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Alexander Pope and the Religious Tradition of the Turners
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
Extract
The religion of Alexander Pope, like so many other aspects of his life, is characterized by ambiguity and equivocation. Many have seen his profession of the Catholic faith as shallow and insincere, not least those, like Warburton and Ruffhead, who proclaim his supposed insincerity as a sign of grace. A study of the family tradition within which Pope learned his religion sets the problem in a different light, and at the same time illustrates the complex ambiguities which must be borne in mind by anyone who wishes to look behind the solid statistics of convictions for recusancy into the obscure minds and hearts of those whom social status, deviousness, or sheer indecision conspired to shield from the penalties of their religious inclinations.
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References
Notes
1 Owen, Ruffhead, The Life of Alexander Pope (London, 1769), pp. 533-34.Google Scholar
2 See Newman’s, P. R. discussion of related issues, ‘Roman Catholics in Pre-Civil War England: the Problem of Definition’, Recusant History 15 (1979), 148–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Early Career, pp. 27-32.
4 Freemen, 1, 211.
5 Testamenta Eboracensia, edited by James Raine, Surtees Society 53 (Durham, London and Edinburgh, 1869), p. 321.
6 Freemen, 1, 238.
7 Freemen, 1, 274.
8 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 5-7. The usual spelling of the secretary’s name is ‘Eynns’, but Davies uses the form ‘Eymis’.
9 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 7-13.
10 Maternal Ancestry, p. 8.
11 Original Parish Registers in Record Offices and Libraries, Local Population Studies, in association with the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure ([Matlock], 1974), p. 116; First Supplement (1976), p. 47; Second Supplement (1978), p. 48; Third Supplement (1980), p. 71.
12 The Registers of St. Michael le Belfrey, York, edited by Francis Collins, Yorkshire Parish Register Society 1 and 11, 2 vols (Leeds, 1899), 1, p. 13; cited in Maternal Ancestry, pp. 8-9.
13 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 8 and 20-21.
14 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 21-24.
15 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 15-16.
16 Venn, J. and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1927), 1, p. 276.Google Scholar
17 Joseph, Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1892), 4, p. 1521.Google Scholar
18 Freemen, 2, pp. 22 and 29.
19 Early Career, p. 33.
20 Recusancy in York, pp. 219-20; cited with other material relating to Venice in Maternal Ancestry, pp. 32-35.
21 St. Michael (see note 12 above), 1, p. 63; Maternal Ancestry, pp. 21-24; Recusancy in York, pp. 333-34.
22 D.N.B., ‘Oldcorne’; Recusancy in York, p. 73; John, Mush, An Abstracte of the Life and Martirdome of Mistres Margaret Clitherowe (Mackline, 1619)Google Scholar, reprinted in English Recusant Literature, 1558-1640, 393, edited by D. M. Rogers (Ilkley and London, 1979), unpaginated; Recusancy in York, pp. 53 and 338; Maternal Ancestry, p. 16.
23 Recusancy in York, pp. 228-29.
24 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 29-30.
25 Descent, p. 27.
26 Descent, pp. 27-28.
27 Maternal Ancestry, p. 36.
28 Freemen, 2, p. 29; Maternal Ancestry, p. 25.
29 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 25-26.
30 Freemen, 2, p. 42.
31 Recusancy in York, p. 223.
32 Recusancy in York, p. 218.
33 Maternal Ancestry, p. 25; Shaw, William A., The Knights of England, 2 vols (London, 1906), 2, p. 170.Google Scholar
34 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 26-27; Recusancy in York, pp. 195, 204, 206.
35 Freemen, 2, p. 32.
36 The Parish Register of All Saints’ Church, Pavement, in the City of York, edited by T. M. Fisher, Yorkshire Parish Register Society 100 and 102, 2 vols. ([Wakefield], 1935-36), 1, pp. 28 (2 refs.), 29 (3 refs.), 30, 32, 109, 110 (2 refs.), 111.
37 Descent, pp. 29-31.
38 St. Olave, p. 92.
39 Descent, p. 30; Maternal Ancestry, pp. 36-39.
40 Descent, pp. 31-32.
41 Recusancy in York, p. 83.
42 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 22 and 24; Recusancy in York, pp. 333-34; Descent, p. 32.
43 The Registers of the Parish Church of Kilburn, Co. York, 1600—1812, edited by George Denison Lumb, Yorkshire Parish Register Society 61 ([York], 1918), pp. 6, 21 (2 refs.), 23.
44 Trinity, p. 82.
45 Maternal Ancestry, p. 43; ‘Limners’, p. 103.
46 TE, p. 125, line 381, note.
47 ‘Limners’, p. 102.
48 The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Yorkshire North Riding, edited by William Page, 2 vols, and index (London, 1923; reprinted 1968), 2, p. 149; St. Olave, pp. 73 and 74, cited in ‘Limners’, p. 103.
49 St. Olave, p. 75; cited in ‘Limners’, p. 103.
50 St. Olave, pp. 75 and 92; cited in ‘Limners’, p. 103.
51 St. Olave, p. 77; cited in ‘Limners’, p. 103.
52 St. Olave, p. 77; ‘Limners’, p. 103; Descent, p. 34. Miss Edmond, not knowing of the family’s move to Worsborough, mistakenly identifies Edith the elder as Pope’s mother.
53 St. Olave, p. 78; cited in ‘Limners’, p. 103.
54 Trinity, pp. 27 and 73; cited in ‘Limners’, p. 103.
55 The baptisms of Martha, Edith, Margaret and Jane are cited from the original register in Sheffield City Libraries. Hunter’s transcription (Descent, p. 34) gives the wrong years in the cases of Edith and Margaret, 1642 and 1643 respectively, and his error persists in Robert, Carruthers, The Life of Alexander Pope, second edition (London, 1857), p. 11,Google Scholar through which it has been passed on to modern accounts, most notably Early Career, p. 32. Pope’s mother was therefore a year younger than has been assumed. Carruthers’ suggestion that she was born on 28 March is based on a misdated letter (p. 10, note 10; Correspondence, 3, p. 117, note 2). She was in all probability born in June and baptized within a few days.
56 Descent, pp. 34-35; a longer account is given by the same author in South Yorkshire: The History and Topography of the Deanery of Doncaster, 2 vols. (London, 1828-32), reprinted in Classical County Histories, edited by Jack Simmons ([Wakefield], 1974), 2, pp. 286-89 and 376-77.
57 Descent, p. 35.
58 William’s will is paraphrased in Descent, pp. 35-37.
59 Christiana’s will is transcribed in Samuel Cooper, pp. 97-99.
60 College of Arms, J. C. Brooke MSS, Chaos 2, p. 148.
61 Descent, pp. 39 and 42-44; Mawhood Diary, p. 8 and see index under Brookes (sic). I am very grateful to Mr. R. C. Yorke, Archivist of the College of Arms, for his help in my search for the missing items, and to Miss R. Rendel, who kindly checked that none of those concerned in the editing of the diary are still alive.
62 Mawhood Diary, p. 8; Descent, p. 43.
63 College of Arms, J. C. Brooke MSS, Letter Book 2.
64 ‘Limners’, p. 102.
65 ‘Limners’, pp. 98-99; Descent, p. 40. Miss Edmond has finally disproved Hunter’s assumption that Cooper was son of Coperario the composer.
66 ‘Limners’, pp. 103-104. I am grateful to the Director of Libraries and Information Services and the Archives Division of Sheffield City Library and to Canon R. Thomson for permission to cite the Worsborough Register.
67 Descent, pp. 41-42.
68 Descent, p. 42.
69 ‘Limners’, p. 104.
70 Descent, pp. 26 and 35-37; Maternal Ancestry, pp. 47-48; Trinity, p. 129.
71 Descent, p. 38.
72 TE, p. 125, line 381, note; Correspondence, 1, p. 325 and note; 2, p. 5 and note.
73 Samuel Cooper, Plate 64; ‘Limners’, p. 115.
74 Descent, p. 40.
75 William, Kurtz Wimsatt, The Portraits of Alexander Pope (New Haven and London, 1965), pp. 150–51.Google Scholar
76 ‘Welbeck Abbey’, p. 92.
77 Samuel Cooper, p. 40.
78 ‘Limners’, p. 104.
79 Descent, p. 35.
80 TE, p. 125, line 381, note.
81 ‘Limners’, p. 99.
82 Samuel Cooper, p. 96.
83 ‘Limners’, p. 111.
84 ‘Limners’, p. 104; Samuel Cooper, pp. 97-99.
85 Maternal Ancestry, pp. 49–50.
86 Maternal Ancestry, p. 51.
87 ‘Limners’, p. 112.
88 Early Career, p. 32.
89 TE, p. 125, lines 382–413; Early Career, pp. 34-36.
90 Samuel Cooper, pp. 97–99.
91 Early Career, p. 36.
92 Early Career, p. 36.
93 E.g. Correspondence, 1, p. 323 and 335; 4, p. 207.
94 Correspondence, 1, pp. 350–51, 370, 433–34.
95 ‘Welbeck Abbey’, p. 91.
96 Mawhood Diary, p. 8; for their intimacy see several entries indexed under Brookes (sic), including the account of the Gordon riots.
97 College of Arms, J. C. Brooke MSS, Letter Book 2.
98 An Essay on Man, edited by Maynard Mack, The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, 3.i (London, 1950), pp. 124–25, lines 305–308.