Bishops Giffard and Ellis and the Western Vicariate, 1688–1715

J. A. Williams

doi:10.1017/S002204690005990X

Bishops Giffard and Ellis and the Western Vicariate, 1688–1715

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

J. A. Williams

Show author details

J. A. Williams: Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in History, Endsleigh College, Hull

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

The history of the English Vicars-Apostolic was traced some years ago by Dom Basil Hemphill, O.S.B. and also occupied much of an earlier book, first published in Rome in 1877, Annals of the Catholic Hierarchy by W. Maziere Brady. It may, however, be of interest to look more closely at a critical phase in the history of the most unfortunate of the vicariates, the Western, and to amplify the existing accounts from sources unexplored by these two writers.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , October 1964 , pp. 218 - 228

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S002204690005990X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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

^{page 218 note 1} In a series of articles in The Clergy Review throughout 1949 and in The Early Vicars-Apostolic of England, 1685–1750, London 1954Google Scholar.

^{page 218 note 2} Hughes, P., Rome and the Counter Reformation in England, London 1942, 333Google Scholar, 351. His letter to Rome, 7 September 1625, was from ‘Winton’.

^{page 218 note 3} See Foley, 's Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, London 1877, i, 138Google Scholar.

^{page 218 note 4} Information from a paper on Leyburn's Visitation by the late Brigadier T. B. Trappes-Lomax, read at the fourth Conference on Post-Reformation Catholic History at Oxford, April 1961, and summarised in A Newsletter for Students of Recusant History, No. 4 (compiled by T. A. Birrell, Van Nispenstraat 19, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, 1961).

^{page 219 note 1} Catholic Record Society, xl (1943), 152Google Scholar.

^{page 219 note 2} Cited by Mgr. Hughes, Philip in The Clergy Review, Rome, x (1935) 194Google Scholar.

^{page 219 note 3} Brady, W. M., Annals of the Catholic Hierarchy, London 1877, 107, 111Google Scholar, citing Alexander Holt, Roman Agent of the English Chapter.

^{page 219 note 4} Birrell, T. A., ‘English Catholics Without a Bishop, 1655–1672’, in Recusant History, iv, Bognor Regis 1958, 150Google Scholar.

^{page 219 note 5} Archives of the Old Brotherhood of the English Secular Clergy: John Ward's MS. ‘History of the Chapter’, 155–6.

^{page 219 note 6} Magalotti, L., The Travels of Cosmo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, London 1821, 462Google Scholar.

^{page 219 note 7} Old Brotherhood Archives: Ward, op. cit., 224–7.

^{page 220 note 1} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series A, XXXIV, 218.

^{page 220 note 2} See the account of him in Catholic Record Society, viii (1910), 325Google Scholar, which, however, overlooks his period as Vicar-General.

^{page 220 note 3} See Hemphill, The Early Vicars-Apostolic of England, 20–1 and Dictionary of National Biography, xvii, 287–9.

^{page 220 note 4} Ellis, G. A. (ed.), The Ellis Correspondence, London 1829, i, 68Google Scholar.

^{page 220 note 5} A Pastoral Letter from the Four Catholic Bishops to the Catholics of England, London 1688, 8Google Scholar. Copy in the library of Downside Abbey (Edmund Bishop Collection).

^{page 221 note 1} G. A. Ellis (ed.), The Ellis Correspondence, i, xx. See also Beloff, M., Public Order and Popular Disturbances, 1660–1714, London 1938, 40–4Google Scholar, and Beales, A. C. F., Education Under Penalty, London 1963, 258–9Google Scholar.

^{page 221 note 2} Cf. respectively, Collections Illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucester, London 1857, 295Google Scholar; Brady, op. cit., 283; and Hay, G., ‘An English Bishop in the Volscians’ in The Venerabile, xix (Rome 1959), 399Google Scholar. (I am grateful to Monsignor D. Shanahan for this last reference.)

^{page 221 note 3} Historical Manuscripts Commission, 12th Report, Appendix part V (1889), ii, 120.

^{page 221 note 4} Ellis, op. cit., ii, 145.

^{page 221 note 5} Oliver, Collections …, 295.

^{page 221 note 6} Catholic Record Society, xix (1917), 109Google Scholar.

^{page 221 note 7} H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, v, 780.

^{page 221 note 8} Catholic Record Society, xix, 111.

^{page 222 note 1} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 9: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) No. LX; letter dated 31 August 1711. Sancroft was not, of course, officially archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Dr. Betham's appointment, having been suspended three years earlier as a non-juror and superseded by Tillotson.

^{page 222 note 2} R. Clark, Strangers and Sojoumers at Port-Royal, Cambridge 1932, 134, 226–8. For the Anglican attitude towards Jansenism see chapters x and xviii of Dr. Clark's important book.

^{page 222 note 3} Sykes, N., William Wake, Cambridge 1957, i, 14Google Scholar; Clark, op. cit., 258–60.

^{page 222 note 4} Old Brotherhood Archives: Chapter MSS. III, 2. The letter, dated 18 January 1702, is printed in full, but with no indication of its source, by Brady, op. cit., 283–6.

^{page 222 note 5} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 9: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) Nos. XXXVII and XLV.

^{page 223 note 1} Bodleian Library, Oxford: Carte Papers, 181, ff. 605–30; 208, ff. 27–67; 209, ff. 58–142. I am most grateful to Professor T. A. Birrell of Nijmegen for bringing these documents to my notice; the three cited in this paragraph are 209, f. 110 (Ellis to James II, 13 July 1694); 181, f. 612 verso (James II to the Earl of Perth, 7 March 1695) and 181, f. 630 (James to Ellis, 30 October 1695, for which see also Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of Stuart Papers, i, 108–9).

^{page 223 note 2} Letter, dated 13 November 1702, from William Leslie in Rome to Louis Innes, Principal of the Scots College, Paris, cited by Hay, M. V., Failure in the Far East, London 1957, 81–2Google Scholar.

^{page 223 note 3} Old Brotherhood Archives, op. cit.; Brady, loc. cit.

^{page 224 note 1} I.e. the seculars. Dom Basil Hemphill (The Early Vicars-Apostolic of England) prints extracts from these letters, as well as some other hitherto unpublished material, in his chapter dealing with the western vacancy (27–40).

^{page 224 note 2} Three years later he was appointed to the Italian bishopric of Segni (cf. Brady, op. cit., 286–8; G. Hay, op. cit., 402–5).

^{page 224 note 3} Brady, op. cit., 290–1; see also Clark, op. cit., 170–1.

^{page 224 note 4} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 9: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) XXXII; Giffard to Mayes, 28 (?) June 1707.

^{page 224 note 5} Old Brotherhood Archives: Chapter MSS. III, 15.

^{page 225 note 1} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 9: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) LXVII; letter dated 26 October 1711. The ‘four Clergy Bishops’ are the seculars Leyburn (died 1703), Giffard himself, George Witham (Midland District, 1703–16; Northern, 1716–25) and James Smith (Northern, 1688–1711).

^{page 225 note 2} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 13: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) Nos. 130 and 134.

^{page 225 note 3} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 13: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) No. 180; letter dated 10 May 1726.

^{page 226 note 1} Hemphill, Early Vicars-Apostolic, 40. His surname was really Savage; he succeeded to the title of Earl Rivers in 1712; cf. Complete Peerage, xi (1949), 30.

^{page 226 note 2} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 9: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) LX; letter dated 31 August 1711.

^{page 226 note 3} Ibid., LXIV; the candidates were Dr. (Robert) Jones, Gerard Saltmarsh, John Savage (see note 1, above), Thomas Yaxley, Simon Rider (or Ryder), Edward Dicconson, Edward Parkinson and Sylvester Jenks, for all of whom see Kirk, J., Biographies of English Catholics, 1700–1800, London 1909Google Scholar.

^{page 226 note 4} W. M. Brady, op. cit., 292.

^{page 226 note 5} Copy in the library of Havard University.

^{page 226 note 6} Letter dated 7 February 1706, to Cardinal Sacripanti, Prefect of Propaganda; cited by Brady, op. cit., 151.

^{page 226 note 7} Brady, op. cit., 151.

^{page 227 note 1} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 13: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) No. 32, to Mayes.

^{page 227 note 2} Oliver, Collections … 299, 389 n.

^{page 227 note 3} Westminster Cathedral Archives, Series B, file 9: MS. ‘Records of the Vicars-Apostolic’ (Kirk's transcripts) LIII. Documents LX (31 August 1711) and LXVI (12 September) refer to a ‘Country Visitation’ lasting two months or more, but do not indicate what areas he visited.

^{page 227 note 4} For an account of Fr. Fairfax, see Foley, Records S.J., v, 821–3.

^{page 227 note 5} Kirk, Biographies, 99.

^{page 227 note 6} Cited by Kirk, op. cit., 76; see also R. Clark, Strangers and Sojourners at Port-Royal, 162–3.

^{page 227 note 7} Burton, E., The Life and Times of Bishop Challoner, London 1909, i, 29–34Google Scholar. The relations between the English Catholics and the continental Jansenists are studied in Clark, op. cit., especially chapters xi and xii.

^{page 227 note 8} Kirk, op. cit., 77; Burton, op. cit., 33.

^{page 228 note 1} Cited by Kirk, op. cit., 77. Two eminent seculars, Canon Burton (op. cit., 29) and Dr. Oliver (cited by Kirk, op. cit., 133), refer respectively to Dodd as ‘always hostile to the Jesuits’ and as ‘a very dishonest historian, very deficient in Christian charity and a stranger to the feelings and language of a gentleman’.

^{page 228 note 2} Catholic Miscellany, vii (1827), 170. In 1711 the Northern District fell vacant by the death of bishop James Smith; probably this was the third of the vicariates visited by Dr. Giffard.

^{page 228 note 3} Oliver, Collections, 73.

Article contents

Bishops Giffard and Ellis and the Western Vicariate, 1688–1715

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests