Kinship and Religious Politics among Catholic Families in England, 1570

Kinship and Religious Politics among
Catholic Families in England, 1570–1640

JAMES E. KELLY

King’s College London

Abstract
Historians have argued that the Reformation provoked emotional turmoil amongst vast
numbers of English men and women as they attempted to come to terms with the religious
changes. Moreover, cases of family divisions between – to use partly anachronistic terms
– Catholics and Protestants, are amply available. This article will examine the effect on
Catholic families endeavouring to survive in an increasingly hostile legal atmosphere. As
Catholics gradually awoke to the realization that no change in the established religion
was coming soon, decisions had to be made regarding Mission strategy. Paramount was
the issue of self-definition, particularly for leading Catholic families. Through this politi-
cizing process, hitherto close communities, networks and even families, such as that
centred on the Barons Petre of Writtle in Essex, which incorporated as key members the
Southcote family, were ripped apart. Nevertheless, it is here that are found both the
faultlines within the Catholic community and also, paradoxically, the ideological glue
that bound it together.

hen the Jesuits arrived in England in 1580, it was a national
sensation,

and one that would go on to shape the future of the

English Catholic community. Cracks soon after started to

In the text, split dates have been used between 1 Jan. and 24 March. Original spelling in all
quotations from early modern manuscripts has been retained, except for the transposition of i to j,
u to v, v to u, and y to i, where necessary in order to conform to modern usage. I am grateful to David
Crankshaw for his comments as this article took shape.

For example, Michael Questier and Peter Lake have underlined how the first two arrivals, in

particular the gifted orator Edmund Campion, travelled the length of the country to preach,
sometimes three times a day. Furthermore, the roundabout route taken by the pair on their way to
England only served to heighten expectation before their arrival. Campion’s ‘show trial’ and his prior
parading through the streets underline that the Jesuits’ arrival was a national concern: P. Lake and
M. C. Questier, ‘Puritans, Papists and the “Public Sphere” in Early Modern England: The Edmund
Campion Affair in Context’, Journal of Modern History, lxxii (2000), 587–627. Richard Challoner
has further supported this view by writing: ‘but afterwards, both there and in sundry other parts of
the realm, far greater [crowds gathered to hear him preach], through the fame and experience of his
manifold virtues and great eloquence and learning; many Protestants of good nature being at sundry
times admitted also to hear him, who ever afterwards contemned their vulgar pulpit-men in

© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.

appear in the apparently united Catholic façade, as the Elizabethan
regime greeted the Jesuit entrance with a fierce persecution that extended
to Catholic laypeople. As such, different visions of the Mission

began to

be advanced, a line crudely drawn between the aspirations of the secular
clergy – those living without a Rule – and the Jesuits. Historians have
traditionally portrayed the arguments between Jesuits and seculars as
being simply matters of clerical hierarchical interest,

yet they were far

more wide-ranging than that, touching on questions of whether
England’s link to its ‘Catholic’ past had been totally severed. To further
complicate matters, the disputes were also expressions of the clash
between traditional medieval Catholic piety and the new zeal of the
Counter-Reformation, as embodied by the recently founded Society of
Jesus.

It is within these fault lines that the major shaping force of the

English Catholic community can be found. Following the death in 1594
of William Allen, perhaps the one uniting force behind the Mission, the
closing years of Elizabeth’s reign supply the earliest glimpses of this split
in the community, which was to last deep into the seventeenth century.

The archpriest controversy (1598–1602)

was the first bubbling over of

the division into effective open verbal warfare between the two opposing
camps within Catholicism. By the 1590s, some English Catholics were

comparison of him’ (R. Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. J. H. Pollen (1924), pp. 19–30).
See also T. M. McCoog, ‘ “Playing the Champion”: The Role of Disputation in the Jesuit Mission’,
The Reckoned Expense: Edmund Campion and the Early English Jesuits, ed. T. M. McCoog (Wood-
bridge, 1996), pp. 67–83.

The Mission was the supply of English Catholic priests, trained in specially built seminaries on the

continent, to England in an effort to minister to the residual Catholic community and, more
expressly, to win the country for Catholicism. The differences focused on how this was to be
achieved.

For example, the controversy obliquely summarized as ‘embracing those things which seem to

concern the government and jurisdiction held over the English clergy’ (R. Stanfield, ‘The Archpriest
Controversy’, Miscellanea XII, Catholic Record Society [hereafter CRS], 22 (1921) [hereafter CRS
22], p. 139). Alternatively, Law refers to the appellant documents as relating ‘almost exclusively to
the dissensions, political and ecclesiastical, which distracted the Roman Catholic clergy during the
latter years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth’: The Archpriest Controversy: Documents Relating to the
Dissensions of the Roman Catholic Clergy, 1597–1602. Vol. I, ed. T. G. Law, Camden Society, n.s.,
lvi (1896), p. ix. Arguably, Peter Holmes is the prime culprit, flippantly dismissing any long-term
splits amongst the Catholic clergy: P. Holmes, Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of
the Elizabethan Catholics (Cambridge, 1982), p. 205.

See M. A. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation (1999); R. Po–chia Hsia, The World of Catholic

Renewal, 1540–1770 (Cambridge, 1998; 2nd edn., Cambridge, 2005); J. J. Scarisbrick, The Jesuits and
the Catholic Reformation, New Appreciations in History, 9 (1998); J. W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits
(Cambridge, MA, 1993), pp. 37–199. O’Malley’s work serves to underline just how ‘new’ were the
ideas and methods of the Society, making it easier to understand the English seculars’ unease and,
even, hostility.

P. Hughes, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in England (1944), p. 271. For Allen’s important

role, see E. Duffy, ‘William, Cardinal Allen, 1532–1594’, Recusant History [hereafter RH ], xxii
(1994–95), 265–90; article on William Allen, by E. Duffy, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford, 2004) [hereafter ODNB].

For an overview of the controversy, see Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead,

ed. M. C. Questier, Camden Society, 5th ser., xii (Cambridge, 1998). Also J. Bossy, The English
Catholic Community 1570–1850 (1975) [hereafter Bossy, ECC ], pp. 35–48; J. Bossy, ‘Henri IV: The
Appellants and the Jesuits’, RH, viii (1965), 80–122; M. L. Carrafiello, Robert Parsons and English
Catholicism, 1580–1610 (1998), pp. 88–102.

JAMES E. KELLY

329

voicing their disagreement with the Jesuit Robert Parsons’s writings in
support of recusancy and no compromise with the authorities,

arguing

that whilst such writers were safe on the continent, Catholics in England
had to bear the brunt of government reaction. The arguments over
Mission tactics and behaviour reached a head in the Wisbech Stirs (1595–
8). Since 1580, Wisbech Castle near Ely had been used to incarcerate
important papists.

At the time of the ‘flare-up’, it was holding some

notorious Jesuits, including their superior, William Weston,

and anti-

Jesuits, such as Christopher Bagshaw.

For example, the disputes even

centred on such pressing matters as ‘seating arrangements’ at meals.
Those imbued with the ideals of the Counter-Reformation (i.e. the
Jesuits) sat where they liked, prompting Bagshaw to exclaim in 1595 that
it was ‘a thing not practised in any ordered place in the world; a disgrace
to all degree and learning and fit for Anabaptists; a seditious mutiny
and against the several orders of the Church; a contempt of reverend
age’.

At the same time, splits were raging through the English College in

Rome,

with student malcontents claiming that the Jesuits were attempt-

ing to take over the whole English Mission. Both in England and abroad,
an increasing number of English Catholics were turning their anger
towards the Jesuits, the suggestion even being entertained that an accom-
modation could be reached with the English government if the Jesuits left
the country.

As a result, some secular clergy started to elect people ready for a

restored ecclesiastical hierarchy that would bring order to English Catho-
lic affairs and prove the community’s loyalty to the government at the
expense of the allegedly Machiavellian Jesuits. Rome sought to defuse
the situation by appointing George Blackwell as archpriest in April 1598.
However, these same clergy were horrified at this innovation – it was not
a position that had existed in their beloved medieval English Church, to
which they claimed an unbroken line of descent, so was an implicit
recognition by Rome that the historical cord of English Catholicism had
been snapped. Perhaps even more offensive was that it was Parsons who
recommended the appointment of Blackwell effectively to oversee the
Mission. The seculars were having none of it, so both parties started

See V. Houliston, Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons’s Jesuit Polemic,

1580–1610 (Aldershot, 2007).

For details, see G. De C. Parmiter, ‘The Imprisonment of Papists in Private Castles’, RH, xviiii

(1988), 16–38.

See William Weston: The Autobiography of an Elizabethan, ed. P. Caraman (1955); T. M. McCoog,

English and Welsh Jesuits, 1555–1650, part II: G–Z, CRS, 75 (1995) [hereafter CRS 75], p. 329; article
on William Weston, by T. Harmsen, in ODNB.

G. Anstruther, The Seminary Priests: A Dictionary of the Secular Clergy of England and Wales

1558–1850 (4 vols., Ware and Durham and Great Wakering, 1968–77) [hereafter Anstruther,
Priests], i. 13–17; article on Christopher Bagshaw by P. Holmes, in ODNB.

The Wisbech Stirs, 1595–98, ed. P. Renold, CRS, 51 (1958), pp. 14–17.

P. McGrath, Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (1967), pp. 280–3; A. Munday, The English

Roman Life, ed. P. J. Ayres (Oxford, 1980); A. Kenny, ‘Anthony Munday in Rome’, RH, vi (1961),
158–62.

330

KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

suing to Rome over what Catholicism in England was and where it was
going because if toleration ever came, they wished to be in charge.

other words, these arguments were not happening in a void – they were
not merely about ecclesiastical structures. Rather, as Michael Questier
has noted, the claim to speak for the Catholic community was a funda-
mental political issue, with the participants not only dealing with each
other but also with the late Elizabethan regime.

The next major controversy was the approbation affair (1627–31),

when old wounds exploded in the most spiteful manner. Over the years,
the seculars had maintained their view that a bishop and a hierarchy
would restore order within the English ‘Catholic Church’. Against this,
the Jesuits viewed England as virgin missionary territory where the stan-
dard structures of the Church were not suited to spreading the faith.

Tensions simmered until the detonation surrounding the approbation
affair. In summary, the pope appointed the anti-Jesuit Richard Smith
bishop of Chalcedon in 1625.

Much disagreement ensued about the

exact nature of his role, Smith only exacerbating matters when, in an
effort to underline his episcopal authority, he decreed that no priest could
hear confessions without the approval of the relevant bishop, i.e. himself.
Naturally, this worried, and no doubt enraged, many Catholic gentle-
men, who suddenly did not know if their priest’s acts were valid or not,
let alone their confessions. Tellingly, Smith’s clerical supporters blamed
any lay protests on incitement against him by the regulars. If Questier is
correct in his assertion that these arguments constituted ‘one of the
central processes by which Catholicism in England was identified, defined
and refined, and through which its meanings and significance were ham-
mered out, during this period’,

then the Catholic laity were very much

part of the debate on how the community should govern and conduct
itself in relation to the state. If this is so, then it means that the English
Catholic community was also split, like the clergy, and it is here that the
Reformation’s effect on Catholic families can be witnessed.

M. C. Questier, ‘What Happened to English Catholicism after the English Reformation?’,

History, lxxxv (2000), 28–47 [hereafter Questier, ‘What Happened?’], at p. 42. For Blackwell, see
Anstruther, Priests, i. 39–41; article on George Blackwell by P. Arblaster, in ODNB. Anstruther
estimates that these secular clergy, known as the appellants, numbered just over thirty, with Bagshaw
and Thomas Bluet foremost amongst them: Anstruther, Priests, i. 16, 42.

M. C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic

Patronage and Religion, c.1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006) [hereafter Questier, Community], p. 253.

Questier, ‘What Happened?’, 44.

Anstruther, Priests, i. 321–2; article on Richard Smith by J. Bergin, in ODNB. Although a fully

consecrated bishop, Smith could not hold one of the traditional English sees because they were in the
possession of England’s nascent Protestant Church. Thus, he bore the title of a see in partibus
infidelium, Chalcedon formerly being a part of Christendom and site of the fourth ecumenical council
(451), but by then under Muslim rule.

Newsletters from the Caroline Court, 1631–1638: Catholicism and the Politics of the Personal Rule,

ed. M. C. Questier, Camden Society, 5th ser., xxvi (Cambridge, 2005) [hereafter Questier, Newslet-
ters], p. 7.

JAMES E. KELLY

331

The lords Petre of Writtle in Essex were a firmly Jesuit-supporting family.
Not only did they have links with the Jesuit Mission to England from its
very inception, but these ties were only strengthened as John, the first
baron Petre, passed on the baton to his son and heir, William, the second
baron Petre, in 1613. The second baron demonstrably had contact with
numerous Jesuits, as did his children. Moreover, he was one of the
biggest financial backers of the English Jesuit Mission, founding the
Jesuit College of Holy Apostles in the 1630s to cover Essex, Suffolk,
Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

John Bossy has pointed out that the Petre

funding was one of two financial packages that were ‘almost certainly
the largest benefactions received by any body of clergy on the mis-
sion throughout’ the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Jesuit

provincial, Henry More, even lived with the Petres, acting as their
chaplain.

Amongst the Petres’ immediate community was a family called the

Southcotes, who had residences at Witham and Bulmer in Essex, and
were similarly inclined towards the Jesuit vision of the English Mission.
Born around 1553, John Southcote was a contemporary of John, first
baron Petre, at the Middle Temple.

Moreover, he married Magdalen

Waldegrave, the younger sister of John Petre’s wife, a fact and proximity
remembered by Southcote’s great-grandson in the eighteenth century,
indicating it remained a significant bond.

David Cressy has suggested

that kinship could stretch, ‘on special occasions . . . to relations who were
distant in genealogy as well as distant in miles’.

For the Southcote–Petre

link to have remained so relevant and strong into the eighteenth century
there must have been something binding the families, something more
than just a solitary marriage-tie from the 1570s. Cressy goes on to say
that kinship involved a range of possibilities, from advice and support, to
financial help and political solidarity. He concludes that ‘what mattered

H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (7 vols., 1875–83) [hereafter Foley,

Records], ii. 397–9. For the family’s general Jesuit links, see J. E. Kelly, ‘Learning to Survive: The
Petre family and the Formation of Catholic Communities from Elizabeth I to the Eve of the English
Civil War’ (PhD thesis, King’s College London, 2008) [hereafter Kelly, ‘Petres’].

Bossy, ECC, pp. 233–5.

For More’s life, see The Elizabethan Jesuits: ‘Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu’ (1660)

of Henry More, ed. F. Edwards (1981) [hereafter Edwards, Elizabethan Jesuits], pp. 1–9; F. Edwards,
‘Henry More SJ: Administrator and Historian, 1586–1661’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, xli
(1972), 233–81; article on Henry More by T. M. McCoog, in ODNB.

Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple: Volume I, Fifteenth

Century to 1781, ed. H. F. MacGeagh and H. A. C. Sturgess (1949), p. 35. His father was the judge,
John Southcote. See the article on John Southcote by J. H. Baker, in ODNB.

The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, related by Themselves, ed. J. Morris (3 vols., 1872–7)

[hereafter Morris, Troubles], i. 385. Southcote and John Petre acted as overseers of their mother-in-
law’s will in 1599: F. G. Emmison, ‘Abstract of the Will of Frances Paulet, Widow’, Essex Recusant
[hereafter ER], xvii (1975), 13–17 [hereafter Emmison, ‘Paulet’] at p. 15.

D. Cressy, ‘Kinship and Kin Interaction in Early Modern England’, Past and Present, cxiii (1986),

46–7.

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KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

was not how far apart you lived or how often you saw each other, but
what the relationship was worth when it came to the crunch.’

Southcote’s eighteenth-century descendant, Sir Edward, offers a pos-

sible reason for the development of this special affinity between the two
families. He explains that John Southcote’s

near relation to my Lord Petre’s family made him often there, and, though
he was no gamester himself, would be often amongst them when great
sums were played for; whose only business was to single out the winner and
get money of him for the poor. He had a great veneration for the Society
[of Jesus], and had ever one of that Order in his family, and, as I have been
told, was a good benefactor to them a little before his death [in 1637].

Therefore, the Petre–Southcote connection flourished because of their

mutual support for the Jesuits. Thus, the response to the sentiments
expressed by Cressy is that, when it ‘came to the crunch’, ‘political
solidarity’ was the key factor in strengthening or weakening family bonds
amongst English later-Reformation Catholics.

Certainly, Southcote was a regular visitor to the Petre household

and

was included in the first baron’s will.

He was well integrated into the

Petre network, appearing at several seemingly Catholic get-togethers
hosted by Lord Petre.

Southcote also seems to have been responsible for

organizing a Mass at Ingatestone Hall, the Petre family seat, around the
feast of the Assumption in 1591.

The Southcote–Petre bond became

even stronger and more evident with the second baron,

whose support

for the Jesuits was more explicit than his father’s. As such, all the South-
cote family were bequeathed legacy rings by the second baron’s wife,
Katherine, around 1625.

Southcote’s will even named his great-nephew,

Robert, third baron Petre, as one of his executors,

whilst his daughter

Magdalen died at another Petre residence – Thorndon Hall in Essex.

Moreover, Southcote was an active proselytizer for the faith. In 1607,

the future Jesuit John Rudgley arrived at the English College in Rome
testifying to Southcote’s role in his conversion.

Arguably more impor-

tant is the fact that the Southcotes were part of the Catholic network
catered for by the Jesuit Mission working outwards from the Petres.

Ibid., p. 49.

Morris, Troubles, i. 385–6.

Essex Record Office, Chelmsford Branch [hereafter ERO], MSS D/DP/A19 (rewards 19 April

1581), D/DP/A20 (household charges Nov. 1586, rewards Feb. 1586/7), D/DP/A29 (8 Feb. 1593/4).

ERO, MS D/DP/F19.

ERO, MSS D/DP/A26 (14 Oct. 1609), D/DP/A27 (14–23 Jul. 1613).

The National Archives [hereafter TNA], SP 12/238/62.

ERO, MS D/DP/A35 (29 July 1619). He also mixed with Robert Petre, the second baron’s heir:

D/DP/A40 (Our Lady Day 1623–1631), ff. 5v, 14v.

ERO, MS D/DP/Z30/1.

P. R. Knell, ‘The Southcott Family in Essex, 1575–1642’, ER, xiv (1972), 1–39 [hereafter Knell,

‘Southcott’] at pp. 30– 4.

Morris, Troubles, i. 385.

The English College Rome, Responsa Part I: 1598–1621, ed. A. Kenny, CRS, 54 (1962) [hereafter

CRS 54], p. 196.

JAMES E. KELLY

333

Perhaps the most notable of these Jesuits was Henry Floyd, who received
monetary patronage from the lords Petre,

yet lived with the Southcotes

from around 1597.

During his time of residence with the Southcotes,

Floyd was effectively a one-man recruiting machine for the Jesuits. He
sent numerous young men abroad for their education, including several
future Jesuits, to the English College in Rome, such as the Petre and
Southcote relation Charles Waldegrave,

Edward Webb

and William

Forster, alias Anderton, who would later stay with the Southcotes during
his time on the Mission.

Furthermore, Floyd was responsible for the

conversion of John Greenwood, the headmaster of Brentwood school in
Essex, who had dedicated a book, Syntaxis et Prosodia, to John, first
baron Petre, in 1590.

Two of Greenwood’s Brentwood protégés, his son

Christopher and Richard Wright, were sent by Floyd to Valladolid,
where both became Jesuits.

It is worth stressing that Floyd, an active

Jesuit proselytizer, also lived with John Southcote and received financial
support from the Petre family.

Therefore, Southcote’s residence was a base for the Jesuit mission in

Essex, Suffolk and even as far as Norfolk. As Knell has noted, between
Floyd’s departure around 1623/4 ‘and 1630 he was succeeded by no fewer
than nine other Jesuits some of whom stayed only for a very short time’.

Thus, it seems reasonable to venture that Southcote’s house was a
holding place at which Jesuits could stay whilst active ‘in the field’. This
was a Jesuit network of priests serving a community centred on the
Petres.

The Southcotes were key figures within this network, the bishop

of Chalcedon, Richard Smith, even condescendingly asking God to
forgive Southcote in 1636, for he suspected him of being ‘a laye Jesuit’.

III

Despite this proximity between the Petre and Southcote families, both
emotionally and ideologically, there was one family member who did not
follow their shared views of the English Mission. Southcote had a son,
here referred to as John II, who was ordained a priest in Rome in 1612
and subsequently became a key member of Richard Smith’s support

ERO, MSS D/DP/A40 (Our Lady Day to Candlemas 1621), f. 8v (Our Lady Day 1623–1631), f.

1r, 1v, D/DP/A33, f. 21r; N. Briggs, ‘William, Second Lord Petre, 1575–1637’, ER, x (1968), 54.

‘The Note–Book of John Southcote, D. D.: From 1623 to 1637’, ed. J. H. Pollen, Miscellanea I,

CRS, 1 (1905) [hereafter CRS 1], p. 98; Edwards, Elizabethan Jesuits, pp. 351–2.

CRS 54, p. 90; Emmison, ‘Paulet’, p. 13; Foley, Records, i. 648.

CRS 54, pp. 120–1; Anstruther, Priests, ii. 343–4; CRS 75, p. 327.

CRS 54, pp. 162–3; T. M. McCoog, English and Welsh Jesuits, 1555–1650, Part I: A–F, CRS, 74

(1994), pp. 102–3; CRS 1, p. 99; Kelly, ‘Petres’, p. 208. The dates would indicate that it was Floyd,
under his alias Francis Smith, who sent Waldegrave abroad.

ERO, MSS T/A 161/1, T/A 161/2.

Registers of the English College at Valladolid, 1589–1862, ed. E. Henson, CRS, 30 (1930), pp. 70,

85–6; D. Shanahan, ‘Wright of Essex’, ER, v (1963), 17.

Knell, ‘Southcott’, p. 9.

For more on this, see Kelly, ‘Petres’, pp. 205–14.

Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster [hereafter AAW], A28 no. 171.

334

KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

network. John II left a diary that shows him to have shared his ‘leader’s’
militantly anti-Jesuit sentiments, for example blaming the approbation
controversy squarely on Jesuit insolence.

As one of Smith’s chief apparatchiks, John II was embroiled in the

‘who said what’ accusations flying around following Smith’s 1631 flight
to the continent in the wake of government arrest warrants being issued.

For example, in October 1631, John II was a signatory to an attestation
of the London clergy in Smith’s favour.

By August of the following

year, he was ‘clutching at straws’ in a letter reporting a story he had been
told, namely that Edward, Lord Herbert, heir to Henry, the fifth earl of
Worcester, had not signed any anti-Smith declaration, but merely held
mild concerns about the practice of ecclesiastical authority at the time.

This seems highly unlikely considering Lord Herbert’s proximity to the
Petres and his strong Jesuit inclinations.

In fact, that August of 1632,

John II was writing incessantly, claiming that so-and-so had not actually
signed any anti-Smith protestations. Instead, he maintained that it was
all a ‘put up job’ by a tiny clique of malcontent gentry who had in fact
deceived all the other lords into signing the protestations when in reality
they desired the very opposite!

Thus, he wrote to Smith the same month

informing him of his plan to collect a counter declaration: ‘I have writte
to all places to obtayne the cheef Gentrys hands to this forme and by fa.
ph. meanes I have imployed a very powerfull friend to my lord Harbert
to see if it be possible to make him disclaime.’

Nor was this the only

contact John II had with Smith. Acting the part of Smith’s faithful
lieutenant in London, John II was one of those who wrote a stream of
letters, including several to Peter Biddulph, alias Fitton, Smith’s repre-
sentative in Rome.

As the disagreements became more petty, bitter and

personal, allegations even began flying from the Jesuit-supporting side
that the papal brief deciding in the regulars’ favour against Smith over
the issue of approbation could not be published widely because John II,

CRS 1, pp. 102–4.

AAW, A22 no. 153. These were issued after some members of the laity had written to the privy

council accusing Smith of treason for his establishment of quasi-judicial courts and thus the exer-
cising of temporal powers: A. F. Allison, ‘A Question of Jurisdiction: Richard Smith, Bishop of
Chalcedon, and the Catholic Laity, 1625–31’, RH, xvi (1982), 111– 45 [hereafter Allison, ‘Jurisdic-
tion’] at pp. 126–32.

AAW, A24 no. 187.

AAW, A26 no. 107. This echoes an earlier claim made by John II about an unnamed Catholic

knight: TNA, SP 16/98/82.

William, second baron Petre, had married Herbert’s aunt, Katherine Somerset; various members

of the family subsequently featured regularly in the Petre accounts. Many of the family had been
reconciled by Robert Jones SJ and were staunch supporters of the Society, several members signing
the anti-Smith declarations of the laity: Kelly, ‘Petres’, pp. 128–34; AAW, A24 nos. 73, 74, A26
no. 108.

For example, AAW, A26 no. 38, A26 no. 108; T. Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North

America, Colonial and Federal: Text, Volume I – From the First Colonialization till 1645 (1907)
[hereafter Hughes, North America], p. 229.

AAW, A26 no.104. ‘Fa. ph.’ refers to Robert Philip, the Queen’s chaplain. See also AAW, A24 no.

100.

Questier, Newsletters, p. 5; Anstruther, Priests, ii. 25–8.

JAMES E. KELLY

335

as a notary-apostolic, refused to authenticate one.

No doubt it was this

blind adherence that led Smith to recommend John II as a bishop for the
south if any more bishoprics were to be created.

As a resident of London and its environs, John II was a fellow of the

London ‘consult’, which Knell has described as ‘an unofficial executive of
the Chapter taking day to day decisions on matters affecting the secular
clergy’.

In simple terms, this committee effectively acted in place of a

bishop. As part of this body, he seems to have exercised some kind of
trustee position for money left to the Chapter, as well as performing a
brief stint as secretary.

Even when the situation seemed hopeless fol-

lowing Smith’s flight to the continent, John II continued to support the
bishop. He acted as a major secular clergy representative during the foray
into England of the Vatican’s unofficial emissary, Gregorio Panzani, the
purpose of whose mission was to discover the state of England’s Catho-
lics and establish informal relations with the government. John II alleged
that Jesuit pride was behind the disturbances surrounding the appoint-
ment of a bishop and even brought Panzani to meet Thomas, first baron
Arundell of Wardour, a lay supporter of Smith.

In fact, John II could

seemingly hardly leave Panzani alone, lobbying hard for the seculars’
cause

and even telling tales on a Jesuit, Henry Coppinger, working in

Essex.

Nevertheless, despite recognizing John II as a leading member of

the pro-Smith faction, Panzani noted that another member of the secular
clergy had informed him ‘that the Clergy are not united, that everything
is done by chance’ and that the only reason Southcote was in such an
exalted position was because he was one of the wealthiest members of the
clergy.

This underlines how divisions did not always follow simple lines;

rather, that the Catholic community was fractured by myriad divisions
within divisions.

Therefore, despite being raised in a firmly Jesuit-supporting family and

community, John II was as far-removed from that background as he
could get whilst remaining a Catholic. He expressed a distaste bordering
on loathing for the Jesuits and firmly supported Richard Smith, bishop of
Chalcedon, in his running battle with the Society over the future of the
Mission. More than that, he was not merely a Smith cheerleader, but was
one of the bishop’s chief men, organizing much of his support. As Ques-
tier has noted, ‘Southcote was one of the principal linchpins of the
pro-episcopal lobby’ and there are hints that his anti-Jesuit sentiments

Hughes, North America, pp. 221–2, 225.

CRS 22, pp. 179–80.

Knell, ‘Southcott’, p. 15. The Chapter represented ‘the body of pastors of the English Church’:

Bossy, ECC, p. 61.

Knell, ‘Southcott’, p. 16; Anstruther, Priests, ii. 305.

G. Panzani, ‘Diary of the affair of England entrusted to me by Cardinal Barberini with the consent

of the Pope’, 4 Feb. 1633/4 to 30 March 1637, unpublished translation by L. Hicks from the original
in the Vatican Archives c.1991 [hereafter Panzani], pp. 85, 91; Questier, Community, p. 450.

Panzani, pp. 119, 125, 151, 153, 169, 171, 244, 275; see also Questier, Newsletters, pp. 24–5.

Panzani, p. 257; see also pp. 147, 183, 251.

Ibid., pp. 159–60.

336

KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

were too strong even for some of his potential allies, such as Anthony
Maria Browne, the 2nd viscount Montague.

The memory of John II was not celebrated by the Southcote clan, nor was
his legacy passed down through the generations.

When they could boast

of the sterling Catholic service offered by other ancestors in the face of
persecution, why was this priestly member of the family relegated to mere
passing reference?

The likeliest answer is that John II had ‘betrayed’ the family politi-

cally. This idea must be borne in mind from the outset for it helps to
explain some strange reports. Without doing so, it is virtually impossible
to make sense of the peculiar circumstances of John II’s death and a letter
he wrote to his brother.

It seems highly probable that John II had been one of the votive

brethren, a member of the secular clergy who had previously made a
secret vow, often at one of the Jesuits’ colleges, to join the Society in
England when contacted by their Jesuit ‘friends’.

There is a strong

suspicion that, as well as his missionary activities whilst based at the
family home, Henry Floyd SJ educated the Southcote children.

This

would have included John II. Certainly, considering the numbers Floyd
was sending to Jesuit institutions abroad, it is notable that John II
entered the English College in Rome on 30 November 1604.

This is the

exact time-span in which Floyd was demonstrably sending others abroad
and arguably he would have done the same for the family with whom he
was staying. Following his 1612 ordination in Rome, and before he
ventured to England in the summer of 1614, John II was mentioned in a
letter: ‘Mr Southecoates alias Daniell is thought to be retired to some
religious for he hathe beene absent these 5 or 6 dayes and this day sent
letter that his [. . .] should not expect him hastely, it is like he is w[i]th the
Jesuites.’

Thus, amongst the secular clergy, there were suspicions that

John II was close to the Society of Jesus. Seemingly, they suspected him
of desiring to join them. Even when in England, there was something not
quite right about John II’s behaviour. For example, John Gee, who had
previously fraternized with London Catholics, named John II as a Jesuit
in his 1624 publication, The Foot out of the Snare.

Gee may not be the

Questier, Community, p. 445.

Morris, Troubles, i. 385.

For votive brethren, see Questier, Community, pp. 307–8.

Knell, ‘Southcott’, p. 6.

Foley, Records, vi. 232. The Jesuits’ opponents regularly viewed the Society’s schools and teaching

foundations with suspicion, believing them to be fronts for secret, more sinister designs: E. Nelson,
‘The Jesuit Legend: Superstition and Myth–Making’, Religion and Superstition in Reformation
Europe, ed. H. Parish and W. G. Naphy (Manchester, 2002), p. 97.

Anthony Champney to Thomas More, Paris, 17 June 1614: AAW, A13 no. 127. [. . .] indicates

that this word is illegible.

Foley, Records, i. 678; article on John Gee by T. Harmsen, in ODNB.

JAMES E. KELLY

337

most reliable of witnesses, but there seems to have definitely been a whiff
of the Jesuit about John II.

Certainly, John II’s father and Henry Floyd SJ appeared to believe

this, as witnessed by the scenes at John II’s deathbed on 22 May 1637,
which provoked a flurry of correspondence between prominent members
of the secular clergy. Not only was John II one of their ‘chiefs’, but the
circumstances of his death were enough to raise the bile of his allies. The
first to mention the situation was George Leyburn, one of Smith’s clerical
supporters, in a letter to the bishop dated 19 May 1637, days before John
II’s death:

Good M[aste]r Clerk [Southcote] is now past all hopes[.] Father Symons
the Jesuit and his owne Father as thos who were about him saye, have in
a manner killed him[.] for upon Sunday last in the afternoone, they did
assaulte him (Symons cheefely) most furiousely prissing him upon his
salvation to repent him selfe of his proceedings and urging his obligation to
be a Jesuit, they preachd unto him noething but damnation for the space of
one hower and more in soe much that he was absolutely spent in answering
them, and tould them that they had killed him, howsoever he was resolved
to dye in perfect obedience to his lawfull Superior the bishop: and with that
they parted. the daye after he tould me that neuer such cruelty was used
towards any in the like extremity, and as for his beeing a Jesuit formerly he
protesteth that it is a calumnie. did euer liuing creature heare of such
proceedings?

Allowing for the usual high-handed anti-Jesuit hyperbole, it is extremely
interesting that the Jesuit Symons – one of Floyd’s aliases – and South-
cote believed John II had ‘an obligation’ to enter the Society. Naturally,
John II denied that he had ever been a Jesuit to his Smith-supporting
friend, but, if he had been, he was hardly going to admit it.

A week later, Leyburn again contacted Smith, this time in the wake of

John II’s death:

Good M[aste]r Lovell [Southcote] on mundaye last in the evening about 8
of the clocke departed to the great greife of all his friends, he never held up
his head after that Father Symons [Floyd] the Jesuit and his owne Father
did use that great cruelty toward him as in my former I have expressed. he
made a very blessed end calling upon Jesus and our B[lessed] Lady even to
the last gaspe. I beseech you to cause him to be remembered by our friends
ther.

Leyburn squarely blamed Floyd and Southcote for John II’s demise – the
grilling he had received from them over his alleged ‘obligation’ to become
a Jesuit had been too much for the sick man. Other accounts of John II’s
death continued to circulate, including one penned by Smith himself.

19 June 1637, Leyburn was again in contact with Smith:

AAW, A29 no. 21. For Leyburn, see Anstruther, Priests, ii. 191–5; article on George Leyburn by

W. J. Sheils, in ODNB.

AAW, A29 no. 22.

AAW, A29 no. 23.

338

KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

This inclosed is a copie of a letter written by M[aste]r Lovell [Southcote]
to his Brother some 2 or 3 monethes before his death, but was not to be
sent untill after his death, and as yett it is not delivered in regarde his
executeurs have a little busynes with his father in respect of his debt
w[hi]ch as soon as it shall be ended then it shall be delivered unto his
Brother Signed with his owne hand. It is well composed and will be a
strong argument against Symons [Floyd] his proceedings who pretendeth
onely this excuse that M[aste]r Lovell told him some yeares aggoe (beeing
putt in mynde by him of his proceedings against the Jesuites who as he
says was a Jesuit) that he would not dye as he lived: of wh[ich] speech he
beeing informed Some 10 dayes before his death did protest that he was
calumniated; more particulars I knowe not onely that Symons did often
presse him upon his salvation to repent him selfe of his former proceedings
and become a Jesuit: and did soe laboure him in that weakenes as also his
Father that not able to replye any longer perceaving his Spirits to fainte
[he] desired them both to speake noe more unto him [‘]for[’] says he [‘]you
haue killed me[’], and after that he never held up his head: and D[octor]
Turner comming to see him immediately after this conflict, and perceaving
in him soe great an alteration, and understanding how it came, sayd
planely that they had killed him.

Once more, the main thrust of Leyburn’s argument is to pin all respon-
sibility for John II’s death on the Jesuits, in this case Floyd and his lay
lackey, Southcote. However, what is once more evident is Floyd’s belief
that John II had intended to become a Jesuit. There can be no mistaking
that this is really at the centre of the whole affair, that John II make good
on a promise or expression he had previously made and one that would
hardly be surprising from a man raised in the staunchly Jesuit Petre
network.

George Conn,

the papal agent who had succeeded Panzani, seem-

ingly believed the same. In a dispatch to Rome, Conn speaks of Floyd
going to John II’s deathbed because the dying man had spent four years
as a Jesuit before leaving for some unspecified reason. Despite this,
allegedly he regularly said that he did not wish to die as he had lived,
namely estranged from the Society. Presumably, this implies that John II
had made some sort of preliminary vows, possibly those required on
entering the Jesuit novitiate, but had left long before making his final
profession. Conn then goes on unrealistically to suggest a papal ruling
should be made stipulating that nobody be considered a religious unless
they had worn the habit and made their profession in a Catholic country.
This would give the impression that John II intended to join the Society
in England, as Conn is seemingly wishing to avoid the conflicting claims
witnessed in this English example. Knell has speculated that this version
of events may have come from Floyd.

Though this cannot be proved, it

reinforces the suspicion about John II’s ‘obligation’.

AAW, A29 no. 26.

Article on George Conn by R. Malcolm Smuts, in ODNB.

Knell, ‘Southcott’, p. 19.

JAMES E. KELLY

339

Such a conclusion is only supported by the letter that Leyburn men-

tioned.

The final letter from John II to his brother reads strangely if read

in isolation from this context. He opens by declaring that his death is
near, so these are the earnest words of a dying man, to which his brother
should listen. He also declares that he is writing dispassionately and that
the cause ‘wherein I have Lived, & now, most willnigely dye . . . [is] . . . a
Civille Cause’, indicating, perhaps, that he and his brother had fallen out
or become estranged over John II’s actions. After holding forth on the
need for a bishop, and asserting that the Jesuits were as bad as puritans
for rejecting such an institution, he finally comes to the point:

If y[o]u will Beleeve the words, of a dyinge Brother, whoe hath now, noe
more hopes, in the worlde, & delivereth This only for y[ou]r Good; & the
Good of Such, as may keape profit by Itt. I profess, before my Creatour
th[a]t I doe not know Any pointes of Catholicke Faith, w[hi]ch may bee
Opposed by Catholickes, w[hi]ch apparency of Truth, & more certeine
dam[m]age; more present, & greater ouerthrow, of All Catholicke Doc-
trine, & Discipline; then, This present [. . .] speake of . . . Judge now, Deare
Brother whither my Choyce hath bin a miss? whither I ought to have
Deserted This Cause, for any persecu[ti]on? from publicke or private,
freindes? whither I can wish in this hower, to have Chosen other freindes &
whither, I can leave a Better Memory of my Brotherly Love? then to
Exhort y[o]u, in this worlde; & pray for y[o]u, in the next, th[a]t y[o]u may
follow the same steps; & thinke y[ou]rselfe happy; to live, & dye, in the
Defence, of soe Just, & Necessarye, a quarrel, & soe, I Rest.

And here the letter is explained – this is a letter of justification. John II

claims to be writing only for the good of his brother, the tone akin to that
of one preaching to a non-Catholic seen as a potential convert, under-
lining the depth of the divide between the opposing Catholic factions. In
this ending, John II is justifying his defiance of his family, the whole letter
having the feel of estrangement. This is explicitly acknowledged by his
talk of friends, the author recognizing the community in which he had
grown up in contrast to the one in which he had recently been mixing –
should he have given up support for Smith because of his former friends?
It is almost as if John II was not dying for his Catholic faith per se, but
for a particular type of Catholicism and, for his salvation, he was urging
his brother to follow suit. Suddenly, Leyburn’s belief that the letter would
be a great propaganda tool is revealed; it is almost like a martyr’s final
letter, with the Jesuits in the role of heretic. John II has even defied his
family and friends for this faith, as he expressly acknowledges. In the
light of suspicions that he was a ‘votive brother’, and the reports of Floyd
SJ urging him to make good his promises before death, the letter is clearly
one of justification – he is justifying to his brother why he has forsaken
the community. The answer lies in a different political view of the
Mission.

AAW, A29 nos. 27, 28.

AAW, A29 no. 27.

340

KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

Thus, this was a broken family and a fractured community. John II

had turned his back on the people who had seemingly sustained him. So
what did he do? If such political infighting was the Reformation’s legacy
for Catholic communities, John II should have found himself a new
network, more in keeping with his political ideals and one that overrode
the traditional bonds of kinship. In his research on the Brownes, Vis-
counts Montague, firm supporters of Smith and his cause, Questier dis-
covered that John II was part of their circle of clerical friends, explaining
this by stating that ‘even on the fringes of the Brownes’ circle of clerical
friends and acquaintances, it appears that pre-existing kin networks were
of some real consequence in the evolution of the clerical wing of Mon-
tague’s entourage.’ However, to say John II’s kin links were stretched and
rather tenuous would be an understatement.

Fundamentally, John II

had rejected a patronage/kinship network around the Petres that was far
closer to home and one in which he had grown up and which still
contained a number of his direct relatives, including his father and
brother. Therefore, this underlines that, as important as kinship net-
works were, even as far-flung as John II’s connection with Montague, the
real driving force behind community formation was ideology. Otherwise,
why else would John II turn his back on a network in which his family
was an important part? It surely can have been no accident that he, a
prime supporter of the bishop of Chalcedon but raised in an ultra-Jesuit
kin network, should reject the latter for a group to which he was only
very distantly related but which just happened to be prime backers of the
secular clerical agenda. It was this lay politicization that was the foun-
dation stone of Catholic community formation and had the potential to
rip pre-existing families and networks apart.

Therefore, Questier is correct to say that, by examining the clergy serving
a particular family/network, it is possible to discover how the family was
‘confessionally politicised and itself became capable of disseminating
ideas on a range of politico-ecclesiastical topics’.

However, there was

politicization amongst the laity before any influence exerted by clerics.
This explains why the viscounts Montague became surrounded by sup-
porters of the ‘extreme’ secular clerical agenda, whilst the Petres bonded
with other ‘extreme’ Jesuit supporters. This did not happen by accident,

Questier, Community, pp. 327–8. Questier’s reasoning is that John II was related to the Ropers, the

Stoners and the Seabornes, all of whom feature in the Montague network. Moreover, John II
addressed Edward Benett, secular clergy chaplain of the Montague-linked Dormers at Wing, Buck-
inghamshire, as ‘deere cosen’. However, John II’s link to the Ropers came only through his brother’s
marriage to Mary Seaborne. She was sister-in-law of Christopher Roper, fourth baron Teynham,
whose mother was a staunchly Jesuit-supporting daughter of William, second baron Petre; he had
been brought up in the same fashion. Sir Francis Stonor was John II’s uncle, but the link to Bennett
is unknown. For other Petre-Southcote network connections to the Montague one, see Kelly,
‘Petres’, pp. 183–9.

Questier, Community, p. 318.

JAMES E. KELLY

341

but was because communities had already been formed along these politi-
cized lines. In other words, priests went where they were likely to be
welcomed: just as it would have been somewhat pointless for an arch-
backer of the bishop of Chalcedon, like John II, to expect support from
the Petres and their network, so too would it be futile for a Jesuit to seek
out Viscount Montague’s house. In effect, John II had to leave the Petre
network because he simply would not have been welcome. That this
would have been the case is underlined by several counterpoint examples
in the Browne household. Anthony Fletcher, formerly a household
servant to the second viscount Montague, travelled abroad to become a
priest. However, when he returned to England as a Jesuit, he was refused
entry to the house in which he had previously served so loyally. The same
is evident with the secular priest and writer Edward Weston. Although
never a Jesuit, Weston was ‘frozen out’ by Montague because of his
apparent proximity to Jesuit thought on several points of controversy.
Not only that, libellous stories were soon being circulated within the
Catholic community in an attempt to discredit the supposedly ‘Jesuited’
Weston.

Thus, Questier’s contention that it was most likely kinship between

particular priests which brought them into the Brownes’ clerical net-
work

leaves too much to chance – can it really be accepted that they all

just happened to share the same ideology? Rather, networks were formed
along these ideological lines and it is for this reason that the second
viscount’s kin and patronage network developed into the heirs of the
appellants and became one of the principal Catholic clerical factions of
the period. Lay politicization is the most rational explanation for this. As
Questier has pointed out, the political battles between the different fac-
tions in the community were not between laity and clergy, but ‘a series of
conflicts in which patrons and clients, on different sides, fought each
other’.

Perhaps what this really boils down to is the perennial question of

which came first: the chicken or the egg? In this case, it is which came first:
the existing kin network or the new ideologically informed one?
Undoubtedly, some pre-existing kin networks within the Catholic com-
munity continued to flourish despite the divides, often made stronger by
the fact that the families shared similar ideas and outlooks about Catholi-
cism in England. However, what is also clear, in the case of the Petres and
the Brownes, is that often these older bonds were superseded by new
politicized ones. What this article shows is that these battles about the
future of English Catholicism were being fought out at a local level,
between and within communities, like the ones surrounding the Petres
and the Brownes. Effectively, whoever won this battle would control the
English Catholic community and be spokesman for it.

Ibid., pp. 335–7.

Ibid., p. 328.

Ibid., pp. 329–30.

342

KINSHIP AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS AMONG CATHOLIC FAMILIES

The story of post-Reformation English Catholicism is not one of all

coming together, living in fear to face the persecution as is so often told,
but one about the struggle for the community. It is a history of a people
learning to survive and there were two parties offering different versions
of how this survival might be possible. These arguments took precedence
over notions of kinship, and the broken families and communities
they created were the immediate legacy for post-Reformation English
Catholics.

JAMES E. KELLY

343

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