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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2016
In the months immediately before the collapse of the Spanish Match in 1623, an important debate took place between the Protestant controversialist Daniel Featley and John Percy (alias Fisher), the notorious Jesuit polemicist. The accounts of the debate alleged that the meeting was originally intended to be a small, informal, private conference to provide satisfaction to Humphrey Lynde's ageing cousin, Edward Buggs, concerning some doubts he was having about the legitimacy of the Protestant faith. Nevertheless, it is argued that Protestants used this conference to showcase a strong stance against Rome at a crucial moment when Catholicism was beginning to intrude further into England, and deliberately subverted royal policy by engaging Catholics in debate and publishing anti-Catholic polemical works. This was done to increase other Protestants’ confidence that their Church was the true Church and Catholicism was a counterfeit version of Christianity. Ultimately, this episode demonstrates how Protestants’ pastoral concerns about lay conversion could go hand in hand with their polemical activities and gives us a window into the particular mechanisms that Protestants employed as they struggled against the tide of political and ecclesiastical circumstances which threatened to diminish their influence in the 1620s.
1 For the publications surrounding the conference, see Featley, Daniel, The Fisher Catched in His Owne Net (London, 1623)Google Scholar; idem, The Romish Fisher Caught and Held in His Owne Net (London, 1624); idem, An Appendix to Fisher's Net (London, 1624); [John Percy], A. C., An Answer to a Pamphlet Intitled: The Fisher Catched in His Owne Net (Saint-Omer, 1623)Google Scholar; idem, A Reply to D. White and D. Featley (Saint-Omer, 1625); [John Sweet], L. D., A Defense of the Appendix (Saint-Omer, 1624)Google Scholar; Weston, Edward, The Repaire of Honour, Falsely Impeached by Featlye a Minister (Bruges [imprint false, printed at Saint-Omer], 1624)Google Scholar; Rogers, Henry, An Answer to Mr. Fisher the Iesuite, His Five Propositions Concerning Luther (London, 1623)Google Scholar. See also Milward, Peter, Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age: A Survey of Printed Sources (London, 1978), 220Google Scholar–4; Joshua Rodda, ‘“Dayes of Gall and Wormwood”: Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626’ (PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, 2012), 222–36, published as Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626 (Farnham, 2014).
2 Buggs probably encountered Percy because his London residence was in ‘Drurie lane’, which Questier notes was a notorious hotbed of Catholicism: Featley, The Fisher Catched, sig. A2r; Questier, Michael, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006), 396CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 An account of this conference is in London, LPL, MS 1372, ‘King James I meets John Percy, S. J. (25 May, 1622)’, fols 58v–61v, which Timothy Wadkins transcribed and published: ‘King James I meets John Percy, S. J. (25 May, 1622): An unpublished Manuscript from the Religious Controversies surrounding the Countess of Buckingham's Conversion’, Recusant History 19 (1988), 146–54. For the various other accounts of this conference, see White, Francis, A Replie to Jesuit Fishers Answer (London, 1624)Google Scholar; Baillie, Robert, An Answere to Mr. Fishers Relation of a Third Conference Between a Certaine B. (as he stiles him) and Himselfe (London, 1624)Google Scholar; Laud, William, A Relation of the Conference Betweene William Lawd . . . and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite by the Command of King James (London, 1639)Google Scholar; [John Percy], A. C., True Relations of Sundry Conferences had Between Certaine Protestant Doctours and a Iesuite Called M. Fisher (Saint-Omer, 1626)Google Scholar; [John Fisher], I. F., The Answere Unto the Nine Points of Controversy, Proposed by Our Late Soueraygne (Saint-Omer, 1625)Google Scholar; A. C., Reply to White and Featley. See also Wadkins, Timothy, ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies and the Ecclesiastical Politics of Jacobean Anti-Catholicism, 1622–1625’, ChH 57 (1988), 153–69Google Scholar; idem, ‘Theological and Religious Culture in Early Stuart England: The Percy/Fisher Controversies, 1605–41’ (PhD thesis, Graduate Theological Union, 1988), 25–70; Rodda, ‘Dayes of Gall and Wormwood', 198–212. According to Milward, Laud was actually the author of the Baillie account: Religious Controversies, 224.
4 Wadkins notes that after her formal conversion the countess was ‘banished from court’ and ‘Percy continued to live on parole in her home for the next ten years’: ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies’, 158. See also Questier, Catholicism and Community, 395; Marotti, Arthur, Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourse in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2005), 54Google Scholar; Hibbard, Caroline, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, NC, 1983), 66Google Scholar; ODNB, s.n. ‘Villiers, Mary (c.1570–1632)’.
5 ODNB, s.n. ‘Percy, John [alias Fisher] (1559–1642)’. On Percy's evangelistic activity in prisons, see Peter Lake with Questier, Michael, Antichrist's Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England (New Haven, CT, 2002), 206Google Scholar; Wadkins, ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies’, 155. On the increased tolerance of English Catholics in the early 1620s, see Questier, Catholicism and Community, 394–5.
6 See Questier, Michael, ‘Introduction’ to idem, ed., Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Politics 1621–1625, Camden 5th ser. 34 (Cambridge, 2009), 1–130Google Scholar, at 6; Cogswell, Thomas, The Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming of War, 1621–1624 (Cambridge, 1989), 13Google Scholar, 15–16; idem, ‘England and the Spanish Match’, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, eds, Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603–1642 (London, 1989), 107–33, at 111. See also Patterson, W. B., King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge, 1997), 315Google Scholar.
7 For Featley's first conference, see Featley, Daniel, Transubstantiation Exploded (London, 1638Google Scholar), sigs B8v–B11v; for his second, with ‘D. Stevens’ and subsequently Christopher Bagshaw, see ibid., sigs L7r–N5v; for his final debate, against Richard Smith, see Featley, Daniel, The Summe and Substance of a Disputation Between M. Dan. Featley, Opponent, and D. Smith . . . at Paris. Sept. 4. 1612 (London, 1630)Google Scholar, appended to idem, The Grand Sacrilege of the Church of Rome (London, 1630), sigs Rr3r–Vv3v; idem, Transubstantiation Exploded; Waferer, Myrth, An Apologie for Daniel Featley (London, 1634)Google Scholar, especially sigs O2r–v. For Catholic replies, see [Edmund Lechmere], S. E., The Conference Mentioned by Doctour Featly in the End of His Sacrilege (Douai, 1632)Google Scholar, especially sigs. A2r–v; [John Lechmere], L. I., The Relection of a Conference Touching the Reall Presence (Douai, 1635)Google Scholar, especially sigs Oo3r–v. See also Adlington, Hugh, ‘Chaplains to Embassies: Daniel Featley, anti-Catholic Controversialist Abroad’, in idem, Lockwood, Tom and Wright, Gillian, eds, Chaplains in Early Modern England: Patronage, Literature and Religion (Manchester, 2013), 83–102Google Scholar.
8 Wadkins, ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies’, 164.
9 Featley, Romish Fisher Caught, sig. *3r.
10 Questier, Michael, Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580–1625 (Cambridge, 1996), 39Google Scholar.
11 Space precludes examination of how the Catholic account made its way into print, or of the credibility of that account.
12 Milton, Anthony, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1995), 270CrossRefGoogle Scholar–1.
13 Questier, Conversion, Politics and Religion, 12, 9.
14 Ibid. 13–14.
15 Bray, Gerald, ed., The Anglican Canons 1529–1947, CERS 6 (Woodbridge, 1998), 357Google Scholar; cf. Montagu, Richard, ‘Concerning Recusancie of Communion with the Church of England’, ed. Milton, Anthony and Walsham, Alexandra, in Taylor, Stephen, ed., From Cranmer to Davidson: A Church of England Miscellany, CERS 7 (Woodbridge, 1999), 69–101Google Scholar, at 73.
16 Featley, Appendix to Fisher's Net, sig. H3*r.
17 Ibid., sig. Dd3v.
18 Featley could also employ a more ambiguous form of anti-Catholicism that incorporated more inclusive language, yet was still far removed from the moderate positions of White and Laud: see ibid., sigs D3v, Ff1v, Gg3v, L3*r, Ii4v–Kk1r; Milton, Anthony, ‘A Qualified Intolerance: The Limits and Ambiguities of Early Stuart Anti-Catholicism’, in Marotti, Arthur F., ed., Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts (New York, 1999), 85–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 86–7, 89, 90, 110; idem, Catholic and Reformed, 176–9; Montagu, ‘Concerning Recusancie’, ed. Walsham and Milton, 75–6.
19 Featley, Fisher Catched, sigs B2r–v. For his critique of the pope's ability to canonize the saints, see idem, Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sig. L4*v; for other critiques, see ibid., sig. Ii3r.
20 Ibid., sigs Gg3v–Hh2v, N4*4r; cf. Milton, Anthony, ‘The Church of England, Rome, and the True Church: The Demise of a Jacobean Consensus’, in Fincham, Kenneth, ed., The Early Stuart Church, 1603–1642 (Basingstoke, 1993), 187–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 194; idem, Catholic and Reformed.
21 A. C., Answer to a Pamphlet, sig. G4v; Percy, Reply to White and Featley, sigs B1v, L2r. The Catholic works Percy lists as including catalogues are Percy, John, A Reply Made Unto Mr. Anthony Wotton and Mr. Iohn White Ministers (Saint-Omer, 1612)Google Scholar, sigs Ii3r–Kk3v; S. N., Appendix to the Antidote (Saint-Omer, 1621). For a list of other Protestant authors who responded in print to Percy, see Wadkins, ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies’, 166.
22 Featley, Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sigs S1*v, S3*r.
23 Ibid., sig. S2*v.
24 Ibid., sig. A4v; cf. idem, Fisher Catched, sigs A4v–B1r. Featley also published a complete catalogue that he supposedly received from his ‘friend' at Oxford: Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sigs F4r–G1v.
25 For these two groups, see Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 281–95.
26 Featley, An Appendix to Fisher's Net, sigs K3*r–v. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that Featley was not wholly ‘Foxeian’ since in his catalogues he drew on clerics whom many Foxeians would have opposed. Also, the non-Foxeian, Simon Birckbek, notes in his preface ‘to the reader’ that Featley ‘gave mee the right hand of Fellowship, encouraging me to go on with my Catalogue’: Simon Birckbek, The Protestants Evidence (London, 1635), ‘To the Reader’; see Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 284–5.
27 Featley, Romish Fisher Caught, sig. F2v; idem, Appendix to Fisher's Net, sig. V2*v.
28 Featley, Fisher Catched, sig. B4r.
29 Ibid., sigs D1r–D2r.
30 For the 1620 and 1621 proclamations, see J. F. Larkin and P. L. Hughes, eds, Stuart Royal Proclamations, 2 vols (Oxford, 1973), 1: 495–6, 519–21. The 4 August 1622 ‘directions on preaching’ are printed in Fuller, Thomas, The Church History of Britain (London, 1655)Google Scholar, sigs Oooo3r–v; cf. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 20, 32.
31 Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 34. For Hall's imprisonment, see ibid. 44–5; for other imprisonments, see Walsham, Alexandra, ‘“The Fatall Vesper”: Providentialism and Anti-Popery in Late Jacobean London’, P&P 144 (1994), 36–87Google Scholar, at 80.
32 Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 51.
33 Wadkins, ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies’, 164; ODNB, s.n. ‘Percy, John [alias Fisher]’; Featley, Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sig. Bb2v; cf. L. D., Defense of the Appendix, sig. B4r.
34 A. C., Answer to a Pamphlet, sig. B4v.
35 Featley, Fisher Catched, sig. A3v. For Featley's reply to this accusation, see Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sig. Bb2v.
36 Featley, Romish Fisher Caught, sig. *3r.
37 Ibid., sig. *3v. On the plausibility of Featley's claim that the account was published without his knowledge, see Hunt, Arnold, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590–1640 (Cambridge, 2010), 138Google Scholar–41.
38 For the list of works Featley licensed, see Arber, Edward, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640, 5 vols (London, 1875–94)Google Scholar, 3: 283b – 4: 185 (21 July 1617 – 1 October 1629). On Featley's licensing activities, see Milton, Anthony, ‘Licensing, Censorship, and Religious Orthodoxy in Early Stuart England’, HistJ 41 (1998), 625Google Scholar–51; Hunt, Arnold, ‘Licensing and Religious Censorship in Early Modern England’, in Hadfield, Andrew, ed., Literature and Censorship in Renaissance England (Basingstoke, 2001), 127Google Scholar–46; Lake, Peter, The Boxmaker's Revenge: ‘Orthodoxy’, ‘Heterodoxy’ and the Politics of the Parish in Early Stuart London (Stanford, CA, 2001)Google Scholar; Clegg, Cyndia Susan, Press Censorship in Jacobean England (Cambridge, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; eadem, Press Censorship in Caroline England (Cambridge, 2008); Towers, S. Mutchow, Control of Religious Printing in Early Stuart England (Woodbridge, 2003)Google Scholar; Lambert, Sheila, ‘Richard Montagu, Arminianism and Censorship’, P&P 124 (1989), 36–68Google Scholar.
39 For the manuscript account, see Oxford, Bodl., Rawlinson MS D.817, ‘The occasion and office of the late conference had betweene Dr White and Dr Ffeatley, w[i]th Mr Ffisher and Mr Sweete Jesuits’, fols 156r–169v. This hand looks similar to a letter attributed to Featley in Rawlinson MS D.47, fols 20v–22r.
40 Featley, Romish Fisher Caught, sig. *3r.
41 Featley, Fisher Catched, sig. D2v.
42 Featley, Romish Fisher Caught, sig. ¶4v.
43 Cogswell, ‘England and the Spanish Match’, 115.
44 For Featley's unfinished treatise and letter to the countess, see Rawlinson MS D.47, fols 1r–4v, 15r. On the appointment of Laud and White instead of Featley, and the shifts at court, see Wadkins, ‘The Percy-“Fisher” Controversies’, 164; Milton, Catholic and Reformed.
45 Lake, Peter, ‘Anti-Popery and the Structure of Prejudice’, in Cust and Hughes, eds, Conflict in Early Stuart England, 72–106Google Scholar, at 97.
46 Milton, ‘Qualified Intolerance’, 110.
47 Featley, Fisher Catched, sig. D2v.
48 Featley, Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sig. Bb4v. For Percy's scepticism, see A. C., Answer to a Pamphlet, sig. F4r. For Featley's response to Percy's doubts, see Featley, Appendix to the Fisher's Net, sigs Oo1v–Oo2v. Featley published as a part of his Appendix to the Fisher's Net a short treatise by Lynde, which defended Featley: ibid., sig. Bb4v.