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‘Casting Anchor in the Harbour of Religion’: The Peregrination of Humfrey Leech (1571–1629)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Extract

The title of this paper is taken from a work written in 434 A.D.: the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins. Leech considered this a ‘golden book’; we will see later the significance of Vincent for Leech, while Leech's life will perhaps illuminate his own age. Calling himself ‘Peregrinus’, Vincent wrote: ‘whereas I was at one time involved in the manifold and deplorable tempests of secular warfare, I have now at length, under Christ's auspices, cast anchor in the harbour of religion’. His aim was to pass on the teaching of the Fathers and to give guidance ‘for distinguishing the truth of the catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity.’

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2006

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References

Notes

1 Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, vol. 11 (Oxford and New York, 1894), p. 131.

2 Leech, Humfrey, A triumph of truth (1609; STC 15363); Daniel Price, The Defence of Truth (Oxford, 1610; STC 20292), preface, page 3.Google Scholar

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17 Foley, Records, vol. 1, pp. 642–3.

18 Owen, H. and Blakeway, J. B., A History of Shrewsbury (2 vols, 1825), vol. 2, pp. 278–9.Google Scholar A letter to the bailiffs in 1603, from Lord Buckhurst, chancellor of Oxford University, refers to ‘the honest and literate person Humphrey Leache… commoner or student of Jesus College’; ‘one William Bright’ had brought a suit against him. This was probably the public preacher in Shrewsbury, but the cause is not stated. There is no record of Leech at Jesus College, but his presence as chaplain at Christ Church from 1603–4 to 1608 is recorded. I am grateful to archivists Rosemary Dunhill and Judith Curthoys for their help.

19 Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, pp. 62–3. This interpretation seems more acceptable than Michael Questier's assertion that Leech ‘did not, initially, challenge Protestant predestinarian orthodoxies’: ‘The Phenomenon of Conversion: Change of Religion to and from Catholicism in England 1580–1625’, D. Phil. dissertation (University of Sussex, 1991) p. 120.

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35 Leech, Dutifull Considerations, pp. 241–2. I am grateful to Father Thomas McCoog for the information about the publication of the Commonitorium. The work is not listed among books at Emmanuel College: Bush, Sargent Jnr. and Rasmussen, Carl. J., The Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1584–1637 (Cambridge, 1986);Google Scholar a copy of Gregory the Great's Moralia does not appear until 1600: p. 77.

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53 Gee, John, The Foot out of the Snare: with A Detection of Sundry Late practices and Impostures of the Priests and Jesuits in England (London, 1624), pp. 3,13, 76;Google Scholar DNB, John Gee (1596–1639). See also Questier, Michael, ‘John Gee, Archbishop Abbot, and the Use of Converts from Rome in Jacobean Anti-Catholicism’, Recusant History, 21 (1993), pp. 347–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Floyd, John, A Word of Comfort (1623);Google Scholar An Answer to Francis White's Reply to Mr. Fisher… (1625).

55 Calendar of State Papers Domestic James I, 1623–25, vol. 11, pp. 419, 497.

56 Calendar of State Papers Domestic Charles I, 1625–26, vol. 1, pp. 84, 215, 256, 405.

57 Cust, Richard and Lake, Peter, ‘Sir Richard Grosvenor and the Rhetoric of Magistracy’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 54(1981), p. 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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60 Waugh, Margaret, Blessed John Plessington (London, 1960), p. 8.Google Scholar

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67 Victoria County History of Cheshire, vol. 3, p. 131: Bridgeman did not reside at Chester until c. 1630; stricter direction was imposed from York from 1629 by archbishops Harsnett and Neile.

68 Foley, Records, vol. 1, p. 647. According to The Diary of the English College Rome, Foley, Records, vol. 6, p. 313: ‘John Gamett, vere Gardiner, received into the Catholic church by Fr. Leech in February, 1627’.

69 Clancy, Thomas H., ‘Priestly Perseverance in the Old Society of Jesus: The Case of England’, Recusant History, 19 (1988–89), pp. 292–3;Google Scholar D.N.B., John Thornborough (1551–1641).

70 McCoog, English and Welsh Jesuits, part 1, p. 161; Lukaics, Ladislaus, ‘De gradum diversitate in Societatis Iesu’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 34 (1968), pp. 237316.Google Scholar For Nadal see de Guibert, Joseph, The Jesuits. Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, pp. 204–7.Google Scholar

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72 Nichols, J. G. (ed.), ‘The Discovery of the Jesuits’ College at Clerkenwell in March 1627–8’, Camden Miscellany 2 (Camden Society, 1852), p. 5.Google Scholar Details of the incident are taken from this account and from Foley, Records, vol. 7, pp. 98–141.

73 McCoog, English and Welsh Jesuits, part 1, p. 111; part 2, p. 209.

74 D.N.B., Whitelocke, Yelverton.

75 Foley, Records, vol. 2, pp. 24–63; McCoog, part 1, p. 125, under Bradshaw: Arrowmith was born c. 1585 in Lancashire, ordained abroad as a secular priest, and entered the Society in 1623; in 1626 he joined the College of Blessed Aloysius, in Lancashire.

76 Foley, Records, vol. 2, pp. 24–6.

77 Camden Miscellany 2, pp. 13–19.

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82 Prodger, Philip, ‘Sir William Massey's Recusancy, 1634’, North West Catholic History, 16 (1989), p. 9.Google Scholar

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84 Leech, A triumph of truth, p. 82; Responsa Scholarum, pp. 211–2; Foley, Records, vol. 1, p. 643.

85 Leech, Dutifull Considerations, pp. 15–19.

86 Justin McCann, Dom and Hugh Connolly, Dom (eds), Memorials of Father Augustine Baker OSB (Catholic Record Society, vol. 33, 1933), pp. 50, 60, 7283.Google Scholar

87 Ibidem, p. 88.

88 Reynolds, E. E., Campion and Parsons. The Jesuit Mission of 1580–1 (London, 1980),Google Scholar chapter 11. See also McCoog, Thomas M., ‘“The Flower of Oxford”: The Role of Edmund Campion and Early Recusant Polemics’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 24 (1993), pp. 899913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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90 Edwards, Francis, Robert Persons, pp. 347–74;Google Scholar quotation at p. 351. For the attacks on Persons by Matthew Sutcliffe, dean of Exeter, and others, see Houliston, Recusant History, 22, pp. 141–51 (see n. 31).