No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
‘Pierce the Dim Clouds’: The Correspondence of Francis Turville with his Chaplain, Thomas Potts, 1785–1789
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
In 1763, Francis Fortescue Turville inherited Husbands Bosworth Hall at Bosworth, Leicestershire, from his cousin Maria Aletha Fortescue. He inherited the estate directly, because his father had abandoned the Catholic religion and this debarred him from the bequest. The seat had been in the Fortescue family since 1630. In 1780 Francis Turville married Barbara Talbot, sister of the Earl of Shrewsbury. It was a marriage into a leading Catholic family and through his marriage, Francis Turville was connected with the most powerful Catholic families in the country, which had provided two vicars apostolic in the eighteenth century. But at Husbands Bosworth Hall, the Turvilles were by no means part of a larger Catholic community. Bosworth, and Leicestershire, were not strongly Catholic. With the exception of the Hastings family of Braunston and the Nevilles of Holt, both of which families sheltered missions, there were few notable Catholic families in the county; it has been estimated that Catholics made up less than five per cent of the population of the county of Leicestershire. This may have been one of the factors that influenced Francis Turville's decision to live abroad. Between 1784 and April 1789 Francis and Barbara Turville lived in Nancy in the Province of Lorraine. Although there is no explicit evidence, it seems probable that Francis Turville, like many Catholic gentry, moved to France in order to educate his son, George. One of the principal concerns of Catholic parents who sent their sons to be educated in France or the Netherlands was that they would return having lost all Englishness and connection with their family. This often led families to travel with their sons, or to send a trusted family member with them. It may also be that Francis Turville did not have a high regard for the lot of a Catholic gentleman in England. In 1786 it was reported to Turville that one of his neighbours, Mr. Saunders, ‘did not seem much to relish the description which you gave of the situation of a Roman Catholic gentleman in England. He could not conceive how the latter could be said to be oppressed’. While he was abroad, Turville maintained a correspondence with his chaplain, Thomas Potts, who remained at Husbands Bosworth Hall. This article seeks to indicate the nature of the relationship between Turville and his chaplain and to suggest that the rôles of a domestic chaplain were critical in maintaining the sense of an English Catholic community.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1996
References
Notes
1 Pugh, R. B. (ed), Victoria Country History of Leicestershire, London 1964, vol. V, p. 29.Google Scholar Francis Turville's father, William Turville died in 1777.
2 Broughton, H. E., Family and Estate Records in the Leicestershire Record Office, Leicester 1986, p. 30.Google Scholar
3 Bishop Thomas Talbot vicar apostolic of the Midland District and Bishop James Talbot, vicar apostolic of the London District from 1788.
4 Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community, 1559–1829, London 1976, pp. 156, 404.Google Scholar
5 Leys, M. R. D., Catholics In England, 1559–1829, London 1961, p. 159.Google Scholar
6 Leicestershire Records Office, Turville Constable Maxwell Mss DG39/1172 [hereafter Turville MSS].
7 He may have been related to Bede Potts, Benedictine chaplain to Sir Marmaduke Constable at Everingham Bossy op. cit, p. 258.
8 Gillow, J., A Literary and Biographical History or Biographical Dictionary of the English Catholics from the Breach with Rome in 1534 to the Present Time, London n.d., vol. V, p. 350.Google Scholar
9 Weedall, H., A Discourse Pronounced at the Funeral of the Revd Thomas Potts, late President of St. Mary's College, Oscott on Thursday December 9th 1819, Birmingham 1819, p. viii.Google Scholar
10 Bishop Thomas Talbot, Vicar apostolic of the Midland District.
11 Turville MSS DG39/1156.
12 Leicestershire Records Office, Quarter Sessions, Papists Estates.
13 Ibidem, DG39/1172.
14 Hemphill, B., The Early Vicars Apostolic of England 1685–1750, London 1954, p. 90.Google Scholar
15 Turville MSS DG39/1143.
16 Ibidem, fol 2.
17 Ibidem, DG39/1214. The interest of chaplains in fish was also reflected in the chaplain to the Fermore family in the seventeenth century, who built a fishpond at the Fermore estates at Tusmore in Oxfordshire in twelve years with only one labourer. Gillow, op. cit, ii, p. 250. Chaplains may have seen fish as an important issue, since the Church's teaching on abstinence from meat on Fridays was strictly maintained.
18 Ibidem, DG39/1143.
19 Ibidem, DG39/1210.
20 The Catholic priest, scholar and historian Joseph Berrington, author of The State and Behaviour of English Catholics in 1780 and The Memoirs of Gregorio Panzani in 1793.
21 The work was published in 1790 as The History of The Reign of Henry II, and of Richard and John… With the events of the period from 1154 to 1216, in which the character of Thomas a Becket is vindicated from the attacks of George, Lord Lyttelton, Birmingham 1790.
22 John Throckmorton, author of various pamphlets and books in the 1770s and 1780s.
23 Turville MSS DG39/1231.
24 Ibidem, DG39/1204. Turville acceded to the request, ibidem, DG39/1214. Turville had previously loaned his piano to Mr. and Mrs. Marriot, Turville's neighbours, until Mrs. Marriot's eyes deterio-rated.— Ibidem, DG39/1143 et seq.
25 Ibidem, DG39/1143.
26 Ibidem, DG39/1143. Fidon was a valuable living, worth about £500, and was in the gift of the Curzon family.
27 Ibidem, DG39/1156.
28 Ibidem, DG39/1172. The living of Bosworth had been in the hands of Edward Colquit since 1754, but was disputed by others. The ownership of the advowson was disputed right up to 1790.— VCH Leicestershire, vol. v, p 35. In August 1788 Potts reported that the living of Bosworth had been again sold, this time to a nephew of Bishop Pearce of Rochester. The purchaser was a London brewer, who intended it for his son, who desired to enter Orders and live in Leicestershire. But before he could succeed to the living, Potts commented: ‘Rogers however must first go the way of all flesh, which it is said he is about doing. He is very ill of the gout at Salisbury.’— Ibidem, DG39/1271. Rogers was Samuel Rogers, who died in 1790, when he was succeeded by Richard Pearce— VCH, op. cit, p. 35.
29 Ibidem, DG39/1204.
30 Ibidem, DG39/1210. The Saunders were probably distantly connected with the Turvilles. When Miss Saunders died she left a legacy to Francis Turville's eldest son and Mrs. Saunders left ‘an elegant box’ to Mrs. Turville.
31 Sir William Jerningham, of Costessy in Norfolk; Sir John Lawson of Richmond, Yorkshire and Mr. Eyre of Derbyshire and Hassop were members of leading Catholic families.
32 Ibidem, DG39/1143.
33 Of the Catholic Fitzherbert family of Swinnerton.
34 Charles Clifford, later 7th Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, a member of the wealthy Catholic family of Devonshire, married Eleanor Mary Arundel, daughter of 8th Baron Arundel.
35 Heiress of the Arundell family of Lanherne.
36 Charles Berrington, 1748–1798, brother of Joseph, educated at Douay and Paris. He was elected to the Catholic Committee in 1787 and succeeded as coadjutor to Bishop Thomas Talbot in the Midland District being appointed Bishop of Hierocaesarea.
37 Vicar apostolic in the Midland District.
38 Turville MSS. DG39/1172. Miss Stapleton was an heiress of the Stapleton family of Northumberland.
39 Ibidem, DG39/1204.
40 Basil Eyston was the son of Charles and Dorothy Eyston of East Hendred, Berkshire.
41 Son of Vincent Eyre, a lawyer of Glossop, and solicitor to the Duke of Norfolk—Gillow, op. cit ii, p. 203.
42 Turville MSS. DG39/1214.
43 Ibidem, DG39/1210.
44 Lord Valentia, 8th Viscount of Bletchingly Park, Oxfordshire and Eydon Hall, Banbury. Miss Annesley was his daughter.
45 Of the Brockholes family of Claughton, Lancashire. The Brockholes family died out in 1759 and the estate passed to the Fitzherbert family, who revived the name Brockholes. Gillow, op. cit, i, p. 309.
46 Turville MSS. DG39/1231.
47 Ibidem, DG39/1271.
48 Bossy, op. cit, p. 258.
49 The Act removed life imprisonment for bishops, priests and schoolmasters and abolished the £100 reward for informers against Catholics. It also laid down an oath for Catholic office-holders. Gibson, W., Church, State and Society 1760–1850, London 1994, p. 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
50 Turville MSS. DG39/1143.
51 Ibidem, DG39/1172.
52 Ibidem, DG39/1204.
53 William Fermor of Tusmore, 1737–1806.
54 Ibidem, DG39/1231.
55 P. Hughes, op. cit p. 129.
56 Bossy, op. cit, p. 234.
57 Turville MSS. DG39/1204.
58 Ibidem, DG39/1214.
59 Ibidem, DG39/1231.
60 Maria Smythe, born in 1757, married Edward Weld of Lulworth, and after his death married Thomas Fizherbert of Swynnerton Park, of Staffordshire. Thomas Fitzherbert died in 1781.
61 Ibidem, DG39/U72.
62 Leys, op. cit, p. 208.
63 Bossy, op cit, p. 258.
64 Turville MSS. DG39/1271.
65 Turville MSS. DG39/1302.
66 Leys, op. cit p. 209.