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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2016
Explanations of local interconfessional relations in post-revolutionary England tend to highlight the role of Catholic quiescence and compromise in allowing Protestants and Catholics to ‘get along’. By examining the interactions of a Catholic family who were far from quiescent in their religious and political practice, this article suggests that these explanations may overemphasize the compromise of religious minorities, obscuring the importance of the wider local context to the shape of interconfessional relations. The subjects of this study, the Rookwoods of Stanningfield, Suffolk, were active in expression of Catholic religion and its political implications. Contrary to patterns suggested elsewhere, the social and economic interactions of this family with their neighbours illustrate that such ardent Catholicism was not enough to prevent cordial relations with local Protestants. The social and economic importance of the Rookwoods within their community is used to make suggestions as to why they were accepted on the local level against a backdrop of wider anti-Catholic polemic. The example of the Rookwoods implies a need to explore the broader factors which shaped the underlying balance of power on a local level before it is possible to understand the nature of compromises that allowed for peaceful co-existence.
I am very grateful to Alexandra Walsham for her encouragement and reading of drafts, and to Harriet Lyon for helpful suggestions and good humour. I would also like to thank Phil Withington and the anonymous referees of the Historical Journal for their comments on earlier drafts. This article draws on research undertaken for my BA thesis at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and a paper subsequently delivered at the Catholic Record Society Conference in July 2015; in both instances I was grateful to Francis Young for sharing his expert knowledge on the Rookwoods.
1 Letter of neighbours and acquaintances of Thomas Rookwood to Queen Anne, 1702, Cambridge, Cambridge University Library (CUL), MS Hengrave 76/2/21.
2 Alexandra Walsham, Charitable hatred: tolerance and intolerance in England (Manchester, 2006), p. 5.
3 Willem Frijhoff, Embodied belief: ten essays on religious culture in Dutch history (Hilversum, 2002), p. 40.
4 Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by faith: religious conflict and the practice of toleration in early modern Europe (Cambridge, MA, 2007), p. 10.
5 William Sheils, ‘“Getting on” and “getting along” in parish and town: Catholics and their neighbours in England’, in B. Kaplan, B. Moore, H. Van Nierop, and J. Pollman, eds., Catholic communities in Protestant states: Britain and the Netherlands, c. 1570–1720 (Manchester, 2009), p. 68.
6 Nadine Lewycky and Adam Morton, ‘Introduction’, in Nadine Lewycky and Adam Morton, eds., Getting along? Religious identities and confessional relations in early modern England – essays in honour of Professor W. J. Sheils (Farnham, 2012), p. 9.
7 Colin Haydon, Anti-Catholicism in eighteenth-century England, c. 1714–1780 (Manchester and New York, NY, 1993), p. 253.
8 Ibid., p. 13.
9 Gregory Hanlon, Confession and community in seventeenth-century France: Catholic and Protestant coexistence in Aquitaine (Pennsylvania, PA, 1993), p. 9.
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18 ‘Vertissimas Prosapia Rookwodarum de Stannigefielde', 1619, CUL, MS Hengrave 76/1.
19 Letter from Robert Rookwood to His Majesty's attorney general, 1636, Bury St Edmunds, County Record Office (CRO Bury), 326/52.
20 Proceedings of the commissioners of forfeited estates under statutes 1 & 4 George I, Kew Gardens, The National Archives (TNA), FEC 2/68, p. 163.
21 Suffolk Church notes, vol. 1, n.d., CUL, MS Hengrave 22/1.
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23 ‘Rookwood family tree’, Who were the nuns? wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/ftrees/Rookwood.pdf.
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25 Coldham Hall ledger, c. 1695–1751, CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3.
26 A volume of the Rookwood family papers edited by Francis Young is due for publication by the Suffolk Record Society in 2016.
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29 Quoted in Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, p. 22.
30 Isaac Bickerstaff (alias Jonathan Swift), The popish courant (London, 1714), p. 1.
31 Peter Lake, ‘Anti-popery: the structure of a prejudice’, in R. Cust and A. Hughes, eds., Conflict in early Stuart England (New York, NY, 1989), p. 76.
32 Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, pp. 32ff, 38ff.
33 Coldham Inventory, CUL, MS Hengrave 77/2, fos. 8v, 9r, 10v.
34 Clare Haynes, ‘The politics of religious imagery in the late seventeenth century’, in Jason McElligot, ed., Fear, exclusion and revolution: Roger Morrice and Britain in the 1680s (Aldershot, 2006), p. 51.
35 CUL, MSS Hengrave 77/2, fos. 28v–53r.
36 Ibid., fo. 47r.
37 For an example of how records of reading habits can be revealing of the political and religious mind-sets of an individual, see Baker, Reading and politics. Further analysis of the Rookwoods' collection in this vein may prove fruitful.
38 For explorations of the significance of a distinction between public and nominally private worship in early modern Europe, see Kaplan, Benjamin, ‘Fictions of privacy: house chapels and the spatial accommodation of religious dissent in early modern Europe’, American Historical Review, 107 (2002), pp. 1031–64Google Scholar.
39 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3, fos. 106r–107v; College of Holy Apostles District Acts, 1667–1844, London, Archives of the British Province of the Society of Jesus (BPSJ), fos. 21–2, 24, 26–8, 30–1, 33.
40 BPSJ: BA/5 – Coldham – notes by Fr. Legros SJ and correspondence concerning the mission, p. 5.
41 Ibid., p. 6; Thompson Cooper, G. Bradley, ‘Garnett, Thomas [St Thomas Garnett] (1575–1608)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography (ODNB), www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10394.
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43 G. Lyon Turner, trans. and ed., Original records of early nonconformity under persecution and indulgence (3 vols., London, 1911), i, p. 103; many thanks to Mr Matti Watton at Lambeth Palace Library for confirming the transcribed spelling in the original manuscript.
44 ‘Rookwood family tree', Who were the nuns? wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/ftrees/Rookwood.pdf.
45 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3, fos. 106r–107v.
46 Ibid., fo. 95r.
47 Ibid., fos. 93v, 95v.
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53 Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, pp. 32–5, 38–40.
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67 ‘William and Mary, 1688: An act for exempting their majestyes Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the penalties of certaine lawes. [Chapter XVIII. Rot. Parl. pt. 5. nu. 15.]', in Raithby ed., Statutes of the realm, vi, pp. 74–6, www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol6/pp74-76.
68 ‘Charles II, 1678: (Stat. 2.) An act for the more effectuall preserving the kings person’; ‘House of Lords Journal volume 20: 26 June 1716’, in Journal of the House of Lords, 1714–1717 (243 vols., London, n.d.), xx, pp. 395–7, www.british-history.ac.uk/lords-jrnl/vol20/pp395-397.
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70 Anon., The arraignment, tryal, and condemnation of Ambrose Rookwood, for the horrid and execrable conspiracy to assassinate his sacred majesty King William (London, 1696), p. 2. See also Anon., True copies of the papers which Brigadier Rookwood, and Major Lowick, delivered to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, at Tyburn, April 29. 1696 (London, 1696); Anon., An account of the execution of Brigadier Rookwood, Major Lowick, and Mr. Cranburn (London, 1696); Anon., A true account of the dying behaviour of Ambrose Rookwood, Charles Cranburne, and Major Lowick (London, 1696).
71 Thomas Percival, The Rye-house travestie, or, a true account and declaration of the horrid and execrable conspiracy against His Majesty King William and the government (London, 1696), p. 2.
72 R. Blackmore, A true and impartial history of the conspiracy against the person and government of King William III (London, 1723), pp. 64–5.
73 TNA, C 213/264/22. Two others in Stanningfield refused the oath: Thomas Burlton, gent., and Robert Flower.
74 CUL, MSS Hengrave 76/2/21.
75 Returns of papists, Suffolk, TNA, E174/1/27, 23 Sept. 1725.
76 Bossy, ‘English Catholics after 1688’, p. 381.
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78 Glickman, The English Catholic community, p. 7.
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80 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3, particularly fos. 5r–14r.
81 Ibid., passim.
82 Ibid., fos. 13v–22v, 28r–33r, 92v.
83 Stanningfield parish, registers of baptisms, CRO Bury, FL626/4/1/1, 1561–1702.
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85 Will of Thomas Rookwood, TNA, Prob 11/614, 1727; CRO Bury, FL626/4/1/1.
86 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3, fos. 13r–17r, 30v–31v.
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96 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/2/21.
97 Robert Robson, The attorney in eighteenth-century England (Cambridge, 1959), p. 76n; deed of recovery, CRO Bury, 449/4/19 (loose bundle), 24 May 1711.
98 Nathaniel Pigott to Robert Throckmorton, Warwick, Warwickshire County Record Office, CR1998/Box65/folder2/7, 24 Oct. 1704.
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102 CUL, MS Hengrave 77/2, fos. 8v, 9r, 10v.
103 Keith Wrightson, English society, 1580–1680 (Abingdon, 2003), pp. 59, 64.
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112 Felicity Heal, Hospitality in early modern England (Oxford, 1990), p. 13.
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114 This is an unfortunately gendered presentation of the dynamics of social relations in Stanningfield, determined by the paucity of evidence about the activities of female members of the family. Female sociability was important in regulating and creating moral norms in early modern England; we can only speculate what role the female Rookwoods may have played a crucial role in negotiating the family's local status. See for example Laura Gowing, Gender relations in early modern England (Abingdon, 2014), pp. 51–66; Amanda Flather, Gender and space in early modern England (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 94–134.
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117 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3, fos. 13v, 22r–v.
118 Wrightson, English society, p. 69.
119 Heal, Hospitality in early modern England, pp. 97–8.
120 CUL, MS Hengrave 76/3, particularly fos. 7v, 8r, 8v, 15v.
121 Will of Thomas Rookwood, TNA, Prob 11/614, 1727.
122 Muldrew, The economy of obligation, especially pp. 149ff.
123 Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, pp. 43, 71ff. See also Colin Haydon, ‘“I love my king and my country, but a Roman Catholic I hate”: anti-Catholicism, xenophobia and national identity in eighteenth-century England’, in Tony Claydon and Ian McBride, eds., Protestantism and national identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650 – c. 1850 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 53–74.
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126 Muldrew, The economy of obligation, pp. 3–4, 7.
127 Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, p. 253.
128 Lewycky and Morton, ‘Introduction’, p. 11.
129 Brodie Waddell, God, duty and community in English economic life, 1660–1720 (Woodbridge, 2012), p. 229, passim.
130 Mark Goldie, ‘The theory of religious intolerance in Restoration England’, in Grell, Israel, and Tyacke, eds., From persecution to toleration, pp. 337–47.
131 Thomas Watts, Universal Christian charity, as comprehending all true religion and happiness, demonstrated from scripture and reason in a sermon preach'd before the Right Hon. Lord Chief Justice Treby, at the assizes held at Maidstone in Kent (London, 1697), pp. 17ff.
132 Anon., A prayer for charity, peace and unity, to be used in Lent (London, 1690), p. 5.
133 Walsham, Charitable hatred, pp. 272–3.
