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Cloak Without Dagger: Dr Thomas Hussey, 1746–1803
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
CHARLES BUTLER, who knew Thomas Hussey well, wrote of him that he ‘would long live the memory of his friends:—a man of great genius, of enlightened piety; with manners at once imposing and elegant; and enchanting conversation. He did not come into contact with many whom he did not subdue: the highest rank often sunk before him. One notes, straightaway, the language of avoirdupois: the man ‘imposes’, he ‘subdues’, and beneath him others ‘sink’. Thomas Hussey had weight. That is evident in the portrait which hangs today in the building that rests on his foundations, Spanish Place: it conveys the force of character of one who was, in the words of another acquaintance, ‘by talents, nerves, ambition and intrepidity fitted for the boldest enterprise’.
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References
Notes
This article is an extended version of a paper read at the Catholic Record Society conference at Oxford in July 1987. I am grateful for a grant towards travel expenses which made possible the research in Spain.
1 Charles, Butler Historical Memoirs of English Catholics (1819) 2, p. 317.Google Scholar
2 Richard, Cumberland Memoirs (1806) p. 360.Google Scholar
3 The fullest account of Hussey's career is to be found in William Gerard Murphy's unpublished M.A. thesis, ‘The Life of Dr Thomas Hussey, 1746-1803’ (University College, Cork, 1968). This is particularly valuable on the part played by T.H. at the end of his life in Irish affairs.
4 The termini a quo and ad quem of T.H.'s stay in Seville are provided by documents of the Seville college now at St. Alban's College, Valladolid (Sevilla B67/37 and 21/4). For the royal subsidy, see the petition submitted by T.H. to Charles III in December 1778, in which he describes his studies as having been completed ‘debaxo la especial protección de S.M. quien piadosamente mandó costear todos los gastos de su educación’ (Simancas, Estado, leg.7000).
The documents relative to the reorganisation of the Jesuit Colleges are in the Bibliotheca Colombina, Seville (63-9-87).
5 Cumberland, Memoirs, p. 358.
6 The papers documenting the troubles at Salamanca are in Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, leg.965. In January 1773 the reforming bishop Beltran of Salamanca wrote to Maunel de Roda, the chief minister, that ‘of all the tasks your Excellency has assigned to me at His Majesty's bidding none has caused me so many anxieties, cares, annoyances and frustrations as that of reforming and regulating the Irish college in this city’. At one stage Beltran had Patrick Curtis (the future Archbishop of Armagh) consigned to his episcopal prison (letter of 6th November 1773).
7 Boswell, Life, (Oxford, 1934) 4, p. 411.
8 Papers and correspondence in Simancas, Estado, leg.7005, nos 2, 10, 178, 223, 227, 232.
9 H.M.C. Stopford-Sackville MSS. (1904) 1, pp. 323-25.
10 On what follows, see Samuel, Ftagg Bemis The Hussey-Cumberland Mission and American Independence, (Princeton, 1931);Google Scholar Pedro, Voltes Bou ‘Thomas Hussey y sus servicios a la politica de Floridablanca’, Hispania, 20 (1959) pp. 92–141.Google Scholar The documentation on the mission is in the Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid—hereafter A.H.N. (Estado, leg.4220), the P.R.O., London (SP Foreign 94/254) and H.M.C, Stopford-Sackville MSS. 1, pp. 325-40.
11 For a modern account of Cumberland's life and work, see Regis, Ritz Le théâtre de Richard Cumberland (Paris, 1979).Google Scholar
12 Stopford-Sackville MSS., 1, pp. 325-29.
13 A.H.N. Estado, leg.4220, exp. 2, no. 61 (T.H. to Floridablanca, 24th December 1779).
14 Stopford-Sackville, 1, p. 332. For Cumberland's vivid account of the voyage which follows, see his Memoirs, pp. 306-18.
15 A.H.N. Estado, leg.4220, exp.2, no. 110 (T.H. to Floridablanca, 18th May 1780).
16 Cumberland, Memoirs, pp. 382, 365-68. This incident deserves a place in the history of Spanish ecumenism.
17 A.H.N. Estado, leg.4220, no. 68.
18 On James Warren Doyle, Patrick Curtis and James Robertson, see the entries in D.N.B., with bibliography.
Among the agents reporting to T.H. in 1779 was a Fr. Smith, formerly of the French, but later attached to the Spanish, Embassy. This must be either John Smith (2) of Anstruther. 4, p. 249, or Richard Smith, ibid. p. 250. See Simancas, Estado, leg. 7005 (Almodovar to Floridablanca, 8 October 1779).
19 Butler, Memoirs, 2, p. 317.
20 A.H.N., Estado 4220, no. 145 (Sir J. Webb to T.H., 20th December 1781). The baronetcy became extinct with Sir John's death in 1797. His only surviving child, Barbara, married the Earl of Shaftesbury (Complete Baronetage, 2, p. 220).
21 A.H.N., Estado 4220, no. 144 (Butler to T.H., 21 December 1781).
22 Posthumous Dramatick Works of the late Richard Cumberland Esq. (1813) 2, pp. 71–154.Google Scholar
23 A.H.N., Estado 4220, no. 147 (T.H. to Campo, Bologna, 22 June 1782). Hussey's grand tour with Jack Webb took in Vienna where, if the anecdote is to be believed, he had an interview with the Emperor and produced a memorable bon mot. See Thomas, R. England Life of the Rev. Arthur O'Leary (1822) pp. 198–99.Google Scholar
24 B.L., Add. MSS. 28851, Cumberland, R.: ‘Narrative of a Secret Negotiation in Spain, addressed to Lord Shelburne’. London, 20 May 1782.Google Scholar
25 Cumberland, Memoirs, p. 359. Even after The Walloons the two men continued a show of friendship. In December 1784 after the triumphant first night of his play The Carmelite, with Sarah Siddons and John Kemble in the cast, Cumberland recorded that ‘Father Hussey was with me in themanager's box and wept streams’ (Stopford-Sackville, 1, p. 343).
26 Butler, Memoirs, pp. 317-20.
27 See the nota of 22 July 1824 in A.H.N., Estado 8537 (documents relating to the Spanish Chapel).
28 On the York Street chapel, see Survey of London (London County Council, 1960) 29, pp. 117–18Google Scholar (I am indebted for this reference to Mr. Denis Evinson). There had been a French chapel in York Street (now Duke of York Street) in the late 17th century, but the Spanish chapel seems to have been a new construction. It had a short life, for in January 1790 The London Chronicle announced that it was ‘to be purchased and appropriated to the very different purpose of a place of polite amusement under the direction of the Chevalier St George’.
29 Mr. O'Leary's Narrative (1791). One copy of this rare leaflet survives in the Royal Irish Academy (Haliday pamphlets 600/6) and another in A.H.N., Estado 8537. For the rejoinder, see A Defence of the Character of the Revd. Mr Hussey against the aspersions contained in the narrative of Mr O'Leary, by a Friend to the Reverend Mr Hussey (J. Ridgway, 1791). ‘I can truly say’, O'Leary declared, ‘that during the space of a twelvemonth, like Charles the Fifth watching over his coffin, I watched in silence over the urn in which (I was informed) some persons were inclosing the embers of my ruined honour’.
30 Butler, Historical Memoirs, 2, pp. 131-35; 4, pp. 410-11. See also Bernard, Ward The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England (1909) 1, pp. 224, 231–34.Google Scholar T.H. was one of the priests suspended by Bishop Walmesley for supporting the ‘Persuasion Resolution’ of 1790 (ibid., 2, pp. 197-200).
31 Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh (London, H. Colburn, 1849) 3, pp. 87–8Google Scholar (Hippisley to Lord Hobart, 1799).
32 The accounts of the Spanish Chapel (A.H.N., Estado 8536) include a delightful illustration of this: a paper signed by the chapel sempstress, Lucy Smallwood, acknowledging ‘by hand of the write Rev. Dr Hussey, for washing and mendind the linen of Spanish Chaple, the sum of £1.3.3, received of his Catholic magesty the King of Spain’.
33 Quoted in Brady, J. ‘Catholics and Catholicism in the 18th Century Press’, Archivium Hibernicvm, 20 (1957) p. 280.Google Scholar
34 For a full account of this phase of T.H.'s activities, see the thesis by W. G. Murphy (cf. note 3, above) based on a study of the Fitzwiiliam, Pelham, Portland and Camden papers.
35 Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed Marshall, P. J. and J. Woods, A. (Cambridge, 1968) 8, pp. 136–40.Google Scholar cf. 7, pp. 231, 395-96, 499; 8, pp. 124-26, 199, 352.
36 The Drennan Letters, ed. Chart, D. A. (Belfast 1931) p. 228.Google Scholar
37 Lecky, W. History of Ireland in the 18th Century (1892) 3, p. 471.Google Scholar For a very hostile account of T.H.'s conduct, see Froude, J. A. The English in Ireland (1874) 3, pp. 184–87.Google Scholar
38 Sir J. C. Hippisley told Lord Grenville that when in Rome in 1794-5 he remembered ‘distinctly being informed by Cardinal Borgia that the appointments of Dr. Troy and Dr. Hussey took place in deference to the wishes of our Government’. But there is a problem here, since T.H. was not appointed until 1796. See H.M.C., Fortescue MSS., 9 (1915) pp. 256–60.Google Scholar
39 For the Pastoral Letter to the Catholic Clergy of the United Dioceses of Waterford and Lismore, see Richard, Plowden An Historical Review of the State of Ireland (1803) 2, pt. 2, pp. 284ff.Google Scholar The numerous pamphlets provoked by this Pastoral are listed by Murphy, W. G. in his thesis. One of the few to remain loyal to T.H. was Burke, who described the Pastoral as ‘the product of a manly mind’ (Correspondence, 9, pp. 341-45, 357–58).Google Scholar
40 For the indult, see Brady, W. M. The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland and Ireland, 2 (Rome, 1876) p. 75.Google Scholar
41 Diary of Bishop Douglass, 103 (A.A.W.).
42 On the Concordat issue, see P. Boyle, ‘Dr Hussey, Bishop of Waterford, and the Concordat of 1801’, [I]rish [E]cclesiastical R[ecord], 5th series, 5 (1915) pp. 337-45. In his letter of 5 September 1801, congratulating T.H. on his recovery of the Irish colleges in Paris, Pius VII made no mention of the Concordat. (Text of letter in I.E.R., 4th series (1904) p. 48).
43 T.H. to Hearn, 15 November 1802 (Hearn correspondence, St. John's College, Waterford, L49). Iam grateful to the diocesan archivist for permission to consult this correspondence.
44 A copy of the broadsheet was in the possession of Canon Power, the author of two articles on T.H. in I.E.R., 5th series, 45 (1935) pp. 460-72, 561-75.
45 Patrick, Boyle ‘Documents relative to the appointment of … a Coadjutor to the Bishop of Waterford in 1801’, Archivium Hibernicum, 7 (1918–22) pp. 17–19.Google Scholar