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The Origins of the English College, Lisbon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
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With the publication of the Register, the name of the English College of SS Peter and Paul, Lisbon, can now be added to the list of those English establishments at Douai, Rome and Valladolid whose registers of students are available to the public in print. It is twenty years since the College ceased to take students and the property has been disposed of, but a full history remains to be written. As a prelude to this it is worth considering how there came to be a college there in the first place. The story is not at all simple since the foundation of the English seminary in Lisbon contrasts markedly with the setting up of similar colleges in neighbouring Spain. Within the five years, 1589 to 1594, Robert Persons S.J. had created colleges at Valladolid and Seville and a residence at Sanlucar, and in 1611 a legacy provided for the beginning of a further college in Madrid. But although there was a residence for English priests in Lisbon before 1594, it was only in 1622 that the Papal Brief for the foundation of an English seminary was issued. The first students did not arrive from Douai until 1628. Although he sent priests to Lisbon in 1596, Fr. Persons did not consider that the time was yet ripe for opening a college. When an English college was eventually founded nearly thirty years later, it was a further six years before any students arrived. Was there something special about conditions of life in Lisbon or was it simply that during the union of the two crowns of Portugal and Castile, Portuguese affairs did not command the immediate attention that was given to English Catholic establishments in Spain?
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References
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1 Sharratt, Michael, Lisbon College Register 1628–1813, CRS 72, (1991)Google Scholar.
2 The Very Rev.Croft, Canon, Historical Account of Lisbon College, (Barnet 1902)Google Scholar is the most complete account to date of the years 1628–1898. More recent writings include the chapter ‘Inglesinhos’ pp. 77–94 in Rose Macauley, They Came to Portugal Too, edited by L. C. Taylor (Manchester 1990)
3 Persons to Juan de Idiaquez, September 2 1596. CSP Spanish, 1587–1603, p. 434.
4 For English Catholics in the Peninsula during this period see Loomie, A. J., ‘Religion and Elizabethan Commerce in Spain’, Catholic Historical Review vol. 50 (1964–5) pp 27–51 Google Scholar; Williams, M. E., ‘Alarms and Excursions in Lisbon under Castilian Domination: The Case of Captain Richard Butler’, Portuguese Studies vol. 9 (1990) pp. 94–114.Google Scholar
5 Annuae Litterae Societatis Jesu ad Patres et Fratres eiusdem Societatis: 1586 & 1587 (Rome 1591) p. 535; 1590 & 1591 (Rome 1594) p. 779.
6 John Taylor consul of the English, Irish and Scots in Lisbon is described as ‘mordomo da capella dos mercadores Ingreses’ BL AddMS 11682 f 7v. M. M. DeBrée claims that this confraternity dates back to the taking of Lisbon from the Moors A Igreja e Convento de São Domingos de Lisboa. (Lisbon 1964) p. 36. The tombstone of Doctor Manuel Alvares, a former ambassador at the English court, who died March 25 1571, is still to be seen in the cloister of São Domingos.
7 William Cowling, Gerard Cliburn and Francis Lockwood came to Valladolid via Portugal in 1589. Henson, E., The English College Valladolid, Registers 1589–1862. CRS 30 (1930) p. 4nGoogle Scholar.
8 There is documentation concerning the Irish College in the archives of the Irish Dominicans at Corpo Santo, Lisbon. See also ‘Eight letters of fugitives taken in a pinnace at sea and enclosed in a letter of the Mayor of Bristol to Lord Burley (sic) importing that a seminary or college for the Irish nation was created in Lisbon 1592’ BL Lansdown 71, n49. For the Irish in Portugal see John J. Silke ‘The Irish Abroad 1534–1691’ in vol III Early Modern Ireland 1534–1691 pp. 587–633 of A New History of Ireland, Eds. T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin, F. J. Byrne. (Oxford 1978).
9 Fletcher, J. R., The Story of the English Bridgettines of Syon Abbey. (South Brent 1933)Google Scholar; Johnstone, F. R., ‘Syon Abbey’, South Western Catholic History 5, (1987).Google Scholar
10 The main sources for information about the English Residence are:
a) ‘Occurences (sic) related by one Grayes who lately came out of Portugal 13 February 1593/4.’ BL Lansdown 76 f. 1. This refers to an English college in Lisbon that has received assistance from the Duke of Braganza.
b) In his speech to scholars of the English College in Rome April 3 1597 Persons speaks of a house at Lisbon which looked after old priests and also housed scholars from the British Isles. Grene Collectanea N II p. 125.
c) More, Henry, Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu. (1660)Google Scholar. Lib V Para 5 p 161. See Edwards, F., The Elizabethan Jesuits (London 1981) p. 211.Google Scholar
d) de Yepes, Diego, Historia Particular de la Persecucion de Inglaterra (Madrid 1599) p. 764.Google Scholar
e) ‘Annals of the English College Seville with an account of four other institutions from 1589 to 1595. An unfinished memoir written by Fr. Robert Persons S.J. in 1610’ CRS 14 pp. 10–11.
f) ‘O Estado da Residencia que esta nesta Cidade de Lisboa.’ LC. Newman papers (1621).
g) Tierney vol. IV p. 123–133, cclii–cclxvii.
11 Nicholas Ashton, Rector of the Residence from 1597, was said to be living at São Roque at the time of the trial of Hugo Gurgeny in 1606. Brearley, M., Hugo Gurgeny Prisoner of the Lisbon Inquisition, (London 1947) p. 76.Google Scholar
12 CRS 14 p. 3.
13 According to the ‘Memoir’ CRS 14 pp. 10–11, Persons’ reasons for prefering a Residence to a seminary in Lisbon were the difficulty of travelling between Lisbon and the existing seminaries at Valladolid and Seville and the fact that there was already an Irish seminary in Lisbon.
14 AGS Estado 434
15 The correspondence between Bernardino de Mendoza and Philip II in 1581 shows how the Spaniards found the activities of Botulph Holder, an English merchant resident in Lisbon, difficult to reconcile with his reputation as a Catholic. CSP Spanish 1580–1586, p. 146, 164n, 183, 214, 667. When Holder died intestate in Lisbon, William Cowling then at the English College, Valladolid wrote to Philip II asking for alms from the estate of the deceased, AGS Estado 8334. This would seem to suggest that Cowling became acquainted with Holder while passing through Lisbon on the way to Valladolid.
16 For Owen Eaton’s deposition, see AGS Estado 839 f 218 and Williams, Portuguese Studies 6 pp. 94–114. For Pickford see Loomie, Catholic Historical Review 50 p. 49.
17 AGS Estado 1745. Although different institutions there was clearly a relationship between the Confraternity and the Residence.
18 Shillington, A. M. & Chapman, A. B. N., The Commercial Relations of the English in Portugal (London 1907)Google Scholar.
19 AGS Estado 1748. Creswell’s petition to the King October 26 1607.
20 Macauley, R., They Went to Portugal (London 1946) p. 190–203 Google Scholar for an account of Floyd’s activities in Lisbon.
21 M. Brearley 1 c. p. 54–63.
22 AGS Estado 839 f 226. Jayne, M. S.. ‘British Consuls in Lisbon from 1583’. Historical Association. Portuguese Branch. Annual Report 1938. p 78–84.Google Scholar
23 For Hugh Lee, see Macauley, R., They Went to Portugal Too. (Manchester 1990) pp. 95–116.Google Scholar
24 For Richard Butler, see AGS Estado 839, and Williams, Portuguese Studies 6 1 c.
25 For Newman, see Anstruther, Vol. 2 p. 230; Tierney Vol. 4 p. 128–133, cclii–cclxii; LC Newman Papers.
26 Newman to the Nuncio January 2 1623. The document of authentication of Ashton’s gift of houses refers to the donation as having taken place April 6 1610. LC Foundation Papers.
27 In 1611 António Fernandez Ximenes put at the disposal of the Irish College Lisbon property formerly used by the Discalced Carmelites. His will of 1630 confirmed the endowment and also his instructions that no attempt should ever be made to remove the Jesuits from the direction of the College. If such an attempt were to be made the property would cease to belong to the Irish seculars but would go to the Jesuits themselves. If however the Jesuits were to abandon the government and administration, then the endowment would revert to the Archbishop and if he would not accept it then it would go to the Dominican provincial in Portugal. Documents relating to St. Patrick’s College 1 & 22. Corpo Santo Archives, Lisbon.
28 For an account of the English College Madrid (1611–1767) CRS vol. 29 (1929).
29 Anstruther 1 p. 233–4.
30 Taylor, Maurice, The Scots College in Spain (Valladolid 1971)Google Scholar
31 Davies, Gareth A. ‘The Irish College at Santiago de Compostela. Two documents about the early days’ in Catholic Tastes and Times. Essays in Honour of Michael E. Williams (Leeds 1987)Google Scholar.
32 ‘A Genealogia de Dom Pedro Coutinho e o motivo que teve para fundar o colegio’. A document attributed to António Soares de Albergaria in LC, Foundation: Coutinho 1630 and later.
33 For Coutinho’s services in India, see Raymundo António de Bulhão Pato (Ed) Documentos remittidos da India ou Livros das Monções (Lisbon 1880). Tomo I 51–52, 79–80, 331; Tomo II 273–4, 304, 408; Tomo III 174, 479.
34 António Soares became a distinguished genealogist and later a priest, holding a benefice at the parish church of Santo Estevão, Lisbon. Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana Tomo I p. 394 (Lisbon 1741).
35 A Mr. John Persall is referred to in the account books of the English College Madrid, September 4 1633. CRC vol. 29 p. 155.
36 This was most probably Cavallieri’s Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophea published in Rome in 1584. This was a book of engravings of the paintings made on the walls of the chapel of the English College in Rome by Niccolò Circignani (Pomarancio) depicting the martyrdom of Englishmen from the time of St. Alban onwards. It is interesting to see a Portuguese Catholic being moved to found a college for English Catholics in Lisbon by a book he came across in Madrid that was originally produced in Rome by Italians who were themselves inspired by learning of the sufferings of the Catholic Church in England.
37 LC Coutinho letters in Foundation papers.
38 The Coutinhos were related by marriage to the Guzman family and Dom Pedro’s widowed mother entered a Dominican convent in her later life. LC Foundation papers.
39 Correspondence between Newman and Blackfan is to be found in Tierney 4 cclii–cclvii; LC Foundation papers; AAW A16 nos. 76, 103, 155, A19 no. 31, A23 nos. 129, 130, A24 no. 19.
40 The Jesuit case is stated in an undated document in Portuguese in St. Alban’s College Valladolid Archives, Serie II L3 n7. A Latin document written by More in 1621 puts the case of the English secular clergy, AAW A16 n 79. Jesuit objections to the secular case are also to be found in a document in the Archives of the English College Rome, Scritture 6, 17.
41 This insistence on staffing the college with natives of the country of residence was one of the conditions that Persons accepted when St Alban’s College was founded at Valladolid in 1589. Williams, M. E., St. Alban’s College Valladolid, Four Centuries of English Catholic Presence in Spain. (London/New York 1986) pp. 9–10.Google Scholar
42 October 24 1621 LC
43 November 20 1621 LC
44 December 3 1621 LC
45 This is referred to in a later report to the Nuncio, January 2 1623 LC
46 AAW A16 n 103
47 At this time the representative of the Holy See in Lisbon was known by the title of ‘Collector’, the Nuncio being the Holy See’s representative in Madrid. However, the man in Lisbon was often given the title of Nuncio and he was known as such in the correspondence concerning the English college in Lisbon.
48 Tierney 4 cclviii–cclx.
49 July 23 1622 LC
50 April 27 1622 AAW A16 n 149
51 June 20 1622. For a fuller account see Tierney 4,130n, cclxn. Bennet’s view can be seen in AAW A16, nos. 116, 117, 118.
52 The text of the Brief is in Tierney 4, cclxiii–iv.
53 Lopez Amat, Alfredo, Mary Ward. El Drama de una Pionera, (Madrid 1990) pp. 83ffGoogle Scholar. summarises Josef Grisar S.J. ‘Die ersten Anklagen in Roma gegen das Institut Maria Wards (1622)’ Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae vol. XXII (Rome 1959) p. 199–213.
54 For the troubles of the legation of the Holy See in Portugal from 1614–1621 see ‘Relatione Succinta della Collettoria di Mons. Accoromboni’ ASV Nunziatura di Lisbona 1. ff. 97–142. Also the letters from Cardinal Barberini to Mons. Albergati (1623) ASV Nunziatura di Portogallo 154. Letters from Cardinal Barberini to the Apostolic Nuncio in Spain (1623–5) ASV Nunziatura di Spagna 343. especially ff. 161, 179.
55 May 14 1622. The Latin original is in LC Correspondence.
56 AAW A16 nos. 94, 105, 162.
57 Tierney 4, p. 130–132.
58 AGS Secretarias Provinciales (Portugal) Libro 1474 f. 132–142 refers to Coutinho’s summons to Madrid in 1620.
ASV Nunziatura di Portogallo 17. f. 255, writing to Rome from Lisbon January 22 1628 the Collector (Nuncio) reported that Coutinho and others had been called to Court on matters relating to the East and West Indies. For importance of Ormuz at this time see Pissurlencar, Panduronga S.S., Regimentos das Fortalezas da India (Goa 1951)Google Scholar.
59 April 7 1623 LC Coutinho letters.
60 July 16 1623 LC Coutinho letters.
61 July 1 1623 LC Coutinho letters.
62 Yates evidently belonged to the English Catholic community in Lisbon and it is interesting to speculate whether he may have been related to Francis Tregian. Tregian’s eldest daughter married a Thomas Yates. Tregian, from the West country, had sheltered Cuthbert Mayne and other priests and as a consequence spent many years in prison in England. He was released on grounds of ill health and went to Lisbon where he died in 1608, being buried in the Jesuit church of São Roque. In 1625 the body was exhumed in order to be transferred to another grave and was found to be incorrupt. In this same year Newman wrote to More in Madrid telling him of the event of which he was an eyewitness. AAW A19 31. Perhaps more significantly the Collector Palotto wrote an account of the discovery in his letter to Rome April 26 1625. ASV Nunziatura di Portogallo 16.76. He drew attention to the way in which Tregian’s loyalty to the Holy See, when England was in schism and heresy, was now vindicated in a miraculous manner. This was a silent rebuke to those Catholics in the Peninsula who were challenging the Holy See and its Nuncio.
63 AAW A20 N 11.
64 Edward Maddison, or Missington, or Missenden, see Anstruther 2 p. 207. For Missenden’s connection with Valladolid College, see Williams, , St. Alban’s College, Valladolid p. 45.Google Scholar
65 He was granted faculties to hear confessions by the Archbishop of Lisbon for the years 1624–1632. LC Newman papers.
66 LC Newman papers, especially the years 1631 and 1632.
67 ‘Plantatio et Progressus Colegii Anglorum Cleri ex Duacena Missione Ulyssiponem in Portugalia Translati’ LC. Foundation papers. A free but full translation of this document by Michael Sharratt is to be found in Ushaw Magazine 246 (December 1975) p. 7–24; 247 (June 1976) p. 30–41; 248 (December 1976) p. 22–35.
68 A copy of ‘The Lisbon Instrument’ whereby the Bishop of Chalcedon (Richard Smith) gave powers to Joseph Haynes, Archdeacon of Essex, and William Newman, English priest resident in Lisbon, is to be found in AAW A20 n. 34.
69 LC House and Grounds and Old Catalogue 76. ANTT Cancelleria Felipe III vol. 16 f. 171; vol. 17 f. 124.
70 LC Plantatio et progressus
71 LC ‘mandado e Auto de Posse das casas que tomou O Padre Guilermo Numan,’ August 26 1630.
72 LC Foundation papers. ANTT Cancelleria Felipe III Liv 31, 20.
73 LC Plantatio et Progressus and ‘A genealogia de Dom Pedro Coutinho’.