A Candid History of the Jesuits

by Joseph McCabe

We left the Jesuits struggling in disguise and penury in England at the death of General Acquaviva (1615). After the wave of anger which the Gunpowder Plot had raised had partly subsided, dozens of Jesuits stole bravely into their native land and ministered stealthily to the persecuted Catholics. There were sixty-eight of them in England in 1615; by 1619 the number had increased to nearly two hundred, and the Roman officials raised the mission to the status of a vice-province; in 1623, when there were 284 members, they were formed into a Province of the Society, with Father Blount as Provincial. The indisposition of James I. to persecute emboldened them to act with greater vigour. The fantastic picture of their activity in Crétineau-Joly is, of course, wholly inaccurate. We read of a Father Arrowsmith "issuing from his retreat" to challenge and defeat the Bishop of Chester in a debate, and expose himself to the prelate's vindictiveness. It was not in 1628, but some years before, that Edmund Arrowsmith argued with the Bishop of Chester; he was then not a Jesuit at all, and he did not issue from any retreat to challenge the prelate or suffer any vindictive punishment. He was arrested as a priest, happened to find the bishop eating meat on a Friday and argued the point in passing, and was released. [23]

The truth is that from 1607 to 1618 there were only sixteen persons executed on the ground of religion in England, and none of them was a Jesuit. The prisons, indeed, contained several hundred priests, and several thousand Catholic laymen, but James was disinclined to take extreme measures, and the priests had much liberty even in jail. Father Percy, a Durham man, converted 150 men and women of rank, including the Countess of Buckingham, mother of the famous minister, during his three years in the New Prison on the Thames. James himself condescended to debate with him, and Father Percy ended a long and adventurous career in bed. In 1622, in fact, when James began to negotiate with Spain for a Catholic princess for his son, four thousand Catholics were released from jail, and the execution of the penal laws was greatly relaxed. Catholics generally looked forward with eagerness to the marriage, but the Jesuits opposed it at the Vatican. It is suggested that they dreaded the coming of a bishop in the train of the princess, but it is not improbable that they preferred an alliance with France. When the Spanish negotiations failed—and they would have failed without any assistance from the Jesuits—the laws were enforced once more with some rigour. Still it was only accident or imprudence that brought punishment on the Jesuits. In 1623 one of them, Father Drury, was preaching on a Sunday afternoon to some two or three hundred Catholics in the house of the French Ambassador at Blackfriars, when the floor gave way, and the preacher and a hundred others were killed. The common folk of London made ghastly merriment over "the doleful even-song." Five years later several Jesuits were caught in a house belonging to the Earl of Shrewsbury at Clerkenwell. We find that they had there a regular novitiate and the residence of their Provincial. An imposing ceremony was to take place, and the large intake of provisions aroused the suspicion of the priest-hunters. Only one Jesuit was executed. In 1622 forty of the fathers had attended a provincial congregation of their Society in London, and they had decided to found colleges in Wales and Staffordshire.

There is, however, another aspect of the activity of the Jesuits in England which the French historian discreetly ignores. We saw in an earlier chapter how Father Parsons had intrigued to get control of the continental colleges and to prevent the sending of a bishop to England. His successors continued to exasperate the secular clergy by pursuing this selfish policy. Of the twenty-seven French and Flemish seminaries which supplied the large body of priests in England, the Jesuits controlled five, besides their colleges in Spain, and they made every effort to obtain an ascendency over the priests. When the Archpriest died in 1621, the secular clergy again appealed to the Pope for a bishop, and the Jesuits again opposed the appeal. When, after a long struggle, the Pope inclined to make the appointment, the Jesuits induced Tobie Matthews (a Catholic son of the Archbishop of York) to have James informed. The King sent word to the Pope, through Spain, that he would not suffer the appointment, but he was later convinced that he had been misled and the secular priests obtained a "Bishop of Chalcedon." He died in the following year, and his successor seems to have been imprudent, as the Benedictine monks joined the Jesuits against him. The inner history of this domestic squabble is told us by Panzani, who was the Vatican agent in England a few years afterwards. He tells us that the Jesuits made an improper charge to the King against the Bishop, and he was driven to the Continent.

Since one of the chief problems of Jesuit history is to account for the bitter hostility to them of priests who were no less devoted than they in the service of Catholicism, it is necessary to notice this unpleasant wrangling and intrigue in the very heart of an heretical land. I may, however, refer to Father Taunton's History of the Jesuits in England for a longer account of this domestic struggle and return to the larger historical question.

The early years of the reign of Charles I. were not marred by any enforcement of the more drastic penal laws. The fining of lay Catholics—of whom about eleven thousand were known—still provided the King with a handsome addition to the privy purse, and indeed it was necessary to disarm the sullen suspicion with which the more zealous Protestants watched the foreign queen and her spiritual court. No serious effort was made, however, to enforce the laws against the Jesuits, and they increased in numbers and resources. In 1628 they opened a second novitiate in London. In 1634 one of the secular clergy estimated that there were 360 Jesuits in England, and that they had 550 students in their colleges. This is evidently an exaggeration, as the Annual Letters report a total of 335 members of the Province in the year 1645, and disclose the interesting fact that they had a collective income of 17,405 scudi (about £35,000 in the value of modern money). It is stated by their clerical opponents that part of their income was derived from commerce. A certain soap was genially known in London as "the papist soap," and it is said that the Jesuits had, through their lay friends, shares in the factory which produced it. They were in a strong and comfortable position, and, had they been disposed to lay aside their corporate selfishness and co-operate generously with the other clergy, the story of religion in England might have entered upon a singular development.

In the reign of Charles what we now know as the "High Church" held a strong position, under Archbishop Laud, in the Church of England, and there were indications of a disposition to return to the allegiance of Rome. The head of the English Benedictine monks, Dom Jones, was sent by the Vatican in 1634 to examine and direct the situation, and he and his successor, Panzani, did much to reconcile the secular and the regular clergy. The Jesuits, however, would not be reconciled, and Panzani's reports to the Vatican are full of bitter charges against them. In the Catholic England which they foresaw they were determined to have a dominant position. It was said that they induced wealthy and influential penitents to make a special vow of obedience to themselves, and they were even charged by the clergy with impeding the general restoration of Catholicism lest the new authorities should expel them from the kingdom. They retorted with a bitter attack on the papal agent. Virulent pamphlets were discharged from camp to camp, and the Jesuits represented Panzani as a secret agent of Richelieu, seeking to unite England and France in opposition to Spain. In spite of this intestine discord the Church of Rome continued to make progress until the shadow of the Civil War fell upon the land and the success of the Puritans once more stifled the hopes of the Catholics.

The relation of the Jesuits to the Puritans has never been fully elucidated—perhaps can never be fully elucidated—but there is sufficient evidence that they again proved their remarkable power of adaptation to varying circumstances. We will not suppose that they themselves offered the rebels the use of their theological doctrine of the right to depose and execute kings, or put into their hands Father Parsons's convenient Book of the Succession, part of which was published by the Parliament. But there is evidence that, under the Commonwealth, they were in indirect relations with Cromwell, and used their international connections to provide him with information about France. In Ireland they opposed the papal Nuncio, Pinuccini (as he bitterly complains), and were on good terms with Cromwell. A piquant picture is offered us of the Irish Jesuit, Father Netterville, dining and playing chess with the great leader of the Puritans. These manœuvres are lightly covered by their apologists with the pretext that Jesuits knew no politics.

There is, however, another side to the story of the Jesuits during the Civil War and under the Commonwealth. While Father Taunton seems to see nothing but their intrigues with Cromwell, their French apologist sees nothing but a long series of bloody executions at the hands of the Puritans. Certainly, whatever the personal inclination of Cromwell was, and whatever use he may have made of the Jesuits, they suffered heavily in the Puritan reaction. Father Netterville himself, as well as Father Boyton, Father Corbie, and other Irish Jesuits, were executed. Father Holland had been executed in 1642, Father Corbie suffered the horrible death of a traitor at Tyburn in 1644, and Father Morse followed him in 1645. Morse was permitted to spend the night before his execution in prayer with the Portuguese ambassador, and representatives of the French, Spanish, and German ambassadors, and the French and Portuguese ambassadors accompanied him devoutly to the scaffold. Father Harrison was executed at Lancaster in 1650, and several other Jesuits perished in consequence of their rigorous treatment in prison. It will be noticed that these executions took place in the early fury of the Puritans, and it must be remembered that the Catholic laity were, in proportion to their numbers, the most generous and ardent supporters of the King. It is a fact that the executions cease when Cromwell becomes Protector (1653), and it is not impossible that, as we are told, he used the Jesuits to give a secret assurance to the Vatican in regard to religious persecution.

The less savage penal laws were, however, severely enforced, as one would expect in that Puritan atmosphere, and the records of the Jesuits become meagre and uninteresting. We know that in Ireland they were reduced to eighteen fathers, who, living in the marshes or on the bleak hillsides, ministered in great danger and privation to the oppressed people. In England they were confined to an obscure and discreet attempt to hold together the persecuted Catholics. The domestic quarrel was silenced by the fresh catastrophe that had fallen on them.

In 1660 Charles II. entered upon his reign, and Catholics came out into the sunlight once more. It is fairly established that during the first twelve years of his reign Charles was disposed to see the country return to its old faith. His personal inclination to Catholicism was so little profound that he could lightly abandon it the moment political events made it expedient to do so, but he was not insensible to the great advantage which was enjoyed by the Catholic autocrats of France and Spain. He therefore lent an indulgent ear when, at the beginning of his reign, the Catholics petitioned for relief. The body of the nation was still strenuously Protestant, and the cry was raised that at least the Jesuits must be exempted from any measure of toleration. Many of the Catholics pressed the Jesuits to sacrifice their province to the general good of the Church, but we can hardly be surprised to learn that they emphatically refused, and a long wrangle ensued. When it was urged that their teaching that the Pope could depose kings unfitted them to remain in the country, they promptly repudiated that doctrine. They remained and prospered. After a few years, in fact, they were brought into friendly relations with Charles in a singular and secret way.