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Replanting Douai in the North of England, 1794–1808
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Extract
Founded by William Allen in 1568 as a temporary haven for the English Catholic exiles, the English College at Douai, had given good service to the English Catholic community, but with the turmoil of Revolution, the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, and the French declaration of war on England the following month, it became clear that the days of the College were numbered. Students, acting on advice from worried parents, made their way home to England as best they could. The story of these years is vividly preserved in a number of contemporary accounts. At first things went on generally as before: Douai was one of the last cities in the northern provinces of France to join the revolution but tension in the town was high. One of the first victims of the mob was the College printer, Charles Derbaix, a leading Douai bookseller who owned ‘The Golden Compasses’ (sub signo Circini aurei), in the Via Scholarum. Together with a local tradesman, accused of illicit dealings in corn, he was taken by the mob and hanged à la lanterne on suspicion of distributing loyalist propaganda.
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References
Notes
1 Joseph Hodgson, Douai’s Vice-President, published a series of articles (the last two contributions completed by another hand) in the Catholic Magazine, vol. 1, 1831–1832, pp. 14–26, 89–101, 137–148, 208–216, 268–276, 333–339, 397–402, 457–466; John Gillow recorded the memories of his uncle Thomas Gillow who was in his second year of Philosophy in 1792, The Rambler, new series, vol. 2, August 1854, pp. 106–113; Lewis Clifford, ‘Seizure of the English College, Douai, and Imprisonment at Doullens, 1793–4’; ‘A Contemporary Narrative’, ed. Chadwick, H., Recusant History, vol. 8, 1965–6, pp. 147–157 Google Scholar; William Henry Coombes, Professor of the School of Rhetoric, recorded his escapades and eventual escape to Austrian territory in the Laity’s Directory, 1800, pp. 29–39, reprinted in History of St Edmund’s College, appendix B, pp. 305–310; John Penswick’s story was recorded by Gillow, in The Haydock Papers, pp. 93–124 Google Scholar, see also pp. 125–129; History of St Edmund’s College, pp. 67–95.
2 Letters of William Constable to his half-brother Marmaduke Tunstall, Oxford, Bodleian Library English Letters, C229: letters dated 8th June 1790, 17th July 1790, cited in Gooch, Leo ‘Religion for a Gentleman’, Recusant History, vol. 23, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 543–568 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, page cited p. 564.
3 Gillow, John, ‘Suppression of the English Secular College at Douay during the French Revolution’, The Rambler, new series, vol. 2, 1854, pp. 106–113 Google Scholar. The incident cited is on p. 106. Ward identifies three of these students as Thomas Gillow, George Silvertop and Francis Riddell, History of St. Edmund’s College, p. 71.
4 Letter dated Nov 13th 1793, cited in The Haydock Papers, p. 168.
5 See CRS, vol. 62, Appendix A, pp. 380–382.
6 See CRS, vol. 62, pp. 331, 333.
7 Recusant History, vol. 8, 1965–6, p. 151.
8 The devastation is recorded by Joseph Hodgson, see note 1 above. See also a letter from Thomas Stout to his friend Richard Thompson at Crook Hall, recently redated as March 16th 1795, a mere two weeks after the release of the trente-deux, Upholland College Archives, published in Milburn, ‘Journey to the Promised Land: from Douai to Durham’, Ushaw Magazine, 1993–4, p. 17.
9 So the Crook Hall Diary records; Eyre gives a slightly different order of arrivals (See Eyre to John Orrell, April 5th 1796, AAL, C1/1). Rickaby was ordained at Crook in 1793, serving in Nunnington and Garstang, he died in Manchester asylum in 1821 (see G. Anstruther, Seminary Priests, vol. 4, Mayhew-McCrimmon, Great Wakering, 1977, p. 227).
10 See Milburn, History, pp. 57–63; ‘Journey to the Promised Land: from Douai to Durham’, Ushaw Magazine, 1993–4, pp. 20–26.
11 Cited in History of St Edmund’s College, pp. 115–116.
12 Brown, William, ‘Notes Roundabout 5—Crook Hall’, Ushaw Magazine, 4, 1894, pp. 125–165 Google Scholar. This article contains a plan of the house and photographs from the end of the nineteenth century when Crook Hall was already falling into serious disrepair. This article has been consulted for the following detail about life at Crook.
13 The three certificates recording Lingard’s tonsure and minor orders, that marking his diaconate, and his priesthood are in the archives at Ushaw (OS, Ea); that relating to his subdiaconate is in Cambridge (CUL Add. Ms 9418/3/2).
14 John Lingard to Charles Newsham, May 6th 1842, UCA, Lingard Transcript 653.
15 See Milburn, History, pp. 64–86.
16 ‘a perpetuum mobile in the business of erecting a college’, Banister calls him (Robert Banister to Henry Rutter, January 28th 1797, Revival, p. 272).
17 Henry Rutter to Robert Banister, June 6th 1796, Revival, p. 261.
18 John Lingard to Robert Tate, January 17th 1849, UCA, Lingard Transcript 747.
19 Henry Rutter to Robert Banister, June 28th 1795, Revival, p. 241. Monsignor Charles Erskine had arrived in England in November 1793 as Papal envoy in an attempt to restore diplomatic relations between England and the Papal States (See Bernard Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England, Longmans, Green & Co., London, 190, vol. 2, pp. 37–50). David Milburn discusses this incident in detail in History, pp. 46–56. John Milner, writing a rather quirky letter from Winchester to Douglass and expressing a preference for the re-establishment of a seminary ‘the other side of the water’, thought the reopening of Douai unlikely. Failing this, he considered Wales was the best option ‘where food and fuel, etc., are certainly cheaper than in any part of England, and where there would be less dissipation from going abroad and idle visitors’. Milner certainly had little time for Daniel: ‘to speak plain, I think Mr. Daniel a man of no address, no talents for planning and managing a new college; that he will be laughed at and despised by those whose opinions must be attended to, and, of course, that our expected college will not flourish under him. Mr. Poynter is the man of all others I could wish to see President… Indeed, I adhere to my old opinion, that there ought to be a classical college and a seminary, and if the latter is established anywhere else except at Old Hall, I shall be sorry to see that given up, as a place of education. Were Mr. Stapleton, with Lingard and a few others of equal talents, placed at Old Hall; I should be satisfied that at least there would be a proper place of education for the gentry, and properly conducted (John Milner to John Douglass, March 23rd 1195, cited History of St Edmund’s, pp. 123–125).
20 Thomas Haydock to James Haydock, June 1st 1796, The Haydock Papers, p. 198.
21 Ibidem.
22 Milburn, , History, p. 63.Google Scholar
23 Milburn, , History, p. 62.Google Scholar
24 Thomas Eyre to William Poynter, January 5th 1807, SEC 7. 37a.
25 Henry Rutter to Robert Banister, August 21st 1795, Leo Gooch, Revival, p. 246.
26 Thomas Haydock to James Haydock, June 1st 1796, Haydock Papers, p. 198.
27 John Lingard to John Walker, December 23rd, 1845, Lingard Transcript 1082.
28 See, MacGregor, Alistair, The Library of Bishop Edward Dicconson, Ushaw College Library, 2002 Google Scholar; Sharratt, Michael, ‘Ushaw Collection of Manuscripts’, Catholic Archives, 4 (1984), pp. 4–8 Google Scholar; ‘The origin and growth of the Ushaw Library’, Northern Catholic History, 24 (autumn 1986), pp. 22–34; Rhodes, Jan T., Ushaw College Library, Ushaw 1994 Google Scholar; I. A. Doyle, ‘The Library of Sir Thomas Tempest: its origins and dispersal’, in Studies in Seventeenth-Century English Literature, History and Bibliography, ed. by G. A. M. Janssens and F. G. A. M. Aarts, Amsterdam, 1984. Some of the books from Stella were bought by Henry Rutter (Rutter to Banister, November 30th 1792, Revival, pp. 202, 206) who proposed to sell them on. He tried a second-hand bookseller in Leeds, who would not take them, and then considered making arrangements for their sale in London. He sent a box-full to his uncle and, failing to sell the rest, took them with him, first to Minsteracres and then to Yealand Conyers in Lancashire; from there they came to Ushaw in 1952 (Doyle, p. 92).
29 Thomas Wilkinson to Thomas Eyre, January 1st 1803, UCA, Eyre Correspondence, 365. Milburn, David, ‘The Revd. Thomas Wilkinson of Kendal’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian andArchaeological Society, New Series 66, (1966) pp. 430–446 Google Scholar. Lingard, as many of his successors, marvelled as to how Wilkinson managed to build up so large a collection with so few resources: ‘he must have been on an expedition to the banks of the Sacramento, or have at his disposal money left to him by Miss Shute, the worsted manufacturer. It is, however, a mystery’ (John Lingard to John Walker, January 26th 1849, UCA, Lingard Transcript 1299), see also January 22nd 1849, Lingard Transcript 1289.
30 This was in 1798: see Milburn, , History, p. 62.Google Scholar
31 See Milburn, , History, pp. 100–103.Google Scholar
32 John Lingard to John Orrell, December 26th 1802, AAL, Orrell Papers, 18.
33 John Lingard to John Orrell, July 12th 1805, AAL, Orrell Papers, 13. Numbers had reached fifty in 1803 and in the months before the move to Ushaw beds were found for as many as sixty students.
34 See Milburn, , History, pp. 103–110.Google Scholar
35 John Douglass to William Gibson, September 6th 1805, UCA, PA/D3. Thomas Smith to Thomas Eyre, September 11th 1805, UCA, Ushaw College Manuscripts, 336c.
36 Thomas Eyre to John Orrell, October 15th 1805, AAL, Orrell Papers, C1/13.
37 John Lingard to John Orrell, no date [1807], AAL, Orrell Papers, 9.
38 Thomas Eyre to John Orrell, no date [1809], AAL, Orrell Papers, C1/5.
39 John Lingard to John OrrelI, March 5th 1809, UCA, LL. Add., Lingard Transcript 30.
40 The English Jesuits took refuge in the semi-independent diocese of Liège after they had been expelled from France in 1764. The order was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV with the bull Dominus ac Redemptor (1773), but the order remained in existence in Russia, and informally elsewhere, being restored verbally by the Pope in 1803, and formally in 1814; the order was recognised in England shortly after emancipation in 1829.
41 Phillpotts certainly raised the question of Ushaw suggesting that the bishop could not allow ‘such an institution to be established within his sight, without calling on his clergy to provide, with vigilance tempered by charity, against the efforts of their zealous and active rivals’ (Henry Phillpotts, A Letter to the Author of the Remarks… By a Clergyman of the diocese of Durham, 1807, p. 41).
42 Lingard, John, Remarks on a Charge Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham by Shute, Bishop of Durham, at the Ordinary Visitation of that Diocese in the year 1806, Walker, Newcastle, 1807, p. 45.Google Scholar