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Canon Henry Taylor, Spanish Habsburg Diplomat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Albert J. Loomie
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Extract

Nearly fifty years ago, Joseph Lefèvre, the distinguished editor of the correspondence of the Spanish court with the Low Countries, pointed out the unusual career of Henry Taylor. As an accredited diplomat at Whitehall for six years during the regime of the sovereign Archdukes, Taylor’s letters were sampled by Lefèvre for his perspective on the court of Charles I and for illustrations of the differences in policy between the Archduchess Isabella and her nephew Philip IV. While foreign princes occasionally employed Englishmen to represent their interests in London, it was striking that an English Catholic born in Douai would be selected during the period of the penal laws. Lefèvre’s study was hardly the full story, for Taylor’s diplomatic service to the Spanish crown was longer, more varied and more significant than has hitherto been recognized. Furthermore, his career as a chaplain at the court of the governor at Brussels, which ended in his promotion to be the dean of Antwerp cathedral, deserves attention. Because of his unusual background, it will not cause surprise that during more than thirty years in Spanish service he encountered at different times, and for particular political motives, suspicions and hostility that limited his achievement.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , October 1984 , pp. 223 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1984

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References

Notes

1 Lefèvre, J., ‘Henri Teller, Doyen d’Anvers et Diplomate’, Archives, Bibliothéques et Musées de Belgique 13 (1936), pp. 89–104.Google Scholar

2 Henry was born in Douai, 14 July 1602, the son of Robert Taylor, then professor of civil law at the university, and Mary Fowler, daughter of the Antwerp printer, John Fowler. He was raised in that city until the age of nine. His father meanwhile served as secretary of English letters to the Spanish embassy in London while his family remained overseas (‘non entren su mujer y hijos en Inglaterra por la libertad que ay de conciencia’: Pedro de Zúñiga to Philip III, 17 January 1606, E.2585 f. 5). During the Gunpowder Plot searches in 1605 Taylor concealed John Gerard, S.J., in his house in London. (P. Caraman, ed. The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, 1955, p. 235). Henry Taylor entered St. Omer in 1612 to remain for over seven years before entering the English College in Rome in October 1620, which he left in May 1621. (C.R.S. 37 (1940), p. 193; C.R.S. 54 (1972), p. 333). See also Appendix.

3 James, Wadesworth II, The English Spanish Pilgrime, 1630, p. 26.Google Scholar

4 B. Nac., MS 18430, f. 30, Taylor to Gondomar, 17 December 1622. Two years earlier Thomas Scot imagined Gondomar to say: ‘I have made it a principal part of my employment to buy all the manuscripts and other ancient and rare authors out of the hands of heretics’: Vox Populi (1620), Sig D1.

5 PRO SP 94/32/18 Aston to James I, 3/13 February 1625.

6 See S. L. Adams, ‘Foreign Policy and the Parliaments of 1621 and 1624’, in Sharpe, K. ed., Faction and Parliament: Essays Early Stuart History (1978), pp. 140–42.Google Scholar

PC 62, f. 129v, Van Male to Isabella, 7 March 1625.

8 E. Libro 378, Bruneau to Philip IV, 22 March 1625: ‘en terminos tan ambiguos que apenas se puede conjecturar si gusta o no’.

9 PC 62, f. 150, Van Male to Isabella, 21 March 1625.

10 PRO SP 78/18/178, Trumbull to Charles I, 25 July/4 August 1625.

11 E.2039, f. 75, consulta of 18 September 1625.

12 Palacio del Oriente, Madrid, Biblioteca, MS. 1817, Philip to Gondomar, 2 September 1625.

13 E.2039, f. 7, consulta of 28 September 1625: “hijo del por cuyo mano encaminaron el conde de Villa Mediana y el marques de Floresdavila lo que en sus negociaciones salio bien.’ See Loomie, A., ‘Sir Robert Cecil and the Spanish Embassy’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Research 42 (1969), 36–43.Google Scholar

14 PRO SP 77/18/239, Conway to Trumbull, 12/22 September 1625.

15 Ruth, Magurn ed., The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens (1955), p. 246 Google Scholar, Rubens to Buckingham, 18 March 1628; CSPV 1628‣29, p. 6.

16 Loomie, A., ‘Olivares, the English Catholics and the Peace of 1630’, Revue Belge de PhiL. et d’HisL. 47 (1969), 1154–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 CSPV 1629–32, p. 74; Magurn, Letters, p. 352, Rubens to Isabella, London, 24 November 1629.

18 E.2519, f. 112, consulta 21 December 1630; PC 64, ff. 7–10, Isabella’s instructions of 7 February 1631; CSPV 1629–32, p. 480; CSPD 1629–31, pp. 528, 534.

19 PC 64, f. 19, Taylor to Charles della Faille, 22 February 1631: ‘parce que j’ai trop d’Anglois et que je ay esté menny parmi les Jesuites…’

20 E.2519, f. 137, consulta 23 May 1631; E.2574, Philip to Taylor, 18 May 1631

21 E.2238, Philip to Isabella, 6 April 1631: ‘como natural se recatasen del aquel rey y sus ministros…’

22 PEA liasse 2065, patent, copy, 13 September 1631.

23 PEA liasse 1545, Instructions of 13 September 1631.

24 E.K. 1424, ‘Propuestas que hizo Teller en Inglaterra de una confederacion entre los yernos de la reina madre’, 1631.

25 E.K. 1424, Philip to Mirabel, 19 June 1631; E.2045, f. 6, consulta 26 September 1631.

26 CSPV 1629–32, pp. 636, 647; CSPV 1632–36, pp. 1, 8, 103, 132, 149.

27 Knowler, W. ed., The Earl of Strafford’s Letters (1739) 1, p. 119 Google Scholar: Wentworth to Necolalde, 7 October 1633: ‘not having any here I will trust … we must borrow from our interpreter, Mr. Taylor.’

28 PC 65, f. 300, Taylor to della Faille, 7 April 1634; f. 316, 9 June 1634; f. 354, 10 November 1634.

29 PC 65, f. 314, Taylor to della Faille, 2 June 1634.

30 E.2520, Necolalde to Olivares, 22 November 1634: ‘como conosco a esta gente y sus cautelas y equivocos, he caminado en todo particular cuydado en el sentir de la lengua castellaña…’

31 CSPD 1636–37, p. 10.

32 C.R.S. 54 (1972), p. 333: ‘non magnopere videor affici ad vitam ecclesiasticam…’

33 SEG 215, f. 262, Ferdinand to Philip, 10 October 1636.

34 SEG 216, f. 320, Philip to Ferdinand, 10 August 1637.

35 AHN Estado, libro 722, Taylor to Juan de San Agustín, 16 October 1637.

36 SEG 382, f. 191, Oñate to Ferdinand, London, 26 November 1637: ‘aunque la persona de Enrique Teller es de arta abilidad y en otras partes se deve creer servira con toda fineça y legalidad, en algunas ocasiones se hiza a la parte de este rey y encumbrio cartas a don Juan de Necolalde, quien por esto si bien se sirvio de Enrique Teller para la necessidad de la lengua, lo hizo con recato, como el podra dicir a la boca en España muy larga y particularmente…’

37 Clar. Ms. 18, f. 45, Taylor to Windebank, 4 February 1640.

38 PC 64, f. 19, Taylor to della Faille, 22 February 1631: ‘il se plainct fort in secreto des peines des Angloys…’

39 Clar. Ms. 16, f. 33, Taylor to Windebank, Brussels, 26 March 1639.

40 AGR Conseil d’État, liasse 1053, patent 5 February 1638.

41 AGR Conseil d’État, liasse 1018, patent 22 May 1640; liasse 1053, patent 14 June 1640.

42 Clar. Ms. 17, f. 140, Gage to Windebank, 12/22 October 1639; CSPV 1636–39, p. 575.

43 SEG 374, f. 83, Miguel de Salamanca to Velada, 2 March 1640.

44 SEG 374, f. 90, Salamanca to Velada, 8 March 1640.

45 The negotiations are fully summarized in J. H. Elliott,‘ The Year of the Ambassadors’, in Lloyd-Jones, H. ed., History and Imagination (1981), pp. 165–81 Google Scholar. Taylor’s activity is reported in SEG 378, f. 79, 120, Velada to Salamanca, 2 August and 14 September 1640; AHN Estado libro 722, Taylor to San Agustín, 28 September 1640; CSPD 1640–41, pp. 41, 201.

46 AHN Estado, libro 715, Taylor to San Agustín, 11 December 1642, with several more for September–December 1644; Loomie, A., ‘Alonso de Cárdenas and the Long Parliament, 1640–48; Eng. Hist. Rev. 97 (1982), 289–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 SEG 233, f. 52, Philip to Castel Rodrigo, 4 February 1646.

48 SEG 261, f. 1, Castel Rodrigo to Philip, 21 June 1646.

49 SEG 236, ff. 292–93, ‘Instruccion para el canonigo Enrique Teller’.

50 E.2347, consulta 8 September 1646.

51 SEG 236, f. 290, Castel Rodrigo to Philip, 12 October 1646.

52 E. 2349, consulta 8 June 1647; E.2067, Vladislav VII to Philip IV, 20 July 1647.

53 SEG 238, f. 96, Philip to Leopold-William, 5 August 1647; AGR Manuscrits Divers 2631, 1374, Household accounts listing payments to Taylor.

54 George F. Warner ed., The Nicholas Papers (Camden Society, New Series, 50, 1892) 2, p. 272, Langdale to Nicholas, 3 May 1655.

55 CSPV 1655–56, pp. 58, 50, 66, 73.

56 Roy, Sherwood, The Court of Oliver Cromwell (1977), pp. 23–31.Google Scholar

57 SEG 258, f. 294, Leopold-William to Philip, 28 April 1655.

58 PRO Roman Transcripts, 31/9/95, Nunziatura di Fiandra, Mangelli to Barberini, 5 June 1655 ‘L’abbate Tailler Inglese… con sue lettere mi fa avisato che non e credible el respetto i estima con cui publicamente si parla da quegli heretici della Santita di. N.S.’

59 Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Ms. Series A, 26, f. 80, Taylor to Thurloe, undated, ca. June 1655; E.2529, consulta 7 August 1655.

60 for a full review see Birrell, T. A., ‘English Catholics without a Bishop, 1655–72’, Recusant History 4 (1958), pp. 142–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 PRO 31/9/96, Nunziatura di Fiandra, Harrington, Holland and Leybourne to Ferdinand Nipho, 20 September 1656; A.A.W., Series A.37, Instructions to Plantin: ‘gratus nobilitati Catholicae, et protectori nostro non ingratus … habet facultates quibus sese cum honore sustineat et si persecutio saeviat refugium in Belgia.’

62 See Allison, Antony F., ‘Richard Smith, Richelieu and the French Marriage,’ Recusant History 7 (1964), pp. 148–211 Google Scholar, for the Chapter’s unhappiness at the selection of the Francophile Richard Smith. In 1621 it had approached the former chaplain of Gondomar, Fray Diego de la Fuente, O.P as a candidate but he had declined: Tierney (Dodd), A Church History of England (1839–43) 5, pp. ccclxvi–xvii.

63 PRO 31/9/96, Roman Transcripts, Lettere di Principi, Henrietta Maria to Alexander VII, 21 January 1656: ‘une personne marquée notablement d’une dependence d’Espagne …’; PRO 31/9/130, Barberini Transcripts, Courteney to Francesco Card. Barberini, 5 April 1656.

64 In May 1657 Don Juan José of Austria placed Taylor first in nomination for the bishop of St. Omer (PRO 31/9/96, Nunziatura di Fiandra, Nipho to Barberini, 2 June 1657) and second on his list for Ghent (SEG 265, f. 4, Juan José to Philip, 22 February 1659), but others were chosen.

65 AGR Conseil d’État 961, petition of 29 April 1658.

66 E.2196, Juan José to Philip, Bruges, 12 August and 25 October, 1658: ‘es sujeto muy caval que ha sido recivido en su iglesia con comun approbacion’; E.2092, consulta 26 October 1658.

67 Clar. Ms. 61, f. 128v, Shaw to Hyde, 7/17 1659.

68 Goetschalckx, P. J., Geshiednis der Kannunniken van O.L.V. Kapiteel te Antwerpen (Antwerp, 1929), pp. 281–83.Google Scholar