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A Propos of Henry Constable

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

John Bossy
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Extract

Nobody will pretend that Henry Constable was more than a minor poet and an indifferent theologian; he is nonetheless a crucial figure in the history of English Catholicism, and it is most important that we should have a clear idea of his motives and opinions. Dr. Rogers has done us a great service by sorting out the bibliographical history of his Examen pacifique de la Doctrine des Huguenots, and dispelling a number of confusions which had accumulated around it. I propose to supplement his article by producing evidence which, except on a few points, will support and amplify his conclusions and suggest a more concrete biographical background to them.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 6 , Issue 5 , April 1962 , pp. 228 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1962

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References

Notes

1. Rogers, David, “The Catholic Moderator,” Recusant History, vol. 5 (1960), p. 224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. The Poems of Henry Constable, ed. Grundy, Joan (Liverpool University Press, 1960), p. 138.Google Scholar

3. I have used the copy in Magdalene College, Cambridge; I should like to thank the President and Fellows for permission to use it, and Dr. Rogers for lending me his microfilm of it.

4. Bibliothèque nationale: Catalogue des livres imprimés, vol. 31, p. 59.Google Scholar

5. Féret, P., Le cardinal du Perron (Paris, 1879 ed.), p. 251f.Google Scholar

6. Hatfield Calendar, vol. iii, pp. 441–2Google Scholar; Grundy, op. cit., p. 30. In view of the date, the book sent (or one of them, if there were more) can hardly have been other than the Examen pacifique.

7. Letters to Hotman, ? April 1590, & 14 May 1590, in Correspondance inédite de … Leicester et de François et Jean Hotman, ed. P. J. Blok (Haarlem, 1911), p. 257, 254; Grundy, op. cit., p. 32f.

8. I am not clear whether this is a criticism of people who would object to the book because it upset their prejudices, or of Constable for pandering to human nature.

9. “ Monsieur, J'ai encores a vous remercier du livre de monsieur Constable, que vous m'avez envoié. J'ai bien pensé qu'il en adviendroit ce que vous m'en mandez par vos derniers. Je sçay qu'il y a gens de toutes humeurs, les uns taillants au trop, les autres au moins, et je croi qu'il n'y aura pas moins de danger à ceulx qui vouldront trop modérer, qu'aux aultres, car nostre naturel est enclin à chercher son repos. Heureux qui pourra tenir ceste noble médiocrité. Je ne suis pas, Dieu merci, de ces esprits farouches, mais je ne sens aussi auscune mollesse en moi pour quitter le droict. Pour revenir à rescript dudit sieur, j'eusse désiré deux choses: qu'il n'eust point faict le Romain, car quoique plusieurs lui en aient donné exemple, j'estime qu'il ne se peult faire sans grand péché devant Dieu, qui ne veut point des faintes et dissimulations en la religion: l'autre, que ceste matière eust esté traictée plus amplement, car les hommes ne se laissent persuader si facilement. Il peut estre qu'il a pris le conseil … de laisser beaucoup de choses à dire pour respondre aux escrits contraires … Me semble, qu'il fault avecq grand prudence amollir les esprits et les rendre capables de communication et cependant gaigner pais que les sanguinaires s'en apperçoivent …”

10. Loc. cit., n. 7. “Quant au livre de monsieur Constable, j'en ai diet mon advis. Je ne me mesle d'avantaige de ce qui est in alieno fundo. Toutesfois je vous dirai bien ce mot, combien que je ne fasse (sic: ? sache) rien du jugement de monsieur Mertin que ce que vous m'en mandez, si estoit (sic: ? est-ce) que je le tiens pour tel, que je vouldrai passer son jugement plus que d'homme que je cognoisse …”

11. Du Moulin, , Autobiographie, in Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme français, vol. vii (1858), p. 172, 178 Google Scholar: Tomlinson, E. M., A History of the Minories (London, 1907), p. 128.Google Scholar

12. Du Moulin, Autobiographie, p. 179f.

13. Archives historiques du dépariement de la Gironde, vol. 19 (Bordeaux, 1879), p. 535.Google Scholar Ths letter is so badly transcribed as to make any translation partly conjectural; the two worst places have been italicised in the text. Where the punctuation is wildly wrong, I have changed it. I am very grateful to Dr. F. R. D. Goodyear for help with this; he is in no way responsible for the result. The short passage omitted between the first and second paragraphs refers to another man, not named, and the second paragraph could grammatically refer to him, not to Constable; I am satisfied from the context that it does not.

[In the following passage Greek characters are transliterated. Ed.]

“Quae de domino Constable adjicis nota omnia, eaque, etsi contra meum votum, tamen non praeter expectationem. Navibus atque quadrigis currit ad poenitentiam, hominis constans inconstantia, metui semper quorsum evaderei. Nunc patre dolore exanimato, dilapidates et fama et fortunis quae thesaurarius summus parocheisuse, consectatus tabulas naufragii. Quid supererat nisi et conscientiae naufragium faceret ? Omnino quadrat in eum illud Homeri: Aphretor, athemistos, anestios estin ekeinos. Eoque me magis miseret hominis, quod satis ingenuus, si non imprudentia, satis ingeniosus, si non futilitate quod est in se sophias perverteret aerobaton hai dialepto logomenos. Theologiae onar potius quarh hupar sibi depingens …

“Librum vero quem edidit fortasse vidi. Habebat enim hic prae manibus Iibrum ejusdem argumenti a quodam ipsius consanguineo, ut ipse aiebat, conscribellatum, quem legi, ut brevem, sed. in quo plura tollas quam relinquas; carpit utriusque partis philoneikian, imminuit errores, hortatur ad concordiam: Vetera omnia et centones emendicati. Ego vero, etsi non dubito levia multa acrius quam par est ultro citroqüe agitari, quaesierim tamen libens ad iis ejusmodi hominibus, qua via reconciliationis in quaestionibus: An sit, aut (non. presumably left out) sit purgatorium ? An papa sit caput ecclesiae ? An sint sancii invocandi ? et innumera alia, ubi non ambigitur de modo aut circunstancia rei, sed alii tollunt rem funditus, alii stabiliunt. Caetera vero, quae vocant minuta, ab illis pendent, nec coalescet unquam lis nisi profligata alterutra sententia. Unum dabo exemplum: a purgatorio pendent ista: orationes pro mortuis, anniversaria, indulgentiae et thesaurus Ecclesiae, doctrina de peccatis venialibus et mortalibus, distinctio poenae et culpae. Turn horrendum istud et vere crux Crucis Christi, non mortuum Christum pro peccatis quae sequuntur baptismum. Praeterea satisfactiones omnes quibus redimunt poenam purgatorii, ut jejunia, peregrinationes, vota, flagella-tiones, etc. Addo quod monstrum illud operum supererogationis magna ex parte extincto purgatorio concutitur; certe quod ad applicationem. Denique tot privatae missae pro animabus certis, nec non purgatorio contiguus limbus patrum et puerorum evertitur. Nec minora, nec pauciora pendent a primatu Papae, quotquot enim sacra ista curia ceremonias innexit, quot ordines stabilivit, quoique in orbe christiano exigit, mandat, remittit, fulminât, ista phronda fiunt et nihili si primatus pontificis corruat. Praescribant igitur boni isti viri viam qua contradicentia possint inter se coalescere, et tunc nos exhibebimus ad reliqua suparakomisous, immo ad ineundam concordiam primos mittemus feciales. Sed hos mitto in quibus aut scientiam desidero, aut conscientiam …”

14. Iliad, ix, 63.

15. Cf. Examen pacifique, p. 34f. Constable's summing up of the Purgatory problem is: “Donc la difference entre les Catholiques et les Huguenots gist en cela, que les Huguenots ne le croyent pas, et les Catholiques ne scavent ce qu'ils croyent …”

16. Cf. Du Moulin, Autobiographie, p. 178: — “Ce gentilhomme, combien qu'il fust papiste, comme il est paru depuis, ne laissoit pas de m'aimer et me vouloir du bien …” This statement cannot be used as evidence that Constable was a Catholic when Du Moulin knew him.

17. Information of Robert Bainbridge, servant of the Earl of Shrewsbury, 25 lanuary 1592, cited in Wickes, G., “Henry Constable, Poet and Courtier,” Biographical Studies, vol. 2 (1954), p. 276.Google Scholar Hatton died in December 1591.

18. Chamberlain, John, Cf. in English Historical Review, vol. 62 (1947), p. 531 & n.Google Scholar

19. Cf. Hatfield Calendar, vol. iv, p. 394; Wickes, art cit., p. 276f.

20. Grundy, op. cit., p. 55f.

21. loc. cit., n. 18.