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The Fabrication of the Myth of Father Parsons1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Victor Houliston
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Extract

‘Father Persons’ has long been a legendary figure of controversy. We cannot even agree on the spelling of his name. Most of his contemporaries called him Parsons, especially if they were hostile, but his correspondence and other manuscript evidence make it quite clear he preferred Persons. The variant spellings would not affect the pronunciation of his name, but ‘Parsons’ is a reminder of the rumour that he was the bastard son of a Somerset parson. Parsons or Persons, he was notorious in his day as a traitorous plotter and irrepressible controversialist, but today he is virtually ignored by literary scholars. The story is told of a meeting in 1954, on a train from Cambridge to Oxford, between C. S. Lewis and A. L. Rowse. Rowse congratulated his fellow-traveller on the recent publication of his History of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century—a work that itself was to become, for other reasons, the centre of controversy—pausing only to register some surprise at his treatment of prose: ‘You praise Cardinal Allen, who is really negligible and wrote very little, but you do not even mention Robert Parsons, the Jesuit who wrote over thirty books and was one of the most considerable prose writers of the Elizabethan period. Why?’ To this piece of donnish one-upmanship, Lewis bluffed: ‘I did not think he was important enough to be included.’ He hadn't read Persons.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , October 1994 , pp. 141 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1994

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Footnotes

1

Grateful acknowledgements to Fr. John W. Padberg, S.J., and his staff at the Institute of Jesuit Sources, Missouri, for assistance and advice, and for the opportunity of consulting Fr. Francis Edwards's forthcoming biography of Persons in press. The financial assistance of the Centre for Science Development towards this research is hereby acknowledged. A version of this paper was delivered at the conference of the Australia and New Zealand Medieval and Renaissance Society at Hobart, February 1994.

References

Notes

2 See, for example, the entry in the Balliol register of his resignation of his fellowship, reproduced by Pollen, J. H. (ed), ‘The Mémoires of Father Robert Persons’, Catholic Record Society, Miscellanea II (London, 1906, C.R.S. 2), facing p. 22.Google Scholar He does, however, occasionally use ‘Parsons’ when writing in English, see p. 64.

The most comprehensive accounts of Persons's career are by Parish, John E., Robert Parsons and the English Counter-Reformation (Rice University Studies 52; Houston, 1966),Google Scholar and Francis Edwards, Robert Persons, S.J. (St. Louis, in press).

3 Wilson, A. N., C. S. Lewis: A Biography (London, 1990), p. 244.Google Scholar See Lewis, C. S., English Literature of the Sixteeth Century (Oxford, 1954), pp. 438–41.Google Scholar

4 Johnson, Paul, The Offshore Islanders: A History of the English People, rev. ed. (London, 1993), p. 161.Google Scholar

5 Kingsley, Charles, Westward Ho! (London, 1855), chap. 3.Google Scholar

6 Newman, J. H., Apologia pro Vita Sua (first published 1864; rpt. London, 1955), p. 13.Google Scholar

7 Lake, Peter, Anglicans and Puritans? (London, 1988), p. 215.Google Scholar

8 For an account of this controversy, see Bald, R. C., John Donne 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1986), pp. 202–27.Google Scholar

9 Sutciiffe, M., A Brief Refutation of a Certain Calumnious Relation (London, 1600,Google Scholar S.T.C. 23453), ‘Preface to the Reader’. All quotations from, and titles of, early printed books and manuscripts, have been modernized, except in the case of The Faerie Queene.

10 Morton, T., A Preamble unto an Encounter with PR. (London, 1608,Google Scholar S.T.C. 18191), sig Alv-A2.

11 Report to Lord Burghley, 23 May 1591, CSP Domestic 1591–94, p. 42.

12 E.g. Sutciiffe, M., A Brief Reply to a Certain Odious and Slanderous Libel… entitled A Temperate Wardword (London, 1600,Google Scholar S.T.C. 23453) sig. A3V. For Catholic employment of the Sinon figure, see Clancy, T. H., Papist Pamphleteers (Chicago, 1964) p. 15,Google Scholar and the anonymous Treatise of Treasons against Queen Elizabeth and the Crown of England (London, 1572, S.T.C. 7601), ‘Preface to the English Reader’, sig. e3-i3.

13 Considering that Persons was thus represented as dealing in deceitful shadows, it was ironic, not to say galling, that his educational foundations at St. Omer, Valladolid and Seville, were flourishing, while Sutcliffe's own Chelsea College, projected as a powerhouse of Anglican propaganda, failed.

14 E.g. Persons, R., A Treatise Tending to Mitigation towards Catholic Subjects in England (St. Omer, 1607,Google Scholar S.T.C. 19417), Preface ‘of the present division and disagreement about matters of religion in England, and of so many importunate exasperations used by divers sorts of men, to increase the same’.

15 Persons, R., A Brief Discourse containing Certain Reasons why Catholics Refuse to go to Church (London, 1580,Google Scholar S.T.C 19394) fol. 55v

16 Peck, D. C., introd., Leicester's Commonwealth: ‘The Copy of a Letter written by a Master of Art of Cambridge’ (1584) and Related Documents, ed. Peck, D. C. (Athens, Ohio, 1985), pp. 1–7, 23–28.Google Scholar

17 Watson, W., A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibetical Questions concerning Religion and State (London, 1602, S.T.C. 25123) p. 266;Google Scholar Mush, J., A Dialogue betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman (London, 1601, S.T.C. 25124) p. 107;Google Scholar James, T., ‘Life of Father Parsons’ in The Jesuits’ Downfall (London, 1612, S.T.C. 14459) p. 55.Google Scholar

18 Leicester's Commonwealth. Conceived, spoken and published with most earnest protestation of all dutiful good-will and affection towards this realm. By Robert Parsons. Where unto is added Leicester's Ghost (London, 1641, Wing, L969).

19 Bagshaw, C., A Sparing Discovery of our English Jesuits, and of Father Parsons's Proceedings (London, 1601, S.T. C. 25126), p. 70.Google Scholar

20 Early examples are Mush, J., Declaratio Motuum ac Turbationum (London, 1601, S.T.C. 3102), p. 58;Google Scholar Bagshaw, C., A Sparing Discovery of our English Jesuits, and of Father Parsons's Proceedings (London, 1601, S. T.C. 25126), pp. 41–2;Google Scholar and Copley, A., An Answer toa Letter of a Jésuite d Gentleman (London, 1601, S.T.C. 5735), pp. 34–7.Google Scholar The honour of Persons's mother had, however, already been ‘glanced at’ by Sutciiffe in A Brief Reply to a Certain Odious and Slanderous Libel… entitled A Temperate Wardword (London, 1600, S.T.C. 23453), p. 99.Google Scholar

21 Pollen, J. H. (ed), ‘The Mémoires of Father Robert Persons’, Catholic Record Society, Miscellanea 11 (London, 1906), pp. 13–22, 36–47.Google Scholar If there was any substance to the charge, one would expect it to have featured in the decision to expel him from Balliol.

22 Watson, W., A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibetical Questions concerning Religion and State (London, 1602, S.T.C. 25123), pp. 30, 80.Google Scholar

23 Colleton, J., A Just Defence of the Slandered Priests (London, 1602, S.T.C. 5557), p. 241.Google Scholar

24 James, T., The Jesuits’ Downfall (London, 1612, S.T.C. 14459), pp. 57–8;Google Scholar Mush, J., A Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman (London, 1601, S.T.C. 25124), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

25 ‘Personius ille erat Somersettensis, vehemens, ferox natura, & moribus incultioribus, Campianus Londinensis, vir suauis & politissimus’, William Camden, Annales (Frankfurt, 1616), p. 319; quoted in English by Gee, Edward, introd., The Jesuit's Memorial (London, 1690, Wing, P569), p. xii.Google Scholar Later in the same passage Camden describes Persons as ‘seditioso & turbulento ingenio, audacia armatus’.

26 Bagshaw, C., A Sparing Discovery of our English Jesuits, and of Father Parsons's Proceedings (London 1601, S.T.C 25126), p. 47.Google Scholar

27 Copley, A., An Answer to a Letter of a Jesuited Gentleman (London, 1601, S.T.C. 5735), p. 37.Google Scholar

28 Watson, W., A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibetical Questions concerning Religion and State (London, 1602 S.T.C. 25123), pp. 128–29.Google Scholar

29 Donne, J., Pseudo-Martyr (1610), ed. Sypher, F. J. (Delmar, NY, 1974), sig. ¶v.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Bagshaw, C., A Sparing Discovery of our English Jesuits, and of Father Parsons's Proceedings (London 1601, S.T.C. 25126), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar

31 James, T., The Jesuits’ Downfall (London, 1612, S.T.C. 14459), p. 66–67;Google Scholar Watson, W., A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibetical Questions concerning Religion and State (London, 1602, S.T.C 25123), pp. 237, 241.Google Scholar

32 Watson, W., Preface to Important Considerations (London, 1601,Google Scholar S.T.C. 25125), by Thomas Bluet, sig. ***4; Colleton, J., A Just Defence of the Slandered Priests (London, 1602, S.T.C. 5557), p. 152.Google Scholar

33 Bagshaw, C., A Sparing Discovery of our English Jesuits, and of Father Parsons's Proceedings (London 1601, S.T.C. 25126), p. 39.Google Scholar

34 Sutcliffe, M., A Full and Round Answer to N.D., alias Robert Parsons the Noddy, his Foolish and Rude Warnword (London, 1604, S.T.C. 23465), sig. A3.Google Scholar

35 Morton, T., A Full Satisfaction Concerning a Double Romish Iniquity (London, 1606, S.T.C. 18185) p. 102.Google Scholar

36 Tynley, R., Two Learned Sermons (London, 1609, S.T.C. 24472), p. 6.Google Scholar

37 Barlow, W., An Answer to a Catholic Englishman (London, 1609, S.T.C. 1446), p. 5.Google Scholar

38 See Spenser, Edmund, Amoretti 130,Google Scholar written no later than September 1594, which refers to the completion of the six books of The Faerie Queene. On the date of A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England (Antwerp, 1594/5, S.T.C. 19398), see Hicks, L., “Father Robert Persons S.J. and The Book of the Succession ’, Recusant History 4 (1957), pp. 104–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar