Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:18:46.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The English Exile Community in Italy and the Political Opposition to Queen Mary I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Kenneth R. Bartlett
Get access

Extract

Since the publication of Christina Garrett's The Marian Exiles in 1938, historians have had to look outside the confines of England and into the structures of the various exile communities on the continent in order to comprehend fully the significance of the reign of Mary I. Garrett's argument was that the large number of Englishmen who emigrated to the continent in 1553 and 1554 represented not a headlong flight from persecution but an organized migration of English Protestants seeking a more felicitous religious climate with the tacit approval of the queen's government. These men and women functioned as a church in exile, responsible only to their own governors, and cut off from the traditional authority of the Crown. Thus, on returning to England after the accession of Elizabeth, this group constituted a coherent faction, the Puritan opposition, which was hostile to the conservative nature of the Elizabethan settlement and dedicated to the establishment of a Calvinist polity.

However, instructive as this theory may be for the emigre communities in Germany and Switzerland, it does not answer a number of important questions which arise from the political activities of the Marian exiles; nor does it adequately investigate the composition and conspiratorial policies of the two other major groups of Marian exiles, the French and the Venetian. Indeed, Garrett does not even discuss the existence of a separate company of expatriates resident in the Venetian Republic, even though in terms of political and intellectual history this community of exiles played by far the greatest role in the organized opposition to the rule of Philip and Mary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , Fall 1981 , pp. 223 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I do not agree with Garrett's contention that a party or faction was forged from the shared experience of exile under Mary. See Bartlett, K.R., “The Role of the Marian Exiles, ” in Hasler, P.J., ed., The History of Parliament Trust: The Parliaments of Elizabeth (London, 1981), Appendix 12:102–110Google Scholar. There have also been strong doubts raised about the thesis as a whole. See Loades, D.M., The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government and Religion in England, 1553-1558 (London, 1979), p. 339.Google Scholar

2 Those Englishmen certainly resident in Italy were: George Acworth; Francis Alford; John Ashley; Richard Bertie; John Brome; John Brooke (alias Cobham); Sebastian Bryskett; Matthew Carew, Sir Peter Carew; Roger Carew; Sir John Cheke; Sir John Chichester; Sir Anthony Cooke; Henry Cornwallis; Edward Courtenay; Earl of Devonshire; Sir John Cutts; Thomas Dannett; Anthony Denny; Charles Denny; Henry Denny; William Drury; John Eustace; Roger Fitzwilliams; Thomas Fitzwilliams; William Fyneux; William Godolphin; John Hamby; Sir Philip Hoby; Thomas Hoby; Henry Killigrew; Henry Kingsmill; Humphrey Michell; William Mono; John Morley; William Morley; Sir Henry Neville; John Oprhin-strange; William Page; John Pelham; Sir William Pickering; Walter Prune (Pryne); Thomas Rayme; John Rugge; Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford; William Soccus (Zouche?); Francis Southwell; John Tamworth; Michael Throckmorton; Thomas Toylson (Trytson); Edmund Tremayne; Nicholas Tremayne; Anthony Trulo; Francis Walsingham; Thomas Wilson; Sir Thomas Wrothe; Edmund Wyndham; Thomas Wyndham. Of these men, at least 48 were Protestant, 46 gentlemen or noblemen and 20 university men. For a detailed discussion of this community, see Bartlett, Kenneth R., “The English Exile Community in Italy Under Queen Mary I” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1978).Google Scholar

3 There had been close cultural and intellectual relations between Italy and England since Pope Gregory identified Angli with angeli. After the accession of Henry VIII these contacts become more frequent and intimate and the culture of the Italian Renaissance began to influence deeply the style and substance of English life. See Gasquet, Cardinal, Cardinal Pole and his Early Friends (London, 1927)Google Scholar; Parks, G.B., The English Traveler to Italy, 1 (Rome, 1954)Google Scholar; Lees-Milne, J., “Tudor Travellers to Italy, ” The Month n.s. 5 (1951): 15–23Google Scholar; Parks, G.B., “The First Italianate Englishman, ” Studies in the Renaissance 8 (1961):197–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tedeschi, J., “Italian Reformers and the Diffusion of Renaissance Culture, ” Sixteenth Century Journal 5 (1974):79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Bartlett, , “The Marian Exiles, ” pp. 104–5.Google Scholar

5 Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, J. (hereafter cited as A. P. C.), 4:281, 2 June 1553.Google Scholar

6 B.L. Add. MSS, 46367, f.11r. See also Powell, E., ed., A Booke of the Travaile and Lief of Me Thomas Hoby (London, 1902), pp. 116–117Google Scholar. When the two Hoby brothers arrived in Padua (23 August 1554), they found already resident there: Wrothe, Cheke, Neville, Cutts, Bertie, Tamworth, the three Dennys, Cornwallis, Ashley, Drury, Kingsmill, Windham, Roger and Matthew Carew, Brooke, Orphinstrange, T. Fitzwilliams, and soon after, Cooke. Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter cited as D.N.B.), 12:948–9.Google Scholar

7 B.L. Harley 523, ff. 44r-45r, 12 July 1553.

8 B.L. Harley 523, ff½ 44r-45r, 12 My 1553.

9 Wrothe was granted a 21 year lease on Somerset's estate at Sion. See Calendar of State Papers Domestic (hereafter cited as Cat. Dom.), 1547–1580, p. 28Google Scholar; A.P.C., 4:50, 6 May 1552, and p. 64, 29 May 1552.

10 Nichols, J.G., ed., The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary (London, 1850), p. 100.Google Scholar

11 D.N.B., 17:432.

12 Nichols, , Chronicle of Queen Jane, p. 99.Google Scholar

13 Cooper, C.H., Athenae Cantabrigienses, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1858), 1:351.Google Scholar

14 Garrett, Christina, The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1938), p. 249.Google Scholar

15 Loades, pp. 122-3, 159, 219, 280. I agree with Loades that the argument of Thorpe, Malcolm in “Religion and the Wyatt Rebellion of 1554, ” (Church History 47 [1978]: 363–80)CrossRefGoogle Scholar suggesting that the Wyatt Rebellion was a religious uprising is not convincing (Loades, p. 474, n.40).

16 Carew had not supported Northumberland in his attempt to alter the succession. He had declared immediately for Queen Mary, but later joined in rebellion against her because of his strong opposition to her marriage to Philip of Spain.

17 D.N.B., 17:431.

18 Garrett, , Marian Exiles, pp. 275–6.Google Scholar

19 Russell was given permission to leave the Imperial court in May and arrived in the Venetian Republic the following month. See Calendar of State Papers Venetian (hereafter cited as Cal. Ven.), 6:84, 18 May 1555Google Scholar, and Powell, E., Thomas Hoby, p. 129Google Scholar. The “clemency” of Philip in granting or requesting Mary grant pardons to former rebels was, in my opinion, less a policy of trying to win favor in England than an attempt to fragment and disrupt the opposition. Nevertheless, as the kidnapping of Sir Peter Carew and the attempts on Courtenay's life indicate, a royal pardon or license to travel was hardly a guarantee of safety or security (Cf. Loades, , Mary Tudor, pp. 266sqq).Google Scholar

20 Calendar of State Papers Spanish (hereafter cited as Cal. Span.), 9:9, 17 February 1553.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 12:32, 18 January 1554.

22 Ibid., 13:50, 18 September 1554.

23 Ibid., 12:88, 8 February 1554; ibid. p. 113, 18 February 1554. Courtenay himself was also known to have visited the house of the Venetian ambassador (p. 256, 23 September 1554).

24 Ibid., 12:122-3, 20 February 1554.

25 Cal. Ven., 5:448Google Scholar; Loades, , Mary Tudor, p. 144, n. 92.Google Scholar

26 Firpo, Luigi, ed., Relazioni di Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato, I, Inghilterra (Torino, 1965), p. xvi.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., p. xvii.

28 Sir Henry Dudley was a cousin of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. The Protector had sent him to France just before the death of the king in order to negotiate an assurance of French support for his plot to settle the crown on Jane Grey. Henry Dudley remained in France as a conspirator against Queen Mary and as a creature of the king of France.

29 Foscarini had met Carew in England when the Venetian had been attached to his country's embassy there. Vannes was an Italian by birth, but long resident in England in various capacities before taking up his place in Venice as English agent.

30 Vowell, J., alias Hooker, , The Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew, Knight, ed., Maclean, J. (London, 1857), p. 60Google Scholar. Carew continued to have dealings with the French ambassador in Venice, de Selve, who was ordered to keep the Englishman engaged (see Harbison, E.H., Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary Princeton, N.J., 1940, p. 230).Google Scholar

31 For Carew see, Calendar of State Papers Foreign (hereafter cited as Cal. For.), Mary 80, 29 April 1554Google Scholar; for Pole, , Cal. Ven., 5:856, 10 February 1554.Google Scholar

32 Cal. For., Mary, 58.

33 Public Rccords Office, SP 69/6, no. 383, 6 June 1555.

34 Cal. Ven., 6:255.

35 Ibid., p. 505, 2 June 1556.

36 Ibid., p. 80, 13 May 1555. See Loach, J., “Pamphlets and Politics 1553-8, ” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 48 (1975):38.Google Scholar

37 Tytler, P.F., England Under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary … Illustrated in a Series of Original Letters, 2 vols. (London 1839), 2:405–6Google Scholar; Cal. Ven., 6:510, 9 June 1556.Google Scholar

38 Cheke's kidnapping in the Netherlands was almost certainly ordered by Philip. Loades, , Mary Tudor, p. 239.Google Scholar

39 Cal. Span., 13:68–9, 13 October 1554.Google Scholar

40 Cal. Ven., 6:288.Google Scholar

41 Cal. Span., 12:259, 22-25 May 1554Google Scholar: Harbison, , Rival Ambassadors, p. 173–4.Google Scholar

42 Cal. Span., 12:280, 20 June 1554.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., p. 279, 19 June 1554.

44 Ibid., p. 279, 19 June 1554.

45 Ibid., p. 269, 7 June 1554.

46 The epithet is Renard's (see Loades, D.M., Two Tudor Conspiracies [Cambridge, 1965], p. 131).Google Scholar

47 Once it was clear that Courtenay was not to wed the queen, he quickly forgot the favor he and his family had been shown by Mary, despite the fact that they had received almost £3, 000 worth of land from the queen.

48 Cal. Span., 12:130, 1 March 1554Google Scholar. For a detailed discussion of Courtenay's last years, see my “The Misfortune That Is Wished for Him: The Exile and Death of Edward Courtenay, Eighth Earl of Devon, ” The Canadian Journal of History 16 (1979): 1–28.Google Scholar

49 Cal. Span., 12:139, 8 March 1554.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., p. 281, June 1554. Courtenay admitted that he was the object of a plot organized by Hoby and Morison.

51 Ibid., p. 187, 3 April 1554; ibid., p. 230, 1 May 1554.

52 Ibid., 13:167, 25 April 1555.

53 Cal. Ven., 6:248, 15 October 1555.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., p. 79, 12 May 1555.

55 Powell, , Thomas Hoby, p. 126.Google Scholar

56 Cal. Ven., 6:285, 21 November 1555.Google Scholar

57 These details answer Loades' question concerning the real evidence of Hoby's involvement in sedition (Loades, , Mary Tudor, p. 146, n. 140)Google Scholar. Also, Hoby and Morison had earlier in England discussed the possibility of the earl marrying the Princess Elizabeth (See Harbison, , Rival Ambassadors, p. 96Google Scholar).

58 Cal. Ven., 6:173, 4 August 1555.Google Scholar

59 P.R.O., SP 11/7 no. 29, f.54r, 20 March 1556.

60 Cal. For., Mary, 73, 23 November 1555.

61 Cal. Span., 13:258–9, 20 March 1556Google Scholar; Cal. For., Mary, 73, 23 November 1555.

62 Cal. Ven., 6:466, 28 April 1556.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., p. 440, 30 March 1556.

64 Garrett, , Marian Exiles, p. 298.Google Scholar

65 Loades, , Two Tudor Conspiracies, p. 262Google Scholar, App. III, “The Examination of Martin Dore.” “This meeting at Ferrara between Courtenay and Killigrew took place in late May. Killigrew, besides his close relations with Carew, had been a member of the household of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, since 1545. See Miller, A., Sir Henry Killigrew (Leicester, 1963).Google Scholar

67 Cal. Ven., 6:552, 19 July 1556.Google Scholar

68 Loades, , Two Tudor Conspiracies, p. 262.Google Scholar

69 Cal. For., Mary, 255, 18 September 1556. Vannes insisted that Courtenay died from a fever resulting from a chill caught while hawking on the Lido during inclement weather.

70 B.L. Cotton Vespasian CVII, no. 49, f.200. Mason's reply to Vannes' request for recall was answered on 12 October 1556. Thus, Vannes must have informed the queen and the Council of his desire to return almost immediately after Courtenay's death. Mason, although he expressed sorrow at the earl's passing, also remarked that he was “sure the Frenchmen be never a whit discomfited with the matter.”

71 Richards, S.R., ed., Secret Writing in the Public Records, Henry VIII to George II (London, 1974), p. 9.Google Scholar

72 On the whole question of the circumstances of Courtenay's death, see my “The Misfortune That Is Wished for Him, ” pp. 22-8. The issues of the earl's confessional allegiance and the suspicions of his attendants while Courtenay was in articulo mortis are complicated by the survival of two records from eye witnesses. Pietro Bizzarri, an Italian Protestant who had been long resident in England and had served Francis Russell, strongly implied that Courtenay was murdered and died a Protestant (Bizzarri, P., Senatus populique Genuensis [Antwerp, 1579], pp. 561–2Google Scholar, quoted in Firpo, M., Pietro Bizzarri, esule italiano del cinquecento [Torino, 1971])Google Scholar. On the other hand, Peter Vannes, the queen's agent in Venice, indicated that Courtenay died naturally and a Roman Catholic (see Cal. For., Mary, 255, 18 September 1556).

73 Cal. Ven., 6:706, 16 November 1556.

74 Ibid., p. 708, 17 November 1556; ibid., pp. 710, 716, 729, 20 November 1556.

75 Ibid., pp. 730 and 731, 26 November 1556; ibid., p. 736, 28 November 1556.

76 Ibid., p. 818n.

77 Ibid., p. 274, 11 November 1555.

78 Ibid., p. 316, 16 December 1555. See also Loades, , Mary Tudor, pp. 273–4.Google Scholar

79 Loades, , Two Tudor Conspiracies, p. 211.Google Scholar

80 Cal. For., Mary, p. 66.

81 Cal. Span., 12:176, 27 March 1554Google Scholar. These ships were given to the English rebels by the king of France in order to intercept Philip of Spain in the channel and to incite them to acts of piracy.

82 Loades, , Two Tudor Conspiracies, p. 187.Google Scholar

83 Cal. Ven., 6:440.Google Scholar

84 Chichester was with Beford as late as 1 August 1555, ibid., p. 171.

85 Richard Tremayne later married a daughter of Sir Peter Courtenay.

86 Ibid., p. 169, 31 July 1555.

87 B.L. Lansdowne (Burghley Papers), 3.54, dated 18 February 1556. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of Manuscripts at Hatfield House, 18 vols. (London, 1883), 1:138, 140, 146Google Scholar. Cal. For., Mary 219, 24 March 1556.

88 Loades, , Mary Tudor, p. 273–4.Google Scholar

89 Neale, J.E., Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, I, 1559–1581 (London, 1953), p. 24Google Scholar. Other members of the “dining club” were Kingston, Sir John Pollard, and Sir William Courtenay.