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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 October 2019
Scholarly attention to the Irish Catholic experience on the Continent in the early Stuart era is increasing.1 Interest in Irish pilgrimage to continental sanctuaries in the early modern period is one facet of that broader historiographical trend. However the surviving evidence tends to favour the travels of those of higher social standing, and it is their experience which has received attention.2 The present text, by contrast, arose from the journey to Rome of two brothers, soldiers who had been serving in the Irish regiment in Flanders. Having visited the Marian shrine of Loreto (north-east of Rome) on the way, while in Rome they made a petition to be employed in the papal military service. Their request is at several levels. Irish participation in Spanish military forces both in Flanders and Spain in the early seventeenth century has been of interest to scholars in recent decades; Irish involvement with the papal military forces in the same period is less well noted.3 Early modern soldiers regularly faced unemployment arising from a cessation of hostilities; in the case of two soldiers in the Spanish Netherlands, this document throws light on the need to find a new employer, and on strategies adopted to that end. Further, in presenting themselves to the Pope as a prospective employer, the petition illustrates how Irish soldier exiles fashioned an assertive Catholic identity for themselves, in which the family’s experience of religious persecution in their homeland was linked with subsequent military service against heretics on the Continent. Hence the significance of the text presented here. The brothers’ army career was outlined, with referees indicated, and some possible openings in the papal forces were suggested. These professional elements were integrated into a family narrative of persecution for the Catholic faith, and personal religious devotion, with a view to making an informed request for employment in papal service.
I acknowledge the permission of The Board of Trinity College Dublin to reproduce this text, and the assistance of Bernadette Cunningham in verifying a reference.
1 See the series of essay collections edited by Ann Lyons, Mary and O’Connor, Thomas: Irish migrants in Europe after Kinsale (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Irish communities in early modern Europe (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006); Strangers to citizens: the Irish in Europe, 1600-1800 (Dublin: National Library of Ireland, 2008); The Ulster earls and baroque Europe (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010); on the Irish college network in the context of other national colleges, see Chambers, Liam and O’Connor, Thomas eds. College communities abroad: education, migration and Catholicism in early modern Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Hazard, Benjamin, Faith and patronage: the political career of Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire c.1560-1629 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010)Google Scholar; for Irish migration to one region of Spain, see O’Scea, Ciaran, Surviving Kinsale: Irish migration and identity formation in early modern Spain, 1601-40 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015)Google Scholar; on the Irish experience of the Spanish Inquisition, see O’Connor, Thomas, Irish voices from the Spanish Inquisition: migrants, converts and brokers in early modern Iberia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a study of Irish theological engagement, see Mac Craith, Micheál, ‘The Irish Franciscan continental colleges and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception’, in Binasco, Matteo ed. Rome and Irish Catholicism in the Atlantic world, 1622-1908 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 137–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for conversions to Catholicism of Irish Protestants living in Rome at a somewhat later period, see Carroll, Clare, Exiles in a global city: the Irish and early modern Rome, 1609-1783 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 209–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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4 On the place of Loreto in the Catholic world of the sixteenth century, see Murphy, Paul, ‘Santa Casa di Loreto: Orazio Torsellini’s Lauretanae historiae libri quinque’, in Lucas, Thomas ed.–Spirit, Style, Story: Essays honoring John W. Padberg (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2002), 269–81.Google Scholar
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33 Previous word deleted; illegible.
34 Archduke Albert (1559-1621), captain-general of the Army; with his wife, the Infanta Isabella, joint ruler of Spanish Netherlands (1598-1621).
35 Don Francisco de Mendoza (1547-1623); in 1597, Archduke Albert appointed Mendoza (already Admiral of Aragon, and commander of the Army’s cavalry) as head of his household, a position he held until 1602; Mendoza served as the Army’s commander-in-chief, Parker, Geoffrey, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish road 1567-1659 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 93, 165 n 21.Google Scholar
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37 ‘his’ deleted.
38 ‘as’ inserted.
39 ‘as’ deleted.
40 It has not been possible to find documentary support for this assertion; on killings associated with surrenders in the Nine Years War (1594-1603), see O’Neill, James, ‘Like sheep to the shambles? Slaughter and surrender during Tyrone’s rebellion, 1593-1603’, The Irish Sword, 31 no 126 (2018): 366–80.Google Scholar
41 ‘that’ deleted.
42 Word uncertain.
43 ‘unto’ inserted; ‘with’ deleted.
44 ‘Polonia’: mercenaries were recruited for armies involved in the Polish-Swedish War (1600-1611).
45 Was ‘thither’ – corrected to ‘hither’; initial ‘t’ deleted.
46 Blank space in text.
47 Abbreviation unclear.