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Thomas James: The English Consul of Andalucia (1556-ca. 1613)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2017

Albert J. Loomie
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Extract

In the summer of 1601 the English ambassador in France, Sir Ralph Winwood, warned Sir Robert Cecil against a merchant named Thomas James, who was ‘a hard and desperate Ruffian, who hath lived in great inwardness with Persons the Jesuit’. To assist in his capture, should he arrive in England, Winwood identified him to be of ‘a convenient stature, red beard, of the age of forty-five years’, born in Staffordshire ‘in a town called Noyall’ but subsequently raised in London where he had been a merchant’s apprentice.

The ‘inwardness’ between this Englishman and the Jesuit excites curiosity in itself, but Thomas James deserves investigation in his own right since he exemplifies the major contribution of the resourceful English layman to the survival of the Catholic mission during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. The access of Catholics to the Continent was contingent on the well-placed merchant who facilitated the arrivals and departures of students, priests and other persons in search of asylum. As will be seen, the full confidence of the highly respected Duke of Medina Sidonia in the ability of Thomas James was to provide the Englishman with a unique status in Andalucia.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , January 1972 , pp. 165 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1972

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References

Notes

1. Winwood, Ralph. Memorials of Affairs of State in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I (Sawyer, E., ed., London 1725), vol. 1, p. 341, Winwood to Cecil, Paris, 15 July 1601Google Scholar.

2. Hicks, L., ed., The Letters and Papers of Robert Persons, C.R.S. 39 (1942) p. xvi.Google Scholar

3. Archivo General de Simancas, Sectión de Estado (hereafter cited as E) K 1631 f. 6, Duke of Sessa to Philip III, Rome, 20 March 1601.

4. E 185 n. fol., Duke of Medina Sidonia to Philip III, San Lucar, 9 Feb. 1600. For the importance of the Duke's judgements see Thompson, I. A. A. ‘The Appointment of the Duke of Medina Sidonia to the Command of the Spanish Armada’, The Historical Journal, vol. 12 (1969), pp. 197–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. See Loomie, , The Spanish Elizabethans (London, 1964), pp. 192 ff.Google Scholar

6. Loomie, , ‘Religion and Elizabethan Commerce with Spain’, Catholic Historical Review, vol. 50 (1964), pp. 40–42.Google Scholar

7. Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, vol. 1, nos. 837, 839.

8. Antwerp, 1592, Allison and Rogers, Catalogue no. 636, STC 19836A.

9. Relacion de un sacerdote Ingles, escrita a Flandes à un cauallero desterrado por ser Catolico, en la qual le de cuenta de la venida de su Mogestad a Valladolid y al colegio de los Ingleses y lo que alii se hizo en su recebimiento. Traduzida de lnges en Castellana por Tomos Ecclesal cauallero Ingles. (Madrid, 1592) 85 pages. (The B.M. copy was formerly owned by Robert Southey.)

10. H.M.C. Salisbury Mss., vol. 10, pp. 174-75, Relation of Nicholas Noncher, 7 June 1600.

11. See Erdeswicke, S., A Survey of Staffordshire (London 1717), p. 52.Google Scholar

12. B. M. Harleian Mss. 7042, f. 233. The examination of John Whitfield, London, 2 December 1963.

13. E 826/149, printed by Alcocer, M., ‘Cryptografla Española’, Boletin de la Real Academia de Historia, vol. 105 (1934), p. 407.Google Scholar

14. Cal. S.P. Dom 1595-97, pp. 375-76. Deposition of Constantine Eckelles, enclosure in G. Carey to R. Cecil, 27 March 1597.

15. Stillington signed a petition on behalf of the Infanta's candidacy in 1596 as ‘Doctor of Theology, Provost of English clergy in Lisbon’, Cal. S.P. Spanish, 1587-1603, p. 636. Neither Stillington nor Ambler were Jesuits.

16. Stanley was not in Spain at this time. Spanish Elizabethans, pp. 151 ff.

17. Ibid., p. 247; he also signed the petition with Stillington (note 14).

18. As a residence it was sometimes mistaken for a ‘seminary’. Francis Smyth has not been traced among the students in Seville, Valladolid, Douai or the English College in Rome at this time.

19. H.M.C. Salisbury Mss., vol. 8, p. 265-66, Bradshawe to Cecil, 18 July 1598. Noncher in his deposition (note 10 above) also mentioned a Francis Cardell of King Street ‘near the palace at Whitehall’ as another correspondent, as well as another relative, Mark James, a ‘commissioner of Portsmouth’, whose son had lived for a period with Thomas James before entering service with the Spanish navy (H.M.C. Salisbury Mss., vol. 10, pp. 174-75, and vol. 7, p. 72.

20. E 2764 n. fol., consulta of 25 Oct. 1601; see also the comments of Hugh Lee in 1608 concerning the ‘daily transportation’ of young men to that region who later went to church with Spanish families (H.M.C. Salisbury Mss., vol. 20, pp. 44, 69, 80).

21. E K 1631 f. 5, Sessa to Philip, 20 March 1601. The need to secure prior Papal approval of a Catholic candidate was one of the motives for Philip's silence about the announcement.

22. E K 1631 f. 6, Sessa to Philip III, Rome, 22 March 1601.

23. Stonyhurst Mss., Collectanea P, f. 420: Persons to the Infanta, Rome, 10 June 1601.

24. This is possibly his ‘Memorial for the Reformation of England’. See also the notes prepared on it by T. H. Clancy in Rec. Hist., vol. 5 (1959), pp. 17-34.

25. For further details see Loomie, , ‘Philip III and the Stuart Succession in England, 1600-1603’, Revue Beige de Philologie et d'Histoire, vol. 43 (1965), pp. 492–514 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. E 2288 n. fol, Baltazar de Ziifliga to Philip III, Brussels, 22 June 1601. The ‘person of considerable authority’ was not identified but Thomas Sackville was in Rome at this time, and spoke to Sessa in the same vein. See Spanish Elizabethans, p. 174.

27. Ibid.

28. Letter cited in note 22.

29. See note 1.

30. E 840/60, Archduke Albert to Philip, Brussels, 17 Nov. 1601.

31. Papiers d'Etat et Audience, 1900/3 n. fol. Phellipe de Ayala to Archduke, Paris, 2 Jan. 1602: ‘Un Anglois nome M. James a este en ceste ville despuis naguerres et y sort fort secretement et a deschirre 1'agent d'Angleterre … .’

32. E 634/12, consulta of 25 January 1602, endorsed ‘De la junta de dos, [i.e. The Count of Miranda and Fray Gaspar de Cordoba] sobre los papeles que el Padre Personio y Thomas Jaymes han embiado’.

33. Winwood, Memorials, vol. 1, p. 389, Winwood to Cecil, Paris, 27 February 1602.

34. E 840/62, ‘Relacion de cosas de Ynglaterra por Thomas James’, 12 April 1602. See also summary in Cal. S.P. Spanish 1587-1603, pp. 708-709.

35. See also Loomie, , Guy Fawkes in Spain: the ‘Spanish Treason’ in Spanish documents (London, Institute of Historical Research, 1971), pp. 12–14. 19, 25n, 36.Google Scholar

36. E 1745 n. fol., updated holograph petition of T. James against the Treasurei-General; Archivo Historico National, Estado, libra 254 f. 98v, cedula of re-appointment, 4 March 1603.

37. E 2590/42, Creswell to Lerma, Madrid, 17 May 1613: ‘Pero como los otros no le conoscian, ny querria nadie corresponder con el, le fue a San Lucar adonde agora reside con titulo de consul de los mercaderes que es su profesion… .’

38. E 2742 n. fol., consulta of 22 June 1605; Fitzherbert had received 60 escudos a month but had longer service, especially as secretary of the Duke of Feria.

39. E 2742 n. fol., consulta of 11 Jan. 1605.

40. See Loomie, , ‘Richard Berry: Gondomar's English Catholic Adviser’, Rec. Hist., vol. 11 (1971), 47–57.Google Scholar

41. E 185 n. fol., Medina Sidonia to Philip III, San Lucar, 9 Feb. 1600. There is a report on similar searches in Loomie, ‘Sir William Semple and Bristol's Andalucian Trade, 1597-1598’ Trans. Bristol and Gloucestershire Society, vol. 82 (1963) 177-87.

42. P.R.O. S.P. 94/10/116, J. van Castre (T. Wilson) to M. De Veras (R. Cecil), Valladolid, 24 May 1604.

43. Pope Paul V issued a breve naming as ‘administrator of the church and property of the Brotherhood called Saint George of the port of San Lucar de Barrameda, the prefect of the English mission of the Society of Jesus’, when the death of Robert Persons in Rome had vacated the position in 1610 (E 844/137, 138, undated copy).

44. B.M. Cotton Mss. Vespasian C XIII, ff 314-314v

45. Ibid.

46. E K 1609 f. 4, Alonso de Velasco to Lerma, London, 28 Nov. 1611.

47. E K 1609 f. 8, Memorial of Thomas James to Lerma, December 1611.

48. E 844 /129 consulta, undated ca. February 1612.

49. E 844 /145, A translation of the privilege of King Henry the Eighth as confirmed by Charles V; E 844/99 and 102, a printed copy of the cedula of Philip III confirming the privilege of Henry VIII in conformity with the treaty of 1604; E 844 /101, Copy from Antonio de Ayala, Keeper of Documents at Simancas, of the ratification by Charles V on 22 September 1538; E 627/21, Letter by Creswell of 10 January 1612 on the disedifying conduct of Protestant merchants in Seville; E 844/136, Pedro de Castillo to Philip III, Lisbon, 8 June 1612, denying the right of a king of England to appoint consuls in Portugal.

50. E 2513 n. fol, consulta of 12 Aug. 1612; E 844/127 draft copy. The appointment of Cottington in London had not in fact been in conformity with the privileges of the Brotherhood. John Digby remarked: ‘The course that my late Lorde Treasurer [i.e. Salisbury] helde was onelie to call together divers of the prdncipall merchantes by whose approbation the consulls and their allowance was appointed… .’ (P.R.O. S.P. 94/19/367 Digby to Lake, 26 May 1613).

51. E 844/131-134, Juan de Cirica to Duke of Lerma, 20 May 1612; E 844/135, cedula of appointment of 29 Dec. 1612; P.R.O. S.P. 94/19/28, copy of preceding.

52. P.R.O. S.P. 94/J9/26, Digby to Cecil, 2/12 Feb. 1612/13. He added: ‘I cannot imagen what Wadsworth this should be, unless it be Sir Charles Cornewallis his renegate chaplayn for he lived at Sevill and brought his wife and children thither. It is true his name was James not Paul, but as himself hath written that his conversion was much like unto that of St. Paul, by lights that made him fall from his horse… .’

53. P.R.O. S.P. 94/19/367, Digby to Lake, 26 May/5 June 1613.