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JOHN CALVIN AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS, c. 1565–1640*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2010

PETER MARSHALL
PETER MARSHALL*
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
*
Department of History, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7ALp.marshall@warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the assessments of John Calvin's life, character, and influence to be found in the polemical writings of English Catholics in the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods. It demonstrates the centrality of Calvin to Catholic claims about the character and history of the established church, and the extent to which Catholic writings propagated a vibrant ‘black legend’ of Calvin's egotism and sexual depravity, drawing heavily not only on the writings of the French Calvinist-turned-Catholic Jerome Bolsec, but also on those of German Lutherans. The article also explores how, over time, Catholic writers increasingly identified some common ground with anti-puritans and anti-Calvinists within the English church, and how claims about the seditious character of Calvin, and by extension Calvinism, were used to articulate the contrasting ‘loyalty’ of Catholics and their right to occupy a place within the English polity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 849 - 870
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this article was delivered as a paper to the Calvin Colloquium at the University of Exeter in September 2009. I am grateful to the Revd Dr Paul Avis and other organizers and participants for insightful discussion on that occasion, and to Dr Tom Freeman, Professor Peter Lake, and Professor Anthony Milton for very helpful suggestions.

References

1 See, inter alia, P. Collinson, The religion of Protestants: the Church in English society, 1559–1625 (Oxford, 1982); N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: the rise of English Arminianism c. 1590–1640 (Oxford, 1987); Lake, P., ‘Calvinism and the English Church, 1570–1635’, Past and Present, 114, (1987), pp. 32–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. White, Predestination, policy and polemic: conflict and consensus in the English church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge, 1992); A. Milton, Catholic and reformed: the Roman and Protestant churches in English Protestant thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1995); Shuger, D., ‘A protesting Catholic Puritan in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies, 48, (2009), pp. 587–630CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The key work here is Milton, Catholic and reformed.

3 There is a short suggestive section on ‘John Calvin and the Church of England between Feckenham and Sander’, in S. Tutino, Law and conscience: Catholicism in early modern England, 1570–1625 (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 28–31.

4 The apologie of Fridericus Staphylus counseller to the late Emperour Ferdinandus …. translated out of Latin in to English by Thomas Stapleton, student in diuinite. Also a discourse of the translatour vppon the doctrine of the Protestants which he trieth by the three first founders and fathers thereof (Antwerp, 1565), fos. 147r–148r.

5 Thomas Stapleton, A counterblast to M. Hornes vayne blaste against M. Fekenham (Louvain, 1567), fos. 22v, 57v, 402v, 508r.

6 Thomas Dorman, A proufe of certeyne articles in religion, denied by M. Iuell (Antwerp, 1564), fos. 19r, 35r, 88r, 113v. A Scots Catholic exile, John Fraser, later mocked the Protestant ministers with the idea that it was necessary ‘that your Calvin should, as an other sainct Iohn the Baptist, parare viam Domini’: John Fraser, A lerned epistle… to the ministers of Great Britanie (Douai, 1605), p. 65.

7 William Allen, A defense and declaration of the Catholike Churchies [sic] doctrine, touching purgatory, and prayers for the soules departed (Antwerp, 1565), fo. 38r.

8 Stapleton, Apologie, fo. 230r. See also idem, A fortresse of the faith first planted amonge vs Englishmen (Antwerp, 1565), fo. 24v.

9 Nicholas Sander was more specific, identifying ‘institutiones Calvini’ as one of several heretical books ordered to be placed in churches during the royal or episcopal visitations of 1559: De origine ac progressu Schismatis Anglicani (Cologne, 1585), fo. 167v.

10 English translation in R. Miola, ed., Early modern Catholicism: an anthology of primary sources (Oxford, 2007), pp. 486–8.

11 J. H. Pollen, The English Catholics in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1920), pp. 147–8.

12 Sander, De origine, fo. 161r; William Rainolds, A treatise conteyning the true and apostolike faith of the holy sacrifice and sacrament (Antwerp, 1593), pp. 100, 116; H. Foley, ed., Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus (7 vols., London, 1877–83), vii, p. 1015; Henry Garnet, An apology against the defence of schism (London, secret press, 1593), p. 92; J. H. Pollen, ed., Unpublished documents relating to the English martyrs, i:1584–1603 (Catholic Record Society, 1908), p. 230.

13 S. L. Greenslade, ‘English versions of the Bible, 1525–1611’, in idem, ed., The Cambridge history of the bible, iii: The West from the Reformation to the present day (Cambridge, 1963), p. 162.

14 Pollen, Martyrs, p. 93 (‘quod Calvini partibus relictis’).

15 A. Kenny, ed., The responsa scholarum of the English College, Rome: part one, 1598–1621 (Catholic Record Society, 54, 1962), pp. 129–30; Foley, Society of Jesus, i, p. 66.

16 Kenny, ed., Responsa, pp. 210–11; Foley, Society of Jesus, i, pp. 642–3; Peter Milward, ‘Leech, Humphrey (1571–1629)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn (accessed 17 Aug. 2010); Humphrey Leech, Dutifull and respective considerations vpon foure seuerall heads of proofe and triall in matters of religion (Saint-Omer, 1609), ‘Epistle Dedicatory’. Calvin's emblematic role was such that intra-Catholic dispute might even be disguised as polemic against Calvin. See Matthew Kellison, A treatise of the hierarchie and divers orders of the church against the anarchie of Calvin (Douai, 1629) – in reality an assertion of the status of the secular clergy against the religious orders; a strategy identified by Nicholas Smyth [Matthew Wilson], A modest briefe discussion of some points taught by M. Doctour Kellison (Rouen, 1630), pp. 1–2.

17 D. MacCulloch, Tudor Church militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London, 1999), pp. 172–6.

18 Reference here to the English translation: Nicholas Sander, Rise and growth of the Anglican schism, trans. D. Lewis (London, 1577), pp. 173, 182–3, 186, 191, 208. For a later reference to Hugh Latimer, ‘the English Calviniste martyr’, see Lawrence Anderton, Luthers life… with a further shorte discourse touching Andreas Melanchton, Bucer, Ochine, Carolostadius, Suinglus, Calune and Beza (Saint-Omer, 1624), p. 145.

19 For example, William Rainolds, Calvino-Turcismus (Antwerp, 1597), pp. 673–700; John Percy [John Fisher], A reply made unto Mr. Anthony Wotton and Mr. Iohn White (Saint-Omer, 1612), pp. 151–63; idem, A treatise of faith (Saint-Omer, 1614), p. 136; Anderton, Luthers life, p. 135.

20 Again, representatively: Stapleton, Apologie, fos. 222r–224v; Edward Weston, The triall of Christian truth (Douai, 1614), pp. 20, 36; Anderton, Luthers life, p. 138.

21 Rainolds, Apostolike faith, p. 67.

22 John Percy [John Fisher], The answere unto the nine points of controversy (Saint-Omer, 1626), pp. 248–51. See also Stapleton, Apologie, fos. 189v ff.

23 Stapleton, Apologie, fos. 188r–v.

24 Ibid., 215r, 245v.

25 M. O'Connell, Thomas Stapleton and the Counter-Reformation (New Haven, CT, 1964), pp. 54, 72.

26 Petrus Frarinus, An oration against the vnlawfull insurrections of the protestantes of our time, trans. John Fowler (Antwerp, 1566), sigs. b8v, d3v, d5v, g2r–v, Table.

27 I. Backus, ‘Roman Catholic lives of Calvin from Bolsec to Richelieu’, in R. Zachman, ed., John Calvin and Roman Catholicism (Grand Rapids, 2008), pp. 25–32; I. Backus, Life Writing in Reformation Europe (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 153–64.

28 Backus, ‘Catholic lives’, p. 32.

29 Jerome Bolsec, De Ioannis Calvini magni quondam Genevensium ministri vita (Cologne, 1580), pp. 30–1, 61–4, 68–79, 113–18. The claim about the failed exorcism appears in Bolsec's life of Beza, as an omission from the former work: De vita, moribus, doctrina et rebus gestis Theodori Bezae (Ingolstadt, 1584), pp. 27–8.

30 T. F. Knox, ed., The first and second diaries of the English College, Douay (London, 1878), p. 145.

31 Robert Persons, A brief censure vppon two bookes written in answere to M. Edmonde Campions offer of disputation (Douai [i.e. Stonor Park], 1581), sigs. b2v–3r.

32 Edmund Campion, Campian Englished; or a translation of the ten reasons in which Edmund Campian (of the Societie of Iesus) priest, insisted in his challenge, to the Uniuersities of Oxford and Cambridge (Rouen?, 1632), pp. 96, 128, 130, 132, 189, 67 (‘stigmatical runagate’). For the original Latin phrase: idem, Rationes decem quibus fretus, certamen aduersarijs obtulit in causa fidei (Henley-on-Thames, 1581), p. 8.

33 Alexander Nowell, A true report of the disputation or rather priuate conference had in the Tower of London, with Ed. Campion Iesuite (London, 1583), sigs. g8v–h1r.

34 William Whitaker, Ad rationes decem Edmundi Campiani Iesuitae, quibus fretus certamen Anglicanae Ecclesiae ministris obtulit in causa fidei (London, 1581), p. 62. Although insisting on Calvin's innocence, Whitaker made the unfortunate analogy that if Calvin was branded, so too was St Paul, allowing later Catholic commentators to allege he was, profanely and impiously, admitting the fact of Calvin's punishment. See B. C., Puritanisme the mother, sinne the daughter (Saint-Omer, 1633), p. 82; Anderton, Luthers life, p. 134; Backus, ‘Catholic lives’, p. 56. In submitting his text for Burghley's approval, Whitaker was eager to insist that ‘he had defended as far as possible the proceedings of Luther, Calvin, Beza, and the other Reformers’: R. Lemon, ed., Calendar of state papers domestic (CSPD): Elizabeth, 1581–90 (London, 1865), p. 6.

35 Laurence Humphrey, Iesuitismi pars secunda (London, 1584), pp. 255–60 (‘At credibile non est … nobis qui Calvini sanctimoniam, castimoniam & censoriam in se & in alios severitatem novimus’: p. 257).

36 Persons, Brief censure, sig. b2v.

37 William Charke, A replie to a censure written against the two answers to a Iesuites seditious pamphlet (London, 1581), sigs. d8r–v, n2r–3r, quotes at sig. d8v.

38 Robert Persons, A defence of the censure, gyuen vpon two bookes of William Charke and Meredith Hanmer (Rouen, 1582), pp. 77–86, quotes at pp. 77, 80, 82, 84.

39 An answeare for the time, vnto that foule, and wicked defence of the censure (London, 1583), fos. 50r, 80v–96v, quotes at fos. 80v, 81r.

40 A treatise against the defense of the censure… Hereunto are adjoyned two treatises, written by D. Fulke (Cambridge, 1586), pp. 246–7, 253–4, quote at p. 246. Fulke's appended Apologie of the professors of the Gospel in Fravnce against the railing declamation of Peter Frarine attempted to discredit the charges against Calvin of the 1559 Paris pamphlet: (separate pagination), pp. 10–11, 26–8. For the suggestion that Staphylus and Bolsec were apostates ‘who solde themselues to lie for the Popes aduantage’, see Anthony Wotton, A trial of the Romish clergies title to the church (London, 1608), p. 355.

41 Robert Persons, A temperate ward-word, to the turbulent and seditious wach-word of Sir Francis Hastinges knight (Antwerp, 1599), p. 97.

42 For example, Thomas Hill, A quartron of reasons of Catholike religion (Antwerp, 1600), p. 36; Percy [Fisher], A treatise of faith, p. 139; Weston, Christian truth, p. 35; A shorte declaration of the lives and doctrinde [sic] of the Protestants and puritans (Rouen, 1615), sig. e1v; George Musket, The bishop of London his legacy (Saint-Omer, 1623), p. 67.

43 Joseph Hall, Christian moderation in two books (London, 1640), p. 88. See P. Arblaster, Antwerp and the world: Richard Verstegan and the international culture of Catholic Reformation (Leuven, 2004), p. 258; Rainolds, Calvino-Turcismus, pp. 258–9; Francis Walsingham, A search made into matters of religion (Saint-Omer, 1609), pp. 15–16; Lawrence Anderton, The non-entity of Protestancy (Saint-Omer, 1633), p. 153; B. C., Puritanisme the mother, pp. 81–2; Mirrour of new reformation wherein reformers, by their owne acknowledgement, are represented ad vivum (Rouen, 1634), p. 114, a charge ‘unto which I yet see not any sound & cleere refutation made’.

44 Dorman, Proufe of certeyne articles, fo. 138v.

45 Cited in C. Highley, Catholics writing the nation in early modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2008), p. 70. In Vertstegan's martyrological prints, Calvin is represented symbolically by the presence of a dog: A. Dillon, The construction of martyrdom in the English Catholic community, 1535–1603 (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 138–9.

46 J. Bossy, ‘Elizabethan Catholicism: the link with France’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1961); C. M. Gibbons, English Catholics and exile: Elizabethan Catholics in Paris (London, forthcoming). The close personal and ideological affinity of English Catholics with the Guise and the Catholic League is a major theme of S. Carroll, Martyrs and murderers: the Guise family and the making of Europe (Oxford, 2009).

47 Pollen, Martyrs, p. 281.

48 Jean de Caumont, The firme foundation of Catholike religion against the bottomlles pit of heresies, trans. John Paunchfoot (Douai, 1607), pp. 72–4. On hostility to Calvin in France, see F. Pfeilschifter, Das Calvinbild bei Bolsec und sein Fortwirken im französischen Katholizismus bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (Augsburg, 1983).

49 T. Cooper, ‘Gilbert, George (d. 1583)’, rev. T. H. Clancy, ODNB; P. Caraman, The other face: Catholic life under Elizabeth I (London, 1960), pp. 127–8.

50 Shorte declaration, sigs. c4v–e3v.

51 Walsingham, Search, p. 107.

52 CSPD 1581–90, p. 57; F. Brownlow, Shakespeare, Harsnett and the devils of Denham (Newark, NJ, 1993), pp. 23–8.

53 Richard Baddeley, The boy of Bilson (London, 1622), pp. 26–7.

54 See Prescott, A., ‘English writers and Beza's Latin epigrams: the uses and abuses of poetry’, Studies in the Renaissance, 21, (1974), pp. 83–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 T. George, ‘Introduction’, in idem, ed., John Calvin and the church: a prism of reform (Louisville, KY, 1990), p. 15.

56 Benjamin Carier, A copy of a letter … whereunto are added certain collections… of the miserable ends of such as have impugned the catholike church (England: secret press, 1615), p. 29.

57 Appended to B. C., Puritanisme the mother, pp. 144–6. In a work of consolation published in the wake of the 1623 Blackfriars tragedy, when dozens of Catholics attending an illict sermon were killed by a collapsing floor, John Floyd contrasted the preacher's death, clothed with priestly ornaments and performing his Christian duty, with that of Calvin, cursing and invoking the devil: Foley, Society of Jesus, i, pp. 89–90.

58 Caumont, Firme foundation, pp. 84–5.

59 B. C., Puritanisme the mother, p. 88.

60 See Marshall, P., ‘Forgery and miracles in the reign of Henry VIII’, Past and Present, 178, (2003), pp. 39–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Stapleton, Fortresse, fo. 99v. See also Frarinus, Oration, sig. d5v; Hill, Quartron, p. 36; Percy [Fisher], Treatise of faith, p. 139; Musket, Bishop of London, pp. 67–8; Anderton, Luthers life, 131–2. See also Walsham, A., ‘Miracles and the Counter-Reformation mission to England’, Historical Journal, 46, (2003), pp. 779–815CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Answeare vnto that foule, and wicked defence, fo. 92r. See also William Fulke, A rejoinder to Martiall's reply, ed. R. Gibbings (Cambridge, 1848), pp. 76–7; George Abbot, The reasons which Doctour Hill hath brought for the vpholding of papistry (London, 1604), p. 264; Wotton, Trial, p. 355.

63 The extent to which, during the intensely ‘public’ Campion affair, the regime willingly harnessed the energies of puritan and even presbyterian authors is noted by Lake, Peter and Questier, Michael, ‘Puritans, papists and the “public sphere” in England: the Edmund Campion affair in context’, Journal of Modern History, 72, (2000), pp. 624–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lake's Moderate puritans and the Elizabethan church (Cambridge, 1982) for a wider discussion of the imperatives of anti-papal polemic in drawing puritans into the ecclesiastical mainstream.

64 Charke, Replie, sig. d8r. The title page of An answeare for the time bore the biblical inscriptions: ‘Thou shalt not beare false witnesse against thy neighbour’ and ‘Receiue not an accusation against an Elder, but vnder two or three witnesses’.

65 Fulke, Rejoinder, p. 194.

66 Hill, Quartron, p. 30; Edward Bulkley, An apologie for religion, or an answere to an vnlearned and slanderous pamphlet (London, 1602), p. 94.

67 Abbot, Reasons, p. 265. For a similar charge, see Henri Estienne, A world of wonders, trans. Richard Carew? (London, 1607), ‘Epistle to the reader’.

68 Thomas Beard, A retractiue from the Romish religion (London, 1616), pp. 446, 451.

69 Henry King, Sermons, ed. M. Hobbs (Aldershot, 1992), pp. 64–77, quotes at pp. 74, 77.

70 Thomas Fuller, The historie of the holy warre (Cambridge, 1639), p. 143.

71 Persons, Defence of the censure, p. 15.

72 Backus, ‘Catholic lives’, pp. 28–32. For the cultural authority of the injunction to speak de mortuis nil nisi bonum, see P. Marshall, Beliefs and the dead in Reformation England (Oxford, 2002), pp. 267–70.

73 Richard Broughton, A just and moderate answer to a most injurious and seditious pamphlet (England: secret press, 1606), sig. e1r.

74 Anderton, Non-entity of Protestancy, pp. 158–9.

75 Anderton, Luthers life, pp. 131, 132–3.

76 B. C., Puritanisme the mother, p. 83.

77 On these works, see Backus, ‘Catholic lives’, pp. 32–54.

78 Broughton, Moderate answer, sig. e1r.

79 B. C., Puritanisme the mother, p. 83; Anderton, Non-entity of Protestancy, p. 158. See also Anderton's Luthers life, p. 133.

80 Rainolds, Apostolike faith, pp. 133, 437.

81 B. Cottret, Calvin: a biography, trans. M. McDonald (Edinburgh, 2000), p. 239, fathers the term on the Hamburg pastor Joachim Westphal (1552), and notes Calvin's vigorous repudiation of it in his 1563 commentary on Jeremiah.

82 William Wright, A treatise of the Church (Saint-Omer, 1616), p. 50. See also Sylvester Norris, An antidote or treatise of thirty controversies (Saint-Omer, 1622), p. 30; Musket, Bishop of London, p. 135.

83 Rainolds, Calvino-Turcismus, pp. 658–9, 668; Henry Fitzsimon, A Catholike confutation of M. Iohn Riders clayme of antiquitie (Douai, 1608), p. 16; Wright, Treatise, p. 50; Anderton, Non-entity of Protestancy, pp. 153–4; Anderton, Luthers life, p. 133; Mirrour of new reformation, pp. 113–14. The scale and intensity of Lutheran attacks on Calvin was also noted by Leech, Respective considerations, pp. 62–4. On Schlüsselburg, see the entry by N. Heutger in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (30 vols., Herzberg, 1975–), ix, pp. 314–16. There appears to be nothing in English on what was undoubtedly a lively Lutheran ‘black legend’. D. Steinmetz, ‘Calvin and his Lutheran critics’, in his Calvin in context (Oxford, 1995), pp. 172–86, focuses solely on controversies with Tileman Hesshusen over the doctrine of the eucharist.

84 Wright, Treatise, p. 50; Musket, Bishop of London, pp. 135–6. See also Robert Persons, A treatise tending to mitigation (Saint-Omer, 1607), pp. 475–8; B. C., Puritanisme the mother, pp. 83, 85; Anderton, Luthers life, pp. 133–4, 165.

85 Lawrence Anderton, Miscellania or a treatise contayning two hundred controuersiall animaduersions, conducing to the study of English controuersies in fayth, and religion (Saint-Omer, 1640), p. 238.

86 For example, B. C., Puritanisme the mother, p. 87: ‘Slussenburg, an earnest Protestant, and as great an Enemy to the Pope, as Calvin ever was, and therefore his testimony is to be reputed lesse partiall, and more indifferent’; Anderton, Miscellania, p. 273.

87 Kenny, ed., Responsa, p. 101.

88 In 1566, Alexander Nowell and Bishop Grindal of London were anxious for William Cecil to vet Nowell's reply to Thomas Dorman on this point: British Library, Lansdowne MSS, vol. 9, fo. 165. See also Stapleton, Counterblast, fo. 22v; Martin Becanus, The English iarre, trans. John Wilson (Saint-Omer, 1612), p. 9; Persons, Temperate ward-word, p. 6; Tutino, Law and conscience, p. 29. One Protestant author averred that Calvin's charge of blasphemy applied ‘not as it was vnderstoode of the godlie at that time, but as it was applied by Stephen Gardiner’: Treatise against the defense of the censure, p. 55.

89 For Protestant attacks on Calvin, see Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, pp. 142, 145, 197; Milton Catholic and reformed, pp. 427, 431–2, 450, 452.

90 On this terminology, see P. Marshall, ‘The naming of Protestant England’, Past and Present (forthcoming).

91 A. G. Petti, ed., The letters and despatches of Richard Verstegan (Catholic Record Society, 52, 1959), pp. 134–5; Richard Bancroft, A suruay of the pretended holy discipline (London, 1593), pp. 372–3.

92 The episode was also related by Norris, Antidote, p. 170. John Fisher concluded that Calvinists must ‘beare more reverence unto Iohn Calvin then unto Iesus Christ’, since his eucharistic teaching was ‘confessedly a doctrine most hard, difficil, incomprehensible and yet not the literall sense of God's word’: Nine points of controversy, pp. 252–3.

93 Miola, ed., Early modern Catholicism, pp. 416–17.

94 Rainolds, Calvino-Turcismus, p. 662.

95 Weston, Christian truth, pp. 35–6. John Brerely [James Anderton], Saincte Austines religion (n.p., 1620), p. 12, observed ‘the great revolt of late made by so many of the learnedst Calvinistes from Calvins former received, & so much applauded doctrines’, citing, among others, Bancroft and Whitgift.

96 Leech, Respective considerations, p. 64.

97 Walsingham, Search, p. 17. These may have been pointedly polemical acknowledgements, for during his religious waverings Walsingham had debated the veracity of Bolsec with Bancroft, and the character of Calvin with Covell: ibid., pp. 48–50, 104–12.

98 Anderton, Luthers life, p. 165.

99 Milton, Catholic and reformed, p. 425n.

100 James Laing, ed. and trans., De vita et moribus atque rebus gestis haereticorum nostri temporis (Paris, 1581). See J. G. Fotheringham, ‘Laing, James (c. 1530–1594)’, rev. J. Durkan, ODNB.

101 Martin Becanus, The confutation of Tortura Torti: or, against the king of Englands chaplaine: for that he hath negligently defended his Kinges cause, trans. John Wilson (Saint-Omer, 1610), pp. 7–8, 31–2; Becanus, English iarre, pp. 9, 16, 52, 56–7. Becanus's intervention in the controversy surrounding the Jacobean Oath of Allegiance (his contention was that Catholics could not reasonably be required to swear to recognize something – the royal supremacy – that puritans secretly disdained) followed an established track of arguing for the political subversiveness of Calvinism. His Aphorismi Doctrinae Calvinistarum (Mainz, 1608) aimed to exacerbate divisions between Lutherans and Calvinists in the empire, suggesting that the former should really find Catholics to be more congenial than the latter. His commentaries on the Oath drew parallels between English puritans and Calvinists in Germany, and presented testimony from non-puritan Protestants – a polemical strategy that seems learned from English Catholics, and which adds weight to the suggestion that cross-confessional and international borrowings were significant components in the construction and articulation of confessional and political identities across Europe in these years. I owe this point to this journal's anonymous reader. See P. Milward, Religious controversies of the Jacobean age (London, 1978), pp. 94–8.

102 Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, pp. 5–6.

103 Miola, ed., Early modern Catholicism, pp. 468–75; Nicola Royan, ‘Barclay, John (1582–1621)’, ODNB.

104 Matthew Pattenson, The image of bothe churches, Hierusalem and Babel (Tournai, 1623), pp. 81–3, 110–11, 326. Hooker was also spoken of approvingly as a critic of Calvin's in Musket, Bishop of London, pp. 135–6.

105 George Hakewill, An answere to a treatise written by Dr. Carier (London, 1616). See Milton, Catholic and reformed, pp. 383–4.

106 See Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 147; Walsham, A., ‘The parochial roots of Laudianism revisited: Catholics, anti-Calvinists and “parish Anglicans” in early Stuart England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 49, (1998), pp. 620–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Questier, Catholicism and community in early modern England (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 479–98; Questier, M., ‘Arminianism, Catholicism, and Puritanism in England during the 1630s’, Historical Journal, 49, (2006), pp. 53–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 Questier, ‘Arminianism, Catholicism, and Puritanism’, pp. 61–2. Questier's principal concern, however, is to demonstrate how Catholic perceptions of growing episcopal authority and enforced conformity within the Church of England chimed with the agenda of a ‘hierarchicalist’ grouping within English Catholicism, apt to identify their Jesuit opponents as ‘puritans’.

108 B. C., Puritanisme the mother, ‘Epistle dedicatory’. For the Laudian trope that puritanism led inexorably to sin and antinomianism, see Lake, P., ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and a Shropshire axe-murder’, Midland History, 15, (1990), pp. 37–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 Anderton, Miscellania, p. 107.

110 Cited in Highley, Writing the nation, p. 70.

111 Richard Verstegan, in satirical mode, did suggest that Calvinism (or England or Holland) made more persuasive candidates for the role of Antichrist than the papacy, noting that ‘Babilon’ was almost an anagram of ‘Albion’: Arblaster, Antwerp, pp. 200–1.