WARNING: Do not continue reading unless you are a History nerd! 7,300 words (not including endnotes and the bibliography) on the Protestant Rhetoric in Early Modern England can cause violent head aches, bloody stool and even death in those not properly acclimated to it.
Catholics in Disguise: Protestant Rhetoric as Justification for English Conquest
The Protestant Reformation is a seminal event in European history, and its effects were felt by much of the rest of the world in the years following as European powers spread their influence and built empire. The reformation was a city by city movement in the German states where it first took hold. While it found some support from men in high places, many of its primary proponents, men like Martin Luther, were lacking in hereditary power. Rather they gained their power through an appeal to the common man, using new tools of propaganda like Gutenberg's printing press. The reformation in Germany was set off by Luther and others as a reaction to what they viewed as corruption at high levels of the Catholic Church. But across the Channel in England, the Protestant Reformation took on a decidedly different character. In The Beginning of the English Reformation, Hugh Ross Williamson says of the initial separation between London and Rome, “For their was no immediate doctrinal cleavage. The Reformation in England differs radically from that in Germany.”1 Williamson continues on to explain that reformation ideologues of the Lutherian mold were scarce in English society. He quotes from Sir Maurice Powicke who states in The Reformation in England, “The one definite thing which can be said about the reformation in England is that it was an Act of State.”2 The English reformation was brought about primarily through the actions of a single person, the head of state, King Henry VIII. Williamson claims, “The later doctrinal change was merely an ideological justification for the political and economic revolution which the Act of State deliberately initiated.” While later proponents of Protestantism in England advanced religious reform of church doctrine, they did so inside the framework of a political revolution, meant to establish the King as supreme authority on all matters inside his borders, both secular and religious. Maintaining that supreme authority became a justification for the extension of the English Protestant Reformation outside the borders of England, and for the subjugation of Irish Catholics and Scottish Non-conformists alike.
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and a favorite of Henry's3 tells us, “...the English care neither for Pope nor Popes... not even if St. Peter should come to life again... the King is absolute both as Emperor and Pope in his own kingdom.”4 The King of England was the head of the Church of England, and that church, for the safety and security of the state, was the ultimate religious authority, independent of any outside influence, just as the political and economic policies of the state were independent of foreign actors and influence. This type of religious autonomy for a political state was unique to England. “The doctrine that within his realms a king was not only head of State... but also the head of the church—that he was the source,” says Richard Rex in Henry VIII and the English Reformation, “of not only temporal but spiritual jurisdiction—was unprecedented.”5 We see, in the justification for such a drastic change in political and religious power structure, a beginning of what Stewart Mottram refers to as the “rhetoric of nationhood”6 and even an extension of that nationhood into an external quest for empire.
In Reading the Rhetoric of Nationhood..., Mottram suggests that, while Henry VIII and his royalist supporters, in their discussions of nation, may have only had an “...empire confined to the contours of England...”7 in mind, they used in their arguments the examples of Constantine and Arthur. He claims that for many observers, both at the time and in the coming years, the use of these, “historical figures imply, not Henry's pretensions to empire in the English Church, but his aspirations to conquest beyond the shores of his sceptred isle.”8 While in practice Henry may only have had consolidation of his internal power in mind with his break from the Pope, the language his supporters found it necessary to use, would imply to many that he had ambitions for the English throne of an empire in the model of Constantine's Rome.
If under Henry VIII the foundation for English Protestant empire was laid, then it is under his daughter and eventual successor, Queen Elizabeth I and the following Stuart monarchs that the framework is put up, and the shape of a national identity can begin to be seen. In Bonfires & Belles, David Cressy details the formation of the Anglican calendar which took place during the Elizabethan and Stuart era. He says, “Though founded on Christianity, purged of the excesses of late-medieval Catholicism, the guiding landmarks were taken from recent incidents in English history. The calendar became an important instrument in declaring and disseminating a distinctively Protestant national culture.”9 Through use of a calendar which emphasized celebration of events exemplifying a distinct Protestant nature (newly established under Henry VIII) all of England began to be brought together by their common religion, forming a nation with a shared Protestant identity.
Over the course of the sixteenth century, this English cultural identity was partially defined in positive terms. England was Protestant. But Elizabethan English subjects also defined their national identity in negative terms. They were not Catholic. Two events in particular, established a strong anti-Catholic sentiment in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century England. The first was the English Navy’s encounter with the Spanish Armada. Commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Armada consisted of one-hundred thirty ships. It was an invasion fleet, sent by King Philip II of Spain with the support of Pope Sixtus V, meant to return England to the Catholic fold and place it under the control of Philip II who had a loose dynastic claim through his wife Mary, Elizabeth’s sister.10
Despite attempts to mobilize the country-side, England was ill prepared for a ground defense should the Armada manage to land its troops. Cressy tells us that the navy on the other hand, was well equipped, well lead and, designed around small fast ships armed with quick-firing guns, was perfectly suited to fighting against the larger but slower Spanish galleons.11 This advantage, while evident to historians, was unknown to the English at the time. The Armada, and the Spanish and Catholic aggression toward England it represented, was a credible and dangerous threat. So grave was the situation, that to many only a miracle could save the English Realm. Prayer, according to Cressy, became as important to national defense as horses, guns, and sails. “These prayers formed a new national litany…” he states, “They served, at one level, to alert and to warn the country and to bring about a pious and determined national consensus.”12 The Armada served as a common enemy for all of England to unite against, under the banner of a beleaguered Protestant nation weathering the storm of Catholic aggression.
The Armada did not land its armies on English soil. It was defeated, in the summer of 1588, in a series of battles with a smaller, more maneuverable English navy. The prayers of an entire nation were answered. As Cressy puts it, “Their request for a sign that God had taken England into his special protection was gloriously granted through his scattering of the Spanish fleet.”13 In the minds of its people, England became a favored nation. God had delivered it miraculously from the grasp of Catholic heathenism. But the threat of Catholicism still loomed. Cressy explains, “Yet England was still at war, facing the most formidable enemy in Europe. There were still traitors to deal with at home and the massed forces of Antichrist overseas. Even the breaking and scattering of the Armada, however miraculous, might only delay a renewed Spanish onslaught. The failure of the Armada meant respite, not victory.”14 The threat of foreign Catholic takeover remained a rallying point for the ever more zealous Protestant English.
An international Catholic menace was not the only danger with which English Protestants had to deal. There was also the matter of Catholics within England itself. And no incident exemplified the threat these English Catholics posed more clearly in the minds of Protestant English, than the events of 5 November 1605. In 1604-5, a group of English Catholics devised and put into motion a plan to blow up the Parliament building while the royal family and both houses were present. One of the conspirators, Guy Fawks, placed twenty barrels (around one ton) of gunpowder in a cellar beneath the House of Lords. A group of Catholic Gentlemen, under the guise of a hunting party stood ready outside London to seize control of the government in the confusion of the aftermath. But the explosion never came. Fawks had been found out, and under torture, gave up the names of his co-conspirators who were rounded up, tried, convicted and executed.15
The Gunpowder Plot, as it would be known, confirmed Protestant England’s worst fears about their Catholic co-habitants. As Cressy states, “The plot was interpreted as further proof of the relentless evil of Roman Catholicism…”16 The nation of true Christian Protestants believed it was under attack from without and from within.
Just as important to the formation of English identity as who was against them, was the way in which these two and other attacks were defeated. Credit was given, not to the men who had lead or served in the navy, or ferreted out the conspiracy, but instead to God and his mercy. England, Protestant England, was the chosen nation of God and received his mercy, protection and deliverance form the evil Catholic horde.17 For years (even centuries) afterward 5 November, Guy Fawks Day, and the Gunpowder Plot were used by preachers, statesmen and Kings alike to remind the people that their identity as Christians, as Protestants, as Englishmen, made them a part of God’s select. Any threat to the state or its royal person was a threat to the Church of England. The reverse was also true; any threat to the Church of England was a threat to the Crown and the State and to their status as privileged members of God’s protectorate nation.
While grave threats to the English nation from abroad existed, a great physical separation between these threats and the British Isles meant that the danger they posed, while serious and important was not always immediate. And while the Gunpowder Plot certainly brought to light the dangers that Catholics living in England could pose, the number of Papists willing to go to such lengths to strike at the state and its representatives remained, for the most part at a manageable level. But another threat, made up of a large and hostile population, existed within the British Isles themselves. Ireland, while remaining a separate kingdom, had been partially or completely under English control since the twelfth century. But following the English Protestant Reformation, a movement breaking England’s ties with the Catholic Church in Rome and a revolutionary change in which Ireland did not share, remaining Catholic by in large, conflict between to two kingdoms, always a possibility, appeared to be inevitable. Nicholas Canny, in his text, Making Ireland British: 1580-1650 explains that, while England had tried in 1598, to settle English Protestants in Ireland, they had been thrown out with Spanish backing and support. This, “…brought it home to Queen Elizabeth and her advisers that a real possibility existed that England’s interest in Ireland would be obliterated, and that Ireland would become a satellite jurisdiction of the Spanish monarchy.”18 Once again, the threat of Spanish Catholicism rears its head. Canny continues, “It was to prevent the effective encirclement of England by the power of Spain that the government authorized a level of military expenditure in Ireland such as could not have been imagined even a decade earlier.”19 What had primarily been a civilian settlement operation now became a military occupation. These occupations lead to several more Irish uprisings including the Irish Rebellion of 1641. It was this rebellion which convinced, “…even reasonable Protestants, that society in Ireland was depraved.”20 This depravity prevented the Irish from joining their English neighbors in a civilized Kingdom.
The goal of these English occupations was not simply to keep Spain out of the British Isles. The English settlers, “…were determined to reshape the character of the people and society in Ireland to a model which they defined as British.”21 The English settlers saw it as their goal to convert Irish Catholics to Protestantism, thus allowing them to remove themselves from their depravity and join with them as Britons. In an open letter written in 1698 to “the Roman Catholics of Ireland” Sir Richard Cox writes, “I May Reason expect that you should give some regard to the following Admonitions, since They Result from the Compassion of a Gentleman, the Charity of a Christian, and the Affection of a Friend; and their Design is to promote the Safety and Happiness of the Kingdom in general, and of You in particular.”22 Cox, who would eventually become lord chancellor of Ireland, was an Irishman, orphaned at a young age and educated in England.23 His goal in writing this letter is to convince Irish Catholics to convert to Protestantism. His reason for wanting them to do so is to further the “safety and happiness” of the entire British Kingdom.
Cox states clearly that he does not believe the Irish Catholics to be Christians, and therefore they can not be good subjects of the Crown. They cannot be British. “I ought first to Enquire how far you are from being Good Subjects or Good Christians, whilst you continue Papists.”24 Cox paints a picture of the Irish Catholics as feuding, violent, distempered people. This feuding, he says, did not improve after the English conquests.25 But his primary point of contention with the Irish Roman Catholics is not their apparent lack of a civilized societal structure. It is their lack of loyalty to the King, caused he believes by their prior loyalties to the Pope. He says, “How far too many of You are from being Good Subjects to a Protestant King, who you believe Damn’d, and wish Dethron’d.”26 He points out that while the Irish claimed loyalty to King James II, they did so only as a, “…Popish Friend, and not as an English King.”27 Thus, any loyalties that the Irish may profess while still remaining Catholic are the, “Pretended Loyalty of Superstitious and Bigotted Papists, especially Clergy-man, [and are] appropriated to the Court of Rome, not to the Crown of England”28 Here, both the loyalty and honesty of Irish Catholics is called into question.
William Penn, a Quaker and the founder of the Pennsylvania colony29 says in his essay The Oaths of Irish Papists no Evidence Against Protestants, “Protestants in general are suppos'd to be very well satisfied of this Real Truth, That 'tis a Popish Principle inseparably annext to that Faithless Religion, That Faith is not to be kept with hereticks.”30 Penn argues that the oaths of Catholics can not be trusted in court, because their oaths of loyalty to the King and his representatives are not genuine. It is a principle of the “Faithless Religion,” to break trust with those who are not Catholic, therefore the word of these Irish Papists is not to be trusted.
Sir Richard Cox's reasoning operates on this same idea, that Irish Catholics can not be trusted, because they are Catholic. He says, “And if you will consider that you in Ireland, who believe the Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope. Whenever the Pope Excommunicates the King [you] must either renounce your Allegiance or your Religion, and turn either Protestants or Rebels.” According to Cox, there is no middle ground for these Irish Papists. They must either remain Catholic and therefore be forced to break their oaths of loyalty to the English Protestant King, or convert themselves and be welcomed into civilized, faithful, Protestant Britain. According to Alexandra Walsham's text Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500-1700, an, “...emotional and imaginative elision between Catholicism and treacherous support for foreign powers,” existed in England.31 To be Catholic was to lend your support to a foreign body. One could not be both Catholic and British.
The two Kingdoms of England and Ireland fell under control of the English monarchy. Due to separation both by the Irish Sea and by heritage, they remained separate entities. England controlled Irish politics and courts, but they did so as an occupying force, often a military one. The attorney general for Ireland, Sir John Davies,32 discusses in detail the various attempts by both the Crown and wealthy English subjects to subdue Ireland and bring it under the full control of the English monarchy beginning during the reign of Henry II in the twelfth century. Originally published as two separate texts in 1612 and 1613, the full title of Davies’ combined 1664 edition was, Historical relations, or, A discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued nor brought under obedience of the crown of England, until the beginning of the reign of King James of happy memory.33 Davies claims that it was a lack of resolve on the part of the English would-be conquerors which lead to Ireland remaining functionally separate from England beginning with the original invasions by Henry II and continuing up to the reign of “King James [I of England] of happy memory.” (When, as has already been discussed, the threat posed by Spain’s support of Catholic Ireland forced English Protestants to take a more serious approach to the conquest of Ireland.) He then compares the conquest of a nation to farming a plot of land. He says:
"For the Husbandman must break the land, before it be made capable of good seed: and when it is thoroughly broken and manured, if he do not forthwith cast good seed into it, it will grow wilde again, and bear nothing but weeds. So a barbarous Country must be first broken by a war, before it will be capable of good Government; and when it is fully subdued and conquered, it if be not well planted and governed after the conquest, it will eft-soons return to the former Barbarism."34
Ireland must be firmly broken through military action, then seeded with civilian government and settlement. None of the previous occupations of Ireland met Davies’ conditions for the “Perfect Conquest,” because they did not bring about the, “…reduc[tion of] all the people thereof [in Ireland] to the Condition of Subjects: and those I call Subjects, which are governed by the ordinary Laws and Magistrates of the Soveraign.”35 This is Davies primary point of contention. Though the King of England bore the title of Lord of Ireland, he was unable to, “…punish Treasons, Murthers, or Thefts, unless he send an Army to do it.”36 The King could not enforce the law, and was therefore Lord in name only. This was a problem for the English during the time period Davies is discussing, but for Sir John and his contemporaries, the continued resistance of barbarian Ireland to the civilizing effects of English conquest takes on an even greater importance during and after the English Protestant Reformation.
In late 1643, Evan Tyler published a series of resolutions sent between the parliaments of Scotland and England that same year. The stated goal of these documents was the, “…reformation and defence of religion, the honour and happinesse of the King, and the peace and safety of the three kingdomes of Scotland, England and Ireland.”37 For the authors, the goal of “…bringing the Kingdomes to a more near conjuction and union…”38 could come about only after a reformation of religion. They state their intent, “By the blessing of God , for [] settling and preserving the true Protestant Religion, with perfect Peace in his Majesties Dominions, and propagation of the same to other nations, and for establishing his Majesties throne to all ages and generations.”39 The concept of “Britain,” the joining of all the territories of the British Isles under one sovereign King, and a “British Empire” the expansion of British civilization into other nations, existed in the minds of English Protestants, but the political bodies of Great Britain and the British Empire did not, and could not so long as the Irish continued to remain Catholic. The beginning of a British empire would not be the joining of England and Ireland, but of England and Scotland.
England began its physical transformation into the British Empire in 1603 with the death of Queen Elizabeth I, and the ascension of James I. It is important to note that James I of England was also James VI of Scotland. James I (VI) became in effect, the first British emperor, ruling over, and recognized as the King of two separate nations at once. But two nations they remained. In The Formation of the British State, Brian P. Levack, writing of the coronation of James I says, “It did not unite the laws, political institutions, or churches of the two kingdoms and did not therefore create a united kingdom, a united British state, or a single British nation.”40 The union of England and Scotland was dynastic only, and the religions and cultures of the two nations stayed separate. James however, was reluctant to let them remain so. Almost immediately he began a series of attempts to unite his two kingdoms politically, economically, and religiously. Part of his reasoning was logistical. Since he intended to rule both kingdoms from London, the possibility existed for Scotland to become alienated if its political system remained entirely separate from England's. The other half of his reasoning was less pragmatic. Levack says again, in reference to James and his supporter's logic, “The further union of England and Scotland was the fulfillment of a historical and divinely inspired plan.”41 The new English King believed it was God's will to have the two kingdoms united, and since James I was now the head of the Anglican Church, his church had a divine right to rule over the worship of his Scottish subjects as well as his English ones. These attempts to unite the kingdoms met with resistance on both sides of the border, and in the north much of the objection centered on the ecclesiastical hierarchy which James and the Church of England wanted to subject Scotland to. These unionizing attempts were for the next century, largely ineffective.
It takes one hundred years and a civil war and a and the defeat of a Scottish religious uprising to unite the two kingdoms permanently beyond the sharing of a crown. In 1707, with the support of Queen Anne in England and the Court Party in Scotland, The Treaty of Union was signed into law by both parliaments. Levack says, “The Treaty established a single British state—the United Kingdom of Great Britain.”42 In between the regal union of 1603 and the parliamentary union 1707, is a century of upheaval, conflict, propaganda and negotiation. Cromwell's union attempt typifies the nature of Anglican-Scottish relations during the seventeenth century. Scotland's parliament was merged with England's, but Scotland remained a militarily occupied territory and a protectorate of England, after its and the King's defeat in the civil war in 1651. This prevented the rising of any sort of national union from Cromwell's revolution. The Anglo-Scottish union would return to is regal character after the Restoration in 1660 when English troops were removed from Scottish land.
Into this climate of tenuous relations the Scottish rebellion of 1679 enters. The rebellion is the work of religious agitators who are upset by Charles II attempt to establish ecclesiastical control over their services. To English observers, the rebellion is an overt attempt to subvert the development of a British state, something which good supporters of the King have been seeking since even before the Regal union of 1603.
Published in London in 1679, A Fresh Relation of the King's Army in Scotland... is a discussion of the movements of troops on both sides of the Scottish Rebellion and a listing of certain officers and other important men who had joined the fight on one side or the other. Though we know the exact time and date of its writing, midnight June 20th, all that is known of the author are his initials; T.W. Taking the form of a letter, the piece is addressed simply to “Sir,” hinting that the author most likely expected his words to find a much more broad audience. In fact, T.W. very quickly states his wish to have his letter read by persons other than his addressee; “For I do not doubt but all good Subjects in England are much concern'd to be from time to time inform'd of the true matter of Fact of such an insolent Rebellion.”43 A Fresh Relation..., which is at its heart a piece of war propaganda, has for itself a very general English audience in mind. Opinions expressed in the letter are meant to be shared by and disseminated among a public congregation.
The author uses religious imagery throughout the piece. He begins with a portrayal of the primary actors in the Scottish Rebellion as the crucifiers of Christ. This general use of Biblical reference very quickly moves into a more specific, Anglican protestant versus all others conflict. “Further then as We are good Subjects and hearty Well wishers to the true Protestant Interest which at such a juncture of Time seems not a little endangered by this Insurrection...”44 This conflict then, is one of importance to a “protestant interest” which it is expected will be understood by a general English audience.
Had the rebellious Scots been Catholic, this “protestant interest” could be easily seen in the Anglican Church's need to suppress any Popish strong hold so near their own borders, as was the case in Ireland. But the dissenters here are not Catholic at all, they are Presbyterian. The rebellion is in response to Charles II attempts to introduce Anglican worship into Scotland. How then can the suppression of Presbyterian Protestantism by an Anglican Protestant army be seen as advancing a “protestant interest?” The important piece is the “true” protestant interest, as opposed to the interests of the Presbyterians who must, because their interests do not align with Anglican ones, not be true Protestants. It was in fact an “English interest” which is being promoted. But the author of A Fresh Relation... draws no distinction between the two. Protestantism defines what it means to be English and English Protestantism is the “true” Protestantism. Any threat to England is therefore a threat to Protestantism. Any threat to Anglican Protestantism is a threat to England itself.
Just as the Catholics of Ireland could not be British because of their ties to Rome, the Presbyterians can not be British because they refuse to recognize the authority of the King in religious matters. Because the King was both head of Church and head of State, and because he was clearly recognized as the King of Scotland, this heresy of Scottish Protestants was also treason. “During the reigns of Elizabeth, James and their successors,” says Alexandra Walsham “this resulted in the legislative coalescence of Protestantism with patriotism.”45 Religious non-conformists were prosecuted as traitors to the Crown, who was also head of the Church, rather than simply as heretics. Walsham claims that a key to the success of the English Protestant Reformation was, “...to focus questions about its legitimacy on loyalty rather than theology.”46 Any attack on the theology of the Anglican Church was an attack on the Kingdom of England and proved the disloyalty of those voicing it.
Anglican Protestants believed that they were in fact in conflict with the Catholic Church, and that Scottish Presbyterianism was simply a manifestation of the influence of Catholicism in any part of the world not currently recognizing the authority of the Anglican Church.
The Scottish Rebellion of 1679 was almost exclusively religiously motivated. Its primary promoters were Presbyterian ministers angered by King Charles II attempts to convert Scotland to the Anglican version of Protestantism. Two of these ministers, John Kid and John King were executed for treason on the 14th of August, less than a month after the effective end of the military rebellion at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge.
Of the two, King was the more famous, or infamous, having been arrested or captured no less than four times. He was made a wanted man in 1675 and upon his final capture on the 9th of June 1679 (less than a week after having to be rescued from another imprisonment by rebel soldiers) he was tried, convicted and hanged along with Kid the following month. The two minister’s heads, arms and legs were removed and placed on public display.47 King and Kid's
final sermons were published that same year, and in 1680 were republished along with a preface and commentary by George Hickes. Hickes, an Anglican bishop from Yorkshire48 was adamant in his condemnation of King and Kid. Written for both Scottish and English readers his book, The Spirit of Popery Speaking out of the Mouths of Phanatical-Protestants..., begins with a preface laying out his intention to connect the heretical teachings of Scottish Presbyterians with Papal loyalists and Catholic bishops within England and on the European continent.
Hickes' first order of business is to establish the Scottish Presbyterians as belonging to a wholly different sect then their English counterparts. “Therefore the principle design which I had in publishing all this, was for your sakes, O ye Nonconformists from our Sister Church of England... who I cannot but believe, are ignorant of the nature of the Separatists... because upon all occasions, you appear as much concerned for them, as if you thought that their cause and yours were the same.” Hickes Scottish sympathizers within the English Presbyterian community (who he still clearly identifies as English) are simply uninformed of the true nature of the rebellious Scots. He continues, “Did you not take them for a more rational, and innocent Sect than they are, you would, I am confident, be ashamed to correspond with them, who are the shame of the Presbyterian name.”49 Within England, there way be subjects who do not accept the theological cannon of the Anglican church, yet they nonetheless submit to the authority of Charles II as head of state and church. These sentences are the first seeds of the argument which will grow from Hickes' exhaustive commentary on the speeches of King and Kid.
The bishop's primary points of contention with the Scottish Presbyterians are not strictly theological, but have to do with how the church interacts with the secular state. He maintains that the minister is only able to preach when he possesses an indulgence from the King granting him permission to do so. He believes, “...that ministers depend on the secular power for the actual exercise of their ministry.”50 It is the minister's refusal to accept any sort of direction from a secular source (the King) in the prosecution of their ministry which Hickes claims is so dangerous to the health of the nation.
Throughout his commentaries, Hickes makes direct comparisons between Scottish Presbyterians and the Jesuits. “Like a Jesuit he pretends to suffer upon a Religious account, though he really suffer'd as a disturber of the government, and as a Traitor and Rebel to the King.”51 The minister (in this case, Kid) claims that his hardships are a result of religious piety while Hickes claims it is simply due to his unwillingness to submit his teachings to the oversight of the Anglican church. Where Kid tells his congregation about his previous imprisonment and torture, Hickes has very little sympathy for him saying of the torture, “Which was applied to him to make him confess his accomplices in the rebellion.”52 For Hickes, the imprisonment and torture of these rebels is acceptable, and even necessary for the protection of the kingdom. He compares the minister's refusal to acquiesce under torture to that of the Jesuit monks. Much of his commentaries on the two sermons are devoted to this topic; connecting the actions of Scottish Presbyterians to those of the Jesuits. He claims that, like Jesuits, whom the English widely believe to be members of a secret society bent on the overthrow of God’s chosen nation of England, the sectarian ministers refuse to accept any sort of secular authority over their actions.
Hickes is not the first to use the language of church and state in describing a Scottish rebellion. One-hundred and sixty years earlier, Sir Richard Morison used similar language in describing the rebels still loyal to the Pope after Henry VIII reformation and the creation of the Anglican church. Morison spent four years as a law student at the University of Padua in Italy. It was here that he was first exposed to the ideas of religious reform and where he became involved with a group called the spirituali.53 In, An English Friendship and Italian Reform: Richard Morison, 1532-1538, M.A. Overell describes Morison as a well liked young student, interested in many subjects, but also points out that he was extremely short on cash. He took loans from several of his fellow students and even pawned many of his books. Overell says, “The young Morison might be expected to be especially watchful, not because he was firmly in the reform camp in the early 1530s, but because he was a hard-up young humanist in search of a job. At a time of dramatic change, he needed to observe religious 'form' and choose winners.”54 Overell continues, explaining that Morison's reform leanings, brought on both by his surrounding influences and his need for gainful employment, caused him to look to prominent English protestants for employment, among them Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII chief minister. In 1536, he was called back to England by Cromwell.
The same year, amidst the conflict between royalists loyal to the crown and Papist loyal to the Pope, Morison wrote a book called A Remedy for Sedition... In it he outlines a system of government which includes, but is not subject to, an Anglican protestant church. He writes, “For as there must be some men of polycie and prudence, to discern what is [] to be done in the government of states, even so there must be other of strength and redynes, to do what the wyser shall thynk expedient, both for the mayntenance of them that governe, and for the eschewying of the infinite ioperdies that a multitude not governid falleth into.”55 For Morison the state, England, has become more important and more powerful than the church. As such, the needs of the state must come before the needs of the church. It is the government, made up of wise men which decides what is expedient for the nation. This is in stark contrast to continental Europe Morison had just left, where each state is in a very real sense subject to the decisions of the Pope and the powerful Catholic Church. Morison then, was a nationalist, placing King and country above the rule of a far away religious ruler.
The extent to which Morison's type of nationalism toward kingdom and religion became common place in the century and a half after the reformation becomes evident in the writings of T.W. and Hickes on the subject of rebellion in the late seventeenth century. First, the Presbyterian rebels are not to be viewed as true protestants. T.W. says, “...I am satisfi'd that the Principles of the tumultuous Rebels here, are so different from the sentiments of those commonly call'd Presbyterians amongst You in England, that they can have no more concernment in or kindness for these Traitoerous [], than all the Nonconformists had for those Madbrain'd Fifth-Monarchy-men that once attempted to disturb Your Peace.”56 As was noted earlier, this echoes a statement made by Hickes. T.W. and Hickes are in agreement, the Presbyterian rebels are not true protestants because they are not Anglican; in fact, they are little better than Catholics dressed up as Presbyterians, spreading the insidious words of the Vatican. These Presbyterians, like Jesuits, refuse to submit to secular rule and are therefore a threat to the prosperity of the nation, and since the welfare of the nation is of greater importance than the sectarian religious beliefs of a portion of its people, these rebels must be made to submit to the rule of the King as head of the Church, else the entire nation is at placed at risk.
What would come to be called the British Empire, began as an English empire with conquests in and victories over Scottish and Irish dissidents. The formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain was the first step toward the creation of the largest empire in history. While this expansion would often bring England into direct conflict with Catholicism, particularly France and Spain, even when there was no Catholic enemy to be found, the empire would always be defined as an expansion of Protestantism.
Extending into North America, Africa, Central and South Asia and Australia, the vast landholdings of the Kings and Queens of England constituted what was for a time one of the largest and most powerful nations in history. While this holding is commonly referred to as the British Empire, Peter Scott reminds us “Britain is an invented nation, not so much older than the United States.”57 “Britain” and “British” as concepts are created as real entities only after the joining of the four nations (England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland) through conquests, either political or military, and a series of rebellions. While the populations and resources of all of the United Kingdom were used for the expansion of the Empire outside the British Isles, within them, distinct divisions still existed.
In her article Britishness and Otherness: An Argument, Linda Colley claims that Britons defined themselves as such not because of what they had in common, but rather because of their common differences to “the Other;” an unnamed antagonizing force outside of Britain having something to do with Catholicism and against which a constant vigil had to be maintained. She says, “Britons defined themselves in terms of their common Protestantism and contrasted with the Catholicism of Continental Europe... They defined themselves, in short, not just through an internal and domestic dialogue but in conscious opposition to the Other beyond their shores.”58 While a united front becomes necessary in order for imperial expansion to succeed, Colley states, “The invention of a British national identity after 1700 did not obliterate these other, older loyalties.”59 Scots still used derogatory terms to describe Englishmen. A large majority of Welshmen still spoke Welsh by choice. And Ireland, due in part to its separation from England by the Irish Sea and in even greater part to its aversion to the Protestant reformations of England Scotland and Wales, remained (as much as it could) a separate nation politically as well as socially, taking part in Imperial expansion only on an individual level.
The early origins of the British Empire lie in the English Protestant Reformation. Henry VIII, in establishing himself as head, not only of the Kingdom of England, but also of the new Church of England, gave precedent to the defining of Britishness as Protestantism. Through obvious and overt threats to the Kingdom of England from Spain and other Catholic realms and from Catholics within England, a hostility and suspicion of Catholics permeated English politics and social attitudes in late Tudor and Stuart England. The Anglican Church was a division of the state, therefore any deviation from the teaching of the church, Catholic or otherwise was seen as treasonous and threatening to the Crown and to the integrity of the nation as a whole.
In Ireland, this belief that differing theological views could be politically damaging lead to the occupation and attempted conversion of Irish Catholics still loyal to the Pope. The Catholics were seen, because they were not Protestant and therefore not British, as uncivilized and depraved, seeking the direct downfall of the Kingdom of England. In Scotland similar language was used to describe non-conforming Protestants who refused to recognize the authority of the King in matters of religion. Their insurrection, viewed as damaging to the state, placed them firmly outside the British fold. These two sister nations to England had to be brought into line, both for the safety and security of the British Isles, and in order to allow the expansion of Anglican Protestantism.
The idea of England as a chosen nation of God, delivered from the grasp of evil Catholic opponents by the grace of the Almighty is one that gives the English a reason, a right, an obligation even, to pursue the uniting of the British Isles for the protection of the state. It is possible that this manifest destiny is the cause of the remarkable expansion of the British Empire across the globe in the centuries following the Reformation. England had an obligation to continue to assert its holy status by expanding against the forces opposing it, whether those forces took the form of barbarous Ireland, non-conforming Scotland, Catholic Spain in the New World, or to use Linda Colley’s example, the Chinese Empire,60 made little difference to Protestant England.
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- Hugh Ross Williamson, The Beginning of the English Reformation (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1957), 6.
- F. M. Powicke, The Reformation in England (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 1.
- Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917), vol. II, 1126-1130.
- Stewart Mottram, “Reading the Rhetoric of Nationhood in Two Reformation Era Pamphlets by Richard Morison and Nicholas Bodrugan.” Renaissance Studies 19, vol. 4 (2005): 523-540.
- Richard Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation (New York: St. Marin's Press, 1993), 13.
- Mottram, 523.
- Ibid, 530.
- Ibid, 530.
- David Cressy, Bonfires & Belles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), xi.
- James S. Olson, Sam L. Slick, Samuel Freeman, Virginia Garrard Brunett and Fred Koestler, eds., Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Empire, 1402-1975 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992), s.v. “Spanish Armada,” by William Robison.
- Cressy, 111.
- Ibid, 113.
- Ibid, 117.
- Ibid, 116.
- Ronald H. Fritze and William B. Robison, eds., Historical Dictionary of Stuart England, 1603-1689 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996), s.v. “Gunpowder Plot (1605),” by Jo Eldridge Carney.
- Cressy, 142.
- Ibid
- Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British: 1580-1650 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 165.
- Ibid
- Ibid, 551
- Ibid
- Sir Richard Cox, An Essay for the Conversion of the Irish (Dublin: Joseph Ray, 1698), 1.
- Stephen and Lee, vol. I, 1339-1341.
- Cox, 1.
- Ibid, 3.
- Ibid, 2.
- Ibid, 5.
- Ibid, 7.
- Stephen and Lee, vol. XV, 756-765.
- William Penn, The Oaths of Irish Papists no Evidence Against Protestants (London: William Inghall, 1681), 2.
- Alexandra Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500-1700 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 52.
- Stephen and Lee, vol. V, 590-594.
- Sir John Davies, Historical Relations… (Dublin: Samuel Dancer, 1664)
- Ibid, 4-5.
- Ibid, 6.
- Ibid.
- A solemn league and covenant… (Edinburgh: Evan Tyler, 1643), 1.
- Ibid, 2.
- Ibid, 3.
- Brian P. Levack, The Formation of the British State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 1.
- Ibid, 7.
- Ibid, 12.
- T.W., A Fresh Relation from the Kings Army in Scotland... (London: s.n., 1679), 1.
- Ibid, 2.
- Walsham, 52.
- Ibid.
- Stephen and Lee, vol. XI, 139-140.
- Ibid, vol. IX, 801.
- George Hickes, The Spirit of Popery Speaking out of the Mouths of Phanatical-Protestants... (London: H. Hills & Walter Kittleby, 1680), 2.
- Ibid, 16.
- Ibid, 15.
- Ibid, 11.
- M.A. Overell, “An English Friendship and Italian Reform: Richard Morison and Michael Throckmorton, 1532-1538,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 57, no. 3 (2006): 478-493.
- Ibid.
- Sir Richard Morison, A Remedy for Sedition... (London: Thomae Bertheleti, 1536), 4.
- T.W., 2.
- Peter Scott, Knowledge and Nation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 168.
- Linda Colley, “Britishness and Otherness: An Argument.” The Journal of British Studies 4, vol. 31 (1992): 309-329.
- Ibid.
- Colley, 311.
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