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The author examines St. Paul's prominent place in the polemical exchanges between the English Jesuit Robert Parsons and the Protestant cleric Thomas Morton during the controversy over the Jacobean Oath of Allegiance that followed the Gunpowder Plot's failure in 1605. The most important topics were the relative supremacy of kingly and papal authority and the use of equivocation in the taking of oaths. While Parsons and Morton could each find some basis of claiming St. Paul as an authority Parsons proved to be much more successful in this regard, thereby depriving English Protestants like Morton of an important source of support for the Jacobean establishment. Keywords: Gunpowder Plot; Morton; Parsons; St. Paul Given that the 2008-09 year has been proclaimed as the Year of St. Paul,1 the saint's theological and political importance deserves fur- ther exploration. Protestants as well as Catholics have claimed him for their own. A case in point is St. Paul's prominent place in the polemical exchanges between the early-modern English Jesuit Robert Parsons and the Protestant cleric Thomas Morton immedi- ately following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. These exchanges, which captured the flavor and state of religious and polit- ical affairs between English Catholics and Protestants at that time, offer a unique glimpse into how both sides used St. Paul in defend- ing their respective positions and in articulating a compelling vision to their partisans. Appropriately enough, the exchanges took place during the reign of another Paul - the Borghese Pope Paul V.2 English Catholics faced intense pressure from the new Jacobean Oath of Allegiance devised in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. The plot to blow up king and Parliament, it may be recalled, was hatched by a group of conspirators - including Robert Catesby, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Sir Everard Digby, and Guy Fawkes - who had initially expected gaining some measure of toleration from King James I. Spain's conclusion of a peace treaty with James in 1604 without provision for toleration, however, convinced these plotters that persecution by the English establishment would only grow worse, and so they devised their far-fetched scheme. But the government thwarted the plot - dramatically apprehending the enigmatic Fawkes as he dug his mine under Parliament - and the case for toleration of English Catholics, such as it was, was dealt a mortal blow.3 The English government subsequently increased persecution and instituted a series of strict anti-Catholic laws. The penalty for recusancy skyrocketed to £60 per year, and Catholics could not own property through marriage, become lawyers or physicians, or live in certain localities. At the heart of the government's program, however, was the Oath of Allegiance. It required Catholics to swear "that the Pope, neither of himself, nor by any authority of the Church or see of Rome . . . has any power to depose the King ... or to discharge any of his subjects of their allegiance and obethence to His Majesty." A fierce controversy erupted on the nature and relative importance of papal and kingly authority between the great cardinal, St. Robert Bellarmine, SJ. , on the one hand, and King James I, on the other.4 With this international controversy over the oath brewing, English Catholics were both harried and divided as to the appropriate course of action. Some Catholics, like the Appellants, had for over a decade sought a rapprochement with the English establishment in the hopes of achieving some kind of toleration.They concluded that the oath was benign and justified given the course of events since the accession of James.5 Other Catholics, most notably exiled Jesuits like Robert Parsons, had spent the better part of their adult lives working for the restoration of the Catholic faith and Catholic rule in England. Parsons s Memorial for the Reformation of England (1596) provided a blueprint for such a revival. … |
