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The Haddon-Osorio Controversy (1563–1583)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Lawrence V. Ryan
Lawrence V. Ryan
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

Perhaps the most famous religious dispute of the latter half of the sixteenth century was that between Walter Haddon (1516–1572), the distinguished English Latinist, and Jerome Osorio de Fonseca (1506–1580), Portuguese bishop and eminent Ciceronian. The controversy was a part of the tumult over the church establishment of Queen Elizabeth which eventually led to her excommunication by Pope Pius V in 1570, and to the final separation of the Church of England from Rome. Though neither participant was primarily a theologian, the affair attracted a great deal of attention in its time because of the commanding reputations of both men as Latin stylists. By his fellow-Englishmen, Haddon was regarded as the best Latin orator, poet, and epistolist of his generation; and on the Continent Osorio was widely admired not only for his skill in Scriptural studies but also for his excellent Ciceronianism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1953 , pp. 142 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1953

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References

1. Epistola H. Osorii ad serenissimam Elisabetam Angliae reginam (Lovanii, 1563; Venetiis, 563)Google Scholar.

2. Une epistre par H. Osorius a Ma Dame Elizabeth, Royne d'Angleterre, sur les affaires du monde, etc. (Paris, 1563).Google Scholar The copy in the British Museum is bound with Les graves et sainotes remonstrances de l'Empereur Ferdinand a nostre Sainct pere le Pape Pie, etc. (Paris, 1563).Google Scholar No copy of the Latin edition printed at Paris seems to be available.

3. Frere, W. H., The English Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I (1558–1625) (London, 1911), p. 81.Google Scholar

4. Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, 1564–1565, ed. Joseph, Stevenson (London, 1870), pp. 70, 76.Google Scholar

5. Though Haddon claimed to have answered Osorio as a private citizen, moved with zeal for his country (Lucubrationes, ed. Thomas Hatcher, London, William Seres, 1567, pp. 211–212)Google Scholar, the effort which Sir William Cecil and Sir Thomas Smith put into having his reply published argues an official interest in the affair (cf.Nares, Edward, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, London, 1828–1831, pp. 305–307).Google Scholar

6. Frere, loc. cit.

7. Poematum … libri duo (London, William Seres, 1576)Google Scholar, fol. Aiijr.

8. English version, fol. Avii.

9. The epistle is printed in Lucubrationes, pp. 210–268.

10. Ascham's, Works, ed. Dr. Giles, II, 51Google Scholar; Historical Manuscripts Commission (Fifth Report) Shirley MSS., p. 363.

11. Lubrationes, pp. 211–212.

12. Ibid., p. 220. The translation is supplied by Hartwell's, Abraham English version of Haddon's epistle, A Sight of the Portugall Pearle (London, William Seres, 1565)Google Scholar, fol. Aviij.

13. The accusation that Osorio's epistle is vague in its attack and does not come down to specific cases is true; the only modern reformer named is Luther, and not a single point is made that might indicate on the part of the writer a knowledge of the nature of the English Reformation.

14. Calendar of State Papers. Foreign. 1563, p. 611.

15. Ibid., p. 635.

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18. Ibid., p. 70. Several letters between Smith and Haddon, and between Smith and the Chancellor of France, were reprinted by Hatcher in Lucubrationes (pp. 279–293, 312–319). The above letter appears on pp. 312–316, and the following exchange on pp. 316–319.

19. Whether the book, no copy of which seems now to be extant, was printed in London or Paris is uncertain. In a letter that he wrote to Cecil from Troyes on April 14, Smith indicates that Richard Judge or Reginald Wolf would print the book in London and suggests that the spaces for month, day, and year be left blank, and that the copies be marked “cum privilegio.” He intended to continue his negotiations in France for a royal privilege and then to have the work sent to Antwerp or Louvain to be distributed (Calendar of State Papers. Foreign. 1564–1565, pp. 110–111).Google Scholar As late as May 11 he was still unsuccessfully trying to secure the privilege from the Queen Mother and the Chancellor (Ibid., p. 130).

20. Wright, p. 172.

21. Calendar of State Papers. Foreign. 1564–1565, p. 117.

22. Parker, Matthew, Correspondence, ed. John, Bruce (Publications of the Parker Society, XXXIII)Google Scholar (Cambridge, 1853), pp. 216–217.

23. “It was a canine tongue with which he praised schism and those schismatic authors, with which he wished to revile the holy laws of the pontiffs, with which that greatest priest is slandered—it was Haddon's canine tongue.”

24. Nares, , in his Burghley (p. 306)Google Scholar, mistakenly believing that Haddon died in Flanders in 1567, says “as his death occurred in Flanders, whence he had had the warning given of the danger he had to apprehend, it is but reasonable to suppose, that, according to the temper and character of those sad times, the cause of his death could not escape suspicion.” Actually, Haddon died at home in 1571/2.

25. Haddon, Walter and Foxe, John, Contra Hieron. Osorium, eiusque odiosas insectationes pro euangelicae veritatis necessara Defensione, Responsio Apologetica (London, John Day, 1577)Google Scholar, fol. B1. The translation is supplied by Bell's, James English version of this work, Against Jerome Osorius, etc. (London, John Day, 1581).Google Scholar

26. John Foxe had seen one or the other of these books when he wrote to Haddon on December 2 that the Lord Chamberlain had lent him the Queen's own copy of a book attacking English reformers, but touching Haddon and himself most closely (B. M. Harleian MS. 417, fol 107). Also, for an account of the cool reception the Portuguese Ambassador received from Elizabeth, Leicester, and Cecil shortly after the book described by Foxe turned up at Court, see Calendar of State Papers. Simancas, II, 24–25.Google Scholar

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28. Works, ed. Giles, III, 185.Google Scholar

29. Gabriel Harvey's Ciceronianus, ed. Wilson, Harold S. and trans. Forbes, Clarence A. (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1945), p. 57.Google Scholar

30. Works, ed. James Spedding, Robert Ellis, and Douglas Heath (London, 1870), III, 283.Google Scholar

31. The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (London, 1781), I, 129.Google Scholar

32. The History of English Poetry, etc., ed. R. Price (London, 1840), III, 280Google Scholar, n.y.

33. Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Fourth Edition (London, 1854), I, 507–508.Google Scholar