Malone–Ussher debate allow us examine the key points of controversy between the two groups and it is not surprising to see that the issues were much the same as those preoccupying their continental neighbours – though inevitably, given the political situation, papal supremacy and its Antichristian nature formed the basis of most treatises written in English, and hence theoretically at least, targeted the English-speaking part of the community, whether Old English or New English.47 A number of sermons and treatises were issued concerned solely with the difficult doctrines of predestination, justification, and perseverance in grace, and it is clear that while some were designed to act as introductions to the subjects for potential converts, always stressing the more user-friendly doctrine of justification by faith and election rather than the slightly more depressing doctrine of double predestination, most were primarily concerned with defending the doctrine from Catholic attacks, particularly by authors such as Robert Bellarmine. In fact, in all the treatises, the chief opponent was identified as Bellarmine, and indeed we are told by one writer, Joshua Hoyle, the influential Professor of Theological Controversies in Trinity College, Dublin, that Bellarmine’s controversies of the Real Presence had occupied his studies for ‘the better part of seven years’!48 Bellarmine had unfailingly put his finger on the weak point of the protestant doctrine of justification, the certainty of grace, and George Dowhnam spent many pages of his 1631 treatise assuring Bellarmine that once one had received special faith one could not lose it – a key pastoral question in Calvinist circles.49

Combating heresy: textual strategies and audiences However, my main concern here is not so much to list the various 47 See, for example, the disputes between Sibthorp and an unknown Catholic author in the early 1620s and the later dispute between Malone and Ussher – not to mention the subsequent outpourings of George Synge, Roger Puttock and Joshua Hoyle. The Antichristian theme was a particular favourite with the more apocalyptic minded Puritan writers. The prevalent apocalypticism in the Church of Ireland made the fight against heresy appear even more urgent. On the issue of language I think that we must be wary of too readily concluding that the choice of English automatically indicates a projected Old English audience – see Gaffney, ‘Religious Controversy’, p. 146. In theory this sounds plausible but para-textual material, especially letters to readers sometimes indicate a more narrowly based readership. 48 Joshua Hoyle, A Reioynder to Master Malone’s Reply concerning Real Presence (Dublin, 1641), Dedication to Ussher f. 1v. On the importance of the role of Trinity College as a seminary of the Church of Ireland in the later seventeenth century see T.C. Barnard’s chapter in the present volume. 49 George Downame, The Covenant of Grace or An Exposition upon Luke 1.73,74,75. By George Downame Doctour of Divinity, and Bishop of Derry (Dublin, 1631).

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disputes, but to investigate how the authorities sought to combat Roman Catholic authors. There were a number of strategies by which Irish protestant writers sought to contain the outpourings of their Catholic counterparts. Catholic authors were, as we have seen, denied access to the Dublin printing press but there could be more implicit forms of censorship.50 Sibthorp, somewhat ironically, declared his intention in his 1627 treatise A Surreplication to the Reioynder of a Popish Adversarie to exclude the text of his opponent since his own earlier text had not been appended to the latter’s ‘Answer to Sibthorp’.51 It is clear that authors were less than eager to publish counter-tracts with their own, fearful lest any unsuspecting reader might possibly be impressed by their opponents’ claims. Church of Ireland ministers were particularly anxious that the laity might be spared such contentious issues, for an unskilled reading of heretical works could prove fatal to one’s spiritual health. James Ussher referred to this problem in his advice to preachers, urging them to beware in the pulpit of expounding: 1. Heresies, never tell what they were or who were the Authors: for many had never knowne Arrianisme nor what Arrius was; had not the Minister told them. 2. Controversies, state ye but make not any objections, for many take such hold of that coming first that the Answere does not satisfy them.52

Some years before this he had also pointed out the dangers of ‘popish books’ and had suggested that new additions to the library of Trinity College, the intellectual powerhouse of the Irish Reformation, should be kept separately, lest any undergraduate reader be unintentionally misled.53 This understandable tendency to avoid printing refutations of one’s arguments went deeper than merely refraining from the actual text. When one reads these sermons one gradually becomes aware that a more indirect type of censorship is at work, namely that references to contemporary Roman Catholic authors are kept to an absolute 50 Ironically the monopoly of John Francton also ensured an indirect censorship of Church of Ireland writers since Francton’s press was less than active due to his increasing age. We see this in Ussher’s attempts to get Sibthorp’s book printed in London in 1610 – UW, vol. 15, pp. 62, 68. The situation only improved on the death of Francton and the sale of the franchise to the Company of Stationers in 1618. On Francton’s monopoly and its implications see Mary Pollard, ‘Control of the Press in Ireland through the King’s Printer’s Patent’, Irish Booklore, 4 (1978), pp. 79–83. 51 Christopher Sibthorp, Surreplication, Letter to Reader. 52 Queen’s College, Oxford, MS 217, fol. 42r. 53 UW, vol. 16, p. 319.

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minimum, and when a name is inadvertently used one is not, as in the case of protestant authors, immediately directed to the relevant work.54 Sibthorp does indeed make frequent references to Bellarmine and ‘the Rhemists’ but is eager to point out confutations of their works. Indeed, apart from Bellarmine, ‘that Goliath of the Papists’, Gregory Martin is one of the few figures that Sibthorp and Downham highlight, and though brief references to other sixteenth-century sources such as Suarez are included, it is clear that there is a definite policy of avoiding contemporary Jesuit authors’ works.55 Indeed the only time we find any sort of list of possibly contentious authors is in a list of protestant refutations of them.56 If authors had to be mentioned, Sibthorp counselled the reader to balance his reading of these dangerous works by immediately reading refutations of them.57 Sibthorp was definitely not alone in this policy. Stephen Jerome’s Ireland’s Jubilee of 1624, Henry Leslie’s Treatise tending to Unitie of 1623, the four sermons of George Andrewes, Dean of Limerick, printed in 1625, to name but some of the works, all demonstrate this tactic of avoidance of reference to relevant material from Catholic controversialists, especially those works in the English language. Indeed key Catholic controversialists such as William Allen and Thomas Stapleton are cited very briefly compared to the impact of their works. There was, however, one way one could justifiably use Catholic authors (though again not giving chapter and verse) and that was in citing them in refutation of one’s main opponents. This was a favourite device and Calvinist writers no doubt derived a particular pleasure when they could catch Bellarmine out on a point – or use him against Irish or English Jesuit authors. This strategy was perhaps taken to its zenith in 1633 when the ‘Protestant Presse’ actually published a number of treatises by a Roman Catholic Priest, Paul Harris.58 A brief glance at the 54 One of the few exceptions to this was James Ussher’s An Epistle concerning the Religion of the Ancient Irish (Dublin, 1622), later reprinted in London as A Discourse of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British (London, 1631). However, Ussher does exhibit the tendency in other works, even when it is clear that he is refuting contemporary Catholic tracts. His decision not to include sixteenth-century Catholic sources in his catalogues which accompany his treatises is another manifestation of this development and in this sense contrasts with the phenomenon identified by Alison Shiel in England, where formal catalogues of ‘popish books’ were printed as a deterrent – a guide to what to avoid; see Alison Sheil, ‘Anti-Catholic Prejudice in the 17th Century Book Trade’, in Robin Myers and Michael Harris (eds), Censorship and the Control of Print in England and France, 1600–1910 (Winchester, 1992), p. 43. 55 George Downame, Covenant of Grace, p. 235. 56 Christopher Sibthorp, manuscript answer to Malone the Jesuit incorporated into his A Reply to an Answere, fol. 2v. 57 Sibthorp, Friendly Advertisement, p. 71. 58 The Dublin press may possibly have published a tract by another Catholic priest –

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title of the first treatise immediately explains this seeming departure: The Excommunication Published by the L. Archbishop of Dublin Thomas Fleming, alias Barnwell, Friar of the Order of S. Francis, against the Inhabitants of the Diocese of Dublin, for hearing the Masses of Peter Caddell D. of Divinity, and Paul Harris, Priests, is proved not onely unjust, but of no validity, and consequently binding to no obedience (Dublin, 1633). The title of a subsequent work is even more enlightening: Fratres Sobrii Estote. 1. Pet. 5.8. or An admonistion to the Fryars of this Kingdome of Ireland, to abandon such heretical doctrines as they daylie publish to the corruption of our holy faith, the ruine of soules, and their owne damnation which sleepeth not (Dublin, 1634). These works by Harris proved to be a propaganda coup for the Calvinist press in Dublin as Harris sought to defend his own position by whatever means he could. His denunciations of the Roman Catholic hierarchy as heretics, and his listing of their heresies, allowed the protesant élite to make the most of tensions within the Catholic Church in Ireland, tensions primarily connected to the cure of souls and the competing claims by various orders and secular clergy. The fact that Harris had earlier been an opponent of James Ussher’s surely made his 1630s tracts even more piquant to his publishers.59 A more obvious strategy in treatises was the constant denigration of the author’s style. The insult of calling one’s opponent ‘a punie divine’ was not unique, and was indicative of the constant undermining of the prestige of their adversaries.60 Roger Puttock, in 1632, comments on Malone’s style in the following manner: he was ‘giggling like a goose, in babbling eloquence, and by barking like a dogge in slaunders and reproaches’.61 Bellarmine’s deductions are reduced to syllogistic form by the Ramist George Downham, in an indirect attempt to demonstrate the convoluted thinking in Bellarmine’s work. Protestant authors, on the other hand, prided themselves on the clarity of their treatises, and the more didactically inclined sometimes indulged in a question and answer format. Some, consciously or unconsciously, also use psychological techniques to entice their audience. George Downham, in his massive tome on the perseverance of saving faith, his 1631 treatise The Covenant Luke Rochfort’s An Antidot for Lazinesse, 1624. The font used suggests a font popular in Dublin and perhaps the subject matter, which relates primarily to moral weakness, may account for this seeming departure on the part of the ‘Protestant Press’. For Rochfort see John Brady, ‘Archdeacon Luke Rochfort and his Circle’, Reportorium Novum, 3 (1962), pp. 108–20. 59 Paul Harris, A brief confutation of certain absurd hereticall and damnable doctrines delivered by Mr. James Ussher (St Omer, 1627). 60 Sibthorp, A Reply to an Answer, p. 96. 61 Puttock, Reioynder, Letter to the Reader.

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of Grace, spends hundreds of pages detailing his own arguments so that by the time the reader reaches his brief summary of Bellarmine’s points one has already either become exhausted or convinced of Downham’s propositions. Some authors, and especially Ussher, tried to appeal to their reader’s sense of nationality, and their pride in the Ireland of saints and scholars. Far from castigating all Catholics, Ussher went to great lengths to show that the Church of Ireland was the true heir of the traditions of the ancient Irish Church. His use of the possessive pronoun in the following passage is telling: ‘For our monasteries in ancient times were the seminaries of the ministry … the benefit whereof was not only contained within the limits of this island, but did extend itself to foreign countries likewise.’62 He was careful to link his arguments with the declarations of ancient Irish writers, and to contrast the utterances of Sedulius with later papal authorities: As for the censure of the doctors of Salamanca and Valladolid, our nobility and gentry, by the faithful service which at that time they performed unto the crown of England, did make a real confutation of it, of whose fidelity in this kind I am so well perswaded, that I do assure myself, that neither the names of Franciscus Zumel and Alphonsus Curiel … either then was or hereafter will be of any force, to remove them one whit from the allegiance and duty which they do owe unto their king and country.

His declaration was designed to appeal to a sense of identity fostered in Old English circles.63 Yet such indirect attempts to convince an audience were not the only weapon in Calvinist controversial arguments. Some used their treatises and sermons to directly appeal to the Lord Deputies and the Dublin Government for active intervention. An example of this par excellence is Henry Leslie’s A treatise tending to Unitie, which was a publication of a sermon preached by Leslie at Drogheda in 1622, in the presence of the King’s Majesties Commission for Ireland. With this audience in mind Leslie clearly identified five reasons for the failure of the Reformation in Ireland, namely the habit and custom of the people; the bad example given by their overlords; the infiltration of ‘Priests and Iesuites’ whom he connects to the worship of Diana; the 62 James Ussher, A Discourse of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British (London, 1631), in UW, vol. 4, p. 297. 63 Ibid., p. 373. Ussher’s preface to the same work, does, however, cast some doubt on his belief that this appeal to the Catholic Old English would be successful. For a discussion of this work see Ute Lotz-Heumann, ‘The Protestant Interpretation of History in Ireland: the Case of James Ussher’s Discourse’, in Bruce Gordon (ed.), Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth Century Europe (2 vols, Aldershot, 1996), vol. 2, pp. 107–20.

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want of a sufficient ministry; and, finally, the ‘miseducation of our youth’.64 To Leslie’s mind all these were practical problems which had practical solutions, easily implemented by the government whose duty it was to ‘repayre the ruins of the Temple’.65 The primary method was compulsion, ‘for olde sores are not cured without cutting and lancing’.66 By applying force and by constraining ‘the great ones’ it was hoped that their retainers might follow suit. A more severe course would have to be taken with priests and Jesuits, ‘for they are the seducers of the people, Instruments of Idolatry, authors of rebellion, bellows and brands of sedition’.67 Exile rather than execution was, however, the preferred option. Having thus organized the Catholics in such a way as to attend services one then had to ensure that they would be well taught, by a learned ministry, who (and this is the cleric speaking) would also be well paid. In turn, the gradual ousting of ‘popish Schooles and School Masters’ would ensure the long-term success of the Reformation.68 Leslie’s call for state intervention was reiterated by writers of the late 1620s and 1630s, who were even more adamant on this point. Sibthorp’s later treatises evoked a far more hardline approach, ably summed up in Roger Puttock’s A Reioynder unto William Malone’s Reply to the first Article, printed in 1632, where he declares that the only way to deal with the ‘Trojane Horse’ of papal claims is by repression: ‘There is no cause to complain of an evil government, for there hath been more teaching then terror: but we have cause to pray, that terror may expell that hard and evil custome, which by teaching will not be removed.’69 Depending on the projected audience, the remedies for the failing Reformation in Ireland might differ slightly, with more emphasis being placed on those areas where the hoped-for readers had some potential control. Stephen Jerome, in his 1623 sermon, addressed his meditations on the subject of the eventual Reformation in Ireland to an audience of settlers, of the ‘Corporation of the English Plantation’ in Tallaugh. Given his audience, he concentrated on practical suggestions. For Jerome, the issues were far broader than the state of religion in Ireland and were indeed part of a moral panic in a country whose citizens continually ignored not only injunctions concerning religion, but also laws against 64 Henry Leslie, A Treatise tending to Unitie: in A Sermon preached at Drogheda on Whit Sunday (being the ninth of Iune 1622) before the Kings Majesties Commissioners for Ireland (Dublin, 1623), pp. 42–4. 65 Ibid., p. 41. 66 Ibid., p. 44. 67 Ibid., p. 47. 68 Ibid., p. 48. 69 Puttock, Reioynder, Dedication to Lord Deputy Wentworth.

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social ills such as murder and theft. In his view what was necessary was good example on the part of the settlers in the plantations, who, by their actions, might lead the natives to civility and reformation, both interdependent on each other. A lay audience was also clearly the intended recipients of George Andrewe’s second sermon in his Quaternion of Sermons, published in 1625. Its title, ‘The ‘Merchant Commodities’ gives us an initial indication of its projected audience in Limerick – the merchant community – and Andrewe was careful to choose scriptural passages and imagery which would be easily accessible to his auditors. His condemnation of the pope, ‘the most cunning Merchant’, instead of concentrating solely on doctrinal errors, emphasized his luxurious lifestyle and warned his audience not to be dazzled by ‘papist wealth’: ‘Hope of commoditie, makes a man to marry his children unto Papistes, yea and himself to, a thing forbidden by God.’70 Having addressed the Lord Deputy and Council in his first sermon, somewhat obviously called ‘The Temple Purgers’, Andrewe had advised them that their duty was, like Hezekiah, ‘to provide the place, then the persons’ – and by persons he definitely meant clergymen from England primarily.71 It was to this latter group that his third sermon, ‘The Shepheard and the Sheep’, was addressed. In order to avoid ‘the evil contagion of priests and monks’, ministers, ‘the watchmen of Sion’, were urged to be vigilant and skilful preachers.72 From the above accounts it is clear that different interest groups were targeted at different times in different ways. Yet within all these publications one can deduce a number of conflicting strategies. Implicit in the group of publications I have examined are two divergent strategies in the fight against heresy in Ireland. The first one we may call the positive strategy and its chief characteristic may be identified as a genuine endeavour to address the Catholic part of the population in an attempt to persuade them towards conversion. The use of Irish was seen to be crucial to the proponents of this strategy of persuasion and we find a number of works being produced in Irish, in fact predating by some decades the Franciscan Gaelic printing referred to earlier in this chapter.

70 George Andrewe, A Quaternion of Sermons … The Second Sermon viz The Merchant Commodities. Preached at St. Maries in Limericke (Dublin, 1625), p. 36. 71 Andrewe, The Temple Purger, p. 5. 72 Andrewe, The Fourth Sermon Viz Sions Compasse, preached at S. Maries in Limerick, August 15, 1624. Before the Most Honourable, the Lord Deputie of Ireland and Before the Councell of State, Generall, and Provinciall (Dublin, 1625), p. 103.

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Attempts at conversion Attitudes to the use of Irish for proselytism had varied since Henry VIII’s Act for the English Order, Habite and Language of 1537 which had stipulated the use of English rather than Irish in an attempt to extend the cultural sway of the colonists.73 Later Tudors were not quite so antagonistic. A slight watering-down of Henry VIII’s original concept may be seen in his son’s instruction to Sir James Crofts in 1551 ‘to propagate the worship of God in the English tongue, and the services to be translated into Irish’.74 His half-sister, Elizabeth I took an even more active interest in the use of Irish, not only expressing a desire to learn it herself, but more importantly pressurising her representatives in Ireland to initiate printing in Irish of the texts necessary for reformation, namely the catechism, Book of Common Prayer, and above all else, the Gospels.75 Elizabeth’s initial interest may be seen in her grant of money to Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin and Hugh Brady, Bishop of Meath for ‘making the Carecter to print the New Testament in Irish’.76 The fact that this decision coincided with the appearance in Scotland of a Gaelic version of the Book of Common Order may not be coincidental. The author of the latter work, John Carswell, Superintendent of Argyll and Bishop of the Isles, had produced an abridged edition in Gaelic of the Book of Common Order, first printed in Edinburgh in 1564. Although primarily for a Scottish audience Carswell had himself some hope that his Foirm na nUrrnuidheadh might also be used in Ireland. In his ‘Epistle to the Earl of Argyll’ he consistently linked ‘the Gaels of Scotland and Ireland’ and in his accompanying poem clearly stated his desire that his work might also travel across the water and be of some benefit in Ireland: D¯a éis sin taisdil gach tond Go crích Eireand na bfond bfial; G¯e beag ar na br¯aithribh thú, Gluais ar amharc a súl siar.77 73 Nicholas Williams (ed.), I bPrionta i Leabhar: Na Protastúin agus Prós na Gaeilge, 1567–1724 (Baile Atha Cliath, 1986), p. 9. 74 H.J. Monck Mason, The Life of William Bedell, D.D., Lord Bishop of Kilmore (London, 1843), p. 105. 75 F.X. Martin, Friar Nugent. A Study of Francis Lavalin Nugent 1569–1635: Agent of the Counter-Reformation (Dublin, 1962), p. 5. Elizabeth also made provision for services in Irish; Pádraig Ó Snodaigh, Hidden Ulster: Protestants and the Irish Language (Belfast, 1995), p. 39. 76 D.B. Quinn, ‘Information about Dublin Printers, 1566–1573, in English Financial Records’, The Irish Book Lover, 28 (1942), pp. 113. 77 R.L. Thomson and Angus Matheson, Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh: John Carswell’s

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Elizabeth may well have felt that allowing the Scots take the lead in conversion of the Irish might lead to theological problems later on, depending on the form of Calvinism favoured. Certainly when the first Irish text sponsored by Elizabeth was produced in 1571, John Kearney’s Aibidil Gaoidheilge agus Caiticiosma, the author was careful in his borrowing from Carswell’s work, applying a Church of England gloss to some of Carswell’s prayers.78 It is impossible to say how diffuse the dissemination of Kearney’s catechism was but it may well have been used by Sir William Herbert in Cork, as his reference to a similar text in a letter to Lord Burghley in 1587 suggests.79 Elizabeth’s gift of money for an Irish font might well have been expected to issue in a flurry of printing in Irish but such was not the case. With the exception of bishops such as Nehemiah Donellan of Tuam, Thomas Ram of Ferns, John Rider of Killaloe and George Downham in Derry, the Church of Ireland establishment seemed less than interested in the use of Gaelic.80 The initiative in this matter generally came from the English Privy Council, as in 1587 when they appointed John Kearney’s nephew William ‘to prynt a newe Communion boke in Irishe’ and recommended to the Irish Privy Council and the bishops the task of translating key texts into Gaelic, ‘consydering how godlie and necessary a mater it was for the instruccion of that Realme to have the Scriptures in their vulgar tongue’.81 However, the initiatives of the later 1580s and 1590s failed and it was not until 1603 that a New Testament in Irish, the Tiomna Nuadh ar dTighearna agus ar Slanaighteora Iosa Criosd, translated by William Daniel, was printed. The decision to print it in folio made the process a costly one, but it may well have been felt that such an undoubtedly necessary work should, initially at least, appear in a suitable format. Though the work had taken some time to come to press, not only due to Gaelic Translation of the Book of Common Order (Edinburgh, 1970), p. 13. They provide the following translation on p. 181: ‘After that, travel over each wave/ to the land of Ireland of liberal bounds/ though the friars care little for thee/ move westwards with their sight.’ 78 Williams (ed.), I bPrionta i Leabhar, p. 25. 79 Calendar of State Papers Ireland (24 vols, London 1860–1910) [hereafter CSPI], 1586–88, p. 331. 80 There are indications that some members of the secular and ecclesiastical hierarchy in Ireland recognized the need to address the negligence of Irish as part of an overall attempt at reformation – see CSPI, 1509–73, pp. 208, 348, 234 and 495; CSPI, 1600, p. 440; CSPI, 1600–1601, p. 36. 81 D.B. Quinn, ‘John Denton Desires William Kearney to Print Books for Use in Down, circa 1588: a Sidelight on Printing in Ireland’, Irish Booklore, 3.2 (1977), p. 89. See also J.R. Dasent (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England 1587–88, 15 (London, 1897), p. 201.

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the lack of a suitable font but also capable translators and financial backing, hopes were high that it would prove a useful instrument in the fight against ‘poperie’. The translator, Daniel, later Archbishop of Tuam, was optimistic that such a work would lead to the reformation of the native Irish who, in his more benign view, had been ‘hitherto deprived of this heavenly comfort and meanes of their salvation’.82 Once this deficiency had been addressed, reformation would, in Daniel’s eyes, necessarily follow. The same positive appraisal of this conversion modality can be seen in the second translation of William Daniel, the Leabhar na nUrnaightheadh gComhchoidchiond (the Book of Common Prayer), printed in 1608 at the request of the Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester.83 Daniel, now Archbishop of Tuam, was decidedly optimistic in tone in his dedication: What though Satan doe now rage more among us than ever heretofore? His rage argues his desperate estate, and the utter ruine of his Kingdome … In nothing doubt, but that in God’s Good time … the Country that doth now generally sit in darknesse, shall in time see great light to their everlasting comfort.

And yet Daniel’s hopes were slowly dashed, due primarily to the inability of the Dublin élite to see the importance of his project. Only one man, the fifth provost of Trinity College, William Bedell, showed any real interest in translating works into Irish, yet his edition of the Old Testament in Irish (Leabhuir na Seintiomna) never saw the press in his own life time. His only work in Irish to be printed was the slight Aibgitir i Theaguisg Cheudtosugheadh an Chriostaide (Dublin, 1631), an Irish and English pamphlet which included the staples of the Church of Ireland: the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, four New Testament passages and a number of prayers. This proved to be the only publication in Irish by the Company of Stationers in Ireland. As he himself came under scrutiny for his religious affiliations, his project of translating books into Irish became discredited and thus one essential tool of conversion was lost to the Church of Ireland.84 82 Tiomna Nuadh ar dTighearna agus ar Slanaighteora Iosa Criosd (Dublin, 1602), English Preface to James I, Sig. A1r. Given that the preface was dedicated to King James I the work must in fact have been published following the death of the Queen in 1603. 83 Chichester may have been pressured by the King for certainly James I took an active interest in the use of Irish; see his 1614 Instructions for Lord Chichester in CSPI, 1611–14, p. 484 and CSPI, 1615–25, p. 277 for his support of Irish-speaking ‘native’ students at Trinity College. 84 The question of the importance of the use of Gaelic continues to be debated, particularly given the relative success of the Reformation in Scotland without emphasis on

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Another aspect of the positive approach to dealing with heresy may be found in the work of Christopher Sibthorp. Unusually, Sibthorp, in his letter to the reader, directly addressed Roman Catholic readers. Sibthorp’s 1623 work, A Friendly Advertisement to the Pretended Catholickes of Ireland, is a vital work but one which is identified more for the novelty of its approach than for the rigour of its theology. Perhaps the reason for this is that the fact that Sibthorp was not a minister himself but rather a lawyer. Sibthorp actually makes a virtue out of his lack of official theological training by arguing quite energetically that as a layman he has just as much right (and indeed ability) as his theological friends, an argument which could also be read as an encouragement to the reader to try his own hand at decoding the main problems of the Church. He is remarkably positive about the chances of converting Catholics, and eagerly declares that once they are intellectually convinced their hearts will follow. He seems ever anxious to appear impartial to his readers and though he admits his own religious persuasion, declares his belief that an impartial reading of his treatise will lead his readers to similar conclusions. His chief aim is to convince his readers and his primary method is to ensure that he does not alienate them by criticizing all things Catholic, just because they are Catholic. This appears to be a genuine attempt to convince a target audience, in this case the Old English. Yet surprising enough, Sibthorp is unique in directly addressing Roman Catholics in this manner. He is singular also in his optimistic view of their chances of conversion. All other translation of texts into the vernacular. Karl Bottigheimer, in his article ‘The Hagiography of William Bedell’, in Toby Barnard, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and Katherine Simms (eds), ‘A Miracle of Learning’: Studies in Manuscripts and Irish Learning. Essays in Honour of William O Sullivan (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 201–8, argues that such translation alone would not have automatically led to conversion. While this is undoubtedly true (and was the reason Bedell insisted on a preaching clergy learned in Irish) it seems clear that protestant initiatives in this regard were earnestly examined by recusants who evidently believed that such publications had a vital role to play in the conversion process; see Ó Snodaigh, Hidden Ulster, p. 39 on this point. On Bedell’s Aibgitir see Dickins ‘Irish Broadside’, pp. 53–4 and Williams (ed.), I bPrionta I Leabhar, p. 46. The greater debate over the relationship of Bedell and Ussher and the question of the latter’s support for Bedell’s Gaelic initiatives may be traced in their letters in UW, vols 15–16. While Ussher may initially have aided Bedell to find Irish translators it appears that the effects of Bedell’s more persuasive policy ran contrary to Ussher’s view that toleration could only lead to further difficulties. See also Deasún Breatnach, The Best of the English: a Short Account of the Life and Work of the Bishop of Kilmore, William Bedell, and the Irish Version of the Old Testament for which he was Responsible (Cavan, 1971); Terence McCaughey, Dr. Bedell and Mr. King: The Making of the Irish Bible (Dublin, 2001); Gilbert Burnet, The Life of William Bedell, D.D. Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland (London, 1685); H.J. Monck Mason, The Life of William Bedell, D.D., Lord Bishop of Kilmore (London, 1843); UW, vol. 1; and E.S. Shuckburgh (ed.), Two Biographies of William Bedell (Cambridge, 1902), on these points.

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commentators, far from exhibiting a vital belief in the conversion process, instead address predominantly their co-religionists – and even Sibthorp’s later works seem tinged by a creeping despair concerning the possibility of conversion. One reason for this negative appraisal of the process of reformation in Ireland was, of course, the ever-increasing rise of recusancy in the early seventeenth century. Surrounded as they were by unregenerate Catholics, sermons displayed what one could call a siege mentality. George Synge declared in 1632 that the duty of the Godly minister was ‘the detection of their Egyptian Darkeness’.85 These Old Testament analogies with the people of Israel go far deeper than mere rhetorical excess. The reiteration of this type of analogy nine years later by Joshua Hoyle, who, in writing against the same Catholic tract, refers to ‘these croaking Egyptian frogs, the Iesuites’, reminds us that Calvinists in Ireland felt that they were like the Israelites, held captive by an overwhelming majority, who ‘would not listen’.86

Internal discord Ussher’s statement in 1622, ‘I cannot preach peace unto them’, captures the despair at the heart of the Irish Reformation.87 Confronted by a recalcitrant populace who did not respond to the ‘Godly preaching of the Word’, Calvinist missionaries were at a loss how to react. Some, overwhelmed by the scale of the task, retreated to an essentially passive view of reformation – the Irish must reform themselves. This view is clearly indicated in Ussher’s 1620 sermon when he states this passive view explicitly: Let her put away her whoredome out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; let her repent of her murthers, because she is past all hope, let those that are seduced by her, cease to communicate with her in these abominable iniquities; and wee shall be all ready to meet them, and rejoice with the Angels in heaven for their conversion. 88

Those ministers looking for a theological explanation of this undesirable failure to convert the heretic, latched on, with somewhat unbecoming fervour, to the theory of double predestination – in effect arguing that the Catholics of Ireland did not listen because they had already been condemned to damnation. This theory also afforded them a comforting 85 86 87 88

Synge, Reioynder, p. 418. Hoyle, Reioynder, Dedication to Ussher, fol. 1r. Ussher, Sermon 1620, p. 49. Ibid.

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explanation of the frequent lapses of those Catholics they thought they had successfully converted – they too had not received the essential saving faith of the true believer.89 This depressed view of the state of the Irish Reformation was echoed by Jerome in 1623 in his question: ‘Have we not lost our toyle, and labour? Are they not settled worse then Moab in their popish dregs?’90 It coloured the overwhelming majority of the theological publications emanating from Dublin in this period, authors who did not even attempt to address their target audience, but preferred instead to address ‘the faithful remnant’. There was, however, a deeper reason for this superficially perplexing concentration on preaching to the converted, the realization that there was another budding form of heresy deep within the Church of Ireland, which gradually became increasingly contentious – the debate over Arminianism. Perhaps clergymen felt that their efforts were best addressed to this crucial area than the unredeemed and evidently unredeemable Irish. A solution to the Arminian question might also, by unifying the Church, strengthen it from the gibes of Catholic polemicists, eager to draw attention to the divided nature of the Church of Ireland. Christopher Hampton’s treatise of 1622, An Inquisition of the true Church, and those that revolt from it, while it paid lip service to an expected attack of the Church of Rome, was far more concerned with divisions in his own Church: ‘It may be that some small debates come from our brethren and comburgesses, moving unnecessary and unprofitable questions in Ceremonies, things indifferent, and Christian liberty.’91 Hampton had identified the dominant question in the debate, at least at this stage, but felt that if ministers were ‘vigilant to teach their people the nature and true use of ceremonies, and things indifferent, as soone as any scandall ariseth, and the offence will wither in the bud, before it grow to strength or maturitie to disquiet the Church’.92 Hampton’s chaplain, Henry Leslie, in his Treatise to unitie, addressed the issue even more pointedly and argued that ‘amids those rocks on everie side, our safest course is to hold the middle way’.93 Unity within the Church was essential, for in his view ‘contention doth extinguish the verie life of Religion, which is brotherly love: and therefore they who make so much adoe about ceremonies, had need to take heed, that in the meane time they lose not that which is more pretious, even Christian 89 For the clearest exposition of the state of the Church of Ireland during this period see Alan Ford, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland 1590–1641 (Dublin, 1997). 90 Jerome, Ireland’s Jubilee (Dublin, 1623), p. 41. 91 Hampton, Inquisition, Dedication to Chichester, Sig. A2v. 92 Ibid., Sig. A4r. 93 Leslie, Unitie, p. 5.

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charitie it selfe’.94 By 1637 his views had developed and hardened, no doubt because of his experience in his own diocese of Down. Now, instead of viewing disunity as an embarassing weakness which might also have some implications for the Church itself, Leslie clearly identified it as a heresy as much to be combated by the hierarchy as the heresy of Roman Catholics. His address to Lord Deputy Wentworth outlines his changing perceptions: I began with gentle persuasions … in all meeknesse instructing them who are contrary minded; as having such as charitable opinion of them as Salviah had of some Arian heretickes in his time … But I found that I had to doe with men preoccupied with prejudice and partiality, and so wedded to their own wills, that they were resolved to receive no information … Whereupon I altered my course … but for all this, They persist in their errors, grow more resolute in their opposition … And it is no new thing for haeretickes to bee confirmed in their errours by their sufferings.95

Leslie, in this passage, applies to his fellow church members epithets more usually used to indicate heresy among members of the Roman Church. For Leslie, heresy within the Church was instigated by the more Puritan wing of the Church of Ireland, particularly Presbyterians in Ulster. Those of the Puritan side of the church debate also bemoaned the existence of heresy in the Church, but identified it with Arminians and sympathizers like Leslie. Downham, in his discussion on the perseverance of faith, reflects the growth of Arminianism in his declaration that ‘here therefore wee are to refute the Papist and all others who endeavour to bereave the faithful and sound Christians of this privilege’.96 This work, which evidently was produced with a wider readership in mind than a solely Irish one, may well have been printed in Dublin since publication in England was no longer an option due to the opposition of Laud.97 The author of the Soules Centinell of 1631, 94

Ibid., p. 50. Henry Leslie, A Treatise of the Authority of the Church. The Summe whereof was delivered in a sermon preached at Belfast, at the Visitation of the Diocese of Downe and Connor, the tenth day of August, 1636 (Dublin, 1637), Dedication to Lord Deputy Wentworth. For an extended discussion of this point see Phil Kilroy, ‘Division and Dissent in the Irish Reformed Church, 1613–1634’, unpublished MA thesis, University College, Dublin, 1973. A synopsized version of this was published as ‘Sermon and Pamphlet Literature in the Irish Reformed Church, 1613–1634’, Archivium Hibernicum, 33 (1975), pp. 111–21. 96 Downame, Covenant of Grace, p. 194. My italics. 97 UW, vol. 15, p. 419. This may be one of the factors which explain Ussher’s decision to publish his work on Gotteschalc in Dublin, given its relevance to the soteriological debate. 95

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Stephen Jerome, in his defence of the name Puritan (thus obviously coming from a different tradition than Leslie), linked the two main heresies together, saying that ‘as many Zealists with us, justly grieve at the over-spreading leprosie and gangrene of Papisme, and new Hatched Arminianised Pelagianisme’ in these ‘serpentine times’.98 Church of Ireland ministers might be aware that ‘there must be heresies … so that they that are sound Christians may be knowne, to wit by not embracing them’, but in early seventeenth-century Ireland ‘the afflictions of the Godly’ must have seemed at times overwhelming.99 Beset not only by the multitude of Roman Catholics, the Church also had to contend with heresy on another front, and this accounts for the inability to identify a coherent strategy of reformation. Divided themselves, they could not hope to project the ideal ordered godly community which they wished their compatriots to adopt as a model. Their publications looked inward to the scars of their own community, and had little to offer to that much sought after individual, the Catholic ready for reformation. The conception of themselves as oppressed Israelites in ‘Egyptian darkness’, coupled with the prevalent imagery of disease with which they defined heresy, inevitably led to the introduction of stronger measures, measures which would ensure the intellectual segregation, Ussher’s ‘segregare heterogenea’, which alone could ideologically stop the spread of heresy and maintain the intellectual health of the godly community.100 As a strategy it left much to be desired. Puttock’s suggestion that the time for teaching was over and the time of terror had come was meant to be an exhortation to the government to take an active role in the implementation of reformation principles, but instead was to prove eerily prophetic of the ensuing 1641 rebellion.101 98 Stephen Jerome, The Soules Centinell ringing an alarum against impietie and impenitence, or, Paule’s Triumph of Terrour against Hypocrites, back-sliders, and finall impentents. First blowen by the breath of Preaching before the State in Christ’s Church in Dublin (Dublin, 1631), p. 45. Jerome’s text here is unusual in that it is the only text which is dedicated to women – in this case to the ‘Right Honourable the Lady Ioan, Countess of Kildare; the Lady Alice, Countess of Ballymore; the Lady Sarah Digby; the Lady Lettice Gowring; the Lady Katharine Joanes; the Lady Dorothy Boyle’, all of whom happened to be daughters of Jerome’s patron, Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork. 99 Downame, Covenant of Grace, p. 319. It is interesting to note that this conception of the function of heresy was agreed on by Copinger in his Theatre, p. 4: ‘So as the trueth of the one, cannot be made more apparent, more evident, and more cleere, then by the falsehood of the other: nor the goodnesse of the one, be better made knowne then by the mischeefe & evill of the other.’ 100 It is interesting to note that in the twelfth century, when the heresy of the Cathars was at its height, one finds similar emphasis on the theme of infection: R.I. Moore, ‘Heresy as Disease’, in W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (eds), The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th–13th century) (Leuven, 1976), pp. 1–11. 101 Puttock, Reioynder, Dedication to Lord Deputy Wentworth.

CHAPTER THREE

The Problem of ‘Scottish Puritanism’, 1590–1638 John Coffey1 Some years ago now, Nicholas Phillipson commented that Scotland had never had its Perry Miller.2 Miller’s classic work, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century, published in 1939, rescued the Massachusetts Puritans from relative neglect and inaugurated a dynamic tradition of historical scholarship. Ever since Miller, a veritable torrent of books and articles on American Puritanism has poured forth from university presses. By contrast, the volume of academic publications on seventeenth-century Scottish Protestantism seems akin to a trickling brook. Recently, however, David Mullan has contributed a major work, Scottish Puritanism, 1590–1638 (Oxford, 2000). Mullan’s book will hardly match Miller’s in terms of its impact, but it is comparable to The New England Mind in its focus on the worldview of the clerical élite and in its ambitious scope. The book explores theology, spirituality, gender and politics, creating a rich picture of Scottish Protestantism in the two generations leading up to the birth of the Covenanter movement. Perhaps the most striking thing about Mullan’s work is its title, Scottish Puritanism. Historians of Scottish Protestantism have often written about Presbyterians and Covenanters, but rarely about Puritans.3 Puritanism is usually thought of as English or American, not Scottish. The surprising title may, of course, be a publisher’s ploy, intended to persuade English and American historians that here (at last) is a book on Scottish religion that they really ought to read. After all, despite the 1 For comments on this chapter I am grateful to the participants at the conference held at Trinity College, Dublin, and especially to Crawford Gribben. I also wish to thank Alan MacDonald, who kindly provided valuable feedback and references. The British Academy facilitated my research by providing much appreciated funding. 2 Nicholas Phillipson, ‘Review of R.B. Sher and J.R. Smitten (eds), Scotland and America in the Age of Enlightenment’, Historical Journal, 77 (1992), p. 433. 3 A rare exception is found in William S. Provand’s Hastie Lectures in the University of Glasgow, published as Puritanism in the Scottish Church (Paisley, 1923). See also T.C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (London, 1972), pp. 77–81, 178–80, 184, 213–20. Smout writes quite freely of ‘Scottish puritanism’ and ‘Covenanting puritans’ (p. 179), though the term ‘puritanism’ is employed in a rather unsophisticated manner as shorthand for repressive Calvinist fanaticism.

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fashionable ‘new British history’, historians of English religion generally display little interest in Scotland or Ireland. Jumping on the successful ‘Puritan studies’ bandwagon might seem like an ideal way to win readers and influence Anglo-Americans.4 Mullan himself never explains or defends his title, and he does not set out to define ‘Puritanism’ or to discuss the uses of the term ‘Puritan’ in Scotland. This chapter, therefore, takes up the unsolved problem of ‘Scottish Puritanism’.5 Is this a valid category? If so, how can it be defined? And does it help us to understand the religious dynamics of Scotland in the decades preceding the Covenanter Revolution? I will begin by surveying the historiography of Puritanism, examining the way the term is used by historians working on England, New England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. I will then turn to the deployment of the term in early modern Scotland itself, following Patrick Collinson’s suggestion that by paying close attention to the uses of this term of abuse in contemporary polemic we can learn much about religious tensions in the period. I will conclude with some comparative reflections on the Church of Scotland and the Church of England in the period from 1590 to 1638.

The problem of Puritanism Within English historiography, ‘Puritanism’ has been a notoriously controversial concept. Indeed, every now and again an historian calls for its abolition. Basil Hall, C.H. George, Michael Finlayson and even Patrick Collinson have cast doubt on the usefulness of the term, arguing that it obscures the fundamental unity of evangelical Reformed protestants within the Church of England under Elizabeth I and James I.6 These scholars are curious to know where Puritanism begins and where it ends. The category sounds clear, but once we begin to identify Puritans things get complicated and the questions multiply: How exactly do we draw the line between Puritans and other Calvinists? Should we describe 4 In his review of the book, Keith Brown guesses that the title has more to with ‘marketing’ than with any academic rationale; Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53 (2002), p. 396. 5 I have chosen to employ a capital ‘P’ throughout this chapter for ‘Puritan’, ‘Puritans’ and ‘Puritanism’ to ensure consistency with the primary sources and with other labels (for example, ‘Presbyterian’, ‘Laudian’, ‘Reformed’). Many historians use the lower case to indicate the imprecise nature of the term ‘puritan’; I try to do the same thing via a liberal scattering of inverted commas. 6 Basil Hall, ‘Puritanism: The Problem of Definition’, Studies in Church History, 2 (1965), pp. 283–96; C.H. and K. George, The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation (Princeton, 1961); Michael Finlayson, Historians, Puritanism and the English Revolution (Toronto, 1983).

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Separatists or Baptists or Seekers or Quakers as Puritans? And given that ‘Puritan’ was originally a term of abuse, how can historians employ it as if it were a value-neutral label? These well-known difficulties have led to two basic ways of approaching the problem of Puritanism. The first is exemplified by Patrick Collinson’s 1989 lecture on ‘The Puritan character’. Here Collinson is working in his most resolutely nominalist mode, interested in the name ‘Puritan’ but sceptical of the very existence of the thing. The historian, he maintains, ‘cannot disregard the word Puritan, which is an insistent, resonant voice’ in the period, though it does not so much tell us about a group with a fixed and stable identity; instead it highlights a stressful relationship in which devout evangelical protestants were coming into conflict with their neighbours. The use of this term of abuse tells us much about a situation, but little about an entity. Historians should not read early modern polemic as if it were modern social science. ‘Puritans were not different from Protestants’, Collinson states, ‘Puritans were Protestants as they were perceived in a particular set of circumstances.’7 Not everyone has been entirely satisfied with this purist dissolution of ‘Puritanism’, and an alternative approach to the problem has now become well established. Defended most vigorously by Peter Lake, this realist approach suggests that although there was much common ground between conformist Calvinists and Puritans, Puritans were nonetheless distinctive; although the image of the Puritan was polemically constructed, it bore eloquent testimony to the angular presence of the godly.8 In his less sceptical moments, Collinson himself accepts this, writing matter-of-factly as if Puritanism were an entity (though not a separate, free-standing entity), and as if Puritans were identifiable.9 7 Patrick Collinson, The Puritan Character: Polemics and Polarities in Early Seventeenth-Century English Culture (Los Angeles, 1989), pp. 19, 22, 29. 8 Peter Lake has vigorously articulated this approach in a stream of publications: Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge, 1982); ‘Puritan Identities’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 35 (1984), pp. 112–23; Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterian and Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988); ‘Defining Puritanism – Again?’ in F. Bremer (ed.), Puritanism: Trans-atlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Faith (Boston, 1993), pp. 3–29; The Boxmaker’s Revenge: ‘Orthodoxy’, ‘Heterodoxy’ and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London (Manchester, 2001); The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in PostReformation England (New Haven, 2002). 9 See for example, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Cambridge, 1967); English Puritanism (London, 1983); Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism (London, 1983); The Birthpangs of Protestant England (London, 1988), chs 4 and 5; ‘Puritan Emmanuel’, in Sarah Bendall, Christopher Brooke and Patrick Collinson (eds), A History of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Woodbridge, 1999), ch. 6. Collinson’s policy, which is to problematize the term and then carry on using it, is nicely showcased in

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Borrowing a striking phrase from an Elizabethan observer, Collinson has famously (and loosely) defined Puritans as ‘the hotter sort of Protestants’.10 Distinguished by the zeal and intensity of their evangelical Protestantism, they were different in degree rather than in kind from the conformist Calvinists who held all the best bishoprics and deaneries in England until the rise of the Laudians. Puritans were ‘forward Protestants’, ‘super-Protestants’, ‘perfect Protestants’, ‘the militant tendency’ of English Protestantism.11 Despite sharing much common ground with other protestants, ‘the godly’ (as they liked to call themselves) formed a distinctive subculture, one centred on a vigorous voluntary religion of Bible study, prayer, fasting, sermon consumption and strict sabbatarianism.12 Historians now recognize that Puritans were not always at loggerheads with the established Church, and they suggest that we should think instead of English religion as a continuum running from Catholic recusants at one end to radical protestant sects at the other. As Collinson has said, ‘The English Church of this age was a spectrum, in which the ultimate extremes of colour are clear enough, but the intermediate tones merge imperceptibly.’13 The spectrum ranged from church papists and High Church Arminians, through conformist Calvinists, to moderate Puritans and nonconforming Puritans. Because these positions were often blurred at the edges, and because the positions of individuals were often unstable and subject to movement, it is important to think in terms of a shifting continuum rather than of sharply differentiated groups. But this rough-and-ready taxonomy does offer a useful rule-of-thumb guide to early modern English religion. It comes with a health warning, but it is far preferable to being left with the single term ‘protestant’. Given the complexity of seventeenth-century English Protestantism, we need more terms rather than fewer to describe it, and broader categories like ‘Puritan’ need to be used alongside more precise categories like ‘Particular Baptist’ if we are to map the field of

his short article ‘Puritans’, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (4 vols, Oxford, 1996), vol. 3, pp. 364–70. 10 Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 27. 11 Collinson, English Puritanism, p. 16; ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean Puritanism as Forms of Popular Religious Culture’, in Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales (eds), The Culture of English Puritanism (Basingstoke, 1996), p. 46; ‘The Sherman’s Tree and the Preacher: The Strange Death of Merry England in Shrewsbury and beyond’, in Patrick Collinson and John Craig (eds), The Reformation in English Towns (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 215–16. 12 Collinson, ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean Puritanism as Forms of Popular Religious Culture’. 13 Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 27.

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English Protestantism effectively.14 As Michael Winship has recently argued, Puritanism is ‘an extremely convenient shorthand term’, but one that ‘is unavoidably a contextual, imprecise term, not an objective one, a term to use carefully but not take too seriously in itself’.15 It is, in other words, like many terms we use today, whether political (liberal, socialist, republican) or religious (fundamentalist, liberal, evangelical, charismatic). Such terms may be slippery but they are also indispensable. Most English historians agree. It is noticeable that the term ‘Puritan’ continues to be employed with confidence by many of the leading scholars of Stuart England – one thinks (in alphabetical order, though the list is by no means exhaustive) of Christopher Durston, Jacqueline Eales, Ann Hughes, Neil Keeble, Mark Kishlansky, William Lamont, Anthony Milton, John Morrill, John Spurr, Nicholas Tyacke, David Underdown, Tom Webster, Blair Worden and Keith Wrightson.16 Even scholars like Conrad Russell, who eschew the dreaded p-word, are forced to resort to an obvious synonym, ‘the godly’.17 Far from abolishing Puritanism, Patrick Collinson’s work has breathed new life into the subject, and his dynamically vivid depiction of ‘the hotter sort of Protestants’ has eased the worries of those who rightly questioned the simplistic dichotomy 14 See Peter Lake’s ‘Introduction’ to Geoffrey F. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (1947; second edn, Chicago, 1992). Lake criticizes ‘terminological iconophobia’ (p. xviii), argues that ‘Puritanism is a set of positions on [the English religious] spectrum’ (p. xx), and praises Nuttall’s classic work for outlining ‘a dynamic, open-ended approach to the process of definition’ (p. xxi). 15 Michael Winship, ‘Were there any Puritans in New England?’, New England Quarterly, 74 (2001), pp. 118–38, quotations on pp. 137–8. 16 Durston and Eales, ‘Introduction: The Puritan Ethos, 1560–1700’, in Durston and Eales (eds), The Culture of English Puritanism, pp. 1–31; Jacqueline Eales, Puritans and Roundheads (Cambridge, 1990); Ann Hughes, ‘Anglo-American Puritanisms’, Journal of British Studies, 39 (2000), pp. 1–7; Neil H. Keeble, ‘Milton and Puritanism’, in Thomas N. Corns (ed.), A Companion to Milton (Oxford, 2001), ch. 8; Mark A. Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603–1714 (London, 1996); William M. Lamont, Puritanism and Historical Controversy (London, 1996); Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1995); John S. Morrill, The Nature of the English Revolution (London, 1993); John Spurr, English Puritanism, 1603–1689 (London, 1998); Nicholas Tyacke, Aspects of English Protestantism, c. 1530–1700 (Manchester, 2001); David Underdown, Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1992); Tom Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c. 1620–1643 (Cambridge, 1997); Blair Worden, Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity (London, 2001); Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525–1700 (Oxford, 1995). 17 Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford, 1990), p. 85: ‘Charges of popery and charges of Puritanism are both weapons in a struggle for power … This is why I have preferred throughout to describe the hotter sort of Protestants by their own preferred title of the “godly”.’

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between establishment ‘Anglicanism’ and oppositional ‘Puritanism’. Secure in the knowledge that the term ‘Puritan’ is being deployed as imprecise but convenient shorthand, historians have fewer qualms about using it (with appropriate riders and reservations). There is now widespread agreement that for all its problems, the term ‘Puritan’ is an indispensable tool for historians of Elizabethan and Stuart religion. As Diarmaid MacCulloch puts it, ‘Puritanism is a label which has proved its usefulness.’18 In this chapter, therefore, I will accept the realist claim that ‘Puritanism’ is a valid and useful category for historians, albeit one that needs to be carefully employed. But, taking my cue from Collinson, I will also examine the uses of ‘Puritan’ as a term of abuse in Scotland. Even if the nominalist approach is excessively sceptical about the possibility of identifying Puritans, it does suggest a valuable research programme – by investigating the uses of the term we can learn much about Church and society. Before turning to early modern Scottish polemic, however, we should observe that for some time now historians have been applying the term ‘Puritan’ to zealous protestants beyond England and New England. Alan Ford, for example, has asked whether the Church of Ireland was a ‘Puritan church’, and although he concludes that it would be better to speak of a Reformed consensus, he nevertheless emphasizes that until the 1620s, Puritans were happily accommodated within the Irish Church and its key institutions like Trinity College.19 The study of Welsh Puritanism is also well established thanks to the labours of Geoffrey Nuttall and others,20 and American historians like Babette Levy and Karen Kupperman have identified Puritans in the southern colonies and the West Indies (thus throwing up the seemingly oxymoronic phenomenon of the Caribbean Puritan).21 Of course, finding Puritans in Ireland, Wales, the southern colonies and the Caribbean is hardly surprising, for the Protestantism of each of these regions was an outgrowth of the English Reformation, and their Puritanism was essentially an English export. More surprising is the 18 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–1603 (London, 1990), p. 82. 19 Alan Ford, ‘The Church of Ireland, 1558–1641: a Puritan Church?’, in Alan Ford, J.I. McGuire and Kenneth Milne (eds), As By Law Established: The Church of Ireland since the Reformation (Dublin, 1995), ch. 4. 20 Geoffrey F. Nuttall, The Welsh Saints, 1640–1660 (Cardiff, 1957); S. Roberts, ‘Welsh Puritanism in the Interregnum’, History Today, 41 (1991), pp. 36–41; Geraint H. Jenkins, The Foundations of Modern Wales, 1642–1780 (Oxford, 1993), chs 1 and 2. 21 B.M. Levy, ‘Early Puritanism in the Southern and Island Colonies’, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 70 (1960), pp. 69–163; Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Providence Island, 1630–1641: The Other Puritan Colony (Cambridge, 1993).

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discovery that the term ‘Puritan’ was employed elsewhere in Europe. As Jonathan Israel shows, militant Calvinists in the Netherlands strove to emulate English Puritans in their intense piety and fervour for ‘further reformation’.22 Even more striking is Graeme Murdock’s discovery that Hungarian Calvinism had its ‘Puritans’, Presbyterians and Independents. Apparently, ‘some Reformed ministers in Hungary and Transylvania were accused of being Puritans from the late 1630s’. These ministers had often been influenced by English Puritans either through travels or reading, and they were ‘advocates of a practical Calvinist theology which highlighted personal religiosity and supporters of reforms to the conduct of church services’.23 Scottish historians, by contrast, have rarely recognized ‘Puritanism’ in the Scottish Church. Partly as a result of the centuries-old struggle between Presbyterians and Episcopalians, the historiography of the Scottish Church has always employed these ecclesiological categories in preference to looser labels like ‘Puritan’. Moreover, given the independent origins of the Scottish protestant Kirk in a Reformation quite different to that of England, there has been an understandable reluctance to import English terminology to describe a distinctively Scottish situation. Yet, as Mullan points out, the Scottish Kirk was not hermetically sealed off from English influences. Zealous protestants in both lands had a strong affinity and formed a community of discourse. Godly Scots like Robert Boyd, Johnston of Wariston and David Dickson were avid consumers of the works of practical divinity produced by English Puritans. Moreover, the Scots themselves contributed to English Puritan culture, and works like Rutherford’s Letters (1664) and William Guthrie’s The Christian’s Great Interest (1667) were acclaimed as classics by English Puritan leaders like Richard Baxter and John Owen.24 When Robert Baillie visited London in the 1640s, he had no trouble recognising his own sort, those whom he naturally called ‘the godlie’.25

22 Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 473–7, 662–4, 673, 690–99. Critics also portrayed Dutch militant Calvinism as the ‘Scots Devil’ and the ‘Trojan Horse of the Scots’. 23 Graeme Murdock, Calvinism on the Frontier, 1600–1660: International Calvinism and the Reformed Church in Hungary and Transylvania (Oxford, 2000), ch. 4; quotations on pp. 171–2. 24 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, pp. 5–6; John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 5–6. See also J.L. Ainslie, ‘The Scottish Reformed Church and English Puritanism’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 8 (1944), pp. 75–95. 25 See Robert Baillie, Letters and Journals, ed. David Laing (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1841–42), vol. 1, p. 291; vol. 2, p. 305.

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So it is easy to see why academic books and articles on Puritan piety often silently admit Rutherford and his ilk as honorary Puritans.26 In much popular Evangelical literature too, Scottish divines find a place among ‘The Puritans’; the famous Welsh preacher Dr Martyn LloydJones even gave a lecture entitled, ‘John Knox: the founder of Puritanism’.27 Whatever one thinks of this, it does serve the useful function of highlighting common features of zealous Reformed religion in Scotland and England – sabbatarianism, covenanting, fasting, family exercises, sermon gadding, conventicling, and intense preoccupation with personal salvation. The ‘affectionate practical divinity’ often seen as a hallmark of English Puritanism was also prized in the Church of Scotland. As Collinson has noted, there were striking parallels between the intense religious subcultures of Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans: the ‘redhot’ [John] Rogers of Dedham much resembled his exact contemporary, the Scottish preacher Robert Bruce, who ‘made always an earthquake upon his hearers and rarely preached but to a weeping auditory’.28 If we accept Collinson’s definition of Puritanism as hot Protestantism, it is hard to deny that it thrived in Scotland.

The language of Puritanism Paradoxically, however, an examination of primary sources suggests that ‘Puritan’ was a term infrequently heard in Scotland, at least before 1618. The Scots hurled this insult much less than the English. Many of the printed diaries, memoirs, sermons and treatises of the period contain little or no reference to Scottish ‘Puritans’.29 Moreover, in contrast to England, the godly in Scotland never appropriated the name themselves 26 See for example, Gordon S. Wakefield, Puritan Devotion (London, 1957); Owen C. Watkins, The Puritan Experience (London, 1972); G. Rupp, ‘A Devotion of Rapture in English Puritanism’, in R. Buick Knox (ed.), Reformation, Conformity and Dissent: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Nuttall (London, 1977); J. Brauer, ‘Types of Puritan Piety’, Church History, 56 (1987), pp. 39–58. 27 D.M. Lloyd-Jones, ‘John Knox: The Founder of Puritanism’, in The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors (Edinburgh, 1987). See also Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope (Edinburgh, 1971); I.D.E. Thomas (ed.), A Puritan Golden Treasury (Edinburgh, 1977); Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids, 1986). 28 Collinson, ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean Puritanism as Forms of Popular Religious Culture’, pp. 53–6, quotation on p. 55. 29 See for example, Select Works of Robert Rollock, ed. William M. Gunn (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1844–49); James Melville, Autobiography and Diary, ed. Robert Pitcairn (Edinburgh, 1843); Sermons by the Rev Robert Bruce with Collections for his Life by Robert Wodrow, ed. William Cunningham (Edinburgh, 1843); The Life of Robert Blair, ed. Thomas McCrie (Edinburgh, 1848); Select Biographies, ed. W. K. Tweedie (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1845–47).

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– there is no Scottish equivalent to the warm nostalgia for ‘the old English Puritan’ that one finds from the 1640s onwards. Obviously a thorough study of the use of the term ‘Puritan’ in post-Reformation Scotland is beyond the scope of this chapter, and a trawl through the archives (especially the records of Kirk sessions) may produce surprises. However, an initial survey of the printed literature allows us to reach the tentative conclusion that the tag only became a common term of abuse after the introduction of the Articles of Perth in 1618. Although James VI lambasted Scottish ‘Puritans’ from at least the late 1590s, his subjects were reluctant to follow his example. James is, of course, well known for his tirades against English ‘Puritans’, but he actually began to use the term in the Scottish context in the 1590s. In the first edition of Basilikon Doron (1599), the King bemoaned the fact that the Scottish Reformation had been instigated ‘by a popular tumult and rebellion’ rather than by royal order, and he condemned the democratic ecclesiology advocated by ‘some fierie spirited men in the ministrie’. He advised his son that he should ‘hate no man more than a proude Puritane’, and warned him that ‘Puritanes’ were ‘verie pestes in the Church and Common-weale’ of Scotland.30 In England, of course, the term ‘Puritan’ had been in use since the vestiarian controversy of the mid-1560s. Thomas Fuller, in his Church History of Britain, dated the use of the term to 1564. ‘“Puritan” here was taken for the opposers of the hierarchy and church-service’, he wrote; ‘But profane mouths quickly improved this nickname, therewith on every occasion to abuse pious people.’31 However, although ‘Puritans’ were marked out by contemporaries from early in Elizabeth’s reign, the term received a new lease of life in the 1590s, following on from the campaign against the Presbyterians and the reaction against the Marprelate tracts. As Collinson has argued, ‘It was the Martinist affair which made the Stage Puritan a perennial stock character.’ During the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign, bishops, playwrights and common people learned to deploy the new vocabulary of abuse against nonconformists and anyone who represented a threat to the traditional festive culture of merrie England.32 It is not surprising, therefore, that James VI also used the insult in his running battle with the Scottish Presbyterians. Yet there is little evidence beyond Basilikon Doron that the term ‘Puritan’ was widely used in late sixteenth-century Scotland. The King’s bitter hostility to the Presbyterians was not widely shared. Up until 30 The Political Works of James I, ed. Charles Howard McIlwain (Cambridge, MA, 1918), pp. 23–4. 31 Thomas Fuller, The Church-History of Britain (11 vols, London, 1655), vol. 9, p. 76. 32 Collinson, ‘Religious Satire and the Invention of Puritanism’, p. 166.

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1618, there seem to be few examples of the term being used. A rare example is found in a letter from Lauriston (the King’s commissioner in ecclesiastical affairs) to James in March 1605, which states that he has ‘incurrit of the Puritanes insupportabill malice’.33 But in contrast to James, Scottish churchmen were generally reluctant to damn their Presbyterian brethren as Puritans; they were acutely aware of sharing a common zeal for the propagation of the Reformed faith. Alan MacDonald has recently argued that the ‘moderate majority’ of Scottish ministers sought a middle way between jure divino episcopacy and jure divino presbytery, and aimed to balance royal supremacy and ecclesiastical independence. Although militant Presbyterians were only a minority within the Kirk, the king was aware that there was also little clerical support for his own vision of royal supremacy controlling the Church through diocesan bishops.34 Isolating and stigmatizing Presbyterians as ‘Puritans’ was going to prove difficult. Thus even James was probably cautious about using the language of ‘Puritanism’ in public. When he published the first edition of Basilikon Doron in 1599, only seven copies were printed and distributed to a small number of courtiers. Unfortunately, one of the copies was leaked, and the Presbyterians were understandably appalled to see themselves referred to as ‘Puritan pests’.35 Realizing the damage that could be done by this escalation of the rhetoric, James deliberately backed down in the second edition of Basilikon Doron, published on his accession to the English throne in 1603. In the new preface, he suggested rather disingenuously that his main target had been the Family of Love, a small sect of mystical perfectionists.36 This pretence did not last long. Once he was safely ensconced in England, James felt more confident in his attacks on Presbyterians and nonconformists. In England itself, he lambasted Presbyterians in Parliament and at the Hampton Court Conference, and in Scotland he turned his attention to rooting out his fiercest critics, imprisoning Melville in the Tower of London in 1607 and sending him into exile in 1611. In his Premonition (1609), James complained that he was 33 Original Letters relating to the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Scotland, ed. David Laing (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1851), vol. 1, no. 8. I owe this reference to Alan MacDonald. 34 Alan R. MacDonald, The Jacobean Kirk, 1567–1625: Sovereignty, Polity and Liturgy (Aldershot, 1998); MacDonald, ‘James VI and the General Assembly, 1586–1618’, in Julian Goodare and Michael Lynch (eds), The Reign of James VI (East Linton, 2000), pp. 170–85. 35 See James Melville, Autobiography and Diary, pp. 444–5; William Scot, An Apologeticall Narration of the State and Government of the Kirk of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1846), p. 110. 36 The Political Works of James I, pp. 6–7.

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‘persecuted by the Puritanes there [in Scotland], not from my birth only, but even since four months before my birth’; and added: That Bishops ought to be in the church, I ever maintained as an Apostolike institution, and so the ordinance of God; – so was I ever an enemie to the confused anarchie or parity of the Puritans, as well as appeareth in my Basilikon Doron. I that in my said book to my son do speak tenn times more bitterly of them (the Puritans) nor of papists – I that for the space of six years before my coming into England laboured nothing so much as to depresse their paritie, and re-erect Bishops againe.37

Yet the fact that James only felt free to speak his mind once he had left his native land points to the more thoroughly Reformed character of the Church of Scotland. North of the border, and until 1618, the language of Puritanism was conspicuous by its absence. This very absence is historically significant. It was partly due to the existence of alternative terms of abuse: ‘Presbyterian’ was probably a more common (and more accurate) insult in Scotland than in England, where Presbyterianism was not a live option between the 1590s and the 1640s; and ‘Covenanter’ became available after 1638. But more significantly, the relative absence of the term ‘Puritan’ before 1618 highlights the strength of the Reformed consensus within the Scottish Kirk. As Patrick Collinson has pointed out, the use of the term ‘Puritan’ is a helpful indicator of tension within the national Church and local communities. Where the Church was strongly Reformed in character, ‘Puritans’ seem to have disappeared into a generic Protestantism, since their contemporaries did not single them out for abuse. But when tensions were present, the term ‘Puritan’ was employed as a handy polemical weapon against the zealous. ‘The term “Puritan”’, Collinson writes, ‘is indicative not so much of an entity and a state, Puritanism, as of a situation with at least two sides to it, and of a dynamic, unstable and stressful process: a particular example of the cultural phenomenon of definition and reification through stigmatisation, indicative of polarity and contributory to polarity.’38 The relative rarity of this term of abuse in Scotland, therefore, is a telling indication of the strongly Reformed nature of the Scottish Church and nation. As Collinson writes of English Puritans, ‘In a church more thoroughly reformed they would have been in command, and no longer abused with the nickname of puritan.’39 This lends support to one of the central arguments of Margo Todd’s marvellous book The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (2002). Todd maintains that whereas hot Protestantism was always 37 38 39

Ibid., p. 126. Collinson, ‘Religious Satire and the Invention of Puritanism’, p. 155. Collinson, English Puritanism, p. 19.

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embattled south of the border, in Scotland it succeeded in reshaping national culture. Although she does not analyse the vocabulary of abuse, the infrequency of accusations of ‘Puritanism’ (at least before 1618) is further evidence in favour of her claim that Scotland had become a ‘puritan nation’.40 She writes: it is arguable that Scotland within a couple of generations of Reformation was not merely protestant. It was a puritan nation. Its strict sabbatarianism was a standard (and unattainable) part of the English puritan agenda. Its discipline was the envy of puritans to the south, banned as they were by bishops and queen from implementing classes and consistories on the Genevan/Scottish model. Its piety, judging from sermons and sermon notebooks, fasts and family exercise, was exemplary of puritan affective religion, compulsive self-scrutiny and doctrinal rigour. It was controlled, as John Tawle reported to a correspondent in London in 1590, by ‘they of the puritan sort’, defined by archbishop Patrick Adamson of St Andrews as ‘earnest and zealous, who can abide no corruption’ (including his own).41

The Church of Scotland, therefore, was closer to the Church of Ireland than to the Church of England. As Alan Ford has shown, Puritan nonconformists who were judged unacceptable in England ‘repeatedly found a welcome in Ireland through to the 1620s’.42 In Scotland too, nonconformists were not as vulnerable or exposed as their counterparts in England – even after 1618, those who refused to comply with the order to kneel at communion often found themselves among the tolerated majority.43 Zealous protestants in Scotland simply did not stand out as much as they did in England – such ‘Puritan’ characteristics as word-centred piety, experimental predestinarianism, sabbatarianism and fierce anti-popery were standard fare within the Church established by John Knox. Indeed, this is the point made by Mullan himself, who suggests that there was something of a Puritan consensus within the Church of Scotland before the 1620s. Mullan’s Puritans are both Presbyterians and Episcopalians; whatever their disagreements over polity, they were united by a staunchly Reformed theology and piety.44 Given the consensus, and the relative lack of tension within the Scottish and Irish churches before the late 1610s, vitriolic accusations of ‘Puritanism’ were understandably thin on the ground. 40 Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven, 2002), pp. 402–12: ‘Conclusion: a Puritan Nation’. 41 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, p. 405. 42 Ford, ‘The Church of Ireland, 1558–1634: a Puritan Church?’, p. 53. 43 See Ian Cowan, ‘The Five Articles of Perth’, in Duncan Shaw (ed.), Reformation and Revolution (Edinburgh, 1967), pp. 160–75; Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, pp. 102–4. 44 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, p. 1.

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The controversy over the Articles of Perth seems to have changed all this. By the time of his visit to Scotland in 1617, James was quite uninhibited in his use of the epithet. Determined to press for greater ceremonial conformity, he came into conflict with nonconformist Presbyterians like David Calderwood, and once again reached for his favourite polemical firearm. According to Calderwood, he told the bishops and others on the High Commission that he had dealt with ‘the Puritans in England … Let us take the same course with the Puritanes here.’ In 1621, he wrote to the bishops urging them to repress ‘obstinate Puritanes’.45 The introduction of the Articles of Perth at the General Assembly of 1618 and the Parliament of 1621 seem to have ushered in a new era for the language of Puritanism. Immediately after the Perth Assembly, Lord Binning reported to James that ‘the most precise and wilfull Puritanes were chosin commissionaris’.46 As the Presbyterian William Scot complained, long-standing conventions (such as sitting to receive communion, or not observing Christmas) were now stigmatized: ‘pastors and people, adhereing to their former profession and practice, are nicknamed Puritans’.47 Among the most vigorous abusers of Puritans was the Archbishop of St Andrews. In March 1618, Archbishop Spottiswoode complained to the King of ‘sum Puritanes’ who rejected the appointment of Patrick Forbes as Bishop of Aberdeen.48 According to Scot, Spottiswoode responded to a Calderwood speech with the retort: ‘It is a Puritan tale … ye call the King your King, but he must be ruled by you.’ When the Presbyterian addressed the Archbishop as ‘Sir’ not ‘Lord’, Spottiswoode was angered: ‘you are become a Puritan now’.49 In his History of the Church of Scotland, Archbishop Spottiswoode only spoke once about ‘Puritans’, in relation to James and the 1621 Parliament. He noted that ‘the Puritan faction’ was causing trouble, and quoted the King’s letter to the bishops, urging them to take action against both papists and Puritans; papistry, said James, was a disease of the mind, and Puritanism of the brain.50 Calderwood recorded that when the Presbyterian George Dunbar was deprived of his living in 1622, Spottiswoode ‘called him and all the Puritanes of Scotland lyers’.51 45 David Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland (8 vols, Edinburgh, 1842–49), vol. 7, pp. 259, 507–8. 46 Original Letters, vol. 2, no. 355. 47 Scot, An Apologeticall Narration, p. 333. 48 Original Letters, vol. 2, no. 342. 49 Scot, An Apologetical Narration, p. 301. 50 John Spottiswoode, The History of the Church of Scotland (3 vols, London, 1851), vol. 2, p. 262. 51 Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. 7, p. 534.

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The Presbyterians themselves were acutely conscious of this namecalling. In A Dialogue betwixt Cosmophilus and Theophilus anent the Ceremonies (1621), the Presbyterian author depicted the worldly man greeting his godly neighbour with the following words: ‘Good morning precise Theophile. Yee look very pale upon it. How? Hath not your tender stomake as yet digested the ceremoniall [pills], for the purifying of your Puritan humours.’52 The fullest analysis of this abuse was offered by David Calderwood in The Pastor and the Prelate (1628). He went out of his way to respond to the prelatical charge that nonconformists were ‘but a part of Puritans, that are so precise and singular beyond your neighbours in matters indifferent’. Calderwood distinguished between ‘two sorts of Puritanes’. On the one hand, there were the ancient heretics, the Novatians, who had been called Catharist or Puritane. This movement had denied the baptism of infants, condemned second marriage as unlawful and denied reconciliation to those who had compromised during persecution. ‘The other sorte’, wrote Calderwood, ‘is the new nicknamed Puritane in our times.’ The abuse came from four different directions. First, there were the Papists, who called anyone who opposed the Roman Hierarchy a Puritane; then there were the Arminians, who ‘accounteth it Puritanisme, to defende Gods free grace against mans free-will’; thirdly, there were the Formalists, who ‘thinketh it Puritanisme to stand out against conformitie’; finally, there were the Prophane, who ‘thinketh it essential to the Puritane to walke precisely, and not to be profane’. Thus it was possible to arrive at a four-point definition of the new Puritan: he was anti-Papist, anti-Arminian, antiFormalist and anti-profane. As Calderwood put it, He then is the new Puritane that standeth for Christ against Antichrist, that defendeth Gods free grace against mans free will, that would haue everie thing done in the house of God according to the will of God (which is his greatest heresie) that seeketh after the power of religion in his heart (and this is his intolerable singularitie) and that stands at the staffes end against the sinnes of the time (and this is his pride and melancholie).53

Calderwood’s definition of Puritanism is one that would be immediately recognized by modern historians like Peter Lake, who have highlighted the same key Puritan characteristics – anti-popery, predestinarian theology, conscientious scruples over church ceremonies, and strict and godly lifestyles. Moreover, Calderwood anticipated three of Patrick Collinson’s insights into ‘Puritanism’. Firstly, Calderwood realized that the use of the term ‘Puritan’ was indicative of tension within 52 53

A Dialogue betwixt Cosmophilus and Theophilus anent the Ceremonies (1621), p. 1. Calderwood, The Pastor and the Prelate (1628), pp. 35–8.

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Church and society. ‘If all were profane’, Calderwood wrote, ‘there would be no Puritane: for the profane and the Puritane are opposed.’54 Puritans only became subjects of abuse because they stood out from the crowd, and Calderwood provided a long list of biblical and historical characters who had attracted vitriol for their godliness. Secondly, Calderwood (like Collinson) knew that Puritans were distinguished by their zeal. They were ‘the hotter sort of Protestant’. Although anti-Catholicism and Calvinism were widely shared across the Church of Scotland, those whom contemporaries called Puritans were more intense – their Puritanism was a matter of degree rather than of kind. Calderwood’s comments underlined the passionate intensity of the Puritan style: Can any man or woman be vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked 2 Pet 2. be stirred up in spirit against Idolatrie, Act. 17. be hot in religion, Revel. 3. fervent in spirit, Rom. 12. walk precisely, Eph. 5. feare an oath, make the Sabbath his delight, Esa. 58. loue the brotherhood 1 Pet. 2. take the kingdome of God by violence, Matt. 11. and keepe a good conscience in all things Act. 24. and not be made the drunkards song, the byword of the people, and mocked for a Puritane.55

Finally, Calderwood (like Collinson) recognized that the term ‘Puritan’ was hurled from above and from below. It was employed from above by kings and bishops against nonconformists. By including the term in their verbal armoury, the authorities could wound troublemakers who objected to episcopal ordination, kneeling at communion, private baptism and communion, festival days and so on. But the term ‘Puritan’ was used from below by ordinary Scots against zealous protestants who wished to transform traditional culture. Calderwood complained of popular opposition to the enforcement of reformation. The godly had become a byword among ‘the people’ and ‘the profane’, and were ‘made the drunkards song’. Although Margo Todd is right to emphasize the relative success of the Scottish Reformation, the persistence of grassroots opposition to it is undeniable. Like England, Scotland witnessed resistance to protestant evangelism from local communities wedded to traditional festive culture and ungodly ways. The enforcement of reformation in both countries was a difficult and arduous process.56 Yet it was vitriol from above that was to prove most disruptive. The controversies of the 1630s provided a further boost to the language of 54

Ibid., p. 37. Ibid., p. 38. 56 Compare D. Hirst, ‘The Failure of Godly Rule in the English Republic’, Past and Present, 132 (1991), pp. 33–66, with Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, especially chs 3 and 4. 55

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‘Puritanism’ – as the tensions escalated within the Church of Scotland, so did the invective. During the king’s visit to Edinburgh in 1633, Archbishop Laud was reported to have preached a sermon in which he condemned ‘Jesuits and puritanes hinderinge reformation’.57 At the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, Thomas Sydserff was accused of saying that he loved papists more than Puritans. Indeed, it was claimed that Sydserff called his horse ‘Puritan’, since it would do nothing without a beating.58 Similarly, the clergyman Alexander Gledstanes was alleged to have said that ‘he had rather renunce God then be a puritane’. His critics even asserted that he had said that ‘the author of the Practise of Pietie [the Bishop of Bangor, Lewis Bayly], was damned in hell for he haid maid all the ladyes in Scotland puritans’.59 Even if such outrageous allegations were false, the very fact that they were made suggests that ‘Puritan’ had become a favourite term of abuse in Scotland. For at least some Episcopalians in 1637 and 1638, the national crisis could be blamed on ‘Puritans’. In September 1638, the Irish bishop Henry Leslie denounced the Covenanter movement as ‘the present Rebellion of the Puritanes’.60 In his Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland, John Spalding blamed the troubles of 1637–38 on ‘ane Meingzie of discontentit Puritanes’, of whom the ringleaders were Alexander Henderson, David Dickson and Andrew Cant. He complained of ‘the zealous Puritanis’ who flocked to Fife each Sunday for their devotions.61 When John Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, penned a treatise against Covenanter and Parliamentarian resistance theory, he naturally dubbed the rebels ‘Puritans’ and ‘Sectaries’.62 There were also functional equivalents available. As in England, the term ‘zealot’ was a common synonym for ‘Puritan’. James Gordon complained of ‘a she zealott’, ‘fervent zeale’, ‘preposterousse zeale’, and ‘zealouse professors’; and at the Restoration, George Mackensie 57 See ‘A Historie of Church and State’ (c. 1646) in Religious Controversy in Scotland, 1625–1639, ed. David George Mullan (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1998), p. 39. 58 James Gordon, History of Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641 (Aberdeen, 1841), p. 29. 59 [Archibald Campbell of Glencarradale], ‘Report of the Glasgow Assembly, 1638’, in Religious Controversy in Scotland, p. 142. 60 [H. Leslie], A Full Confutation of the Covenant, Lately Sworne and Subscribed by many in Scotland; Delivered in a Speech at the Visitation of Downe and Conner, Held in Lisnegarvy the 26th of September, 1638 (1639). I owe this reference to Crawford Gribben. 61 John Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and England, 1624–1645 (Aberdeen, 1850), pp. 78, 80. 62 John Maxwell, Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, or The Sacred and Royal Prerogative of Christian Kings (1644), pp. 32, 54, 137, 146, 161. See Robert Baillie’s complaints against Maxwell’s language in A Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland (1646), pp. 3, 6, 25.

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denounced ‘the mad-cap Zealots of this bigot Age’.63 When Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie attacked the Covenanters, he focused on their ecclesiology by dubbing them ‘the Presbyterian Senate’, ‘Kirkists’, ‘NeoLevites’, ‘the consistorian party’.64 And in Scotland (unlike England), ‘Presbyterian’ and ‘Puritan’ were practically interchangeable. The English Laudian, Peter Heylyn, anticipated later historians when he referred to ‘the Presbyterian-Scots’ and ‘the Puritan-English’, but he also wrote of ‘the Presbyterian or Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland’.65 The rising torrent of abuse is registered in the letters, sermons and treatises of leading Presbyterians in the 1630s. Samuel Rutherford urged his listeners and correspondents not to be intimidated by those who called them ‘Puritans’. In a sermon preached in the early 1630s, he warned that ‘men now fall from their profession; many are ashamed to own Christ, and to profess Him, they will not be called Puritans’.66 In another sermon, he complained that ‘a strict and precise walking with God in everything is scorned’ – those ‘who would walk so … get a new name to be “Puritans” and “separatists”’.67 In 1630, Rutherford informed his patroness Lady Kenmure that the bishops had persuaded the king to root out ‘such as are termed Puritans’.68 ‘Be not cast down’, he counselled Alexander Gordon of Earlston, ‘for what the servants of Antichrist cast in your teeth, that ye are a head of and favourer of the Puritans, and leader to that sect.’69 In 1637, he told another correspondent, ‘I assure you, howbeit we be nicknamed Puritans, that all the powers of the world shall not prevail against us.’70 Rutherford’s friend and colleague, George Gillespie, also complained that the godly were now made odious by being called Puritan. The enforcement of conformity, he explained, made ‘godly and zealous Christians to be mocked and nick-named Puritans, except they can swallow the camel of conformity’. Yet Gillespie insisted that the godly would not be intimidated: ‘We know the old Waldenses before us were also named by their adversaries, Cathares or Puritans; and that, without cause, hath this name been given both to them and us.’71 63 Gordon, History of Scots Affairs, pp. 7, 11, 32, 34, 45, 47, 60. See also Memoirs of Henry Guthry (1702); G. Mackensie, Religio Stoici (1663), p. 1. 64 Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, The Jewel, ed. R.D.S. Jack and R.J. Lyall (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 183–5. The Jewel was first published under the title Ekskybalauron: or, The Discovery of a Most Exquisite Jewel (1652). 65 Peter Heylyn, Aerius Redivivus: Or, The History of the Presbyterians (1670), p. 433. 66 Samuel Rutherford, Fourteen Communion Sermons (Glasgow, 1877), p. 341. 67 Samuel Rutherford, Quaint Sermons (1885), p. 318. 68 Letters of Samuel Rutherford, ed. Andrew A. Bonar (London, 1894), p. 53. 69 Ibid., p. 134. 70 Ibid., p. 512. 71 George Gillespie, The English Popish Ceremonies (1637), in The Works of George

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Gillespie (like Calderwood) was conscious that this stigmatizing of the godly was of recent origin. Prior to 1618, ‘hot’, ‘advanced’ or ‘perfect’ Protestantism had been quite at home within the thoroughly Reformed Church of Scotland. Now, however, it was singled out for abuse. Scottish Puritanism, which in a sense had existed since John Knox, was in another sense a creation of the king and some leading bishops. As the English Parliamentarian, Henry Parker, observed in his Discourse concerning Puritans (1641), ‘Puritanism’ had been decried as ‘the National sin of Scotland’. By condemning the Covenanters as ‘manifest Puritans’, the Laudian bishops had made Puritans of ‘all Scotland, and more than half Ireland’. One could only be grateful that they had not ‘charged God of turning Puritan’.72 Ironically, in conjuring up the spectre of ‘Puritanism’, the prelates helped to generate the reality they feared. Instead of quelling the godly, they radicalized them. In Scotland as in England, the royal and episcopal assault on hot Protestantism was to provoke ‘the rise of Puritanism’, as the alienated godly, so long part of the protestant establishment, now became a movement of opposition.73

Puritanism in comparative perspective The comparison between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England is worth pursuing a little further. Firstly, there were striking similarities between the two churches, similarities that justify Mullan’s use of the term ‘Scottish Puritanism’. As we have just observed, the term ‘Puritan’ was used in Scotland in much the same way as in England. This is, of course, a reminder of the strong English influence on Scotland, for it seems almost certain that the term ‘Puritan’ was itself an English import. The use of the term in Scotland also suggests that the Scottish Church experienced the same problems that afflicted the Church of England – popular resistance to reformation, and (after 1618) rising internal tensions within the Kirk. The emergence of ‘Arminianism’ or Laudianism, in particular, had a similar impact on both kingdoms, and had a polarizing effect on both churches. Gillespie (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1846), vol. 1, p. 39. 72 Henry Parker, A Discourse concerning Puritans (1641), in Lawrence A. Sasek (ed.), Images of English Puritanism: A Collection of Contemporary Sources, 1589–1646 (Baton Rouge, 1989), pp. 135–6, 156, 170. 73 See for England, Nicholas Tyacke, ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and counter-revolution’, in Conrad Russell (ed.), The Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), ch. 4; Collinson, English Puritanism, pp. 37–9; William Haller, The Rise of Puritanism (New York, 1938). For Scotland see Allan I. Macinnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, 1625–41 (Edinburgh, 1991).

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Moreover, before 1640, one can identify a similar spectrum of ecclesiastical positions in both countries. In Scotland, as in England, there were Catholic recusants and church papists. By the 1630s, there was also a powerfully placed Laudian faction in both churches.74 More significantly, for our purposes, it may be helpful to distinguish a centrist grouping of conformist Calvinists within the Church from a more radical ‘Puritan’ tendency. One of the puzzling things about Mullan’s work is that his ‘Scottish Puritanism’ names a consensus rather than a situation of conflict and tension. Whereas Mullan’s Episcopacy in Scotland (1986) explored the divide between Presbyterians and Episcopalians, his Scottish Puritanism searches for the common ground between them. It looks back on the early seventeenth century as a golden age in the Scottish Kirk, when Episcopalians and Presbyterians were united in their Calvinist theology and evangelical piety, an age that was tragically ended by the rise of Arminianism and the militancy of the Covenanters. Yet as we have seen, the very use of the term ‘Puritan’ is significant because it highlights polarization within Church and society – it bespeaks contention and division rather than consensus. Rather than lumping all of Scotland’s Reformed protestants together under the label ‘Scottish Puritanism’, we might do better to follow the practice of English historians who identify conformist Calvinists, moderate Puritans, nonconforming Puritans and Separatists along a finely graded spectrum, allowing for a certain mobility between positions. However, Mullan’s identification of a consensus within the Church of Scotland before the 1620s and 1630s is still helpful (even if we may not identify it as Puritan). His proposal is similar to that of Collinson, Tyacke and Lake, who have identified a Reformed or Calvinist consensus in the English Church under Elizabeth and James, a consensus only shattered by the Laudians.75 But these historians have also been careful to say that there was something distinctive about those whom contemporaries called ‘Puritans’ – although it may not have been a difference in kind, it was a difference in degree, for these protestants were distinguished by their heat, their zeal. If we apply this logic to the Scottish situation, it makes sense to describe at least some Reformed bishops and Episcopalians as conformist Calvinists, rather than as ‘Puritans’. There are certainly some striking parallels between the evangelical Calvinist Jacobean bishops described by Kenneth Fincham 74 Bryan D. Spinks, Sacraments, Ceremonies and the Stuart Divines (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 69–112, prefers the term ‘Patristic Reformed churchmen’, but he agrees that they were a distinct and well-placed group within both churches. 75 Indeed, elsewhere Mullan self-consciously borrows terminology from the English historiographical debate: ‘Theology in the Church of Scotland 1618–c. 1640: a Calvinist Consensus?’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 26 (1995), pp. 595–617.

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and their activist counterparts in Scotland as described by Michael Lynch.76 In England as in Scotland, those whom James promoted to the episcopal bench often had Puritan pasts, and they shared the warm evangelical piety and Calvinist theology of their former brethren.77 These prelates were wholly committed to promoting an evangelical protestant Reformation among the people – they differed from the Presbyterians in believing that a Church governed by godly bishops and a conscientious Christian prince would be best placed to fulfil this mission. If the Jacobean Kirk was a spectrum, it was one dominated by a broad middle band comprised of conformist Calvinists and Puritans. Indeed, the degree of consensus was such that (as in England) the lines between the two were very blurred. Nevertheless, ‘the hotter sort of Protestant’ was distinguished by his acute discomfort at the direction of the Kirk under James, and his zealous support of voluntary religion. In Scotland as in England, it makes sense to distinguish between ‘nonconforming Puritans’ like Calderwood, Rutherford and Gillespie, and ‘moderate Puritans’ like Robert Baillie, who were much less confrontational in their style whilst still being profoundly uneasy about the imposition of ceremonial conformity. In both churches, James VI and I found that he could work with moderate Puritans. If many of the bishops are best described as conformist Calvinists, we should perhaps not rule out the seemingly paradoxical idea of Puritan bishops – William Cowper, the only bishop who refused to kneel at communion after the passage of the Articles of Perth, is a case in point.78 The success of the Covenanter movement rested on its ability to assemble a clerical coalition of nonconforming Puritans, moderate Puritans and conformist Calvinists. The Covenanters mobilized the broad middle band of the Kirk against Laudian innovation. However, their coalition was spearheaded by Presbyterian divines like Henderson, Dickson and Rutherford, and (as in England after 1640) the political crisis led to a radicalization, indeed a Puritanization, of the Kirk. Men like Baillie, who in the 1630s had been a supporter of episcopacy, were eventually swept along by the new presbyterian fervour. After 1638, the godly in both nations became increasingly militant in their attitudes towards bishops and ceremonies. But for all these similarities between the Scottish and the English Church, there were also some profound differences. In the first place, 76 Kenneth Fincham, Prelate as Pastor: The Episcopate of James I (Oxford, 1990); Michael Lynch, ‘Preaching to the Converted?’, in A.A. MacDonald, Michael Lynch and Ian B. Cowan (eds), The Renaissance in Scotland (Leiden, 1994), pp. 301–43. 77 On England, see Collinson, Religion of Protestants, ch. 2, especially p. 84. 78 Todd, The Culture of Scottish Protestantism, p. 89 n.17. Cf. Peter Lake, ‘Matthew Hutton: a Puritan Bishop?’, History, 64 (1979), pp. 182–204.

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anti-Puritanism was significantly weaker in Scotland. Crucially, for example, the godly in Scotland did not have to contend with the theatre, which in London was both a potent alternative to Calvinist culture and a successful purveyor of the ‘Puritan’ stereotype.79 And within the Kirk itself, there was a lower degree of tension than in the Church of England. In the early decades of the Scottish Reformed Church, in particular, there is little evidence of the polarization to which the term ‘Puritan’ testifies. For most of James VI’s reign, the Scottish Church (rather like the Church of Ireland) seems to have had no equivalent to the vigorous antiCalvinist party within the Elizabethan and Jacobean Church of England, and even anti-Puritanism was very muted. Whereas the Calvinist consensus within the Church of England was under threat from the 1590s, in both the Scottish and Irish churches it was virtually unchallenged. Although James VI’s anti-Presbyterian campaign did raise tensions within the Kirk, it is significant that the king’s bishops seem to have been reluctant to follow his example in lambasting ‘Puritans’ – most Scottish churchmen did not see themselves as fundamentally at odds with nonconformists. Instead, conformist Calvinist churchmen were conscious of sharing much in common with their more ‘Puritan’ contemporaries. Even in the face of much provocation from Presbyterian polemicists, they did not resort to the language of Puritanism. Indeed, men like Andrew Knox, Bishop of the Isles and then Bishop of Raphoe in Ireland, and Andrew Lamb, Bishop of Galloway in the 1620s, seem to have felt that one of their Episcopal responsibilities was to accommodate godly nonconformists like John Livingstone and Samuel Rutherford.80 Only with the rise of Laudianism in the 1620s and 1630s was this Reformed consensus within the Kirk shattered. This was the real heyday of Scottish ‘Puritanism’ as an oppositional movement. The eagerness of the new, younger bishops to abuse nonconformists as ‘Puritans’ is another indication of the polarizing effect of the Articles of Perth and the rise of the Scottish Laudians. Thomas Sydserff, who became Bishop of Galloway in 1634, was far more aggressive towards nonconformists than his predecessors, Lamb and Cowper. But even here, it is important to remember that in the early 1630s the young Archibald Johnston of Wariston (hardly a paragon of moderation) was listening with appreciation to sermons of future bishops like Sydserff and James Fairlie.81 Apparently, the Scottish Laudians were more Reformed in their 79 See Lake, The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat; Patrick Collinson, ‘The Theatre Constructs Puritanism’, in David L. Smith, Richard Strier and David Bevington (eds), The Theatrical City (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 157–69. 80 See Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, p. 39. 81 See Archibald Johnston of Wariston, Diary, 1632–39, ed. George M. Paul (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 55–6, 89–90, 175.

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pulpit style than their English counterparts. For all the similarities between the two churches, the differences were profound. If anti-Puritanism was weaker in Scotland than in England, Scottish Puritanism itself was a rather different beast than its English equivalent. The fundamental difference lies in the strength of Scottish Presbyterianism. Whitgift’s success in crushing the English Presbyterian movement in the early 1590s was such that it was not really resurrected until the 1640s. With Presbyterianism dismissed as a viable option, at least for the time being, many moderate Puritans made their peace with episcopacy and conformed (reluctantly) to the ceremonies of the established Church. More radical Puritans, by contrast, risked prosecution for nonconformity, or gravitated towards semi-separatist congregationalism, or even separated from the Church of England altogether.82 The first of these options, moderate Puritanism, clearly had its parallel within the Scottish Kirk. The stance of men like William Perkins, Richard Sibbes and John Preston was arguably very similar to that of many moderate Scottish ministers, who accepted James’s reintroduction of episcopacy but retained an intense Calvinist piety. And just as moderate Puritans in England conformed to controversial ceremonies whilst regretting their imposition, so in Scotland, some of the godly were willing to conform to the controversial Articles of Perth. However, ceremonies like kneeling at communion were far more controversial in Scotland than in England – many godly Scots would have found it hard to understand the compromises made by a man like Stephen Denison, the fire-breathing London Puritan divine who was nevertheless willing to treat controversial ceremonies like kneeling as adiaphora.83 In this respect, as in others, the Church of Scotland was far more Puritan in character than its sister Church south of the border. Moreover, in a further contrast to England, neither separatism nor semi-separatism had much appeal in Scotland, where Presbyterianism remained the ecclesiology of choice for the more intransigent Puritans. Unlike English Presbyterianism, the Scottish movement remained a significant (if embattled) force in the decades from the 1590s to the 1630s. Zealous Scottish protestants were far less likely than their English counterparts to give up on the established Kirk and set up separatist churches. Although Robert Browne and John Penry visited Scotland in the 1580s, separatism never really took off. Presbyterians did form illegal conventicles, and were often dubbed ‘Brownists’, but the so-called ‘radical party’ in the Kirk was rather conservative compared to English 82 83

See Spurr, English Puritanism, chs 4 and 5. See Lake, The Boxmaker’s Revenge, p. 80.

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sectarians. The weakness of radical Puritanism in Scotland is one of the most striking contrasts with England.84 This had everything to do with the distinctive history of the Scottish Kirk. Scottish ‘Puritans’ looked back proudly to a day when their Kirk had been a pure Reformed church, and they were determined to hang in there until it was restored. ‘Such was the most glorious and ever memorable reformation of Scotland’, boasted George Gillespie, ‘that it was far better purged than any other neighbour church. And of Mr Hooker’s jest we may make good earnest; for, in very deed, as the reformation of Geneva did pass the reformation of Germany, so the reformation of Scotland did pass that of Geneva.’85 English Puritans, by contrast, looked back not on a golden age but on a flawed and incomplete Reformation, and a minority were prone to give up on the national Church, and opt for reformation without tarrying for the magistrate. Unlike Scottish Puritans who retained a powerful sense of loyalty to the Reformed tradition, some English Puritans were attracted to an iconoclastic primitivism that regarded the Reformed churches themselves as infected by popery in their doctrines and practices. In England, Laudianism had a centrifugal effect and hastened the fragmentation of English Puritanism by driving greater numbers into separatism and congregationalism; in Scotland, by contrast, it had a centripetal effect, driving Scottish Calvinists into the arms of a resurgent Presbyterian movement. When Scots like Rutherford and Baillie observed the fragmentation of English Puritanism in the 1640s, they found it hard to comprehend. Although Baptists and Quakers did win a few converts in Scotland in the 1650s, these were imported movements, not ones with deep Scottish roots. The overwhelming dominance of Presbyterianism among the godly in Scotland meant that the sects could not flourish as they did in England or even in Cromwellian Ireland. In the late 1630s and early 1640s hopes had been high that the godly of the three kingdoms would converge on an agreed form of church government. By the 1650s, these hopes had been well and truly dashed. Dreams of convergence had given way to the reality of divergence. The divergence was reinforced by events in the later seventeenth century. Whereas the Revolution of 1688–89 saw the triumph of 84 See D. Stevenson, ‘Conventicles in the Kirk: The Emergence of a Radical Party’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 18 (1974), pp. 99–114; and W.I. Hoy, ‘The Entry of the Sects into Scotland’, in Shaw (ed.), Reformation and Revolution, pp. 181–7. Contrast these with R.J. Acheson, Radical Puritans in England, 1550–1660 (Harlow, 1990); David R. Como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil War England (Stanford, CA, 2004); and J.F. McGregor and Barry Reay (eds), Radical Religion in the English Revolution (Oxford, 1984). 85 Gillespie, English Popish Ceremonies, in Works, vol. 1, p. 160.

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Presbyterianism in Scotland, English Dissenters remained on the outside. Scottish ecclesiastical politics continued to be marked by the great divide between Presbyterians and Episcopalians, and although this was paralleled in England by the split between Church and Dissent, English Dissent was composed of a variety of movements that had sprung to life in the 1640s and 1650s: Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers. When Nonconformist historians like Daniel Neal came to write the history of the Dissenters before they became Dissenters (that is, before 1660), they had to find a term that would encompass such a diverse range of movements. ‘Puritan’ was the term they settled on, and it has stuck.86 In Scotland, by contrast, militant Protestantism remained overwhelmingly Presbyterian even in the nineteenth century, and the continuing disputes between Episcopalians and Presbyterians dictated the terms of the historiography. The term ‘Puritan’ never took off.

Conclusion Whether the language of Puritanism will be widely adopted by modern historians of Scotland remains to be seen. Keith Brown, for one, has responded to Mullan by suggesting that ‘the application of the term Puritan to a Scottish context is not appropriate’.87 Yet the fact remains that the term ‘Puritan’ was applied to the Scottish context in the early modern period itself, and its use should not be simply ignored. Moreover, terminology refined within English historiography may add to the range of conceptual tools in the workshops of Scottish historians. The ‘Presbyterian’ and ‘Episcopalian’ labels have arguably inhibited our understanding of Scottish Protestantism, since they perpetuate the myth of a two-party conflict, and suggest that the history of the Kirk is simply a story of ecclesiastical tussles. The trend towards writing about Scottish Puritanism offers a fresh approach, one that encourages comparative history. It is not coincidental that the historians who have dared to speak of Scottish Puritanism have also done more than most to put Scotland’s religious history into international perspective, without in any way denying the distinctiveness of the Scottish experience.88 Whatever Scottish historians conclude about the current usefulness of the term ‘Puritan’, the language of Puritanism in Scotland is worth attending to. Its presence testifies to the bitter polarization within the 86 Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists from the Reformation in 1517 to the Revolution in 1688 (London, 1732–38). 87 Review of Scottish Puritanism in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53 (2002), p. 396. 88 See Mullan, Scottish Puritanism; Todd, The Culture of Protestantism; and Crawford Gribben, The Puritan Millennium: Literature and Theology, 1550–1682 (Dublin, 2000).

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Kirk after 1618, and to popular resentment of Calvinist discipline. Its absence bears silent witness to the powerful Reformed consensus within the Church of Scotland before 1618, and the success of Reformed Protestantism in transforming Scottish culture. If ‘Puritan’ is a less insistent voice north of the border, that is because Scotland was a Puritan success story.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Force and Fear of Punishment’: Protestants and Religious Coercion in Ireland, 1603–33 Alan Ford A drawn sword is essential … in these matters1 Lord Deputy Falkland to the English Privy Council, 2 April 1629 No man hath spent more houres in prayer, that it will please God to strike the hearts of this nation with the true knowledge of his worship that we may be all of one mind both in the substance and the circumstance of religion; but you must pardon me if I doe not believe the way to remove the errors, is to destroy the men, that the way to people Ireland with Protestants, is to cut the throats of all the papists. Religion can never be fruitful in that soyle which is tainted and overflowed with rivers and streames of blood. A letter from a Protestant in Ireland, to a Member of the House of Commons in England.2

In December 1800, in the aftermath of the passing of the Act of Union, the Irish Lord Lieutenant, Lord Charles Cornwallis, posed what has been called a ‘chilling question’: ‘What then have we done? We have united ourselves to a people whom we ought in policy to have destroyed.’3 What worried Cornwallis was the danger posed by the union of the two kingdoms. Ireland was a country where the vast majority of the population was excluded from power by the protestant state because of their firm commitment to the Roman Catholic religion, and where hatred between Roman Catholics and protestants rose to dangerous heights, leaving the established Church, the state and the link between the three kingdoms seriously exposed. Unless this problem was resolved, 1 Public Record Office, London, State Papers [hereafter SP] 63/248/55 (Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland (24 vols, London, 1860–1910 [hereafter CSPI], 1625–32, p. 445). 2 A letter from a Protestant in Ireland, to a Member of the House of Commons in England (Dublin, 1643), p. 3. 3 Cornwallis to Portland, 1 Dec 1800, The Correspondence of Charles, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, ed. Charles Ross (3 vols, London, 1859), vol. 3, p. 307, cited in Patrick Geoghegan, ‘The Catholics and the Union’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 10 (2000), p. 243.

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he feared that religious and political pressures would inevitably force Ireland and England apart.4 In 1613, the English MP, Sir Charles Cornwallis, sent to Ireland as a royal commissioner to investigate the condition of the Irish polity, wrote a lengthy analysis of its problems. He, too, identified the religious division between England and Ireland as a major threat, and outlined his solution: Ireland must be made protestant; priests should be ordered to leave the country by a certain day or be hung under martial law; and the acts of uniformity and supremacy must be enforced to leave the population with a stark choice between conformity and jail. Then, with the people obedient members of the established Church, a true religious and political union between the three kingdoms would have been achieved.5 At first sight the similarity of the sentiments is uncanny, proof that even our thoughts are genetically determined. Both our Cornwallises were confronting the same strategic challenge – what to do in a wider British context with a Catholic Irish nation. Both were seeking to identify ways of removing the threat which a Catholic majority in Ireland posed to the security and the unity of the three kingdoms. But on closer inspection, for all their consanguinity, the two responses to this challenge are, in fact, radically different. The earlier Cornwallis believed that, because of their religion, Irish Catholics made disloyal citizens and it was therefore necessary to force them to become protestant – the problem of religious division in these islands could only be tackled by eliminating religious diversity. His descendant had, however, recognized that this was impractical: there was no chance of converting the Irish Catholics; Britain was therefore embarking on union with an irrevocably Catholic nation. This required Catholic emancipation – the problem of religious diversity could only be solved by religious toleration.6 We are dealing here, of course, with the beginning and the end of the penal laws, and with the mentalities which introduced and enforced them and, much later, repealed them. To the modern mind, the approach of the second Cornwallis is much more easy to understand: the presumption that compulsion in matters of religion is neither practicable nor theoretically justifiable has long been a fundamental tenet of western liberal societies, providing a comforting terminus for Whig histories such as that classic work of Jordan, The development of religious toleration.7 4

Geoghegan, ‘The Catholics and the Union’, pp. 243f. ‘Reasons why Ireland hath always been so full of troubles’, British Library [hereafter BL] Add. MS 39853; on the Cornwallises see DNB, and G.E. Cokayne (ed.), Complete Baronetage (6 vols, Exeter, 1902), vol. 2, p. 13. 6 Geoghegan, ‘The Catholics and the Union’, pp. 255f. 7 W.K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England (2 vols, London, 5

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The outlook of those who, after Cornwallis, pressed for and eventually secured Catholic emancipation is, within this framework, readily understandable. But the happy assumption that the process of modernization and the rise of toleration go hand in hand is, of course, challenged by the prevalence in the modern world of persecution, fundamentalism and religious violence, and more locally, by the continuing problem which sectarianism poses in Northern Ireland.8 A more recent reworking of Jordan’s topic has a much more neutral and less confident title: Persecution and toleration. In these circumstances, the mindsets of Sir Charles Cornwallis and those who introduced and enforced the penal laws in Ireland cannot be safely consigned to Whig oblivion in the dustbin of history, but, rather, demand investigation and contextualization. And here historians have been less comfortable and sure-footed. There is indeed a respectable literature on the origins and mentalities behind the penal laws, but it suffers from two significant drawbacks. First, its conclusions are far from clear. Some, taking Sir Charles Cornwallis and his ilk at face value, have argued that the penal legislation was a giant experiment in religious engineering, a genuine attempt to turn a Catholic country into a protestant one.9 Though obvious, this view has been far from popular with more devious-minded historians, who have adopted the line first developed by Hugh Reily, an influential Catholic writer, who famously argued in 1695 that the protestants ‘took more pains to make the land turn protestant than the people’.10 The penal laws, in other words, had a much more cynical purpose, to protect the interests of the protestant minority by penalizing the Catholics and reducing their political, social and landed power and influence in Ireland. Were the penal laws to achieve their supposed effect, 1932–40); John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 1–3. 8 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, p. 218; Joseph Liechty, Roots of Sectarianism in Ireland. Chronology and Reflections (Belfast, 1993); Joseph Liechty and Cecelia Clegg, Moving beyond Sectarianism: Religion, Conflict, and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland (Dublin, 2001); J.D. Brewer and G.I. Higgins, AntiCatholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam (Basingstoke, 1998); Christopher Ryder and Vincent Kearney, Drumcree: The Orange Order's Last Stand (London, 2001). 9 R.E. Burns, ‘The Irish Penal Code and Some of its Historians’, Review of Politics, 21 (1959), pp. 276–99; R.E. Burns, ‘The Irish Popery Laws: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Legislation and Behaviour’, Review of Politics, 24 (1962), pp. 485–508; S.J. Connolly, ‘Religion and History’, Irish Economic and Social History, 10 (1983), pp. 66–80; S.J. Connolly, ‘The Penal Laws’, in W.A. Maguire (ed.), Kings in Conflict: The Revolutionary War in Ireland and its Aftermath 1689–1750 (Belfast, 1990), pp. 157–72. 10 [Hugh Reily], Ireland’s case briefly stated; or, a summary account of the most remarkable transactions in that kingdom since the Reformation (s.l., 1695), Preface.

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of converting Ireland’s Catholics, then the privileged position of the protestant ascendancy would be destroyed. As the pioneering historian of the eighteenth-century penal laws, Maureen Wall, argued in 1960: ‘It is generally accepted that the penal laws … were primarily aimed at maintaining the absolute ascendancy of the members of the established church and at securing the land settlement’.11 Certainly the statistics of land ownership, when placed side by side with the official records of conversions, would strongly support this interpretation. Where religious issues entered into the equation, it was the more vulgar dimensions of popular anti-popery, or the political fear of Catholic disloyalty founded upon the papal deposing power, which loomed largest in Irish protestant minds. And indeed, the most recent analysis of the origins of the penal acts of the 1690s concludes that ‘the overriding motivation behind them was fear for the safety of the protestant interest in Ireland’.12 But there is a further difficulty with these efforts to identify the outlook behind the penal laws – the limited chronological range of the investigations. Unusually for Irish historians, they fail to go back far enough in their search for origins. Of course, it is sensible to concentrate upon the aftermath of the treaty of Limerick or the Restoration land settlement when seeking to trace the development of the late seventeenthand eighteenth-century penal legislation. But this legislation is but the second flowering of a much earlier impulse, which can be traced to the sixteenth century, to the Elizabethan Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy, and the first Act of Supremacy, passed by Henry VIII. These deeper origins of penal legislation in Ireland were, it is true, recognized at an early stage by one of the pioneers of modern Irish historiography, Dudley Edwards, whose doctoral dissertation was entitled ‘The history of penal laws against Catholics in Ireland from 1534 to the Treaty of Limerick (1691)’.13 Since then, however, little additional work has been done to explore the ‘pre-history’ of the penal legislation and the mentality of its proponents. Hence this investigation into the second half of the first century of Irish religious persecution. 11 Maureen Wall, ‘Catholic Loyalty to King and Pope in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, in Gerard O’Brien (ed.), Catholic Ireland in the Eighteenth Century: Collected Essays of Maureen Wall (Dublin, 1989), p. 107. 12 C.I. McGrath, ‘Securing the Protestant Interest: The Origins and Purpose of the Penal Laws of 1695’, Irish Historical Studies, 30 no. 117 (1996), p. 33. 13 R.D. Edwards, ‘The History of Penal Laws against Catholics in Ireland from 1534 to the Treaty of Limerick (1691)’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1933; R.D. Edwards, Church and State in Tudor Ireland: A History of the Penal Laws against Irish Catholics 1534–1603 (Dublin, 1935); R.D. Edwards, ‘Church and State in the Ireland of Míchéal Ó Cléirigh 1626–1641’, in Sylvester O’Brien (ed.), Measgra i gcuimhne Mhichíl Uí Chléirigh (Dublin, 1944), pp. 1–20.

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Phases of religious coercion The choice of period is deliberate: the end of the Nine Years War and the accession of James I in 1603 marks a new beginning in the enforcement of penal legislation in Ireland. Generally speaking, though the penal legislation was enacted during the sixteenth century, it was not until the early seventeenth century that it was enforced, or, to be more precise, that the Dublin government and the state Church was finally in a position to try to enforce it across the whole island of Ireland.14 Thereafter, over the thirty year period from the accession of James in 1603 until the effective suspension of the penal legislation after the arrival of Lord Deputy Wentworth in 1633, there was a serious effort to impose religious uniformity in Ireland which enables us to examine in some detail the motives and aims of its proponents. It is not intended here to trace in detail the history of the policy of religious coercion in the early seventeenth century – that has been done elsewhere.15 But a brief outline of the main actors and the pivotal points is essential if we are to understand the motivations behind the policy. The most striking fact about the history of the penal laws in early seventeenth-century Ireland is the enthusiasm with which the leaders of the Church and state in Dublin sought to enforce them. During the Nine Years War, any measures against Catholics had, of course, been suspended for fear that they would alienate the Old English whom the English authorities were desperately anxious should not defect to the 14 Though see James Murray, ‘Ecclesiastical Justice and the Enforcement of the Reformation: The Case of Archbishop Browne and the Clergy of Dublin’, in Alan Ford, J.I. McGuire and Kenneth Milne (eds), As by Law Established: the Church of Ireland since the Reformation (Dublin, 1995), pp. 33–51, for a useful discussion of the difficulties in trying to implement conformity in the sixteenth-century archdiocese of Dublin. 15 The best general history remains the chapters by Aidan Clarke in T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F.J. Byrne (eds), A New History of Ireland (Oxford, 1976); for an account of religious policy see the works by Edwards, cited in note 13 above; John McCavitt, ‘Lord Deputy Chichester and the English Government’s “Mandates Policy” in Ireland, 1605–7’, Recusant History, 20 (1991), pp. 320–35; John McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland 1605–1616 (Belfast, 1998), ch. 7; Alan Ford, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland (Dublin, 1997), ch. 3; Alan Ford, ‘Reforming the Holy Isle: Parr Lane and the Conversion of the Irish’, in T.C. Barnard, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and Katharine Simms (eds), ‘A Miracle of Learning’: Studies in Manuscripts and Irish Learning. Essays in Honour of William O’Sullivan (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 137–63; D.J. Kennedy, ‘The Presidency of Munster under Elizabeth and James I’, unpublished MA thesis, University College Cork, 1973; H.S. Pawlisch, Sir John Davies and the Conquest of Ireland: a Study in Legal Imperialism (Cambridge, 1985), ch. 6; A.J. Sheehan, ‘The Recusancy Revolt of 1603: A Reinterpretation’, Archivium Hibernicum, 38 (1983), pp. 3–13; R.G. Asch, ‘Antipopery and Ecclesiastical Policy in Early Seventeenth Century Ireland’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 83 (1992), pp. 258–301.

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side of Tyrone. But the almost precise coincidence between peace and the accession of a new King in 1603 gave rise to hopes on the part of the protestant leaders in Ireland, both civil and ecclesiastical, that military victory could immediately be followed by religious subjugation. Adam Loftus, who was both Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor, the new Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, the innovative Solicitor General, Sir John Davies, the firmly protestant Bishop of Meath, Thomas Jones, and the zealous new President of Munster, Sir Henry Brouncker, together with his aide, Sir Parr Lane, joined in putting together a concerted plan to reshape the religious map. Here, however, we come across the second striking feature of the efforts to enforce religious conformity by the Dublin authorities – the distinct lack of enthusiasm for such measures by their English superiors. Partly from principle, but also for pragmatic reasons, neither James nor his Privy Council was happy with the idea of coercion, which they saw as risking the hard-won military victory in Ireland by alienating the Irish people from English rule. As a result, the ability of the Dublin authorities to impose a draconian policy on Irish Catholics was dependent upon a favourable conjunction of political and diplomatic forces in London and elsewhere forcing the hand of the King and his advisers.16 The first such conjunction came in 1604–5, with the calling of the (traditionally anti-Catholic) English Parliament and the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, which released a wave of hysteria in England and provided the opportunity for the protestant leadership in Dublin to impose a new direction in Irish religious policy: the mandates campaign. This innovation sprang from a basic problem which the Dublin government encountered when it tried to enforce conformity: the legislative basis for action was weak – little other than the 12d fine for non-attendance at church imposed by the Act of Uniformity, which was effective against the poorer Catholics, but powerless against their richer leaders, and the oath of supremacy, together with the medieval legislation of provisors and praemunire (which punished those supporting foreign – that is, papal – jurisdiction).17 Whereas in England a firmly, indeed, at times, fiercely, protestant Parliament had repeatedly reinforced the initial Elizabethan legislation to produce a broad array of measures, in Ireland, where parliaments were most decidedly not protestant, the next major addition to anti-recusancy measures after 1560 did not come till 1653.18 The solution was to move beyond the 16

Ford, Protestant Reformation, ch. 3. ‘Those Catholics who go, or promise to go to church … are all of the very poorest class’: Edmund Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1894), p. 480. 18 And even then, the English Act of Parliament of 1585 was applied to Ireland not by 17

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statute law and use the royal prerogative by issuing mandates from the Lord Deputy requiring prominent recusants to attend church: refusal brought fines and indefinite imprisonment. The sharpest test for Irish Catholics came in Munster, where Sir Henry Brouncker enthusiastically set about enforcing these measures, issuing his own proclamation in 1604, devising an elaborate rationale for his approach, and even seeking powers to have Catholic priests executed.19 The determined imposition of this policy provoked a propaganda war, as Lord Deputy Chichester and Henry Brouncker in Munster bombarded London with reports of the success of their policy, whilst the Irish Catholics sent emissaries to England who derided the temporary conformity which had been forced on the loyal Catholic masses, and impressed on the English authorities the danger which the heavy-handed measures posed to the safety and effective functioning of the Irish polity. Though in public James dealt firmly with the Catholic representatives, in private their case did not go unheeded, and in 1606–7, concerned at the extremism of the Irish authorities in general and Brouncker in particular, the English Privy Council made it plain that the mandates were to be dropped and a more persuasive and gentler policy was to be followed. The death of Brouncker in May 1607 effectively brought to an end the first comprehensive attempt to use penal measures to change the religious composition of Ireland.20 But the Dublin authorities under Chichester and his successor Oliver St John, and Loftus and his successor as Archbishop and Chancellor, Thomas Jones, remained committed to the enforcement of conformity. Where allowed by London, they extended their actions in a number of directions: the government sought to prevent Catholics educating their children abroad; juries who refused to convict fellow-Catholics of recusancy were fined; legal action was also taken against recusant corporations, mayors and local government officials; the oath of supremacy was used to bar Catholics from positions of power and influence, and there was even an attempt to extend the oath of allegiance to Ireland; Catholic lawyers were excluded from the courts; episcopal excommunication was used against Catholics; and, in 1612, the government executed two Catholic priests for treason.21 legislation but by proclamation: T.C. Barnard, ‘Conclusion: Settling and Unsettling Ireland: The Cromwellian and Williamite Revolutions’, in J.H. Ohlmeyer (ed.), Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1641–1660 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 283. 19 Ford, Protestant Reformation, ch. 3; Pawlisch, Sir John Davies, pp. 108–10; McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, ch. 7. 20 SP 63/217/85 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 354); CSPI, 1603–6, p. 356; SP 63/217/94 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 370); SP 63/218/53 (CSPI, 1603–6, pp. 466–76); SP 219/103A (CSPI, 1603–6, pp. 550f.). 21 Edwards, History of Penal Laws, pp. 427f.

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The preference of the Irish authorities remained much the same during the 1620s: Archbishop Christopher Hampton of Armagh, and James Ussher, Bishop of Meath, both favoured the suppression of recusancy, and their case was forcefully put to the 1622 Commissioners, who had come to Ireland to conduct a major enquiry into the government of Ireland. Though they recommended that a proclamation be issued banishing priests from the kingdom and that the 12d fine be imposed, the Commissioners rejected the use of the latter against the mass of the Catholic population, instead proposing that it be restricted to the richer sort of recusants.22 But such minor adjustments were brushed aside as a result of a major policy change in England, following James’s decision to pursue a Spanish match for his son. As part of the negotiations with Spain, the enforcement of recusancy laws was halted from the early 1620s.23 It is true that the subsequent collapse of the marriage plans seemed to offer the Irish protestants an opportunity to return to their preferred approach. And, indeed, the Irish authorities optimistically issued a proclamation banishing priests from Ireland in January 1624.24 But this was immediately countermanded from England. Only ‘public insolencies’ were to be punished, implying a de facto toleration of the private practice of Catholicism.25 The subsequent threat of war with Spain and the need to raise revenue to pay for the defence of Ireland required a continuation of this conciliatory approach to Irish Catholics. Indeed, the Irish Catholics sought to exploit their rare position of strength by trying to formalize their unofficial toleration in the Graces, a series of concessions granted by King Charles I in return for a financial contribution.26 The possibility of such a public concession to Catholics goaded the leaders of the Church of Ireland into action. During the negotiations about the Graces the Irish bishops, led by James Ussher, now Archbishop of Armagh, met privately to produce a striking statement of their fundamental abhorrence of the Roman Catholic Church: The religion of the papists is superstitious and idolatrous; their faith and doctrine, erroneous and heretical; their church in respect of both, apostatical. To give them therefore a toleration, or to consent that they might freely exercise their religion, and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin.27 22

SP 63/237/35 fol. 74v. James Ussher, The Whole Works [hereafter UW], ed. C.R. Elrington and J.H. Todd (17 vols, Dublin, London, 1829–64), vol. 15, p. 199. 24 A proclamation for the banishment of Iesuites and priests (Dublin, 1624). 25 CSPI, 1615–25, p. 399; CSPI, 1615–25, p. 459; CSPI, 1625–60 Additional, p. 45; SP 63/267/10; Ware MS Annals, Trinity College, Dublin (hereafter TCD) MS 6404, fol. 60v. 26 Aidan Clarke, The Graces (Dundalk, 1968). 27 Richard Parr, The life of … James Usher (London, 1686), p. 28. 23

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Subsequently, in 1627, as the negotiations reached a climax, the bishops publicized their opposition in the most dramatic way possible, in a series of sermons preached in Dublin by Ussher, the Archbishop of Cashel, Malcolm Hamilton, and the Bishop of Derry, George Downham. These openly condemned the proposal to grant toleration in return for money as putting religious truth up for sale.28 Hamilton went on to draft a lengthy appeal to the King, which constitutes one of the more revealing statements of the hard-line Irish protestant mindset.29 Political circumstance then conspired to help the protestant leaders, as the proposal to grant toleration in the Graces was dropped and efforts formally to recognize them foundered, while the departure of Lord Deputy Falkland in 1629 left the Dublin administration in the hands of two Lords Justices, Sir Adam Loftus (nephew of the former Lord Chancellor) and Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, who fully shared the Irish protestant commitment to a rigorous religious policy and were afforded an unusually long interregnum before the arrival of a new Lord Deputy in which to implement it. Cork, in particular, enthusiastically enforced Falkland’s parting-shot, a 1629 proclamation which sought to prevent Catholics from celebrating their religion in public.30 Instructions were issued for the suppression of religious buildings, and Cork himself took part in the confiscation of mass houses in Dublin, thereby precipitating a minor riot.31 The Lords Justices even took the step of reintroducing the 12d fine, a step which drew the familiar twin responses of vigorous Catholic protests and warnings from England to back off.32 Crucial to Cork’s success in implementing this policy was the support he received in London from the firmly protestant and anti-Catholic Secretary of State, Lord Dorchester.33 Protestant academics in Dublin supplemented 28 Nicholas Bernard, The life and death of … James Usher (Dublin, 1656), pp. 62f.; Alan Ford, ‘James Ussher and the Godly Prince in Early Seventeenth-Century Ireland’, in Hiram Morgan (ed.), Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 219f. 29 TCD MS 1188, fols 1r–10v; printed in Alan Ford (ed.), ‘Criticising the Godly Prince: Malcolm Hamilton’s Passages and Consultations’, in Vincent Carey and Ute LotzHeumann (eds), Taking Sides? Colonial and Confessional Mentalités in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp. 116–37. 30 P.J. Corish (ed.), ‘Two Seventeenth-Century Proclamations aganst the Catholic Clergy’, Archivium Hibernicum, 39 (1984), pp. 54f. 31 J.P. Mahaffy, An Epoch in Irish History. Trinity College, Dublin: Its Foundation and Early Fortunes, 1591–1660 (London, 1903), pp. 213f. 32 Marsh’s Library, Dublin, MS Z3.2.6/55; Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of the Earl Cowper (3 vols, London, 1888–89), vol. 1, pp. 480f. 33 John Reeve, ‘Secret Alliance and Protestant Agitation in Two Kingdoms: The Early Caroline Background to the Irish Rebellion of 1641’, in Ian Gentles, John Morrill and Blair Worden (eds), Soldiers, Writers and Statemen of the English Revolution (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 19–35; L.J. Reeve, ‘The Secretaryship of State of Viscount Dorchester’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1984.

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Cork’s efforts by launching a series of publications in which they demolished Catholics’ historical and theological claims and denounced them as heretics.34 But the brief conjunction of forces did not last long: the arrival of Thomas Wentworth as Lord Deputy in 1633 marked a return to the policy of informal toleration for Catholicism, and in effect ended the early seventeenth-century experiment in enforcing the penal laws.35

Religious motivations Why were Irish protestant leaders, both secular and ecclesiastical, so consistently determined to follow an aggressive policy towards Catholics? Closer investigation suggests that their motivation was complex, the product of that nexus of religious belief, political conviction, strategic necessity and military and diplomatic fears, not to mention bigotry and crude self-interest, from which the penal laws grew. Let us examine each of these elements in turn. The religious grounding for the desire to enforce penal legislation sprang from a range of ideological currents. It reflected the traditional Christian position since Augustine, supporting the use of force to impose conformity; it was linked to a sharply polarised protestant ecclesiology; which was in turn supported by an apocalyptic belief that the Roman Church was antichristian, and by a firmly providential view of history as being ultimately on the protestant side; and, finally, it drew upon the deep and instinctive anti-Catholicism of so many early modern protestants. Apart from his radical insistence on the primacy of grace over free will, Augustine left another controversial legacy to the western Christian tradition – the principle that error has no right, that heretics could be subject to the secular sword. Augustine’s struggle with the Donatists in North Africa, those godly terrorists who claimed to be the upholders of ecclesiastical purity, violently rejecting the compromises and abuses of the Roman Church, led him close to despair. Having realized that even his remarkable powers of argument and persuasion could not bring the Donatists to admit the error of their ways, he turned to the civil 34 Roger Puttock, A rejoinder unto W. Malone’s reply to the first article (Dublin, 1632); John Spottiswood, Saint Patrick’s purgatory (Dublin, 1632); George Synge, A rejoynder to the Reply (Dublin, 1632); James Ussher, Veterum epistolarvm hibernicarvm sylloge (Dublin, 1632); George Downham, The covenant of grace, or an exposition upon Luke 1.73.74.75 (Dublin, 1631). 35 Hugh Kearney, Strafford in Ireland 1633–41: A Study in Absolutism (second edn, Cambridge, 1989), pp. 118f.

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authorities to use their coercive powers to force them to conform. He recognized, of course, that persuasion was best, but, when faced with obdurate error, his conclusion was plain – the only recourse was the threat of financial penalty and imprisonment. The Donatists had to be physically removed from their heresy and made to attend the Catholic Church. This was not, of course, forced conversion, since, in Augustine’s theology, conversion was a product wholly of God’s grace, not man’s efforts. Rather it was putting them physically in a position where they could be exposed to the grace of God which could then move them internally.36 Augustine’s theology of grace and his commitment to enforced conformity were adopted and adapted with alacrity by the Church of Ireland in the early seventeenth century. The former was incorporated into its confession, the 1615 Irish Articles; the latter became an unofficial article of faith for its leaders.37 They saw the analogy with fourth-century north Africa as exact: Ireland, too, had obdurate heretics – recusants – upon whom the leaders of the Church wanted the state to impose conformity.38 Thus Archbishop Hampton of Armagh, when giving evidence to the 1622 Commissioners about the appropriate policy towards recusants, cited ‘St Austin’ as his guide.39 The classic exposition of the Donatist parallel came in a sermon by Henry Leslie, Dean of Down and chaplain to Hampton, which he preached before the 1622 Commissioners at Drogheda. Leslie’s sermon contained a detailed justification for the enforcement of conformity, replete with liberal quotations from Augustine, and, not surprisingly, aroused Catholic opposition.40

36 Standard accounts include Peter Brown, ‘Saint Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion’, Journal of Roman Studies, 54 (1964), pp. 107–16; R.F. Evans, One and Holy: The Church in Latin Patristic Thought (1972), ch. 3; W.H.C. Frend, The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1952). 37 Articles of Religion (Dublin, 1615); on grace and predestination in the Irish Articles, see Ford, Protestant Reformation, pp. 160–66. 38 The Donatist analogy was also used by all sides in religious controversy in England: George Gifford, A plain declaration that our Brownists be full Donatists, by comparing them together from point to point out of the writings of Augustine (London, 1590); Thomas Edwards, The casting down of the last and strongest hold of Satan (London, 1647); William Prynne, The sword of Christian magistracy supported (London, 1647); John Brereley, Sainct Austin’s religion (St Omer, 1620); William Crompton, St Austins summes (London, 1624); see also Robert Dodaro and Michael Questier, ‘Strategies in Jacobean Polemic: The Use and Abuse of St. Augustine in English Theological Controversy’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 44 (1993), pp. 432–49. 39 NLI MS 8014/iii/5. 40 Henry Leslie, A treatise tending to unitie: in a sermon preached at Droghedah on Whitsunday (being the ninth of Iune 1622.) before the Kings Majesties Commissioners for

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He lamented the failure of the Reformation in Ireland, where every day, far from being reclaimed from Catholic error by protestant preaching, more of the population were falling away from ‘the truth’. The primary cause of this was the ‘long continuance in error’ of the Irish people, ‘there being nothing harder than to break an ignorant man of his custom’. He drew specific attention to the Donatist parallel: ‘This is noted by that father to have hindered the reformation of the Donatists: some were bound not by truth, but by an hard knot of obdurate custom … And surely this is a people, of all other most zealous in their ancient customs.’41 The remedy for such obduracy was compulsion: ‘For old sores are not cured without cutting and lancing. And fear is that which will overcome custom.’42 Leslie appealed to the Commissioners: You are the second servants of our Lord, sent forth with this commission, Compel them to come in, that my house may be full.43 You must compel them by laws and punishments … Constantine the Great (as St Augustine witnesseth) decreed against the sacrifices of pagans, upon pain of death: against wilful heretics, upon confiscation of their goods … Theodosius the younger, set a fine of ten pounds of gold upon the Donatists, who were the recusants of that age: which, as St Augustine witnesseth, had very good success; For (saith he) thereby many of them were moved to profess religion though at first they did profess it merely by compulsion, yet afterwards they professed only for devotion. These were the proceedings of godly kings and emperors, against such as would not conform themselves to the true worship of God, established by the laws of the land.44

Augustine’s letter to Vincentius was again quoted in 1632 by the Trinityeducated cleric, Roger Puttock, when appealing to the new Lord Deputy, Thomas Wentworth, to follow firm policy towards recusancy: ‘we have cause to pray, that terror may expel that hard and evil custom, which by teaching will not be removed’.45 Sir Christopher Sibthorp, a theologically-minded Irish judge, followed a similar patristic line in his assault on Irish Catholics, again citing Augustine, and also Tertullian’s attack on the Gnostic heretics: ‘obduracy has to be conquered, not persuaded’.46 Malcolm Hamilton likewise believed that heresy must be Ireland (Dublin, 1623). In the dedication to Hampton, Leslie alludes to the controversy the sermon evoked. 41 Leslie, Treatise tending to unitie, p. 42. The quotation is from Augustine, Letter 93, to Vincentius, §17. 42 Leslie, Treatise tending to unitie, p. 44. 43 Luke 14:23. 44 Leslie, Treatise tending to unitie, pp. 45f. 45 Puttock, Rejoinder unto W. Malone’s reply, Dedication; both Puttock (ibid.) and Leslie (Treatise tending to unitie, p. 45) cite the same passage from Augustine. 46 Christopher Sibthorp, A reply to an ansvvere, made by a popish adversarie (Dublin,

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met with ‘force and fear of punishment’, though he was less interested in Augustine than in those other church fathers who had determinedly set their face against the efforts by the Roman Emperors to compromise with paganism.47 The moral he drew was that sometimes it was the responsibility of the Church to instruct the secular leaders in their religious duty towards heretics: Consider that the ancient emperors opposed themselves against the Arians and other heretics of those times. If the emperors did seem to yield, for policy sake, yet the true orthodox bishops did stoutly stand both against the heretics and against the emperors in this point as appears in the ecclesiastical histories concerning Athanasius, Chrysostom, Amphilocius, and others.48

In dedicating his 1624 book An answer to a challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland to the King, Ussher appealed to James to use the same methods as the early Christian emperors, citing the demand made by the fourthcentury writer, Firmicus Maternus, who, in his De errore profanarum religionum, had appealed to Constantine’s sons to destroy all pagan religion: ‘To you the most high God has granted this power, that through you the wounds of this country might be healed ... It is better that you free them against their will, than let them go willingly to destruction.’49 Another Irish cleric, George Synge, employed Tertullian’s De praescriptione haereticorum against contemporary Catholics.50 And Hamilton finished with an appeal to Charles which echoed Leslie’s citation of that fateful Lucan text: God grant that his Majesty may doe his part and remember the words of Christ that master of the great banquet saying Compel them that are without in the streets, and about the hedges to come in that my house may be filled … And if they will not come, that the statute may take hold of them.51

Even William Bedell, famed for his saintly tolerance, believed that some form of coercion was essential.52 In a sermon before the Lord Deputy and Parliament in 1634 on Revelation 18.4, he reminded his hearers that it was the duty of the magistrate ‘to operate with Christ in bringing in his 1625), Dedication to Lord Deputy Falkland, sig. [A4v]. 47 TCD MS 1188, fol. 7v. 48 Ibid., fol. 2v. 49 UW, vol. 2, pp. iv–v. 50 Synge, Rejoynder to the reply, Dedication, sig. *2r. 51 TCD MS 1188, fol. 10v. 52 For Bedell’s tolerance, see Anthony Milton and Alexandra Walsham (eds), ‘Richard Montagu: “Concerning Recusancie of Communion with the Church of England’’’, in Stephen Taylor (ed.), From Cranmer to Davidson: A Church of England Miscellany (Bury St Edmunds, 1999), pp. 74f.

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people out of the Romish captivity’. For those in thrall to the Church of Rome were, he claimed, like sheep, and must be ‘put on’ otherwise they will not ‘come out’.53 Secular officials echoed Augustine’s distinction between outer and inner conformity. Sir Geoffrey Fenton, for instance, argued that the purpose of coercive measures against priests and recusants was ‘to draw them to their outward obedience to come to the church. Not urging them in the matter of their conscience (for that is the work of God, and not of man).’54 And Parr Lane made a similar distinction between outer physical attendance and inner spiritual change: Who goes to church albe to take a nap something he knows not what may chance t’unwrap his captivated senses and proud heart and make him yield unto the better part and conscience then, a thing he never knew will keep him waking while she mould him new.55

Augustine’s view of the Church was also used to underpin Irish protestant insistence on enforced conformity. Their argument went as follows: the one true Catholic church had the right to identify and deal with heretical churches; their protestant church was, or was part of, that true church; and their opponents were heretics. This was a difficult enough issue in the early church, as church fathers such as Cyprian and Augustine struggled, and even argued, over the implications of the distinction between true and false churches, but it was even more challenging once the Reformation permanently shattered the unity of western Christendom.56 And it was especially fraught in a country such as Ireland where the established Church was in a minority and protestants were indeed (in this respect at least) like Christians in Donatist North Africa, surrounded on all sides by a numerically superior rival church. The issue was raised in public by Archbishop Hampton in a sermon he preached before the Irish Parliament in 1614. For the most part he rehearsed the familiar protestant arguments on this issue, explaining that it was the Roman Catholics who had departed from the Catholic church, and going on to identify the Bucerian ‘three marks’ – preaching of the 53 Rev 18:4; Nicholas Bernard, The judgement of the late Arch-bishop of Armagh (London, 1659), pp. 98f. 54 SP 63/217/78 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 338). 55 Alan Ford (ed.), ‘Parr Lane, “Newes from the holy ile”’, RIA Proc., Section C, 99 (1999), p. 131, lines 395–400. 56 Evans, One and Holy; R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge, 1970); Peter Hinchliff, Cyprian of Carthage and the Unity of the Catholic Church (London, 1974).

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true gospel, right administration of the sacraments, and godly discipline – as the test of ecclesiological truth, before applying them to the Roman Catholic Church.57 His conclusion, however, was equivocal: Seeing therefore the Church of Rome retaineth not the sincere purity of the word: seeing it hath abolished one of the sacraments, and corrupted the other [baptism] profanely: seeing it hath little or no care at all of godly discipline; men may peradventure make doubt or question, whether it be the church of God or no? I dare not wholly take away the name of a church from it … I account it a church, but miserably deformed, and infected with infinite errors.58

Hampton thus felt that the Roman Catholic Church was a true church, though one riddled with abuses. But others went further, believing that its errors were such that it had lost the right to be called a church of God. This, of course, made the imposition of penal measures even more imperative: Catholics were not fellow Christians, open to persuasion, but stubborn heretics, responsive, as history had repeatedly shown, only to force. But even Hampton was convinced that, such was the scale of the corruption within the Catholic Church, and the stubbornness of its adherents, some form of coercion was essential. Leslie, too, thought in terms of a sharp ecclesiological divide, claiming that the irreconcilable differences between the two churches concerned ‘the truth of God’s worship, the life of his church, and the salvation of our souls’. Rome had: fallen away from that faith which once was commended in her … so that unless we would betray the truth, we … cannot yield to them in anything wherein they dissent from us … If there is to be any agreement … they must come out of Babel, that is, wholly renounce their own parts, and join hands with us.59

Ralph Birkenshaw, Comptroller of the Musters in Ireland, was clear that if he had to ‘to judge and censure whither the Church of Rome be the true spouse of Christ or no: or whether on the contrary, it be not the false Church, and the apparent sink and synagogue of Satan’, he would opt firmly for the latter option.60 Christopher Sibthorp claimed that, given the immense differences between the two churches, one or other ‘must be 57 Christopher Hampton, An inquisition of the true church, and those that revolt from it (Dublin, 1622). 58 Ibid., pp. 17, 19. 59 Leslie, Treatise tending to unitie, p. 41. 60 Raph Byrchensha, A discourse occasioned vpon the late defeat, giuen to the archrebels, Tyrone and Odonnell, by the right Honourable the Lord Mountioy, Lord Deputie of Ireland, the 24. of December, 1601. being Christmas Eaue: and the yeelding up of Kinsale shortly after by Don John to his Lordshippe (London, 1602), sig. A3v. I would like to thank Dr Hiram Morgan for bringing this reference to my attention.

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mightily mistaken, and strongly deluded’, and concluded simply and simplistically that Protestantism was the true religion and popery a form of heresy.61 The implications of these ecclesiological concerns for religious policy were stark. As Hamilton put it with simple logic: ‘First that [if] true religion is already established according to God’s word, no seeming of any toleration is to be made. It is established by law of this realm. No toleration.’62 To allow another religion to coexist was to admit that one’s own religion was wrong. Thus Parr Lane warned of the danger of allowing ‘two religions in one place’, since ‘there is but one God, one faith, one truth’.63 Another secular official could talk of the way in which ‘true religion’ was ‘disrespected and contemned by the natives generally’.64 If, as Downham believed, Catholics had departed from the true Church, then toleration was simply not possible – they must be treated ‘as heretics and schismatics, which are to be persecuted with fire and faggot’.65 Parr Lane drew a similar moral from the recent twists and turns of Irish history: Leave riddles then: truth tells, and time doth try; that sword must cut the knot none can untie ... The sword, I mean, is that same royal power, that cuts the weed that never will bear flower.66

This tendency to think in binary terms of sharply opposing forces was accentuated by the way in which ecclesiology was shaped by apocalyptic imagery. The protestant Reformation had developed a distinctive way of looking at history, which saw it in terms of a struggle between the forces of good and evil, or, more precisely, between Christ and Antichrist. The complex apocalyptic imagery of the Book of Revelation was interpreted by most protestant commentators as being linked directly not just to the distant past or far future, but to the events of their own time, and to the struggle between the Catholic and protestant churches. The events of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries – the Desmond rising, the Spanish Armada, the Nine Years War – were, therefore, slotted into this 61 Christopher Sibthorp, A friendly aduertisement to the pretended Catholickes of Ireland: declaring, for their satisfaction, that both the Kings supremacie, and the faith whereof His Majestie is the defender, are consonant to the doctrine delivered in the Holy Scriptures, and writings of the ancient fathers, and consequently, that the lawes and statutes enacted in that behalfe, are dutifully to be observed by all His Majesties subjects within that kingdome (Dublin, 1623), sig. B1r, p. 410. 62 TCD MS 1188 fol. 2r. 63 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, p. 146, lines 1034, 1042. 64 SP 63/248/45 (CSPI, 1625–32, p. 441). 65 George Downham, A treatise concerning Antichrist (London, 1603), p. 190. 66 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, pp. 126, lines 167–8, 175–6; punctuation added.

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apocalyptic framework. The fact that the Irish Articles of 1615 went so far as to identify the Pope with that man of sin, Antichrist, was a further encouragement to Irish protestants to see themselves as being caught up in this cosmic drama. And, crucially, it was accepted by most interpreters of the Book of Revelation that this drama was in its last act – time was running out, protestants were living in ‘this last declining age of the world’, when the powers of Antichrist were greatest, when it was the responsibility of the small remnant of true believers to act firmly and quickly against the enemy, regardless of the odds.67 The link between apocalyptic and religious policy is most evident in the case of George Downham. Even before he came to Ireland he had stated his belief that on the accession of Boniface III as Pope in 607 Antichrist had taken over the papacy and Rome had lost its right to be called a true Church.68 As a result, he insisted, ‘there can be no reconciliation between us and the Church of Rome, we being the true church of God. For what agreement can there be between Christ and Antichrist [?]’69 His experience of Ireland only reinforced his hostility. He was a strong advocate for firm measures against Irish Catholics, whom he castigated in 1634 as having taken on the mark of the beast and revolted from Christ to Antichrist.70 The same uncompromising dualism can be seen in the letter which Loftus and Jones wrote to James I, in which they expressed their rhetorical hope that he would be well able to ‘judge and discern what agreement there is like to be between light and darkness, between God and Belial, and between the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and the superstitious idolatry of Antichrist’.71 The impossibility of allowing any compromise in the battle between protestant and Catholic, between truth and falsehood was vigorously expressed by the author of an anonymous pamphlet, ‘The supplication 67 Hiram Morgan, ‘Faith and Fatherland or Queen and Country? An Unpublished Exchange between O’Neill and the State at the Height of the Nine Years War’, Dúiche Néill: Journal of the O'Neill Country Historical Society, ix (1994), p. 53; R.A. Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse (Appleford, 1978); Paul Christianson, Reformers and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the Reformation to the Eve of the Civil War (Toronto, 1978); K.R. Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530–1645 (Oxford, 1979). Ussher’s apocalyptic interests are discussed in Crawford Gribben, The Puritan Millennium: Literature and Theology (Dublin, 2000). 68 Downham, Treatise concerning Antichrist, book 2, p. 105. 69 Ibid., p. 191; Downham confirmed in 1634 that his experience as bishop in Ireland had merely confirmed him in this view: George Downham, A treatise of justification (London, 1633), ‘A preface concerning the apostasie of the now Church of Rome’. 70 Downham, A treatise of justification, Preface; Bodleian Library, Chatsworth MS 78, p. 55: SP 63/250/22ii (CSPI, 1625–32, pp. 511f.); James Ware, The whole works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland (3 vols, Dublin, 1739), vol. 1, pp. 292f. 71 SP 63/215/68 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 59).

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of the blood of the English most lamentably murdered in Ireland, crying out of the earth for revenge’, written during the Nine Years War in the 1590s: The contention begun between Edom and Israel in the womb is never to be pacified: religion and heresy never to be agreed: heaven and hell never to be joined: God and the devil never to be reconciled. If ye profess the truth of God’s religion, the sincerity of his word, let it appear, halt no more with idolators: they do not halt with you, neither in their profession, nor yet in the effects thereof.72

Writing after the Battle of Kinsale, Ralph Birkenshaw identified the cause of Tyrone’s rebellion as the: priests, Jesuits, and seminaries, who outwardly carry a shew of godliness, but inwardly are ravening and devouring wolves, may see what ground and warrant they find in God’s word, to approve and allow their actions and lives, in defending, maintaining, and setting forth the kingdom of their master the Antichrist the Pope, the devil’s sworn champion.73

Starting from the same premise, Sir Parr Lane, a close associate of both Birkenshaw and Brouncker, argued that if: The pope is Antichrist then are you seven, yea seventy times seven worse then heretics under the name of rigid Catholics. For if the pope vice gerent be for hell, what must you be than know no other spell?74

Hamilton’s treatise was also influenced by this apocalyptic mindset: the pope’s emissaries were ‘those locusts of the bottomless pit’, sent abroad ‘to drink in more of the wine of fornication’.75 Hampton, too, went beyond the commonplace identification of the pope with Antichrist to argue that ‘every one is Antichrist, that doth not acknowledge Christ in the same manner that the apostles preached him’.76 Supporters of coercion were particularly concerned at the way in which civil leaders in England took a politique approach to the issue of religious policy, casting aside the apocalyptic imperative to action and postponing the imposition of conformity for fear of alienating the Irish population. In contrast to Richelieu’s contemporary claim that ‘the interests of a state and the interests of religion are two entirely different 72 BL Add. MS 34,313, fol. 96r; Willy Maley (ed.), ‘The supplication of the blood of the English, most lamentably murdred in Ireland, cryeng out of the yearth for revenge (1598)’, Analecta Hibernica, 36 (1993), p. 21. 73 Byrchensha, A discourse, sig. B2r–B2v. 74 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, pp. 134f., lines 548–52 – punctuation added. 75 TCD MS 1188, fols 7v, 3r (cf. Rev. 11:7, 17:8, 20:3, 17:2). 76 Hampton, Inquisition of the true church, pp. 1f.

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things’, Irish protestant leaders wanted to bind the two together: religion must be the foundation of official policy, not an optional extra.77 ‘True religion’, Parr Lane urged, must be the ‘primum mobile’: or, Christianizing the Latin tag, ‘let the salvation of the people be the supremest law.’78 For governors to say, with King Saul, ‘I feared the people and so obeyed their voice’ was simply not good enough, Hamilton warned: men must obey God.79 The author of ‘The supplication of the blood of the English’ warned that compromise and toleration would lead, and indeed had led, to ruin. Rather, it was urged: Let the reformation of religion be the groundwork of the reformation of the commonwealth; So will God put his helping hand: he will then abroad with your army, if he see them fight for his glory; if he see them zealous to destroy blasphemers, to destroy the defacers of the truth. Then may they go boldly on: God will direct their counsels; protect their persons, effect their devices. They shall not care who is against them so long as God is with them. Let them scour the country, beat down idolatry (for idolators they are all). Fan you need none to sift the good from the bad ... Away with fans, away with sieves to purge the cockle from the corn ... Out with your mowers: give them scythes in their hands: let them make smooth work; but down all before them: for all that are left are weeds.80

And, the argument proceeded, if religion was made the bedrock of policy, then governors need not worry about the consequences – they could rest assured that God would protect his own. More than that, temporizing with heresy or idolatry, however attractive in the short term, ultimately led to disaster and the destruction of kings and kingdoms. This confidence in the long-term success of coercion, whatever its temporary difficulties, sprang from the standard contemporary belief that God’s providence worked in and through history. To put it crudely: since the protestants were on the side of God and the Catholics were heretics and followers of Antichrist, the former could rely upon divine support if they forced the latter to conform. Irish protestants demonstrated this from the lessons of how God’s providence had operated in history, most notably in biblical history. Parr Lane was 77 Paul Sonino, ‘From D’Avaux to Dévot: Politics and Religion in the Thirty Years War’, History, 87 (2002), p. 192. 78 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, pp. 150f., lines 1245, 1252; Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 458, fol. 35v. 79 TCD MS 1188, fols 8v–9r; the reference is to 1 Sam. 15:24. 80 BL, Add. MS 34,313fol. 118v; Maley, ‘Supplication of the blood of the English’: 76, misses out the first and part of the second sentence of this quotation. 80 2 Thess. 2:4.

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especially impressed by the examples of Nehemiah and Jehu: the former insisted on the rebuilding of Jerusalem, refusing to compromise in his demands for religious unity and purity, relentlessly driving the citizens on; the latter had resorted to force to overthrow those rulers who had tolerated the worship of Baal, and bloody massacre to eliminate those who sought to continue such idolatry:81 Full well I know what Nehemias did Who, for religion’s cause, not only chid, but durst and stroke and pluckt the hair from men. Why should not zeal be now as hot as then? Ah shall these cold and frozen hearted fellows judge those whom faith hath kin[d]led with zeal’s bellows? To root out Baal’s priests was the man whom God selects, Jehu, who furious run. What is Christ’s rule whom no invitements win? Coge intrare – force them to come in.82 See and observe what others do elsewhere whom by fair means they get they keep with fear; and those the sirens seminaries lure, the inquisition comes and holds them sure.83

Hamilton, too, pointed to the example of Jehu: ‘It is for the security, peace and safety of the kingdom to demolish those houses of Baal, or to convert them to a temporal use, to dissolve those societies, to suppress idolatry following the example of King Jehu 2 Kings 10.23.’84 John Hull, an English minister who settled in Munster, warned that idolatry was abominable to God, and that toleration of idolatry was a sin: this, he claimed, was ‘Solomon’s fall, Ireland’s transgression … and yet they say, let us make a covenant with the heathen … the Irish are as sleepy lions, magistrates dare not rouse them’.85 A similar link between Old Testament and Catholic idolatry was made by Ussher in a sermon preached before Parliament in 1621. Starting from the premise that Roman Catholics were guilty of ‘gross idolatry’, Ussher went on to warn: In the second of judges God telleth the children of Israel, what mischief should come to them, by tolerating the Canaanitish idolators in their land. ‘The shall be thorns in your sides’ saith he, ‘and their gods shall be a snare unto you.’86

81

2 Kings 10:23–8. Luke 14:23. 83 See Nehemiah 13 and 2 Kings 9; Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, p. 130, lines 355–68, punctuation added. 84 TCD MS 1188, fol. 3v. 85 William Hull, An exposition upon a part of the lamentation of Ieremie: lectured at Corke in Ireland (London, 1618), p. 200. 86 UW, vol. 2, pp. 440, 450. 82

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To tolerate Catholic idolators was most perilous, Ussher argued, because of the way in which they hid their idolatry under a ‘veil of piety’, like the harlot of the Book of Revelation who presents the wine of fornication to the people of the earth in a cup of gold.87 Christopher Sibthorp similarly dismissed the ‘semblance and pretence of piety and Christianity’ in the Catholic Church: ‘such is the mystery of iniquity’.88 In following Antichrist, Catholics were being led to perdition: they had to depart from ‘that mystical Babylon, Popish Rome’, ‘forsake Antichrist and his religion’ and ‘embrace the truth’.89 Hamilton also mixed Old Testament examples with apocalyptic foreboding in his appeal to King Charles: Let then his Majesty and all loyal subjects take to heart the exhortation of consolation proclaimed by Moses unto Israel Deut 31.6v saying Pluck up your hearts and be strong, dread not nor be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God himself doth go with thee, he will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Above all things I your Majesty’s loyal subject and faithful-hearted chaplain exhort your sacred person to have a special care of the suppression of idolatry in all your Majesty’s kingdoms but in special in Ireland where it reigns as a sin that rent the kingdom of David in sunder 1 Kings 11.11v … A sin that made his wrath so hot against Judah till there was no remedy, but the temple the king’s house and the house of all the nobles were burnt with fire. The king’s son first slain before his eyes then his own eyes pulled out himself bound with chains and he and his captives carried to Babel: 2 Chron: 36: Ch: 16.17.18v. 2 Kings 25: Ch: 10.v. Are not these things written for our example to admonish us whom the ends of the world are come? 1. Cor: 10 Ch: 11v.90

The final religious impulse behind the persecution of Catholics, antipopery, hardly needs detailed explication here. The tragic Reformation polarization of Europe created a deep-seated, syncretic protestant hostility to the papal faith, that translated the theological, political, strategic and selfish motives for anti-Catholicism into a potent, powerful and ever-changing popular movement which proved especially resilient amongst English and Irish protestants.91 The vigour and relentlessness of 87

Ibid., p. 451 (cf. Rev. 17:2–4). Sibthorpe, Friendly advertisement, p. 407. 89 Ibid., pp. 417, 309. 90 TCD MS 1188, fol. 9r–v. 91 Robin Clifton, ‘Fear of Popery’, in Conrad Russell (ed.), The Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), pp. 144–67; C.Z. Weiner, ‘The Beleaguered Isle: A Study of Elizabethan and Early Jacobean anti-Catholicism’, Past & Present, 51 (1971), pp. 27–62; Colin Haydon, Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England c.1714–80: A Political and Social Study (Manchester, 1993); P.G. Lake, ‘Anti-Popery: The Structure of a Prejudice’, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds), Conflict in Early Stuart England: 88

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the anti-Catholic feeling was most obvious in times of crisis and threat, as evident in ‘The supplication of the blood of the English’, a product of the Nine Years War, and in the outburst of anti-Catholic sentiment following the 1641 rising.92 And in Ireland there was a further layer to anti-popery: distaste for Roman Catholicism merged seamlessly with the deep English sense of cultural superiority, dating back to Giraldus Cambrensis, which saw the Irish as base, backward and barbaric.93 The end result of these religious arguments was a strong practical preference on the part of religious leaders for coercion. This is not to say that they were opposed to evangelism – the tension between persuasion and coercion in Irish religious policy is partly an invention of historians.94 As Puttock claimed in 1632, ‘There is no cause to complain of an evil government, for there hath been more teaching than terror.’95 It was just that they believed that preaching would be useless unless the state ensured that there was someone there in the churches to hear the sermons – a point confirmed by the signal failure of even the most persuasive of Irish bishops, William Bedell, to make much progress in Kilmore despite a decade of exemplary ministry.96 As Loftus and Jones Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–42 (London, 1989), pp. 72–106; John Miller, Popery and Politics in England, 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1973); John Kenyon, The Popish Plot (London, 1972); Carolyn Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, NC, 1983); Brewer and Higgins (eds), Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998; Edward Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1968); D.G. Paz, Popular antiCatholicism in Mid-Victorian England (Stanford, CA, 1992); H. Wallis Frank, Popular anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian Britain (Lampeter, 1993); Asch, ‘Antipopery and Ecclesiastical Policy’; Aidan Clarke, ‘The 1641 Rebellion and anti-Popery in Ireland’, in Brian MacCuarta (ed.), Ulster 1641: Aspects of the Rising (Belfast, 1993), pp. 139–57. 92 Maley (ed.), ‘Supplication of the blood of the English’; Clarke, ‘1641 Rebellion and anti-Popery’. 93 Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, ed. J.J. O’Meara (Harmondsworth, 1982); W.R. Jones, ‘Giraldus Redivivus – English Historians, Irish Apologists and the Works of Gerald of Wales’, Eire-Ireland, 9: 3 (1974), pp. 3–20; Hiram Morgan, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis and the Tudor Conquest of Ireland’, in Hiram Morgan (ed.), Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 22–44; Michael Richter, Giraldus Cambrensis (Aberystwyth, 1976); Aidan Clarke has argued that the generation of English officials who served in Ireland in the early seventeenth century was the first to view relations between English and Irish not in terms of the dichotomy between civility and barbarism, but rather in terms of protestant versus Catholic, or true religion versus false religion: Clarke, ‘1641 Rebellion and anti-Popery’, p. 146. 94 B.I. Bradshaw, ‘Sword, Word and Strategy in the Reformation in Ireland’, Historical Journal, 21 (1978), pp. 475–502. 95 Puttock, Rejoinder unto Malone’s reply, Dedication. 96 Aidan Clarke, ‘Bishop William Bedell (1571–1642) and the Irish Reformation’, in C.F. Brady (ed.), Worsted in the Game: Losers in Irish History (Dublin, 1989), pp. 61–72; Alan Ford, ‘The Reformation in Kilmore to 1641’, in Raymond Gillespie (ed.), Cavan: An Irish County History (Dublin, 1995), pp. 73–98.

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put it, when responding in 1604 to a post-Hampton Court royal initiative to send English preachers to Ireland: knowing as they did the ‘wilfulness of this people, and the induration of their hearts against the true religion’ they feared that the new clergy ‘shall but lose their labours’ unless ‘some moderate force or coaction’ be employed ‘to compel the people at least to yield their presence to the hearing of the word’.97

Secular motivations Though religious beliefs were clearly important, there were also compelling influences of a more secular nature, political, legal, strategic, military and diplomatic, not to mention crude self-interest, which motivated Irish advocates of ‘force and fear of punishment’. Indeed, it is possible to construct a wholly secular justification for the persecution of Catholics, starting with the Bull of Pius IV in 1570 which had excommunicated Elizabeth and not only freed her Catholic subjects from the duty to obey her, but positively encouraged them to overthrow her as a dangerous heretic. Catholics were therefore, by the very fact of their papal allegiance, potential or actual traitors, and this conviction underpinned much of the penal legislation passed by the Elizabethan parliaments in England. Priests and recusants who were judicially executed in England and Ireland were seen by the Catholic side as holy martyrs, but classified by protestants as arrant traitors.98 In the case of Irish protestants, of course, the experience of ‘Catholic treason’ was all the more vivid, recent and personal. The latter part of the sixteenth century in Ireland was littered with risings and rebellions, which brought together priests, the papacy, the Spanish king and discontented Anglo-Irish and native Irish lords in a series of conspiracies. The strength of feeling in the Dublin administration in the early seventeenth century can, therefore, very largely be explained by the fact that many of them had fought in the recent Irish wars, and were not only personally convinced that Catholicism fuelled rebellion, but were also 97

SP 63/216/8 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 152). The classic statements of the sharply differing protestant and Catholic viewpoints can be found in R.M. Kingdon (ed.), The Execution of Justice by William Cecil and A True, Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholics by William Allen (New York, 1965); on Irish martyrs, see Denis Murphy, Our Martyrs: A Record of those who Suffered for the Catholic Faith under the Penal Laws in Ireland (Dublin, 1896); Clodagh Tait, ‘Adored for Saints: Catholic Martyrdom in Ireland c.1560–1655’, Journal of Early Modern History, 5 2 (2001), pp. 128–59; Alan Ford, ‘Martyrdom, History and Memory in Early Modern Ireland’, in Ian McBride (ed.), History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 43–66. 98

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determined to take the further step of using the opportunity of peace to stamp out the threat of further risings by eliminating Catholicism entirely. Indeed, even before the war was over, Chichester offered his prescription for post-war policy: ‘good laws, severe punishment, abolishing their ceremonies and customs in religion and lordlike Irish government, keeping them without arms’.99 When he was appointed Lord Deputy he sought to remind the authorities in England that these ‘works of peace’, as he termed them, must not be forgotten now that the war was over.100 Chichester saw the imposition of conformity as a basic political and legal necessity for the success of the English government in Ireland. Or to put it differently, religion was a political problem. Many of the principal subjects in Ireland, Chichester warned, detested the state ‘for no other cause but that of religion’ and, as a result, sought to ‘cross and discountenance’ all the government’s endeavours.101 Unless a firm course against Catholics was maintained, Chichester warned Devonshire in 1606, ‘I am hopeless of any reformation or good settlement.’102 Seizing the opportunity offered by the recent peace to impose conformity was, Davies urged Salisbury, essential: the policy ‘must be constantly pursued, or else we must ever hereafter despair to do anything in it’.103 The difficulty, of course, was the King and his advisers in England came to take a very different view: precipitate action, they judged, was only likely to produce a further rebellion: persuasion and time, ‘not sudden violent compulsion’ would provide the solution to the Irish problem.104 To the advocates of coercion, on the other hand, time was not on their side. They viewed the period after the Nine Years War as a unique and unrepeatable opportunity to reshape the religious map of Ireland. The risk of rebellion was a small price to pay for the possibility of solving the Cornwallises’ dilemma of how to integrate Ireland into the three kingdoms. This point, that the time for action was now, was hammered home by advocates of coercion: as early as 1595 William Lyon, Bishop of Cork, had written to the Lord Deputy protesting at the suspension of recusancy proceedings in Munster during the Nine Years War: There is no time unfit … to set forth Gods truth and to maintain the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and to suppress Antichrist and his 99

SP 63/210/64, quoted in McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, p. 15. SP 63/217/79 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 343). 101 SP 63/217/67 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 326). 102 SP 63/218/18 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 406). 103 SP 63/217/94 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 370). 104 Public Record Office, London, Philadelphia Papers, 31/8/199/36 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 390). 100

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adherents. God will and can defend his own cause, let man do his duty, men’s policy is not to be joined with God’s truth. He hath set down a rule which must not be altered by man, but man must obey the same. I know your Honour’s zeal in the truth, therefore I am the bolder to discharge my conscience.105

Hamilton, clearly aware of the English objections to the enforcement of conformity, used the example of the Old Testament to press for immediate action, whatever the apparent dangers: Whereas some perchance … will object and say ‘Oh this is an unfit time to meddle with the popish clergy or papists for the suppression of idolatry, it will make a rebellion’, are not these more like those mentioned in Haggai 1 Ch: 2 v who said that the time is not yet come that the Lord’s [house] should be builded? What was the Lords answer? Is it time for yourselves to dwell in sealed houses, and this house lie waste? The Lord told them what curses they had sustained for that, and wished them to consider these things in their hearts, was the Lord so angry with them and cursed them for not building the subjects of a material house for his service, what shall we expect whereas the service of and worship of God itself is neglected, idolatry and idolators not curbed, and shall we build sealed houses for ourselves and neglect Gods house?106

Indeed, since religion was basic to society, the effective functioning of that society depended upon the promotion of true and the suppression of false religion. Religion, in short, provided the ultimate framework for civil and legal obedience. A ‘better understanding of the gospel’ would, the Irish Privy Council asserted in 1606, lead ‘this unsettled people’ ‘to yield more loyally their obedience to his Majesty’.107 Parr Lane’s diagnosis of the ills of the Irish polity was that: law and religion were but slaves to will and want of Conscience fixt by truth made here sin frequent without feeling without fear.108

Unlike Catholicism, which was castigated as encouraging rebellion, Protestantism was seen as the religion of conformity. As preachers repeatedly stressed, every member of the commonwealth had an absolute and godly duty to respect the divine authority of their sovereign.109 If the project of subjecting Ireland to English rule was to succeed, then religious and secular reform had to go hand in hand, a point which 105

SP 63/183/47/I. TCD MS 1188, fol. 8v. 107 SP 63/218/63 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 486). 108 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’: 142, lines 892–4. 109 The classic Irish exposition of this principle is James Ussher, The power communicated by God to the prince, and the obedience required of the subject (London, 1661). 106

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Chichester and Davies, echoing their contemporary Sir Charles Cornwallis, repeatedly stressed to the English Privy Council. If ‘true religion’ led to greater respect for the law, the law, too, had a role in fostering support for the protestant Church. After all, the Church was ‘as by law established’, part of an Erastian religious settlement which placed ecclesiastical discipline in royal hands, and was ultimately based on statutory authority. Under the skilled legal guidance of Sir John Davies the Irish administration developed an elaborate justification for the enforcement of conformity which sought to sidestep religious issues and defend the penal measures wholly as a matter of obedience to the civil law. The defence of the mandates policy thus sought to paint the requirement to attend church as simply a normal part of the ‘obedience and allegiance of every subject to the King and his Deputy’.110 The requirement to go to church, it was argued, was not, despite appearances, spiritual. Echoing Augustine’s distinction between inner and outer conformity, it was claimed that all the mandates forced people to do was physically attend: ‘The very action itself is the abiding in the church during divine service, which containeth no spiritual action therein, for he is not commanded to hear or give attention, to pray or yield adoration; only he is commanded to behave himself soberly and modestly.’111 Making a virtue of necessity, Davies stressed that the measures taken against Catholics relied not on almost non-existent contemporary Irish anti-Catholic legislation, but on medieval statutes devised to preserve the prerogative of the English sovereigns against foreign usurpation, which had been passed by good Catholics. As he put it to the Vicar General of Dublin, Robert Lalor, who was charged with praemunire, ‘the lawmakers of all ages and all religious papists and protestants do condemn you’.112 Such strained arguments, of course, cut little ice with their Catholic opponents, but they were an important element in the mindset of contemporary officials who sought to found the English presence in Ireland on the impartial execution of the processes of (English) law. The very nature of the Irish and English religious settlements, however, made it very hard to draw a clear line between civil and ecclesiastical duties. This proved particularly problematic not just for King James but also for his moderate Catholic subjects, who both struggled to find some way of reconciling the dual Catholic allegiance to pope and prince. The question of whether it were possible to be, at one 110 111 112

CSPI, 1603–6, p. 584. Ibid. Cited in Pawlisch, Sir John Davies, p. 117.

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and the same time, a ‘firm Catholic’ and a ‘loyal subject’ dominated much of the political discourse between Catholic and protestant in Ireland during James’s reign.113 The whole point of moderate Catholic political argument from leaders such as David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory, was that it was perfectly possible for the Irish to be loyal to the pope in religious matters and still do their duty to the English king in secular affairs. James sought to work along similar lines and his oath of allegiance, though rejected by the papacy, represented an attempt to find the middle ground.114 But advocates of coercion in Ireland refused to accept that there could be any compromise on this issue. As Parr Lane put it, religious and political allegiance were inseparable, logically bound together: Duty must be by inward Conscience taught and conscience by religion must be wrought. Religion must be squared by the word and that must be maintained by the sword.115

James Ussher, in his 1621 sermon, whilst politely noting that there were some moderate, peaceful Catholics, warned that: there are never wanting among them some turbulent humours, so inflamed with the spirit of fornication, that they run mad with it; and are transported so far, that no tolerable terms can content them, until they have obtained to the utmost pitch of their unbridled desires. For compassing whereof, there is no treachery, nor rebellion nor murder … that, without all remorse of conscience, they dare not adventure upon.116

Rather than settling for divided loyalties, the whole point of the policy of enforced conformity was, in the words of William Bedell, to gain for the English king the whole people of Ireland as ‘so many entire subjects’.117 There was, as a result, a fault line on this issue between the King and his English Privy Council on the one hand, which was prepared to explore the possibility of dual allegiances, and the Irish administra-

113 See Alan Ford, ‘“Firm Catholics” or “Loyal Subjects”? Religious and Political Allegiance in Early Seventeenth-Century Ireland’, in D.G. Boyce, Robert Eccleshall and Vincent Geoghegan (eds), Political Discourse in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ireland (London, 2001), pp. 1–31. 114 J.P. Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in England, 1603–1640 (second edn, London, 1999); J.P. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean Political Thought and the Controversy over the Oath of Allegiance’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1981; M.C. Questier, ‘Loyalty, Religion and State Power in Early Modern England: English Romanism and the Jacobean Oath of Allegiance’, The Historical Journal, 90 (1997), pp. 311–29. 115 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, p. 156, lines 1499–1502. 116 UW, vol. 2, pp. 451–2. 117 Bernard, Judgement of the Archbishop of Armagh, p. 98.

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tion, on the other, which, in the words of one of its members, believed that ‘treason and papistry are inseparable’.118 A similar tension existed over the political, diplomatic and strategic implications of religious policy in Ireland. Strategically, a Catholic Ireland was an obvious threat. In wartime, it offered a back door into England, whilst in peace the recusant majority were a continuing political and diplomatic challenge. And this challenge was magnified by the sheer scale of the disparity between protestant and Catholic numbers in Ireland. This can best be seen by comparison with England. There, Catholics in the early seventeenth century numbered around 40 000, a not inconsiderable minority, but nevertheless dwarfed by the conforming protestant population.119 Hence, if the English crown decided to tolerate Catholics and allow them back into positions of influence and power, it would not significantly threaten the protestant control over government. Equally, if recusants were severely punished by fines and imprisonment, it would not endanger the effective functioning of civil society. A similar freedom was not possible in Ireland, however. There the political mathematics added up differently: the size of the Catholic majority meant that both toleration and severity had drastic effects, as can be seen from the violence of the protestant reaction to the former and the determined opposition of the Catholics to the latter. The same arguments in favour of tolerance and intolerance were made in England as in Ireland, but in Ireland they had far more immediate and serious consequences. The English King thus ‘faced the dilemma of either making Ireland ungovernable because of Catholic resistance or of producing a severe crisis of confidence among protestants’.120 The response to this strategic challenge was, however, markedly different on either side of the Irish Sea. Whereas the Dublin authorities pushed for the imposition of conformity as a radical and permanent solution, the King and his Privy Council in England generally opted for short-term solutions, negotiating with the Catholic majority, seeking political compromise by trading de facto toleration for civil loyalty. We are, in short, back with the contrasting ways of gaining Irish loyalty proposed by the two Cornwallises: the intolerant imposition of conformity in order to turn Ireland protestant; or tolerant compromise with a Catholic Irish nation. The difficulty for Catholics and protestants alike in the early seventeenth century was that no clear decision was taken about which policy to follow. Indeed, at times it seemed as though both were being pursued at the same time, one by the English, the other by the Irish Privy Council. 118 119 120

TCD MS 1188, fol. 8v. John Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (London, 1975), p. 422. Asch, ‘Antipopery and Ecclesiastical Policy’, p. 260.

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Finally, we come to self-interest. Evidently, the protestant desire to penalize Catholics could have a dual and even a hidden purpose. Beneath the high-minded desire to convert, there lurked the rather more selfish side-effect of social, economic and political exclusion. The Irish penal laws, even in their skeletal early-seventeenth-century form, did, where efficiently enforced (and that was a significant caveat), have an obvious discriminatory effect. Catholics were prevented from gaining judicial and civil office, from entering local government, from pleading in the courts, from entering higher education in Ireland, even from education overseas, whilst Catholic wards could not gain possession of their lands on reaching the age of majority. The elements of a protestant ascendancy can already be identified in early seventeenth-century Ireland, reliant upon the undergirding of the penal laws for its increasingly exclusive access to education, land, professional careers, parliament and government office.121 The virulence of the protestant reaction to the Graces can, therefore, at least partly be attributed to simple selfishness and self-interest, the product of mounting protestant unease throughout the 1620s at the threat which increasing Catholic confidence posed to their privileged position. The penal laws themselves could also work to the financial advantage of protestants. One of the perennial challenges facing all Irish administrations was how to make ends meet. An obvious recourse was the revenue raised from recusants. In England the system of fines had by the early seventeenth century been developed into what was in effect a form of taxation on the richer Catholic population, producing between £7000 and £11 000 per annum. The official in charge of recusant finance, Sir Henry Spiller (who was not without Catholic relatives), had an obvious vested interest in preserving his source of income by ensuring that the exactions on recusants were not so onerous as to force them to convert.122 By the early seventeenth century, rather than ‘crushing Catholicism as the Elizabethan statutes had suggested, the government was now content to tax and tolerate’.123 A similar process can also be observed in Ireland, though there, because the rigorous enforcement of conformity did not really get under way until 1603, the journey from principle to pragmatism began and 121 The obvious example here is the career of Richard Boyle, who exploited his access to power to procure one of the largest estates in Ireland: this is traced in T.O. Ranger, ‘The Career of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork, in Ireland, 1588–1643’, Oxford University, DPhil thesis, 1959; see also N.P. Canny, The Upstart Earl: A Study of the Social and Mental World of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork, 1566–1643 (Cambridge, 1982). 122 M.C. Questier, ‘Sir Henry Spiller, Recusancy and the Efficiency of the Jacobean Exchequer’, Historical Research, 66 161 (1993), pp. 251–66. 123 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, p. 119.

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finished later. Thus initially, under Brouncker and Chichester, the 12d fine was indeed used for its original purpose – to force people in the towns to conform en masse. But by the second and third decades of the seventeenth century it was viewed more flexibly, either as a means of targeting specific groups of the Catholic population, or even as a source of revenue.124 This latter possibility was a tempting one for Irish protestants, given the size of the Catholic population. As Sir Francis Annesley, an experienced protestant official, put it in 1618: ‘considering the bulk of this kingdom consists of recusants … if that penalty were exactly taken up on all who are liable to it by law, it would amount to a far greater sum than a hundred thousand pounds by the year’.125 However, it was recognized from an early stage that the imposition of the fine across the whole country was impractical: ‘if the statute were fully executed both in the towns and in the country, this poor kingdom would not be able to bear it.’126 More realistically, Annesley and the 1622 Commissioners both suggested that if the 12d fine were limited to 4000 recusants, this would bring in £10 000 per annum.127 The actual amount of income derived from recusant fines, however, is difficult to estimate, given the inadequacy of the records. Though the Archbishop of Armagh, who as Almoner from 1617 received the fines and disbursed the proceeds, did not have to account for his income, we do know that, around 1621, he received but £500 in one year.128 Yet during nine months in 1617–18 recusancy fines from nine Dublin parishes amounted to over £2500; Chichester was unreliably reported to have made £500 per annum from the recusancy fines in the county of Monaghan alone; and Hampton, when required to surrender his patent in 1622, was offered compensation of £1000 per annum.129 The amount raised by fines would, obviously, have declined in the 1620s, as proceedings against recusants were phased out, but the negotiations over the Graces reawoke protestant interest in their revenue-raising possibilities. Rather than grant Catholics toleration in return for a financial contribution, protestants argued for the imposition of the 12d 124 NLI MS 2452; BL Add. MS 4756, fols 62v, 68r–v; J.M. McLaughlin, ‘The Making of the Irish Leviathan, 1603–25’, unpublished PhD thesis, NUI Galway, 1999, pp. 189–92. 125 SP 63/234/5 (CSPI, 1615–25, p. 185). 126 SP 63/218/53 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 466). 127 Ibid.; BL Add. MS 4756, fol. 68r–v. 128 BL Add. MS 4756, fol. 68r–v. 129 John Meagher (ed.), ‘Presentment of Recusants in Dublin 1617–18’, Reportorium Novum, 2 (1960), pp. 269–73; George O’Brien (ed.), Advertisements for Ireland being a Description of the State of Ireland in the Reign of James I (Dublin, 1923), p. 16; CSPI, 1615–25, pp. 388f.

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fine as a means of raising money for the defence of Ireland without making concessions to Catholics.130 As Hamilton put it: ‘If the recusants themselves … be a principal, yea the only cause in a manner of Ireland’s danger, why should not they maintain this army?’131 His demand was echoed by Archbishop Ussher as late as 1633, who pointed out that ‘the desire to reform recusants’ could thus be joined with the more pragmatic necessity of maintaining the army.132

Secular and ecclesiastical attitudes to coercion Thus far, we have, by and large, presented the motivations behind the desire of Irish protestants to impose uniformity as if they were monolithic and unchanging. In practice, of course, they varied considerably, both with regard to time, person and circumstance. Thus, attitudes by the end of the 1620s has changed significantly from the optimistic days of the early efforts to enforce conformity. And differences in attitude and approach can be observed between secular and religious leaders. The strident theological fundamentalism of Sir Christopher Sibthorp does not appear to have been typical of his judicial colleagues. Sir John Davies, though he supported Loftus and Jones in their demands for the banishment of priests and the punishment of recusants, differed markedly in his diagnosis of the religious allegiance of the Irish people, stressing not their stubborn loyalty to Catholicism, but rather their malleability: ‘the people would for the most part submit themselves willingly to our government, and become obedient subjects, if those priests and Jesuits were banished the realm’, a view also shared by Brouncker.133 He also, like Chichester, judged that part of the reason for the scale of religious disaffection was the inadequacy of the Church of Ireland. It was the ‘extreme negligence and remissness of our clergy here’ which was the cause of the ‘general … apostasy’ in Ireland.134 Or, as Chichester put it, the reason that the people ‘are so much misled by the doctrine of Rome and are now so hard to be reconciled’, was the ‘sluggish and blocking security, and ignorance of our unworthy bishops’ – ‘it is the clergy itself that hath marred the people’.135 Unsurprisingly, 130 131 132

Victor Treadwell, Buckingham and Ireland, 1616–1628 (Dublin, 1998), p. 286. TCD MS 1188, fol. 6v. SP 63/254/17 (CSPI, 1633–47, p. 6); cf. SP 63/252/148 fol. 286r (CSPI, 1625–32, p.

638). 133 SP 63/216/54 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 214 (inaccurate transcription)); cf. SP 63/217/2 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 244); SP 63/219/102A (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 544). 134 SP 63/218/53 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 476). 135 SP 63/217/80 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 346); SP 63/219/76 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 510).

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experienced clerical leaders such as Jones and Loftus were not disposed to blame themselves and their fellow ministers for the inability of the reformation to make progress. In their eyes that failure was attributable to the depth of (albeit ignorant) commitment on the part of Irish Catholics and the failure of the government to use sufficient force to make them conform. Yet, though it is true that theological considerations may have been less important in the case of some civil officials such as Davies and Chichester, it would be misleading to assume that church leaders were driven by religious motives and civil officials by secular ones. As has been seen, Church and state in Ireland were inextricably linked. The whole point of having the King as supreme governor was to give the state a major role in ecclesiastical policy and discipline. Thus the Irish Privy Council, when defending their religious policy in 1606, defined their role as being to help in the work of ‘the propagation of the gospel and augmentation of Christ’s church (the chiefest object of all godly and good magistrates)’.136 And, indeed, it is arguable that the determination and drive of the early efforts to impose conformity in Ireland in 1605–7 partly stems from the powerful fusion of religious and civil motivation in the persons of officials such as Parr Lane, Birkenshaw, Sibthorp, Chichester and Brouncker. Brouncker, indeed, is a particularly interesting case. Not only did he have a driving determination when it came to implementing policy, he also had, for a soldier, an unusual philosophic propensity to reflect on the ideas and assumptions which lay behind that policy. He explained his commitment to coercion as being the result of his experience that ‘affliction bringeth understanding’.137 He saw his duty in Ireland as the planting of true religion, and stressed to Cecil at the outset of his campaign in Munster that he was fired by religious ideals: God bearing me witness that I aim at nothing but the glory of my creator and the service of his Majesty, which I know can no other way be advanced than by emptying the corporations of all these wicked priests, the seminaries of mischief and the very firebrands of rebellion.138

The unusual – indeed, unique – tone and wording of Brouncker’s 1604 proclamation banishing priests testifies to the religious impulses behind his policy. Far from the formal and legal tone of government proclamations, it opened with a reference to the ‘many enormities and great inconveniences’ caused by the maintenance within the province of 136 137 138

SP 63/218/23 (CSPI, 1603–6, pp. 411–14). SP 63/219/134 (CSPI, 1606–8, p. 25). SP 63/219/102A (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 543); SP 63/216/37 (CSPI, 1603–6, p. 193).

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so many Catholic priests, and went on to note that Munster ‘lately … infested by the turbulent and unchristian like practices of these ill instruments is now God be thanked reduced to a new peace’. To ensure that this peace continued, Brouncker and the Munster Council were seeking to fulfil their duty towards God and their sovereign by removing the ‘devilish enforcements’ of these ‘deceiving instruments’ in order to free the people to: yield themselves to the obedience of the church according to his Majesty’s laws … and so receive the happy food of true doctrine to the comforting restoring of their souls’ health … to the end that … such as have drawn to live in darkness may receive the clear light of the gospel to guide and direct their souls to the everlasting comfort of Christ’s heavenly kingdom.139

And indeed, Parr Lane, in his encomium on his former master, confirms our suspicions by repeatedly stressing Brouncker’s religious zeal: O more then man what would thy zeal have done in ten years that in three so many won.140

Lane’s contrast between the heat of Brouncker’s zeal and the frozenhearted approach of those who succeeded him echoes the classic sixteenth-century description of Puritans as the ‘hotter sort of Protestants’.141 There is certainly an association between the depth and heat of protestant religious fervour, commitment to the activist implications of the identification of the pope with Antichrist, and determination to enforce conformity. The Puritan desire to root out all remnants of popery, and their uncompromising belief that the popish Church was a false Church which had to be destroyed if Protestantism and the gospel were to flourish meant that this kind of Protestantism was deeply disruptive of political unity since, strictly or zealously interpreted, it prevented compromise.142 Lord Deputy Mountjoy, noted for his religious moderation and toleration, chastised the Dublin Privy Council in 1602, after they had exploited his temporary absence to impose conformity in Dublin, for pursuing the matter ‘so hotly’. He pointedly reminded them of their all-too-recent experience of the rigours of war: ‘If you did but walk up and down in the cold with us you would not be 139

BL Harleian MS 697, fol. 180v. Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, p. 149, lines 1177–8; Parr Lane dedicated the book to Lord Deputy St John confident that his ‘zealous knowledge in the true faith’ would inspire his policies in Ireland, ibid., p. 122. 141 Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967), p. 27. 142 P.G. Lake, ‘The Significance of the Elizabethan Identification of the Pope as Antichrist’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 31 (1980), pp. 175–8; Eamon Duffy, ‘Continuity and Divergence in Tudor Religion’, in R.N. Swanson (ed.), Unity and Diversity in the Church, Studies in Church History 32 (Oxford, 1996), p. 178. 140

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so warm in your religion.’143 And it is indeed possible to construct a plausible case that several of the Irish supporters of ‘force and fear of punishment’ were of a Puritan inclination.144 However, not only is some of the evidence here tenuous innuendo, the very concept of Puritan is difficult to apply to Ireland, since the broad-bottomed nature of the strongly Calvinist early-seventeenth-century Church of Ireland drained Puritan and conformist distinctions of much of their meaning.145 Rather, the united and firmly protestant stance of the Irish Church on the identification of the pope with Antichrist, and their deep rooted hostility to popery can be seen as a powerful driving force behind the Irish state’s commitment to religious coercion. If motives varied according to the actors, they also shifted over time: protestant expectations in relation to the penal laws changed as the seventeenth century progressed. In the correspondence of Chichester, Davies, Loftus and Jones at the start of James’s reign there is a sense of optimism at the opportunity afforded by the end of the war, and a belief that the religious policy they were following had a realistic expectation of radically altering the religious outlook of the Irish people. However, after the less-than-encouraging experience of the following decades, the early optimism vanished. Compare the 1604 proclamation of Brouncker with that of Falkland in 1629. Brouncker had initiated a frontal assault on the Catholic Church, seeking to banish all Catholic clergy from the towns for seven years. Rewards were laid down for the capture of any who remained, and penalties imposed on those who harboured them.146 The proclamation of 1629, on the other hand, started from the ‘extraordinary insolence and presumption’ of the papal clergy during the ‘late intermission’ of legal proceedings against them, which had led them not only to assemble in public places to celebrate mass, but also build friaries, convents, colleges and churches, and openly exercise papal 143

CSPI, 1601–3, p. 562; Jones, Mountjoy, p. 169. Loftus in his early years was a patron of Puritans, and as late as the 1590s was alleged by Meredith Hanmer to have Puritan sympathies: Alan Ford, ‘The Church of Ireland 1558–1641: a Puritan Church?’ in Alan Ford, J.I. McGuire and Kenneth Milne (eds), As by Law Established. The Church of Ireland since the Reformation (Dublin, 1995), p. 56; Chichester, too, came from a Puritan background in Devon and, later in his career, was a patron of Puritan clergy: McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, pp. 5f.; S.A. Milsopp, ‘The State of the Church in the Diocese of Down and Connor during the Episcopate of Robert Echlin, 1613–15’, unpublished MA thesis, Queen’s University Belfast, 1979, p. 334; Brouncker also had Puritan links, his brother being married to the daughter of Sir Walter Mildmay: P.W. Hasler (ed.), The House of Commons 1558–1603 (3 vols, London, 1981), vol. 1, p. 499. 145 Ford, ‘A Puritan Church?’, pp. 59–63. 146 BL Harleian MS 697, fol. 180v. 144

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jurisdiction. It went on to forbid them from exercising such jurisdiction within Ireland and ordered them to break up and abandon their friaries and buildings and desist from public preaching and teaching. Owners of any houses used by the Catholic clergy must expel them, or risk having their property seized.147 But there was no mention of priests being banished from Ireland, the punishment of those who sheltered them, nor any obvious intention to suppress the Catholic religion. Rather the proclamation had the much more limited purpose of seeking to exploit differences between regular and secular clergy, and to control the public practice of Catholicism and drive it back underground, so as to avoid embarrassing the Church of Ireland. The pragmatic acceptance that the change in royal policy in the 1620s meant that the recusancy legislation could no longer be used to suppress Catholicism per se was evident as early as 1622, in a sermon preached by James Ussher at the installation of Lord Deputy Falkland, when he urged as his minimum demand that ‘if his Majesty … were pleased to extend the clemency towards his subjects that were recusants, some order notwithstanding might be taken with them, that they should not give us public affronts, and take possession of our churches before our faces’.148 Even Hamilton, at the time he was urging a return to the stringency of the early seventeenth century, also accepted that there had been major changes in the nature and level of public religious commitment in Ireland. As always, he argued from biblical texts: O idolatry is a fretting canker 2 Tym: 2. Ch: 17 and will infect the rest of the body … The first idolatry of Canaan was a Terraphim and Ephod silver sanctified to the Lord to be an image. Judges 17. Ch. 3.4.5.v. But after it grew up to be the worship of Baal and Ashteroth Judges 2d. Ch: 13.v … And at last it went into all the tribes until all Israel sinned. Judges 2[0]. Ch: 11.12:13: v. Is it not so fallen out in all his Majesties dominions but especially in Ireland, what growth hath idolatry taken within this 24 years or thereabouts? Go to our chief city of Dublin, there is here in the city some present who have seen all the aldermen of Dublin come to church except [sic] and no word durst be heard of a priest, Jesuit or friar. Now the case is altered all goes to the mass for the most part, and the city yea the whole realm swarms with priests, friars and Jesuits, those locusts of Egypt. Yea the[y] go to their mass so openly and stoutly that they have their organs and instruments of music in the time of their idolatrous service, not fearing the Lord Deputy nor his sword, which is a bad precedent to all the rest of the kingdom.149

147 P.J. Corish, ‘Two Seventeenth-Century Proclamations against the Catholic Clergy’, p. 54f.; PRO, SP 63/248/55 (CSPI, 1625–32, p. 445). 148 UW, vol. 15, p. 181. 149 TCD MS 1188, fols 9v–10r.

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Sir Francis Annesley similarly recognized in 1629 the impact of the de facto toleration of the 1620s on Catholic confidence and cohesion: ‘It is a tender point to deal with these people in matter of religion now after so long forbearance when popery is grown to a greater height than ever it was.’150 To most historians this adjustment seems perfectly straightforward: it is the result of a fairly basic experiment in historical physics: the collision between the protestant desire for a religiously uniform state and the force of Irish Catholic majority’s attachment to their ancestral religion. The latter proved immovable; the former had to give way. Some contemporaries shared this view: Catholic writers repeatedly stressed the pointlessness of coercion, given the strength of Catholic loyalty. And Wentworth, when he finally arrived in Ireland in 1633, abandoned the attempt to impose conformity; though, reportedly, he reserved the right to impose it when the established Church was better able to provide pastoral care.151 In other words, attitudes to coercion in our period followed the familiar Whig trajectory of persecution giving way to (albeit grudging) toleration, as their desire to establish general conformity was replaced by a pragmatic willingness to use the penal laws as a means to repress the public celebration of Catholicism and secure their own position of privilege. But not all Irish protestants accepted this interpretation: many of those who were the strongest supporters of coercion believed that the reason for its failure was not the unshakeable attachment of Irish Catholics to their faith, but the weakness of the penal laws themselves, and the sporadic and ineffective nature of their enforcement. Or to put it differently, it was not the strength of the Catholic resistance, but the weakness of the opposing force of English determination that decided the result of the experiment. As Robert Jacob put it in 1613: ‘When his Majesty first came to the throne they had that whole nation so much under their power, that with the severe execution of the laws they might have wrought the people to what conformity they list.’152 The judgement was echoed by Cornwallis in 1613: if after the Gunpowder Plot the King 150

SP 63/248/45 (CSPI, 1625–32, p. 441). P.F. Moran (ed.), The Analecta of David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory (Dublin, 1884); Colm Lennon, ‘Political Thought of Irish Counter-Reformation Churchmen: The Testimony of the “Analecta” of Bishop David Rothe’, in Hiram Morgan (ed.), Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 181–202; Thomas O’Connor, ‘Custom, Authority, Tolerance in Irish Political Thought: David Rothe’s Analecta sacra et mira (1616)’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 65 (2000), pp. 133–56; Kearney, Strafford in Ireland, pp. 118f. 152 Bodleian Library, MS, Carte 63, fol. 96r; see also Jacob’s views on contemporary religious policy: HMC, Hastings MSS, vol. 4, p. 15. 151

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had ‘executed the extremity of his indignation’ upon the Irish, ‘then (before they could have gotten a settled resolution) it would have been a matter of no difficulty to have brought all the recusants to church’.153 The same events – the efforts to enforce conformity in the first two decades of the seventeenth century – thus gave rise to two largely incompatible contemporary historical interpretations. To the Catholics, it was a period of bloody persecution and heroic martyrdom, when recusants suffered for their faith as Christians had in ancient Rome, when the seeds were laid for later violent retribution against the protestant oppressors. Sir Patrick Barnewall warned prophetically as early as 1605: ‘even now are laid down the foundations of some future rebellion, to which though twenty years be gone, the memory of these extremities may give pretence’.154 But to hard-line protestants, the Catholics had been let off the hook by English pusillanimity. Coercion had not failed; it had never been properly tried. The English authorities had fallen for the dramatic Catholic warnings about rebellion and civil unrest. As the Earl of Cork wrote triumphantly to the English Secretary of State following his brief experiment in enforcement in 1630: ‘theis high speaking papists, when they are resolutely and constantly pursued will rather yield than oppose’.155 What was needed, in their eyes, was a more thorough statutory provision and a more determined implementation by the government. From the perspective of the hotter sort of protestant, of course, the failure to impose conformity and the willingness to compromise with Catholicism was in itself dangerous: Parr Lane, Cassandra-like, warned of the dangers of failing to act firmly during peacetime: But arm for war in peace occasion lost in this one point many a kingdom cost and truth and time in this concurrent are an universal peace begets long war.156

This alternative history provided Irish protestants with a means of preserving their attachment to the principles of force and fear of punishment as a long-term goal, despite the apparent evidence of their practical failure. As a result, in times of crisis and opportunity, during the middle of the seventeenth century, the same arguments in favour of severe persecution resurfaced, providing a link between the policies of the early seventeenth century and the enactment of the later penal laws.157 153

BL, Add. MS 39 853, fol. 9r. SP 63/217/96, cited in McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, p. 228. 155 Chatsworth House, Earl of Cork’s Letter Book (1), p. 73. 156 Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, p. 154, lines 1417–20. 157 Barnard, ‘Conclusion: Settling and Unsettling Ireland: the Cromwellian and Williamite Revolutions’, p. 283. 154

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Coercion: success or failure? Were then the early penal laws designed to convert, or merely to keep down Catholics and preserve protestant ascendancy? There is no neat answer. What we have observed in the period 1603–33 is a strong commitment on the part of many protestants to the use of penal measures. The objective of those measures was, initially, conformity followed by conversion. At the same time, however, it is also evident that, over the three decades after 1603, the prospect of achieving this receded. On the one hand, the Catholic Church in Ireland demonstrated not only that it retained the firm loyalty of the mass of the Irish people, but also that despite the persecution it could create an underground, alternative ecclesiastical structure which functioned effectively throughout the country. On the other hand, it became apparent that kings and officials in England viewed the matter very differently from their counterparts in Dublin and that the will to enforce conformity in a consistent and rigorous manner was simply not there. This left the Irish authorities with very little room for manoeuvre. As the penal laws’ ineffectiveness as a means of conversion became evident, their practical purpose subtly changed, and some proponents acknowledged that they were a means of controlling rather than eliminating Catholicism. Nevertheless, because of their conviction that the penal laws had not been properly enforced, Irish protestants were able to preserve their belief in their ultimate efficacy, whilst in the meantime using them to shore up their ascendancy. Principle and pragmatism happily cohabited. But there still remains one lingering question for historians. How seriously should they take the claim that Irish religious allegiance could at the start of the seventeenth century have been decisively shifted by the application of coercion? Did the very soil and air of Ireland breed Catholics, as David Rothe so memorably affirmed? Or was this mere propaganda? Rothe, according to Parr Lane, ‘sweats … to prove that they are so universally riveted in popery that it is not possible for them to alter or change’, whilst Catholic priests ‘do so superlatively extol and magnify abroad the resolution of this nation, to deter or divert … the governors here from their hopeful prosecution to make them good Christians’.158 Most historians have accepted Rothe’s claims that the Irish people were indeed immovable in their affection for their religion, in one case even arguing that there was a distinctive and continuous Irish form of Celtic Roman Catholicism dating back to St Patrick.159 158

Ford (ed.), ‘“Newes from the holy ile”’, p. 121. B.I. Bradshaw, ‘The Wild and Woolly West: Early Irish Christianity and Latin Orthodoxy’, in W.J. Shiels and Diana Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History 25 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 1–24. 159

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Two historians, however, have challenged this orthodoxy – proposing, in effect, to treat the claims of Catholic leaders as propaganda rather than fact. Nicholas Canny attacked the assumption that the Irish Reformation had somehow conclusively failed by the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.160 And John McCavitt proposed an alternative scenario, arguing that it was possible that had the government in England chosen to ignore Catholic complaints, discount fears of imminent rebellion, and commit resources to the enforcement of conformity, then the mandates policy ‘might have reaped rich dividends’, ‘broken down recusant resistance … and achieved substantial long-term results in urban, English-speaking areas at least’.161 Rather than opting for Irish exceptionalism, historians should, Canny suggests, look at other areas of early modern Europe where coercion, sometimes but not always backed up by preaching and teaching, did succeed in radically altering popular religious allegiance.162 The fate of the Moriscos in Spain is adequate proof that early modern states could adopt radical and violent solutions to religious dissent, and that these could be, in their own terms, successful.163 This is a major revision of Irish religious history, seeking to break free from the tyranny of hindsight – the fact that Ireland remained a staunchly Catholic country has tended to reinforce the casual assumption that efforts to alter religious allegiance were inevitably going to fail. Canny and McCavitt raise the possibility that another outcome was possible, that the religious history of Ireland might have been radically altered if different policies had been followed. Though stimulating, since it forces us to rethink some fundamental historical assumptions, such an interpretation is deeply problematic. First, like all counterfactual history – looking at what might have happened – it is essentially unverifiable. Second, it conflicts with the modern liberal assumption that religious persecution is not just wrong but ineffective and even counter-productive – martyrdom is the lifeblood of the Church. How hard-headed, or should the question rather be phrased, how cruel and totalitarian are historians prepared to be in their assessment of the possibility of imposing religious uniformity? Third, it downplays the resilience of Irish Catholicism in the face of persecution and martyrdom during the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and ignores the complex nexus of other forces – race, culture, land and politics, which alienated the Irish people from the established Church 160 N.P. Canny, ‘Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: Une Question Mal Posée’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 30 (1979), pp. 423–50. 161 McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, p. 127. 162 Canny, ‘Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland’, pp. 446f. 163 H.C. Lea, The Moriscos of Spain: Their Conversion and Expulsion (New York, 1968); A.G. Chejne, Islam and the West: The Moriscos (Albany, 1983).

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and state. To put it more theoretically, the historian is here faced with a difficult, some would argue impossible, judgement about the depth and nature of religious commitment of the Irish people. One cannot, as Queen Elizabeth famously recognized, make ‘windows into men’s souls’ and calibrate the strength of their religious allegiance. Nor can one decide confidently the extent to which such allegiance is contingent or unconditional: is it a product of conditions and context, and therefore subject to change if those accidental circumstances – such as government policy – are altered; or are historians here dealing with a much profounder, longer-lasting and less malleable force, a combination of faith, belief, soul, spirit and Feuerbachian religious essence, powerful and resistant to external pressures? In fact, regardless of how one responds to these overarching questions, the pragmatic realities of early seventeenth-century Ireland strongly suggest that coercion was never a practical option which could have been implemented consistently. The Church of Ireland’s ministry and the state’s machinery for enforcement were too ineffective, the fears of the authorities in England too large, and, above all, the size and steadfastness of the Catholic population simply too great for uniformity to be effectively imposed without massive investment and widespread disruption. That the penal laws survived so long in the face of such stark realities – that Cornwallis’ descendant was facing the same problem almost two centuries later – is evidence of the depth of commitment to them and the variety of impulses, theological, political, economic and selfish which led many Irish protestants to adhere to the policy of ‘force and fear of punishment’.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Covenanters and the Scottish Parliament, 1639–51: The Rule of the Godly and the ‘Second Scottish Reformation’ John R. Young Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. (Isaiah 1:4)

It has long been recognized that the Scottish Covenanters had a British religious vision in seeking to establish Presbyterianism in England and Ireland as part of their involvement in the War for the Three Kingdoms. Recent research has demonstrated that in 1644, prior to the Battle of Marston Moor, the Covenanters were seeking to extend the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant into a European protestant defence league.1 It is also clear, however, that the Covenanters had an important domestic vision of securing a godly society through the implementation of Reformation ideology and the punishment of sinful, ungodly and deviant behaviour. The welfare of the spiritual homeland, perceived by committed clergy and laymen to be Christ’s kingdom on earth, was therefore an important feature of what may be defined as Covenanting social policy. The drive for moral purity intensified in the late 1640s when there was a sustained effort to eliminate and exterminate sin from Scottish society, a policy relentlessly pursued by the Church of Scotland. The enforcement of Reformation ideology was under the control of the judicatories of the Church of Scotland (kirk sessions, presbyteries and synods). In terms of the Presbyterian distinction between ‘church’ and ‘state’, the Church of Scotland lobbied Parliament throughout the 1640s for the state enactment of social, moral and ecclesiastical legislation. As part of the ‘process’ of reformation, the ‘state’ had supported the ‘Church’ by making a variety of moral offences crimes in 1 John R. Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and European Diplomacy, 1641–47: The Palatine, the Dutch Republic and Sweden’, in Steve Murdoch (ed.), Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 77–106.

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the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: adultery and witchcraft in 1563, fornication and drunkenness in 1567 and Sabbathbreaking in 1579, for example. Furthermore, anyone excommunicated from the Church was also outlawed by the state. Post-Reformation Scotland confirmed a more generally European pattern of the criminalization of many sins.2 This chapter explores the legislative behaviour of the Scottish Parliament in terms of the drive to create a morally pure covenanting kingdom. It examines the role of the Church of Scotland in the formal process of lobbying Parliament and looks at examples of legislation passed in favour of church interests. It then proceeds to examine legislation relating to Sabbath-breaking, in terms of the regulation of work and social issues. Other issues discussed in the legislative drive for godly behaviour include alcohol abuse and drunkenness, swearing, blasphemy and profanity, poverty and vagrancy, and the regulation of sexual behaviour. In overall terms, this chapter indicates that the Scottish Parliament was not solely concerned with political, military and diplomatic issues throughout the War for the Three Kingdoms, but that it also legislated for a godly society.

The meetings of the Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament met on a regular basis between 1639 and 1651. The demand for ‘free’ Parliaments had been included in the 1638 National Covenant. In accordance with the terms of the 1639 Peace of Berwick which ended the First Bishops’ War, a Parliament was held in Scotland, meeting on 31 August 1639, before being prorogued by the King’s Commissioner, John Stewart, first Earl of Traquair, on 14 November. Further parliamentary sessions were held in 1640–41, initially in defiance of royal authority, which weakened the royal prerogative of Charles I and enhanced the powers of the Scottish Estates. Collectively, these sessions constituted the Parliament of 1639–41. A Convention of Estates was held in 1643 and was prorogued to a second session in 1644. Conventions of Estates were similar to Parliaments, although they did not enjoy the full range of parliamentary powers. 2 Ian D. Whyte, Scotland before the Industrial Revolution: An Economic and Social History, c.1050–c.1750 (London, 1995), pp. 108–9, 212, 224; David M. Walker, A Legal History of Scotland (7 vols, Edinburgh, 1996), vol. 4, pp. 513–15; Julian Goodare, State and Society in Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 1999), pp. 177–8, 180–81, 183–92, 199–202, 205–11, 290–91, 293–4, 305, 317–18; Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven, 2002); Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700 (London, 2003).

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Usually they were held for taxation purposes or in times of extraordinary crisis. In this instance, the 1643 Convention was the political forum that negotiated the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant with representatives of the Church of Scotland and representatives of the English Parliament. It also negotiated the Anglo-Scottish parliamentary alliance, the Treaty of Military Assistance, with representatives of the English Parliament. The ‘decision to intervene’ in the English Civil War was therefore taken by this body and the 1644 Convention was concerned with the logistics of military preparations for this intervention, as well as with small-scale Royalist activities in Scotland. The First Triennial Parliament sat over six parliamentary sessions between 4 June 1644 and 27 March 1647 (the 1640 Scottish Triennial Act stated that parliaments were to be held every three years). The Second Triennial Parliament sat over eight sessions between 2 March 1648 and 6 June 1651. This chronological pattern provides an institutional guide and framework for ‘godly’ legislation.3 Two important points should be emphasized at the outset of this chapter. The first point relates to our understanding of the nature of the Scottish constitutional settlement of 1640–41. My previous work has demonstrated that the significant constitutional legislation enacted in the parliamentary sessions of 1640–41 had already been discussed or prepared in the 1639 parliamentary session.4 This same trend was also apparent with regard to the godly and religious legislation enacted during the 1640s.5 Therefore, in terms of the political and constitutional development of the Scottish Parliament during this period, it is now clear that greater recognition should be paid to the 1639 Parliament and legislation that was presented to the Lords of the Articles (as a preparative committee) and was discussed and/or approved by the Articles. An important procedural role was therefore played by a committee for revising papers ‘agitat’ in the Articles in 1639, appointed on 2 June 1640 on the opening day of the June 1640 session, and a committee of 19 August 1641 for revising the acts and articles presented in the first session of this Parliament (that is, the 1639 session). This latter session had been sitting since 15 July and Charles I had 3 John R. Young, The Scottish Parliament, 1639–1661: A Political and Constitutional Analysis (Edinburgh, 1996). For a summary of the chronology of parliaments during this period, but with more detail, see John R. Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and the War for the Three Kingdoms’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 21 (2001), pp. 103–5. 4 Young, The Scottish Parliament, chs 1 and 2. See also David Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637–44: The Triumph of the Covenanters (Newton Abbot, 1973), pp. 193–4. 5 The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (hereafter APS), eds Cosmo Innes and Thomas Thomson (12 vols, Edinburgh, 1814–75), vol. 5, appendix, pp. 593–616. This contains detailed information of godly legislation prepared and/or discussed in the 1639 Lords of Articles that was later enacted by Parliament.

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been present in Parliament since his arrival in Edinburgh on 14 August.6 The second important point relates to the terminology used to describe the nature of the Covenanting movement in the 1640s. David Stevenson described the period from September 1648 to September 1650 as the rule of the ‘kirk party’ regime.7 In the aftermath of the failed Engagement of 1648 (which many in the Church of Scotland had opposed), a radical regime was installed in Scotland following the 1648 Whiggamore Raid. This anti-Engager regime was initially backed by Oliver Cromwell, until 5 February 1649 when the Scottish Parliament proclaimed the Prince of Wales as Charles II, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, following the execution of his father in London. Supplementary legislation of 7 February (the act anent securing religion and the peace of the kingdom) laid down the terms and conditions that Charles would be required to meet before admission to the royal office. These included his subscription of the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant and the establishment of Presbyterianism on a three-kingdom basis. Charles did not take the Covenants until June 1650 and he was not crowned as King of Great Britain until 1 January 1651 at Scone in Perthshire.8 Walter Makey described the 1649 Parliament as ‘a ministers’ Parliament’,9 but it would be more appropriate to describe the regime of 1649–50 as a radical regime, in terms of the nature of Covenanting politics of the 1640s.10

Covenanting Parliaments and the influence of the Church The Covenanting Parliaments were lobbied by the Church of Scotland on a regular basis throughout the period in question. The 1638 Glasgow Assembly appointed a limited commission, via an act appointing commissioners to attend the Parliament, to represent the wishes of the Assembly that parliamentary legislation be passed to add civil sanctions to the religious sanctions endorsed by the Church. These would therefore legitimize changes made in the Kirk. When Parliament eventually met on 6

Ibid., pp. 262, 333–4; Young, The Scottish Parliament, pp. 22, 34, 36. David Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Scotland, 1644–1651 (London, 1977), pp. 180–210. Stevenson’s chronology for September 1650 relates to the military defeat by Cromwellian forces at the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650. 8 John R. Young, ‘Scottish Covenanting Radicalism, the Commission of the Kirk and the Establishment of the Parliamentary Radical Regime of 1648–1649’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 25 (1995), pp. 342–53; Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and the War for the Three Kingdoms’, pp. 104–5; Young, The Scottish Parliament, pp. 215–73. 9 Walter Makey, The Church of the Covenant, 1637–1651: Revolution and Social Change in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 80. 10 Young, The Scottish Parliament, chs 9 and 10. 7

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31 August 1639 it was again proposed to have a commission nominated to represent articles to Parliament, but this was refused by the King’s Commissioner to Parliament, John Stewart, first Earl of Traquair. Instead, Traquair allowed a commission to be granted to the Presbytery of Edinburgh to attend Parliament.11 Supplications were presented to the Lords of the Articles in the 1639 Parliament by ‘commissioners of the assembly’.12 On 6 September the Articles ratified the acts of the General Assembly and they considered the first supplications from the commissioners of the assembly concerning ecclesiastical, social and moral issues. Crucially, many of these issues were later legislated on at various points by Parliament in the 1640s.13 Furthermore, the commissioners of the Kirk submitted 14 articles and desires to Parliament on 20 August 1641 (Charles I was personally present at this diet).14 In addition, separate overtures from the Church concerning university education and schools were also presented to Parliament on 20 August.15 The General Assembly reverted to appointing commissioners to attend Parliament for the parliamentary sessions of 1640–41, and this appears to have occurred without any royal protests (no royal commissioner was present and Parliament had proceeded to elect a President). In 1642 an important development took place with the formation of the ‘Commission for the Public Affairs of the Kirk’. It sat as an executive committee between General Assemblies and was answerable to the next General Assembly.16 Commonly known as Commissions of the Kirk, they were appointed on an annual basis and represented an integral feature not only of the structure of the Church of Scotland, but also of Covenanting religious politics. Records of the commissions do not appear to have survived for the period 1642 to 1646, although the surviving records have been published for the years 1646 to 1653.17 11 David Stevenson, ‘The General Assembly and the Commission of the Kirk, 1638–51’, in David Stevenson (ed.), Union, Revolution and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Scotland (Aldershot, 1997), pp. 69–70; Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637–44, pp. 251–2. 12 See, for example, APS, vol. 5, appendix, pp. 593–4. 13 Ibid., pp. 593–4, 596, 598, 603, 605, 610–11, 615. 14 Ibid., p. 645. 15 Ibid., p. 646. On 22 October 1641 Parliament established a committee to meet and examine the remarks made so far upon the commission and overtures for the Kirk. This committee appears to have met until 29 October (ibid., pp. 686–90). 16 Stevenson, ‘The General Assembly and the Commission of the Kirk, 1638–51’, pp. 69–70; Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637–44, pp. 251–2. 17 The Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland 1646 & 1647, 1648 & 1649, 1650, 1651 & 1652 (hereafter RCGA, 1646 & 1647; RGCA, 1648 & 1649; RGCA, 1650, 1651 & 1652), eds Alexander F. Mitchell and James

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Committees of the Commission of the Kirk were often appointed to lobby Parliament to legislate on particular issues. This was the case in 1646 and 1649, based on evidence from the surviving published records. On 24 November 1646 the Commission set out a list of overtures and desires to be presented to the sixth and final session of the First Triennial Parliament. The session had been sitting since 3 November. The list included demands for greater legislative action against adultery, bigamy and incest, the extension of the 1563 witchcraft act to include charmers, and greater legislative action concerning rape, marriage, gypsies and beggars, and the education of the children of Catholic and ‘malignant’ parents.18 On 17 December 1646 the Commission also petitioned Parliament about ‘these things that concerne Religion and Covenant, in which the Kirk hath a cleir and unquestionable interest’ and it pressed that ‘in all things which concerne the meaning of the Covenant and the work of Reformation, we may be allowed a tymous and full hearing’.19 A similar process took place with the parliamentary session of 4 January to 16 March 1649. Technically, this was the second session of the Second Triennial Parliament of Charles I, the first session having been the 1648 ‘Engagement Parliament’. On 5 January 1649 Parliament appointed a delegation, consisting of one member from each estate, to go to the Commission of the Kirk to request that ministers be sent to Parliament to preach and also to renew the Solemn League and Covenant with all Members of Parliament. This was to take place in the Parliament House and all parliamentary members were to participate in a solemn fast and humiliation acknowledging their sins, the breaches of the Covenant. They were also to promise to adhere to a stricter observance of public duties. John Kennedy, sixth Earl of Cassillis, Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston (Edinburghshire), Lord Advocate, and Sir James Stewart (Edinburgh burgh) formed this parliamentary delegation.20 The records of the Commission of the Kirk provide fuller Christie (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1892–1909). The third volume contains records of the commission from 1652 to 31 May 1653. Alexander Christie, in the introduction to vol. 1, notes the probable loss of the commission’s records for 1642, 1643, 1644 and 1645 (RCGA, 1646 & 1647, p. viii). 18 Ibid., pp. 122–4. A Humble Remonstrance from the Commission was to be presented to the Estates along with the overtures (ibid., pp. 116–22). Parliament provided a formal written reply to the Commission on 11 February 1647, although this also dealt with broader political and religious issues in terms of contemporary circumstances (ibid., pp. 195–8). The parliamentary session ended, and with it the First Triennial Parliament which had met over six sessions since 1644, on 27 March 1647. 19 Ibid., p. 148. 20 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 127–8. In addition to the demands of 5 January 1649 for ministers for a parliamentary fast and humiliation, a similar approach was made from Parliament to the Commission on 2 February. The same members from each estate were appointed apart

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details of what took place when the parliamentary delegation appeared on 5 January. The delegation requested that ministers be appointed to preach to Parliament every Sunday. Robert Douglas and James Guthrie were appointed to preach on the day of the forthcoming parliamentary fast and humiliation, which later took place on 10 January. David Dickson and James Hamilton were appointed to preach to Parliament on the following Sabbath.21 The delegation also requested that the Commission ‘would appoint a Committee of their number for conference with a Committee of Parliament from time to time’.22 The Commission quickly proceeded to establish a committee on 5 January, the 19 ministers and eight lay elders of which were to meet for ‘conference upon publick bussiness’. It was to prepare a report and it was empowered to consult with ‘a Comittee of Parliament from tyme to tyme’.23 On 12 January, the Commission of the Kirk instructed its committee to meet with the parliamentary committee to ‘consult upon Overtures for suppressing of prophanitie and taking course with excommunicat persons, suppleing of the poore, setling of schooles, searching out all mortified rents and how they are to be imployed, and what is to be done farder in prosecution of comissions for planting of kirks’.24 Furthermore, the committee was to discuss the visitation of hospitals, disclaiming the Engagement, and the purging of judicatories and the armed forces. It was instructed to report back to the Commission and a full report concerning overtures and desires which had been made to Parliament was presented on 14 March, two days before the end of the parliamentary session.25 On 18 January the Commission presented a full supplication to Parliament for purging the armed forces. A further petition on this theme was also presented on 2 March.26 The presentation of petitions and supplications from the Commission of the Kirk to Parliament was therefore another device employed on the part of the Church of Scotland to secure the state enactment of the legislation it preferred. On 26 January 1649, for example, a committee of three ministers was appointed to assist in the presentation of petitions from St Andrews and Dumfries to Parliament.27 The next day, on 27 January, the from Sir James Stewart who had been replaced by Alexander Jaffray (Aberdeen burgh) (ibid., p. 153). Constituencies are given in brackets. 21 APS, vol. 6, ii, p.132; RCGA, 1648 & 1649, p. 146. 22 RGCA, 1648 & 1649, p. 146. 23 Ibid., pp. 146–7. None of the eight lay elders on the committee were MPs as per 4 January 1649 (APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 124–6). 24 RCGA, 1648 & 1649, p. 150. 25 Ibid., pp. 150, 240–41. 26 Ibid., pp. 169–70, 226–7. 27 Ibid., p. 180.

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Commission stated that an overture was to be given in to Parliament for ‘debarring Papists from any power of nomination of persons to places of trust’.28 Crucially, on 30 January the Commission of the Kirk presented a petition to the Estates calling for the full abolition of patronage. This was followed up with a more detailed petition on 30 February.29 A Committee of Overtures was also appointed by the Commission on 18 May 1650 to deal with overtures to be presented to the parliamentary session which opened on 15 May (and sat until 5 July).30 Ministers were often appointed to preach before the Estates, and parliamentary fasts and humiliations were also held in liaison with Kirk representatives. On 4 November 1641, for example, Parliament issued an ordinance for a fast, based on a paper presented by the ‘commissioners for the church’. The reasons given for the fast included consideration of the contemporary wider British and European perspective. Thus, the causes listed included the Irish rebellion, the distress of the Palatinate and of the reformed churches in Germany which tended to the increase of ‘Poperie’, and the need to pray earnestly to God for ‘a speedie and happie close of the parliamentis of both kingdomes’. The paper was read to and approved by the assembled Estates and Charles I (who was present in Parliament).31 Later, on 1 December 1645, when Parliament was sitting at St Andrews, John Kennedy, sixth Earl of Cassillis, Sir James MacDowall of Garthland (Wigtownshire) and Robert Barclay (Irvine burgh) were appointed to meet with the Commission of the Kirk to ask for ministers to preach and read Scripture to the Estates every morning. On 12 December Parliament issued an ordinance for a solemn fast and humiliation.32 Formal instructions relating to preaching as it related to the business of the House were laid down on 30 December, although the terms of these conditions indicate that there was to be no daily preaching. The parliamentary session of 26 November 1645 to 4 February 1646 was being held in St Andrews and therefore preaching arrangements were being made to accommodate this change of venue from Edinburgh. Preaching was to take place between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The separate estates were then to meet between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., the full Parliament was to sit between 10 a.m. and 12 noon and the parliamentary committees were then to meet in the 28

Ibid. Ibid., pp. 184–5, 205–11. 30 Ibid., p. 397. 31 APS, vol. 5, appendix, p. 692. For a recent analysis of the Scottish Parliament’s European diplomacy at this time, see Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and European Diplomacy 1641–47: The Palatine, The Dutch Republic and Sweden’. 32 APS, vol. 6, i, pp. 475, 485–6. Parliament wanted ministers to preach before 8 a.m. 29

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afternoon. On those days when there was no preaching, the times for the meetings of the separate estates, parliament and committees were to remain as listed above. On 1 January 1646 a further fast was ordered to be held by the Estates on the following Sunday, as well as by all churches in St Andrews.33 On 11 November 1646, Robert Douglas and Andrew Cant were appointed by the Commission to preach before Parliament for a day of fasting and humiliation. Plans were also set out and ministers identified for prayers and preaching in Parliament on other days.34 By 1649 ministers from the Presbytery of Edinburgh and neighbouring presbyteries were appointed for preaching. This was in accordance with previous established procedure. On 12 March 1649 the Commission of the Kirk appointed John Livingston and James Guthrie to preach a sermon of thanksgiving at the end of the parliamentary session on 16 March.35 Fasts were appointed by the Commission of the Kirk on a regular basis in 1650–51. On 26 December 1650 a solemn fast and humiliation was held for the sins of the royal family prior to the coronation of Charles II as King of Great Britain, France and Ireland on 1 January 1651 at Scone, Perthshire.36 Based on the surviving parliamentary minutes (as opposed to the full records), parliamentary fasts appear to have been relatively rare in 1650–51 (certainly compared to the Commission of the Kirk). On 30 May 1651 the Estates approved a paper containing reasons for a solemn fast to be kept by the army prior to their marching.37

Legislating the reformation of the Church Social, moral, ecclesiastical and financial legislation in favour of the Church was passed by the Covenanting Parliaments. Constraints of space obviously limit the detailed discussion of many of these issues, given the number of parliamentary sessions over the period, but several of the main themes can be identified. The June 1640 session ratified the acts of the 1639 General Assembly and the National Covenant and a Rescissory act nullified all previous acts of parliament in favour of 33

Ibid., p. 496. RGCA, 1646 & 1647, pp. 99–100. 35 RCGA, 1648 & 1649, pp. 192–3, 236. 36 RGCA, 1650, 1651 & 1652, pp. 143–54. For a recent discussion of fasting in Reformation Scotland, see W. Ian P. Hazlett, ‘Playing God’s Card: Knox and Fasting, 1565–66’, in Roger A. Mason (ed.), John Knox and the British Reformations (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 176–98. 37 APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 674. The parliamentary records in APS for 1650–51 are largely based on parliamentary minutes, as opposed to full records. 34

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bishops and acts which were derogatory to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Kirk (including 1621 legislation ratifying the controversial Five Articles of Perth of 1618). Previous acts against bands, leagues and convention among subjects were deemed not to have any relevance to the meetings and bands of the Covenanters. Indeed, such meetings were deemed to be lawful. Furthermore, a new band was drawn up for subscription throughout the kingdom. Signatories to this band were bound to uphold the legality of the June 1640 parliamentary session.38 The composition of the Scottish Parliament (as a single-chamber institution) was constitutionally transformed by the abolition of the clerical estate (bishops and archbishops) in Parliament. The Scottish Estates were redefined as consisting of the nobles, barons (or commissioners of the shires) and burgesses, and the barons or shire commissioners had their voting power in Parliament doubled.39 Considerable attention was paid to the planting and financing of kirks, as well as to ministers’ stipends throughout the 1640s. On 11 June 1640, for example, legislation was passed for the planting of kirks that lay vacant due to the fault of the patron.40 Detailed discussions took place among all three estates throughout September, October and November 1641 concerning the financing of churches, teinds and ministers’ stipends.41 On 15 November 1641 a Committee for the Plantation of Kirks and Valuation of Teinds, based on a supplication from the General Assembly, was established as a parliamentary interval committee (which was to meet after the end of the Parliament). A previous commission had also been established in the 1633 Coronation Parliament. The 1641 commission consisted of 14 members from each Estate and five officers of state (47 members in total). It was the most important parliamentary committee which dealt with church issues throughout the period of Covenanting rule. This committee was to consider and deal with the disposal of patronage rights following the abolition of episcopacy, the extension and redefinition of parish boundaries and the valuation of teinds for subsequent redistribution.42 The Commission for Plantation of Kirks and Valuation of Teinds was renewed in 1644, 1647 and 1649.43 38

Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, p. 196. APS, vol. 5, pp. 259–60; Robert S. Rait, The Parliaments of Scotland (Glasgow, 1924), pp. 66, 168; Young, The Scottish Parliament, p. 20. 40 APS, vol. 5, p. 296. 41 See, for example, ibid., appendix, pp. 645–6, 660, 664–5, 679, 687–90, 695–6, 698, 701. Considerable attention was also given to distressed ministers in the north of Scotland who had suffered losses as a result of Royalist resistance in the north-east as part of the First Bishops’ War (ibid., pp. 659–60, 665–6, 668–9, 674). 42 Ibid., pp. 35–9, 400–403; Young, The Scottish Parliament, pp. 45–6, 53; MacInnes, The Making of the Covenanting Movement, p. 204. 43 APS, vol. 6, i, pp. 199, 778–9; vol. 6, ii, pp. 300, 539; Young, The Scottish 39

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Earlier legislation of 2 September 1641 dealt with patrons who had not subscribed the National Covenant. The act anent non-Covenanting patrons stated that it was illegal for such people to make presentations to vacant churches. The filling of those vacant places and the provisions concerning stipends and the admission of ministers was to pass to the presbyteries in which the relevant churches were located.44 Other legislation of the same date freed vicarages that were provided to ministers for their stipends from taxation or other impositions.45 At a practical level, Parliament often legislated in favour of individual parishes. This was the case at the close of the 1641 Parliament on 17 November when ratifications were passed in favour of Anstruther Easter in Fife (where a new church had been built and people living in the burgh would no longer be required to travel to the parish of Kilrenny for divine worship) and the parish of Denny in central Scotland (which was formally ‘dismembered’ from the parsonage of Falkirk, due to the fact that people in Denny had faced considerable practical travel difficulties in getting to Falkirk and Denny now had a church of its own).46 Two specific pieces of legislation of 1649 were to have an important influence on the Kirk. First, on 9 March an act was passed abolishing the patronage of church lands.47 The Commission of the Kirk had been particularly active in pushing for this. On 25 January it had established a committee of five, including Samuel Rutherford, to draw up a petition to Parliament on this subject. This petition had been completed by 30 January.48 On 14 February Rutherford and James Wood were instructed ‘to draw up reasons to shew the unlawfulness of Patronages, and to give them to these that attend the Parliament to be made use of’.49 This substantial petition, containing seven ‘Reasones proveing that Patronages and Presentations of Kirks are sinfull and unlawfull’, was approved at the end of February for presentation to Parliament.50 The act of 9 March stated that patronage was ‘prejudiciall to the Liberties of the people and planting of kirks and unto the frie calling and entering of the ministers unto thair charge’.51 The intention behind the legislation was to

Parliament, pp. 102–3, 182, 237. 44 APS, vol. 5, p. 348. 45 Ibid., p. 348. 46 Ibid., pp. 472–3. These had originally been presented to the 1639 General Assembly. The Assembly had then presented them as supplications to the 1639 Parliament (ibid., appendix, p. 596). 47 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 261–2. 48 RCGA, 1648 & 1649, pp. 179, 181. 49 Ibid., p. 202. 50 Ibid., p. 205–11. 51 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 261–2.

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lessen the dependence of the ministry on the nobility and gentry.52 The abolition of patronage weakened the rights of the nobility by cancelling grants of superiorities and feu duties made by Charles I to nobles in the aftermath of the Revocation scheme. The cancellation of the King’s grants had been a live political issue since 1647–48. Petitions had been handed into Parliament in 1647 and 1648, but they had been rejected by the nobility, despite the support of a section of the shire and burgh commissioners.53 The act was not without controversy and its passage led to a parliamentary walkout by Francis Scott, second Earl of Buccleuch and other (unspecified) members. Arguably, the abolition of lay patronage in the kirk, more than any other piece of legislation enacted, indicated the influence of the Commission of the Kirk at this time. Sir James Balfour, the Lord Lyon, noted in terms of church influence that ‘current was carried for the presbeteries and churche way in respecte Argyle, the Chanceler [Loudoun], and Arch: Johnston, the kirks minon, durst doe no wtherwayes, lest the leaders of the church should desert them, and leaue them to stand one their auen feeitt, wich without the church non of them could weill doe’.54 Improvements in the condition of the ministry were to be implemented under the terms and conditions of an act of 14 March 1649 for the augmentation of stipends and provision of ministers. These focused on stipend provision and the provision of accommodation. Where manses and glebes had not already been built, then three ministers and three elders from the presbytery were ordered to build ‘competent manses’ for their ministers. Expenditure levels for this purpose were set at a ceiling of £1000 and a floor of 500 merks (c. £333). Where ‘competent manses’ were already in existence, then heritors of parishes were instructed to relieve their minister of the upkeep of his manse in terms of all charges, costs and expenses for necessary repair work. Instead, these financial obligations were to be met by the heritors. Ministers were also to be provided with a horse. Detailed provisions were made to improve the payment of ministers’ stipends. Specific arguments were contained within the legislation to justify a pay rise for the ministry, including the impact of price inflation in recent years which had reduced the value of money and purchasing power in real terms. In short, an increase in stipends was necessary to maintain the status and standard of living of the ministry. The Commission for the 52 Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: James V–James VII (1965; reprinted Edinburgh, 1998), p. 339. 53 Young, The Scottish Parliament, pp. 226–7; Stevenson, Revolution and CounterRevolution, pp. 137–9, 141. 54 Sir James Balfour, Historical Works, ed. James Haig (4 vols, Edinburgh, 1824–25), vol. 3, p. 391.

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Plantation of Kirks and Valuation of Teinds was given a supervisory role to ensure that stipends were paid on time. Under the terms of the act, it was deemed lawful for ministers who were not receiving ‘thankfull payment’ of their stipends to secure the ‘readiest’ moveable goods and gear from the land of those who were deficient in the payment of the required or necessary portion of the stipend. Furthermore, this was to be carried out by ‘honest sworne men’ residing within the bounds of the presbytery.55

Legislating the reformation of society The Covenanting Parliaments were also interested in providing for the moral improvement of Scottish society. The Reformation ideal of a school in every parish was reinforced in an education act, the act for founding of schools in every parish, which was passed on 2 February 1646. A school and a schoolmaster were to be established and appointed in every parish (where they were not already provided). This was to be done with the advice of the local presbytery.56 The 1646 act was essentially based on a Privy Council act of 1616 that required that every parish should have a school with a suitably qualified master and that this was to be funded by the local inhabitants. The 1616 Privy Council act had been ratified by the 1633 Parliament. The 1646 act stated that the costs of education in each parish were to be met by the local heritors.57 The stipends of school teachers were to be not less than 100 merks (c. £67) and no more than 200 merks (c. £133). They were to be paid twice yearly over two terms.58 The universities received considerable attention in the 1640s, as a continuation of the post-Reformation emphasis on the desire to produce a trained graduate ministry. In the 1640s, this attention largely took the form of commissions for the visitation of the universities. Specific commissions were established for the universities of Glasgow, Aberdeen and St Andrews, and the ‘college’ of Edinburgh. They were staffed by ministers and lay elders and although their remit was primarily financial in terms of adequate funding and the financial solvency of university education, a strong moral overtone was present in 55 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 277–8. See Young, ‘Scottish Covenanting Radicalism’, pp. 366–7. The merk was valued at two-thirds of the £ Scots. 56 APS, vol. 6, i, p. 554. 57 Whyte, Scotland before the Industrial Revolution, pp. 240–41. The 1646 act was abolished and the funding mechanism was only restored in an act of 1696. The 1696 act, in contrast to previous acts, had greater powers of enforcement (ibid.). 58 APS, vol. 6, i, p. 554. The figure of £67 has been rounded up in the calculation of merks to £ Scots.

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the language of the commissions.59 The 1649 St Andrews commission, for example, instructed the named commissioners to ‘order the course of the studies of the youth and public professions’ and to ‘rectifie what is amisse for the better breeding of youth in piety and Learning and advancement of the publict good of this kingdome and church’.60 In terms of staffing, the Estates stated on 6 August 1645 that vacant university positions were not to be filled without the consent of the General Assembly or the commissioners for the visitation of the universities.61 Specific legislation was also passed in favour of individual universities concerning a range of issues. On 11 September 1641, for example, Parliament ratified and approved an act of the 1639 General Assembly for David Dickson, minister of Irvine, to be a professor of theology at Glasgow University.62 On 2 February 1646 an act was passed allowing the University of St Andrews to fill the vacant post of provost following the death of the late incumbent.63 Parliament had been sitting at St Andrews since 26 November 1645, due to plague in the capital, and the university secured further legislation in its favour on 3 February. A supplication was presented by the university for the improvement of the university library and for securing for the use of the university and the ‘better advancing of religion and Learning’ the books of Sir Robert Spottiswood, former President of the Court of Session and son of the late John Spottiswood, Archbishop of St Andrews and former Chancellor. The supplication accused the Spottiswoods of stealing books from the university library. The Estates ordered these books to be gathered together and priced, before being transferred to the library.64 Parliament also legislated for the regulation of work and economic activities on the Sabbath. The sanctity of the Sabbath was to be maintained and secured by the curtailing of economic and work-related activities.65 The hiring of labour on Sundays was curtailed by legislation of 11 June 1640. This applied especially to harvest time and the hiring of ‘sheireris’ (shearers) on Sundays for the week following. The profanity of the Sabbath was thus ‘greatly occasioned’ by the ‘great confluence’ of 59 See, for example, APS, vol. 5, p. 413; vol. 6, i, pp. 198–9, 394, 480–81, 535–6; vol. 6, ii, pp. 138–9, 323. 60 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 138–9. 61 APS, vol. 6, i, pp. 453–4. 62 APS, vol. 5, p. 353. 63 APS, vol. 6, i, p. 553. 64 Ibid., pp. 590–91. Sir Robert Spottiswood was sentenced to death at St Andrews on 16 January 1646, as a ‘malignant’ and supporter of Montrose. He was executed at the market cross of St Andrews. See Young, The Scottish Parliament, pp. 142–4. 65 Legislation of this nature had been discussed in the 1639 Lords of the Articles (APS, vol. 5, appendix, pp. 593–5, 598).

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people coming to public places such as ports, streets in towns and parish churches in outlying parishes where their labour could be hired. As a result of so many people coming to these places, there occurred various tumults and disorders with swearing, drinking and fighting on the Sabbath. Parliament remitted these issues to the Justices of Peace and kirk sessions in the places where these ‘abuses’ were committed due to the large number of people and hiring of shearers.66 The holding of Monday markets in Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Dumfries, Brechin and Glasgow was to be regulated by other legislation passed on 11 June 1640, due to the fact that attendance at church services was being affected by people travelling all day on Sunday from the country in order to get to the Monday markets in these towns. The Jedburgh market was now to be held on Tuesdays, whereas those of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Brechin and Dumfries were to be held on Wednesdays.67 Similar legislation of 23 July 1644 banned the holding of weekly markets on Saturdays and Mondays in any burgh of the kingdom. Legislation of 2 February 1646 extended these conditions to the holding of fairs on Saturdays and Mondays. 68 This was based on an overture from the Commissioners of the Kirk, as part of a wider package of overtures presented to Parliament, which had advocated the discharge of fairs on these days ‘seing the Lordis sabbath is prophaned no less upon these occasions’.69 Specific industries or activities were targeted, notably salmon fishing and the salt and mining industries. Salmon fishing on the Sabbath was banned by an act of 5 June 1640. This activity constituted a ‘great abuse and prophantione of the Sabbath’ and many people were therefore missing church services or otherwise had ‘opportunitie to spend thair tyme in unlawfull actionis contrair to the lawe of God and actes of this reformed kirke’. People who broke this law were defined as Sabbath breakers and their nets and fish were to be confiscated for the benefit of the local poor.70 Employment in the salt and mining industries on the Sabbath was prohibited by an act of 6 June 1640 in order that people working in these industries could attend church services. This act gave 66

Ibid., p. 297. Ibid., pp. 297–8. The nature of the Monday markets in Glasgow and Edinburgh in terms of goods and commodities is described in the act. Market regulation had been discussed in the 1639 Lords of Articles (ibid., appendix, pp. 594–5, 596, 598). For details of market days and how they had developed in Glasgow, see J. McGrath, ‘The Medieval and Early Modern Burgh’, in T.M. Devine and Gordon Jackson (eds), Glasgow. Volume I: Beginnings to 1830 (Manchester, 1995), pp. 39–40. 68 APS, vol. 6, i, p. 553. 69 Ibid., pp. 552–3. 70 APS, vol. 5, p. 268. 67

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‘civill sanctione’ to acts of the General Assembly or other Kirk acts concerning these issues.71 Further legislation of 1641 prohibited working in the salt and mining industries on the Sabbath as well as other profanation of the Lord’s day.72 The act noted that despite previous legislation in the June 1640 session (which ratified acts of the General Assembly) concerning the profaning of the Sabbath by working in salt pans, mines, salmon fishing and the hiring of servants, these ‘abuses’ had not only continued but had increased. All work on the Sabbath was accordingly banned and fines were introduced. These fines were to be paid to the kirk sessions of the parishes where the abuses took place. A fine of £20 per day was imposed for working in the salt and mining industries and for salmon fishing. The fine was to be paid by the heritors and owners of those industries. Masters were to be held accountable for their servants. A £10 fine was imposed on each shearer and fisherman (salmon fishing was specified). One half of the fine was to be paid by the hirer of labour and the ‘conduceres’. The other half was to be paid by the individual transgressor. In addition, local magistrates were instructed to keep transgressors in ward until fines had been paid. In turn, the magistrates were to be held accountable to kirk sessions. All other profanations or abuses were to be subject to a £10 fine which was to be paid by the transgressor to the kirk session. Goods and merchandise that had been produced by these activities were also covered in the act. Salt, corn, merchandise, loads and all other goods employed, gained or made in the ‘prophaneing and abusing’ of the Lord’s day were to be confiscated.73 The ethos of this legislation was continued in a later act of 18 March 1647 that discharged the ‘observatioune of superstitious dayis’.74 It was targeted at coal hewers (coal cutters) and salters who observed the Yule day (Christmas Day) and other ‘superstitious days’. Observation of Yule day was ‘muche occasioned’ by coal hewers and salters ‘entring’ at this time. Accordingly, the Estates stated that the terms of flitting and entering of all coal hewers and salters was thereafter to take place on 1 December and any entry or removal at Yule was discharged. Anyone who observed ‘superstitious dayis in anie maner of way’ was to be subject to the punishments contained in legislation against profanation of the Sabbath.75 The problem of Sunday working in specific industries continued, however, and on 13 February 1649 Parliament legislated against salmon fishing and working in the salt and

71 72 73 74 75

Ibid., pp. 269–70. Ibid., pp. 390–91. Ibid. APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 761. Ibid.

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mining industries and ‘other servile work on the Lord’s Day’. Despite previous parliamentary legislation, ‘the sabbath is in many places of the kingdome prophaned by doeing of these works in the morning or evening of the Lord’s Day’. Unnecessary work was therefore prohibited between midnight on Saturday and midnight on Sunday evening. Anyone breaking these restrictions would be liable to punishment according to the terms of parliamentary legislation concerning profanity.76 Social activities, as well as economic activities, were to be curtailed on the Sabbath.77 On 11 September 1639 an act against drunkenness was read, voted on and passed by the Articles.78 Control of the sale and consumption of alcohol was attempted by legislation of 23 July 1644 in an act against keepers of taverns and sellers of drink on the Lord’s day. The Estates noted that the ‘great abuse of Drunkenness doeth continowe and increase’ despite legislation passed in James VI’s reign (1617) against ‘Drunkardes & haunteres in Taverenes and Ale houses’. This previous legislation had applied to drunkards and people staying in taverns and ale houses after 10 p.m. or at any time of day, except in time of travel or for ‘ordinarie refreshment’.79 In order to better restrain this ‘vice of Drunkennes’, the 1644 act not only ratified the previous legislation of James VI, but also extended it to keepers of taverns and alehouses that sold alcohol to such drunkards and ‘haunterers’ in taverns and ale houses.80 Alcohol abuse was also dealt with by legislation passed by Parliament on 7 August 1645. This legislation was not restricted to drink alone, but was also concerned with swearing and the mocking of piety. All three issues were incorporated in a single piece of legislation and they were to be punished by fining. Unsurprisingly, this legislation had a strong spiritual and moral overtone to it. By subscription to the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant, the people had bound themselves before God with a solemn oath ‘to behave themselves’ in their lives and conversations as ‘beseemeth Christianes’ who had renewed their covenant with God and had promised for themselves, their followers and all others under them, both in public and in their own families and personal behaviour, to endeavour to ‘keepe themselves within the boundes of Christian Libertie and to be good examples to 76 Ibid., p. 185. Attempts by the Covenanters in the 1640s to stop the production of salt on Sundays appear to have had little impact. See Christopher A. Whatley, The Scottish Salt Industry 1570–1850 (Aberdeen, 1987), p. 80. 77 For the wider context of this, see Leah Leneman, “‘Prophaning” The Lord’s Day: Sabbath Breach in Early Modern Scotland’, History, 74 (1989): 217–31. This focuses on the period from the Restoration onwards. 78 APS, vol. 5, appendix, p. 596. 79 Ibid., p. 195. 80 Ibid.

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otheres of all godlines, sobrietie and righteousnes and of everie Duetie they ow to God and man’. The breach of these terms of the Covenants had resulted in God’s wrath being poured out over the land.81 This refers to Montrose’s victories over the Covenanting armies in Scotland; this act was passed only eight days before the Battle of Kilsyth (15 August). Under the terms of the act, it was stated that those who ‘shall sueir curse and blashpeme and who shall Drinke execesslie’ especially under the ‘name of healthes’ and all ‘mockeres and reprocheres of pietie’, and who had already been censured by the church, were to be fined after the second conviction. A tiered level of fines was laid out in terms of social status from nobles down to servants. Nobles were to be fined £20 for their second conviction and for each fault thereafter. Women were to be fined 40 shillings, double the amount applied to servants, who were to be fined 20 shillings. Each baron was to be fined 20 merks and each gentleman, heritor and burgess was to be fined 10 merks. Fines for married women were to be applied according to the social status of their husbands and masters were to be liable for their servants’ fines if their servants had offended on their premises or in their company. The legislation also applied to ministers, who were to be fined one-fifth of their annual stipend. In addition to these fines, offenders would also be subject to the separate censure of the church. Levied fines were to be put to pious uses in the parishes where offenders lived.82 Similar legislation was later passed on 13 February 1649 with an act against swearing, drunkenness, scolding and other profanities. Those found guilty of being drunk on a regular basis were to be fined, as were those who were ‘Scolders, filthie speakers and makers or singers of badie songs’.83 This would seem to be an attempted control of popular culture through the censorship of songs and ballads. Compared to the 1645 legislation there was a substantial increase in fining levels (which were also to be put to pious uses) and people who proved to be ‘incorrigible’ after a fourth conviction were to be imprisoned until they amended their ways. Fines for nobles increased from £20 to £400, fines for barons increased from 20 merks to 400 merks, fines for gentlemen, heritors and burgesses increased from 10 merks to 200 merks and fines for servants rose from 40 shillings to £20 (c. 13 merks).84 To put these figures in a clearer perspective, servants in 1649 were to be subject to the same level of fines applied to nobles in 1645. 81

Ibid., p. 458. Ibid. 83 APS, vol. 7, ii, p. 174. No distinction was made between men and women in the act. The terminology used in the legislation was that of ‘whosoever’ and ‘those who under whatsoever name’. 84 Ibid. 82

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Blasphemy was dealt with in a separate piece of legislation, the act against the horrible crime of blasphemy, which passed on 17 February 1649. An act against blasphemy had been earlier passed by the Lords of the Articles on 11 September 1639.85 The Estates observed in the 1649 act that hitherto ‘there hes beene no Law in this Kingdome’ against the ‘horrible Cryme of blasphemy’.86 The act therefore stated that those who ‘shall raill upon or curse God’ or any of the persons of the ‘blessed Trinity’ were to be processed in law and if found guilty they were to be punished by death. The only people who were to be exempted from this were those who were mentally distracted. Furthermore, the act proceeded to state that those who ‘shall deny God’ or any of the persons of the ‘blessed Trinity’, and continued to do so, were to be subject to the same legal process and punished by death if found guilty.87 Theoretically, Parliament in 1649 had sanctioned the execution of blasphemers and atheists. Punishment by death was also to be applied to other activities. On 3 March 1649 an act was passed against the worship of false gods, due to the fact that ‘diverse of the subjects of the realme’ were involved in their civil affairs with ‘heathens Whose abominatiounes they may possible learne’. By such an association these people would ‘thereby be defylled and Defyll others’. Accordingly, the Estates legislated that ‘whosoever shall worship a fals God shall be put to death without pardone’.88 Punishment by death without mercy was also to be applied to children over the age of 16, ‘not being Distracted’, who either beat or cursed their parents. The act against beaters and cursers of their parents of 3 March 1649 sought to provide a model of social behaviour within the context of the family unit in order that ‘others may hear and fear and not doe the Lyk’.89 In common with other legislation of the 1640s, an act against ‘strykers or cursers’ of parents had been passed by the 1639 Lords of the Articles on 21 October.90 The one area where executions were most apparent in reality – as opposed to being merely sanctioned in legislation – was in the treatment of witchcraft. It has been well established that Scotland was one of the main areas of the European witch-hunt, with five intensive phases. 1649 witnessed one of these five phases. According to Christina Larner, 1649 was ‘the year which may have seen the greatest number of executions in 85

APS, vol. 5, appendix, p. 596. APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 208. Despite what the act said, earlier blasphemy acts had been passed in 1551 and 1621, for example. See Walker, A Legal History of Scotland, vol. 4, pp. 513, 524. 87 APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 208. 88 Ibid., p. 231. 89 Ibid. 90 APS, vol. 5, appendix, p. 615. 86

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the whole of Scottish witch-hunting’.91 Witch-hunting in Covenanting Scotland was an important element in the attempted creation of a godly society and the 1649 hunt must be placed in the domestic context of other elements of godly legislation (by Parliament) and its enforcement (by the internal structures of the Church of Scotland).92 The Reformation heritage of associating witchcraft with crime was contained in the 1563 Witchcraft Act, but throughout the 1640s the General Assembly and the Commission of the Kirk lobbied not only for the implementation but also for the extension of the act.93 A witchcraft act was passed on 1 February 1649. This act dealt with witches, sorcerers, necromancers and consulters. All previous legislation against these groups was ratified. The 1563 act remained the basis of prosecution and those found guilty of the crime of witchcraft were to be punished by death. The 1649 act clarified the earlier legislation by extending it to deal with consulters of ‘Devils and familiar Spirits’.94 They were to be punished by death. By May 1650 the Scottish Parliament had a formal witchcraft committee in operation to deal with depositions and other legal papers relating to witchcraft accusations and commissions.95 It is clear that individual Covenanters and parliamentary members had a proactive role in witchhunting in Scotland and witch-hunting was at the heart of the drive for a purified godly society in Covenanting Scotland. A growing social problem facing Scottish society in the 1640s was that of poverty and vagrancy. The problem of sturdy and idle beggars had been discussed in the 1639 Lords of the Articles.96 This problem had intensified by the late 1640s due to the collective impact of the dislocation caused by warfare, taxation, levying of forces, plague and high grain prices. On 1 March 1649 an act against the poor was passed in which Christian charity and the community ideal were emphasized. The communal responsibility of each parish and presbytery to look after its own poor was emphasized. The legislation sought to control the movement and location of the vagrant population. Each parish and

91

Christina Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-hunt in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2000), p.

131. 92 See Larner, Enemies of God; Stuart Macdonald, The Witches of Fife: Witch-hunting in a Scottish Shire, 1560–1710 (East Linton, 2002); Julian Goodare (ed.), The Scottish Witch-hunt in Context (Manchester, 2002). 93 Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1638–1642 (Edinburgh, 1843), pp. 44–5, 216–17; RCGA, 1646 & 1647, p. 123; APS, vol. 5, appendix, p. 645; APS, vol. 6, i, p. 197; APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 152, 274, 536–7; Larner, Enemies of God, pp. 73–4. 94 APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 152. 95 Ibid., pp. 563–6. 96 APS, vol. 5, appendix, pp. 594, 596, 598.

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presbytery was to draw up a list of the poor within its boundaries twice every year, on 1 June and 1 September. Voluntary and charitable contributions were to be based on these lists.97 Those who were ‘sloathfull’ and physically able to work were ineligible for poor relief and a distinction was made between the pious and the ‘prophane Debaucht and Drunken sort’. The problem of begging was to be solved by compulsory labour. Those who were fit to work and earn a living, but who had taken to ‘a Trade of begging’, were to be apprehended by kirk elders and put to work in order to ensure that ‘the Countrey may be eased of ane unprofitable burthene and laufull industrie maintayned throw the Land’. Door-to-door begging was to be punished by imprisonment. Vagrants were to be returned to the parish of their birth, where they were to be assessed and treated as one of the local poor and put to work, if fit to do so, within their native parish. They were not to be ‘permitted to wander over the kingdome as before’. Any sheriff or local magistrate who refused to take them was to be suspended from office and would face a fine of £40.98 Forced labour was sanctioned by the 1649 act. Any of the king’s subjects was allowed to take and apprehend ‘such ydle and sturdie beggars and to employ tham or dispose of thame to be imployed be others in wark for their meat and cloth’. Legislative provision was made for those beggars and vagabonds who were blind, lame, weak or elderly and who would be unable to return to the parishes of their birth. They were to be included in the poor of the presbytery in which they were apprehended. A list of these individuals was then to be drawn up within each presbytery and sent to the Committee of Estates or the Privy 97 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 220–21; Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-Revolution, p. 139. Much of what follows is discussed in Young, ‘Scottish Covenanting Radicalism’, pp. 361–2. The date of the 1649 act was 1 March and not 28 February as argued in ibid., p. 361. The last major outbreak of bubonic plague hit many towns and some rural areas between 1644 and 1649, the movement of armies bringing the disease into remote areas such as Kintyre and Islay. Towns and burghs were worst hit. Between 9000 and 12 000 people died in Edinburgh and the surrounding area in 1645, corresponding to between one-quarter and one-third of the population there. Parliamentary sessions were held in Stirling, Perth and St Andrews from July 1645 to February 1646, due to the outbreak of plague in Edinburgh (Whyte, Scotland before the Industrial Revolution, p. 123; Young, The Scottish Parliament, pp. 122, 125, 136). Crail, Dunfermline, Paisley, Perth and Stirling were also badly hit. There were further outbreaks in 1646 and 1647. Two-thirds of the population of Brechin are estimated to have perished and 1600 people died in Aberdeen. Further outbreaks in 1648 and 1649 hit Montrose and Dundee. One town dweller in five is estimated to have died of plague between 1644 and 1649. Apprentice registers from Edinburgh indicate a large influx of rural migrants to the capital to take up employment opportunities offered by the loss of population (Whyte, Scotland before the Industrial Revolution, pp. 123–4). 98 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 220–21.

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Council. These central bodies were then to divide and proportion these people among the presbyteries and shires that had the least burden. In essence, this amounted to the compulsory movement and division of labour of the weakest elements of the vagrant population on a national basis. Whether or not this legislation was effectively implemented remains a matter of speculation.99 On 23 May 1650 the Commission of the Kirk was still lobbying Parliament to ‘execute the act restraining beggars and vagabonds’.100 Parliamentary legislation was enacted by the Covenanting Parliaments with the aim of regulating sexual behaviour. The two main legislative areas concerning sexual behaviour applied to fornication and adultery. There was also an attempt to regulate marriage ceremonies as well as the grounds of divorce. On 1 September 1641 Parliament passed an act discharging unlawful marriages. This dealt with the ‘great abuse and dangerous evill’ resulting from Scottish people going to neighbouring kingdoms to be married. The Estates stated that all men and women who had their ordinary residence in Scotland were not to get married in either England or Ireland, without the proclamation of bans in Scotland as per the order of the Kirk and kingdom. Fines were imposed for people breaking these marriage rules. Nobles were to be fined £1000, landed gentlemen 1000 merks (c. £667), burgesses and other substantial people £500, yeomen £100 and people of inferior quality 100 merks.101 An act against clandestine marriages was passed on 13 February 1649. This attempted to regularize marriage procedure. Marriage ceremonies which had been conducted by Jesuit priests or by deposed or suspended ministers would not be recognized by either Church or state. The conductors of such ceremonies were to be banished from the kingdom for life and they were to face death if they ever returned. People who were married under these circumstances faced a heavy punishment of three month’s imprisonment and fines of £5000 for nobles, 5000 merks (c. £3333) for barons and landed gentlemen, £1000 for gentlemen and burgesses and 500 merks (c. £333) for any other person.102 Irish Franciscans had made a sustained effort to attempt to restore Catholicism to the Highlands between 1619 and 1637 and three Irish 99 Ibid. See Rosalind Mitchison, The Old Poor Law in Scotland: The Experience of Poverty, 1574–1845 (Edinburgh, 2000) for the wider context of the 1649 act. 100 RCGA, 1648 & 1649, pp. 413–14. 101 APS, vol. 5, p. 348. The act stated that half of these fines were to go to the king and the other half were to go the parish or parishes where the married parties resided (in Scotland). An act prohibiting the marriage in England of Scottish people who were resident in Scotland had been passed by the Lords of the Articles on 11 September 1639, but the range of fines was not as broad as the 1641 act (ibid., appendix, p. 596). 102 APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 184.

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priests accompanied MacColla’s Irish brigades to Scotland in 1644. One of these priests was killed at Philiphaugh in September 1645, but the other two, identified as most probably being Daniel McNeill and Daniel Laertius, accompanied MacColla to the western seaboard and they appear to have been active there by August 1646.103 The Synod of Argyll complained to the Commission of the Kirk in September 1646 that ‘with the enemy there ar a number of freiris and seminarie priests, who ar going about Kintyre and some of the Iles, using all diligence and endevour to seduce the people to Poperie; and many not only in Kintyre but also of the adjacent Iles, even of the better sort, already following their wayes, and not only countenancing, but embracing their superstition.’104 Parliamentary legislation enacted against marriages by Jesuit priests in 1649 can be regarded as a component of anti-Catholic legislation enacted in the 1640s and it also indicates that Jesuits were active in Scotland. On 11 September 1639, during the sitting of the Lords of the Articles in Parliament, Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, Lord Advocate, and James Lyon of Auldbar (Forfarshire) were instructed to revise all parliamentary legislation against ‘papists’. Later that day an act against ‘papists and excommunicat persons’ was passed in Parliament.105 With the controversial prorogation of the 1639 Parliament, it was not until 5 June 1640 that an act against papists was passed by the Estates. All previous legislation against Catholic clergy, recusants and resetters was fully ratified and approved by the 1640 act.106 Later, on 10 September 1641, Parliament passed an act for abolishing monuments of idolatry. Charles I was present in Parliament when this act was passed, when parliamentary approval and sanction was given to the destruction and removal of ‘all idolatrous images crucifixes pictures of Christ and all other idolatrous pictures’ from all churches, colleges, chapels and all other public places.107 The most recent detailed research into Catholic recusancy and the penal laws for this period has effectively demonstrated that, despite the vociferous demands from the General Assembly for the vigorous and rigorous application of the penal laws, the main focus of attention of the Covenanters was directed towards political opponents, that is, anti103 F.A. MacDonald, ‘Irish Priests in the Highlands: Judicial Evidence from Argyll’, The Innes Review, 46 (1995), pp. 16–17; David Stevenson, ‘The Irish Franciscan Mission to Scotland and the Irish Rebellion of 1641’, The Innes Review, 30 (1979), pp. 54–61. 104 Quoted in MacDonald, ‘Irish Priests in the Highlands’, p. 17. 105 APS, vol. 5, p. 596; Margaret D. Young (ed.), The Parliaments of Scotland (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1992–93), vol. 2, p. 442. 106 APS, vol. 5, p. 267. 107 Ibid., p. 351.

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Covenanters, delinquents and malignants. Anti-Covenanting activities and support for Montrose’s Royalist campaigns and later the Engagement were deemed to be more important, in terms of the application of sanction, than adherence to Catholicism per se.108 Certainly Catholics were excluded from public office during the period of Covenanting rule, but ‘few recusants were faced with a civil directive to quit the country’.109 Thus, the ‘reissue and amplification of the penal laws’ took place on only three occasions (1640, 1642 and 1647) by Parliament and Privy Council and this was to ‘serve the political ends of the central oligarchy directing the Covenanting movement’.110 The extension of civil sanctions to all opponents of the Covenanters was more important, according to this view, and was the result of the drive generated by the Covenanting movement for ideological conformity, financial supply and military recruitment. The Acts of Classes of 1646 and 1649 sanctioned the purging, fining and forfeiture of the regime’s opponents.111 Catholic nobles were fined for their political and military association with Royalism, rather than for their Catholicism per se. In February 1647, Parliament sanctioned the rescinding of forfeitures of some Catholic 108 Allan I. MacInnes, ‘Catholic Recusancy and the Penal Laws, 1603–1707’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 23 (1989), pp. 46–53. 109 Ibid., p. 46. 110 Ibid. A wide range of anti-Catholic measures were issued by the Privy Council on 5 July 1642. The Privy Council appointed a commission for the apprehension of Jesuits, seminary and mass priests and people who went on pilgrimage to chapels and wells. Synods and presbyteries were instructed to take proceedings against ‘papists’. See The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (hereafter RPCS), ed. P.H. Brown, second series (8 vols, Edinburgh, 1899–1906), vol. 7, pp. 289–96, for the full detailed range of measures. On 18 March 1647 Parliament passed an act against excommunicated persons. This ratified all previous acts and parliamentary ordinances against excommunicated people. In addition, the act ratified and approved all previous acts of Convention and Privy Council against Jesuit ‘papists’, priests and excommunicated people, especially the terms and conditions laid down by the Privy Council on 5 July 1642 (APS, vol. 6, i, p. 763). The education of the children of Catholics was often a target area for the Commission of the Kirk. As part of a wide range of anti-Catholic measures endorsed by the Privy Council on 5 July 1642, it was stated that existing parliamentary legislation concerning the children of ‘papists’ was to be enforced. Later, on 25 March 1647, Parliament passed an act ‘anent the education of children under popish parents or tutors’. The Privy Council or the Committee of Estates was empowered to provide for the education of such children and both bodies were given full powers to take children from under the charge of Catholic parents, tutors and curators and commit the children to the care of ‘some well affected religious friend to be educat in religion and vertue’ (APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 795). These conditions were to apply when particular representations were made by presbyteries or other kirk judicatories concerning individual cases (ibid.). 111 MacInnes, ‘Catholic Recusancy and the Penal Laws’, pp. 46–7; Young, The Scottish Parliament, chs 6 and 9; Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and the War for the Three Kingdoms, 1639–1651’, pp. 110–15.

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families, such as Robert, second Earl of Nithsdale, who had not been an active Royalist during the Civil War. The radical regime of 1649 issued local commissions in north-east Scotland to uplift the rents of Catholics, but this was largely due to the shortage of public funds.112 On 16 March 1649 Arthur Forbes of Echt, one of the Aberdeenshire parliamentary commissioners, was issued with a commission for uplifting papists’ rents. Separate legislation of the same day stated that this money was to be used for the payment of those ministers in Aberdeenshire and Banffshire whose stipends had not been paid out of the lands belonging to George Gordon, second Marquis of Huntly and James Gordon, second Lord Aboyne.113 The execution of Huntly on 22 March 1649 was justified by his association with the Royalist cause. He was tried and convicted as a Royalist commander; no mention was made of his recusancy, and he ‘cannot be deemed a martyr though he died an unrepentant Catholic’.114 Within the wider context of the War for the Three Kingdoms, however, Irish troops were executed on their capture or surrender.115 Parliamentary legislation governing the regulation of marriage was complemented by divorce legislation, which was passed on 23 July 1644. The act anent divorce for adultery stated that divorce was to be granted on probation by witnesses, or probation of bigamy, or probation that ‘bairns’ (children) were procreated in adultery, or that people under scandal of adultery kept frequent company and slept together.116 As part of a wider remit of issues to be presented to Parliament, on 23 May 1650, any two or three of the ministers of Edinburgh were to present reasons to Parliament ‘for punishing adulterie with a single woman by death’.117 The Commission wanted parliamentary clarification and explanation of legislation concerning capital punishment of adultery.118 112

MacInnes, ‘Catholic Recusancy and the Penal Laws’, pp. 50–52. APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 337, 356–7; Young (ed.), The Parliaments of Scotland, vol. 1, pp. 247–8. 114 MacInnes, ‘Catholic Recusancy and the Penal Laws’, p. 52. 115 Ibid., 50; Sir J. Balfour Paul (ed.), The Scots Peerage (9 vols, Edinburgh, 1904–14), vol. 4, pp. 545–7. 116 APS, vol. 6, i, p. 194; Walker, A Legal History of Scotland, vol. 4, p. 664. This act was rescinded in 1661 (ibid.). The Commissary Court of Edinburgh administered the law of marriage and divorce. It possessed the right to review the decisions of inferior or diocesan commissaries. The Court’s decisions could be brought under review by the Court of Session. The 1609 Commissariots act stated that the Court of Session confirmed the right of the Court of Session to review the Commissaries’ decisions (ibid., p. 652). Before 1644, the Commissaries would not grant divorce without evidence of actual eye-witnesses. This was changed by the 1644 act (ibid., p. 664). The 1644 act stated that many innocent people had suffered great prejudice by this and that in all time coming sentences were to be pronounced in favour of the innocent party (APS, vol. 6, i, p. 194). 117 RCGA, 1648 & 1649, p. 411. 118 Ibid., p. 413; Walker, A Legal History of Scotland, vol. 4, p. 296. 113

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‘Reasons why adultery should be capitall when the single woman lyeth with the maried man, as well as when the single man lyeth with the maried woman’ were presented to Parliament as part of the package of the Commission of the Kirk’s overtures. Gender ‘equality’ was to apply in the sense that single women committing adultery with married men were to be punished as equally as single men committing adultery with married women. The Kirk’s reasoning was largely derived from biblical sanction.119 On 28 June 1650 ‘ane Act anent punishing of adulterie with death’ was read in Parliament and submitted to the consideration of the separate Estates, but the act was not passed in that parliamentary session, nor in any of the remaining parliamentary sessions in 1650–51.120 Earlier in the rule of the godly radical regime, an act against fornication had been passed on 1 February 1649. This ratified the terms and conditions of the 1567 Fornication Act, although fining levels were greatly increased. The 1567 act had imposed fines of £40 Scots for the first offence of fornication on both offenders. First offenders were also to stand bareheaded and fastened to the market place for two hours. A second offence carried a fine of 100 merks (c. £67) with the head to be shaven and the offender to stand in the market place, whereas the third offence carried a fine of £100, with the offenders being ducked three times in the foulest pool of the parish. Third offenders were also to be banished from town and parish on a permanent basis. Third offenders who were unable to pay their fine were to be imprisoned on a diet of bread and water. These conditions were ratified by the 1649 act, but with a marked increase in fines. Fining levels were now to be dependent on social status and rank, with women being fined as equally as men, based on their status. Each noble was to be fined £400 for the first offence, each baron or landed gentleman was to be fined £200, each gentleman or burgess was to be fined £100, each ‘fermor’ was to be fined £20 and all other people of inferior quality were to be fined £10. Fines exacted for these offences were to be put to pious uses by the kirk sessions where offenders lived. Offenders would also be subject to church censure.121 Incest was also to be punished by death as per an act of 9 July 1649, the act for punishing the horrible crime of incest with death. Biblical sanction, drawn from Leviticus 18, was provided as the justification for 119

RCGA, 1648 & 1649, pp. 414–15. APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 593. On the same day an act in favour of the children of ‘popish’ parents was also read and remitted to the separate Estates. 121 Walker, A Legal History of Scotland, vol. 4, p. 504; APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 152–3. The 1649 act stated that these penalties were to be doubled according to the relapses and the degrees of the offences and the quality of the offenders. 120

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this punishment. Degrees of consanguinity and affinity were regulated, in considerable detail, in a full parliamentary table. The drawing up of this table was designed to ensure ‘that such persons may be the better known’.122 The rationale behind the legislation was further articulated in the act. Thus, it was necessary to ‘provide a sufficient remedy against all these evils, and that the wrath of God (which could not but lie heavy upon the Land, by impunity of such abominable crimes) may be overted’.123 Incest legislation had been under serious discussion since January 1649. On 19 January 1649, the Commission of the Kirk reported that it received feedback from the parliamentary committee, the Committee for Overtures, stating that the committee thought it ‘necessary before a perfect Act can be past in Parliament for punishing of incest by death, according to the Law of God, that the degrees of incest were cleared’.124 Accordingly, the commission appointed John Smith, a minister, to draw up a table of forbidden and unlawful degrees of consanguinity and affinity for marriage.125 On 14 March, two days before the close of the parliamentary session that had been sitting since 4 January, the Commission was informed that acts concerning incest and adultery were to be dealt with in the following parliamentary session (which in fact sat from 23 May to 7 August).126 On 16 March, the closing day of the session, Parliament issued a warrant to the Committee of Estates (which had been appointed on 14 March) to confer with the Commission of the Kirk ‘anent the act concerning the sin of incest’. The Committee of Estates was also empowered to publish this act.127 Several months later, on 7 June, and with Parliament having been sitting in a new session since 23 May, the Commission of the Kirk stated that the acts concerning incest (including the table with degrees of incest) and adultery were to be presented to Parliament.128 As noted above, legislation was not passed until 9 July. 122

APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 475. The full table is printed on p. 476. Ibid., p. 475. 124 RGCA, 1648–1649, p. 178. 125 Ibid., p. 178. The table had been drawn up by 25 January, for the Commission appointed Smith and James Hamilton to revise the table and report back (ibid., p. 180). 126 Ibid., p. 241. 127 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 363–4. 128 RCGA, 1648 &1649, p. 289. On 13 February 1649 the Estates passed two pieces of legislation with regard to the use of the death penalty. The act against remissions and respites stated that no remission or respite was to be given to any person or persons who were ‘punishable by Death’ both by the ‘Law of God and by the Law and practik of this kingdome’ (APS, vol. 6, ii, p. 173). This was based on the assertion that too many remissions and respites had been given to those who had been found guilty of crimes whose punishment was death. As a result, the kingdom had been polluted with sin and the Lord had been ‘provocked in his wrath to plague the Land’ (ibid.). The act anent the several 123

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The drive for a purified Scottish society and the securing of a second Scottish Reformation, pursued relentlessly by the Commission of the Kirk and legislated by the Scottish Parliament, reached its height with the radical regime of 1649–50. It ultimately resulted in political and military disaster with the Cromwellian conquest of Scotland. Charles II was to be a Covenanted king of three Covenanted kingdoms. Only the godly were allowed to participate in the radical regime. Participation was sanctioned by the Kirk, and Engagers and Royalists were purged from public office and/or fined under the terms of the Act of Classes of 23 January 1649. Furthermore, the drive for purity was extended to the armed forces. The ungodly were to be removed and a godly army was to be an integral part of a godly society. Parliament passed an act for purging the army on 22 June 1649, and by 28 June 1650 a formal parliamentary committee for purging the army was in operation. The moral standards expected for the rest of Scottish society were also to be applied to the army. Thus, ‘blasphemers and mockers of piety, or despisers of the Worship of God, or profaners of the Lords day, or oppressors of the people, or drunkards, or plunderers, or unclean persons’ were to be removed.129 This military purging clearly weakened the ability to resist the Cromwellian invasion. For the committed zealots in the Church of Scotland, Cromwell’s victory at the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650 provided a clear sign of God’s wrath and anger towards a sinful nation and therefore the purging process was intensified. Despite the formation of a Committee for Managing the Affairs of the Army (which included Royalists) and the repeal of the Act of Classes on 2 June 1651, political and military rapprochement came too late. An abortive military invasion of England, headed by Charles II, resulted in military defeat at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651 and ended the War for the Three Kingdoms.130

degrees of casual homicide stated that the death penalty was not to be applied to those who had killed thieves, robbers and burglars acting in self-defence (ibid.). See also, Walker, A Legal History of Scotland, vol. 4, pp. 647–8. 129 APS, vol. 6, ii, pp. 446–7. 130 Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and the War for the Three Kingdoms’, pp. 105, 113–15.

CHAPTER SIX

Robert Leighton, Edinburgh Theology and the Collapse of the Presbyterian Consensus Crawford Gribben When Alexander Leighton sent his eldest son to college at Edinburgh in 1627, he was no doubt glad to see him leave the volatile and divided world of London Puritans.1 Leighton senior was a Puritan lecturer and medical doctor whose Appeal to Parliament or Zion’s Plea Against Prelacy (1628) was to earn him vicious punishment at the hands of the Star Chamber, imprisonment in the Fleet between 1630 and 1640, and an iconic status among Scottish Presbyterians: one leading Covenanter would laud him as ‘Antichrist’s eyesore’.2 But he had misplaced any hopes he might have cherished that his sixteen-year-old son’s removal to Scotland’s first post-Reformation university would entail seclusion from the chaos of the Puritan underworld.3 In Edinburgh, quite as much as in London, radical protestants were suffering from their espousal of the Puritan interest.4 Robert Leighton (1611–84) entered the Edinburgh college one year 1 For Alexander Leighton and the ‘London Puritan underground’, see Stephen Foster, Notes from the Caroline Underground: Alexander Leighton, the Puritan Triumvirate, and the Laudian Reaction to Nonconformity (Hamden, CT, 1978); David R. Como and Peter Lake, ‘Puritans, Antinomians and Laudians in Caroline London: The Strange Case of Peter Shaw and its Contexts’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 50 (1999), p. 705; and Peter Lake, The Boxmaker’s Revenge: ‘Orthodoxy’, ‘Heterodoxy’ and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London (Manchester, 2001). I am indebted to J. Malcolm Allan, formerly Librarian, Andersonian Library, University of Strathclyde, and the Special Collections staff, Glasgow University Library, for their generous help in the preparation of this chapter. I would like to thank Elizabethanne Boran and John Coffey for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 Letter 289, to Alexander Leighton, 22 November 1639, in Letters of Samuel Rutherford, ed. Andrew A. Bonar (London, 1891), p. 576; Dugald Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton: Restoration Bishop of Dunblane and Archbishop of Glasgow (London, 1903), pp. 31–47. 3 Andrew T.B. McGowan, The Federal Theology of Thomas Boston (Carlisle, 1997), p. 3. 4 See John Coffey’s chapter in this collection for a discussion of the differences and similarities between English and Scottish ‘Puritanism’.

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after its principal, John Adamson, had expelled Samuel Rutherford, regent of humanity, on the charge of fornication.5 The expulsion of Rutherford was a remarkable incident, the significance of which could not have been missed by either faculty or students. In the 1620s, Edinburgh had six teaching staff: a principal who was also a professor of divinity, four regents who taught their individual year-groups through the MA course, and a regent of humanity who prepared candidates for the Latin entrance exam.6 The faculty were generally political pragmatists, although some of their number, particularly the regent Robert Rankin, were strongly in favour of Episcopacy.7 Rutherford, on the other hand, had well-established links to Edinburgh radicals and was a vigorous advocate of the Presbyterian cause.8 Historians are divided as to whether he was in fact guilty as charged. The fact that he became minister of Anwoth in the year after his expulsion – in the same year that Leighton entered the university – might well have suggested to contemporaries that he had not been recently guilty of serious moral lapse; perhaps his expulsion can be better explained as a reflection of internal college tensions. In the 1620s, like the older Scottish universities, the Edinburgh college was already an important forum for the ecclesiological debate that would shape the history – and much of the historiography – of seventeenth-century Scotland. Thrown into this confusion, and with the Episcopalian Rankin as his tutor, Leighton’s loyalties seemed clear.9 His course was demanding – first year studies concentrated on Greek, second year studies on logic, third year studies on ethics and fourth year studies on physics.10 Nevertheless, Leighton still found time for the writing of verse satires which were warranted serious enough to lead to his temporary expulsion.11 With the excitement and confusion caused by the publication of his father’s book in 1628 and the subsequent trial, Leighton’s student rhymes invoked Edinburgh’s older Presbyterian heritage against the ceremonialism and perceived Arminianism of the Articles of Perth:

5 John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 33–8. 6 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, pp. 50, 63–6; Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, p. 33. 7 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 51. 8 Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, pp. 36–7. 9 Edmund A. Knox, Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow (London, 1930), p. 73. 10 Eric G. Forbes, ‘Philosophy and Science Teaching in the Seventeenth Century’, in Gordon Donaldson (ed.), Four Centuries: Edinburgh University Life, 1583–1983 (Edinburgh, 1983), p. 30. 11 Knox, Robert Leighton, p. 75.

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Ryse Rollocke, ryse, relate, and Bruce returne, Deplore the mischeifes of this uncouth change: In the prime Kirk, which as a lamp did burne, Our Teachers hath set up a Worship strange; Strutheris spyc’d sermons now prove true indeed, It is become the tail that was the heid.12

Leighton later expressed to his father his regret for this temporary exclusion, which ended after the intervention of Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, his patron.13 Nevertheless, the poem’s allusion to the ‘head’ and ‘tail’ of Deuteronomy 28:43–4 suggested the Leightons’ shared belief that the apparent reversal of Scotland’s reformation was a consequence of God’s curse upon a disobedient but covenanted land. By the 1650s, the Puritan discourse of covenant unfaithfulness had become much less arcane. With Leighton as Edinburgh’s principal, the faculty’s internal struggle for the government of Christ’s kingdom was taking a different form. Long gone were the years of struggle, the sudden success of the National Covenant and the millennial promise of the Westminster Assembly. Twenty-five years after Rutherford’s expulsion and Leighton’s matriculation, the Edinburgh faculty were still divided by the competing claims of confessional loyalties – and this time Leighton’s involvement in debate would not be limited to rhyme. Leighton’s tenure as principal would be marked by the turmoil of ecclesiastical and international war, and would highlight the struggle to define the theology at the heart of Scottish Presbyterian enterprise and the covenanted worldview of the Westminster Assembly. No longer representing himself as the Puritan victim of prelatic professors, Leighton’s attempts to enforce reformation actively involved him in the breakdown of the theological consensus which, in his youth, appeared to offer him so much hope.

Covenanting and covenant theology The intellectual climate of the period of Leighton’s tenure as principal is attracting increasing scholarly attention. Indeed, as intellectual historians continue to debate the philosophical and theological contexts of early modern Scotland, interest in Leighton himself has revived.14 12

Quoted in Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 57. Hugh Ouston, ‘Leighton, Robert (bap. 1612, d. 1684)’, Oxford DNB, s.v. 14 The Leighton revival is evident in David Allan, ‘Reconciliation and Retirement in the Restoration Scottish Church: The Neo-Stoicism of Robert Leighton’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 50 (1999), pp. 251–78, and Thomas F. Torrance, Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John MacLeod Campbell (Edinburgh, 1996). An evangelical publisher, 13

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Almost forty years ago, Hugh Trevor-Roper identified Leighton as a ‘mystic’, listing him among ‘the most enlightened, most attractive spirits of mid-seventeenth-century Scotland’, and arguing that he was one of a number of Scottish Cromwellians that should be considered ‘distant precursors of the Enlightenment’.15 These conclusions have been nuanced in a number of recent studies, which have preferred to read Leighton in terms of his relationship to the past rather than the future. In a major article, David Allan has explicated Leighton’s hidden interest in Renaissance neo-Stoicism, arguing that his exposure to classical literature shaped the pattern of his repeated withdrawals from the world.16 Developing those conclusions in a subsequent monograph, Allan has described Leighton’s combination of ‘moderately conservative politics, increasing irenicism in religious affairs, and … [his] sincere desire to apply philosophically-derived principles to the central problem of contemporary Scottish public life: that is, the healing of divisions in an ideologically-polarised community’.17 By contrast, Thomas F. Torrance’s Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John MacLeod Campbell (1996) has opened up Leighton’s manipulation of the theological tradition. Torrance’s nine-chapter survey covers the three centuries between the Reformation and the mid-nineteenth century. Signalling their importance, he devotes only three of these chapters to individual theologians: the two Johns of the subtitle and, in between, Robert Leighton. But while recognizing Leighton’s pivotal importance, Torrance’s study highlights his own concern to apply the ‘Calvin and the Calvinists’ thesis to the canon of Scottish theology.18 Thus he traces two Tentmaker, has also re-issued a nineteenth-century edition of Leighton’s works: The Works of Robert Leighton, D.D., ed. James Aikman (2 vols, Stoke on Trent, 2003). 15 Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, ‘Scotland and the Puritan Revolution’, in Hugh R. TrevorRoper, Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (London, 1967), pp. 427, 443. The identification of mysticism is repeated in John Macleod, Scottish Theology in relation to Church History since the Reformation (1943; Edinburgh, 1974), p. 116. 16 Allan, ‘Reconciliation and Retirement in the Restoration Scottish Church’. 17 David Allan, Philosophy and Politics in Later Stuart Scotland: Neo-Stoicism, Culture and Ideology in an Age of Crisis, 1540–1690 (East Linton, 2000), p. 177. 18 For representative positions in the ‘Calvin and the Calvinists’ debate see R.T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1981), and Paul Helm, Calvin and the Calvinists (Edinburgh, 1982). More recent assessments can be found in Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Formation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford, 2000), pp. 6, 64; and Carl R. Trueman and R.S. Clark, ‘Introduction’, in Trueman and Clark (eds), Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle, 1999), pp. xiii–xix. For a consideration of early modern Scottish theological method, and a survey of the relevant literature, see P.G. Ryken, ‘Scottish Reformed Scholasticism’, in Trueman and Clark (eds), Protestant Scholasticism, pp. 196–210. The merits of Torrance’s presentation are considered by Donald Macleod, ‘Dr. T.F. Torrance and Scottish Theology: A Review Article’, Evangelical Quarterly, 72:1 (2000), pp. 57–72.

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parallel movements in the history of Scottish theology in the aftermath of Knox – one movement remaining faithful to the exegetical Biblicism of the Reformation, and the other increasingly damaged by what Torrance presents as the arid and scholastic covenant theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647).19 Torrance argues that this division was exemplified in the teaching of theology at Edinburgh in the 1650s, where the moderate Leighton shared responsibilities with the ‘high Calvinist’ David Dickson.20 Their theological debate, Torrance claims, was a microcosm of trends that were dividing reformed churches throughout Europe. If Leighton were as moderate as Torrance suggests, it is highly ironic that he should have been employed at Edinburgh, for the city’s theologians had played a central role in the development of the covenant theology the Westminster documents expounded. Robert Rollock, the university’s first principal, had a seminal influence on theological federalism throughout Europe through his publication of Quaestiones et responsiones aliquot de foedere dei (1596) and Tractatus de vocatione efficaci (1597). Samuel Rutherford, Edinburgh’s erstwhile regent of humanity and later ‘the most distinguished theologian among the Scottish Covenanters’, developed native federal thought in a series of scholarly works, including The Covenant of Life Opened (1655), and ensured its inclusion in the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms.21 Thus defined as Presbyterian orthodoxy, covenant theology ascended throughout the seventeenth century until it became Scotland’s ‘normative theological position’ governing ministerial ordination and appointments to the divinity faculties.22 This growth in the influence of covenant theology was linked to the gradual professionalization of the ministers’ vocation throughout the seventeenth century.23 In the Scottish universities, the early success of Ramism, the system of logic at the heart of Puritan educational reform, owed much to the Reformation understanding of the rhetorical demands of a preaching ministry and its defence of covenant theology as the foundation of biblical Calvinism; Ramism’s subsequent eclipse owed 19 For a brief but comprehensive introduction to covenant theology, see ‘Covenant Theology’, in John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, ed. Iain H. Murray (4 vols, Edinburgh, 1982), vol. 4, pp. 216–40. 20 Torrance, Scottish Theology, pp. 111–22. 21 Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, p. 114. 22 McGowan, The Federal Theology of Thomas Boston, p. 6. 23 John Morgan, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning, and Education, 1560–1640 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 79–80; Rosemary O’Day, The English Clergy: The Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession, 1558–1642 (Leicester, 1979), passim.

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much to Laudian attitudes towards the Aristotelian scholasticism of the medieval Church and its sacramental emphasis on the ministry as a nonpreaching priesthood.24 In 1637 Rutherford, reviewing an early draft of Dickson’s most important exposition of covenant theology, Therapeutica sacra (1656), lamented that although it was ‘sharp, sweet, quick, and profound’, the domestic theological climate was such that ‘I fear that it get no lodging in Scotland.’25 Also in 1637 George Gillespie, later Rutherford’s colleague at the Westminster Assembly, lamented that ‘the seminaries of learning are so corrupted, that few or no good plants can come forth from thence … many are admitted into the sacred ministry, who are … popish and Arminianised’.26 One year later, the Covenanter polemicist Andrew Cant warned students to ‘take heed what Sort of Learning and Traditions ye drink in, and so hold your Garments clean. We hear of too many Colleges in the land, that are spotted.’27 But, after the 1630s, lingering vestiges of Ramism in the universities could not disguise the fact that demands for uniformity in the Scottish Church had not simply brought about a crisis in liturgy or theology;28 at the heart of the dispute over the ‘rise of Arminianism’ in the 1620s and 1630s was a crisis in the identity and responsibilities of the clergy. Robert Baillie, at the Westminster Assembly, worried that England’s Laudians imagined ministers as ‘priests’.29 But the crisis in ministerial vocation was not only caused by tensions between theological camps. Within the citadel of Scottish covenant theology, and even after the conclusions of the 24 J. Kirk, ‘“Melvillian Reform” in the Scottish Universities’, in A.A. MacDonald, Michael Lynch and Ian B. Cowan (eds), The Renaissance in Scotland (Leiden, 1994), pp. 276–300; Morgan, Godly Learning, p. 112. See John Coffey’s chapter in this collection for evidence that Scottish Laudianism may have been more ‘Reformed’ that its English counterpart. 25 Letter 119, to David Dickson, 1637, in Letters of Samuel Rutherford, p. 241. 26 George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies Obtruded upon the Church of Scotland (1637), in The Works of George Gillespie, ed. William M. Hetherington (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1846), vol. 1, p. viii. 27 Andrew Cant, ‘A sermon preached after the renovation of the National Covenant, and celebration of the Lord’s Supper, at Glasgow, Anno 1638’, in A Collection of Several Remarkable and Valuable Speeches and Exhortations at Renewing and Subscribing the National Covenant of Scotland (Glasgow, 1741), p. 2, quoted in David George Mullan, ‘Arminianism in the Lord’s Assembly: Glasgow, 1638’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 26 (1996), p. 2. 28 Kirk, ‘“Melvillian Reform” in the Scottish Universities’, p. 300. By the early seventeenth century, the utility of Ramism as an intellectual tool was being widely questioned in academic circles: Mordechai Feingold, ‘The Humanities’ in Nicholas Tyacke (ed.), The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 4, The Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1997), p. 290. 29 Robert Ballie, An Historicall Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland (1646), p. 7; Florence N. McCoy, Robert Baillie and the Second Scots Reformation (Berkeley, CA, 1974), p. 28.

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Westminster Assembly, committed Reformed theologians veered between enthusiasm and scholasticism as opposing bases for the preacher’s role. There was little stability in the expression of Reformed thought which their teaching was to enforce. The common tensions which each of these contexts has illustrated – the development and impact of covenant theology, the eclipse of Ramism and the professionalization of the ministerial vocation – were reflected in the teaching of theology at Edinburgh in the 1650s. The teaching of the two divinity professors, Dickson (professor of divinity, 1650–62) and Leighton (professor of divinity, 1653–62), evidenced similar theological presuppositions but could not disguise the widening intellectual chasm between their distinct formulations of Presbyterian theology. Both Leighton and Dickson had come from similar stock. They had both been ordained as Presbyterian ministers in the Scottish Church; both were devoted pastors and respected preachers; both had been zealous for the goal of covenanted reformation enshrined in the Westminster documents; both had been associated with the radical cause. But there was a great gulf fixed between their approaches to the teaching of theology, philosophy and vocational identity. Dickson had taken a leading role in liberating the Scottish Presbyterians from prelacy. Between 1610 and 1618, before entering pastoral ministry, he had taught as a regent at Glasgow.30 Building on his involvement in the extended Irvine revival, the ecstatic ‘Stewarton sickness’ of 1630, and the popularity of his commentary on Hebrews (1635), Dickson had resolutely opposed ‘Arminianism’ at the revolutionary General Assembly in 1638 and had been elected moderator of the General Assembly of August 1639.31 In 1639 he had been appointed as professor of divinity at Glasgow, where he prepared his Expositio analytica omnium apostolicarum epistolarum (1645) (translated as An Exposition of all St. Paul’s Epistles [1659]) and his commentary on Matthew (1647).32 In 1650 he became professor of divinity at Edinburgh, where he prepared a further commentary on the Psalms (1653–55) and saw his Therapeutica sacra through the press. His enthusiasm to explain the Bible to lay people was linked to his experiences of revival to effect great expectations for the successful spread of the covenanted reformation:

30 H.M.B. Reid, The Divinity Professors in the University of Glasgow, 1640–1903 (Glasgow, 1923), p. 7. 31 Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625–1760 (Oxford, 1988), p. 26; Mullan, ‘Arminianism in the Lord’s Assembly’, passim. 32 John Young’s chapter in this collection discusses Dickson’s appointment to Glasgow.

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It is a sweet and remarkable providence that within these not many years, such a multitude of impressions of the holy Scriptures are vented among these three united Kingdoms, and so many thousands are of Scots and English who delight not only to have the holy Bible in their possession and houses, but also to carry it in their pockets, for reading of it upon all occasions. This … promiseth much of the spreading of the light of the Gospel in these Dominions (especially the Lord having now seconded His own work by drawing from the fountain of his own free grace, the body of these kingdoms into a solemn covenant, for purging of all his holy ordinances and promoting of sound religion).33

Furthermore, as his co-authoring of The Sum of Saving Knowledge (1650) suggested, this was a worldview posited upon the foundation of the Westminster Confession’s covenant theology – the Sum was frequently bound in editions of the Westminster standards, although it never gained official creedal status. Therapeutica sacra, the fruit of several decades of study, consisted of three books, the latter two of which contained dozens of ‘cases of conscience’ treated on the basis of the detailed covenant theology which the first book explained. These texts demonstrate that Dickson’s vision of the uniformity of the churches of the three kingdoms was the same vision of Presbyterianism in revival that underpinned the millenarian scholasticism of the Westminster Assembly.34 The Westminster standards were for Dickson the epitome of reformation. Lauding the Earl of Cassills, for example, he eulogized those who have put their shoulder to the work of settling religion and the kingdom of Christ among us: whose labours, albeit they should have no other fruit in our time, than the right stating of the question between us and all adversaries of the true doctrine, worship, and discipline of Christ’s house, as it is set down in the Confession of Faith, in the Directory for Public Worship, and in the Rules of Government of Christ’s Church, drawn forth from scripture warrant.35

His influence in promoting this conservative theology was extensive. One estimate suggests that two-thirds or even three-quarters of Scottish preachers graduating in the mid-seventeenth century had trained under Dickson: ‘The men who came out from Glasgow and Edinburgh Divinity Halls from 1640 onward to the Restoration were really Dickson’s men.’36 33 David Dickson, A Brief Exposition of the Evangel of Jesus Christ According to Matthew (1647; rpr. Edinburgh, 1981), p. v. 34 Crawford Gribben, The Puritan Millennium: Literature and theology, 1550–1682 (Dublin, 2000), pp. 105–10. 35 David Dickson, A Commentary on the Psalms (1653–55; rpr. Edinburgh, 1959), pp. xi–xii. 36 Reid, The Divinity Professors in the University of Glasgow, p. 7.

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Leighton, though much less interested in collective ecstasy or philosophical disquisition, was similarly zealous for the goal of covenanted reformation. Although his father’s notoriety and imprisonment made his Continental travels between 1631 and 1641 extremely prudent, Leighton quickly made up for lost time after his return. His initial verve for Presbyterian reformation was such that by July 1642, seven months after his ordination to the pastorate at Newbattle, he had been appointed by the General Assembly to a Commission to promote ‘the great work of unity in religion and uniformity in church government in all the three Kingdoms’. It was an important and influential position, which his father’s robustly Presbyterian reputation no doubt helped secure; its importance was as a catalyst facilitating the impact of the Scots Commissioners on the Westminster Assembly. Thus, on 18 October, Leighton attended the Meeting of Commission that nominated the commissioners who would attend the Westminster Assembly: alongside Gillespie and Rutherford, they appointed Robert Baillie, Robert Douglas and Alexander Henderson, all ministers; and, as elders, the Earl of Lauderdale, Lord Balmerino and Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston.37 Leighton’s interest in the proceedings was personal: Robert Douglas, who was that year Moderator of the General Assembly, was a family friend who had attended Leighton’s ordination those few months before; as a former chaplain of Gustavus Adolphus, he was a visible reminder of the international dangers of Antichrist.38 Antichrist’s threat within the three kingdoms was illustrated by Leighton’s emaciated father, beside whom Leighton swore the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643, pledging his support to the project of bringing the churches of the three kingdoms into uniformity ‘according to the Word of God and the

37 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 181. For the Westminster Assembly, see the discussions in W.D.J. McKay, ‘George Gillespie and the Westminster Assembly: The Defence of Presbyterianism’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 13 (1995), pp. 51–71; Robert S. Paul, The Assembly of the Lord: Politics and Religion in the Westminster Assembly and the ‘Grand Debate’ (Edinburgh, 1985); and Wayne Spear, ‘Covenantal Uniformity in Religion: The Influence of the Scottish Commissioners upon the Ecclesiology of the Westminster Assembly’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1976. 38 For an international Calvinistic alliance based on the Solemn League and Covenant (which was to include Adolphus’ Sweden), see William M. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1856; rpr. Edmonton, 1993), pp. 337–9, and John R. Young, ‘The Scottish Parliament and European Diplomacy, 1641–47: The Palatine, the Dutch Republic and Sweden’, in Steve Murdoch (ed.), Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 77–106. For Robert Douglas, see Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, pp. 138, 187, and James A. Dickson, ‘Robert Douglas’, Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, ed. Nigel M. de S. Cameron (Edinburgh, 1993), s.v.

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example of the best reformed churches’.39 International, Covenanted Presbyterianism was the best defence against Antichrist’s international threat, and it was this goal which the Scottish Commissioners, armed with the Covenants, set out to realize. Leighton’s posthumously-published writings, which mostly date from his Newbattle pastorate during the 1640s, show little equivocation from this basic religio-political commitment, but demonstrate a developing awareness that a merely external National Covenant could never achieve an internal, spiritual, or individual goal: rather ironically, his initial enthusiasm for the enterprise of the National Covenant was being challenged by his commitment to the covenant theology that had become normative in the Reformed tradition by the middle of the seventeenth century.40 During his Newbattle pastorate, Leighton preached the sermons that would later be published as his celebrated commentary on 1 Peter. Commenting on 1 Peter 2:10, Leighton was elaborating on the regular identification of covenanted Scotland as ‘our Israel’, but sensitively contrasted the effect of the Solemn League and Covenant with that of the theological ‘covenant of grace’ theorized by Rollock and Rutherford.41 Leighton was destabilizing the political aspirations of the Covenanters by invoking the Reformed tradition’s theology of personal salvation: The tenor of an external covenant with a people, as the Jews particularly found, is such as may be broken by man’s unfaithfulness, though God remain faithful and true: But the new covenant of grace makes all sure on all hands, and cannot be broken; the Lord not only keeping his own part, but likewise performing ours, in us, and for us, and establishing us, that as he departs not from us first, so we shall not depart from him.42

But there was also an indication that his support for the Solemn League and Covenant’s ambition to reform the English Church ‘according to the Word of God and the example of the best reformed churches’ did not imply his belief that these two authoritative paradigms should be too closely identified. In fact, he consistently argued, the ecclesiology of the first-century Church was quite different from that of contemporary 39 Correspondence of Sir Robert Kerr, first Earl of Ancram, and his son William, third Earl of Lothian, ed. David Laing (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1875), vol. 1, p. 158. 40 This would later be the basis for his repudiation of the Solemn League and Covenant in his A Defence of Moderate Episcopacy, in Leighton, Works, pp. 637–9. 41 Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies (1637; rpr. 1846), vol. 1, p. xiv; S.A. Burrell, ‘The Apocalyptic Vision of the Early Covenanters’, Scottish Historical Review, 43 (1964), pp. 1–24; cf. Arthur H. Williamson, Scottish National Consciousness in the Age of James VI: The Apocalypse, the Union, and the Shaping of Scotland’s Public Culture (Edinburgh, 1979). 42 Leighton, Works, p. 100.

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Scotland – and not only, as his Defence of Moderate Episcopacy later admitted, in hierarchical structures. In the 1640s, during his exposition of 1 Peter, he argued that those ‘that are in the visible church, and partake of external vocation, are but like a large list of names, as in civil elections is usual, out of which a small number is chosen to the dignity of true Christians, and invested into their pilgrimage’.43 Comparing the first with the seventeenth centuries, Leighton noted that there were ‘fewer false Christians’ in the days of the apostles, because the majority of their members were converts, while the majority of contemporary church members had been baptized in infancy; thus ‘the number of true believers [was] usually greater, in the churches in those primitive times, than now in the best reformed churches’.44 Leighton was positing a divergence between ‘the Word of God’ and ‘the best reformed churches’ of his day; his borrowing of the language of the Covenant to undermine its objectives was startlingly deliberate. Throughout his 1 Peter sermons, he insisted that the Church of Scotland could not be used as a model for three-kingdom reformation because it had itself degenerated from its apostolic purity. The subtlety of Leighton’s rhetorical manipulation was challenging concepts at the very core of the Westminster documents’ covenanted worldview. Presbyterian crisis and Cromwellian invasion With this articulation of intellectual independence came evidence from the later 1640s that Leighton’s Covenanting zeal was increasingly uncertain.45 Although it aligned him with the Scots Parliament, Leighton’s innate sympathy for a treaty with the King provoked the hostility of the Kirk party, which was reinforced in March 1648 when he refused to read the General Assembly’s condemnation of the ‘unlawful engagement’ from the pulpit, instead devolving that responsibility to his precentor.46 By August of that same year – the same month in which Engagement hopes had collapsed with the defeat of the Duke of Hamilton at Preston – Leighton had earned a further rebuke from Presbytery because of his continuing absences from their meetings.47 As 43

Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 3. 45 John Young’s chapter in this collection describes the political background to this period. 46 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 209; The Records of the Commission of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland holden in Edinburgh in the years 1646 and 1647, eds Alexander F. Mitchell and James Christie (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 442. 47 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 210. 44

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the anti-Engagers consolidated their control over Scotland’s civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, Leighton seemed to waver, and himself read the Declaration against the Engagement when leading his congregation in their renewal of the Covenant. He continued to advertise his orthodoxy by actively participating in the trials of those who supported the Engagement and by administering the Covenant as late as May 1650.48 In the same month he sat in the court that sentenced the Marquis of Montrose to death.49 There is further evidence that he administered the Covenant to his students after being appointed as Principal of Edinburgh in 1653.50 The Covenant’s concern for the well-being of the Reformed churches throughout the three kingdoms seems, at this stage, to have resonated with Leighton’s personal ambitions, despite the ambivalence of his thought. Leighton’s unease about certain implications of Covenant subscription developed against changing patterns of theological alliances and international political upheaval. The geo-politics of the fragile Anglo-Scottish relationship were undermining the Westminster worldview. The ‘Puritan pact’ of the Westminster Assembly had held together a diverse range of pro-reform instincts on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border, but with the failure of the Assembly it had demonstrably failed to deliver on its promise.51 As a consequence, the Anglo-Scottish relationship was changing dramatically: in the early 1640s, Scotland and England had been united by the union of crowns; in the mid-1640s, Scotland and England were united by the Solemn League and Covenant; following the breakdown of the Puritan pact at Westminster, Scotland was invaded and conquered by an English army in 1651. The full parliamentary union of the 1650s did not disguise the fact that Scotland was still occupied by Cromwellian troops, nor that her institutions were being systematically remodelled after Cromwellian preferences.52 It was a marked inversion: while the Scots at Westminster had hoped to remodel the English Church according to Covenanting preferences, Scottish institutions were now being remodelled according to Cromwellian preferences. The rapidly changing international context was demanding Leighton’s conclusion that important aspects of the Westminster worldview, and the covenant upon which it was based, were no longer tenable intellectual or political convictions.

48

Ibid., p. 214; Knox, Robert Leighton, pp. 136–7. Knox, Robert Leighton, p. 108. 50 Ibid., p. 141. 51 Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, pp. 52–4; Gribben, The Puritan Millennium, pp. 105–10, 123–6. 52 Frances D. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 1651–1660 (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 2. 49

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But as Cromwell’s armies moved steadily northward, the Presbyterian uniformity in which both Dickson and Leighton believed was irretrievably breaking down. Scotland’s religious and political leaders were engulfed in controversy. Civil conflict erupted between parties with opposing views on the King’s relationship to the Covenant, with Resolutioners advocating the inclusion of those Engagers who had formerly been condemned, and Protestors, based mainly in the southwest, arguing instead in favour of a stricter, though smaller, civil body. On 1 December 1650, a Protestor army was defeated by Lambert at Hamilton, and state institutions began to fissure. Political divisions broke into schism at the 1651 General Assembly, when the minority Protestor party withdrew, alleging that the Assembly had been unlawfully constituted, and met as a rival body. The fissure extended down through the Presbyterian hierarchy of church courts as synods and presbyteries split apart throughout the nation. Charles attempted to seize the initiative by marching what was left of the Scottish army into England – only to be soundly defeated at Worcester on 3 September 1651. Those troops who had remained in Scotland had already been defeated at Alyth, Perthshire, on 27 and 28 August. There was now nothing to distract Monck’s Parliamentary army from the conquest of Scotland. Sensing the prospect of ultimate victory, the Commonwealth attempted to capitalize on its advances by crushing the dregs of resistance through the root and branch reformation of Scotland’s institutions. Thus the Commonwealth’s actions were designed to eradicate the Presbyterian stranglehold of the nation’s institutions and to promote the principle of toleration at the heart of the English revolution.53 Necessarily this involved an assault on the Kirk. While the Cromwellian administration had already established a broad national Church in England, tolerating many sects but excepting Roman Catholics, their policy in Scotland was to achieve broad toleration within a system of limited Presbytery.54 Their attempts to influence the Kirk were politically astute: tensions between Protestors and Resolutioners continued to mount as Presbyterian discipline collapsed. The presence of English radicals was encouraging unorthodox thinking among the Scottish presbyters; contemporaries complained of a rise in anti-monarchism, anti-clericalism and Anabaptism among the formerly godly Scots.55 Among the majority Resolutioner party, there was some uncertainty in knowing how best to respond. Dickson voiced the Kirk’s fear that 53 54 55

Ibid., pp. 33–9. Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 249. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, p. 27.

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Cromwell’s attack on the Church represented the vengeance of God against Scotland’s prevaricating reformation: God in justice and wisdom has suffered the hedges of his vineyard to be broken down, and the holy discipline of his house to be set at nought by all sorts of persons, that every spirit of error, having open way to come in at the breach, he might thereby try and exercise all his people, who stand in covenant with him by profession, and reclaim or punish such as live in error.56

Dickson combined this sense of divine judgement with an apocalyptic sense of the historical moment: ‘what wonder is it that the Lord hath let loose so many unclean spirits, as no history can show more in so short a time, in any age, or in any place of the world’.57 Cromwell, in short, was a sign of the times, and Dickson’s enmity to every ‘sect-master, heretic or schismatic’ had as much to do with his eschatology as his view of church government.58 His sense of apocalyptic only increased when Cromwell achieved what Charles I had never attempted, in reversing the most basic achievement of the covenanted reformation. At the 1639 General Assembly, Dickson had defied royal prerogative and the claims of the bishops; but in July 1653, when Commonwealth troops shut down the Resolutioner General Assembly, Dickson witnessed their fundamental denial of the ‘crown rights of king Jesus’ and the independence of the Kirk from the state. He had been Moderator at the Kirk’s victory in 1639; and he was Moderator at its defeat in 1653.59 The Cromwellians matched this ecclesiastical interventionism with an attempt to reform the leadership of the universities. It was a deliberate attempt to remove from positions of power all those who would oppose the English regime.60 The Kirk was less certain how it ought to respond to this threat – but the signs were not auspicious. St Andrews, with Samuel Rutherford as principal, was unique in escaping the influence of the English, but it did have the reputation of being the most Arminian of the Scottish universities.61 In Aberdeen, the Cromwellians appointed John Row, a forthright Independent, as principal. In Glasgow, Patrick Gillespie’s personal ambition marked him out as the best candidate to be principal of the university there; he would later lead the Protester ‘Western Association’ into alignment with the English Independents. In 56

Dickson, A Commentary on the Psalms, pp. xii–xiii. Ibid., p. xiii. 58 Ibid., p. xiv. For a recent discussion of Covenanter eschatology see Gribben, The Puritan Millennium, pp. 101–26. 59 Knox, Robert Leighton, p. 160. 60 McCoy, Robert Baillie, p. 150. The political background to Covenanter and Cromwellian university reform is described in John Young’s chapter in this collection. 61 Mullan, ‘Arminianism in the Lord’s Assembly’, pp. 27–9. 57

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Edinburgh, the town council had already chosen William Colville, minister of the Scots kirk in Utrecht and supporter of the Engagement, but he was rejected by the local ministers and vetoed by the English authorities. In January 1653, despite the overt hostility of local clergy, the town council invited Robert Leighton to accept the vacant position.62 Dickson, already established as professor of divinity, initially welcomed Leighton’s appointment, hoping that the presence of another Resolutioner would counteract the Protester influence of James Guthrie.63 But the new principal seemed to have other things on his mind. Leighton decided to revive Rollock’s tradition of having the principal give Wednesday lectures in divinity, and so he too ascended to a theological chair.64 For the first time, Edinburgh students were being taught by two divinity professors simultaneously. Dickson’s lectures, the first full commentary on the Westminster Confession, were published as Prælectiones in confessionem fidei (1684). Some thirty-five of Leighton’s lectures survive – some of the few extant Leighton documents which can be accurately dated to the 1650s – and were published as Praelectiones theologiae in auditorio publico academiae Edinburgenae (1693).65 Although both men based their teaching on the same confession of faith, differences soon emerged between them.66 The relatively late publication dates of the lecture collections, as well as the limitations of their Latin medium, suggests that their contents were not the initial cause of the public’s sense of the alienation creeping between the two professors. To the world at large, Leighton’s most obvious eccentricity was his adoption of the popular preaching style imported from the Ulster Presbyterians.67 It was this homiletical style which moved Baillie to greet his appointment with dismay: ‘All our Colledges are quicklie like to be undone,’ he complained, as Leighton led his students away from scholastic homiletics.68 He blamed Leighton and Hugh Binning, divinity professor at Glasgow, for popularizing a ‘new guyse of preaching … contemning the ordinarie way of exponing and dividing a text, of raising doctrines and uses’, instead preaching ‘on some 62

Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, pp. 59–60. For Guthrie, see J. Kilpatrick, ‘James Guthrie, Minister at Stirling, 1649–1661’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 11 (1952), pp. 176–88. 64 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 250. 65 Knox, Robert Leighton, pp. 155–6. See the discussion of these lectures in Torrance, Scottish Theology, pp. 157–80. Ouston notes that Leighton’s sister ignored his preference that his manuscripts should not be published after his death; ‘Leighton, Robert (bap. 1612, d. 1684)’, Oxford DNB, s.v. 66 Letter to William Spang, June 1658, in Robert Baillie, The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, ed. David Laing (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1841–2), vol. 3, p. 365. 67 Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity, p. 51. 68 Ryken, ‘Scottish Reformed Scholasticism’, pp. 206–7. 63

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common head, in a high, romancing, unscripturall style, tickling the ear for the present, and moving the affections in some, bot leaving … little or nought to the memorie and understanding’.69 Yet Baillie, who owed his attendance at the Westminster Assembly to his selection by Leighton’s committee, was silent about Leighton’s apparent doctrinal deviations. Other contemporaries noted the tension which was perceived to exist between the two theological teachers: I am told that when Mr. Dickson was Professor at Edinburgh, and Mr. R. Leighton was Principall there, the Principall urged that the Professor might either teach, or at least recommend Thomas à Kempis to his students: and told him he regarded it one of the best books that ever was writt, next to the inspired writers. Mr. Dickson refused to do either, and among other reasons from some Popish doctrines contained in it, he added, that neither Christ’s satisfaction, nor the doctrine of grace, but self and merit ran throw it.70

Such theological differences soon emerged into personal hostilities. Within three years, their anti-Protestor alliance collapsed in personal dispute. Alexander Dickson, the professor’s son, had replaced Leighton in his Newbattle pastorate, but had failed to win the continuing support of the parish patron, William Kerr, the cosmopolitan and Covenanting third Earl of Lothian, and was consequently forced to seek alternative employment.71 On 3 September 1656, while Leighton was on his annual visit to London, Alexander Dickson was appointed Professor of Hebrew in the college. Returning to Edinburgh, Leighton expressed his disapproval of the appointment, about which he, as Principal, had not been consulted. Baillie noted that ‘he stickled more than is ordinar to him, to have the young man out; but his labour was vaine.’72 Dickson’s attempt to buttress the Resolutioner party among the faculty by arranging the appointment of his son could not prevent the eclipse of the Resolutioner interest. Writing in December 1656, Baillie informed the principal of St Andrews that the Protestors were ‘fully masters of Glasgow, Aberdeen, and almost of Edinburgh’.73 In the struggle for party control, Leighton’s passivity could not be understood: in July 1658, Baillie complained that Leighton ‘does nought to count of, but looks about him in his chamber’.74 69

Letter to William Spang, 19 July 1654, in Baillie, Letters and Journals, vol. 3, pp. 244,

258. 70

Robert Wodrow, Analecta (4 vols, Edinburgh, 1842–43), vol. 3, p. 452. On Lothian, see John Coffey, ‘Kerr, William, Third Earl of Lothian (c. 1605–1675)’, Oxford DNB, s.v. 72 Letter to William Spang, June 1658, in Baillie, Letters and Journals, vol. 3, p. 366. 73 Letter to James Wood, December 1650, in Baillie, Letters and Journals, vol. 3, pp. 326–7. 74 Letter to William Spang, June 1658, in Baillie, Letters and Journals, vol. 3, p. 365. 71

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Leighton and the reinvention of orthodoxy Actually Leighton was much busier than Baillie suspected. Far from being idle, he was actively engaged in reshaping the Westminster orthodoxy his initial zeal for the Covenant had helped to foster. The continuing development of Leighton’s theology was based on a lifetime of voracious reading. David Allan describes him as ‘one of the most vigorously acquisitive’ of Scotland’s book collectors during this period.75 His personal library of 1363 volumes, which formed the basis of the Bibliotheca Leightoniana in Dunblane after his death, indicates wide reading interests, yet the collection’s significance ‘has never been properly weighed’.76 Allan’s detailed analysis of Leighton’s extensive reading of neo-Stoicism may, however, underestimate Leighton’s repeated warnings against pagan philosophy. Leighton’s repeated insistence upon the priority of Scripture invites historians to by-pass classical allusions in their search for the sources of his thought: ‘it is not possible to express how much sweeter you will find these inspired writings, than Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, Aristotle, and all the other orators, poets, and philosophers’.77 The Renaissance appeal ad fontes led Leighton beyond the classics to Scripture itself. Leighton presents his own thought as resoundingly Biblicist, but his Biblicism does have a distinctively Reformed contour. Although one biographer states that Leighton possessed nothing written by his fellow Covenanters, and ‘had no taste for Puritan theology’, his library did include works by the emerging covenant theologians Richard Sibbes, Thomas Goodwin, and William Gouge, who was moderator of the first Presbyterian Synod of London in 1647 and under whose London ministry the youthful Leighton sat, and may even have included Rutherford’s Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience (1651).78 Goodwin, Gouge and Rutherford were members of the Westminster Assembly and representative of Leighton’s engagement with the claims of Reformed orthodoxy and the political ambitions of the Covenants. Their Westminster standards loom over his deliberations. 75

Allan, ‘Reconciliation and Retirement in the Restoration Scottish Church’, p. 258. Jonquil Bevan, ‘Seventeenth-Century Students and their Books’, in Donaldson (ed.), Four Centuries, p. 19; Allan, ‘Reconciliation and Retirement in the Restoration Scottish Church’, p. 253. 77 Leighton, Works, pp. 559, 571. 78 For details of Leighton’s collection, see Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 592; J. Malcolm Allan, Only My Books: Archbishop Leighton’s Bequests (Stirling, 1985). Robert Douglas’ register of the library (1691) was reprinted in The Bannatyne Miscellany, ed. David Laing (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1827–55), vol. 3, pp. 233–62. For Gouge, see Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, p. 279. 76

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This debt to Westminster theology is evidence in Leighton’s lectures. For example, Leighton notes the Shorter Catechism’s discussion of the divine decrees. Torrance has claimed that it was covenant theology’s concentration upon these divine decrees that accounts for the peculiarities of the ‘misshapen’ Scottish theological tradition, and that Leighton’s thinking was clearer because he avoided them. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the two questions that deal with this topos answer the question of what the divine decrees are and how they operate: ‘The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.’79 So too the catechism notes the extent of their application: ‘God executeth his decrees in the works of creation and providence.’80 The Larger Catechism’s discussion is substantially more detailed: God’s decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men.81 God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some angels to glory; and in Christ hath chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof: and also, according to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his own will, (whereby he extendeth or withholdeth favour as he pleaseth,) hath passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonour and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice.82 God executeth his decrees in the works of creation and providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will.83

Leighton made a point of refusing to endorse the Larger Catechism’s more thoroughgoing discussion: in our catechisms, especially the shorter one, designed for the instruction of the ignorant, it might, perhaps, have been full as proper to have passed over the awful speculation concerning the Divine decrees, and to have proceeded directly, to the consideration of the works of God; but the thoughts you find in it [i.e., the Shorter 79 Shorter Catechism, question 7. All quotations from the Westminster Confession and catechisms are taken from The Confession of Faith, The Larger and Shorter Catechisms, with the Scripture Proofs at Large, Together with the Sum of Saving Knowledge (Edinburgh, 1967). 80 Shorter Catechism, question 8. 81 Longer Catechism, question 12. 82 Ibid., question 13. 83 Ibid., question 14.

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Catechism], on this subject, are few, sober, clear, and certain: and, in explaining them, I think it most reasonable and most safe to confine ourselves within these limits, in any audience whatsoever, but especially in this congregation, consisting of youths, not to say, in a great measure, of boys.84

Boys they may have been, but many of the students he was addressing were training for ordination. Ironically, the Larger Catechism was approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on 2 July 1648, largely under Baillie’s influence, as ‘a necessary part of the intended uniformity in religion, and a rich treasure for increasing knowledge among the people of God’ for ‘catechising such as have made some proficiency in the knowledge of the grounds of religion’ – among whom divinity students ought surely to be classed.85 The Shorter Catechism, which Leighton preferred, was approved by the General Assembly on 28 July 1648 for ‘catechising such as are of weaker capacity’.86 Yet it was speculation, rather than ignorance, which Leighton most feared. In his lectures, the students’ attitude toward the divine decrees quickly became the touchstone of their piety. Although scholasticism and piety were mutually supportive throughout much protestant scholasticism, Leighton compelled his students to choose between them. The Fall, he claimed, was caused by a desire for ‘knowing’ rather than ‘believing’.87 Thus Leighton argued passionately against the ‘presumption’ of those theologians who felt able to discuss the order of the decrees: To say the truth, I acknowledge that I am astonished, and greatly at a loss, when I hear learned men, and professors of theology, talking presumptuously about the order of the Divine decrees, and when I read such things in their works. … Nor is there much more sobriety or moderation in the many notions that are entertained, and the 84 Leighton, Works, p. 576; Robert Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ in Auditorio publico Academiæ Edinburgenæ (dum Professoris Primarii munere ibi fungererur) habitæ (London, 1693), p. 65: ‘Adeò ut in Institutione Catecheticâ, in breviori saltem ac rudiori hujusmodi formulâ, ad divinorum operum doctrinam (omissâ protinùs severiori illâ Decretorum speculatione) continuò progredi, fortè non minus commodum foret; sed quæ hîc quidem habetis pauca sunt sobria, perspicua, & certa. In quibus etiam explicandis, intra hos ipsos nosmet continere cancellos (quicunque demum fuerint Auditores,) at in hac præsertim nostra juvenili, ne dicam magnâ ex, parte puerili coronâ, æquissimum & tutissimum duco.’ 85 ‘Act Approving the Larger Catechism’, 2 July 1648, rpr. in The Confession of Faith, 128; for Baillie, see McCoy, Robert Baillie, p. 122. 86 ‘Act Approving the Shorter Catechism’, 28 July 1648, rpr. in The Confession of Faith, p. 286. 87 Leighton, Works, p. 571; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 51: ‘Fastuosâ Scientiæ ambitione cecidimus, & simplice fide resurgimus, ac restituimur.’

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disputes that are commonly raised about reconciling the divine decrees with the liberty and free-will of man.88

But this repudiation of scholasticism should not be read as a repudiation of Westminster orthodoxy and as proof for Torrance’s thesis. Ironically, when in the same lecture Leighton discusses the relationship between the divine decrees and the creature’s free will, he does so in language which echoes the Westminster Confession’s discussion ‘Of God’s Eternal Decree’. The Confession had already stated that ‘God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.’89 Leighton similarly wondered ‘who sees not, that, on the supposition of the most absolute decree, this liberty is not taken away, but rather established … ?’90 Far from distancing himself from Westminster’s covenantal orthodoxy, Leighton expresses himself in terms that were drawn from it. But having done so, he issues his warning that divine majesty is merely an abyss for human learning: ‘Wherefore, if you will take my advice, withdraw your minds from a curious search into this mystery, and turn them directly to the study of piety, and a due reverence to the majesty of God.’91 And always he negotiates a rhetorical distance from Dickson: ‘If any of you think proper, he may apply to men of greater learning; but let him take care he meet not with such as have more forwardness and presumption.’92 Perhaps this is the context in which to read his interaction with Beza’s concept of foreknowledge in his commentary on 1 Peter.93 This brief negotiation with Beza demonstrates that Leighton (and, he presumably assumed, his audience) was well informed about contemporary theological developments on the Continent. His European 88 Leighton, Works, p. 577; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 68: ‘Equidem admirabundum me hærere fateor, quoties viros doctos, & Theologos de ordine decretorum DEI temerè garrientes audio, vel lego: … Nec multo certè temperatiora sunt plurima quæ de decretis hisce Divinis cum libertate humanâ conciliandis disseruntur passim, & disputantur.’ 89 Westminster Confession of Faith, 3.1, my italics. 90 Leighton, Works, p. 577, my italics; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 69: ‘… hanc autem libertatem, posito vel efficacissimo decreto, non tolli, imò eo ipso poni, ac stabiliri, quis est qui non videat?’ 91 Leighton, Works, p. 577; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 69: ‘Quapropter ab hoc scrutinio (si quid me auditis) mentes vestras ad pietatis studia, & tremendæ, Majestatis Divinæ reverentiam protinus convertite.’ 92 Leighton, Works, p. 577; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 70: ‘… si cui vestrum id libet, quærat Doctiores, sed caveat, ne inveniat Audaciores.’ 93 Leighton, Works, pp. 5, 8.

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interests were surprisingly ecumenical. Indeed, if his library lacked any substantial collection of Covenanter material, it may be that his reading of the works of Cambridge Platonists, and his later enthusiasm for Blaise Pascal’s Pensées (1670), illustrates the trend of his thought during this period.94 Leighton’s links to France and the Spanish Netherlands were well established. Although early modern intellectual historians have tended not to place Scotland in contexts larger than that of the three kingdoms, Leighton’s links to northern Europe are indicative of the broad exposure of Scottish intellectual life in the seventeenth century. A number of Huguenot students attended the new college at Edinburgh at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Both of the college’s professors of divinity during Leighton’s student days had experience of teaching and ministering in France. Andrew Ramsay, professor of divinity between 1620 and 1626, had taught at the French protestant Academy at Saumur. Ramsay’s replacement after several years of vacancy was John Sharp, professor of divinity between 1630 and 1648. Sharp had been appointed professor of theology at Die University, near Grenoble, in 1608. His career as a Huguenot minister had ended in 1630 when Cardinal Richelieu expelled him from France. Nor was this European influence merely second-hand. Leighton himself had travelled in France and the Spanish Netherlands for much of the period between 1631 and 1641, where, it is commonly supposed, he was exposed to a range of intellectual positions including those of his relatives in Roman Catholic orders.95 The most formative of these influences appears to have been an early form of Jansenism. Although its status as a discrete movement was largely the creation of its enemies, the distinctive elements of the movement were outlined in the publication of Carnelius Jansen’s Augustinus (1640), and were initially identified with the dévots headed by Saint-Cyran, spiritual director of the abbey of Port-Royal, near Paris. (Leighton’s biographers have placed him at Douai and the Scots College in Paris throughout the 1630s.96) This European connection explains the radical discrepancy that exists between Leighton’s theology and the Westminster tradition. Leighton’s approach is distinct in both content and method. The titles of his initial 94 Knox, Robert Leighton, pp. 226–7. The works of Henry More, for example, are included in an early listing of the contents of Leighton’s library; Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 592. See the discussion of their influence in Allan, ‘Reconciliation and Retirement in the Restoration Scotish Church’, p. 270. 95 Ouston, ‘Leighton, Robert’ (bap. 1612, d. 1684)’, Oxford DNB, s.v. 96 Christine Shepherd, ‘University Life in the Seventeenth Century’, in Donaldson (ed.), Four Centuries, p. 4; Knox, Robert Leighton, p. 76; Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, pp. 78–111, 277–8; Allan, ‘Reconciliation and Retirement in the Restoration Scottish Church’, p. 253.

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theological lectures – De felicitatis (‘Of happiness’), De felicitate humanâ (‘Of the happiness of man’), De vitæ futuræ felicitate (‘Of the happiness of the life to come’) – are sharply dissimilar to the thorough-going theocentrism of the Westminster documents. Neither do the lectures discuss the generically Reformed covenant theology that underpins Leighton’s thought elsewhere. Instead, in their content, the lectures evidence startling similarities to the Jansenist theology later outlined by Pascal and indicate a return to humanism’s concern for personal virtue as the proper goal of learning, and enthusiastic piety (in opposition to scholasticism) as the proper basis of ministry.97 Thus Leighton repeatedly returns his students to his basic emphasis upon happiness: it is not my intention to perplex you with curious questions, and lead you through the thorny paths of disputation: but, if I had any share of that excellent art, it would be my delight to direct your way through the easy and pleasant paths of righteousness, to a life of endless felicity, and be myself your companion in that blessed pursuit.98

Similarly, ‘it is evident that we naturally pursue either real happiness, or what, to our mistaken judgement, appears to be such. Nor can the mind of man divest itself of this propensity, without divesting itself of its being.’99 In this, humankind is made in the image of God, who, ‘completely happy in himself from all eternity, is his own happiness’.100 But, although ‘we are all in quest of one thing, … almost all of us [are] out of the right road’, seeking happiness in the transience of the temporal world.101 This aspect of Leighton’s thought finds no echo in the Westminster Confession, which never uses the word ‘happy’ in this context;102 but it 97 George Jerment suggests that Leighton corresponded with Jansenists while principal at Edinburgh; The Remains of Archbishop Leighton: Consisting of all the Unpublished Pieces found in Manuscript in the Library left by him to the Diocese of Dunblane, with his Life (London, 1814), pp. xvii–xviii. 98 Leighton, Works, p. 554; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 3: ‘Non est enim mihi animus vos quæstiuncularum, & disputationum rubetis implicare, sed si quid illius artis in me esset per amænas, & faciles pietatis semitas ad beatam vitam quam libentèr vos.’ 99 Leighton, Works, p. 556; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, pp. 8–9: ‘Hoc tamen vel ex illo ipso infelicissimo errore apertè constat, nos felicitatem velle persequi vel ipsam, vel ejus imaginem, prout occurrit & apparet. Nec exuere potest hanc ␱␳␮ ´ á␻ animus humanus, nisi se exuat.’ 100 Leighton, Works, p. 557; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 12: ‘DEUS benedictus in sæcula, & ab omni ævo beatissimus, est ipse sibi sua beatitudo.’ 101 Leighton, Works, p. 559; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 17: ‘Unum est quod quærimus omnes, & ferè omnes extra viam.’ 102 The Westminster Confession’s discussion of happiness is limited to its chapter ‘Of Creation’, which deals successively with the happiness of God and humanity: ‘It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal

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reflects the first answer of the Shorter Catechism (‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever’103) as it builds upon the legacy of Aquinas and anticipates Pascal’s later assertion:104 All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.105

Nevertheless, despite the silence of the Westminster standards, this concentration upon human happiness was not altogether alien to the Scottish Reformed tradition. There were similar emphases in the Ramist influence that underpinned the Puritan pedagogy that had earlier shaped teaching at Edinburgh. The classic text of the Scottish Reformation, Knox’s First Book of Discipline (1560), had promoted Ramist humanism’s emphasis upon ‘learning and vertue’.106 The fusion of utility and piety had been engineered in the teaching of theology at Edinburgh by catechetical methods. Edinburgh’s former principal John Adamson had noted the usefulness of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), which, Leighton later indicated, was the catechism normally used by his students.107 But Leighton also noted the influence of ‘another Catechism, which not long ago was used, particularly in this University’; anticipating Leighton’s emphases, its first question asked, ‘What is the only way to true felicity?’108 This student catechism, which Leighton continued to use throughout his life, was Adamson’s Stoieiosis eloquiorum Dei, sive methodus religionis Christianæ catechetica (1627), published in the same year that Leighton matriculated at the college.109

power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good’ (Westminster Confession of Faith, 4. 1); ‘… Beside this law written in their hearts, they [Adam and Eve] received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures’ (Westminster Confession of Faith, 4. 2). 103 Shorter Catechism, question 1. 104 Servais Pinckaers, ‘The Desire for Happiness as a Way to God’, in James McEvoy and Michael Dunne (eds), Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth (Dublin, 2002), pp. 53–65. 105 Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670; rpr. London, 1932), p. 113. 106 The First Book of Discipline, ed. James K. Cameron (Edinburgh, 1972), p. 132. 107 Kirk, ‘“Melvillian Reform” in the Scottish Universities’, p. 295; Leighton, Works, p. 600; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 136. 108 Leighton, Works, p. 600; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 136: ‘Alia etiam quæ non ita pridem hujus Academiæ propria erat, Quæ est unica ad veram felicitatem via?’ 109 Bevan, ‘Seventeenth-Century Students and their Books’, p. 21.

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Its first question and answer made its emphasis clear: ‘Quæ est unica ad salutem, feu veram felicitatem via? Responsio. Religio Christiana.’110 Leighton could appeal to the tradition of Edinburgh theology to justify the apparent innovation in his pedagogic appeal to happiness. Thus rooted in the native Ramist tradition, as Leighton argued, the goal of university education – particularly theology – was the preparation for a virtuous life.111 Scholasticism was giving way to pietism. Leighton’s lectures are suffused with this spiritually utilitarian tenor, ‘utility in opposition to subtility’;112 indeed, it appears in his definition of theology as ‘a divine doctrine, directing man to real felicity, as his chief end, and conducting him to it by way of true religion’.113 This explains the lectures’ radically individualistic focus. Remarkably, given the potential influence of addressing students in the 1650s, they do not refer to national or ecclesiastical reformation; instead, their emphasis is entirely upon the individual. Even then, the reformation they advocate is a reformation of devotion rather than of doctrine, with spirituality rather than scholasticism as the basis of the ministerial vocation. Leighton’s rediscovery of the importance of felicity and virtue was a return to the older Ramism of an earlier Reformed tradition and the authentic legacy of the Knoxian reformation as it had been presented at Edinburgh. Despite a number of exciting new ventures, the intellectual climate of Puritan Scotland continues to be largely unexplored. Only the lives and thought of Robert Baillie and Samuel Rutherford have been studied in the necessary detail.114 Yet, grist to the historian’s mill, Leighton’s was an ambiguous life in an ambiguous age, which has attracted misunderstanding from the seventeenth century to the present day. Robert Sibbald, a student at Edinburgh in the late 1650s, noted that Leighton’s appeal was essentially moralistic.115 Sir James Stewart, on the other hand, believed that Leighton was an Arian.116 More recently, Walter Foster has argued that ‘Leighton did not formally repudiate Calvinism, but he tended to ignore its distinctive theological tenets.’117 110 John Adamson, Stoieiosis eloquiorum Dei, sive methodus religionis Christianæ catechetica (1627; second ed., 1637). 111 Kirk, ‘“Melvillian Reform” in the Scottish Universities’, p. 282. 112 Leighton, Works, p. 554; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 4: ‘… utilia, inquit, docens, non subtilia’. 113 Leighton, Works, p. 600; Leighton, Prælectiones Theologicæ, p. 137: ‘Theologiam itaque brevitèr & perspicuè sic definirem. Doctrina Divina hominem ad veræ felicitates metam, per veræ Religionis viam dirigens & perducens.’ 114 See McCoy, Robert Baillie and Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions. 115 Francis Paget Hett, The Memoirs of Sir Robert Sibbald (London, 1932), pp. 53–5. 116 Butler, The Life and Letters of Robert Leighton, p. 209 n. 1. 117 Walter Roland Foster, Bishop and Presbytery: The Church of Scotland, 1661–1688 (London, 1958), p. 160.

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Yet Owen Chadwick has described him as ‘one of the five or six most remarkable Calvinists in all the inner history of Calvinism’, ‘the most attractive and persuasive of all the Calvinist devotional writers; certainly of Scotland, perhaps of any country’.118 Thus the complexities of Leighton’s teaching in the 1650s resist Torrance’s importing of the ‘Calvin and the Calvinists’ debate and support David Mullan’s contention that ‘recent work which has illuminated our appreciation of the political aspects of the covenanting movement needs to be supplemented by a detailed and nuanced portrait of Scottish divinity’.119 But detailed conclusions are hampered by a lack of contemporary evidence. Edinburgh’s college librarian explained the gap in his register from 1650 to 1662 as owing to external conditions, describing the period as tempore belli – a ‘time of war’.120 And war it certainly was. Scotland’s revolutionary government had been defeated by the English republicans; the Scottish Presbyterians were divided militarily; and at Edinburgh, training future ministers, the faculty was divided theologically. By the 1650s, the vision of covenanted uniformity had lost its political verve; both sides looked back to an earlier age for a pattern for the future. Dickson looked back to the national unity of the sixteenth century and the virile Presbyterianism of the 1590s. Leighton remembered the Ramist humanism and warm piety of the distinctive Edinburgh tradition. Yet both elaborated their conclusions on the scaffold of covenant theology. Enforcing reformation was a basic commitment of Puritan theological training. But faced with the choice between Edinburgh Ramism, Westminster orthodoxy and Cromwellian toleration, Leighton’s ambivalence in selecting which version of reformation to enforce would precipitate the crisis of the Westminster consensus.

118 Owen Chadwick, ‘Robert Leighton after Three Hundred Years’, Journal of the Society of Friends of Dunblane Cathedral, 14:4 (1985), pp. 116, 126. 119 David George Mullan, Scottish Puritanism 1590–1638 (Oxford, 2000), p. 7. 120 Bevan, ‘Seventeenth-Century Students and their Books’, p. 17.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Godly Order: Enforcing Peace in the Irish Reformation Raymond Gillespie In December 1603 the Kilkenny burgess and landowner Sir Richard Shee made his will. In it he declared his wish to be buried in ‘my said father’s burial [place] in the chancel of the parish church of Our Lady in Kilkenny’, and he charged his executors to build a decent monument to the value of 100 marks over his burial place.1 When he died in 1608 his wish was honoured, and a monument was erected in the chancel of the Church of Ireland parish church of St Mary’s. For the godly protestant worshippers in that church the structure was a far from edifying sight. It was modelled, in part, on the traditional pre-Reformation tombs of the Kilkenny area, with a series of niches along the front panel, each containing a figure of one of the apostles in roughly the same order as they appeared in Catholic tombs. Some compromise with the new protestant tradition is suggested by the figures of faith, hope and charity in niches on the superstructure, but the tomb is distinctively that of a Church Papist, a term which perhaps best describes Shee’s confessional position, notwithstanding the fact that he had a Jesuit confessor.2 What is curious is that despite canon 97 of the Church of Ireland Canons of 1634, which required the removal of ‘monuments of superstition’ from churches, the monument remains in the same place where it was erected, despite the fact that the surrounding nave has now been demolished.3 Other monuments proclaimed similar messages. In the north transept of the church John Roth built a tomb in 1612 containing images of St Peter and St Paul.4 St Mary’s was not the only parish in Kilkenny that permitted the intrusion of Catholic symbolism into protestant sacred space. In St Canice’s cathedral Richard Butler, Viscount Mountgarret, who died in 1570, decorated his tomb with the more explicitly Catholic 1 J.F. Ainsworth, Edward MacLysaght, ‘Survey of Documents in Private Keeping, second series: Power O’Shee papers’, Analecta Hibernica, 20 (1958), p. 226. 2 William Carrigan, The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory (4 vols, Dublin, 1905), vol. 3, pp. 100–101; P.F. Moran (ed.), Spicilegium Ossoriense (3 vols, Dublin, 1874–84), vol. 1, pp. 116–17. 3 Gerald Bray (ed.), The Anglican Canons, 1529–1947 (Woodbridge, 1998), p. 529. 4 Carrigan, Ossory, vol. 3, p. 101.

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symbols of the passion. In the 1590s William Donoghu, a burgess of Irishtown, copied the idea on his tomb in the cathedral, and both tombs remained in their protestant place at least until the coming of Oliver Cromwell.5 Across Kilkenny and Tipperary, the heartland of the late medieval monumental tradition, this pattern was repeated. The 1626 tomb of James Kealy, burgess of Gowran, in its original site of the northwest corner of the nave of Church of Ireland parish church of St Mary’s, Gowran, has images not only of Sts Patrick and Paul, but also a profusion of the symbols of the Passion. Indeed the mason who crafted this tomb, Patrick Kerin, seems to have made a respectable living out of making such tombs for very similar settings in the region.6 What seems clear is that in the area of funeral monuments some form of accommodation between protestants and Catholics was possible. There may be a number of reasons why this was so. Some protestants may have taken the view, expounded by William Montgomery of Rosemount later in the seventeenth century, that respect for the dead was necessary regardless of secular laws.7 Others may have been concerned with the supernatural consequences of interfering with the dead. The Cistercian Malachy Hartry, writing in the 1640s, recorded an early seventeenth-century story of interference with a tomb in Holy Cross Abbey by Peter Purcell, who demanded to be buried in a prestigious tomb belonging to another person. Immediately, water began dripping from the tomb and continued over so prolonged a period that it was thought the tomb might collapse. At this point a divine messenger revealed to one of Peter’s descendants that the cause of the disturbance was Peter’s profanation of the tomb. The body was exhumed and the flow of water ceased.8 Aside from the question of what motivated protestants to tolerate Catholic imagery on tombs in their churches there is also the issue of why Catholics continued to choose to be buried there. For Catholics burial in a protestant setting required some measure of accommodation to the religious innovations of the sixteenth century. The burial of Richard Shee, and others, in protestant soil carried overtones of impurity, and in the 1640s throughout Ulster, and also at Maynooth and 5 John Bradley, ‘The Medieval Tombs of St Canice’s Cathedral’, in Adrian Empey (ed.), A Worthy Foundation: The Cathedral Church of St Canice, Kilkenny (Mountrath, 1985), pp. 49, 86–7, 91–2. 6 Amy Harris and Paul Cockerham, ‘Kilkenny Funeral Monuments 1500–1600: A Statistical and Analytical Account’, RIA Proc, ci (2001), pp. 135–88. 7 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, D/552/B/4/1/4. I am grateful to William Roulston for drawing my attention to this document. 8 Denis Murphy (ed.), Triumphalia chronologica monasteri Sanctae Crucis in Hibernia (Dublin, 1891), pp. 52–5.

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Kildare in north Leinster, protestant bodies were disinterred because they were held to have profaned churches and burial spaces.9 This evidence of burial practices and tomb sculpture suggests that the traditional picture of relations of Catholics and protestants in seventeenth-century Ireland as diametrically opposed factions, with little possibility of accommodation, needs to be somewhat revised. This does not mean that all tensions need to be discounted. There were clearly circumstances where the sort of accommodations described above did not apply. The ‘pictures and popish fancies’ in the very public setting of Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, were rapidly removed in 1559 although the ‘painted board that was in the arch over the rood where the story of the passion was presented’ survived until it was taken down during building works in 1564.10 Again, in matters of burial there were Catholics who were profoundly unhappy about being laid to rest in ‘polluted’ protestant soil. The 1618 will of Mathew Archbold of Westmeath, for instance, clearly stipulated that he wished ‘my body to be buried in the abbey of Multyfarnham if it be not polluted or the Franciscan friars from hence banished before my burial time and if so, as God forbid, I leave my body to be buried where the same shall seem most convenient’.11 Such concerns could give rise to unseemly scenes, as at Balrothery in 1608, when a funeral on All Saints day degenerated into a riot over which religious rites were to be performed over the body. Similar controversy arose at the burial of Lady Killeen in 1623.12 However, it is clear that accommodations between the confessional groups did exist, notwithstanding the tensions that existed between them. In short, the Reformation could not be enforced but rather negotiated. This, of course, was a situation which contemporary readers of their Bibles were familiar with. The injunction of Matthew 10:34 that ‘I come not to bring peace but a sword’ had to be balanced against that of Luke 6:27 to ‘Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you’. Some might try to spiritualize the matter, defining ‘peace’ as spiritual rather than social. The Irish Jesuit superior, Christopher Holywood, was profoundly uneasy about the involvement of the Jesuit missionaries in performing the traditional role of reconciling disputes, seeing them as a 9 Trinity College, Dublin, MS 832, fols 84v, 105, 120; MS 835, fol. 20v; MS 813, fols 260–60v. 10 Newport White (ed.), ‘The Annals of Dudley Loftus’, Analecta Hibernica, 10 (1941), p. 235; Raymond Gillespie (ed.), The Proctor’s Accounts of Peter Lewis (Dublin, 1996), p. 39. 11 National Archives, Dublin, RC 5/16, f. 66. 12 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report of the Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont (2 vols, London, 1905–9), vol. 1, p. 33; Calendar of the State PapersRelating to Ireland (24 vols, London 1860–1910) [hereafter CSPI], 1615–25, pp. 429–30.

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spiritual élite, nurturing souls rather than the creators of social harmony.13 Others might relegate their role as peacemakers on the grounds that the salvation of souls was a more urgent business, but both the proponents and opponents of reformation recognized the need for social order as much as they did the socially disruptive desire to make converts to a cause.14 As has been pointed out, in addition to the history of war in French Christianity in the age of the wars of religion there is also a history of peace.15

Factors affecting accommodation Any attempt to chart the sort of accommodations which might be forged in seventeenth-century Ireland needs to do so in two contexts. The first is one of geography. For many Catholics who lived in seventeenthcentury Ireland, relations with protestants were not a difficulty since there were no protestants present. There is no comprehensive source from early seventeenth-century Ireland which would allow the balance of Catholics and protestants to be calculated for different regions of the country but the poll money return of 1660 does at least allow some guesses. Assuming that those who are described as ‘English’ in the poll money return were protestant, and those described as ‘Irish’ were Catholic, it may be possible to hazard some guesses as to the religious geography of Ireland. The equation is not perfect since there were Catholic settlers, such as the Abercorn family in Ulster, and protestant Irish, but as a crude measure it might suffice. On the basis of the poll money return it is clear that there were large areas of Ireland, especially in the west and south-west of the country, where protestants formed less than 5 per cent of the population. There were equally large areas in Munster where they formed less than 10 per cent.16 This reality was reflected in the dilapidated state of Church of Ireland churches in these areas, with less than a third of all churches in the province of Cashel in 13

Edmund Hogan (ed.), Ibernia Ignatiana (Dublin, 1880), pp. 164–5. For a recent survey of this theme see John Bossy, Peace in the Post Reformation (Cambridge, 1998). 15 Gregory Hanlon, Confession and Community in Seventeenth-Century France: Catholic and Protestant Co-existence in Aquitaine (Philadelphia, 1993), especially pp. 73–90. In many respects Alexandra Walsham’s Church Papists (Woodbridge, 1999) is a recognition of those who sought for accommodation in England during this period. 16 The material is mapped in William J. Smyth, ‘Society and Settlement in SeventeenthCentury Ireland: the Evidence of the “1659” Census’, in William J. Smyth and Kevin Whelan (eds), Common Ground: Essays on the Historical Geography of Ireland (Cork, 1988), p. 74. 14

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a fit state to be used in 1615.17 In many of these areas a protestant was a rarity, and some communities were rather like those portrayed in the 1630s text ‘Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis’ in which the issues which worried the local community were social mobility and the breakdown of traditional social order, rather than religious reform. A protestant appears only briefly as a trader but religion is not a significant issue.18 It was in Ulster, the eastern seaboard of the country, and in the hinterland of the major towns such as Cork and Dublin, that protestants clustered most thickly. In those areas the issue of their relationship with their Catholic neighbours could, under certain circumstances, become a significant one. Conversions, following Jesuit or Franciscan missions, or Church of Ireland preaching or mixed marriages might raise local tensions in such areas where the confessional balance might be felt to be a sensitive issue. The second important context is the realization that negotiating social peace was not simply a matter of relations between protestants and Catholics. Within those two traditions there were sub-traditions contending among themselves which also had the potential to disrupt the social order. Most obviously those who regarded themselves as ‘godly’ saw around them a host of the ‘ungodly’ or reprobate.19 From the perspective of the godly preachers these nominal protestants were a dangerous threat to social order. Their polarized view of the godly and the ungodly led to condemnation of the profanity, hypocrisy and individualism of the ungodly, tempered with calls for repentance. The language used by some godly preachers against this group was every bit as violent as that directed against Catholics. They were, in the words of Andrew Stewart, the Presbyterian minister of Donaghdee, ‘the scum of both nations [Scotland and England]’ who had ‘nothing or but little, as yet, of the fear of God’.20 In the eyes of Steven Jerome, chaplain to Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, they appeared as ‘hypocrite, idolater, blasphemer, drunkard, atheist, profane person, murderer [and] the devil

17

Alan Ford, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland, 1590–1641 (Frankfurt, 1985), p.

113. 18 N.J.A. Williams (ed.), Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis (Dublin, 1981), pp. 1–41, 65–98. 19 For this problem see Patrick Collinson, ‘The Cohabitation of the Faithful with the Unfaithful’, in Peter Grell, J.I. Israel and Nicholas Tyacke (eds), From Persecution to Toleration (Oxford, 1991), pp. 51–76. For practical ways in which such godly clergy could ‘negotiate’ accomodations with their less godly contemporaries, Peter Lake, The Boxmaker’s Revenge: ‘Orthodoxy’, ‘Heterodoxy’ and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London (Manchester, 2001), pp. 40–48. 20 Printed in Patrick Adair, A True Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, ed. W.D. Killen (Belfast, 1866), p. 313.

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incarnate’.21 For Richard Olmstead, Sir Charles Coote’s chaplain, the ungodly indulged in whoredom and blasphemy and would attract God’s judgement on ‘this prophane and idolatrous country’ in disease, famine, war, infamy, disgrace which were ‘evident signs of the indignation of the Almighty’.22 Within Catholicism, too, there were divergent devotional traditions which created tensions. For many who had been exposed to the ideas of the Council of Trent some elements of traditional Irish Catholic practices seemed no better than heathenism. The synodal legislation of the early seventeenth century attempted to dismantle as superstition traditional rites of inclusion such as pilgrimage to holy wells.23 In the diocese of Achonry in the 1660s the Roman-trained priest John Sullivan railed against those traditional Irish Catholics whose grasp of theological precepts was weak but who still demanded the sacraments.24 Religious change in early modern Ireland was not one simple binary opposition but a set of social relationships traversed by a series of potential fracture lines.

Negotiating social peace In the context of this potential for social division over religious issues in early seventeenth-century Ireland it is interesting to consider what did not happen. To understand the realities of religious change and accommodation it is necessary to be aware of the dogs which did not bark. Before the late 1630s it is hard to detect anything within Irish Protestantism that could be described as widespread separatist tendencies despite the potential for such separatism. Church of Ireland preachers continually emphasized the principle of ‘adiaphora’, that certain rites and ceremonies which might have fractured Protestantism were matters of indifference.25 Again, the importance of the eucharist as a manifestation of community cohesiveness provided a way of diffusing tensions within protestant communities. The canons of 1634, for 21 S[teven] J[erome], The Soul’s Sentinell Ringing an Alarm Against Impiety and Impenitence (Dublin, 1631), sig. A3. 22 Richard Olmstead, Sions Tears Leading to Joy (Dublin, 1630), pp. 8, 79, 137, 140–41. 23 Alison Forrestal, Catholic Synods in Ireland, 1600–1690 (Dublin, 1998); and for the sub-cultures in one context Raymond Gillespie, ‘Catholic Religious Cultures in the Diocese of Dublin, 1614–90’, in James Kelly and Dáire Keogh (eds), History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Dublin, 2000), pp. 127–43. 24 Raymond Gillespie, Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester, 1997), pp. 24–5. 25 Phil Kilroy, ‘Sermon and Pamphlet Literature in the Irish Reformed Church, 1613–34’, Archivium Hibernicum, 33 (1975), pp. 110–21.

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instance, laid great stress on the importance of reconciliation, both with God and their neighbours, before communion.26 That at least some protestants took this seriously is suggested by the low numbers who came to communion out of large attendances at services. In 1638 one Kilmore minister refused to administer communion since he was not in charity with some of his congregation.27 It was only the developments of the late 1630s, with the Black Oath against Presbyterianism, which saw splits emerge, and reactions to the war of the 1640s resulted in godly separatism from the Church of Ireland.28 Similarly, within Catholicism, the two dimensions of Tridentine and traditional failed to generate much tension, apart from the disputes between secular and regular clergy. Commonalities such as the mass held differing groups together, and while in theory clergy were seen as having a limited social role, in practice they did act as creators and regulators of social peace and order.29 Again, in the case of relations between Catholics and protestants, it is often difficult to detect the sort of rifts which might be expected. It is clear, for example, that protestants, both locally and in Dublin Castle, knew the whereabouts of Catholic churches. They compiled lists of them but apparently made little effort to close them down.30 When circumstances dictated that they should close the churches, as in Dublin in 1629, it is clear that they knew exactly where the churches were located, and at least one Jesuit house within a few hundred yards of Christ Church cathedral had been visited by an interested protestant tourist.31 Moreover, Catholics did not hide their churches. In 1637, one Dublin priest, Edmund Doyle, described his church, vestments and ornaments in some detail in his will, which was duly proved in the testamentary court of the protestant archbishop of Dublin.32 26

Bray, Anglican Canons, p. 496. Gillespie, Devoted People, pp. 98–9; CSPI, 1633–47, p. 206. 28 Raymond Gillespie, ‘War and the Irish Town: The Early Modern Experience’, in Pádraig Lenihan (ed.), Conquest and Resistance: War in Seventeenth-Century Ireland (Leiden, 2000), pp. 311–13. 29 Gillespie, ‘Catholic Religious Cultures’, pp. 135–9. 30 For examples see Trinity College, Dublin, MS 567, fol. 35v; M.V. Ronan (ed.), ‘Archbishop Bulkeley’s Visitation of Dublin, c. 1630’, Archivium Hibernicum, 8 (1941), pp. 57–8, 68, 69, 86; W.P. Burke, ‘The Diocese of Derry in 1631’, Archivium Hibernicum, 5 (1916), pp. 3–6; Sheffield Archives, Wentworth Wodehouse MSS, Strafford letter books, 20, no. 175; Bodleian Library, Oxford, Carte MS 38, fol. 695. 31 CSPI, 1625–32, pp. 500–501, 504, 510; Brendan Jennings (ed.), Wadding Papers, 1614–38 (Dublin, 1953), pp. 330–31, 333, 337; Nicholas Archbold, ‘Evangelicall fruict of the Seraphical Franciscan Order’ (British Library, Harley MS 3888, fols 109–10); William Brereton, Travels in Holland and the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland, ed. Edward Hawkins (London, 1844), pp. 141–2. 32 National Library of Ireland, G.O. MS 290, fol. 140. 27

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In another sphere Ireland lacked any tradition of controversial literature in the early seventeenth century. In contemporary England, presses printed hundreds of tracts, and more substantial works, of a specifically controversial nature. Peter Milward has identified 630 such works for the reign of Elizabeth and another 764 produced in the reign of James I.33 Ireland produced almost nothing.34 A number of explanations might be offered for this anomaly. The presence of only one printing press in early seventeenth-century Ireland, dealing mainly with the demands of government, limited the output of private works.35 Moreover, until the 1680s, that press was under government control and denied access to authors who did not represent the state’s views.36 Such technical reasons cannot fully explain the lack of a printed controversial literature. Importation of works printed elsewhere for use in Ireland and of controversial literature from other contexts was certainly possible. Whether it would find a market in Ireland was uncertain. It is unclear why the early seventeenth-century laity in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, showed so little interest in printed controversy. Perhaps they preferred their controversy in more dramatic forms such as wonders, exorcism and debates over control of the miraculous. Thus in the early 1630s one Dublin exorcism by the Discalced Carmelite Steven Browne was performed before a large audience, who had previously witnessed a protestant minister failing to expel the spirit.37 Another aspect may have been the socially divisive impact of controversy on a polity in which allegiances were finely balanced. In the case of disputes with Catholics there were ‘the difficulties inherent in the task of attacking Catholicism without attacking Catholics’, and within a minority Protestantism potential separatists were more likely to be placated than disputed with.38 Indeed, some feared the destabilizing role printed controversy could 33 Peter Milward, Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age (London, 1977); Peter Milward, Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age (London, 1978). 34 For a discussion of the signficance of what was produced, see Elizabethanne Boran’s chapter in this collection. 35 In the 1650s, for instance, John Jones attempting to print a religious work in Welsh at Dublin found the progress of printing long delayed by the limited capacity of that press, National Library of Wales, D11460D, fol. 137. For the wider context see Raymond Gillespie, Reading Ireland: Print, Reading and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester, 2005). 36 Mary Pollard, Dublin’s Trade in Books, 1550–1800 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 1–16. 37 Marcellus Glynn and F.X. Martin, ‘The “Brevis relatio” of the Irish Discalced Carmelites, 1625–60’, Archivium Hibernicum, 25 (1962), pp. 150–52. On this question more generally, Gillespie, Devoted People, ch. 6. 38 Declan Gaffney, ‘The Practice of Religious Controversy’, in W.J. Shiels and Diana Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History 25 (Oxford, 1989), p. 158; Kilroy, ‘Sermon and Pamphlet Literature’.

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have, and Richard Bellings was unwilling to allow his own history of the 1640s into print for fear of generating controversy.39 Ireland had to wait until the last decade of the seventeenth century for its own sustained controversy, and then it was between not only the Church of Ireland, represented by William King, and Catholics, in the person of Peter Manby, but also involved Presbyterians, defended by Joseph Boyse.40 These absences of conflict, together perhaps with the absence of witchcraft trials in early seventeenth-century Ireland, all point to some form of social cohesion, or the drive for peace and order, which existed in tension with the desire to enforce religious reform and helped to curb its disruptive tendencies. Clearly, social and economic factors were important here. The relative abundance of resources in early seventeenth-century Ireland, together with a rapidly expanding economy, helped to defuse, though not eliminate, some tensions in this world as developing commercial networks brought people of differing denominational affiliations together.41 Again, the infrequency of poor harvests served to lessen tensions.42 Money was a powerful solvent for denominational differences. This may partly explain why about 20 per cent of the membership of the overtly Catholic guild of St Anne in Dublin, which supported Catholic clergy, were protestant, who presumably hoped to benefit from the wealth of the guild.43 Likewise, tradition made innovative divisions difficult to enforce. While Christ Church cathedral in Dublin after 1558 was decisively protestant the Catholic inhabitants of the city continued to support it, and contribute money to shore up its endangered fabric, because of its importance in civic life. Only the Mandates controversy of the early seventeenth century would change that.44 39 Raymond Gillespie, ‘The Social Thought of Richard Bellings’, in Micheál O Siochrú (ed.), Kingdoms in Crisis: Ireland in the 1640s (Dublin, 2001), p. 214. 40 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Irish Print and Protestant Identity: William King’s Pamphlet Wars, 1687–97’, in Vincent Carey and Ute Lotz-Heumann (eds), Taking Sides? Colonial and Confessional Mentalités in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp. 231–50. For a detailed study of King’s role in the politics of conformity in the later seventeenth century, see the chapter by T.C. Barnard in the present volume. 41 For this argument in the witchcraft context, Raymond Gillespie, ‘Women and Crime in Seventeenth Century Ireland’, in Mary O’Dowd and Margaret Mc Curtain (eds), Women in Early Modern Ireland (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 43–7. 42 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Harvest Crises in Early Seventeenth-Century Ireland’, Irish Economic and Social History, 11 (1984), pp. 5–18. 43 Colm Lennon, ‘The Chantries and the Irish Reformation: The Case of St Anne’s Guild, Dublin, 1550–1630’, in R.V. Comerford, Mary Cullen, Jacqueline Hill and Colm Lennon (eds), Religion, Conflict and Coexistence in Ireland (Dublin, 1990), p. 22. 44 Raymond Gillespie, ‘The Shaping of Reform, 1558–1625’, in Kenneth Milne (ed.), Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: A History (Dublin, 2000), pp. 178–9.

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However, these elements will not explain how Catholics and protestants in early seventeenth-century Ireland managed to transcend divisions to maintain at least a working level of social cohesion before 1641. Two features to this negotiation of peace are worth emphasizing. The first is that it was local. While administrators in Dublin Castle, Church of Ireland bishops and Catholic missionary clergy used the rhetoric of division and reformation – urging recusancy rather than church papistry on Catholics – as part of large scale and ultimately unsuccessful policy objectives, the language and institutions of everyday life were those of the manor or parish and, frequently, of the law as expressed at a community level. One significant case is that of a county Clare schoolmaster who as late as 1713 refused to take the sacrament at Christmas despite the fact that he had previously come to worship and taken the sacrament. The reason he offered was that ‘some priest he had met with that could speak his language told him he would be damned if he did’.45 The story reveals much about the shortcomings of the Tridentine mission in seventeenth-century Ireland. However, this cannot explain all. The schoolmaster may not have understood English but he can hardly have been unaware that the liturgy was not that of traditional Catholicism. His motive in acting as a ‘Church Papist’ is certainly explained by his desire to be part of a local community at worship with the solidarities created by the sacrament. The second feature of this process follows from the first. It displayed considerable regional variation, even over short distances, which reflected local priorities and perceptions. Thus one landlord, such as Arthur Brownlow at Lurgan, was happy to have as his tenants Catholics, Quakers, Presbyterians and even members of the Church of Ireland, yet only a few miles away on the Conway estates the agent, George Rawdon, was utterly opposed to any group as tenants except those who would attend the parish church.46 It follows that the mechanisms that were used to create such accommodations were local institutions. Two of these institutions seem to have been of particular importance: the parish and the local court system.

The role of the parish in early modern Ireland By the early seventeenth century the medieval network of parishes, together with its churches, throughout Ireland was in the hands of the 45

John Ainsworth (ed.), The Inchiquin Manuscripts (Dublin, 1961), p. 114. Raymond Gillespie, Settlement and Survival on an Ulster Estate (Belfast, 1988), p. xii; Raymond Gillespie, ‘George Rawdon’s Lisburn’, Lisburn Historical Society Journal, 8 (1991), p. 33. 46

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Church of Ireland. However, many, though not all, Catholics could distinguish between the parish as liturgical space, where unfamiliar rites and ceremonies of which they did not approve were practised, and the parish as an expression of a local community identity. The point seems clear from the request by many Catholics in their wills that they should be buried in their parish church, notwithstanding its changed liturgical function. Thus Thomas Hussey, of Moylehussey in county Meath, asked that his body be buried in his parish church, but left legacies to a local priest to say mass for his soul and also to the Franciscans in Dublin. Henry Shee of Kilkenny, in his 1612 will, asked his wife ‘to have prayers said in sort as is usual among good Catholics in God’s church as often as she can procure the same’, yet also asked to be buried in his parish church. Again, the Cork merchant Thomas Gould, who died in 1630, wanted to be buried in Christ Church, Cork, despite the fact that in his will he commended his body, in traditional Catholic fashion, to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St John the Baptist and all the company of the saints.47 In one Kilkenny case, Oliver Shorthall had been buried in the Church of Ireland cathedral after appropriate Catholic obsequies.48 The reason why at least some of these requests were made was that family tombs or monuments existed in these churches. To be buried there was to link a family into its social and genealogical context, where it could be remembered. For this reason, burial was less frequently requested in parish churches in the west of Ireland, but rather in Franciscan graveyards, since that had been the late medieval tradition.49 In some cases the request to be buried in the parish church may have been a desire to conform to the law. Philip O’Reilly of Cavan, for instance, in his 1638 will, asked to be buried in the Franciscan house in Cavan ‘so that it be allowed by his Majesties law’ or if it was not allowed, in his parish church.50 This ability to distinguish between the parish as a liturgical space and a social one suggests that the local parish in its administrative and social context was a place where accommodations were made. Parishes also had secular administrative functions in addition to their ecclesiastical role. They were, for example, required to maintain the roads which passed through them under an act of 1613, and in Dublin parishes were required to make provision for the poor and for fire fighting.51 It is clear from the legal records that the government held the 47

National Archives, Dublin, RC5/10, fol. 124, RC5/5, fol. 763; RC5/16, fol. 241. Jennings (ed.), Wadding Papers, 1614–38, p. 448. 49 National Archives, Dublin, RC5/30, pp. 112, 120; RC 5/29, fol. 6, 27v; RC5/11, fol. 66, 308; RC5/12, fol. 207. 50 National Archives, Dublin, RC 5/25, fol. 276. 51 11, 12 &13 Jas I, c. 7; J.T. and Lady Gilbert (eds), Calendar of Ancient Records of 48

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parish guilty corporately for breaches of these requirements, rather than differentiating Catholics from protestants. The Summonister Rolls for county Tyrone, for instance, record the presentment of the inhabitants of the parish of Donaghmore in 1632 for not mending the highways on the mountain, and those of Cappagh parish for not mending ‘cashes’ on the king’s highway. In 1628, the inhabitants of Clonfeakle parish were presented at the assizes for failing to maintain a bridge at Castlemoyle, and a number of parishes were fined in 1633 for not building a bridge on the highway between Newtown Stewart and Strabane.52 Such corporate responsibility suggests that in civil matters Catholics as well as protestants were expected to participate in resolving local problems and may have participated in the institution which resolved these, the parish vestry. The lack of evidence before 1640 does not allow a definitive answer to this question, and the answer must have varied widely over the country. There are, however, some indications of trends. In the parish of Crumlin in county Dublin during the 1590s, for instance, the churchwardens of the parish were important figures in local society. Hugh Harrold, proctor for 1596, had been constable of the manor two years previously, a cessor for the manor, and frequently sat on juries. Edmund Basnett, another proctor, also served frequently on the manorial jury. These men were responsible for guarding the property of the church and managing its lands and were appointed not by the parish but elected by the manor court.53 This seems not to have been an unusual arrangement since before 1634 there was no body of canon law dealing with the matter and so local custom prevailed. In Clare, for instance, in the later seventeenth century parochial officials, such as the constable, were also appointed by manorial courts.54 While the confessional position of Basnett and Harrold cannot be fixed exactly, Archbishop Bulkeley’s comment in 1630 that the parishioners of Crumlin were ‘for the most part recusants’ suggests that they might well have had Catholic leanings.55 The 1660 poll money return in another case in county Clare records only seven protestants, out of a total number of tax-payers of 823, in the barony in which the manor lay.56 It seems highly likely that Dublin (19 vols, Dublin, 1889–1944), vol. 3, pp. 129, 292–3; Raymond Gillespie (ed.), The Vestry Records of the Parish of St John the Evangelist, Dublin, 1595–1658 (Dublin, 2002), pp. 101–2, 162. 52 National Library of Ireland, Patterson MS, microfilm, p. 206. 53 Edmund Curtis (ed.), ‘The Court Book of Crumlin and Esker, 1592–1600’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 59 (1929), pp. 45–64, and 60 (1930), pp. 38–51. 54 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Finavarra and its Manor Court in the 1670s’, The Other Clare, 25 (2001), p. 46. 55 Ronan, ‘Archbishop Bulkeley’s Visitation’, p. 74. 56 Séamus Pender (ed.), A Census of Ireland c. 1659 (Dublin, 1939), pp. 185–7.

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churchwardens in this areas were Catholics. There are two slightly clearer cases. The first is from Ulster in 1615. During a dispute between Art Mac Tomlin O’Mullan and Brian Mac Shane O’Mullan, Art accused Brian that ‘thou are a church warden yet do not attend thy office, according [to] thy instructions. Thou had sixteen masses said in thy house by Gillecome Mac Teig, abbot, … and then relievest the said Gillecome and then harbourest him in thy house as well as abroad’.57 Both men were of some substance and leased considerable amounts of land from the Haberdashers Company around Artikelly in county Londonderry.58 There can be little doubt about confessional allegiance here and equally little doubt about the desire of a man of wealth to accept a post conferring local status. A second example is that of Alderman Richard Browne, churchwarden of St John’s parish in Dublin in 1638–40, yet in 1642 he was deprived from his position on the aldermanic bench because of his sympathies with the Catholic insurgents.59 In the case of St John’s parish Browne was a late, and dramatic, example of what may have been a more widespread phenomenon earlier in the century. James Bellew, one of the auditors of the St John’s parish accounts in 1603, was strongly Catholic in his outlook and was fined in the Mandates controversy of 1605. Similarly the baker Patrick English, who was also fined in the Mandates controversy and discharged from civic office in 1613 because of his Catholicism, appears a year before his death as a cessor in St John’s parish in 1622.60 These cases at least open the possibility that the Church of Ireland parish, acting as a civil administrative unit, attracted Catholics able to distinguish between government and liturgy into becoming involved in local co-operative action. In this way the parish could command local loyalties, regardless of confessional division, and could provide a local venue for the negotiation and the maintenance of peace within local society. The same sort of local allegiances can be detected within Presbyterianism in Ulster during the 1640s. Presbyterianism, as it developed in the 1640s, created networks of discipline within communities through the session and hence had powerful community links. This association of Presbyterianism with the community, and 57

CSPI, 1615–25, pp. 54–5. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, T520. 59 Gillespie, Vestry Records of St John’s, p. 112; Anc. Rec. Dub, vol. 3, p. 393. 60 On Bellew, Colm Lennon, The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation (Dublin, 1989), p. 231; Gillespie, Vestry Records of St John’s, p. 22. On English, Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report of the Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont (2 vols, London, 1905–9), vol. 1, pp. 30–31; Anc. Rec. Dub, vol. 3, p. 43. Gillespie, Vestry Records of St John’s, p. 26. 58

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especially in the disturbed period of the 1640s, led at least some sessions to claim authority not just over those who voluntarily adhered to its discipline, but rather over the entire community. In doing so it operated as an established Church, but without the limiting power of the state in the manner of Scottish Presbyterianism. One of the features of the only surviving Irish session book from the 1640s, that of Templepatrick, is the number of individuals with Irish names on whom the session attempted to impose its discipline. Maeve O’Conolie, for instance, before the session in February 1648, was accused of selling drink at the time of the service and was sentenced to stand in the place of repentance, which she duly did, until absolved in March. She was before the session again in March 1649, for baking bread on a fast day, for which she made a public confession.61 Others with Irish names also featured among those disciplined. A long-running case involved Owen McGouckien in allegations over fornication, and Murdock O’Donnallie and his three sisters also appeared on a number of occasions before the session for offences which included being absent from church.62 In another instance, the marriage of Shane O’Hagan and Schilie O’Donnally caused problems for the session, O’Hagan eventually being summoned for breaching the sabbath and drunkenness.63 In addition, straightforward cases of drunkenness were dealt with by the session and involved those with Irish names. In 1647, for instance, Jenkin O’Connallie, Murdoch O’Donallie, Shan O’Hagan, Rorie O’Crielie and Donald O’Crilie were all summoned before the session for drunkenness.64 It would be impossible to make any meaningful judgement as to the religious beliefs of these people, or to judge whether or not they were sincere converts to Presbyterianism, but it is possible to conclude that they do not seem to have been amenable to the behavioural standards demanded by the session. Another explanation for their presence in the session book, perhaps closer to the truth, is provided by an entry for 7 September 1647, which noted that a Lieutenant Wallace ‘hath some Irishes under him who comes not to the church the session ordaines Wm Mc Cord to speak [to] the lieutenant that either he will put them away from him or else cause them to keep the church’.65 For the local church coherence within the community who lived in a particular place and the control of the session was paramount, 61 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, CR 4/12B/1, 14, 15, 56. Extensive extracts are printed in W.T. Latimer, ‘The Old Session Book of Templepatrick’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 25 (1895), pp. 130–218; 31 (1901), pp. 162–75, 259–72. 62 Latimer, ‘The Old Session Book’, R.S.A.I. Jn., 31 (1901), pp. 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 173, 263 (Mc Gouckien), 166, 167, 172, 271, 272 (O’Donnallie). 63 Ibid., pp. 175, 261, 265, 266, 267, 268, 271, 272. 64 Ibid., pp. 271–2. 65 Ibid., p. 271.

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since it was the session which in the 1640s provided a way of organizing the local community. The local native Irish were drawn in not so much by conversion as by local administrative structures. This goes some way to explaining why Ulster Presbyterianism regarded itself as effectively the established Church in the northern part of Ireland. As the Church described itself, it was ‘the Church of Ireland’, and like its episcopal competitor, it created a network of geographical parishes to support its claim. This situation often saw Presbyterian clergy acting as leaders, not just of their own voluntary confessional group, but as agents of a much wider community. One example of such activity is the behaviour of Humphrey Thompson, minister of Ballybay congregation in Monaghan from 1698 until 1744. Thompson was not only renowned for preaching in Irish and English on alternate Sundays but he also acted as the local power-broker within what he perceived as his parish. According to a later memoir which seems to draw on an earlier account, possibly written by Thompson himself: coming into the congregation of Ballybay and finding his parishioners so jealously and bigotedly attached to hold their neighbours of other persuasions pretty much on a par with them on this head [bigotry], he immediately set about reforming this great abuse by closely attaching himself to a worthy clergyman of the Church of England … who afforded him every assistance in the prosecution of his scheme … they proceeded so far as to effect the most peaceful harmony and good will among their parishioners which produced intermarriages and such connections that on the absence of either clergyman from their congregations on a Sunday the other was generally filled with his parishioners. By their joint management of the popish priest … they put a stop to the violent antipathies to the people of that persuasion and the murders, bloodshed and thefts that were too common and frequently committed by the papists by way of retaliation.66

The evidence in this case suggests that order was created in the parish by the Presbyterian minister with the Church of Ireland clergyman acting as an assistant. The second set of local institutions which may have provided the location for the establishment of working relations between Catholics and protestants were those of the law, which paradoxically was one of the main mechanisms for enforcing the Reformation. It is clear that the courts acted in a similar way to the parish when they functioned as a social, as opposed to a sacramental or liturgical, community. The resort to the processes of the common law, including the manorial courts, by 66

Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng hist d 155, fols 27v–8.

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native Irish Catholics in the early seventeenth century is fairly clear. They appear both as prosecutors and defendants in the Ulster gaol delivery rolls in the second decade of the seventeenth century and they also held offices in local courts. At a higher social level, Catholics continued to act as justices of the peace at local level, despite central government dislike of this practice.67 Moreover, local legal practice required a certain level of community cohesion. The custom of tracts, for example, implied that a group of people would follow the trail of stolen animals.68 Legal structures provided meeting places where local accommodations could be agreed. Gentry of a county met and exchanged ideas and it seems clear that both Catholic and protestant gentry were present. Two Catholic gentry at different points in the early seventeenth century complained that they had been snubbed at the assizes by individual settlers, implying that a more cordial greeting was normal.69 In one case the accommodation was even greater, when the sheriff of Londonderry heard actions in his court which had been brought by a priest against some of his parishioners who withheld payments due to him for saying mass.70 Even more important than this was the fact that the law at a local level could provide a set of symbols and a language of social order which could be used in a non-theological way to accommodate differences. This was the language of kingship with its ideas of the king’s peace, its sealed documents and its forms and procedures. So central had this become to Catholic thought throughout Ireland in the 1640s that the forged commission of Sir Phelim O’Neill could be an important propaganda coup and throughout Ireland the Catholic insurgents themselves replicated the structures of the common law. Such language and symbols made peace possible, within the context of difference, and acted as a way of enforcing that peace.71 It seems clear that the process of enforcing the Reformation was a complex one. Whatever the pronouncements of bishops or administrators, the desire for social peace balanced the demands for confessional conflict. In some cases this might induce Catholics to reject recusancy as a political option, and practise their faith without creating conflict. As William Montgomery wrote of Henry Savage of Ardkeen: 67 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Negotiating Order in Early Seventeenth-Century Ireland’, in M.J. Braddick and John Walter (eds), Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 199–203. 68 W.N. Osborough, ‘The Irish Custom of Tracts’, in W.N. Osborough, Studies in Irish Legal History (Dublin, 1999), pp. 64–80. 69 CSPI, 1615–25, p. 31; Trinity College, Dublin, MS 840, fol. 1. 70 T.W. Moody, The Londonderry Plantation (Belfast, 1939), pp. 286–7. Brian Mac Cuarta, ‘Catholicism in the Province of Armagh, 1603–1641’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Dublin, 2004, pp. 137–8. 71 Gillespie, ‘Negotiating Order’, passim.

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this gentleman was loyal and moderate in his Romish religion and read the Holy Scriptures and, on his death bed (whereon he lay long) assured me that he trusted for his salvation only to the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ. He kept no images in his house, and if he had any picture (or such like) he said he would meditate on it, but not worship it. He used to say that invocation of saints was needless, though it was supposed they did hear us or know our wants, because he was sure his Saviour was God all sufficient and our intercessor as a man and priest.72

As Sir Robert Talbot, the prominent Old English Catholic expressed it similarly, ‘it is indifferent to him to have Mass with solemnity at Christ’s [Church cathedral] or St Patrick’s church as privately at his bedside’.73 In other cases early in the reform process whole communities, under landlord influence, might adopt one particular confessional position to minimize such conflict. In 1606, for instance, it was noted that the ‘lord bishop of Cork brings all his tenants with him to church at Ross where he resides’.74 Local means existed of making accommodations through administrative and legal institutions which provided a social space in which confessional problems could be minimized. There were, however, significant variations in attitudes towards the parish church and other institutions of reform. Two parishes in south county Dublin will provide one example. The parish of Crumlin and that of Esker were both situated in royal manors and the tithes of both were part of the possessions of St Patrick’s cathedral, the former of the dean and chapter and the minor canons and the latter of the dean. Both were largely recusant in their population and one of the main landowners in Esker was said to be ‘a principal abettor and maintainer of priests and friars’.75 Not surprisingly the church at Esker was ruinous in 1630, but that in Crumlin had been newly rebuilt, having been almost totally destroyed in the 1590s.76 Why one recusant community should have rebuilt its Church of Ireland parish church and the other failed to do so is a perplexing question. One solution may lie in the social structure of these communities. Esker was a fragmented community with no village centre and a highly dispersed pattern of land ownership in which there was a well-defined social hierarchy. Crumlin, on the other hand, was a much more integrated society, which had a centrally placed village of which the parish church was an important element. It had a stronger tradition of co-operation, 72

George Hill (ed.), The Montgomery Manuscripts (Belfast, 1869), p. 328. J.T. Gilbert (ed.), A Contemporary History of Affairs of Ireland (3 vols, Dublin, 1879), vol. 1, p. 66. 74 CSPI, 1603–6, p. 544, Ford, Protestant Reformation, pp. 47–8. 75 Ronan, ‘Archbishop Bulkeley’s Visitation’, pp. 71, 74. 76 Myles Ronan, ‘Royal Visitation of Dublin, 1615’, Archivium Hibernicum, 7 (1941), p. 29. 73

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with a more egalitarian distribution of landowning and common fields regulated through the manorial courts and a range of manorial officials charged with enforcing order.77 For such a society, the parish church was an important symbol of social order and cohesion, and its parish officials were also regulators of the community. It may well be that the inhabitants of Crumlin had managed to separate the social symbol of the parish church from the religious activities conducted there. This argument for the creation and enforcement of social peace does not negate the importance of confessional allegiances. Rather it suggests that those allegiances were important in a particular context and accommodations could be made around them. As one Armagh deponent, William Skelton, put it after the 1641 rising, before the outbreak of violence Catholics and protestants ‘differed not in anything … save only that the Irish went to Mass and the English to the Protestant church’.78 That position is also suggested by some of the accommodations which the rising itself revealed. In county Meath, one wealthy ‘British Protestant’, George Booth, gave his goods to a Catholic friend, Thomas Geoghan for safekeeping.79 Others used pre-existing social contacts as pretexts to gain admission to certain houses. In Meath, John Ware was murdered in a drunken brawl with those with whom he was dining, and in Tyrone, one justice of the peace opened his house to the O’Donnellys who told him they were coming for a warrant to search for stolen sheep.80 The fact that a rising did take place in Ireland in 1641 is evidence of how those accommodations could fracture when placed under the pressure of economic dislocation, political uncertainty and social tensions. When that breakdown did occur the providential arguments, inherent in much early modern religious thought, by which both sides justified their positions ensured that it would be difficult to repair. While law and the desire for social order could generate peace, supernatural power was less negotiable.

77 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Small Worlds: Settlement and Society in the Royal Manors of Sixteenth-Century Dublin’, in H.B. Clarke, Jacinta Prunty and Mark Hennessy (eds), Surveying Ireland’s Past: Multidisciplinary Essays in Honour of Anngret Simms (Dublin, 2004), pp. 197–206. 78 TCD, MS 836, fol. 172. 79 TCD, MS 816, fol. 108. 80 TCD, MS 839, fol. 40.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Enforcing the Reformation in Ireland, 1660–1704 Toby Barnard The problem of enforcing the protestant Reformation in Ireland after 1660 changed in one important way from the situation before 1641. Nearly two decades of civil war and interregnum splintered protestant communities, in Ireland no less than in Britain. Latent dissent from the established Church of Ireland became more open. Episcopacy was proscribed and – in 1647 – the Westminster Parliament’s Directory of Worship was substituted for the familiar Book of Common Prayer. With invasion and re-conquest from 1649, a multiplicity of sects – Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist and antinomian – arrived in Ireland. In this relative freedom, protestants experimented with structures, ceremonies and ideas. These experiments built on and, in some cases, competed against the Presbyterianism which Scots settlers in the north of Ireland had introduced before 1641. The Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster, whatever official connivance they had enjoyed under the early Stuarts, flourished during the 1640s and 1650s. Their institutional base, with presbyteries, synods and kirk sessions, was strengthened; numbers grew, and continued to do so.1 This growth alone would have posed the protestant state within Ireland with a problem different in scale, if not in nature, from anything that it had faced earlier. Yet, the government of Charles II vowed to eliminate religious nonconformity. It aimed also to restore a measure of ecclesiastical congruity between the three kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland and England. The authorities perceived the problem of protestant dissent as one which linked all three territories. In turn, the nonconformists, in resisting the pressures towards uniformity 1 T.C. Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland: English Government and Reform in Ireland, 1649–1660 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 122–6; Raymond Gillespie, ‘Dissenters and Nonconformists, 1661–1700’, in Kevin Herlihy (ed.), The Irish Dissenting Tradition, 1650–1750 (Dublin, 1995), pp. 11–28; Raymond Gillespie, ‘The Presbyterian Revolution in Ulster, 1660–1690’, in W.J. Shiels and Diane Wood (eds), The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Studies in Church History 25 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 159–70; Richard L. Greaves, God’s Other Children: Nonconformists and the Emergence of Denominational Churches in Ireland, 1660–1700 (Stanford, CA, 1997); Phil Kilroy, Protestant Dissent and Controversy in Ireland, 1660–1714 (Cork, 1994); St J.D. Seymour, The Puritans in Ireland, 1647–1661 (Oxford, 1921, repr. 1969), pp. 95–102.

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coordinated their activities, so worsening the very problem which the government had intended to solve.2 In Ireland by 1660, the Scottish Presbyterians had been joined by other, smaller, dissenting groups. The religious Independents, English Presbyterians, Baptists and Quakers tended to be strongest in Dublin and the larger towns, although patrons in the countryside sometimes accounted for the existence of isolated congregations, as at Rahugh in county Westmeath, near Borrisokane in Tipperary and at Horseleap in county Offaly.3 Usually loosely federated and occasionally loose in doctrine, they were sustained by their connections with the like-minded in England, Wales, the United Provinces and (in time) the American colonies. Except in Ulster, immigration into Ireland dwindled in the late seventeenth century. Again, this accentuated contrasts between the dynamism and expanding numbers of the Scots Presbyterians in the north, still recruited from outside, and the static and frequently falling numbers in the other congregations. However, any contraction owing to demographic pressures was not immediately noticed by the authorities. Instead, they were perturbed by the resilience of the congregations notwithstanding the legal penalties in the way of the free practice of their worship. Not all who governed Ireland after 1660 agreed that the recent religious pluralism should be curtailed. Some doubters had liked the alternatives to episcopacy and the ceremonies of the Episcopalian Church current during the 1650s. Others saw political advantages in comprehending within a state Church those orthodox in their beliefs but scrupulous about particular rites and institutions. Efforts to find a satisfactory formula depended on events in England. When the search failed there, it was inevitable that it would be dropped in Ireland. Nevertheless, the fragility of the protestant interest in Ireland, where its adherents constituted at best 25 per cent of the population, seconded doctrinal arguments in recommending protestant unity. A view was

2 Abp M. Boyle to Abp G. Sheldon, 9 Jan. 1664[5], Bodleian, Add. MS C. 306, f. 168; T.C. Barnard, ‘Scotland and Ireland in the Later Stewart Monarchy’, in S.G. Ellis and Sarah Barber (eds), Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State, 1485–1725 (London, 1995), pp. 250–75. 3 Autobiography of A. Blair, Trinity College, Dublin (hereafter TCD), MS 6447; T.C. Barnard, A New Anatomy of Ireland: The Irish Protestants, 1649–1770 (New Haven and London, 2003), pp. 17–20; Richard L. Greaves, Dublin’s Merchant-Quaker, Anthony Sharp and the Community of Friends, 1643–1707 (Stanford, CA, 1998); Kevin Herlihy, ‘The Early Eighteenth-Century Baptists: Two Letters’, Irish Economic and Social History, 19 (1992), pp. 71–2; Kevin Herlihy, ‘The Irish Baptists, 1650–1780’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Dublin, 1992; Kevin Herlihy, ‘“The Faithful Remnant”: Irish Baptists, 1650–1750’, in Herlihy (ed.), The Irish Dissenting Tradition, pp. 77–8; Kilroy, Protestant Dissent and Controversy, pp. 25–6, 42, 90.

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widespread that only when united could the puny protestant presence hope to contain the hydra of Catholicism. An intransigent attitude on the part of the later Stuarts was not the sole cause of protestant dissent in the second half of the seventeenth century. The tenacious legacy of the Interregnum added a fresh problem to the existing one of the estrangement of the Catholic majority of Ireland’s inhabitants from the reformed religion of the state. Governments in Dublin had now to address religious dissent in two distinct quarters. On occasion they treated the problems as interconnected, indeed simply separate manifestations of the same problem. More commonly, officials alternated between regarding the Catholics or the dissenters as the worse menace to stability. Between 1660 and 1704, three approaches can be identified in official policy. First, many sought to treat protestant nonconformity in Ireland in the same way as it was handled in England and Wales. This, a threekingdoms approach, was favoured by those who aimed at greater congruity between the Stuarts’ territories. It appealed to the politicians and ecclesiastics remote in England or sent from England to deal with the recalcitrant Irish, and unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of Ireland. Especially during the 1660s, the bench of Church of Ireland bishops groaned under the weight of such men.4 The second response was to show greater sensitivity to the Irish conditions and needs. It was informed by an understanding of the precariousness of Protestantism and protestants there, professed by only a small minority. In general, this insistence on the importance of protestant unity tended towards greater forbearance for protestant dissenters. A third attitude was to identify protestant nonconformists as akin to the Catholics. The kinship most obviously arose from the threat that each posed to the unity and continued existence of the present Church and state. Alarmists who thought thus adduced recent history in their support. They pointed to the willingness of Catholics and Calvinists, both in theory and action, to overthrow tyrannical and ungodly princes. These tenets (it was believed) underpinned an alliance which had inspired uprisings in the 1640s and the execution of an anointed monarch in 1649. Differences in emphasis and tactics complicated the problem of tackling dissent after 1660. With schemes of comprehension discarded, in Ireland, as in England, Wales and (to a lesser degree) Scotland, what 4 J.I. McGuire, ‘Policy and Patronage: The Appointment of Bishops, 1660–1’, in Alan Ford, J.I. McGuire and Kenneth Milne (eds), As by Law Established: The Church of Ireland since the Reformation (Dublin, 1995), pp. 112–19.

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was enacted and imposed between 1660 and 1666 outlawed those not prepared to accommodate themselves to the restored bishops and Book of Common Prayer.5 Dissent was now defined by law, so giving nonconformists a concrete grievance. The severity with which the statutes were applied fluctuated. The variations told of disagreements over and changes in policy at Charles II’s and James II’s courts. But the fluctuations also reflected the changing priorities of the administration in Dublin, which could switch from harassing to caressing the respectable dissenters (both protestant and Catholic). The oscillations were also a sign of the feebleness of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in ensuring obedience to the laws: this was part of a larger problem of the weakness of the English state in Ireland in making its writ run far beyond the environs of Dublin. Those outside the law of 1665 worked for its repeal rather than simply for temporary relaxations of its rigour.6 At different moments, and usually for different reasons, both Catholics and protestant dissenters had good cause to hope for repeal. Charles II was known to sympathize with what many Irish Catholics had suffered on his father’s and his own behalf. He tried to translate this sympathy into generosity for more than a few fortunately placed favourites, such as Richard Talbot and Theobald Taaffe, by dispensing others from the penal laws and, indeed, suspending their operation. Royal interventions in favour of Irish Catholics were opposed, both for the manner in which they were contrived and for the predicted consequences. Moreover, they were contrasted with the harshness towards stubborn protestant dissenters. Both Catholics and protestant nonconformists knew that any connivance with their practices remained vulnerable to sudden cancellation when monarchs or ministers, or their priorities, changed. Therefore, each group concluded that it would be secure in its privileges only if it received legal protection. Rulers in Ireland might offer their support, but they lacked the power permanently to reverse the disabilities. Also, although parliaments were scheduled to convene in Dublin in 1679 or 1680, and again early in James II’s reign, none assembled between 1665 5 On the evolution of the policy: T.C. Barnard, ‘Settling and Unsettling Ireland: The Cromwellian and Williamite Revolutions’, in J.H. Ohlmeyer (ed.), Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1640–1660 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 283–6; Aidan Clarke, Prelude to Restoration in Ireland: The End of the Commonwealth, 1659–1661 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 243–92; J.I. McGuire, ‘The Dublin Convention, the Protestant Community and the Emergence of an Ecclesiastical Settlement in 1660’, in Art Cosgrove and J.I. McGuire (eds), Parliament and Community: Historical Studies, 14 (Belfast, 1983), pp. 121–46; Seymour, Puritans in Ireland, pp. 178–205. 6 ‘An act for the uniformity of publique prayers and administration of the sacraments’, 17 & 18 Charles II, c. 6, in The statutes at large passed in the parliaments held in Ireland (13 vols, Dublin, 1786), vol. 3, pp. 139–50.

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and 1689. In consequence, those who staked all on a legislative solution to the discrimination schemed for that objective in London. Throughout the 1670s, the Catholics, led by Talbot, had the warmer welcome at court.7 Soon the political climate changed. Both Catholics and protestant dissenters looked confidently towards James II, keen to construct fresh alliances. Toleration or comprehension seemed possibilities. These expectations continued into the new era of William III, for he too was anxious to enlarge his support. To the chagrin of hopeful protestants, the legal bans were not removed. Indeed, disabilities were increased when, in 1704, a Test Act was introduced into Ireland. Earlier, in the 1690s, proposals for comprehension or toleration were defeated. In the Irish House of Lords during 1692, the bishops prevented the transposition from England to Ireland of the recent Toleration Act.8 Not until 1719 was a limited toleration enacted, even then in the face of ferocious opposition from some Irish bishops. Yet, if the statutory inconveniences survived, they were never uniformly applied. The fact that they were seldom activated to the full, while a cause for self-congratulation on the part of wellmeaning churchmen, did not reconcile dissenters to a political system in which they were not full participants. Much of the time, peaceable protestant dissenters were left undisturbed by the enforcers of law. More than that, a measure of official recognition was given. From 1672, a royal subsidy, the regium donum, supplemented the salaries of tractable Scottish Presbyterian ministers in Ulster. The grant attested to the triumph, if only briefly, of the belief that Protestantism in Ireland needed to be strengthened by concessions to the outcasts. However, the regium donum, in common with the non-enforcement of the laws, rested on unstable foundations. During the 1680s, as a Tory reaction set in, and again after 1711, when the phenomenon recurred, the payments were stopped, dissenting pastors were arrested and their congregations intimidated.9 Moreover, even when the authorities distant in London and Dublin chose not to activate the penalties, bishops and magistrates could trouble dissenters in their localities. The Quakers, whose obstinate refusal to pay tithes or swear oaths, transgressed more laws than those of 1665 and 1704, and so were regularly in court.10 7 M.A. Creighton, ‘The Catholic Interest in Irish Politics in the Reign of Charles II’, unpublished PhD thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast, 2000. 8 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 18 Oct. 1692, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/74; Lord Sydney to Nottingham, 18 Oct. 1692, PRO, SP 63/354, 164; HMC, Buccleuch MSS, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 201, 210. 9 J.C. Bekett, Protestant Dissent in Ireland, 1687–1780 (London, 1948), pp. 106–15. 10 J. Gill, journal, 1674–1741, s.d. 1706, Friends’ Historical Library, Dublin; W. Edmundson, A Journal of the life, travels, sufferings … of … William Edmundson (Dublin,

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Sometimes the knots of protestant and Catholic believers outside the curtilege of the established Church seemed to provoke persecution. Their sufferings, elaborated in written records preserved by the groups, could give them cohesiveness.11 Others, especially in the higher ranks of society, succumbed to the financial and political pressures to conform to what the law demanded. By the eighteenth century, the numbers of Catholics among the Irish peerage had shrunk to fewer than a dozen. In the worlds of northern dissent, few substantial landowners still adhered exclusively to Presbyterianism by the 1720s.12 In some cases, these conversions were more nominal than real. Converts from Catholicism were suspected of retaining a secret loyalty to their old faith, and of taking wives and bringing up children who still professed it. Reasonably enough it was thought that ‘their conversations, friendships, interests &c. still remain among the papists, as if they had never left them’.13 Among dissenters, the practice of occasional conformity, taking the sacrament according to Church of Ireland rites once a year, met the legal requirement under the Test Act without necessarily compromising a primal affiliation with a nonconforming congregation. Undoubtedly compromises of this type occurred, and were winked at by the authorities. The latter could take heart from the abundant evidence that nominal conformity did frequently transmute into something stronger. Within a generation any residue of affection for a proscribed religious organization vanished from families which once had been staunchly Catholic or Presbyterian.14 Nevertheless, while such transformations undoubtedly occurred, outside the highest ranks of society they were rare. The uncompromising – maybe 90 per cent of Ireland’s inhabitants – remained liable to sudden harassment, even punishment, and were permanently relegated to a demeaning second-class status. Because it was obvious that the grievance would be removed only through political action, the aggrieved were necessarily drawn into politics. Yet their scope for full involvement in parliamentary politics was circumscribed. The 1820); R. Harrison, ‘The Quakers of Bandon and West Cork (1655–1807)’, Bandon Historical Journal, 10 (1994), pp. 3–5. 11 T.C. Barnard, ‘Identities, Ethnicity and Tradition among Irish Dissenters, c. 1650–1750’, in Herlihy (ed.), The Irish Dissenting Tradition, p. 40. 12 T.C. Barnard, A New Anatomy of Ireland, pp. 28–30; T.C. Barnard, ‘The Government and Irish Dissent, 1704–1780’, in Kevin Herlihy (ed.), The Politics of Irish Dissent, 1650–1800 (Dublin, 1997), pp. 11–12. 13 Bp J. Evans to Abp W. Wake, 16 Oct. [1717], Christ Church, Oxford, Wake letters, 12/209; T.P. Power, ‘Converts’, in T.P. Power and Kevin Whelan (eds), Endurance and Emergence: Catholics in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (Dublin, 1990), pp. 101–28. 14 For one example, T.C. Barnard, ‘The Worlds of a Galway Squire: Robert French of Monivae, 1716–1779’, in G. Moran and Raymond Gillespie (eds), Galway: History and Society (Dublin,1996), pp. 271–96.

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campaigns were necessarily fitful and subterranean. Protestant dissenters were not formally debarred from membership of the Irish House of Commons. In 1715, it has been calculated that seven or eight dissenters were elected to Parliament; in 1727, perhaps five.15 In addition, they had opportunities to join in running local institutions and in the associational life of the larger towns. At the same time, the conditional and inferior terms on which they were allowed to participate obliged activists to channel energies into agencies of their own. The kirk session, synods, and assembly of the Ulster Presbyterians, provided outlets for talents which might otherwise have been directed wholeheartedly into the maintenance of the protestant order in Ireland.16 Legal discrimination obliged protestant dissenters to start to improvise a society as well as a church government of their own. These constructs – potentially states within the state – then justified the conformists in having penalized and in maintaining the penalties against the nonconformists. The sense of difference, which often could be traced back to the different geographical origins of protestant settlers – Presbyterians from Scotland, conformists from England and Wales – was maintained and accentuated by activities which expressed not just creedal but cultural singularity.17 Catholics were more comprehensively excluded from conventional politics. Alternative constructs through which civic-minded Catholics expressed themselves and so rid themselves of considerable frustrations are hard to discern before the second half of the eighteenth century. Alternatives might console them for, but could never altogether reconcile them to, their exclusion. They dreamt still of removing the laws which bestowed full citizenship only on the adherents of the small Church of Ireland.

The episcopate of the Church of Ireland The tenacity of views which approved first the Act of Uniformity, then the Test and thereafter the retention of both measures merits more 15 D.W. Hayton, ‘Presbyterians and the Confessional State: The Sacramental Test as an Issue in Irish Politics, 1704–1780’, The Bulletin of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 26 (1997), p. 21. 16 D.W. Hayton, ‘Exclusion, Conformity and Parliamentary Representation: The Impact of the Sacramental Test on Irish Dissenting Politics’, in Herlihy (ed.), The Politics of Irish Dissent, pp. 52–73. 17 For a suggestive analysis of the forms and meanings of Scottish Presbyterianism, see Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven and London, 2002). On some applications to Ulster: P. Griffin, The People with No Name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689–1764 (Princeton, 2001), pp. 9–64.

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discussion. Returning to 1660, those willing to treat protestant dissenters more leniently were forced onto the defensive. They, no less than the sectaries whom they now supported, could be accused of provoking the regicide and of conniving at Cromwell’s usurpation. They competed, in Ireland no less than in England and Scotland, against ‘sufferers’ of unblemished Stuart loyalties who, returning from penurious exile, were rewarded with the great offices of state and bishoprics. In Ireland, the wave of Stuart loyalism deposited Ormond in the lord lieutenancy and the irascible and intransigent Eustace in the lord chancellorship. Eustace was soon succeeded by another unsullied royalist, Archbishop Michael Boyle. The bishoprics and dignities of the Church of Ireland were used to recompense a group of decrepit and ageing sufferers, often from England and with their Anglican rigidity toughened by the experiences of the 1650s. Few were likely to take an indulgent line towards nonconformists. Moreover, unrest in 1663 and 1666 seemed only to prove that religious deviancy could not be separated from political disaffection. The hostile view was further confirmed by the aggression and provocation of a minority among the Scottish Presbyterians and Quakers, whose opposition to the law went beyond that requiring religious conformity. The dioceses of Ulster constituted the front line in the war against the twin perils of political and religious dissidence. Uncompromising bishops, by striving for legal conformity, drove the stubborn into open opposition. The bid to eradicate protestant dissent did not succeed, anymore than did the earlier and parallel onslaughts on Catholicism. The failure could be attributed to the familiar institutional and financial weaknesses of the Church of Ireland. Little was done in the 1660s to address these, although improvements were a necessary precondition for successful evangelizing.18 In addition, episcopal offensives were sabotaged by the inconsistencies and alterations in official policy. The drive towards at least a nominal and outward obedience had already slowed by 1669. The despatch of a new Lord Lieutenant, John Robartes, in place of the fervent Church of Ireland man, Ormond, announced changed approaches.19 Another public signal was the regium donum. Also, the atmosphere became more conducive for the expression of doubts among 18 Petition of clergy of Church of Ireland to Ormond, [early 1661], Bodleian, Carte MS 45, fol. 53; Abp M. Boyle to Abp G. Sheldon, 8 & 18 March 1664[5], 7 May 1665, 10 Jan. 1665[6], 17 Feb. 1665[6], ibid., Add. MS C. 306, fols 170, 176, 178, 182, 184; HMC, Hastings MSS, vol. 4, pp. 99–100, 103–8, 118–19, 122, 125–8. 19 Abp M. Boyle to Ormond, 5 Jan. 1668[9], 23 Feb. 1668[9], 29 June 1669, Bodleian, Carte MS 37, fols 3v, 18–18v, 78; Abp T. Margetson to same, 4 June 1669, ibid., fol. 62; J.I. McGuire, ‘Why was Ormond dismissed in 1669?’, Irish Historical Studies, 18 (1973), pp. 295–312.

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the leaders of the state Church within Ireland about the wisdom of victimizing generally peaceable protestants. Immediately after the Restoration, in a mood of near-hysterical euphoria, it was impolitic to voice too loudly traditional feelings that Catholicism not protestant dissent posed the greater threat to the precarious protestant interest in Ireland, if not to the Stuart monarchy throughout all its domains.20 However, by the 1670s, clearer evidence of the assertiveness of the Irish Catholics and of Stuart friendliness towards them edged critics into the open. Protestants in Ireland who felt that Catholic, not dissenting, ambitions made the more appropriate target were encouraged by the like-minded in England and Scotland to air their opinions. The protestant Church of Ireland had been bedevilled by divisions since the sixteenth century. Some arose from differences in geographical origin and training.21 More of the lower clergy were recruited and educated in Ireland, and developed views at variance with sclerotic bishops shipped over from Britain. Among the divergences were the relative weight to be accorded to dissent and Catholicism. Some clerics fulminated against the sin of separation, and vowed to coerce or charm schismatics back into the fold. Anthony Dopping, typical of the promising youngsters bred in Ireland and graduating from Trinity College, wrote repeatedly against the separatists in Dublin where he was ministering. In 1674 he revealed ‘there are many sects in this city and those as opposite to one another in the principles as they are unto us [the Church of Ireland]’. Each congregation had a day in the week for religious lectures.22 In Connacht, by 1677 the bishop was disturbed by rambling preachers of the Presbyterian persuasion. A brace of evangelists, ‘Geneva calves’, were said to ride about Sligo and Roscommon ‘with sword and pistols’.23 The bishop was particularly perturbed by the forbearance and even sympathy shown to these troublesome dissenters by local magistrates. He would have had the preachers indicted for sedition.24 Another source of disagreement was whether or not to use the Irish language for instruction and preaching. It was not always the case that the ‘Irish’ contingent among the church leaders preferred moderation and compromise. The revival of interest in completing the publication of 20

John Miller, Popery and Politics in England, 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1973). Alan Ford, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland, 1590–1641 (Dublin, 1997). 22 A. Dopping, paper of 18 May 1674, NLI, PC 515; see too, A. Dopping to Capt. Foley, 22 Dec. 1673, and his letters of 26 Dec. 1673, 5 & 12 Feb. 1673[4], 2 & 17 March 1673[4], ibid., now NLI, MS 35,874. 23 Bp T. Otway to Lord Essex, 22 Jan. 1676[7]; J. Boyd to R. Campbell, 6 Dec. 1676, BL, Stowe MS 211, fols 45, 47. 24 Bp T. Otway to Lord Essex, 14 Feb. 1676[7], BL, Stowe MS 211, fol. 120. 21

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the Bible in Irish owed much to Narcissus Marsh, an Englishman sent to rule Trinity College, who would eventually (in 1703) occupy the primacy of the Irish Church. Some of Irish background, such as William King, another Dublin graduate and soon an incumbent in the capital, appreciated the rivalry posed by dissenters in the north and Catholics throughout the rest of the kingdom, and urged an unflagging offensive. Nor would it be fair to caricature all the English and Welsh prelates as too aged or indolent to shepherd their flocks. Even so, a dangerous rift was appearing – or maybe reappearing – between leaders with a vision derived from non-Irish experience and a parish clergy who lived and ministered among people few of whom professed the state religion. The kinds of topics which informed the sermons of, say, a Devereux Spratt, returned to a parochial cure after his dalliance with the Cromwellian order, or Richard Synge in his county Cork parish in the 1680s, differed markedly from the preoccupations of Jeremy Taylor or the successive bishops of Derry, George Wild and Robert Mossom.25 Even the Archbishop of Canterbury demurred at Taylor’s provocations, which were felt to have left his diocese of Down and Connor more ‘disorderly and disaffected’ than before.26 At the same time, incumbents officiating in Dublin parishes, the likes of Dopping and King, with an abundance of conformists, gained a different perspective from either the country parsons or the alien bishops. The unusual, indeed unprecedented, conjuncture of buoyant Catholicism among the majority and the separatism adopted by a vociferous gang of protestants posed a severe test for the Church of Ireland. Its leaders between 1660 and 1688 must be reckoned to have failed that test. John Bramhall, locked into policies contentious in the 1630s when he first arrived in Ireland, returned briefly from continental exile with the royalists to preside as primate.27 In 1663 he was succeeded as Archbishop of Armagh by the unmemorable James Margetson. Like 25 Abp J. Bramhall to Ormond, 21 & 28 Nov. 1660, Bodleian, Carte MS. 221, fols 137, 141; Bp J. Taylor to Ormond, 19 Dec. 1660, 28 March 1661, 11 June 1663, Bodleian, Carte MS 45, fols 38, 65, 141; Bp. G. Wild to same, 22 Aug. 1662, 24 & 30 Oct. 1662, 19 Dec. 1662, 7 Aug. 1663, ibid., Carte MS. 45, fols 113, 117, 119, 121, 145; Autobiography of the Rev. Devereux Spratt, who died at Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, 1688 (London, 1886), pp. 16–34; Rev. R. Synge, MSS sermons, private collection, Greenwich; HMC, Hastings MSS, vol. 4, pp. 111, 127–8, 133; C.J. Stranks, Life and Writings of Jeremy Taylor (London, 1952). 26 Abp T. Margetson to Ormond, 15 Aug. 1667; Abp G. Sheldon to Ormond, 9 Sep. 1667, Bodleian, Carte MS. 45, fols 220, 222. 27 On his earlier career with Wentworth: H.F. Kearney, Strafford in Ireland 1633–41: A Study in Absolutism (Manchester, 1959), pp. 104–29; John MacCafferty, ‘John Bramhall and the Church of Ireland in the 1630s’, in Ford, McGuire and Milne (eds), As by Law Established, pp. 100–11.

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Bramhall, a protégé of Wentworth, during the Civil War he was imprisoned in Manchester. Margetson’s most far-sighted contribution to the Irish Church may have been to appreciate the importance of Trinity College in training and energizing the clergy.28 Church affairs returned to safer if more sluggish channels with the translation of Michael Boyle to the primacy in 1679. Boyle, scion of the leading settler dynasty of Munster, knew the priorities of his kind: a Church which could be milked by the laity and which in return supplied undemanding nutriments. In Dublin, as archbishop throughout the 1670s, he seems to have eased the restrictive code in relation to substantial dissenters.29 Boyle also saw the value of having a well-governed university in Dublin: he had studied there before 1641.30 Adept as a pluralist and nepotist, Boyle’s value to the leadership of the Church increased when, disabled by blindness, deafness and age, he ceded effective control to younger men. Until the 1680s, the episcopate was divided, and their divisions enfeebled the Church at a moment when vigour and decisiveness were wanted. Yet, behind this disappointing performance, and indeed designed to improve on it, changes were evident. Trinity College, the seminary which educated the majority of Church of Ireland ministers, effaced the reputation of colluding with the usurpers in the 1650s, and offered to increasing numbers a rigorous and effective brand of protestant orthodoxy. Young graduates were ordained and served in Dublin parishes, where they increased the frequency and intensity of observances. Thereby they set an example which, it was hoped, would arrest and maybe reverse desertions from their parishioners to neighbouring sectarian and Catholic congregations. In time, particularly after 1690, these zealots were consecrated bishops. Their advancement, so far from improving inter-denominational relations, worsened them. Clear in their view of the errors of Catholicism and of the sin of separation, they denounced their adversaries more stridently. The clarity of vision can be traced to the tuition which most received at Trinity College between the late 1660s and early 1690s. They were products of the regime associated of such stern pedagogues as Richard Lingard, Henry Dodwell, Dopping, Marsh and Robert Huntington. Several joined the Dublin Philosophical Society, started in 1684. Interest in the natural world and its better exploitation was accompanied by a serious attention to theology. Alongside the Philosophical Society, a theological discussion group flourished. Several 28 Henry Jones, A sermon at the funeral of James Margetson, D.D., late Arch-Bishop of Armagh … Preached at Christ-Church Dublin; Aug. 30. 1678 (Dublin, 1678). 29 A Memoir of Mistress Ann Fowkes (née Geale) (Dublin, 1892), p. 27. 30 Abp M. Boyle to Abp G. Sheldon, 18 May 1667, Bodleian, Add. MS C. 306, fol. 212.

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who soon rose to prominence within the Church of Ireland in the 1690s extended their knowledge and refined their dialectic skills in this circle.31 Arguments of the sort learnt there were directed in turn on Catholics, notably the defector Peter Manby, and then on Presbyterians, like Joseph Boyse.32 Leading figures from this company, Dopping, Nathanael Foy, Samuel Foley, William King and John Stearne, were placed in Dublin parishes.33 Another, St George Ashe, was chosen for the provostship of the college in 1692, before being rapidly preferred to a bishopric.34 In Dublin, with sizeable congregations but also with the presence of protestant dissent as well as Catholicism, they erected regimens of prayer, catechesis and worship of greater rigour and regularity. In this manner, it was hoped, the faith of the minority already within the state Church would be fortified and protected against attack. Moreover, an example could be set which might then impress as well as confute the separatists. One observer believed that the frequent week-day services of the Church of Ireland constituted ‘the stay of our Church against dissenters’.35 Much that was distinctive about the clerical cadre which dominated the established Church in the 1690s can be attributed to education at the Dublin University of Charles II’s reign. This formation in the reasonably tranquil 1670s was then refined in the hectic 1680s. Duties of obedience and the tension between religious and secular allegiances raised questions which the ingenious and casuists strove to answer.36 31 St G. Ashe to H. Dodwell, 18 Dec. 1684, 31 March 1685, 23 June 1685, Bodleian, MS. Eng. Lett. C. 29, fols 2, 4, 6b. 32 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 15 March 1693[4], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MSS 1/78; [J. Boyse], Some impartial reflections on D[r] Manby’s considerations, &c. and Dr. King’s answer (Dublin, 1687); W. King, An answer to the considerations which obliged Peter Manby, dean of Londonderry… to embrace what he calls the catholique religion (Dublin, 1687); W. King, A vindication of an answer to the considerations (Dublin, 1688); W. King, A vindication of the Christian religion and Reformation against the attempts of a late letter wrote by Peter Manby (Dublin, 1688); P. Manby, The considerations which obliged Peter Manby, dean of Derry, to embrace the catholique religion (Dublin, 1687); P. Manby, A letter to a friend showing the vanity of the opinion that every man’s sense and reason is to guide him in matters of faith (Dublin, 1688). 33 T. Brown to Abp W. Sancroft, 11 Oct. 1681, Bodleian, Tanner MS. 36, fol. 135. 34 St G. Ashe to H. Dodwell, 13 Aug. 1692, 7 Nov. 1692, 23 Feb. 1692[3], Bodleian, MS. Eng. Lett. C. 29, fols 18–20. 35 T. Bladen to W. King, 2 & 5 May 1690, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/ 75 & 76; J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 5 Aug. 1690, 6 May 1696, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS. 1/?8, 82; Abp N. Marsh to Bp W. Lloyd, 27 April 1695, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 942/96; An address to absenters from the publick worship of God, third edn (Dublin, 1719). 36 Bp W. King to S. Foley, 4 Dec. 1691, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/190; same to J. Madden, 19 Jan. 1700[1], Bodleian, MS Eng. Lett. C. 29, f. 122; A. Isdell Carpenter, ‘William King

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Gymnastics were required, from which, arguably, William King emerged as victor ludorum. A sympathizer thought that the Catholics in Dublin during the Jacobite ascendancy in 1689–90 were on the look-out for a pretext to hang King. Alert to this, he handled knotty questions of allegiance with great wariness.37 In the event, imprisonment in Dublin by the Jacobites and his composition of the text The state of Protestants of Ireland under the late King James’s government, which most fluently explained why the majority of protestants in Ireland had transferred their allegiance from James to William and Mary, turned him into a local hero.38 His subsequent enthusiasm to tilt against what he saw as instances of English insensitivity in handling Ireland added further lustre to the laurels encircling his brow.

Catholic resurgence King’s rough treatment in 1689 reminded of the physical and psychological scars inflicted on members of the Church of Ireland during James II’s reign.39 King himself probably exaggerated the danger and destruction in an effort to make the Jacobite interlude look as alarming as the 1640s had been. The essential difference was that any ‘massacre’ of protestants, although sometimes predicted, did not happen in James’s reign.40 Yet whatever King exaggerated, there was no denying that mass and other Catholic rituals were openly celebrated between 1685 and 1690. Moreover, a belligerent stance towards protestants was sometimes adopted. It intimidated more often than it wounded. In Cloyne, a protestant worshipper wrote that ‘a multitude of men, women and children, cursing, railing and hooting pursued us without any provocation from us’. Stones were thrown and a protestant soldier hit on and the Threats to the Church of Ireland during the Reign of James II’, Irish Historical Studies, 18 (1972), pp. 22–8; Raymond Gillespie, ‘The Irish Protestants and James II, 1688–90’, ibid., 27 (1992): 124–33; P. O’Regan, Archbishop William King of Dublin (1650–1729), and the Constitution in Church and State (Dublin, 2000); R. Eccleshall, ‘The Political Ideas of Anglican Ireland in the 1690s’, in D.G. Boyce, R. Eccleshall and V. Geoghegan (eds), Political Discourse in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 62–80. 37 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 5 Aug. 1690, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/8. 38 London, 1691. 39 H.J. Lawlor (ed.), The Diary of William King, D.D. (Dublin, 1903). 40 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 17 April 1688, Dopping correspondence, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/60; Abp F. Marsh to W. King, 8 Dec. 1688, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/61; Some account of the life of Joseph Pike of Cork, … who died in the year 1729 (London, 1837), pp. 50–52.

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the head. At Waterford, French sailors, allegedly egged on by a Capuchin friar and the local parish priest, tried to break into the cathedral. Failing to do so, they threw stones at the windows. Later in the year, the mayor and sheriffs headed a crowd which seized the building from the protestant congregation. The dean was manhandled but suffered no indignity worse than a torn gown. The civic officers intervened to prevent violence. But the dean hardly calmed matters when he harangued the Catholic governor, Lord Tyrone, and mocked holy images that had been placed in the local consistory court. At Athlone, Jacobite soldiers were said to have disturbed a protestant service, shouting to the worshippers, ‘come out you rebels and we will tear you to pieces’. Windows were broken, but no one was hurt.41 Also in the Midlands, at Lanesborough, the church had been taken from the protestants on St Patrick’s Day. In an inversion of the charges previously levelled at protestants, a Jacobite commander was said to have quartered his garrison in the building. Soldiers were drunk, and, in an apparently more ritualized gesture, a sheep had been slaughtered in the consecrated space.42 In 1689, church buildings became special targets of Catholic ambition. These seizures recalled actions in the 1640s, when Catholics had repossessed many churches.43 While James II was in Ireland, Catholic worship resumed in many of these sacred places. In December 1689, John Brereton wrote from Naas in county Kildare that he was ejected from the parish church, and instead made a chapel in the ground floor of his own dwelling. There 120 parishioners gathered. Brereton had supposed that ‘the Romanists’ would content themselves with liberty of conscience, ‘without invading our churches and glebes’. But his predictions were confounded. However, he could refute the wilder rumours of the whipping and castration of protestants, which were evidently in circulation.44 From Waterford tidings were sent that the cathedral had been commandeered by the Catholics. Also lost was the 41 D. Meade to A. Dopping, after 11 May 1689, T. Wallis to same, 8 April 1689, 11 & 30 Nov. 1698, 18 Dec. 1689, 1, 15 & 26 Feb. 1689[90]; E. Waller to same, 20 Sep. 1689, 11 Nov. 1689, Dopping correspondence, 1/98, 88, 89, 92, 108, 114, 116, 121, 127; 2/142, Armagh Public Library. 42 Sir A. Forbes to Bp A. Dopping, 27 March 1690, Dopping correspondence, 2/146, Armagh Public Library. For the charges against the Cromwellians: Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, pp. 168–71; G. Williams, Four treatises (London, 1667), pp. 3–4; [G. Williams], The persecution and oppression … of John Bale … and of Gruffuth Williams (London, 1664), p. 40. 43 Tadgh Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Reformation in Ireland: The Mission of Rinuccini, 1645–1649 (Oxford, 2002), pp. 77–9. 44 J. Brereton to A. Dopping, 13 Dec. 1689, Dopping correspondence, 1/124, Armagh Public Library.

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bell which formerly had summoned protestants to worship. Now the protestants had to walk the town until the minister appeared. By meeting in ‘the open street’, the faithful laid themselves open to allegations of ‘caballing and plotting’. Indeed, the mayor had listed their names, with a view to punishing them.45 In contrast to 1641, the buildings rather than the bodies of the protestants were attacked. One Church of Ireland incumbent repossessed of his church in 1690 declared that the fabric had been ‘miserably defaced’. The wooden seating had been converted into panelling for the priest’s room; the cushions from the pulpit were said to have been ‘dragooned’, with the velvet covering turned into a pair of breeches. However, it was allowed that the chalice had been preserved.46 Witnessing these actions as Dopping and King did in Dublin, and Edward Wetenhall in Cork, brought home the realities of Catholic power. Streets and fields echoed to a pageantry hitherto known only from continental Catholicism. Christ Church cathedral in Dublin was devoted to Catholic worship: a special baldachino was built, and the king attended mass there.47 The numerous accounts of church seizures and other indignities sent from different districts to the bishop of Meath, Anthony Dopping, suggested that he might assume the role taken by Henry Jones after 1641 in collecting and eventually publishing accounts of protestant tribulations.48 In the event, no such publication resulted, perhaps because the Jacobite ascendancy was brief and the churches soon restored to the protestant conformists. Another afflicted Church of Ireland bishop, Wetenhall in Cork, proposed publishing a narrative of the protestants’ privations. This did appear, but only after the danger had evaporated. Nor did it shield the bishop against accusations of collusion with King James’s agents.49 45

T. Wallis to A. Dopping, 1 Feb. 1689[90], ibid., 2/142, Armagh Public Library. Rev. T. Harrison to J. Strype, 23 Aug. 1690, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, 1/95. 47 T. Bladen to W. King, 5 May 1690, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/76. 48 R. Bredin to Bp A. Dopping, 4 Dec. 1689; Ven. D. Meade to same, [after 11 May 1689]; W. Morgan to same, 26 & 30 Nov. 1689; Bp T. Otway to same, 7 & 20 Dec. 1689; J. Pinsent to same, 11 Nov. 1689; T. Wallis to same, 30 Nov 1689, 14, 18 & 31 Dec. 1689; Bp E. Wetenhall to same, 28 Oct. 1689, 31 Dec. 1689, Dopping correspondence, 1/98, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 125, 128, 134, 135, Armagh Public Library. In general on Dopping’s career, see M.E. Gilmore, ‘Anthony Dopping and the Church of Ireland, 1685–1695’, unpublished MA thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1988. 49 Bp E. Wetenhall to Bp A. Dopping, 30 May 1690, Dopping correspondence, 2/151, Armagh Public Library; J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 5 Aug. 1690, 10 Nov. 1690, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/8, 65; E. Wetenhall, Pastoral admonitions directed by the bishop of Cork … Whereunto is added a sermon reflecting on the later sufferings and deliverances of the Protestants in the said county and city (Cork, 1691). 46

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The expected reaction of the protestant survivors and eventual victors would be to unite against any resurgent Irish Catholic menace. Oddly, this was not so. The preventative and vengeful measures enacted between 1695 and 1731, often collectively but misleadingly labelled as the penal laws or penal code, owed less to the lobbying of the bishops than to the attitudes of the laity. In several instances, groups of bishops schemed and voted to moderate or abandon harsh laws. At the same time, an introspective tendency within the state Church, to concentrate on its own, was deepened. More attention was paid to correcting the errors of the members of their congregations than to enlarging membership to include neighbouring Catholics and separatists. A hardening of attitude can be detected in Dopping. In 1682, as the newly appointed Bishop of Meath, he sympathized with the efforts sponsored by Provost Marsh and Robert Boyle to preach and teach in the Irish language. Dopping conceded that the Irish protestants ‘reap the labours of the poor natives without making them a compensation in spiritual matters’. However, by the 1690s, Dopping stressed the statutory and ideological objections of which he had been aware earlier. The Irish as ‘a conquered nation’ could not expect generosity. Back in 1682, he had also regretted the lack of laws to banish priests and friars. This deficiency at least was remedied in 1697. The statutes embodied the repressive and even retributive mood of the victors after 1690.50

The Presbyterian challenge Solidarity between the separated branches of the protestant communions might also have been expected after James’s defeat. Dissenters, especially the Presbyterians of Ulster, notwithstanding James’s efforts to woo them, held aloof and often suffered maltreatment. They had been to the fore in resisting the Catholic revanche and expected to be rewarded. Specifically they hoped for generosity similar to that extended to their brethren in the Kirk of Scotland. There the Presbyterians were installed as the state Church. In Ireland, in contrast, the Presbyterians continued under the same disabilities as before. Later, one of their number in Belfast expostulated, ‘what a reproach is it to a nation to establish perpetually a government of the presbyterians in Scotland, and allow all trust to it on the north side of [the] Tweed, and on the south side thereof not to

50 Bp A. Dopping to Lady Ranelagh, 25 March 1682, Dopping correspondence, 1/19, Armagh Public Library; T.C. Barnard, ‘Protestants and the Irish Language, c. 1675–1725’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 44 (1993), pp. 243–72.

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trust one of that persuasion with any civil power’.51 Adherents of the Church of Ireland, headed by the bishops, defeated schemes of toleration, and then, in 1704, added fresh penalties. Presbyterians, when treated thus, were disinclined to join the conformists in a common front against Catholicism.52 Similarly, projects, such as societies to reform manners, which encouraged cooperation across denominational frontiers, foundered on mutual suspicion. Thereafter, few initiatives united members of different protestant churches, and so the inclination of each to concentrate on its own communicants was accentuated. The Church of Ireland in the 1690s acquired more dynamic leaders than it had possessed since the 1630s. Furthermore, and in contrast with the earlier decade, the leaders were generally of Irish birth and nurture. These changes neither completely transformed the fortunes of the established Church nor united its supporters. The well-connected English continued to be intruded into Irish sees: Thomas Lindsay into Killaloe and ultimately (in 1713) into Armagh; Thomas Milles into Waterford; William Nicolson translated from Carlisle to Derry. Friction between the bishops cannot be explained simply by the divergences of the English from the Irish. Differing responses to the ascendancy and abandonment of James diminished the cohesiveness and confidence of clerical leaders of the state Church in the 1690s and beyond. When choices could no longer be avoided, some – Dopping, King and Wetenhall – remained at their posts.53 Enduring insults, privations and dangers, they retained sharp resentments against their Catholic persecutors and (occasionally) gratitude for Catholics who had intervened to save them from worse. The sufferers, far from being lionized, in some quarters were reviled as collaborators. Accusations of covert, if not overt, sympathy for the Jacobites were thereafter impossible to scotch. Even King, at one point an apologist for the powers that be, but soon the public orator for the providentially-provided deliverer, William, had reason to be sensitive to charges of inconsistency. There were complaints that all bishops appointed since William’s accession in 1689 would not deviate a syllable from the approved rubric of the state Church.54 This was not entirely true. The ‘great moderation’ of Thomas Smyth at Carrickfergus, reputed to have reconciled many 51

V. Ferguson to H. Sloane, 10 Aug. 1715, BL, Sloane MS 4044, fol. 84v. T.C. Barnard, ‘Reforming Irish Manners: The Religious Societies in Dublin during the 1690s’, Historical Journal, 35 (1992), pp. 805–38. 53 J.I. McGuire, ‘The Church of Ireland and the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688’, in Art Cosgrove and D. McCartney (eds), Studies in Irish History Presented to R. Dudley Edwards (Dublin, 1979), pp. 137–49. 54 P.H. to William III, 24 May 1696, Portland MSS, Nottingham University Library, PW A 2522. 52

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Presbyterians to the established Church, seconded his claims to a bishopric. However, the see to which he was appointed – Limerick – with few protestant dissenters gave less scope for his talents than had county Antrim.55 Bishops in centres of Presbyterianism had scant success in weaning adherents away, whether through severity or suasions.56 Since the threat of toleration came ultimately from England, and from their protestant hero, William, it had to be defeated there. Indeed, some Church of Ireland clerics excused their lengthy absence in England as necessary to lobby in and around the court not just for their own and their allies’ preferment but for the continuing exclusion of the Presbyterians.57 The exertions did not stop the transmission to Ireland in 1692 of a bill for toleration. Concurrent with the political campaign conducted in London and Dublin were localized bids to contain Presbyterianism, expanding rapidly in Ulster with the arrival of more immigrants from Scotland. In 1717, it was suggested that 70 000 Scots had settled in Ireland since 1690.58 By 1695, the diocese of Derry was said to contain 23 000 dissenters. Neither King, the bishop of Derry, nor his ally, Foley, bishop of Down and Connor, lamely conceded the ground to the more numerous Scottish Presbyterians.59 The bishops expressed doubts about the validity of Presbyterian ordination which in turn raised questions about the legality and efficacy of baptisms and marriages performed by protestant dissenters. In contrast, it was accepted that Catholic orders were valid, and with them christenings and weddings at which their priests officiated. The contrast offended the Presbyterians. Not until 1737 was the legal barrier lifted, with Presbyterian ministers permitted to marry couples of their own cult.60 55

Lord Capel to Abp T. Tenison, 5 Nov. 1695, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 942/109. Galway to Vernon, 24 July 1699, PRO, SP 63/360, 157. 57 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 21 Jan. 1688[9], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/64; Abp J. Vesey to Sir R. Southwell, 4 Sep. 1690, inserted into G. Burnet, History of his Own Time (4 vols, London, 1809), vol. 3, p. 88, in Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC (I am grateful to Dr Ian McBride for a copy of this letter); Abp M. Boyle to Lord Blessington, 15 & 23 Nov. 1690, Bodleian, Rawlinson MS C. 984, fols 85–86b, printed in Analecta Hibernica, 2 (1931), pp. 37–40. 58 Rev. T. Harrison to J. Styrpe, 30 June 1703, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 4/63; Bp J. Evans to Abp W. Wake, 30 April 1717, Christ Church, Oxford, Wake letters, 12/149v. 59 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 14 Feb. 1694[5], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS. 1/80; J. Boyse, Remarks on a late discourse of William, lord bishop of Derry (Dublin, 1694); J. Boyse, A vindication of the remarks on the bishop of Derry’s discourse (Dublin, 1695); William King, An admonition to the dissenting inhabitants of the diocese of Derry (Dublin, 1694); William King, A second admonition to the dissenting inhabitants of the diocese of Derry (Dublin, 1695). 60 E. Synge to Bp A. Dopping, 14 May 1683, Dopping correspondence, 1/35, Armagh Public Library; Bp St G. Ashe to Bp W. King, 24 Jan. 1699[1700], TCD, MSS 56

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Veterans from the 1680s, raised to the episcopate, advanced on several fronts, occasionally in unison, too often alone. King and Foy, prickly in the extreme, prided themselves on their independence. King, willing to compromise over some details, nevertheless condemned the Presbyterian system of government as an invention of men and contrary to the discipline disclosed in holy scripture.61 King also warned that some Presbyterian doctrines subverted monarchy and aimed again at a commonwealth.62 These clerics made enemies, not just of Catholics, Presbyterians and Quakers, but among more easy-going subordinates and influential lay people. The unwillingness of Dopping, King and Foy to defer to the powerful in Parliament and in their dioceses lost them backing at critical moments. Justices of the peace were suspected of reluctance to enforce laws against dissenters and Catholics.63 Common lawyers were identified as particular rivals of the clergy, and active in undermining the latter’s schemes.64 Members of Parliament jibbed at restoring to the Church property and rights systematically alienated to the laity.65 By 1704, Foy, after more than a decade toiling in the diocese of Waterford and Lismore, acknowledged the enmity of inferior clergy and leading laymen. He sighed, ‘I am wearied out, and know not what to do.’66 As a result, the blue-print drawn by reforming bishops was constructed only in bits. Moreover, intransigence over issues dear to the regime in England, notably the enactment of toleration in Ireland, reduced the influence of wayward Irish bishops such as King. In the event, the intransigent delayed a Toleration Act for Ireland only until 1719.67 The vigorous led in their dioceses and in the House of Lords. In the 1995–2008/656; Beckett, Protestant Dissent, pp. 116–23; S.J. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland (Oxford, 1992), pp. 162, 164; Hayton, ‘Presbyterians and the Confessional State’, p. 21. 61 Bp W. King to S. Foley, 21 March 1692[3], same to Bp W. Lloyd, 16 Nov. 1696, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/264, 512; William King, A discourse of the inventions of men in the worship of God (Dublin, 1694). 62 Bp W. King to unknown, 10 May 1695, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/426. 63 Bp T. Otway to Essex, BL, Stowe MS.; J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 25 Jan. 1698[9], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/85; ‘Remedies proposed for the Church of Ireland (1697)’, ed. J. Brady, Archivium Hibernicum, 22 (1959), pp. 163, 168. 64 Abp M. Boyle to Abp G. Sheldon, 18 March 1664[5], Bodleian, Add. MS C. 306, fol. 170; Bp N. Foy to Bp A. Dopping, 11 May 1694, Dopping correspondence, 3/257, Armagh Public Library; same to Bp W. King, 10 Oct. 1693, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/ 301. 65 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 25 Jan. 1698[9], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/85. 66 Bp N. Foy to Abp W. King, 20 May 1704, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/1083. 67 F. Annesley to Abp W. King, 28 Oct. 1707; R. Howard to same, 12 April [1716], TCD, MSS 1995–2008/1276, 1769.

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former, they introduced constructive schemes to educate and discipline their clergy and to enlighten the laity.68 In the Lords, they promoted a series of bills designed to strengthen the established Church financially and institutionally.69 This was the positive aspect to a programme which sometimes seemed anxious only to repress rivals. In general, the reforming bishops supported laws intended to restrict the religious practices of Catholics and dissenters. In Parliament, they acted in concert to block a proposed Toleration. However, this was one element in a twopronged assault. Persuasion was also tried. In dioceses such as Down and Connor and Derry, the diocesan convened conferences in which the Presbyterians and their doctrines were to be confuted. King, on first entering his charge of Derry, confided that but for the Presbyterians the population would be heathen. At this stage, he compromised to the extent of allowing the children of obstinate parents to be instructed in the Westminster Catechism favoured by the Presbyterians rather than in that of the established Church.70 King and most of his brethren quickly realized that, were they to agonize too long over the question of submission to their new monarchs of Ireland, they and their Church would be even more vulnerable to critics and rivals. One scrupulous commentator in Dublin observed that arguments over non-resistance would prove ‘everlasting’.71 Catholics had long contrasted their own steadfastness in the Stuart cause with the shifts 68 Bp W. King to ?S. Foley, 24 April 1691, 11 Aug. 1691, 9 May 1693, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/122, 163, 274; Bp N. Foy to Bp W. King, 10 & 30 July 1691, 20 Aug. 1691, 17 Sep. 1691, 14 Oct. 1691, 7 Feb. 1692[3], 11 & 25 March 1692[3], 28 April 1693, 19 May 1693, 20 Sep. 1694, 10 Nov. 1697, ibid./150, 156, 166, 170, 179, 255, 260, 268, 272, 278, 381, 553; G. Tollet to same, 13 Oct. 1692, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/238; Bp R. Tennison to same, ibid., MSS 1995–2008/382, 386; Abp St G. Ashe to Bp A. Dopping, 26 Oct. 1696; Bp N. Foy to same, 23 Nov. 1696; Bp W. Palliser to same, 20 Nov. 1693, 12 Oct. 1696, 14 Nov. 1696; Bp N. Foy, 24 April 1694, 11 May 1694, Dopping correspondence, 2/232; 3/251, 257, 311, 313, 321, 322, Armagh Public Library; D. Grogan, ‘Bishop Foy and the Cause of Reform’, Decies, 50 (1994), pp. 72–84; 51 (1995): 67–74; S. Foley, An exhortation to the inhabitants of Down and Connor concerning the education of their children (Dublin, 1695). 69 W. King to Bp A. Dopping, Sep. [1691]; Bp S. Foley to same, 26 Jan. 1694[5], 9 Feb. 1694[5], Armagh Public Library, 2/197; 3/278, 283; J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 13 Feb. 1691[2], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/68; Bp S. Foley to Bp St G. Ashe, 30 March 195, Lambeth Palace Library, Gibson MSS, 942/94; T.C. Barnard, ‘Improving Clergymen, 1660–1760’, in Ford, McGuire and Milne (eds), As by Law Established, pp. 136–51. 70 Bp W. King to S. Foley, 10 July 1691, 11 Aug. 1691, TCD, MSS 1995–2008/152, 163; W. King to A. Dopping, 11 May 1694, 27 May 1695; R. Tennison to same, 2 Nov. 1696, Dopping correspondence, 3/256, 289, 315, Armagh Public Library. 71 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 6 April 1693, Bumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/76; Bp W. King to J. Madden, 19 Jan. 1700[1], Bodleian, MS Eng. Lett. C. 29, fol. 122.

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of many protestants in Ireland. In the past, notably between 1660 and 1690, Catholic integrity entitled them to first a tacit and then formal freedom of worship. The bouleversement of 1689 to 1691 removed that prospect for the foreseeable future. Instead the dissenters were better positioned to benefit. Much effort went into blocking any such improvements. In this matter the ardent reformers like King and Foy could combine with more indolent bishops of the kind personified by Primate Boyle himself. William Moreton, Bishop of Kildare, showed how rabid intolerance could be after 1690. Moreton intervened to try to stop a dissenter from christening the child of a follower. When it was objected that nonconformist christenings were permitted in Dublin, the bishop vowed that they would be stopped everywhere, and pronounced the dissenters ‘no Christians because schismatics’. The dramatic episode at Murphystown ended with the bishop baptizing the infant according to Church of Ireland rites against its parents’ wishes.72 Intransigence in dealings with scrupulous dissenters was more common than dissent from the new political order. Non-jurors were rare within the Church of Ireland. Yet, the three most prominent – Henry Dodwell, William Sheridan and Charles Leslie – exerted a disproportionate influence over thoughtful colleagues even as they rallied to the new order. Dodwell, although he had quit Trinity for England in the 1670s (as it turned out permanently), was still revered as an intellectual and spiritual guide by those who had known him in Dublin. As late as 1710, King felt obliged to justify to Dodwell the course that he had steered. King, now Archbishop of Dublin, warned his old mentor that the protestants of Ireland viewed the Williamite victories and subsequent settlement as the foundation of all that currently they enjoyed. If the Church failed to endorse the Revolution, then it would find itself abandoned by the protestants of Ireland. Dodwell, removed from these stark realities of the distribution of property and power, took a more idealistic line; not so the pliant King.73 Sheridan was deprived as Bishop of Kilmore in 1691 when he declined to swear the oaths to the new monarchs: the only Church of Ireland bishop to make such a stand. It shocked and saddened his Irish acquaintances.74 King, indeed, 72 ‘A relation of what passed lately between the Ld. Bishop of Kildare and a dissenting minister of this city’, Dorset County Record Office, D/BLX, X10. 73 Abp W. King to H. Dodwell, 17 Aug. 1709, 30 Aug. 1710, Bodleian, MS Eng. Lett. C. 29, fols. 126–7, 132–3; cf. W. Perceval to H. Dodwell, 2 Sep. 1704, St Edmund Hall, Oxford, MS 9, 95–110; Sir R. Cox to same, 12 Sep. 1704, 18 Feb. 1704[5], ibid., 123–4, 129–34. 74 Bp N. Foy to Bp W. King, 21 Jan. 1691[2], TCD, MSS 1995–2008/204; J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 22 Sep. 1692, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/73; Abp W. Palliser to H. Dodwell, 19 April 1697, Bodleian, MSS Eng. Lett. C. 28, fol. 29; Bp W. King to same, 24 May 1700, St Edmund Hall, Oxford, MS 9, 31–46.

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remained in touch with Sheridan, who had retired to England, and arranged doles to ease his indigence.75 Towards the last in the trio, Leslie, King was least indulgent. Leslie railed against the revolution settlement which King defended. In private, King noted the inconsistency between Leslie’s enthusiastic endorsement of the doctrine of passive obedience and the forwardness which he had shown during 1688–89 at his seat of Glaslough in urging resistance to the Jacobites.76 King, throughout a long career, combated threats from both Presbyterians and Catholics. Happy to employ, and indeed to strengthen, the laws against the challengers, he nevertheless recognized that crude coercion alone would not succeed. Accordingly he interested himself in constructive ventures. He subscribed to the prevalent pessimism among protestants chastened by the close shave of 1685 to 1691. Like the earlier tribulations of the 1640s, the unnerving experiences could be read as a test of the resolve of the protestants. But the privations were additionally explained as punishment for protestant sins. Those sins were of both omission and commission. Recent history, when thus interpreted, demanded that the protestants in Ireland revive their efforts of reformation. Unfortunately, as in past bursts of introspection and activity, the concerned disagreed as to how best to proceed.77 King, sceptical of policies embraced by colleagues, kept his distance from palliatives such as societies for the Reformation of manners and charity schools.78 He was, in contrast, eager to take up devices shunned by the majority of his brethren. In this spirit, he backed the use of the Irish language. This was a forlorn hope that recalled schemes forwarded at Trinity College under Marsh’s provostship.79 King dissented from the general acclamation when his fellow collegian, Ashe, was appointed to head Trinity in 1692. He even contemplated establishing a rival seminary in Derry, whence he had recently gone as bishop, believing the college not a fit place for the education of divines.80 King also argued, in common with high churchmen in England, that more churches were needed to ensure that all potential worshippers were accommodated. In 1702, the churches of the capital were reported to be thronged: more a 75 Bp W. Sheridan to Bp W. King, 31 Jan. 1701[2], 18 March 1709[10], TCD, MSS 1995–2008/873, 1359. 76 Abp W. King to H. Dodwell, 30 Aug. 1710, Bodleian, MS Eng. Lett. C. 29, fols. 132–3. It was noted that the two had previously been close friends. J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 26 June 1693, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/77. 77 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 13 Feb. 1691[2], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MSS 1/68. 78 Bp W. King to Bp J. Hartstonge, 4 May 1698, TCD, MS 750/1, 222. 79 Barnard, ‘Protestants and the Irish Language, c. 1675–1725’, pp. 243–72. 80 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 22 Sep. 1692, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/73.

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testimony to shortage of space than to the growth in devotion.81 To this end, King, once Archbishop of Dublin, inaugurated a vigorous programme of building in his diocese. By 1715, he congratulated himself on having been instrumental in building or re-building twenty churches.82 These physical improvements coincided with and facilitated improvements in the frequency and conduct of services. The changes gave the otherwise pessimistic King something on which to congratulate himself. They did not end the attrition which was gradually transforming the population of the capital from one predominantly protestant to one in which two-thirds were Catholic.83 Nor did it deal a fatal blow to the dissenters of Dublin. Already in 1699, there was anxiety that many substantial shopkeepers and tradesmen inclined to nonconformity. Another estimate of about the same time calculated that there were 2700 dissenters and nine meeting-houses in the capital.84 Some antiquated sects, notably the Baptists, shrank almost to extinction, but others of the same vintage such as the Presbyterians and Quakers remained vibrant, and newer denominations, conspicuously the Methodists, carved a niche for themselves.85 In 1716, the most prolific and fluent of Church of Ireland apologists, Archbishop Edward Synge of Tuam, composed a tract against schism. He intended that it be sold for one penny, in the belief that such papers ‘ought as near as may be to be accommodated to everybody’s purse as well as capacity’.86 Unfortunately the success of compositions of this kind in loosening denominational allegiances can rarely be judged. The failure to stem the spread of protestant dissent disheartened its other adversaries such as Archbishop King. Towards the end of his life, in 1729, he lamented the visible evidence of renewed Catholic vitality.87 81 Jane Bonnell to J. Strype, 3 Oct. 1702, Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 4/41; HMC, Buccleuch MSS, vol. 2, part 1, p. 110. 82 Abp W. King to Bp H. Compton, 2 Aug. 1704, TCD, MS 750/3/1, 4–5; same to F. Annesley, 9 June 1711, ibid., MSS 2531, 342; same to unknown, 14 May 1715, ibid., MS 750/4/2, 47; same to J. Sprenger, 3 March 1718[19], ibid., MS 750/5, 127; W. King, ‘Treatise against Presbyterians’, ibid., MS 1042, 51–4. 83 P. Fagan, Catholics in a Protestant Country: The Papist Constituency in EighteenthCentury Dublin (Dublin, 1998), pp. 9–52. 84 J. Bonnell to J. Strype, 25 Jan. 1698[9], Baumgartner MSS, Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 1/85; W. King, paper on the state of the Church of Ireland, [1691], TCD, MSS 1995–2008/115a; S. Foley to W. King, 12 May 1694, ibid./354. 85 D. Hempton, ‘Methodism and Irish Society’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 36 (1986), pp. 117–42. 86 Abp E. Synge to Abp W. Wake, 22 Sep. 1716, Wake correspondence, 12/77, Christ Church, Oxford. 87 Abp W. King to Carteret, 22 June 1727; same to Abp W. Wake, 22 June 1727, TCD, MS 750/8, 212–15; same to F. Annesley, 25 July 1728, ibid., 750/9, 85–6; S.J. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland (Oxford, 1992), pp. 278–92.

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He acknowledged that the methods of enforcement used since 1660 had failed. He had long warned that coercion on its own was futile. He reverted to the self-mortification common among concerned protestants in the 1680s and 1690s, and contended that the poor progress could be explained by protestant misdemeanours. At the same time, King detected an inevitability in the setbacks. The Catholic religion was ascendant in Europe because of ‘the suitableness of the principles of that religion to the corruption of men’s hearts [and] recommends them to all loose and vicious persons, that is the generality of the world’. Reprobates were led to hope for salvation by Catholicism, ‘whereas the principles of the Protestant religion are such that men of wickedness can have no hope by them’.88 This apparent fatalism, understandable as King neared his eightieth year, was belied by a career animated by a belief that error could be confuted, and the inhabitants of Ireland brought to an understanding of the gospel. Grim prognostications in the 1720s were darkened further as the feeble protestant interest was debilitated by emigration from the north of Ireland to America. Since much involved Presbyterians and was blamed on the harshness with which they were treated by the established Church, the latter might have been expected to moderate its demands.89 It did not; nor did it push King or his disciples into greater intimacy with the dissenters in the hope of buttressing the vulnerable protestant interest. A fresh campaign in 1733 to have the Test repealed was easily defeated, and was not renewed.90 In regard to the Catholics ambiguities survived. Protestant partisans asserted that the Catholic Church was not just in error, but heretical and even anti-christian, and directed their fusillades against it. Priests were to be banished, but, while they remained, the efficacy of the sacraments that they proffered, notably baptism and marriage, was not impugned. In districts without resident protestant pastors it was sometimes accepted that Catholic services saved the inhabitants from heathenism. These accommodations existed alongside an unyielding attitude on the part of the state and its official Church. Religious affiliation either cemented political loyalty or justified disloyalty. In 1690, one governor of Ireland 88 Abp W. King to Bp R. Howard, 6 Aug. 1728, ibid., 750/9, 88–9. Cf. Bp R. Howard to H. Howard, 3 June 1731, NLI, PC 227. 89 Griffin, The People with No Name, pp. 65–97; M. Montgomery, ‘On the Trail of Early Ulster Emigrant Letters’, in P. Fitzgerald and S. Ickringill (eds), Atlantic Crossroads: Historical Connections between Scotland, Ulster and North America (Newtonards, 2001), pp. 13–26, 133–7. 90 Hayton, ‘Presbyterians and the Confessional State’, pp. 15, 19–21; I. McBride, ‘Presbyterians and the Penal Era’, Bullán, 1 (1994), pp. 73–86; I. McBride, ‘Ulster Presbyterians and the Confessional State, c. 1688–1733’, in Boyce, Eccleshall and Geoghegan (eds), Political Discourse in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ireland, pp. 169–92.

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pronounced, ‘it is impossible to make this an English country ’til it is a Protestant one’. The aim, with its predicted dividend of political passivity, did not vanish.91 However, those who manned the Church (and state) in practice receded from the ideal. Too much cried for remedy within the conformist community itself. Next, the embarrassments and dangers of protestant schism had to be addressed. These seemed objectives that might be achieved. Repeated disappointments deterred most from bold offensives; rather they preached primarily to the converted. Measures in the 1690s, although they fell far short of what the likes of Marsh, King, Foley and Foy had craved, did fortify the Church both institutionally and spiritually. Cumulatively these achievements deserve the designation of a second reformation. They were not uncontroversial: they split the bishops; they estranged many parochial incumbents from their superiors; they sometimes antagonized nominal adherents among the laity. In addition, the sense of shared purpose between protestant conformists and dissenters, briefly rediscovered in the assault on vicious behaviour, rapidly evaporated. For lay members of the different protestant denominations, especially in the city of Dublin, boundaries may have been more blurred than they were for their pastors, or than their pastors wished them to be. Sampling sermons, hopping between effective and affecting preachers and joining in the routines of both Church of Ireland parish and meeting-house, accommodations and adjustments were possible which defied the legal rigidities of conformity and nonconformity. What might be possible in the wider spaces of a great city was unlikely in the more enclosed, and sometimes claustrophobic, environment of smaller boroughs and rural settlements. Least likely was any casual tasting by protestants and Catholics of each other’s modes of worship. During the seventeenth century, the parish was loaded with administrative tasks. These soon extended further than providing and enforcing attendance at prescribed services. The tasks, often irksome but occasionally profitable and prestigious, generated a bureaucracy. Protestant dissenters, liable for the mulcts and duties associated with the Church of Ireland parish, understandably baulked. Concessions were granted which, by the end of the seventeenth century, permitted scrupulous dissenters to name substitutes. Catholics were also subject to many of the administrative interventions of the parish. Moreover they were required by law to pay for its rites of burial. They too devised ways 91 T. Coningsby to Portland, 27 Sep. 1690, 7 Nov. 1690, Portland MSS, Nottingham University Library, PW A 299, PW A 304; The charge given by Narcissus [Marsh], Lord Arch-Bishop of Casshel to his clergy at his primary visitation … July 27. 1692 (Dublin, 1694), p. 12.

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to evade these impositions. Even so, the liability with its financial implications, rankled. In general, the busy conformists were content when the chores and perquisites of the parish were left entirely to them. Given the pervasiveness of these tasks, particularly raising money for and giving it to the poor or organizing gangs of labourers to maintain roads, the absence from them of the non-conformists denied the latter an important public arena.92 Theology and ecclesiology distinguished the several denominations. As has been suggested, determined attempts were made to convince dissentients that the tenets of that Church were closest to divine precept. The effort seemed disproportionate to the outcome. In so far as the number of communicants of the Church of Ireland increased, it was less through conversions, or even new arrivals, but through natural increase in the settler population. Increased numbers, especially in and around Dublin, offered a fruitful field for the activists, so they seldom ventured into the more challenging territories occupied by their confessional rivals. Improvements in the preparation and preparedness of Church of Ireland clergymen, and in the supports that they received, meant that they served their own congregations more assiduously. There is little evidence that they made inroads into other churches. Despite some blurring at the edges and picking off stragglers, confessional communities continued to correspond with ethnic ones: Old Irish and Old English were overwhelmingly but not completely Catholic; the Church of Ireland generally serviced those whose ancestors had come from England and Wales; Presbyterianism in Ulster satisfied the Scottish immigrants. Shortage of money and clergy had initially enfeebled the Church of Ireland when it tried to encroach on the other groups. By the later seventeenth century, those obstacles had not altogether been removed, but they crippled less than once they had. Yet still the established Church scored few startling successes. In part, persistent disagreements about what were the appropriate tactics delayed useful initiatives. The need to minister to nominal members of their Church fully occupied its clergy. The aspiration to move beyond the formed company of believers did not vanish, but its realization was postponed: for most, almost indefinitely.

92 T.C. Barnard, ‘Parishes, Pews and Parsons: Lay People and the Church of Ireland, 1647–1780’, in Raymond Gillespie and W. G. Neely (eds), The Laity and the Church of Ireland, 1000–2000: ‘All Sorts and Conditions’ (Dublin, 2002), pp. 70–103.

CHAPTER NINE

Conformity and Security in Scotland and Ireland, 1660–85 Richard L. Greaves The first of the so-called exclusion parliaments had been sitting less than three weeks when Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, addressed a motion in the House of Lords on 25 March 1679 to inquire into the state of the nation. He cast his remarks in the context of a relatively obscure and rather startling passage from the Song of Solomon 8:8–9: We have a Little Sister & she hath no breasts[;] what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for[?] If she be a Wall we will build on her a Pallace of Silver. If she be a Doore we will enclose her with boards of Ceder.

England, he explained, had several little sisters without breasts, or doors that needed to be enclosed with cedar. Its wall of defence was comprised of foreign protestants, the protection of whom was ‘the greatest power & security the Crown of Eng[land] can Attain to, & which can onely help us to give a Check to the growing greatness of France’. Scotland and Ireland – England’s little, breast-less sisters – were crucial to its security, for they were ‘the two Doores that either lett in good or Mischief’. Having been weakened by artifices, they must be strengthened with cedar boards. In the context of a Europe threatened by French aggression, Shaftesbury’s preeminent concern was not the enforcement of the Reformation in Scotland and Ireland but securing these realms to enhance England’s security. This is not to suggest that religion was inconsequential, for Shaftesbury, altering the imagery, likened popery and slavery to sisters who go hand in hand; although one may appear to be alone, the other always follows closely. By his reckoning, in England popery had come first, preparing the way for intended slavery, whereas in Scotland the order had been reversed. He then proceeded to denounce the Earl of Lauderdale’s regime in Scotland for diminishing the authority of the nobility and gentry, incarcerating its enemies for years without trial, unleashing the Highland Host, and arbitrarily repressing people in the south and east, an allusion to the Presbyterians. ‘This Scotch weed,’ he thundered, ‘is like death.’ Conditions in Ireland were likewise

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troublesome, for the towns, he charged, were brimming with armed Catholics, and defence against possible French invasion was partly in the hands of a regiment that had previously served Louis XIV. ‘This Kingdom cannot long continue in English hands if som better Care be not taken of it.’ ‘There can be no safety’ in England, he concluded, ‘if these doores are not shut up and made safe.’1

Religion and the problem of security Shaftesbury’s remarks reflected a general concern among those in positions of authority concerning the intertwined problems of security and religion, particularly with reference to Scotland and Ireland. From the outset of the Restoration the security concerns were internal, focusing on the not inconsequential number of republicans and Cromwellians who were ideologically indisposed toward the new regime, with attention as well to Catholics in Ireland. As the reign progressed, external considerations increased, partly because of the two Dutch wars, but even more owing to potential French aggression. The spectre of the twinned evils of popery and slavery could be seen from one perspective as the threat of domination by Catholic France, but from another it could be envisioned as the imposition of French-style authoritarianism by a regime unsympathetic to protestant dissent and, as Shaftesbury phrased it, the principles of the Magna Carta.2 Others, however, especially in Scotland, saw religious dissent as a force that enervated the state and threatened its stability. Those who shared this view found themselves allied with leaders of the Church of England or the Kirk of Scotland intent on establishing the monopolistic position of their Church as the sole religious institution. Yet the government’s concerns were primarily with security rather than the theoretical arguments espoused by Anglican clergy in favour of exclusivity. This interpretation differs from that which has viewed the Irish situation as one of continuing ‘attempts to obstruct the religious freedoms of nonAnglicans ... throughout Ormond’s viceroyalty’.3 Instead I am suggesting that from the government’s perspective, the enforcement of conformity, to the extent that this was a policy, was undertaken largely in the context of the security of the three kingdoms.4 Moreover, in both kingdoms, the 1

Bodleian, Carte MS 72, fols 470r–471r. See especially Steven C.A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650–1668 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 256–68. 3 David Dickson, New Foundations: Ireland, 1660–1800 (Dublin, 1987), p. 13. 4 The success in handling the security problem posed by internal dissension explains, I think, why Ireland in Charles’ reign was described by John Morrill as ‘not quite a security 2

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government’s ability to enforce conformity was restricted by the absence of what Jim Smyth has appropriately called adequate ‘coercive resources’.5 Because of the Catholic problem, the limits on resources, including the availability of government troops for use against nonconformists, were greater in Ireland than Scotland. Government attempts to cope with the problem of protestant nonconformity during Charles II’s reign differed in many respects in Ireland and Scotland, notwithstanding the fact that Presbyterians in Scotland and northern Ireland were closely associated and shared a common religious culture, reinforced by the fact that their ministers had been trained in the Scottish universities. There was common ground of a different sort to the extent that some people in positions of authority in both countries, as in England, were convinced that conventicles were nurseries of sedition and must be repressed for security reasons. In Ireland this was a view championed at the outset of the Restoration by leading clerics, such as Jeremy Taylor, bishop-elect of Down, who in October 1660 complained to Hugh Viscount Montgomery of the Great Ardes that the Presbyterian ministers in the north were preaching sedition and treasonably inciting the people to tumultuous behaviour,6 and George Wild, Bishop of Derry, who referred to conventicle preachers in September 1661 as ‘trumpetts of sedition’.7 When he reported conventicles that met at night to James Butler, Duke of Ormond, in August 1662, he recalled that such illegal assemblies ‘use to grow from schisme in the Church to sedition in the state’.8 As Toby Barnard has noted, in Ireland ‘the phillipics of Anglicans against the perils of nonconformity more often betray tenacious cultural and literary traditions, imported from England, than recent contact [with local nonconformists] or close scrutiny’ of them.9 threat’; Morrill, ‘The British Problem, c. 1534–1707’, in Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill (eds), The British Problem, c. 1534–1707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago (New York, 1996), p. 37. 5 Jim Smyth, ‘The Communities of Ireland and the British State, 1660–1707’, in Bradshaw and Morrill (eds), The British Problem, p. 251. 6 Bodleian, Carte MSS 31, fol. 58r. As Aidan Clarke has demonstrated, during the Irish Convention ‘the luxury of religious contention was precluded by the politics of the land and parliamentary settlements’, but clerics such as Taylor quickly pressed the case against nonconformists; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration in Ireland: The End of the Commonwealth, 1659–1660 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 316. See also Phil Kilroy, Protestant Dissent and Controversy in Ireland, 1660–1714 (Cork, 1994), p. 228. 7 Huntington Library, MS HA 15993. He reiterated the phrase in MS HA 15994. 8 Bodleian, Carte MS 45, fol. 113v. 9 Toby C. Barnard, ‘Identities, Ethnicity and Tradition among Irish Dissenters c.1650–1750’, in Kevin Herlihy (ed.), The Irish Dissenting Tradition, 1650–1750 (Dublin, 1995), p. 33.

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When the Scottish Parliament passed an act against conventicles in 1663, it labelled as dangerous and seditious those who did not worship in the established Church.10 This was the king’s official view, as articulated in a pronouncement to Scottish sheriffs, pursuivants, and others on 7 December 1665 denouncing conventicles as ‘seminaries of separation and rebellion’ which are ‘reproachfull to our authority and government, ecclesiastick and civill’, and teach ‘pernicious and poysonous principles’.11 Given such assumptions, Alexander Burnet, Archbishop of Glasgow, opined during the Second Dutch War that if the enemy fleet had been victorious, Presbyterian ministers in Scotland would have intruded themselves into their former pulpits and ‘excited the people to a new rebellion’.12 For those holding such views, protestant nonconformists were unmistakably a security threat, and repressive measures were not only justified but essential to the security of the three kingdoms. These opinions were not unanimously embraced. In Ireland the most important voice for moderation was that of Ormond, who, though hoping for conformity and warning that dissenters did not enjoy ‘the perfect confidence of the State … which is so requisite for their Common safety’,13 informed Sir Arthur Forbes that he opposed excessive severity against dissenting protestants as long as they were loyal and fulfilled their other duties toward the state. In executing the penal laws he insisted that judges would be supervised by the lord lieutenant and Council. Urging moderation, he explained that ‘it is my resolution to doe what may possibly lye in me to give them all fitting ease & protection consistent with my duty and the Peace of the Kingdome.’14 In practice, many magistrates and justices of the peace in Scotland and Ireland, as in England, embraced such a view, as evidenced by the laxity with which they enforced penal legislation governing nonconformity, though in some cases this may have been the result of indolence rather than a commitment to moderation. Some magistrates, such as the two sheriffs of Derry in 1662, were nonconformist sympathizers.15 In addition to suspicions that conventicles were hotbeds of sedition, the very size of some of them heightened concerns about security. In January 1662 Bishop Wild reported an illegal meeting of more than 3000 people in the diocese of Down, and two years later John Hart 10 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, eds Thomas Thomson and Cosmo Innes (12 vols, Edinburgh, 1814–75), vol. 7, p. 455. 11 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1665–69, pp. 108–9 (henceforth RPCS). 12 Public Record Office, London, State Papers 29/168/72 (henceforth SP). 13 Bodleian, Carte MS 49, fols 137r, 155r–v (quoted). 14 Ibid., fol. 178r. 15 Huntington Library, MS HA 15999.

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preached to 500 people at Taughboyne, county Donegal.16 Ormond candidly admitted to the King in December 1663 that nonconformists as well as Catholics convened in numbers greater than should be connived at, though he was reluctant to enforce the law to the fullest extent because of fears that both civil and ecclesiastical magistrates would avariciously and ruthlessly oppress the poor.17 The problem of huge illegal meetings was significantly greater in Scotland, where field conventicles sometimes numbered in the thousands. Archbishop Burnet complained about them in late 1665, protesting that efforts were not made to suppress them; yet when attempts were undertaken, he had to admit in August 1676 that it was like pouring oil on a fire.18 Some of those attending these large field conventicles bore arms and were on horses, and as such intimidated militia units, as at Fife in the spring of 1678.19 At a large, three-day conventicle near Ayr in August 1678, guards were posted and John Welsh and eleven other ministers officiated, reportedly proclaiming ‘thatt there takeing up of armes, is nott against the King or his authority, butt onelye if they Meett with any opposition att the Conventicles’, in which case they would use their weapons in selfdefence.20 No government could tolerate groups of armed people claiming the right to disobey certain statutes and to employ weapons against magistrates or troops dispatched to enforce the law without effectively relinquishing some of its sovereignty. The problem was exacerbated when some dissenters, primarily in Scotland, resorted to violence. Women in the presbytery of Linlithgow in 1662 and at Kirkcudbright in 1663 physically prevented ministers in the established Church from preaching, clergy were stoned at the gates of Edinburgh in 1665, Galloway dissidents assaulted ministers in 1666–67, even killing one, and the minister of East Calder, Midlothian, was beaten in 1668.21 Numerous similar cases occurred in the 16

Ibid.; Bodleian, Carte MS 47, fol. 193r. Calendar of State Papers, Ireland (24 vols, London 1860–1910) [hereafter CSPI], 1663–65, p. 324. 18 National Library of Scotland, MS 2512, fols 84r, 203r; The Lauderdale Papers, ed. Osmund Airy (3 vols, London, 1884–85), vol. 2, pp. xxviii–xxix. See also British Library, Additional MSS 23,133, fol. 4v; 23,134, fol. 26r (henceforth BL, Add. MS(S)). 19 The Lauderdale Papers, vol. 1, p. 235; BL, Add. MS 23,242, fol. 18v; John Blackadder, Memoirs of Rev. John Blackadder, ed. Andrew Crichton (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable & Company, 1823), pp. 210–13. 20 SP 29/406/19, 31 (quoted). 21 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Reports (henceforth HMC), 21, Hamilton Supplementary Report (London, 1932), p. 81; PRO, SP 29/73/18; 29/207/94; Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews (11 vols, Berkeley, CA, 1970–83), vol. 4, p. 130; Lauderdale Papers, vol. 1, p. 267; vol. 2, pp. xxii, xlvi–xlvii, 18–19; The Records of the Proceedings of the Justiciary Court, Edinburgh, 1661–1678, ed. W.G. Scott-Moncrieff (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1905), vol. 1, p. 313. 17

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1660s,22 prompting Archbishop Burnet to complain that many ministers in Galloway had been forced to flee their parishes, and that some clerics had been compelled to swear at sword-point never to preach again while the current government was in power.23 The assaults continued in the ensuing decade. The minister of Kilmacolm, Renfrew, was attacked in 1670, the same year other clerics were robbed and assailed, and a riot erupted when the newly appointed minister of the Kirk of Shotts, Lanarkshire, attempted to conduct a service in 1671.24 Conventiclers in West Lothian fired on government troops in 1674, and others in Fife, Perth, Stirling, and Dumfries during the mid-1670s engaged in similar action.25 Troops of the governor of the Bass were humiliated in May 1678 when conventiclers disarmed them, killing one soldier, and four months later another soldier was slain by nonconformists at Whitekirk, East Lothian, when sixteen royal troops attempted to disperse 1500 conventiclers.26 A group of Welsh’s supporters ambushed government troops in September 1678, killing one but losing one of their own men in the fire-fight, and the following March a party of dissenters seriously wounded the mayor of Edinburgh and threatened to kill him unless he promised to cease suppressing conventicles.27 An attempt to assassinate James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews, in July 1668 failed, but religious zealots murdered him in May 1679.28 Despite government efforts to curb the violence, it continued in Charles’ final years. Two ministers in Fife were the object of death threats after they informed on nonconformists; the King obtained information in 1682 that John Paterson, Bishop of Edinburgh, was the target of an assassination plot; and clergy near the border armed themselves with swords and pistols following an attempt to kill the vicar of Kirknewton, Northumberland.29 22 See, e.g., Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, p. 1; RPCS, 1665–9, p. 292; SP 29/220/87; BL, Add. MSS 23,132, fol. 135v; ‘The Old Tolbooth: With Extracts from the Original Records’, ed. John A. Fairley, in The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club (vols 4–6, Edinburgh, 1911–13), vol. 5, pp. 151–2. 23 National Library of Scotland, MS 2512, fol. 102r; Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, p. lxiii. 24 RPCS, 1669–72, pp. 156, 159; SP 29/277/117; HMC 21, Hamilton, pp. 84–5. 25 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1673–5, ed. F.H.B. Daniell (London, 1860), p. 364; Blackadder, Memoirs, pp. 195–6. See also BL, Stowe MS, 214, fol. 232v; National Library of Scotland, MS 7034, fol. 55r; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1675–6, ed. F.H.B. Daniell (London, 1860), pp. 161–2. 26 SP 29/403/243; 29/406/127; BL, Add. MS 23,242, fol. 96r. 27 BL, Add. MSS 35,125, fol. 303r; 23,242, fol. 99r; 23,243, fol. 26r; London Gazette 1341 (23–6 September 1678). 28 Richard L. Greaves, Enemies under his Feet: Radicals and Nonconformists in Britain, 1664–1677 (Stanford, CA, 1990), pp. 97–8; Richard L. Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom: British Radicals from the Popish Plot to the Revolution of 1688–1689 (Stanford, CA, 1992), pp. 59–60. 29 National Library of Scotland, MS 2512, fol. 229r; Calendar of State Papers,

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The security of the state was even more directly threatened by periodic uprisings in Scotland. Ireland barely escaped when Ormond’s agents discovered the conspiracy conceived by the Presbyterian Thomas Blood and arrested many of its key figures in April 1663. The plotters included the Presbyterian ministers William Lecky, John Crookshanks and Andrew McCormack, and probably the Congregationalists Edward Baines and Stephen Charnock. Other Presbyterian ministers were cognizant of the plot but failed to report it.30 Scotland experienced major insurrections in November 1666, when between 1500 and 2000 rebels, including many Covenanters, were defeated in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, and in May–June 1679, when as many as 8000 Covenanters were in arms before some 6000 of them were defeated at Bothwell Bridge by the Duke of Monmouth’s army.31 Minor uprisings were mounted by extreme Covenanters known as Cameronians and, later, as the United Societies. The Cameronians rebelled in June and July 1680, and though defeated, one of their leaders, Donald Cargill, brazenly excommunicated the King, the Duke of York, Monmouth, Lauderdale, and others. The United Societies in turn rose in January 1682 after indicting Charles as a tyrant.32 Although government forces easily quashed both rebellions, they were unable to track down all the radical Covenanters, some of whom were in contact with agents of Monmouth planning for a major insurrection, the purpose of which was to compel the King to exclude James, Duke of York, from the line of succession.33 Although Ireland was free of such rebellions, the government had legitimate concerns about the spread of militancy across the North Channel, not least because of the regular traffic in both directions by Presbyterian clergy and others as well as the rhetoric of radicals whose conspiracies, whether real or putative, often referred to coordinated uprisings in all three kingdoms. Although no such rebellion ever occurred, Charles’ government could not responsibly make this assumption, and it was therefore compelled to implement policies designed to fulfil its obligation to maintain peace and stability within its realms as well as security from external invasion. Because protestant Domestic, 1682, pp. 143, 256; PRO, SP 29/418/170; A Collection of Letters addressed by Prelates and Individuals of High Rank in Scotland and by two Bishops of Sodor and Man to Sancroft Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. William Nelson Clark (Edinburgh, 1848), p. 54. 30 Richard L. Greaves, Deliver us from Evil: The Radical Underground in Britain, 1660–1663 (New York, 1986), pp. 140–50; Richard L. Greaves, God’s Other Children: Protestant Nonconformists and the Emergence of Denominational Churches in Ireland, 1660–1700 (Stanford, CA, 1997), pp. 81–5. 31 Greaves, Enemies under his Feet, pp. 64–76; Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom, pp. 60–68. 32 Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom, pp. 72–4, 81–3. 33 Ibid., pp. 86–9.

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nonconformists of one kind or another (sometimes with others) were involved in virtually all of the uprisings and conspiracies as well as many of the attacks on Anglican clergy, magistrates, and troops, religious policy was intricately entwined with security issues. The scope of the problem in Scotland and northern Ireland is apparent when the number of clergy ejected in the early 1660s is considered. In Scotland 262 of approximately 952 ministers were deprived, nearly all of whom came from parishes south of the Tay. Galloway, with 37 parishes, had 32 ministers ejected, and 75 clergy were ousted from the 121 parishes in the synod of Glasgow and Ayr. More than half of the ministers in Dumfries were removed, as were a third of those in Fife and Lothian, and at Kintyre in Argyll every cleric was ejected.34 In Ireland 65 Presbyterian ministers, mostly in Down, Connor, Raphoe and Clogher, were removed during the tenure of John Bramhall as archbishop of Armagh (1661–63).35 Thus in both kingdoms the Presbyterians, easily the dominant nonconformist group, were geographically concentrated, unlike their English counterparts. This provided Ulster and Scottish Presbyterians with substantial psychological reinforcement, prevented or mitigated a sense of isolation, and made it easier for dissenting clergy to serve the faithful. It also facilitated the creation of support networks that enabled Presbyterian clergy to move relatively freely within these regions and from one country to the other. In England the government could have significantly reduced the size of the dissenting community had it been able to comprehend Presbyterians in the established Church, a possibility explored at various times throughout Charles’ reign, but the militancy of the Covenanter movement rendered this option highly unlikely in Ireland and Scotland. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the government did attempt to isolate the militants by indulging moderate Presbyterians.

Nonconformity and indulgence in Ireland Talk of an indulgence for Irish nonconformists in 1661 stirred opposition among Anglican leaders, including John Parker, Bishop of Elphin, who expressed his opposition to Ormond and the bishops of London and Worcester, and they reportedly assured him that the King would not grant anything ‘that may tend to an Indulgence of any 34 Gordon Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (New York, 1966), pp. 365–6; Ian B. Cowan, The Scottish Covenanters, 1660–1688 (London, 1976), pp. 52–4. 35 W. Macafee and W. Morgan, ‘Population in Ulster, 1660–1760’, in Peter Roebuck (ed.), Plantation to Partition: Essays in Ulster History in Honour of J.L. McCracken (Dundonald, Belfast, 1981), p. 52.

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increase [of] Non-Conformity’.36 The Bishop of Cork, Michael Boyle, informed Bramhall in August that Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, was attempting to persuade Charles that securing the established church was the best way to safeguard the kingdom.37 In fact, some protestant dissenters feared a policy of indulgence because they thought the ulterior motive was the toleration of popery.38 Such concerns were not idle, for in response to a petition from Catholics in the spring of 1662, the lords justices ordered judges to suspend the enforcement of the Elizabethan statute dealing with recusancy pending a decision from the King.39 In contrast, an anonymous document from one or more Ulster Presbyterians in April 1663 made the case for an indulgence, citing their loyalty to Charles, their belief that persecuting large numbers of people who were acting on conscientious principles was bad policy, that persecution would encourage emigration, that financial penalties for excommunication would impoverish families, and that the punitive fines imposed by ecclesiastical courts diminished the ability of dissenters to pay taxes to the crown.40 The thrust of the argument was that a policy of indulgence made sound economic sense. Ormond’s preferred policy was to provide de facto toleration to moderate nonconformists while seeking to repress the rest, and in this he generally found support from James Margetson, particularly during the early years of the latter’s tenure as Archbishop of Armagh (August 1663 to August 1678). Charles’ instructions to Ormond in June 1662 called for moderation, but by November the large sizes of Catholic and Presbyterian conventicles raised concerns about security, prompting Ormond and the Council to issue a proclamation banning illegal assemblies.41 The discovery of the Dublin plot the following year was to some degree a blow to the policy of indulging moderates, particularly since the conspirators’ declaration called for a religious settlement in keeping with the Solemn League and Covenant, thereby casting suspicion on virtually all Presbyterians.42 Not surprisingly, the Lord Lieutenant and his Council directed bishops and magistrates in Ulster to 36

Huntington Library, MS 15491. Huntington Library, MS 13975. 38 Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers Preserved in the Bodleian Library, ed. F.J. Routledge (5 vols, Oxford, 1970), vol. 5, pp. 297–8. 39 BL, Add. MS 37,206, fols 87v–88r. 40 Bodleian, Carte MS 45, fol. 131r–v. 41 Bodleian, Carte MS 66, fol. 365v; Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, 1485–1714, ed. Robert Steele (2 vols, Oxford, 1910), vol. 2, p. 86 (no. 692). Earlier, in April 1662, the lords justices and Council had issued a proclamation ordering that the penal laws be enforced; Whereas in Expectation of Conformity (Dublin, 1662). 42 Memoirs of Mr. William Veitch, and George Brysson, written by themselves, ed. Thomas McCrie (Edinburgh, 1825), pp. 508–9. 37

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arrest all ministers suspected of complicity in the plot or deemed likely to seduce the people to disobedience.43 Yet the limited indulgence had been effective, for the number of dissenters who were engaged in the conspiracy was small. Explicitly recognizing this, Ormond and the Council issued a proclamation on 29 June 1663 ordering that no nonconformist, other than ministers who exhorted people not to conform, was to be punished for prior religious offences, and they extended this limited indulgence through 24 December 1663.44 No massive crackdown on dissenters occurred in 1664, though the following year Parliament passed a law rendering a minister without episcopal ordination subject to a fine of £100 each time he administered the Lord’s supper.45 Yet the number of conventicles in Ulster increased that year and, apparently, again in 1666,46 suggesting that the statute was not or could not be effectively enforced or that the penalties were not a sufficient deterrent. Even in the context of the Second Dutch War, Ormond insisted that he did not want to arrest Catholics or ‘fanatics’ other than those ‘who may give new evidence of their disaffection’.47 The Irish Act of Uniformity, which received royal assent in June 1666, was chiefly significant because of its clear definition of conformity, which required subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles, recognition of episcopal ordination alone, and formal assent to all parts of the Book of Common Prayer. As Raymond Gillespie has observed, in areas of Ireland such as Ulster, where nonconformity was strong, ‘the policy of government and church was not conversion but containment’.48 Bishops such as Jeremy Taylor of Down and Robert Mossom of Derry would have taken exception to this,49 but the act itself was crafted to make prosecution relatively difficult. A large assembly was illegal only if the intent was to disobey, and two justices of the peace were required to incarcerate a dissenting preacher. Moreover, they could make an arrest only if they had first procured a certificate from an ordinary specifying

43

HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s. (London, 1904), vol. 3, pp. 57–8. SP 63/309, pp. 123–5; Bodleian, Carte MS 68, fols 596r, 597r. 45 Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum (3 vols, London, 1909–16), vol. 3, p. 325. 46 Bodleian, Carte MS 45, fol. 173r–v; Carte MS 34, fol. 628r. 47 CSPI, 1666–69, pp. 104–5. 48 The Journals of the House of Commons, of the Kingdom of Ireland, second edn (31 vols, Dublin, 1782–1794), vol. 2, p. 505; Raymond Gillespie, ‘Dissenters and Nonconformists, 1661–1700’, in Herlihy (ed.), The Irish Dissenting Tradition, p. 12. 49 Bodleian, Carte MSS 45, fol. 201r; 35, fol. 138r; T.W. Moody and J.G. Simms (eds), The Bishopric of Derry and the Irish Society of London, 1602–1705 (2 vols, Dublin, 1968, 1983), vol. 1, p. 400. 44

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the offence(s).50 The attention to legal safeguards suggests a reticence among lay members of Parliament to yield substantive power to the clergy, and perhaps a recognition that in a country where the large majority of the population was Catholic, persecuting moderate protestant dissenters made little sense. Proof of the effectiveness of Ormond’s policy was evident when Scottish Covenanters mounted the Galloway rebellion in November 1666. Although two prominent militant Presbyterians from Ireland, John Crookshanks and Andrew McCormack, joined the insurgents,51 there was no uprising in Ireland. Nevertheless, the government’s concern for security intensified, and the Lord Lieutenant, cognizant that some rebels took refuge in Ireland following their defeat in Scotland, increased surveillance.52 Despite pressure from hardliners, Ormond was unwilling to implement a plan to suppress all conventicles, preferring instead to provide de facto toleration to those who stopped short of taking the Solemn League and Covenant, which he deemed the preliminary step to rebellion.53 Congregationalists and English Presbyterians met openly in Dublin, prompting a complaint from the Lord Chancellor about ‘the growth & boldnesse of conventicles’ in the capital, and the King himself ordered the prosecution of the Congregationalist Edward Baines, who had been preaching adjacent to St Patrick’s, as an example to other dissenters to ‘make more modest use of the gentle hand that is held over them’.54 The King’s instructions to each of the three men who succeeded Ormond as Lord Lieutenant – John Baron Robartes (1669–70), John Lord Berkeley of Stratton (1670–72), and Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex (1672–77) – embodied the policy of treating moderate dissenters leniently while cracking down on Covenanters. Robartes, for instance, was told to bring nonconformists to religious uniformity as established by law, but not to the point of ‘endangering a disturbance of the quiet of the Kingdome’.55 The Church, Charles indicated to Berkeley, could best be established through ‘wisdom and moderation’, which he contrasted with ‘the precipitant and preposterous zeal’ of those who disturbed both 56 Church and state. Although the King made it clear to Essex that he 50 The difficulties posed by such requirements were cited by Sir George Rawdon in July 1683. HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 7, pp. 89–90. 51 BL, Harleian MS 4631, 1:146r–v; BL, Add. MS 23,125, fol. 185v. 52 Bodleian, Carte MSS 46, fol. 410r; 45, fol. 202r; Thomas Brown, Miscellanea aulica (London, 1702), pp. 430–31; CSPI, 1666–69, p. 251. 53 Bodleian, Carte MS 49, fols 632r, 667r, 671r. 54 Bodleian, Carte MS 49, fol. 608r; see also 36, fols 513r–514v. 55 Bodleian, Rawlinson MS A255, fol. 244. 56 CSPI, 1669–70, pp. 78–9.

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preferred conformity in religion, he ordered him to proceed with caution, bearing in mind the importance of maintaining Ireland’s peace.57 Clearly, royal policy in Ireland subordinated religion to order and security. The King did not issue a declaration of indulgence for Ireland as he did in England, but at the prompting of Sir Arthur Forbes he provided a grant of £600 per annum to moderate Presbyterian clergy in Ulster beginning in 1672.58 This regium donum was distributed irregularly, and not at all in the last years of Charles’ reign, but it signalled the government’s interest in establishing a modus vivendi with moderates and isolating militants. It came at a crucial time, for Essex protested in October 1672 that seditious preachers banned in Scotland were flocking to Ireland, and he was clearly concerned that the growing number of Covenanters posed a significant security threat.59 In this context Scotland had the potential to destabilize England as well as Ireland: ‘A Cloud from that Quarter has bin more fatall to England, then any other’, Essex reflected.60 When Ormond resumed the lord lieutenancy in 1677 he was concerned by the substantial increase in the number of protestant nonconformists and their emboldened outlook, as reflected in part by the communion services that ministered to thousands at a time. Although he attributed the growing numbers to toleration, which encouraged Scots to emigrate, he opted to maintain the de facto indulgence as long as the Presbyterians refrained from renewing the Solemn League and Covenant and establishing their own ecclesiastical jurisdiction.61 The outbreak of the Bothwell Bridge rebellion in Scotland in May 1679 again heightened security concerns, but the Ulster Presbyterians remained loyal, once more demonstrating the effectiveness of the policy of de facto toleration in Ireland.62 This is the conclusion Ormond drew, insisting that it was important to permit moderate dissenters ‘to live & Exercise their calling without disturbance, & to remove the other from burdening & misleading the people’.63 In the ensuing years the Presbyterians probed to ascertain how far the indulgence extended. Although Ormond was 57

Bodleian, Carte MS 37, fol. 707v. [James Kirkpatrick], An Historical Essay upon the Loyalty of Presbyterians in GreatBritain and Ireland from the Reformation to this Present Year 1713 (1713), pp. 383–5; J.C. Beckett, Confrontations: Studies in Irish History (Totowa, NJ, 1972), p. 36. 59 BL, Stowe MS 213, fol. 56r–v; Selections from the Correspondence of Arthur Capel Earl of Essex, 1675–1677, eds Osmund Airy and Clement Edwards Pike (2 vols, London, 1890, 1913), vol. 1, p. 125. 60 BL, Stowe MS 213, fol. 354v. 61 BL, Add. MS 32,095, fols 32r–33v. 62 Bodleian, Carte MSS 70, fol. 488r; 221, fol. 415r; HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 5, p. 189. 63 Bodleian, Carte MS 45, fol. 531r. 58

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prepared to permit existing congregations to meet, he did not want new churches founded or new meetinghouses built, yet the Presbyterians constructed a new church near the Council Chamber in Dublin.64 The public fasts observed by the Presbyterians were another source of friction, especially since the English Privy Council considered them an affront to royal authority.65 Ormond remained committed to a policy of limited toleration until the disclosures of the Rye House plotting in 1683, at which time he exhorted his son and deputy, Richard Butler, Earl of Arran, to suppress nonconformists.66 The Archbishop of Armagh, Michael Boyle, was able to report to the Duke in August that the government’s efforts to repress conventicles had been very successful.67 In the heat of the Tory Reaction numerous dissenters stopped meeting in public and either worshipped privately or attended services in the Church of Ireland. Ormond was in England when the plotting was disclosed, but Arran kept the country quiet, as the Duke discovered when he returned in 1684.68 His anger upon learning of the Rye House plotting had subsided, and he again manifested greater tolerance than most prominent clerics preferred. By February 1685, as Francis Marsh, Archbishop of Dublin, observed, dissenting meetinghouses in Dublin itself were being ‘openly resorted to and sometimes with ostentation, outbraving the Established Church and consequently the laws of the kingdom and canons of the Church by law established’.69 During Charles’ reign, the penal laws in Ireland were not so much ignored as selectively enforced, and the results, from the government’s perspective, must have been satisfying, for Ireland alone among the three kingdoms experienced no insurrection.

Nonconformity and indulgence in Scotland Although the government implemented some of the same policies – and numerous others – in Scotland, it was the scene of rebellions in 1666, 1679, and 1685 as well as the spectacular assassination of the archbishop of St Andrews and recurring attacks on ministers of the established Church. In Scotland, of course, Catholics were not a majority of the population, and protestants did not live in perpetual awareness 64

SP 63/342/35; HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 6, pp. 34–5. HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 5, p. 615. 66 Bodleian, Carte MS 219, fols 488r–v, 490r; HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 7, p. 104. 67 HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 7, p. 96; cf. vol. 7, pp. 81, 88. 68 The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and of his Brother Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, ed. Samuel Weller Singer (2 vols, London, 1828), vol. 1, p. 99. 69 HMC 36, Ormonde, n.s., vol. 7, pp. 314–16. 65

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that they were in some degree an endangered minority. Nor were Scots subject to the intense concerns prompted by the uncertainties of a land settlement that vexed the people of Ireland. Moreover the Covenanter movement was substantially stronger in Scotland, making rebellion more feasible. Finally, as Julia Buckroyd has argued, in Scotland the political nation manifested antipathy toward the episcopate and was unwilling to render itself subordinate to clerical power, thus enervating the bishops to some degree.70 From the beginning of the Restoration Scottish authorities signalled their willingness to incarcerate ministers whose actions threatened to disrupt the kingdom. In August 1660 a group of ten clergymen and the laird of Sundiwell, Nithsdale, were committed to Edinburgh Castle after they were found preparing a remonstrance to give to the King. These were Protesters who in the 1650s had opposed Charles Stuart and his supporters, and in 1660 the Committee of Estates deemed them a threat to public peace.71 Outspoken ministers such as John Dickson (October 1660), Robert MacWard (February 1661), Robert Blair (October 1661), and John Brown (November 1662) who condemned the religious changes were imprisoned, as were some of their lay supporters.72 But the number of dissident clergy was too great, and the prospects of imprisonment failed to intimidate many of them, prompting Alexander Burnet, Archbishop of Glasgow, to complain in the summer of 1664 that ‘of all our ministers who publikely affront authority not one is apprehended’.73 In May 1668 the Scottish Privy Council ambitiously ordered the arrest of all conventicle preachers and the principal worshippers, especially those, it revealingly noted, who carried weapons.74 Repeating the order to arrest conventicle preachers in June 1669, the Council instructed that they be kept behind bars until they posted bonds promising not to preach to illegal meetings, but the Archbishop of St Andrews, James Sharp, thought such punishment was too lenient.75 However, John Hay, Earl of Tweeddale, recognized the 70 Julia Buckroyd, ‘Anti-Clericalism in Scotland during the Restoration’, in Norman MacDougall (ed.), Church, Politics and Society: Scotland, 1408–1929 (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 167–8, 182. 71 Mercurius Publicus 36 (30 August – 6 September 1660); Julia Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland, 1660–1681 (Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 26, 30–31. 72 John Nicoll, A Diary of Public Transactions and other Ocurrences, chiefly in Scotland, Bannatyne Club, vol. 52 (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 303; William Steven, The History of the Scottish Church, Rotterdam (Edinburgh and Rotterdam, 1832), p. 28; Kingdomes Intelligencer 43 (21–8 October 1661); ibid., 46 (10–17 November 1662); RPCS, 1661–64, 278; Cowan, Scottish Covenanters, p. 51; HMC 50, Heathcote, p. 151. 73 Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, p. ix. 74 RPCS, 1665–69, pp. 444–5, 455. 75 BL, Add. MS 23, 131, fol. 192v; Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, p. 136.

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virtual impossibility of repressing the Covenanters by imprisonment, opining in February 1670 that ‘we shal fill prisons as fast with them as we doe pulpits & what a wild way will that be’.76 Capital punishment was hardly suitable given the number of Covenanters and the nature of their usual offences, though the government occasionally employed it, mostly to punish rebels. One of the leading Protesters, the minister James Guthrie, was executed in June 1661.77 Between 7 December 1666 and 2 January 1667 the state executed forty-one Galloway insurgents, including the minister Alexander Robertson and the chaplain Hugh McKell, but many others escaped, and the government stopped well short of its original plan to execute all officers and ministers (of whom there were at least eighteen) as well as ten per cent of the common mutineers, probably because of widespread sympathy for the rebels in the south-west and the tendency of sympathizers to regard the executed as martyrs. Instead, until August 1668 the government punished rebels by imprisonment, fines, the expropriation of their goods, and billeting troops in homes. The Privy Council considered requiring all ejected clergy to live in a single place, a sort of clerical ghetto, in order to keep them under surveillance, but nothing came of this.78 In part because of Monmouth’s moderating influence, the number of executions following the Bothwell Bridge rebellion was not large. Among the executed were the Covenanting ministers John Kid and John King. Some of the captured rebels saved themselves by signing bonds for their good behaviour, but others died unrepentant, confident that they had fulfilled their duty to defend the Covenant.79 In the ensuing years the government executed a number of Covenanter extremists, including David Hackston (July 1680), one of the assassins of Archbishop Sharp, and the minister Donald Cargill (July 1681). These executions and the deaths of Richard and Michael Cameron at the battle of Aird’s Moss (July 1680) did not eradicate the movement, but they deprived the Cameronians and the United Societies of their principal leaders.80 Throughout his reign Charles employed troops in an attempt to curb if not destroy the Covenanters. When the Scottish Parliament passed acts in July and November 1663 imposing heavy fines on recusants, the military exacted the money, and troops could be billeted in the homes of 81 delinquents until they paid. Enforcement was selective, at least partly 76 77 78 79 80 81

National Library of Scotland, MS 7025, fol. 11r. Kingdomes Intelligencer 23 (3–10 June 1661). Greaves, Enemies under his Feet, pp. 78–81. Greaves, Secrets of the Kingdom, pp. 66–8. Ibid., pp. 73, 75, 84. Donaldson, Scotland, 368; RPCS, 1661–64, p. 461.

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because the number of troops available for such duty was limited. By that point troops had already been quartered in the houses of those in the Kirkcudbright area who were harassing conformist clergy.82 From early in the reign soldiers were used to disperse conventicles, though with mixed success, especially, as already noted, when armed conventiclers outnumbered the troopers.83 The troops could also exacerbate the problem; Tweeddale reported that many believed, with justification, that the abusive treatment of people by soldiers had triggered the Galloway rebellion, and Sir Robert Moray advised Lauderdale to halt the exaction of fines from recusants by the army.84 After the rebellion William Douglas, Duke of Hamilton, and Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, favoured the continuation of harsh measures against dissenters, convinced that this would ensure the need to maintain troops to enforce the policy.85 Use of troops to suppress conventicles and secure the country from internal unrest remained a key element of the government’s programme, but the policy was ineffectual. Complaining to Lauderdale in September 1673 that conventicles abounded, Alexander Bruce, Earl of Kincardine, saw the remedy as the employment of even greater force.86 Faced with endemic unrest in the west, in July 1675 the Council posted more garrisons in the region, often in houses, with a view to preventing conventicles, but this measure also failed, and in January 1678 6000 troops marched into the west, accompanied by a committee of the Privy Council empowered to quash conventicles.87 By May 1678 the king was convinced that even more forces had to be raised in Scotland to secure the country against both foreign invasion and ‘intestine commotions at a time when those execrable field conventicles still grow in their numbers and insolences’. The present forces, he candidly admitted, were insufficient to provide security.88 Despite the ensuing flurry of military activity,89 and probably to some extent because of it, the Bothwell Bridge rebellion erupted the following year. In the aftermath of the uprising the government continued to rely on troops, including the provocative garrisoning of them in private homes, but the policy never attained its 82 Sir James Turner, Memoirs of his own Life and Times, ed. Thomas Thomson (Edinburgh, 1829), p. 140. 83 Lauderdale Papers, vol. 1, pp. 204–5, 234; National Library of Scotland, MS 597, fol. 129r–v; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1678, pp. 161–2. 84 Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, pp. 35, 65–6. 85 Buckroyd, Church and State, pp. 71–2. 86 BL, Add. MS 23,135, fol. 284v. 87 BL, Add. MS 28,747, fol. 17r–v; HMC 29, The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, ed. James J. Cartwright (4 vols, London, 1891), vol. 2, p. 45. 88 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1678, p. 185. 89 Ibid., pp. 405, 407–8, 410, 412, 417–20; PRO, SP 29/411/34.

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ultimate goal of suppressing conventicles.90 A considerably less expensive policy entailed the banishment of dissenting clergy, though this was hardly without its problems. After Robert MacGuire was exiled in July 1661, he went to Rotterdam, where he associated with other dissidents and, according to Gilbert Burnet, wrote seditious material.91 Alexander Blair and James Veitch were among those banished in 1662, but they were back in the country by 1669 and preaching to conventicles.92 Also exiled the same year, Robert Trail, John Livingstone, and John Brown settled in the Netherlands and became part of the circle that later smuggled such reputedly seditious literature as Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland for the Kingdom of Christ (1667) and Jus populi vindicatum (1669) into Scotland.93 In exile Brown wrote An Apologeticall Relation, of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithfull Ministers & Professours of the Church of Scotland (1665), justifying the right of the godly to resist their oppressors. Banished in 1672, Alexander Carmichael went only as far as London, where he took advantage of the Declaration of Indulgence to establish a Scottish Presbyterian congregation at Founders’ Hall, which he served as minister until his death in July 1677.94 One option was to exile people to more distant places, such as Barbados, Jamaica (where sixty conventiclers were sent in 1678), New York and Carolina.95 In January 1679 the Scottish Council sought Lauderdale’s assistance in obtaining a frigate to transport dissidents to such plantations.96 At times the Irish government also used exile as a weapon, though this made little sense when the dissentients were sent to Scotland, as happened to Thomas Hall, John Douglass, Robert Hogsyard and three others in November 1663. The Duke had wanted to exile even more to Scotland or England in the aftermath of the Dublin conspiracy, but the King rejected the plan.97 Had banishment been used more extensively – Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Dalziel thought all nonconforming ministers as well as ‘the puretan Laidays’ should be exiled98 – it might 90

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1679–80, pp. 484–5. Kingdomes Intelligencer 29 (15–22 July 1661); Gilbert Burnet, History of his Own Time, new edn (London, 1838), p. 79; Greaves, Deliver us from Evil, pp. 127, 251. 92 RPCS, 1661–64, p. 264; Ibid., 1669–72, p. 3. 93 Ibid., 1661–64, pp. 303, 305–6, 312; BL, Add. MS 23,134, fol. 187r; Records of the Justiciary Court, vol. 2, p. 109. 904 RPCS, 1669–72, p. 464; Hew Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scotticanae, new edn (7 vols, Edinburgh, 1915–28), vol. 7, p. 489. 95 Oxford Gazette 12 (21–5 December 1665); SP 29/143/28; 29/405/211; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1682, p. 485. 96 BL, Add. MS 23,243, fol. 7r. 97 Bodleian, Carte MSS 45, fol. 465r; CSPI, 1663–65, pp. 201–2. 98 National Library of Scotland, MS 573, fol. 66r. 91

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have had a substantive impact on reducing conventicles, especially if dissenters had been sent to the West Indies or North America rather than allowed to settle in the Netherlands. On 1 October 1662 the Scottish Council approved a less severe solution, requiring certain nonconforming ministers to move themselves and their families out of the parishes they had served, and not to reside within the boundaries of their former presbyteries.99 With the support of their adherents, many of them refused to comply, prompting the Council in August 1663 to order them to move at least twenty miles from their former charges, at least six miles from Edinburgh, St Andrews, and Glasgow, and three from any royal burgh or face prosecution as ‘contemners of the King’s authority’.100 In December 1665 the Council extended these provisions to the remaining nonconforming clergy, but a year later and again in January 1668 it was informed that many clergy had not complied.101 In the summer of 1662 Parliament had declared the covenants unlawful and stipulated that all people in positions of public trust must sign a declaration disavowing them, but here again adherence was spotty. In part this was due to Lauderdale’s reluctance to provoke the nonconformists unduly, whereas William Cunningham, Earl of Glencairn, and William Crichton, Earl of Dumfries, argued that all ministers and heritors should be required to take the declaration, their intent being to foment opposition that would enable them to profit when troops were raised and fines were imposed.102 However, during the summer and autumn of 1663 Lauderdale sought to weaken his opponents by embracing seemingly tough acts against nonconformists, including the one imposing heavy fines. Another was the Scottish Conventicle Act, which made nonconformity seditious.103 In this context, the Council in November ordered sheriffs, stewards, and their deputies and clerks to take the declaration against the covenants and to see that this was also done by all those in their shires to whom the requirement applied. Similar letters were sent to magistrates in boroughs.104 The Galloway uprising provided Archbishop Sharp with an opportunity to call for a more rigorous enforcement of the declaration, proof that this law too was evaded by nonconformists when possible.105 An expedient of a different sort was tried at Sharp’s urging, and 99

RPCS, 1661–64, pp. 269–70; see also pp. 312–15. Ibid., pp. 338–9, 349–51, 403–4; SP 29/78/82 (quoted). 101 Ibid., 1665–69, pp. 107–8, 234, 398–9. 102 Buckroyd, Church and State, pp. 52–3. 103 The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. 7, p. 455. 104 RPCS, 1661–64, pp. 455–6. 105 Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, p. xxxix. 100

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probably with Lauderdale’s acquiescence, when the King and Council established the Church Commission in November 1663. The records of the commission, which operated for two years, are not extant, but Lauderdale received reports of its work, beginning with its initial meeting in March 1664. Sharp thought the commission should deal firmly with leading Presbyterians in order to dissuade others, but in its dealings he embraced penalties less severe than those favoured by fellow commissioners, as when he thought the one-month exile imposed on the laird of Earlston for frequenting conventicles was too harsh. The commission proved to be relatively ineffective, primarily because of internal divisions, for some members had doubts about the legality of a court established by a royal proclamation. Yet it did censure nonconformist clergy for illegally preaching, and seven or eight dissenters in the Glasgow area were sufficiently discouraged by the commission’s work to emigrate to Amsterdam. As the problem of dissent worsened in 1665, the commission took a harder line, but its inability to solve the problem coupled with Sharp’s declining influence led to its demise at the year’s end.106 At times the Council summoned offenders to appear before it in an attempt to encourage conformity. In part the councillors did this in order to render it impossible for offenders henceforth to plead ignorance of the laws.107 In March 1669 the Council enlisted the assistance of militia commissioners in the south-west, directing them to interrogate ministers, heritors, and substantial tenants suspected of involvement in conventicles and to require the appearance of those who were guilty before the Council.108 Three months later the Council asked the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Duke of Hamilton, and the Earl of Dumfries to each cite two or three of the ministers or landed men most responsible for illegal religious meetings to appear before it.109 As the problem of nonconformity worsened in 1665–66, new proposals were articulated. Alexander Erskine, Earl of Kellie, thought Presbyterian ministers should have to wear distinctive badges, but nothing came of this.110 In August 1666 the Scottish Council asked Charles whether in addition to vigorously prosecuting existing laws it would be useful to make all heritors and landlords responsible for their tenants’ behaviour, with the power to remove those who attended conventicles or absented themselves from services of the established 106

Buckroyd, Church and State, pp. 55, 58–61, 63, 68; Lauderdale Papers, vol. 2, pp.

iii–iv. 107 108 109 110

Kingdomes Intelligencer 14 (30 March – 6 April 1663); RPCS, 1661–64, pp. 408–9. RPCS, 1665–69, p. 620. Ibid., 1669–72, pp. 624–5. BL, Harleian MSS 4631, vol. 1, fol. 132r.

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Church. In similar fashion, magistrates would be responsible for the behaviour of those living in boroughs.111 This led to a proclamation on 11 October stipulating that heritors, landlords and holders of lifetenancies post bonds to undertake this responsibility, empowering magistrates to take bonds from suspicious residents of boroughs, making officials legally accountable if they failed to do so, and instructing masters of families to dismiss anyone who did not attend public worship in the parish church or frequented a conventicle.112 Early the following year the Council thought about rendering an entire parish subject to punishment if a conventicle was held there, but this was rejected by the majority as unfair to innocent residents unaware of illegal activity.113 However, in June 1677 heritors and parishioners in western Scotland were made responsible for protecting conformist clergy from attacks by dissenters and for apprehending offenders or notifying the nearest government troops if the culprits left the parish. If the accused were not caught, select parishioners had to pay reparations to the aggrieved minister.114 Again adapting this principle, in April 1669 the Council made a heritor subject to a fine of £50 if a conventicle were held on his land, and a royal proclamation four months later commanded heritors to report any conventicles on their property in a timely manner.115 The substance of the October 1666 proclamation was reiterated in June 1674 because field-conventicles, ‘the Rendezvous of Rebellion’, and houseconventicles, ‘the Seminaries of separation’, continued, and in August 1677 another proclamation enjoined masters and landlords to fulfil their legal responsibilities with respect to upholding conformity.116 A plea in April 1679 by conformists urging the government to hold heritors responsible for their dissenting tenants indicates that the provisions were not enforced effectively throughout the country, though Bishop Paterson of Edinburgh reported in December 1681 that ‘our field conventicles are almost gone, by obliging landlords to answer their servants’.117 When other methods had proved ineffectual to curb or at least substantially limit dissent, Lauderdale began exploring the possibility of a formal indulgence for moderate Presbyterians in June 1668, but the attempted assassination of Archbishop Sharp in July temporarily halted 111

HMC 39, Fifteenth Report, Appendix, pt 2, p. 53. SP 29/175/78.1; Bodleian, Carte MS 77, fol. 575r–v. 113 Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, Letters from Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, to John, Duke of Lauderdale (Edinburgh, 1829), p. 61. 114 National Library of Scotland, MS 7033, fols 81v–82r. 115 RPCS, 1669–72, pp. 3, 61–2. 116 SP 29/361/98 (quoted); Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1677–78, p. 285. 117 BL, Add. MS 32,095, fols 176r–177r; Collection of Letters, ed. Clarke, p. 34 (quoted). 112

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the negotiations. In March 1669 Alexander Bruce, Earl of Kincardine, concerned by the increase of conventicles in the west, recommended ‘a qualified toleration’ to Lauderdale, though not bestowed in such a way as to enable nonconformists to think their resistance had compelled the government to concede.118 Sharp reluctantly endorsed an indulgence in May only if it allowed a small number of peaceful ministers of ‘some considerable standing’ to preach in churches without pastors in the west.119 The King issued the indulgence in June, and 43 moderate Presbyterian ministers were admitted to parish churches by 3 March 1670.120 Virtually from the outset there were problems: Kincardine reported in June 1669 that the Covenanters, knowing they would not benefit by the indulgence, intended to provoke the Council into adopting severe measures, and the following month Sharp complained that the indulgence had increased the confidence of ‘the opposing party’ while discouraging conformists.121 Outside the west there was resentment that the indulgence did not extend to other regions.122 Indulged ministers refused to remain in their assigned parishes and attracted parishioners of conformist clergy, other Presbyterians increased their conventicle activity, while violence against conforming ministers grew. The indulgence failed to isolate and contain the Covenanters.123 The King was unwilling to give up on the indulgence, but he was likewise resolved that the more militant Presbyterians be suppressed. In private instructions to Lauderdale in July 1670, he called for the use of troops, imprisonment, and exile as necessary, and action by the Scottish Parliament as well.124 The following month Parliament passed the Clanking Act, effective for three years, with draconian provisions for the repression of conventicles. To hold an illegal service outside rendered one subject to capital punishment and the expropriation of goods, and to attend one could bring a fine of half one’s annual income. Those who held indoor conventicles were required to post a bond of 5000 merks, promising not to do so again on pain of banishment from Scotland. To attend an indoor conventicle was punishable by a fine of a quarter of one’s annual income, with additional penalties for those in whose 118

Buckroyd, Church and State, p. 75; BL, Add. MS 23,131, fol. 103r–v (quoted). National Library of Scotland, MS 2512, fol. 126r. 120 Huntington Library, Ellesmere MS 8544; RPCS, 1669–72, pp. 38–40, 47; Bodleian, Carte MS 81, fol. 292r; BL, Add. MS 23,132, fols 46r, 47v, 49r, 50r; Cowan, Scottish Covenanters, pp. 76–7. 121 BL, Add. MS 23,131, fol. 190r; National Library of Scotland, MS 2512, fol. 130r (quoted). 122 BL, Add. MS 23,132, fol. 65r. 123 RPCS, 1669–72, p. 47; Buckroyd, Church and State, pp. 88–90. 124 BL, Add. MS 23,134, fol. 57r. 119

CONFORMITY & SECURITY IN SCOTLAND & IRELAND, 1660–85

249

building conventicles were held. Capital punishment was also prescribed for those who assaulted the clergy of the Kirk of Scotland, and fines were imposed on recusants as well as those who had their children baptized by unauthorized people.125 The government did not intend to enforce such penalties on all Presbyterians, but instead to make the point that indulgence, the policy favoured by the newly appointed Archbishop of Glasgow, Robert Leighton, did not mean a license for Covenanters to meet in defiance of the law. The purpose of the Clanking Act was to drive a firm wedge between moderate and radical Presbyterians, apparently in the hope of frightening as many of the latter as possible into the camp of the former. Simultaneously, beginning in August 1670 Leighton and his allies met with leading indulged Presbyterian ministers in the hope of finding a way to accommodate moderates in the state Church, but this effort came to naught in January 1671.126 The Clanking Act seems to have enjoyed a degree of temporary success, for conventicles declined. Desirous of finding ministers for churches without them as well as reducing the number of dissenters, Gilbert Burnet proposed another indulgence early in 1672. This was in keeping with the King’s instructions to Lauderdale in May, giving him latitude to preserve the peace by enlarging the existing indulgence. Approved by the Scottish Council in September, the new indulgence provided that two Presbyterian ministers could be assigned to a single vacant parish and share its stipend, and that a parish which already had an indulged clergyman could have one or two more appointed to it, with the original incumbent retaining half the stipend. For their part, the newly indulged ministers had to pledge not to leave their parishes, to preach only in their parish churches, and to baptize only their own parishioners or those from neighbouring parishes that had no clergy. Although the government assigned 136 Presbyterians to parishes, more than 50 refused to serve.127 Regarding the indulgence as unacceptable, militant Presbyterians boldly defied the laws against conventicle meetings, even to the point of holding illegal meetings adjacent to those conducted by indulged ministers. They also circulated their objections in writing, making it clear that compromise was not an option. Dismayed and angry, Charles told Lauderdale in October 1673 that expectations of a further indulgence were unfounded, and he authorized the Duke to ‘restrict & retrench the 125

The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. 8, pp. 7–12. HMC, p. 72, Laing, vol. 1, p. 382; Buckroyd, Church and State, pp. 96–9. Part of Leighton’s journey from Covenanting Presbyterianism to episcopalianism is described in Crawford Gribben’s chapter in this collection. 127 BL, Add. MS 23,135, fol. 170r–v; RPCS, 1669–72, pp. 588–91; SP 29/333/62; Greaves, Enemies under his Feet, pp. 95–6. 126

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Indulgences already given’ as he deemed appropriate.128 In the ensuing years the government gradually implemented a harsher policy, relying on earlier expedients, until finally militant Covenanters took up arms in the Bothwell Bridge rebellion. After repressing the insurrection Monmouth re-imposed a policy of indulgence, and this time moderates were more receptive, not wanting to be tarred with the brush of sedition through association with the militants. Yet opposition to it was well-entrenched, particularly in the aftermath of the rebellion, which hardened attitudes among many conformists. In June 1680, the Scottish Council reminded the King that the indulgence ‘in its former latitud [had] produced ... insufferable disorders’, and Alexander Burnet, now Archbishop of St Andrews, averred in December 1681 that indulgence would wreck the established Church.129 Moreover, the increasing efforts of the bishops to emphasize ritualism in the early 1680s mitigated against indulgence as a way to unify most Scottish protestants.130 The ultimate triumph of the Presbyterians in Scotland in 1690 suggests that the policy of indulgence may never have succeeded in that realm, yet it did contribute to splitting the moderates from the militants, especially in 1679 and the ensuing years, when extremists became a small, desperate band. In Ireland, where a policy of de facto toleration was in place during much of Charles II’s reign, the religious scene was less troubled, in part because protestants were cognizant of their status as a minority in a Catholic land. Ecclesiastics in Scotland had a stronger role than their counterparts in Ireland in shaping policy during Charles’ reign, and most were hostile to indulgence, thus contributing to a greater degree of instability. Because the King and his ministers of state were primarily concerned with maintaining internal peace as a necessary component of overall security, they shaped policy with that in view. In their minds unchecked religious dissent was fundamentally a problem of sedition rather than schism, of law and order rather than polity and theology.

128 BL, Add. MS 23,136, fol. 3r; HMC 21, Hamilton, pp. 142–3; Greaves, Enemies under his Feet, p. 96. 129 BL, Add. MSS 23,138, fol. 21r; 32,094, fol. 396r; 23,136, fol. 163r; 23,248, fol. 22r; 23,246, fol. 51r (quoted); Collection of Letters, ed. Clarke, pp. 35–6. 130 Ian B. Cowan, ‘Worship and dissent in Restoration Scotland’, Scotia: AmericanCanadian Journal of Scottish Studies 2 (April 1978), pp. 61–9.

Index Abercorn family (Ulster) 187 Acworth, George (1534–81x6), administrator and scholar 35, 36, 38 Adamson, John (1576–1651?), Principal of Edinburgh University 160, 181 Alen, John (1476–1534), Archbishop of Dublin 24 Allan, David 162, 175 Allen, William, Catholic controversialist 53 Andrewe, George (d. 1648), Church of Ireland Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin 48, 53, 57 Annesley, Francis (bap. 1586, d. 1660), second Viscount Valentia 120, 126 Antichrist 12, 47, 50, 51, 100, 107, 108, 109, 111, 123, 124, 159, 167, 168 Apocalypticism see Eschatology Arminianism, 63, 64, 65, 69, 79, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 160, 164, 165, 172 Articles of Perth 78, 87, 160 Ashe, St George (1658–1718), Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry 213 Augustine 48, 100, 101, 102, 104, 116 Baillie, Robert (1602–62), Church of Scotland controversialist 72, 85, 164, 167, 173, 177, 182 Baines, Edward, Congregational clergyman 234, 238 Balfour, Sir James (1603/4–57), first baronet of Denmiln and Kinnaird 142 Barnard, Toby 230 Barnewall, Sir Patrick (d. 1622), Irish landowner 127 Baxter, Richard (1615–91), English

Presbyterian clergyman 72 Bedell, William (bap. 1572, d. 1642), Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore 60, 103, 112, 117 Bellarmine, Robert 51, 53, 54 Bellingham, Sir Edward (d. 1550), Lord Deputy of Ireland 17 Bellings, Richard (c. 1603–77), politician and historian, 192 Berkeley, John (bap. 1607, d. 1678), first Baron Berkeley of Stratton and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 238 Beza, Theodore 178 Binning, Hugh (1627–53), philosopher and Church of Scotland clergyman 173 Birkenshaw, Ralph, Comptroller of the Munsters 105, 108, 122 Blair, Robert (1593–1666), Church of Scotland clergyman 241 Blood, Thomas (1617/18–80), adventurer and spy, 234 Blount, Charles (1563–1606), eighth Baron Mountjoy and Earl of Devonshire and Lord Deputy of Ireland 123 Book of Common Prayer see Liturgy Boyd, Robert (1578–1627), theological writer 72 Boyle, Michael (1609/10–1702), Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh 209, 211, 222 236, 240 Boyle, Richard (1566–1643), first Earl of Cork 188 Boyle, Robert (1627–91), natural philosopher 99, 217 Boyse, Joseph (1660–1728), Presbyterian clergyman 192, 213 Brady, Hugh (c. 1527–1584), Bishop of Meath 22, 33, 34, 58 Bramhall, John (bap. 1594, d. 1663), Church of Ireland Archbishop of

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Armagh 211, 235, 236 Brouncker, Sir Henry, President of Munster 96, 97, 120, 121, 122 Brown, John (c. 1610–79), Church of Scotland clergyman 244 Brown, Keith 89 Brownlow, Arthur (1645–1711), Irish landowner 193 Bruce, Alexander (c. 1629–80), second Earl of Kincardine 243, 248 Bruce, Robert (1554–1631), Church of Scotland clergyman 73 Buckroyd, Julia 241 Bulkeley, Launcelot (1568/9–1650), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 195 Burnet, Alexander (1615–84), Archbishop of St Andrews 231, 232, 233, 241, 250 Burnet, Gilbert (1643–1715), Bishop of Salisbury and historian 244, 249 Butler, James (1610–88), first Duke of Ormond and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 3, 209, 229, 230, 231, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239 Butler, Richard (1639–86), first Earl of Arran 240 Butler, Richard (d. 1570), first Viscount Mountgarret 184 Butler revolt 32 Calderwood, David (c. 1575–1650), Church of Scotland clergyman and historian 78, 79, 85 Calvinism 6, 45, 51, 54, 62, 67, 72, 86, 124, 163, 183, 204; see also Theology Cambridge Platonists 179 Cameron, Richard (d. 1680), Covenanting preacher 242 Campbell, Archibald (1629–85), ninth Earl of Argyll 243 Campion, Edmund (1540–81), Jesuit and martyr 18 Canny, Nicholas 129 Cant, Andrew (1584/90–1663), Church of Scotland clergyman 81, 139, 164 Capel, Arthur (bap. 1632, d. 1683),

first Earl of Essex 238 Cargill, Donald (c. 1627–81), Covenanting preacher 242 Carmichael, Alexander (d. 1677), Presbyterian clergyman 244 Carswell, John (c. 1522–72), Bishop of the Isles, 19, 58, 59 Cary, Henry (c. 1575–1633), first Viscount Falkland, Lord Deputy of Ireland 125 Cecil, William (1520/21–98), first Baron Burghley 7 Chadwick, Owen 183 Charles I (1600–49), King of England, Scotland and Ireland 98, 111, 132, 133, 135, 138, 153, 172 Charles II (1630–85), King of England, Scotland and Ireland 134, 139, 142, 158, 202, 205, 213, 230, 233, 234, 236, 240, 241, 242, 246, 248, 250 Charnock, Stephen (1628–80), Presbyterian clergyman 234 Chichester, Arthur (1563–1625), Baron Chichester and Lord Deputy of Ireland 12, 60, 96, 97, 114, 116, 120, 121, 122 Church of England 18, 19, 23, 67, 77, 229 Church of Ireland 12, 20, 23–30, 39, 50, 52, 63, 65, 71, 77, 130, 184–201, 202–27 Irish Articles 101, 107 Church of Scotland 66–90, 131–58, 229; see also Presbyterianism Commissions of the Kirk 135–6, 138, 145, 150, 157 General Assembly (1618) 78 General Assembly (1638) 81, 134 General Assembly (1639) 172 General Assembly (1642) 167 General Assembly (1651) 171 General Assembly, Resolutioner (1653) 172 Covenanting General Assemblies 131–58 Clergy 28, 30–33, 190, 220, 226, 241, 242, 249 Clerical marriage 28, 29 Collinson, Patrick 12, 67–73, 74, 76,

INDEX

79, 80, 84 Compulsion 95–100 Confessionalization 1, 4, 8, 9, 13 Conformity 3, 4, 8, 11, 13, 37, 128, 207, 226, 228–50 Connaught 20 Conry, Florence 43–4 Conversion 7, 8, 13, 44, 45, 58–62, 128, 207, 226, 237 Cooper, Anthony Ashley (1621–83), first Earl of Shaftesbury 228 Copinger, John, Catholic controversialist 6, 44, 45 Cork, 16 Cornwallis, Sir Charles (c. 1555–1629), courtier and diplomat 92, 116, 126 Counter-Reformation 10, 16, 29 Court of Faculties in Ireland 35, 36, 38 Covenanting movement 11, 66, 76, 85, 131–58, 159–83, 234, 238, 239, 240; (see also Presbyterianism and Church of Scotland) National Covenant (1638), 132, 134, 139, 141, 147, 161, 168, 245 Solemn League and Covenant (1643) 131, 133, 134, 136, 147, 167, 168, 170, 236, 238, 239, 242, 245 Cowper, William (1568–1619), Bishop of Galloway 85 Crichton, William (1598-1691), second Earl of Dumfries 245 Crofts, Sir James (c. 1518–90), Lord Deputy of Ireland, 17 Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658), Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland 134, 158, 171, 172, 185, 204, 209 Cunningham, William (1610/11–64), eighth Earl of Glencairn 245 Curwen, Hugh (c. 1500–68), Archbishop of Dublin 29 Daniel, William (c. 1575–1628), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Tuam, 60 Davies, Sir John (bap. 1569, d. 1626),

253

lawyer and poet 96, 116, 121, 122 Desmond rising 106 Dickson, David (c. 1583–1662), Church of Scotland clergyman and theologian 72, 81, 137, 144, 163, 164, 165–6, 171, 172, 173, 174, 178, 183 Dodwell, Henry (1641–1711), scholar and theologian 212, 222 Dopping, Anthony (1643–97), Bishop of Meath 210, 211, 212, 213, 216, 218 Douglas, Robert (1594–1674), Church of Scotland clergyman 137, 139, 167 Dowdall, George (1487–1558), Archbishop of Armagh 29 Downham, George (d. 1634), Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry 53, 54, 59, 64, 99, 106, 107 Dublin 16, 41, 42, 52 Christ Church cathedral 185, 190, 192, 200, 216 St Patrick’s cathedral 20, 29, 30–33, 35, 200, 238 Dissolution of St Patrick’s cathedral 21 Dublin, University of 3, 52, 60, 71, 210, 211, 212, 213, 223 Proposal for founding the university 20–23 Durston, Christopher 70 Eales, Jacqueline 70 Ecclesiastical Commission 38 Edinburgh, University of 3 Edwards, Dudley 94 Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Queen of England and Ireland 58, 59, 67, 84, 113, 191 Elizabethan conquest of Ireland see Tudor conquest Engagement 170 Erskine, Alexander (d. 1677), third Earl of Kellie 246 Eschatology 3, 12, 100, 106, 108, 172 Family of Love 75 Fenton, Sir Geoffrey (c. 1539–1608),

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administrator in Ireland 104 Fincham, Kenneth 84 Finlayson, Michael 67 Fitton, Sir Edward (1527–79), administrator in Ireland 36 Fitzsimons, Henry, Jesuit controversialist 42, 43, 46, 48, 50 Foley, Samuel (1655–95), Bishop of Down and Connor 213, 219, 226 Forbes, Arthur (1623–95), first Earl of Granard 231, 239 Forbes, Patrick (1564–35), Bishop of Aberdeen 78 Ford, Alan 71, 77 Forster, Marc 8 Foster, Walter 182 Foy, Nathanael (1648–1707), Bishop of Waterford and Lismore 213, 220, 222, 226 Fuller, Thomas (1607/8–61), Church of England clergyman and historian 74 George, C.H. 67 Gerrard, Sir William (d. 1581), Welsh and Irish administrator 35, 36, 37 Gillespie, George (1613–48), Church of Scotland clergyman and theologian 82–3, 85, 88, 164, 167 Gillespie, Patrick (1617–75), Church of Scotland clergyman 172 Gillespie, Raymond 237 Goodwin, Thomas (1600–80), Congregationalist clergyman 175 Gordon, George (c. 1590–1649), second Marquess of Huntly 155 Gordon, James (d. 1649), second Viscount Aboyne 155 Gouge, William (1575–1653), Church of England clergyman and theologian 175 Graces 98–9, 119, 120 Graham, James (1612–50), first Marquess of Montrose 154, 170 Grey, Leonard (c. 1490–1541), Viscount Graney and Lord Deputy of Ireland 17, 26, 31

Gunpowder Plot 96, 126 Guthrie, James (c. 1612–61), Church of Scotland clergyman 137, 139, 173, 242 Guthrie, William (1620–65), Church of Scotland clergyman 72 Hackston, David (d. 1680), Covenanter 242 Hall, Basil 67 Hamilton, James (d. 1666), Church of Scotland clergyman 137 Hamilton, Malcolm (d. 1629), Archbishop of Cashel 99, 102, 103, 106, 109, 111, 115, 121, 125 Hampton, Christopher (c. 1551–1625), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh 50, 63, 98, 101, 104–5, 108, 120 Hampton Court Conference 75, 113 Harris (alias Green), Paul (c. 1573– c. 1642), Roman Catholic priest 53 Hay, John (1626–97), first Marquess of Tweeddale 241 Heidelberg Catechism (1563) 181 Henderson, Alexander (c. 1583–1646), Church of Scotland clergyman and politician 81, 167 Henry VIII (1491–1547), King of England and Ireland 58 Heylyn, Peter (1599–1662), Church of England clergyman and historian 82 High Commissions of Ireland 33, 36, 37 Hillerbrand, Hans 12, 13 Holywood [à Sacro Bosco], Christopher (1559?–1626), Jesuit controversialist 43, 186 Hope, Sir Thomas (1573–1646), of Craighall, first Baronet 153 Hoyle, Joshua (bap. 1588, d. 1654), theological scholar 51, 62 Hughes, Ann 70 Huntingdon, Robert (bap. 1637, d. 1701), Bishop of Raphoe 212 Identity 2, 10 Indulgence 247

INDEX

Irenaeus 49 Irish rebellion (1641) 138, 201, 204, 215, 216, 223 Israel, Jonathan 72 Jacobites 202–27, passim. James VI and I (1566–1625), King of Scotland, England and Ireland 67, 74, 75, 76, 78, 84, 85, 86, 95, 96, 103, 107, 116, 147, 191 James II and VII (1633–1701), King of England, Scotland, and Ireland 205, 206, 214, 215, 216, 217 Jansenism 179–180 Jelsma, Auke 11 Jerome, Stephen (fl. 1604–50), writer and Church of England clergyman 48, 53, 56, 63, 65, 188 Jones, Henry (1605–82), Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath 216 Jones, Thomas, (c. 1550–1619), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland 96, 97, 107, 112, 121 Johnston, Sir Archibald (bap. 1611, d. 1663), Lord Wariston, lawyer and politician 72, 86, 136, 142, 167 Kearney, John [Seán Ó Cearnaigh] (b. c. 1545, d. after 1572), Church of Ireland clergyman 19, 59 Keeble, Neil 70 Kennedy, John (1601x7–1668), sixth Earl of Cassillis 136, 138 Kerr, William (c. 1605–75), third Earl of Lothian 174 Kid, John (d. 1679), Covenanter preacher and martyr 242 King, John (d. 1679), Covenanter preacher and martyr 242 King, William (1650–1729), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 3, 192, 211, 213, 214, 216, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226 Kishlansky, Mark 70 Knox, Andrew (d. 1633), Bishop of Raphoe 86 Knox, John (c. 1514–72), Scottish

255

religious reformer 83, 163, 181, 182 Kupperman, Karen 71 Laity 10, 30–33, 61, 165, 191, 211, 220, 226, 241 Language choice 10, 21, 43, 47, 57–62, 173, 198, 210–11, 223 Lake, Peter 68, 79, 84 Lamb, Andrew (1565?–1634), Bishop of Galloway 86 Lamont, William 70 Lane, Sir Parr (fl. 1621), Irish administrator 96, 104, 106, 108, 109, 115, 117, 122, 123, 127, 128 Laud, William (1573–1645), Archbishop of Canterbury 81 Laudianism see Arminianism Lecky, William 234 Leighton, Alexander (c. 1570–1649), Presbyterian controversialist 159, 167 Leighton, Robert (bap. 1612, d. 1684), Archbishop of Glasgow 3, 159–83, 249 Leinster 19 Lennon, Colm 9, 12 Leslie, Charles (1650–1722), nonjuring Church of Ireland clergyman 223 Leslie, Henry (1580–1661), Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Connor 53, 55–6, 63–4, 81, 101–2, 105 Levy, Babette 71 Limerick 57 Lindsay, Thomas (1656–1724), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh 218 Lingard, Richard (1633/4–70), Church of Ireland Dean of Lismore 212 Liturgy 28, 29, 58, 60, 202, 203, 205, 237, 250 Livingstone, John (1603–72), Church of Scotland clergyman 86, 139, 244 Loftus, Adam (1533/4–1605), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 17, 22, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36,

256

ENFORCING REFORMATION IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND

37, 38, 39, 58, 96, 97, 107, 112, 121 Loftus, Adam (1568–1643), first Viscount Loftus of Ely and Lord Chancellor of Ireland 99 Lynch, Michael 85 Lyon, William (d. 1617), Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork 114 Mac Caghwell, Hugh [Hugo Cavellus, Aodh Mac Aingill] (1571?–1626), Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and theologian 44 MacCulloch, Diarmaid 71 MacDonald, Alan 75 MacWard, Robert (c. 1625–81), Presbyterian clergyman 241 Maitland, John, Duke of Lauderdale (1616–82), 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249 Makey, Walter 134 Malone, William (1586–1656), Jesuit controversialist 42, 46, 49, 51, 54 Manby, Peter (b. 1681), Jesuit controversialist 192 Margetson, James (1600–78), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh 212, 236 Marsh, Francis, (1627–93), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 240 Marsh, Narcissus (1638–1713), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh 211, 212, 217, 223, 226 Martyrdom 13, 45, 113, 127, 129, 242 Mary I (1516–58), Queen of England and Ireland 29 Mass see Sacraments, eucharist Maxwell, John (d. 1647), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Tuam 81 McCavitt, John 129 McKell [McKail], Hugh (1640/41–66), Church of Scotland clergyman and martyr 242 Melville, Andrew (1545–1622), university principal and theologian 75

Miller, Perry 66 Milles, Thomas (1671–1740), Church of Ireland Bishop of Waterford and Lismore 218 Milton, Anthony 70 Milward, Peter 191 Morrill, John 70 Monmouth 242 Montgomery, Hugh (b. in or before 1626, d. 1663), first Earl of Mount-Alexander 230 Montgomery, William (1633–1707), historian 185, 199 Moray, Sir Robert (1608/9?–73), army officer and politician 243 Moreton, William (1640/41–1715), Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath 222 Mossom, Robert (bap. 1617, d. 1679), Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry 211, 237 Mullan, David 66, 72, 77, 83, 84, 89, 183 Munster 19, 20 Murdock, Graeme 72 Nicodemism 6–7; see also recusancy Nicolson, William (1655–1727), Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and antiquary 218 Nine Years War 95, 106, 112, 114 Nischan, Bodo 11 Nonconformity, 2, 202–27, 228–50, passim Non-juring controversy 222 Nuttall, Geoffrey 71 O’Devany, Conor (c.1535–1612), Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor 12 O’Hussey, Bonaventure [Ó hEodhasa, Giolla Brighde], Franciscan friar and poet 43 O’Neill, Sir Phelim Roe [Felim Ruadh] (1603–53), landowner and insurgent 199 O’Neill, Shane (c. 1530–67) 19, 29 Ormond, house of 32; see also Butler, James Ormond, Lord Lieutenant see Butler, James

INDEX

Owen, John (1616–83), theologian and Congregational clergyman 72 Pale 24, 25, 30, 31, 37 Parker, John (d. 1681), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin 235 Parker, Matthew (1504–75), Archbishop of Canterbury 18, 35 Parliament, English 27, 30, 33, 228 House of Lords 228 Parliament, Irish 4, 205 House of Commons 21, 49, 208 House of Lords 206, 221 1536–37 session 23 1541 session 25 1569–71 session 22, 32 Act of Supremacy (Henry VIII) 94 Act of Supremacy (1559) 20, 94 Act of Uniformity (1559) 20, 94, 96 Parliament, Scottish 231, 242, 245, 248 1621 session, 78 Covenanting Parliaments, 131–58 Parish 5 Pascal, Blaise (1623–62), Jansenist and philosopher 179–80 Paterson, John (1632–1708), Archbishop of Glasgow 233, 247 Patronage 10, 138, 140–42 Penal laws 92–5, 205, 217; see also Recusancy Perkins, William (1558–1602), theologian and Church of England clergyman 87 Perrott, Sir John (1528–1592), lord Deputy of Ireland 17 Phillipson, Nicholas 66 Preaching see Sermons Presbyterianism 12, 64, 66, 76, 189, 192, 193, 196, 203, 207, 208, 210, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225, 226, 228, 230, 234, 235, 236, 244; see also Church of Scotland Preston, John (1587–1628), Church of England clergyman 87 Prideaux, John (1578–1650), Bishop of Worcester 46 Printing press as an agent of

257

reformation 4, 40–65 Privy Council, English 97 Privy Council, Irish 38, 59, 96, 115, 116, 122, 123 Privy Council, Scottish 143, 241, 242, 243 Puritanism 64, 65, 66–90, 123, 124, 159, 163, 175, 182 Puttock, Roger (fl. 1630s), Church of Ireland controversialist 49, 54, 56, 65, 102, 112 Radcliffe, Thomas (1526/7–83), third Earl of Sussex and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 17, 27, 29 Ramsay, Andrew (1574–1659), Church of Scotland clergyman and theologian 179 recusancy 10, 12, 41, 46, 62, 69, 84, 101, 119, 127, 153, 154, 190, 192, 195, 199, 200, 207, 236, 242; see also Nicodemism Reformation, enforcing of 2 Reformation, ideological and religious methods of 3, 16 Reformation, motivation for 3, 100–121 Reformation, targets of 2 Regium donum 206, 209, 239 Reily, Hugh (fl. 686–95), royal official and Roman Catholic writer 93 Rider [Ryder], John (1562–1632), lexicographer and Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe 42, 46, 48, 50 Robartes, John (1606–85), first Earl of Radnor 238 Rogers, John (c. 1570–1636), Church of Scotland clergyman 73 Rollock, Robert (1555–99), Church of Scotland clergyman and university principal 163, 168 Rothe, David (c. 1573–1650), Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossory 117, 128 Row, John (c. 1598–1672), Church of Scotland clergyman 172 Russell, Conrad 70 Rutherford, Samuel (c. 1600–61), Church of Scotland clergyman

258

ENFORCING REFORMATION IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND

72, 82, 85, 86, 141, 160, 163, 164, 167, 168, 172, 175, 182 Sacraments 49, 225 Eucharist 7, 28, 29, 49, 124, 189, 190, 193, 200, 201, 214, 216 Baptism 249 Schilling, Heinz 4, 8 Schmidt, Heinrich 8 Sermons 47 Sharp, James (1618–79), Archbishop of St Andrews 233, 241, 242, 245–6, 247 Sharp, John (1572–1647), Church of Scotland clergyman and theologian 179 Sheldon, Gilbert (1598–1677), Archbishop of Canterbury 236 Sheridan, William (1635–1711), nonjuring Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh 222–3 Sibbald, Sir Robert (1641–1722), physician and geographer 182 Sibbes, Richard (1577?–1635), Church of England clergyman 87, 175 Sibthorp, Sir Christopher (d. 1632/3), lawyer and pamphleteer 41–2, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 56, 61, 102, 105, 111, 121, 122 Sidney, Sir Henry, Lord Deputy of Ireland (1529–86) l2, 14–39 Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–86), author and courtier 46 Spottiswood, John (1565–1639), Archbishop of St Andrews and historian 78 Spottiswood, Sir Robert (1596–1646), Lord Dunipace 144 Spurr, John 70 St John, Oliver (1559–1630), first Viscount Grandison of Limerick and Lord Deputy of Ireland 97 St Leger, Sir Anthony (1496?–1559), Lord Deputy of Ireland 25, 26, 27, 31 Stanihurst, Richard (1547–1618), Roman Catholic controversialist 18, 43

Stapleton, Theobald [Teabóid Gallduf] (1589–1647), Roman Catholic priest and author 10 Stapleton, Thomas (1535–1598), Roman Catholic theologian 53 Stearne, John (1660–1745), Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher 213 Stevenson, David 134 Stewart, John (c. 1599–1659), first Earl of Traquair 132, 135 Supremacy, oath of 48 Sydserff, Thomas (1581–1663), Bishop of Orkney 81, 86 Synge, Edward (1659–1741), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Tuam 224 Synge, George (1594–1652), Church of Ireland Bishop of Cloyne 48, 49, 62, 103 Taaffe, Theobald (d. 1677), first Earl of Carlingford 205 Talbot, Richard (1630–91), first Earl of Tyrconnell and Jacobite Duke of Tyrconnell 205 Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, d. 1667), Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Connor 211, 230, 237 Tertullion 102, 103 Theatre 86 Theology 4, 28, 51; see also Calvinism and Arminianism Todd, Margo 76, 80 Toleration 3, 91–130, 171, 206, 218, 219, 220, 221, 236 Torrance, Thomas F. 162, 176, 178, 183 Trail, Robert (1642–1716), Church of Scotland clergyman 244 Transubstantiation see Sacraments, eucharist Trent, Council of 11, 189, 190, 193 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 162 Trinity College, Dublin see Dublin, University of Tudor conquest of Ireland 14, 15, 26 Tyacke, Nicholas 70, 84 Ulster 16 Underdown, David 70

INDEX

Universities 3, 135, 143–4, 172, 230 Urquhart, Sir Thomas (1611–60), of Cromartie 82 Ussher, James (1581–1656), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh 41, 42, 46, 47, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 62, 65, 98, 99, 103, 110–11, 117, 121, 125 Violence 228–50 Wales, 18, 204, 208, 211 Wall, Maureen, 94 Webster, Tom, 70 Welsh, John (d. 1681), Covenanting preacher 232, 233 Wentworth, Thomas (1593–1641), first Earl of Strafford and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 64, 95, 100, 102, 126, 212 Westminster Assembly 161, 164, 165, 167, 170, 174, 175, 202 Westminster Catechisms 176–7, 221

259

Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) 163, 166, 178, 180 Weston, Robert (b. in or before 1522, d. 1573), Lord Chancellor of Ireland 20, 22, 31, 32, 33, 37, 39 Wetenhall, Edward (1636–1713), Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh 216, 218 Wild, George (1610–65), Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry 211, 230, 231 William III and II (1650–1702), King of England, Scotland and Ireland, and Prince of Orange 206, 214, 218, 219 Wingfield, Jacques 36 Winship, Michael 70 Witchcraft 149–50, 192 Wood, James (c. 1609–64), Church of Scotland clergyman and theologian 141 Worden, Blair 70 Wrightson, Keith 70

St Andrews Studies in Reformation History Editorial Board: Bruce Gordon, Andrew Pettegree and Roger Mason, St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute, Scotland, Amy Nelson Burnett, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, USA, Euan Cameron, Union Theological Seminary, New York, USA and Kaspar von Greyerz, University of Basel, Switzerland Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560–1620 Karin Maag Marian Protestantism Six Studies Andrew Pettegree Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Europe (2 volumes) Edited by Bruce Gordon Antifraternalism and Anticlericalism in the German Reformation Johann Eberlin von Günzburg and the Campaign against the Friars Geoffrey Dipple Piety and the People: Religious Printing in French, 1511–1551 Francis M. Higman The Reformation in Eastern and Central Europe Edited by Karin Maag The Magnificent Ride The First Reformation in Hussite Bohemia Thomas A. Fudge Kepler’s Tübingen Stimulus to a Theological Mathematics Charlotte Methuen The Reformation and the Book Jean-François Gilmont, edited and translated by Karin Maag ‘Practical Divinity’ The Works and Life of Revd Richard Greenham Kenneth L. Parker and Eric J. Carlson Frontiers of the Reformation Dissidence and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Europe Auke Jelsma

The Jacobean Kirk, 1567–1625 Sovereignty, Polity and Liturgy Alan R. MacDonald John Knox and the British Reformations Edited by Roger A. Mason The Education of a Christian Society Humanism and the Reformation in Britain and the Netherlands Edited by N. Scott Amos, Andrew Pettegree and Henk van Nierop Poor Relief and Protestantism The Evolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden Timothy G. Fehler Tudor Histories of the English Reformations, 1530–83 Thomas Betteridge Radical Reformation Studies Essays presented to James M. Stayer Edited by Werner O. Packull and Geoffrey L. Dipple Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation Precedent Policy and Practice Helen L. Parish Penitence in the Age of Reformations Edited by Katharine Jackson Lualdi and Anne T. Thayer The Faith and Fortunes of France’s Huguenots, 1600–85 Philip Benedict The Bible in the Renaissance Essays on Biblical Commentary and Translation in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries Edited by Richard Griffiths The Sixteenth-Century French Religious Book Edited by Andrew Pettegree, Paul Nelles and Philip Conner Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation Rebecca Wagner Oettinger Christianity and Community in the West Essays for John Bossy Edited by Simon Ditchfield

John Foxe and his World Edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King Obedient Heretics Mennonite Identities in Lutheran Hamburg and Altona during the Confessional Age Michael D. Driedger Reformation, Politics and Polemics The Growth of Protestantism in East Anglian Market Towns, 1500–1610 John Craig Usury, Interest and the Reformation Eric Kerridge Confessional Identity in East-Central Europe Edited by Maria Craciun, ˘ Ovidiu Ghitta and Graeme Murdock Hatred in Print Catholic Propaganda and Protestant Identity during the French Wars of Religion Luc Racaut The Correspondence of Reginald Pole Volume1. A Calendar, 1518–1546: Beginnings to Legate of Viterbo Thomas F. Mayer Self-Defence and Religious Strife in Early Modern Europe England and Germany, 1530–1680 Robert von Friedeburg The British Union A Critical Edition and Translation of David Hume of Godscroft’s De Unione Insulae Britannicae Edited by Paul J. McGinnis and Arthur H. Williamson Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation Anne T. Thayer Huguenot Heartland Montauban and Southern French Calvinism during the French Wars of Religion Philip Conner Reforming the Scottish Church John Winram (c. 1492–1582) and the Example of Fife Linda J. Dunbar

Baptism and Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern England Will Coster Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London, 1500–1620 Claire S. Schen Cultures of Communication from Reformation to Enlightenment Constructing Publics in the Early Modern German Lands Edited by James Van Horn Melton The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603 Anne Dillon Sebastian Castellio, 1515 –1563 Humanist and Defender of Religious Toleration in a Confessional Age Hans R. Guggisberg, translated and edited by Bruce Gordon The Front-Runner of the Catholic Reformation The Life and Works of Johann von Staupitz Franz Posset The Correspondence of Reginald Pole Volume 2. A Calendar, 1547–1554: A Power in Rome Thomas F. Mayer William of Orange and the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1572–84 K.W. Swart, edited by R.P. Fagle, M.E.H.N. Mout and H.F.K. van Nierop, translated by J.C. Grayson The Italian Reformers and the Zurich Church, c.1540–1620 Mark Taplin William Cecil and Episcopacy, 1559–1577 Brett Usher A Dialogue on the Law of Kingship among the Scots A Critical Edition and Translation of George Buchanan’s De Iure Regni apud Scotos Dialogus Roger A. Mason and Martin S. Smith Music and Religious Identity in Counter-Reformation Augsburg, 1580–1630 Alexander J. Fisher The Correspondence of Reginald Pole Volume 3. A Calendar, 1555–1558: Restoring the English Church Thomas F. Mayer

Women, Sex and Marriage in Early Modern Venice Daniela Hacke Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva The Shaping of a Community, 1536–1564 Karen E. Spierling Moderate Voices in the European Reformation Edited by Luc Racaut and Alec Ryrie Piety and Family in Early Modern Europe Essays in Honour of Steven Ozment Edited by Marc R. Forster and Benjamin J. Kaplan Religious Identities in Henry VIII’s England Peter Marshall Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe Essays in Honour of Brian G. Armstrong Edited by Mack P. Holt John Jewel and the English National Church The Dilemmas of an Erastian Reformer Gary W. Jenkins Catholic Activism in South-West France, 1540–1570 Kevin Gould Idols in the Age of Art Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World Edited by Michael W. Cole and Rebecca E. Zorach