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A Spanish Calvinist Church in Elizabethan London, 1559–65

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Paul J. Hauben
Paul J. Hauben
Affiliation:
Portland State College, Oregon
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Extract

As a result of Father Albert J. Loomie's recent volume, The Spanish Elizabethans, this descriptive phrase would appear to be a dramatic designation for English Catholic exiles in Philip II's dominions. However, it seems equally appropriate to use the appelation with reference to a much less known and smaller group, the Spanish Calvinist refugees of Elizabethan London. The latter were organized into a congregation in the early 1560's by Cassiodoro de Reina; to a very considerable extent the success and collapse of this church parallels its pastor's career, as we shall see.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 1965 , pp. 50 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1965

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References

1. Loomie, Albert J., The Spanish Elizabethans (Fordham University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

2. we do not know how many there were when tbe congregation of 1559 was organized. There had been a few Spanish merebants and courtier types “Protestantized” under Henry VIII, and incomplete tax records indicate there were about 100 by 1568. See Tollin, Henri N., “Cassiodoro de Reina,” Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme français, XXXI (1882), 389Google Scholar; Strype, John, Annals of the Reformation, (Oxford, 1824), I, i, 354–5Google Scholar; the relevant-tax records are in the Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, vols. VIII and X. (Hereafter referred to as HSPu).

3. The differences for refugee congregations under Edward and Elizabeth are very clearly shown in Lindeboom, J., Austin Friars (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1950)Google Scholar, D. De Iongh, translator; see also Norwood, F. A., “The strangers' “Model Churches” in Sixteenth Century England,” in Reformation Studies: Essays in Honor of Roland H. Bainton, Littell, F. H., ed. (Richmond, Va., 1962)Google Scholar, for a close analysis of John a Lasco's Church under Edward and its effect on the later period. Neither, however, deal with the Spanish Church.

4. Quoted in Burn, John S., History of the French, Walloon, Dutch and other Foreign Protestant Refugees settled in England (London, 1846), 4.Google Scholar

5. Strype, John, History of the Life and Acts of Edmund Grindal (London, 1710), 47.Google Scholar

6. Same as n. 5.

7. Shown most recently by Alvarez, Manuel Fernandez, Tres Embajadores de Felipe II en Inglaterra (Madrid, 1951), 210–11Google Scholar. The Calendar of State Papers, Spanish (hereafter CSP, Sp.), and de Lettenhove's, KervynRelations politiques des Pays-Bas et de l'Angleterre sous le regne de Philippe II, 11 vols. (Brussels, 1882–1900)Google Scholar are extremely convincing in this regard. I have prepared an article, “In Pursuit of Heresy,” treating this topic for France and England, to appear in the Historical Journal in 1966.

8. Burn, op. cit., 189–90; de Schickler, Baron F., Les Églises du Refuge en Angleterre (Paris, 1892), I, 212–13.Google Scholar

9. Neale, J. E., Queen Elizabeth (N.Y., 1934), 229Google Scholar. Walsingham's group represents, traditionally, the more aggressive Protestant-Puritan faction in the government. The above-cited volumes of correspondence in n. 7 also supply numerous cases of Spanish pressure on Elizabeth to end the clandestine meetings of the Spanish heretics at Grindal's home, as well as, more expectedly, protests against the subsequent grant of a regular church for public worship. It would be redundant to cite the other multi-volume collections of diplomatic papers showing the same trends.

10. There is a great deal of still very useful material on Reina in Lehnemann, Johannes, Historisches Nachricht von der Evangelisch Lutherischen Kirche in Antorff (Frankfurt am Main, 17–25)Google Scholar; Tollin, op. cit.; Böhmer, Eduard, Bibliotheca Wiffeniana (London-Strashourg, 1874–1904), II, 163–320Google Scholar; Van Schelven, A. A., “Cassiodorus de Reyna, Christophorus Fabricius, en Gaspar Olevianus,” Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, VIII (1911), 322–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Two recent general surveys percepttively illuminate conditions in midsixteenth century Spain, and help our understanding of why men like Reina had to flee; these are Elliott, J. H., Imperial Spain (London-N. Y., 1964)Google Scholar and Lynch, John, Spain under the Habsburgs, vol. I, 1516–1998 (Oxford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Tribute to John E. Longhurst, now of the University of Kansas, for his numerous researches in Spanish Protestantism before ca. 1560 is appropriate here, as well as to Mme. Angela Selke de Sanchez Barbudo for her works on Spanish mysticism in the same period. The two fields have a curious relationship, whose study lies outside this article's scope.

11. This petition is recounted in Strype, Grindal, 47–8 and Böhmer, op. cit., II, 168–9. Cf. Böhmer, 167–8 and McCrie, Thomas, History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain (London, 1829), 367ff. in this connection.Google Scholar

12. For this episode see HSPu, XXXVIII, xx, 13, 26, 29, 35Google Scholar; Böhmer, op. cit., II, 163ff. An enormous number of letters relevant to the affairs of Reina and his church can be found in vols. II-III of Hessels, J. H., Ecclesiae londino-batavae Archivum (Cambridge, 1889–1897).Google Scholar

13. I have not been able to obtain a copy of this work, despite greatly appreciated suggestions from Professor R. H. Bainton and others. The comments from those who have immediately following should suggest the difficulties in assessing Reina and his theology.

14. Tollin, op. cit., XXXI, 390–1.

15. Linnhoff, Lieselotte, Spanische, Protestanten und England (Emstdetten, 1934), 35.Google Scholar

16. Stoughton, John, The Spanish Reformers (London, 1883), 296Google Scholar. cf. Lehnemann, op. cit., 92 n. 4, who claims Reina's version of the Eucharist alienated most orthodox Calvinists, but see below and n. 18.

17. HSPu, XXXVIII, xx, 23.Google Scholar

18. Tollin, op. cit., XXXI, 397; Van Lennep, M. F., De Hervorming in Spanje (Haarlem, 1901), 358–9.Google Scholar

19. Böhmer, op. cit., II, 169–70; Coleccion de documentos incditos para la historia de Espana (Madrid, 1842–1895), XXVI, 461–2.Google Scholar

20. Fernandez Alvarez, op. cit., 126; CSP, Sp., I, 247.

21. Böhmer, op. cit., II, 171 and n.21.

22. Ibid., II, 171–3, III, 11 n.30; Tollin, op. cit., XXXI, 386–8.

23. Cited in Van Schelven, , “Reyna,” 329.Google Scholar

24. HSPu, XXXVIII, 57.Google Scholar

25. For these incredible debates and charges see Ibid., XXXVIII, 57, 59, 89 and Hessels, passim.

26. Ibid., XXXVIII, 59, 63. Böhmer, op. cit., II, 172 said that this allowed Grindal actually to save these manuscripts from destruction.

27. Böhmer, op. cit., II, 171f and notes 21–2, 27. Despite some confusion in these pages, Böhmer, appears to have made a good case for January, 1564 as the time of Reina's flight. He also contradicts himself, however, in discussing why the Spanish Church collapsed and when; cf. the foregoing citations in this note with his own n.23 on II, 171 and Fernandez Alvarez, op. cit., 210–11.

28. Lehnemann, op. cit., is a very thorough narrative on Reina's career as a Lutheran leader in Antwerp and Frankfurt, respectively. See Van Schelven, , “Reyna,” 326–7Google Scholar; Van Lennep, op. cit., 368–70; Schickler, op. cit., I, 232–5 for Reina's near-complete vindication and its immediate aftermath.

29. CSP, Sp., I, 425, 434.

30. Ibid., I, 425; HSPu, XXXVIII, xxxi.Google Scholar

31. Corro will be the object of a critical biography for the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society which I shall shortly begin.

32. Reina and Corro were not alone in facing this seditious charge. It remains extremely difficult to clarify, invalidate, or sustain such accusations in individual cases. There seems little doubt that behind Servetus stood, in the minds of many, the earlier Judaic tradition of medieval Spain, which presumably predisposed all Spaniards towards unitarian interpretations of the Trinity. The literature is voluminous, and the Lynch and Elliott texts cited in n.10 above are excellent starting-points for the general reader. A controversial b u t deeply-researched specialized study is Castro, Americo, The Structure of Spanish History (Princeton University Press, 1954), King, E., translatorGoogle Scholar; also very relevant is Bainton's, R. H. lucid study of Servetus, Hunted Heretic (Harper Torchbook, 1958).Google Scholar

33. E.g. what happened to two Spanish Protestants in London described in Böhmer, op. cit., II, 171 n.23. They fought back against stiff odds and were exonerated; neither, however, were clerics or theologians and consequently were much less exposed to being “pred” followers of Servetus.

34. Examples of this can be found in HSPu, X and Series III, v. 111, 72Google Scholar of the Werken der Marnix-Vereeniging (Utrecht, 870–9).Google Scholar