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Henry Hawkins, S.J., 1577-1646: A Recusant Writer and Translator of the Early Seventeenth Century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2017

Josephine Evetts Secker
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Extract

Henry Hawkins deserves to be remembered if only because he lived to be an old man. After more than twenty-five years of active but unostentatious service as a Jesuit priest in the London area, he died on 14 August 1646 at the House of the English Tertian Fathers in Ghent, aged about seventy years. But apart from the achievement of keeping his body intact and relatively free for a quarter of a century on the English Mission, Hawkins should be known, too, for his literary works—two original and six substantial translations from Latin, French and Italian. From the earliest days of the English Catholic struggle for survival, the particular need of the isolated English ‘Papists’ for spiritual reading in order to sustain faith, had been recognized and many attempts were made to meet it. For Catholics at home, largely deprived of sacraments, worship and instruction through homily, it was one of the only ways of keeping in touch with the Church's devotional life and one of the few channels of encouragement. Hawkins's work is not apologetical; he does not try to supply the need for doctrinal instruction nor does he in any way enter the dogmatic or political conflict.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 11 , Issue 5 , April 1972 , pp. 237 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1972

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Footnotes

1

A paper given to the Fourteenth Conference on Post-Reformation Catholic History at Oxford, 1971.

References

Notes

2 On the founding of this house see Guilday, P., The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 1558-1795, London, &c, 1914, p. 54.Google Scholar

3 Consider Robert Southwell's motive in writing his Epistle of Comfort.

4 1571 (or Foley's alternative 1572) can also be ruled out, for his parents’ marriage was solemnized in 1574 and Henry was the third child.

5 Nash Court is just east of Faversham, Kent.

6 Nevertheless some of Henry's uncles had to leave Kent in Elizabeth's reign (Foley), and in 1715 Nash Court was plundered by a Protestant mob and its contents destroyed.

7 His other published works, chiefly translations from the French, are listed in the D.N.B.

8 Gee, John, The Foot out of the Snare, London, 1624.Google Scholar

9 The works published by John and his son Francis are given in the articles on both of them by Thompson Cooper in the D.N.B. In addition, Francis translated An alarm for ladyes (from the French of Jean Puget de la Serre) at Paris in 1638. A & R 440. This has recently been republished in facsimile (English Recusant Literature, Vol. 82).

10 Hasted, E., The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (London, 1790), Vol. 3, p. 4.Google Scholar

11 Sondes MSS., Kent County Archives.

12 English College, Rome. Liber Ruber. Nomina Alumnorum, 1579-1630, C.R.S., Vol. 37, 1940, p. 154

13 Alegambe says that he was 40 when he joined the Society. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Socielatis Jesu, Rome, 1676, p. 326.

14 Also missing are those of the two entrants who preceded him at the English College, Rome, Antonius Blacnollus (Fletcherus) and Richardus Smalaeus (Williamsonus). CRS, Vol. 54, p. 210.

15 Records 3, p. 492. His source was Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, Vol. 4, n. 4 (misprinted in Foley as n. 41).

16 Ibid.

17 Foley, Records 3, p. 510. His eleven companions on this occasion were all fellow English Jesuits.

18 Foley, Records, Vol. 1, p. 133.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid, p. 132.

21 Records, Vol. 7, p. 346.

22 Marraccio, Hippolyto, Bibliotheca Mariana, Rome, 1648. Part 1, p. 558.Google Scholar

23 Henry More, Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis lesu, 1660.

24 It has been pointed out to me that the Jesuit College of St Ignatius was in fact next door to Charterhouse.

25 The Teynhams lived at Linsted Lodge, seven miles from Nash Court. Lord Teynham married Lady Mary Petre and to her Hawkins dedicates his St Elizabeth, and, not to Lady Jernegham as Gillow mistakenly states.

26 Sir Basil also translated Caussin's Entertainment for Lent, and dedicated it to Queen Henrietta Maria. The identity of Sir B. B. was not recognized by Franklin Williams, B. in his Index of Dedications and Commendatory verses in English Books before 1641 (London, 1962), p. 8.Google Scholar

27 G. Pietro Maffei, Fuga saeculi, 1632 (A & R 490), Epistle Dedicatory.

28 The earliest Jesuit historians attribute the Survey, to Hawkins. See Alegambe (1643), Marraccio (1648), More (1660).

29 Foot out of the Snare, Catalogue of priests at the end of the book.

30 Published in 1617 without place of issue, but actually printed at [St Omer, English College Press], A & R 331. This has been reprinted in facsimile (English Recusant Literature, Vol. 58).

31 For these see A & R nos. 322 and following.

32 Published in 1630 without place of printing, but actually from [St Omers, English College Press], A & R 412.

33 St Paul the First Hermit, St Hilarion, St Malchus.

34 Issued with the imprint: Paris, 1632, but really printed [St Omers, English College Press], A & R 109. This has also been reprinted in facsimile (English Recusant Literature, Vol. 24).

35 Issued with the imprint: Paris, 1632 but actually printed [St Omers, English College Press], A & R 490. (The Lives of Saints Malachy, Antony, Pachomius, Martin, Fulgentius, Theodsius, Benet, Stephen, Edward Confessour, Anselme, Otho, Bernard, Hugh, Antony of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, Andrew [Fesula], Laurence Iustinian.)

36 Issued with the imprint: Paris, 1632, but actually printed [St Omers, English College Press] A & R 441.

37 Issued without place of printing in 1632, but actually from the press of [Jean Cousturier at Rouen] A & R 387.

38 Printed at [Rouen], 1633, under Jean Cousturier's imprint, A & R 388. This has also been reprinted in facsimile (English Recusant Literature, Vol. 81).

39 The other two are the Devout Hart and E.M.'s Ashrea, 1665.

40 Printed at [Rouen], 1634, under Jean Cousturier's imprint, A & R 483. It was reissued in 1638.

41 See for example his Epistle of Comfort, to the Rev. Preestes and to the Honourable, Worshipful & other of the Laye Sort restrayned in Durance for the Catholicke Fayth. ‘Imprinted at Paris’ [c. 1587]. A & R 781.

42 See for example his Ignatius his Conclave and the Pseudo-Martyr.

43 St Ignatius of Antioch, from Epistles of St Clement and St Ignatius, trans. J. A. Kleist. (Ancient Christian Writers No. 1), Westminster, 1942, pp. 81-82.

44 As for example in his fellow Jesuit Fr John Gibbons's great compilation, the Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholtcae in Anglia, Adversus Calvino-Papistas et Puritanos, Trier (Treves) 1583. The conventional attribution of this work to ‘John Bridgewater’ is discussed and rejected in the Introduction to the recent facsimile edition of the 1588 Concertatio (Gregg International Publishers, 1971).

45 Partheneia Sacra, p. 200.

46 ‘She, she is dead; shee's dead: when thou knowest this, Thou knowest how poore a trifling thing man is.’ The Anatomie of the World, The First Annlversarie.

47 Parthenia Sacra, ‘The Epistle to the Parthenian Sodalitie’.

48 Donne's parents were recusants—his mother, father and his stepfather. His brother was imprisoned for sheltering a priest and died in captivity.

49 Since Donne's work was widely read at the time in MS. circulation, it is not necessary to quote dates and editions.

50 These are mainly minor but they confirm Hawkins's familiarity with Donne's work.

51 Fuga Saeculi, ‘Preface to the Ensuing Treatise of the Holy Hatred of the World’.

52 For a study of the Emblem tradition see Praz, Mario, Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery, Rome, 1964 Google Scholar, and Freeman, Rosemary, English Emblem Books, London, 1948 Google Scholar.

53 George Herbert, from The Temple.

54 Later entitled Divine Emblems or Temporal Things Spiritualized.

55 Alciati's Latin collection (the earliest) was published in 1531.

56 Whitney, Geoffrey, A Choke of Emblemes, and other Devises, Leyden, 1586.Google Scholar

57 Van Haeften, B., Schola Cordis sire Adversi a Deo cordis ad eumdem reductio et instructio, Antwerp, 1629.Google Scholar

58 Harvey, Christopher, Schola Cordis, or the Heart of it selfe gone away from God, brought back again to him & instructed by him, London, 1647.Google Scholar

59 This was a much debated (and much misunderstood) critical issue in contemporary literary circles.

60 The engravings in the original were those of Antonius Wierix’ Cor lesu amanti sacrum.

61 Foot out of the Snare, p. 13.

62 Martz, Louis, The Poetry of Meditation, New Haven, 1962 (rev. ed.)Google Scholar

63 Stafford, Anthony, The Femall Glory, or the Life, and Death of our Blessed Lady, the holy Virgin Mary, God's owne Immaculate Mother, London, 1635, STC 23123.Google Scholar

64 Attacked, for example, by Henry Burton, Minister of God's Word, in ‘Two sermons preached on the 5th of November last in S. Mathews, Friday St.’ 1636.

65 See Philemon Holland's translation. The Historie of the World commonly called the Natural! Historie ofC. Plinius Secundus, London, 1601, STC 20029.

66 ‘The Pulley’ from The Temple.

67 Partheneia Sacra, pp. 26-27.

68 Ibid., p. 257.

69 Ibid., pp. 70-71.