War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648-1713 (Politics and Culture in North-Western Europe 1650-1720)

Citation preview

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Edited by David Onnekink

WAR AND RELIGION AFTER WESTPHALIA, 1648–1713

POLITICS AND CULTURE IN NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE 1650–1720 Series Editors Tony Claydon, Bangor University, UK Hugh Dunthorne, Swansea University, UK Charles-Edouard Levillain, Universitéé�����������������c� de ����������������c� Lille 2, France Esther Mijers, University of Reading, UK David Onnekink, Universiteit Utrecht/Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands Focusing on the years between the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the end of the War of Spanish Succession, this new series seeks to broaden scholarly knowledge of this crucial period that witnessed the solidi.cation of Europe into centralised nation states and created a recognisably modern political map. Bridging the gap between the early modern period of the Reformation and the eighteenth century of colonial expansion and industrial revolution these years provide a fascinating era of study in which nationalism, political dogma, economic advantage, scientific development, cultural interests and strategic concerns began to overtake religion as the driving force of European relations and national foreign policies. The period under investigation, c.1650–1720 corresponds to the decline of Spanish power and the rise of French hegemony that was only to be finally broken following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. This shifting political powerbase presented opportunities and dangers for many countries, resulting in numerous alliances between formerly hostile nations attempting to consolidate or increase their international influence, or restrain that of a rival. Three of the most influential nations at this time, France, Great Britain and The Netherlands, were all at some stage during this period either at war or in alliance with one another. Despite this being a formative period in the formation of the European landscape, there has been remarkably little joined-up research that studies events from an international, rather than national perspective. By providing a forum that encourages scholars to engage with the subject of politics, diplomacy, war and international relations on a broad European basis, it is hoped that a greater understanding of this pivotal era will be forthcoming.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Edited by DAVID ONNEkINk Universiteit Utrecht/Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands

© David Onnekink 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. David Onnekink has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data War and religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713. – (Politics and culture in north-western Europe, 1650–1720) 1. War – Religious aspects – Christianity 2. Europe – History – 1648–1715 3. Europe – Foreign relations – 1648–1715 4. Europe – Church history – 17th century I. Onnekink, David 940.2'52 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data War and religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713 / [edited by] David Onnekink. p. cm.—(Politics and culture in north-western Europe, 1650–1720) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7546-6129-0 (alk. paper) 1. Europe, Western—Church history—17th century. 2. Christianity and international affairs—History—17th century. 3. War—Religious aspects—Christianity—History— 17th century. 4. Europe, Western—Church history—18th century. 5. Christianity and international affairs—History—18th century. 6. War—Religious aspects—Christianity— History—18th century. 7. Europe—History, Military—1648–1789. I. Onnekink, David. BR738.2.W37 2008 940.2'523—dc22 2008024688 ISBN 978-0-7546-6129-0

Contents

List of Charts and Figures Notes on Contributors   Acknowledgements   List of Abbreviations  

vii ix xiii xv

   Introduction: The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War David Onnekink

1

1

Plus royaliste que le pape: Louis XIV’s Religious Policy and his Guerre de Hollande   Paul Sonnino

17

2

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II (1665–1700)   Christopher Storrs

25

3

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy  Andrew C. Thompson

4

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War   David Onnekink

  

5 Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability: The Views of Three English Diplomats   Stéphane Jettot 6

The Blessed Trinity: The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713   K.A.J. McLay

7 Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France   Matthew Glozier 8 The States General on Religion and War: Manifestos, Policy Documents and Prayer Days in the Dutch Republic, 1672–1713   Donald Haks

47

69

89

103

121

155

vi

9

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713



An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism: Roger Morrice’s Perception of European Politics in the 1680s  Stephen Taylor

177

10

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace: War, Peace and Religion in the Political Rhetoric of the United Provinces 1648–1672   Jill Stern

197

11

Defending the True Faith: Religious Themes in Dutch Pamphlets on England, 1688–1689   Emma Bergin

217

Conclusion    Benjamin J. Kaplan

251

Index

255

List of Charts and Figures

Cover illustration Arlequin sur l’ Hypogryphe à la Croisade Lojoliste (1689). ������������������ As illustrated by Romeyn de Hooghe’s graphic-print of 1689, both the domestic and foreign policies of Louis XIV and James II were not viewed in isolation, but were seen as part of a co-ordinated campaign to eradicate the Protestant religion.

Charts 11.1 Dutch pamphlet output 1600–1700, annotated with some of the main subjects of discussion   11.2 Dutch pamphlet themes 1688–89   11.3 Dutch pamphlets on England 1600–1700, annotated with some of the main subjects of discussion   11.4 Provenance of pamphlets published on England between 1688 and 1689  

219 222 222 223

Figures 11.1 Arlequin sur l’ Hypogryphe à la Croisade Lojoliste (1689), Knuttel 13230; Armée van de Heylige Ligue voor der Jesuiten Monarchy (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2805.   227 11.2 The Religious State of England (1688), E. Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland, Plates LXI–LXX (London, 1907), 620.   233 11.3 La Belle Constance (1689), Knuttel 13230b; La Belle Constance (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2802.  246 11.4 L’Europe Allarmee pour le .ls d’un Meunier (1689), Knuttel 13229; L’Europe Allarmée pour le fils d’un Meunier (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2746.   247 11.5 L’Epiphane du Nouveau Antichrist (1689), Knuttel 13230a; L’Epiphane du Nouveau Antichrist (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2768.   248

This page has been left blank intentionally

Notes on Contributors

Emma Bergin studied History at the University of Hull between 1997–2006, receiving a BA (Hons) in 2000 and an MA in Historical Research in 2001. In addition to being awarded two AHRC scholarships for postgraduate study, Emma was also awarded the Kingsley Prize in 1999 and the Departmental Prize in 2000. Emma completed her PhD thesis entitled The Revolution of 1688 in Dutch Pamphlet Literature: A Study in the Dutch Public Sphere in the late Seventeenth Century in 2006 under the supervision of Dr J.L. Price. Emma’s main area of interest is the history of Anglo-Dutch relations during the seventeenth century, with particular focus on contemporary perceptions and attitudes. Emma has presented numerous conference papers based on her PhD research, most recently at the Anglo-American Conference in July 2006. Matthew Glozier is an Honorary Associate at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney (Australia). His research centres on mercenary soldiers and expatriate soldier communities in Early Modern Europe, especially Scots and French Huguenots. His books include The Huguenot Soldiers of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (2002), Scottish Soldiers in France in the Age of the Sun King (2004), Marshal Schomberg, 1615–1690 (2005), and War, Religion and Service: Huguenot Soldiering, 1685–1713 (2007). Donald Haks is Director of the Institute of Netherlands History in The Hague, The Netherlands. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Dutch family history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (1982). He published several articles on the social history of the Dutch Republic. His current field of research is the way the wars between the Dutch Republic and France between 1672 and 1713 were reflected in the different forms of ‘news’ such as government manifestos, newspapers, pamphlets, sermons, visual sources and popular literature. Stéphane Jettot is Lecturer and has written his doctoral thesis on ‘Representer le Roi ou la Nation? Les Membres de la Chambre des Communes au Service de la Diplomatie Anglaise (1660–1702)’. He also teaches at the University ParisSorbonne since 2001. His main research interest lies in the field of British political and diplomatic history in the early modern period, especially in the seventeenth century. His main publications are: ‘La notion de politics dans l’historiographie anglo-saxonne’. Les idées passent-elles la Manche? Savoirs, représentations, pratiques (PUPS, 2007), pp. 67–82; ‘Intimité familiale et expérience du continent à travers les diaries et les correspondances du Grand Tour’, in Jean-Pierre Bardet and François-Joseph Ruggiu (eds), Au plus près du secret des cœurs? Nouvelles



War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

lectures historiques des écrits du for privé (PUPS, 2005), pp. 131–49; ‘Défense et illustration du secret d’État: l’entrée publique de Guillaume III au congrès de La Haye le 5 février 1691’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 3 (2002), pp. 257–79. He has also published several textbooks on English social history: Christian Hermann, Stéphane Jettot, and Caroline Le Mao, Sociétés anglaise, espagnole et française: XVIIe Siècle (Atlande, 2007); Les sociétés anglaise, espagnole et française au XVIIe siècle, with Nicolas Schapira and Jean-Pierre Dedieu (Hachette Supérieur, 2006). Benjamin J. Kaplan is Professor of Dutch History at UCL, with a joint appointment at the University of Amsterdam. He received his BA from Yale in 1981 and his PhD from Harvard in 1989. Before moving to England he taught at Brandeis University and the University of Iowa. His first book, entitled Calvinists and Libertines: Confession and Community in Utrecht, 1578–1620 (Oxford, 1995), was a case study of the Dutch Reformation; it received the Philip Schaff Prize and the Roland Bainton Prize in History and Theology. His new book, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe, was published in 2007 by Harvard University Press. He is currently working on a history of religiously mixed marriages in the Dutch Republic. K.A.J. McLay is currently Head of the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Chester where he teaches early modern British and European History. He has previously published articles on the early modern military and in particular early modern amphibious warfare in Historical Research, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Journal of Mediterranean Studies and War in History. During the summer of 2007 he was the National Maritime Museum’s Caird North American fellow based at the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island and is currently completing a book examining the British ‘Way in Warfare’ during the wars of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. David Onnekink is Lecturer at the Universities of Utrecht and Leiden. He is interested in British and Dutch foreign policy in the early modern age, and focuses currently in particular on war, foreign policy and religion in the late seventeenth century. His publications include The Anglo-Dutch Favourite. The career of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland (1649–1709) (Aldershot, 2007). He has co-edited (with Raymond Fagel) Oorlog en Samenleving in de Nieuwe Tijd (Maastricht, 2005), (with Esther Mijers) Redefining William III: The Impact of the King–Stadholder in International Context (Aldershot, 2007) and (with Matthew Glozier) War, Religion and Service: Huguenot Soldiering, 1685–1713 (Aldershot, 2007). Paul Sonnino is Professor of History at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has a special interest in the combination of political, social, religious, and intellectual considerations by the human mind, as exemplified by some of

Notes on Contributors

xi

his key writings: Louis XIV’s View of the Papacy (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge UK, 1988) and his Mazarin’s Quest: the Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2008). Professor Sonnino is currently working on two projects: ‘Alone against the Sun-King, the Life of Claude Roux’, and ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’. Jill Stern was awarded her doctorate by University College, London 2006 for research entitled The Phoenix from the Ashes. Orangism in word and image 1650–1675. Her publications include: ‘A Playwright in his Time: Vondel’s Drama Faeton of 1663’, Dutch Crossing, 23 (1999), 22–57; ‘The rhetoric of popular Orangism, 1650–1672’, Historical Research, 77 (2004), 202–24 (Awarded Pollard Prize of the London Institute of Historical Research; ‘Religion and the Orangists 1650–1675’, Dutch Crossing, 30 (2006), 181–96. Christopher Storrs did his first degree at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and his PhD at the University of London. His many publications include articles on international relations, the nobility, and aspects of state formation in early modern Europe, and monographs on War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy 1690–1720 (Cambridge, 1999) and The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy 1665–1700 (Oxford, 2006). His main research interests are war and diplomacy and the development of states in early modern Europe, and particularly focus on Spain and Italy. He is currently writing a monograph on the re-emergence of Spain as a major power in the western Mediterranean and Italy in the generation after 1713. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Reader in History at the University of Dundee. Stephen Taylor is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Reading. The Entring Book of Roger Morrice, in which he edited Volume 4: The Reign of James II, 1687–1689, was published by The Boydell Press in 2007. Andrew C. Thompson is a College Lecturer and Official Fellow in History at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He is the author of Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756 (Boydell and Brewer, 2006) and has written widely on the relationship between religion and politics in the eighteenth century. He is currently working on a biography of George II.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Acknowledgements

The editor wishes to express his thanks to several people for their contribution without which this volume would not be what it has become. I wish to thank Esther Mijers, as she co-organised the conference at Het Loo Palace in January 2007, Foreign Policy, Religious Conflict and Public Discourse in post-Westphalian Europe (1648–1713), from which a number of the chapters in this volume have emerged. Also, Simon Groenveld has generously supported our efforts. I am also thankful to Tony Claydon, Charles-Edouard Levillain, David Trim, Paul Sonnino, Jeroen Duindam and the anonymous referee for their intellectual feedback. Their criticism has done much to improve the quality of this volume. The kind permission of Droz for reprinting the chapter of Paul Sonnino is acknowledged. I also wish to thank the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Research Institute for History and Culture (OGC) of the Universiteit Utrecht for their support. Lastly, I wish to thank Tom Gray and Sarah Charters of Ashgate Publishing for their support and patience in the coming together of this volume, and Kate Delaney for proofreading some chapters in this volume.

This page has been left blank intentionally

List of Abbreviations

AAE: ��c������������������������������������������������� Archives du ministère des affaires étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris Add. MS: Additional manuscripts AGI: Archivo General de Indias, Seville AGS: Archivo General de Simancas AHR: The American Historical Review AST: Archivio di Stato, Turin BL: British Library, London BMGN: Bijdragen en Mededelingen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden BN: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris BS HPF: Bulletin de la société de l’histoire du protestantisme française BVGO: Bijdragen voor de Vaderlandse Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde CHJ: Cambridge Historical Journal Claydon, Revolution: William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge, 1996) CSPD: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, in the Reign of William and Mary, ed. W.J. Hardy and E. Bateson (11 vols, London, 1913–69) CSPV: Calendar of State Papers Venetian EHR: English Historical Review European History Quarterly EHQ: FHS: French Historical Studies HAHR: The Hispanic American Historical Review HJ: Historical Journal HZ: Historische Zeitschrift JMH: Journal of Modern History Knuttel: catalogue no. in W.P.C. Knuttel (ed.), Catalogus van de pamflettenverzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek, (9 vols, The Hague, 1899–1920) MS Fr.: Manuscrit Français NA: Nationaal Archief, The Hague NUL: Nottingham University Library SP: State Papers TNA: PRO The National Archives, London TRHS: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

xvi

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Troost, William III: TvG: ZE:

Wout Troost, William III, the Stadholder-King, trans. J.C. Grayson (Aldershot, 2005) Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis De Zeventiende Eeuw

Introduction

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War* David Onnekink

On the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13) Daniel Defoe authored a pamphlet on the Present Prospect of a Religious War in Europe (1701). It was devoted to the international threat to Protestantism. In spirited prose the polemicist warned against the rising tide of Catholic aggression: We are allarm’d at every step made by our Powerful Neighbours … We can see Dangers to our Trade and Shipping … [we] commence Treaties, settle Alliances, and join in Confederacies and Guarranties, for the Preservation of the Ballance of Power and Trade … But … Where is the League or Alliance in Europe … for the Preservation and Defence of the Protestant Religion? The Concern of Religion is not the meanest Article in the Peace of Europe.

Looking back on the recent history of Europe, it was easy to see that ‘the Liberty the Protestants enjoy, has, next to God’s Goodness, been the Purchase of the Sword’. Defoe argued for a Protestant union in Europe to confront a popish coalition. A religious war was at hand and England had better arm herself well, for ‘If we re-examine the Present State of Europe, we shall find it, as to the Interest of Religion, in worse Circumstances on several Accounts, than it ever yet was since the Treaties of Munster and Westphalia’. Around the turn of the eighteenth century the memory of religious conflict was still vivid, and apparently the prospect of it real, and increasingly so.

* The phrase ‘Dark Alliance’ of war and religion was coined by Mark Juergesmeyer. I wish to thank Tony Claydon, David Trim and Charles-Edouard Levillain for commenting on this introduction, and Kate Delaney for proofreading the text. Any errors are, of course, entirely my own.   ���������������� [Daniel Defoe], The Danger of the Protestant Religion Considered from the Present Prospect of a Religious War in Europe (1701).   ������� Defoe, Danger, p. 2.   ������������ Ibid., p. 3.   ������������ Ibid., p. 7.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713



I Defoe’s argument that most European post-Reformation conflicts had been wars of religion and that these continued to occur long after 1648 may strike the modern reader as peculiar, as it is often argued that wars of religion came to an end with the Peace of Westphalia caesura of 1648. The religious settlement confirmed the cuius regio, eius religio concept as stipulated by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which domesticated religion as a political factor and pushed it out of the international arena. Consequently, the question as to whether such religious wars were fought after 1648 has been largely ignored by historians. By the close of the seventeenth century, a new international system of collective guarantees determined by the desire to maintain the Balance of Power had emerged from the ashes of the failed post-Westphalian system. Foreign policy now operated under mechanical laws derived from the Newtonian world view, imbuing it with a distinctly secular flavour. Neither did the mercantilist wars that were fought between the Dutch and the English suggest that religion could have anything to do with foreign policy: quite the contrary, it seemed. Such an interpretation makes a neat pattern: wars driven by great power interests succeeded religious conflicts after the spiritual stalemate of the Thirty Years War. The religious wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries gave way to the secular, commercial and Balance of Power conflicts of the late seventeenth century. In this view, there was a linear, inevitable decline of religion as a political factor in the international arena. The model of an entirely secular post-Westphalian system has long been current among historians moulded in the realist school. Conflicts were essentially caused by the thirst for military, political or economic power. This interpretation of international relations, which hinged on the view that 1648 marked a turning point, has shaped the thinking of generations of historians and seems still dominant among political scientists today. Admittedly, a number of scholars have drawn attention to the continuing influence of religion in international relations, but with caveats. In this view, the Peace of Westphalia was therefore a watershed, dividing the more enlightened age of reason and interest of state from that of religious wars. These could be seen to have started with the Knights War (1522), initiated by the disgruntled baron Franz von Sickingen, and the much more serious Peasant War (1524–25), which drew inspiration from the ideas of the radical-Protestant Thomas Müntzer. Religious conflict in the Holy Roman Empire culminated in the First Schmalkaldic War (1546–47), pitting the Emperor’s forces against a Protestant 

 ��������������������������c�����������������������c���������������������������� But see e.g. Philip Benedict, ‘Religion and Politics in Europe, 1500–1700’, in Kaspar von Greyerz, Kim Siebenhüner et al. (eds), ������� Religion und Gewalt. �������������������� Konflikte, Rituale, Deutungen (1500-1800) (Göttingen, 2006), pp. 155–73.   ���������c���������������������������������������� E.g. J. McManners, ‘Religion and the relations of church c���c������������������������������ and state’, in J.S. Bromley (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History VI (Cambridge, 1970), p. 119 ff.

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War



league led by John Frederick of Saxony. It was the Second Schmalkaldic War (1552–55) that ultimately led to the religious settlement of 1555. Meanwhile Switzerland did not escape conflict; in 1529 and 1531 the Zwinglian and Catholic cantons clashed in the Wars of Kappel. If these conflicts were mainly inspired by the emergence of Lutheran and Zwinglian polities, the rise of Calvinism around the mid-sixteenth century would result in a new wave of religious struggle, most notably during the prolonged French Wars of Religion between 1562 and 1598. Around the same time, in 1566, the Dutch Revolt was precipitated by the Calvinist Iconoclastic Fury and would result in the establishment of a Calvinist state breaking loose from the Spanish Empire. The third and last wave of religious conflict occurred during the first half of the seventeenth century. With the erosion of the settlement of Augsburg, the Holy Roman Empire slipped into renewed conflict in the Thirty Years War (1618–48). The intervention of foreign powers such as France, Denmark and Sweden, and its merging with the Eighty Years War between the Dutch Republic and Spain, made the last war of religion also the largest, plunging the European continent into disaster. The Peace of Westphalia coincided with the end of the English Civil War which could be viewed as a conflict between Arminians and Puritans. Past historians have drained these classic wars of religion of their religious content. Instead, these conflicts have been mostly re-interpreted within frameworks of national historiography, as struggles for independence and the break-up of medieval empires into nation states. In this view, the very concept of a religious war is thrown into doubt, and it seems symptomatic that there is currently no satisfactory study available containing an overview of these wars of religion as a European phenomenon. To most historians, these struggles for power merely occurred ‘under a cloak of religion’. This thoroughly realist view of international relations had its genesis back into the nineteenth century and is still dominant. However, during the 1970s and 1980s revisionist historians increasingly questioned this view, and there have been ongoing attempts to ‘put religion back into the wars of religion’, as Mack P. Holt has put it. These attempts were

  ����������������������������������������������������c�������������������� Cf. Kaspar von Greyerz and Kim Siebenhüner, ‘Introduction’, in: Greyerz, Siebenhüner et al. (eds), Religion und Gewalt, pp. 9–10.   ������������c�������������������������������������������� It is instructive to browse through J.H.M. Salmon (ed.), The French Wars of Religion. How important were religious factors? (Boston, 1967), and Theodore K. Rabb (ed.), The Thirty Years’ War. Problems of Motive, Extent, and Effect (Boston, 1964), collections of excerpts of seminal texts on the wars of religion. The classic text of James Westfall Thompson, ‘The Domination of Political Motives’, in Salmon (ed.), The French Wars of Religion, for instance, is unequivocally clear about the origins of the French Civil War. For the persistence of this view, see for instance Robert J. Knecht, The French Religious Wars 1562–1598 (Botley, 2002).   ��c�������������������������������c������������������������������ Mack P. Holt, ‘Putting Religion Back into the Wars of Religion’, FHS, 18/2 (1993): 524–51. See also: Normal Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536 (Oxford, 2002).



War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

spearheaded by Natalie Zemon Davis’s seminal essay on the French Wars of Religion.10 Drawing inspiration from sociology and cultural studies, the so-called New Cultural Historians argued that the key to re-establishing religion as a factor lay in redefining religion. Taking their cue from Emile Durkheim, they interpreted religion as a sociocultural phenomenon rather than a set of dogmatic beliefs. Religion, in this interpretative framework, formed ‘communities of believers’, and religious conflict therefore constituted a clash between communities rather than a fight over specified beliefs.11 In this way, the French civil wars could be reinterpreted as religious conflicts. This cultural approach was less successful in Dutch historiography. According to Judith Pollmann, for instance, the French New Cultural model cannot easily be applied to the Dutch Revolt.12 In Britain and Germany the ‘cultural turn’ has also been influential.13 One of the issues historians have had to deal with is the conceptual fragmentation of the wars of religion. Dutch revisionism, for instance, has largely concentrated on differentiation, in deconstructing ‘the’ Dutch Revolt as a monolithic and monocausal event.14 Revisionist historians have also rejected the meta-narratives of Marxism and Whiggism and focused on short-term causes of the English Civil War.15 The same can be said for the Thirty Years War. In the view of some historians the war should rather be seen as a conglomerate of conflicts and interests, some of which were religious in nature, others not. This makes the question as to the religious nature of ‘the’ Thirty Years War irrelevant. Ronald Asch, however, believes that the Thirty Years War was indeed a coherent set of conflicts, in which ‘Confessional tensions were a decisive factor linking internal and domestic disputes’.16 Of course, the French wars of religion were a disconnected series of

10  ����������������������������������� Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence: ���������� ������������������������������������ Religious Riot in Sixteenth-century France’, Past and Present, 59 (1973): 51–91. 11  �������������������c��������������������������c���������������������������������� This historiographical development is well discussed in Holt, ‘Putting religion’. 12  ����������������������������������������������������c����������������������� Judith Pollmann, ‘Countering the Reformation in France and the Netherlands. Clerical leadership and Catholic violence, 1560–1585’, Past and Present, 190 (2006): 83–120. 13  ����������������������������������������������� E.g. David J.B. Trim and Peter J. Balderstone, Cross, Crown & Community. Religion, Government and Culture in Modern England 1400–1800 (Bern, 2004); ���� Von Greyerz, Siebenhüner��������������� �������������������������� et al. (eds), Religion und Gewalt. 14  ��������������������������������������������c������������ Cf. Henk van Nierop’s remarks in the introduction of his Het verraad van het Noorderkwartier. Oorlog, terreur en recht in de Nederlandse Opstand (Amsterdam, 1999). 15  ��������������������������� E.g. Conrad Russell (ed.), The Origins of the English Civil War (London and Basingstoke, 1973). 16  ������������c����������������������������c�������������������������������������� Ronald G. Asch, ‘Religion, Law and Politics in the Holy Roman Empire’, in idem, The Thirty Years War. The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–1648 (London, 1997), p. 6.

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War



conflicts anyway, but Mack P. Holt emphasised the religious nature of these wars which in his view lasted from 1562 until 1629, which suggests unity.17 As a result of these tendencies to deconstruct and reconstruct the wars historians have made an effort to be more precise about locating the religious factor. Who were religiously motivated to go to war, and what was their precise role in the events? This is well illustrated in a fine piece by Guido Marnef, in which he has drawn attention to the kaleidoscopic complexity of religion as a factor during the Dutch Revolt, in particular emphasising the wide local and regional variety and change over time.18 Henk van Nierop concluded that although ‘the’ Dutch Revolt was about religion and liberty, it should be established how, for whom, and what we precisely mean by these terms.19 John Morrill analysed the political situation at the eve of the English Civil War in order to establish precisely if and how religious militants were a decisive factor in its outbreak. He concludes that the English Civil War was the ‘last war of religion’ rather than a constitutional conflict.20 Robert Bireley studied Jesuit confessors at the Catholic courts and how they influenced the course of events and interpreted the Thirty Years War as a clash between the Emperor and the powers of heresy.21 An important development has been the increase of comparative and transnational studies of religious conflicts, which in themselves are testimony to the usefulness of ‘war of religion’ as a concept in historiography. The quartocentenary commemoration of the Edict of Nantes, for instance, coincided with a seminal comparative volume of essays on aspects of the Dutch Revolt and French wars of religion.22 The concept of a ‘Calvinist International’ has done much to support a transnational perspective, as has increasing attention to confessional mercenaries in the international wars of religion.23 A major development has been a growing awareness of the importance of religious and political discourse. Patrick Collinson suggested a ‘convergence of religious rhetoric and martial enthusiasm in post-reformation England, another

 ��c����������� Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 (New York, 1995).  �������������������c�������������������������������c��� Marnef, ‘The Dynamics of Reformed Religious Militancy’. 19   Henk van Nierop, ‘De troon van Alva. Over de interpretatie van de Nederlandse Opstand’, BMGN, 110 (1995): 205–23. 20  ����������������������������� John Morrill, ‘The religious context c������������������������������������������� of the English Civil War’, in idem, The Nature of the English Revolution (Harlow, 1993), p. 68. Cf. Anthony Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War (London, 1981), pp. 417–18. 21  ���������������� Robert Bireley, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War. Kings, Courts and Confessors (Cambridge, 2003). 22  ������c��� Benedict, Reformation, Revolt and Civil War. 23  �������������������“�����������c���������”�������������������������������������� E.g. D.J.B. Trim, ‘“Fighting Jacob’s Wars”. The Employment of English and Welsh Mercenaries in the European Wars of Religion: France and the Netherlands, 1562–1610’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2003); Menna Prestwich, International Calvinism 1541–1715 (Oxford, 1985). 17

18



War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

age of militant Christianity and of Christian militancy’.24 Martin Schafner spoke of the ‘discursive connection between religion and violence or war’.25 According to Philip Benedict, The shifting balance of political languages that increasingly valorized the power and interests of the state rather than the purity of God’s ordinances … led to a progressive diminution of the frequency of religious violence both within and between states over the course of the seventeenth century, even as confessional attachment increased in force and the language and rituals of Christian kingship remained highly potent.26

Tony Claydon, Pasi Ihalainen and Donald Haks have more strongly emphasised the persistence of Protestant rhetoric in the legitimisation of war in England, the United Provinces and Sweden until well into the eighteenth century.27 Historians have also focused on popular usage of language; Andrew Pettegree, for instance, studied militant songs of Protestants during the Reformation era.28 In Germany relatively much attention has been paid to the role of law and legal language, as an instrument to transcend the religious dichotomy in the Holy Roman Empire.29 If no consensus has emerged from all this about the religious nature of these conflicts, what does seem obvious is that, without returning to a classic interpretation of these wars as essentially religious in nature, religion is being reintegrated into the narratives of these conflicts. The relationship between war and religion was much more subtle and complex than historians have believed in the past, and new avenues and new approaches can both enrich and enhance our understanding of religious conflict. It seems possible, therefore, to rethink the 24  �����c������������� Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England. Religious and Cultural Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Basingstoke and London, 1988), p. 129. 25  ��������c���������������������������������������������c���������������������� Martin Schafner, ‘Religion und Gewalt. ���������������c���������������������� Historiographische Verknüpfungen’, in Greyerz, Siebenhüner et al. (eds), Religion und Gewalt, p. 31. Transl. from German. 26  ������c�����������������������c����������������� Benedict, ‘Religion and Politics in Europe, 1500–1700’, p. 172. 27  ��������� Claydon, Revolution; idem, Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge, 2007); idem, ‘Protestantism, Universal Monarchy and Christendom in William’s War Propaganda, 1689–1697’, in Esther Mijers and David Onnekink (eds), Redefining William III: Politics and Culture in International context (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 129–47; Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined. Changing perceptions of national identity in the rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish public churches, 1685–1722 (Leiden and Boston, 2005); Donald Haks, ‘Propaganda from the pulpit?’, in Jan A.F. de Jongste and Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr. (eds), Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic 1688–1720. Politics, War, and Finance (The Hague, 2002), pp. 89–115. 28  ������������������ Andrew Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 40–75. Cf. Von Greyerz and Siebenhüner, ‘Introduction’, in Greyerz, Siebenhüner et al. (eds), Religion und Gewalt, pp. 14–15. 29  �������c��� E.g. Asch, The Thirty Years War, pp. 9–26.

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War



nature of post-1648 conflict. Historians are now already beginning to do so. The Huguenots and the Williamite wars remain an interesting case and have received ample attention in recent years, most notably from Matthew Glozier.30 There has also been renewed attention to later Stuart England. Steven Pincus, for instance, argued that Cromwell’s war (1652–54) and, more surprisingly, Charles II’s war (1665–67) against the United Provinces were partly motivated or legitimised by religion rather than mercantile interests.31 Tony Claydon and Andrew Thompson even tracked religion as a factor in English foreign policy into the eighteenth century.32

II Did religion cease to play a role in international relations after 1648? Once this realist axiom is rejected, it is easy to see that it did not. In fact, post-Westphalian Europe was flooded with conflicts at least partly driven by religious considerations. Large-scale Protestant rebellion broke out in the Cévennes (1702–10) and Hungary (1703–11).33 Switzerland was plagued by religious conflict again during the Villmergen wars in 1656 and 1712. Less well-known is the Russian-Orthodox Khmelnytsky Uprising in Catholic Poland-Lithuania (1648–54). These conflicts may have been peripheral, but they had a propensity to merge with international wars. These conflicts should be considered against the background of upsurges in domestic religious tension and intolerance, most notably in France, where they culminated in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. By 1713 the French Calvinist church was all but destroyed. From the 1690s the Savoyard Waldensians were persecuted as well. In Poland-Lithuania the Calvinist church had been vibrant until it was curtailed by the Tarnogród Confederation (1715–16). The increased persecution under hostile Catholic monarchies led to Protestant responses to aid co-religionists abroad, for instance, through the establishment of international 30  ����������������� Matthew Glozier, The Huguenot soldiers of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688: the lions of Judah (Brighton, 2002). Idem, Marshal Schomberg, 1615–1690: ‘the ablest soldier of his age’: international soldiering and the formation of state armies in seventeenth-century Europe (Brighton, 2005). Idem and David Onnekink (eds), War, religion and service: Huguenot soldiering, 1685–1713 (Aldershot, 2007). 31  ���������������c���� Steven C.A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism. Ideology and the making of English foreign policy 1650–1668 (Cambridge 1996). 32  ��������� Claydon, Europe and the Making of England; Andrew C. Thompson, Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756 (Woodbridge, 2006). 33  �������������� P.L. van Enk, De opstand kwam uit de bergen. ������������������������������ Een episode uit de strijd der Hugenoten. De oorlog in De Cevennen (1702–1710) (Soesterberg, 2002); G. Murdock, Calvinism on the Frontier, 1600–1660: International Calvinism and the Reformed Church in Hungary and Transylvania (Oxford, 2000).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713



organisations. As Sugiko Nishikawa has shown, for instance, the activities of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (1698) point to the increasing need felt by English Protestants to support their co-religionists in Central and Eastern Europe.34 Even if no international wars of religion broke out after Westphalia, this did not mean that the international system was entirely secularised as historians have often supposed. Undoubtedly the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Glorious Revolution and the subsequent Irish Campaign cannot be well understood without acknowledging the rise of religious polarisation all over Europe.35 Nor indeed can the Nine Years War (1688–97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13). These two conflicts cannot even be regarded as the last upsurges of religious contention: some historians have it that the Seven Years War (1756–63), pitting Protestant England and Prussia against Catholic powers, had a clearly religious dimension.36 As Defoe’s pamphlet suggests, the expectation of a war of religion could still generate a debate which would gather impetus, rather than fade out, towards the end of the seventeenth century. The ‘dark alliance’ between religion and war therefore was still prevalent around the turn of the eighteenth century. In the wake of the ascendancy of France as a ‘universal monarchy’, English and Dutch pamphleteers redefined national interests in religious terms. A French invasion necessarily entailed ‘universal religion’ and the consequent demise of the Protestant churches. To many, ‘confessional Armageddon’ seemed only one step away.37 The fact that such fears can in retrospect be said to be exaggerated is to miss the obvious point that the threat was perceived by many as real. Empirical evidence about these conflicts defies the implications of the traditional Westphalian model. If the decades after 1648 did witness a temporary pause in confessional conflict, from the 1680s on religious strife was unequivocally on the rise throughout Europe, which renders the significance of Westphalia as a watershed unconvincing. The apparent upsurge of religious contention as from about the 1680s puts further in doubt the assumptions inspired by the ‘modernity thesis’ that religion as a factor was in inevitable decline after 1648. In his introduction to the recent and timely Encyclopedia of Religion and War, Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez observed that: … in the 1960s and 1970s scholars of religion, politics, theologians and social scientists had predicted that the importance of religion in public life would 34

 ������������������������������������c������������������������������������ Sugiko Nishikawa, ‘The SPCK in Defence of Protestant Minorities in Early Eighteenth-Century Europe’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 56/4 (2005): 730–48. 35  �������������� E.g. Glozier, The Huguenot Soldiers of William of Orange. 36  ���������c�������� Manfred Schlenke, England und das friderizianische Preussen 1740–1763 (Freiburg and Munich, 1963). 37  ������������������������ Term used by W.R. Ward, Christianity under the Ancien Régime, 1648–1789 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 8.

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War



gradually decrease as societies modernized, until ultimately religion became a private matter without power in the public domain.

Instead, Palmer argued that ‘the close relationship between religion and war (as well as other forms of political violence) is neither unique to [a] period of history nor limited to any particular religion or geographical region’.38 Even if such an interpretation may be essentially ahistorical,39 it does open up vistas for rethinking the upsurge of religious violence towards the end of the seventeenth century. This development ties in nicely with the findings of historians such as Benjamin Kaplan, who established that there was no such thing as the ‘rise’ of toleration in the later seventeenth century, and that ‘tolerance and intolerance often went together’.40 Part of the problem in identifying the religious content of conflict may be that the literature does not provide a clear-cut definition of what constitutes a ‘religious war’. The term is often used in a rather casual way and employed interchangeably with terms like ‘confessional war’ or ‘holy war’. It invokes images of mindless, irrational religious fanaticism and is quickly dismissed the moment evidence of more calculated motivation is discovered in the primary sources, or when apparent religious interests seem to be ‘polluted’ by more worldly considerations, such as the expansion of power, military glory or economic gain. One of the problems of defining a ‘war of religion’ is establishing the nature of religion, an ‘extremely complex and nebulous thing’, and subsequently analyse its relationship to violence.41 This is not the place to do so, but several suggestions can be made about the definition of ‘war of religion’. Perhaps the most common can be defined by referring to the ‘Bainton thesis’. In his standard work Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace, Roland Bainton implicitly suggested that religious wars were by nature irrational, total and fanatical. The crusades initiated a new phase in religious fanaticism in Christendom (indeed, Bainton spoke of the ‘crusading idea’ rather than religious war) which reached a peak in the Reformation Wars and English Civil war. It faded away in the wake of modernity, when wars became more rational and controlled. Needless to say this thesis is immersed in the ‘modernity thesis’ and implies a sharp contrast between religion and modernity, but

38  �������������������������������� Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez (ed.), Encyclopedia of religion and war (New York, 2004), pp. xi, xii. This is not necessarily the conclusion of the author himself, however, who still considers Westphalia a turning point, as nation-states were now the primary agents of war. 39  ��������������������������������������� I owe this observation to Maarten Prak. 40  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Benjamin J. Kaplan, ‘Coexistence, conflict, and the practice of toleration’, in R. Po-chia Hsia (ed.), The Blackwell companion to the history of the Reformation world (Oxford etc., 2003), p. 502. 41  ������c�����������������������c�������������������������������� Benedict, ‘Religion and Politics in Europe, 1500–1700’, p. 160.

10

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

it remains influential.42 Theorists such as John Kelsay and James Turner Johnson have suggested more subtle definitions of religious war. Kelsay openly rejects the Bainton thesis, especially with regard to its claims that religious conflicts are total by nature. In his The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions, Johnson argues that (what he called) holy war is rather a variety within the ‘just war’ tradition, and should be accordingly studied as a calculated and rational conflict for religious purposes.43 Konrad Repgen looks at this matter from a different angle. According to him, it is difficult to establish religious ‘motivation’ of a conflict, and the historian should rather focus on legitimisation in the form of war proclamations.44 Not everyone agrees. Patrick Collinson suggested that religion can play a threefold role in connection to violence: it can precipitate violence, it can legitimate violence and it can unite otherwise divided ‘elements’.45 Kaspar von Greyerz and Kim Siebenhüner added two categories by suggesting that religious ritual and meaning [Deutung] should also be studied in relationship to war.46 This opens up another theme, one in which rhetoric and image are concerned with religious conflict. In the realist view, religion and ideology were regarded as quarries for rhetoric providing pretexts rather than sources of inspiration or even causes for conflict. In this view contemporaries, raised and living in a world in which the mental atmosphere was saturated with religion, used religious language to express themselves. However, this is to fundamentally misunderstand the function of language as now argued by scholars moulded in the ideas of the ‘Cambridge School’. John Pocock and Quentin Skinner have underlined the significance of political language and rhetorical strategies for the actual practice of politics.47 Rather than focus on whether religious legitimisation of war is ‘true’ or ‘untrue’, we should focus on discursive strategies in which such legitimisation is employed, its intended effect and the way in which it could lead to a reformulation 42  ������������������� Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace. A historical survey and critical re-evaluation (Nashville, 1978). 43  ������������������ James T. Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (Pennsylvania, 2003); John Kelsay, Islam and War. A Study in Comparative Ethics (Louisville, 1993), pp. 43–55. 44  �������������������������� Konrad Repgen, ‘What is a “Religious “�������������”���������������������������c����������� War”?’, in E.I. Kouri and Tom Scott (eds), Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (London, 1987), pp. 311–28. 45  ����������� Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England, p. 134. 46  �������������������������������������c��������������������������������������������� Von Greyerz and Siebenhüner, ‘Introduction’, in Greyerz, Siebenhüner et al. ������� (eds), Religion und Gewalt. 47  ��������������c����������������������������c�������������c��c��������������������� See for instance Quentin Skinner, ‘The principles and practice of opposition: the case of Bolingbroke versus Walpole’, in N. McKendrick (ed.), Historical perspectives: studies in English thought and society in honour of J.H. Plumb (London, 1974), pp. 93–128. I owe this reference to Julian Hoppit. John Pocock argued that ‘politics itself [is] a language-system and language itself [is] a political system’, in ‘Verbalizing a Political Act. Towards a Politics of Speech’, Political Theory, 1 (1973): 28.

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War

11

of policy. Such an approach is well demonstrated, for instance, in Tony Claydon’s book on Williamite propaganda.48 He argued that for many pamphleteers English foreign policy came to be seen within a religious context, as the English nation sought to redefine its own identity as Protestant in the face of the Catholic threat from France. Nor should we forget the importance of the representation and iconography of religious violence. Visual and textual propaganda can be grouped in a common interpretative framework through what one historian has described as the ‘rhetoric of the image’.49 Images of the persecutions of French Huguenots, for instance, evoked past memories of the cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition, part and parcel of the Black Legend. Both textual and visual sources could foster the perception of the ‘otherness’ of the confessional antagonist. Such sources form an integrated politico-religious polemic, which did not merely reflect political and social realities, but also reshaped them and therefore incited renewed religious conflict. Historical self-perception was formulated (and reformulated) and led to a construction of national identities, rooted in a (perceived) national past, frequently formed around (perceived) religious values. The development of national identities occurred in tandem with the ‘construction’ of the enemy. During the later Middle Ages Poland-Lithuania and Hungary had identified themselves as an ‘antemurale christianitas’, a bulwark of Christendom against paganism, Eastern orthodoxy and Islam.50 This may account for the continuously militant religious rhetoric during the confessional period, in which Calvinists in both Hungary and PolandLithuania were seen as a threat to Catholicism. This led to conflict as late as the early eighteenth century in both states. Such religiously charged militancy had also been current in Spain ever since the conclusion of the Reconquista. The long struggle against the Ottomans by the Austrian and Spanish branches of the House of Habsburg may have also strengthened Catholic self-awareness.

 ��������� Claydon, Revolution.  �cc���������������c�����������������������c����������������� According to Bob Scribner, this is ‘a structured system for c���������������������� conveying the intended meaning of visual propaganda’. Robert W. Scribner, For the sake of simple folk: popular propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge, 1981), p. 244. According to Peter Burke, a ‘visual turn’ took place in the seventeenth century during which imagery came to be regarded as an authoritative source. Peter Burke, ‘Images as evidence in seventeenthcentury Europe’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 64/2 (2003), pp. 273–96. I owe this reference to Michiel van Groesen. 50  ���������������������������� Jakub Basista, ‘The Idea of Antemurale Christianitas in Polish political thought in the second half of the seventeenth century’, paper delivered at the conference Foreign Policy, Religious Conflict and Public Discourse in post-Westphalian Europe (1648–1713) held in Apeldoorn 7/8 January 2005; Nora Berend, At the gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and ‘pagans’ in medieval Hungary, c. 1000–c. 1300 (Cambridge, 2001). 48

49

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

12

Narratives of past religious conflict cause memory to play a significant role in the perception of situations.51 The memory of the Spanish Inquisition, if only through the development of the Black Legend, was still strong. In England, this was conceptualised within the framework of popery. From within, Jesuits attempted to undermine the Protestant nation, as they had done during the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and the Popish Plot in 1681. From the outside, the Catholic forces, such as the Armada, were gathering to destroy the English state. This paradigm is illustrated, for instance, by a beautiful embroidered cushion now preserved in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, showing the benign eye of Providence watching over the defeat of the Armada and the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot.52 William III crossed the Channel in 1688 thanks to the Protestant Wind, which had also demonstrated its providential quality in 1588. He landed in England on the anniversary of Gunpowder Day.53 The paradigm thus reinforced itself, amplified, and events which had taken place decades or even centuries ago could still be construed as having an impact on current events, or as Michael Ignatieff has argued: unresolved conflicts from the past were locked in the ‘eternal present’.54 Conflict in the later seventeenth century was then interpreted within this paradigm. The English and the Dutch relived their struggle against Catholic Spain in the wars against Catholic France.55

III The purpose of this volume is to problematise the current consensus and reconceptualise the relationship between war, foreign policy and religion after 1648. It is not the contention of this volume that a war of religion could or did occur after 1648. Rather the theme is war and religion, which leaves the contributors to redefine this relationship. Some chapters clearly challenge the idea that religion ceased to play a role in war and foreign policy. Others may confirm the view that religion could not play a dominant role after 1648, but will seek to re-evaluate its significance and thereby redefine religious influences on policy after 1648. In 51

 ������������������� For an interesting case c����������������������������������������������c������� of re-using the memory of religious violence, see A. Knobler, ‘Holy Wars, Empires, and the Portability of the Past: The Modern Uses of Medieval Crusades’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 48/2 (2006): 293–325. 52  �������c����������������������������������������������������� Reproduced as Image IDWGL 1028 by the Bridgeman Art Library, http://www. bridgeman.co.uk. 53  ���������������������������������������c������������������������������������ J.I. Israel and G. Parker, ‘Of Providence and Protestant Winds: The Spanish Armada of 1588 and the Dutch Armada of 1688’, in J.I. Israel (ed.), The Anglo-Dutch Moment. Essays on the Glorious Revolution and its World Impact (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 335–63. 54  ��c���������������� Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honour (London, 1999), p. 186. 55  ������������c������ E.g. Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches. An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London, 1991), chs 2 and 4, passim.

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War

13

line with the above, equal attention will be paid to actual warfare and politics, and discourse and rhetoric; implicitly, this volume contends that these cannot be understood separately but are intermingled in whatever complex way. A theme of this magnitude cannot be comprehensively covered in a single volume, and this publication should be regarded as an attempt to rekindle the debate and broach some relevant issues. Nevertheless, focus and coherence is provided by (1) a clear central theme and argument which authors may adhere to, challenge, or problematise; (2) a limited period (1648–1713); (3) a geographical focus on Western Europe: France, Spain, Britain and the United Provinces. Attention will be paid to both Catholic and Protestant states, and to popular views and discourse as well as the actual conduct of war. The cultural, political, military and religious historians who have contributed chapters to this volume were asked to engage directly with the central aim of gauging the importance of religious influences on and perceptions of foreign policy and war after the conclusion of Peace of Westphalia (1648). The first four chapters deal with the formulation of national foreign policies in four countries: France, Spain, Britain and the United Provinces. Paul Sonnino analyses the foreign policy of Louis XIV during and after the Dutch War of 1672. Louis combined his religious convictions with more mundane and rationalistic considerations. Since religion itself was also part of reason of state, however, politics and religion cannot successfully be separated. Sonnino seeks to understand the complexities of their relationship in his case study. An analysis of Louis’s policy needs to adopt an integrated approach to his attitude towards Jansenists, his relationship with the Papacy and his war in the Netherlands. The nature of Spanish foreign policy is studied by Christopher Storrs, who shows that it was still influenced by religious factors after 1648, both in its formulation (theological advisory boards) and inspiration (the sustained influence of messianic and providential views). At the same time, other than the protection of Catholic minorities abroad, the new realities in Europe precluded overt religious conflict, since Catholic France was the most obvious antagonist. Remnants of Catholic influences are most likely to be found in Spanish foreign policy vis-à-vis the African Muslim states and the New World. The Protestant content of British foreign policy during and after the Restoration Period is the subject of Andrew Thompson’s chapter. He argues that the rise of Balance of Power thinking by no means implied a secularisation of international relations because ‘Within British foreign policy discourse the balance of power was one of the main bulwarks through which the Protestant interest in Europe could be supported’. Following the complexities of British foreign policy during the Restoration, the dramatic shift of 1688 and the period leading up to the Georgian era, Thompson finds that the balance of power remained at least partially determined by concerns for the fate of Protestantism in Europe. The chapters by David Onnekink focuses on the Dutch Republic. Whereas historians have often argued that its foreign policy was essentially determined by economic and pragmatic considerations, he argues that it was imbued with

14

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

religious considerations in the period leading up to the Nine Years War. Analysing the views of policymakers and diplomats in 1688, this chapter shows how the perceived international Catholic threat from England, France and even the Empire was constructed in such a way that the Dutch connected it to the dramatic events of 1672, and that a war of religion was generally feared and prepared for. Moving from the formulation of foreign policy to the practice of diplomacy, Stephane Jettot discusses the intricacies of the activities of three British diplomats at Catholic courts. Their difficulties primarily arose from the fact that they were representing a monarch whose feelings toward Catholicism were suspect, but also from the fact that the diplomats themselves had different religious persuasions that could either benefit or complicate their activities. Jettot analyses the strategies the diplomats employed in these circumstances, finding that they were constantly aware and wary of the ‘explosive combination between religion and foreign policy’. A third cluster of chapters focuses on actual warfare. K.A.J. McLay discusses the perception of the role of Providence in battle. Although Providence was often invoked and thanked for His intervention in armed struggle into the eighteenth century, McLay tracks a decline in the significance of such views. According to him, the growing professionalisation of soldiers led to an increasing reliance on human capacity and organisational skills. Victories and defeats were more often attributed to preparation and skill, rather than the favour of Providence. One would expect Huguenot émigré soldiers and the ‘Protestant International’ to be least influenced by such a secularisation of warfare. Matthew Glozier, studying the motivation and actions of French Protestant soldiers engaged in invasions of France, finds that such generalisations cannot easily be made. In three case studies Glozier distinguishes the varieties of the religious attitudes of Huguenot soldiers. Whereas some soldiers were driven by spiritual zeal, others were simply doing their duty as professionals in mercenary armies. A fourth cluster of chapters deals with legitimisation, popular perceptions and public discourse on religion and war. Donald Haks is concerned with the religious official legitimisation of war in the United Provinces. He examines religious rhetoric on three different levels: the personal convictions of policymakers, confidential policy documents and state-sponsored expressions of support for the war. Rather than dismissing religious language as irrelevant, Haks concludes that ‘Protestant religion played a crucial role in the defence of the Republic during the years 1672 to 1713 by creating a self-image of national unity, expressed in the concept of the fatherland’. Stephen Taylor draws attention to English religious attitudes around the time of the Glorious Revolution. Using the exhaustive Entring Book of the dissenting minister Roger Morrice, an unusually well-informed observer, he discusses Morrice’s sources of information and his selection principles in order to reconstruct Protestant views on contemporary politics and European events. Although Morrice was among the last of a generation of Restoration Puritans,

The ‘Dark Alliance’ between Religion and War

15

Taylor argues that he also bridged a tradition of Protestant views that lasted until well into the Hanoverian period. Jill Stern examines the polemic surrounding foreign policy in political pamphlets in the period between the Treaty of Münster and the disaster year of 1672. While some commentators welcomed the Peace of 1648, others saw the end of hostilities as deleterious to the interest of the True Reformed Religion and a threat to the unity established by the Union of Utrecht. Stern demonstrates that even as the Republic was embroiled in costly wars with England and the threat from the France of Louis XIV increased, a strand of political polemic continued to deplore the Treaty of Münster and its effect upon the well-being of the public church. She argues that this persistent theme was representative not of a realistic appraisal of contemporary international realities but rather reflected a sustained attack on the internal policy of John de Witt and his supporters. Emma Bergin, lastly, also focuses on the United Provinces in a later period: the years before and after the Dutch intervention in English affairs in 1688. She argues that, rather than dismissing them as mere propaganda, William’s declaration of 1688 and pamphlets expounding religious views on foreign policy should be taken seriously as an indicator of Dutch public opinion. Bergin’s chapter shows ‘the Dutch public’s continuing preoccupation with religious matters, but also the sustained use of religious rhetoric, language and imagery of earlier periods’. This volume aspires to serve as a stepping-stone for rethinking and redefining the role of religion in war and foreign policy after 1648. If the chapters that follow do succeed in generating a debate on these issues, then this volume has served its purpose.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 1

Plus royaliste que le pape: Louis XIV’s Religious Policy and his Guerre de Hollande Paul Sonnino

Louis XIV was a man of mediocre talents, limited imagination and unbridled vanity, who developed his ideas under the tutelage of Cardinal Mazarin, a minister who pushed his luck in the Thirty Years War by trying to acquire the Spanish Low Countries and ended up facing the domestic insurrection of the Fronde. Louis XIV’s ideas may not have been especially profound, but they were profound enough for him to have worked out for himself the relationship between his reason and his faith, between his responsibilities as a king and his responsibilities as a Christian, and it was a solution, I would suspect, that was extremely characteristic of his time. If we want to discover how he combined his thought and his actions, as well as the shifts and vacillations in both, we can do no better than to begin with his Mémoires for the Instruction of the Dauphin, which he composed during the best years of his life, between 1666 and 1670.

I Louis XIV presents us in his Mémoires with an extremely rationalistic theory of human nature and of the state. ‘There is hardly anyone’, he maintains, ‘without some natural and secret inclination toward his personal advantage.’ Kings were no exception, except that in the case of a king, ‘he alone has no fortune to establish but that of the state, no acquisition to make except for the monarchy, no friends to enrich save his people’. A king, therefore, was the only member of society in the enviable, almost superhuman position of being able to transubstantiate the selfishness of individuals into the public good. By this logic, of course, any democratic form of government was synonymous with anarchy, any republic or limited monarchy was corruptible, and even an absolute monarchy, if the king was weak enough to place himself in the hands of a prime minister, left something to be desired. By this convenient logic, moreover, there was no monarchy in Europe   ���������������������������������������������������� Please see my ‘Dating and Authorship of Louis XIV’s Mémoires’. FHS, 3/2 (Spring, 1964): 303–37.

18

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

more perfect than the French. It was by its constitution, and especially in the hands of a king as competent as he believed himself to be, in a perfect position to exploit the weaknesses of every other European state. Louis XIV, in his Mémoires, also shows himself to be something of a rationalist in his approach to religion. To him, as to most of the thinkers of his time, religion was an integral part of the state, and given the inclination of individuals to seek their own personal advantage, religion had the indispensable merit of controlling them, instructing them and playing on their fears of damnation. To Louis, moreover, the Catholic religion had additional practical merits which considerably outweighed the ambitions of occasional obstreperous popes. It provided a hierarchical episcopal structure, allied to the administration of the state, in sharp contrast to the decentralised and crypto-democratic organisation of Protestantism. Louis XIV’s rationalism however, did not extend to the mysteries of religion These were beyond human reason. That is why Jesus had set up His Church and its hierarchy, and that is why His Church and its hierarchy had agreed on certain dogmas. Defending these dogmas was the duty of any good Catholic theologian, but quibbling about them was a dangerous waste of time. Those who did so simply fell prey to their own passions and private interests. Louis agreed wholeheartedly with those who maintained that the debates of theologians were self-seeking efforts at grabbing power. How to prevent such debates? By maintaining order. From the very first drafts of his Mémoires in describing the first years of his personal reign, he began touting his efforts to restrain the Huguenots and to suppress the newest trouble makers, the Jansenists. These very first drafts contain extensive ‘Reflections on the danger of tolerating innovations in matters of religion’. Everything, therefore, except for the dogmas of religion, functioned by rational rules. ‘As much’, he instructed his son, as you must acknowledge your submission to a Supreme Power capable of upsetting your best laid plans whenever It pleases, rest assured that having Itself established the natural order of things, It will not easily or constantly violate it, and when It wants to make a king fortunate, powerful, supported, and respected, Its most natural course is to make him wise, clear sighted, fair, vigilant, and industrious.

All very arrogant and conventional perhaps, but if we accept the fact that this is how Louis XIV’s mind worked, we are led to a conclusion about the relationship between his political and his religious ideas that may not be entirely obvious at first   ����������������������������������������������������� Please see my edition and translation of Louis XIV’s Mémoires for the Instruction of the Dauphin (New York and London, 1970), and for the passages cited, Mémoires for 1666, p. 162 and Mémoires for 1661, p. 64.   ���� Ibid.   �������������������������� BN, MS Fr. 6732, fol. 108.    Mémoires for 1662, p. 61.

Louis XIV’s Religious Policy and his Guerre de Hollande

19

sight, namely that there is in his political ideas, not to speak of in his Christianity, something distinctly lacking, and what is lacking is the remotest sense of charity. In a world of competing greed, directed by authoritarian carrots and sticks, and sugarcoated with dogmatic formulas, what is the status of loving your neighbour, of turning the other cheek or of refraining from casting the first stone? With the exception of himself, whom God had made ‘wise, clear-sighted, fair, vigilant, and industrious’, the world was an ugly place, inhabited by fools and weaklings, ripe for manipulation, and throughout his entire life, the Sun King could never entirely rid himself of this notion.

II It is well known that Louis XIV spent the first few years of his personal reign, under the guidance of Colbert, in getting the government out of debt, controlling the parlements, and stimulating trade, with only occasional sabre rattling, such as his colourful confrontation with Pope Alexander VII. If Louis XIV had continued along the same path, then I would suspect that all of his religious ideas would have produced little smoke and even less heat. But Louis XIV was not satisfied with going down in history as domestic reformer. His one, great, and overriding, ambition, just as it had been for Mazarin, was to annex the Spanish Low Countries. Their acquisition would protect the northern frontiers, break the Habsburg encirclement, keep England at bay and cower the Dutch Republic. One could imagine with French garrisons in Ghent, Ostend, and Antwerp, how long the Scheldt would remain closed, or how long it would take before the Catholics in the Dutch Republic were permitted to open their churches in Amsterdam and The Hague. It is also well known how, upon the death of his father-in-law, Philip IV of Spain, Louis took the opportunity to pursue his wife’s claims under the obscure Law of Devolution, practised in much of the Spanish Low Countries, how he invaded the Low Countries in 1667 and seemed on the verge of overrunning them when the hasty formation of a Triple Alliance by the Dutch, the English and the Swedes threatened his progress, and how in the face of this threat, he settled for some minor gains at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. I myself have attempted to make it well known that after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louis XIV did not abandon his quest for the Spanish Low Countries and that this quest was still the principal motive for his infamous guerre de Hollande. What I would like to do here, however, is to illustrate the close connection between the guerre de Hollande and his religious policies, and I would like to begin by considering his policies toward the Jansenists and the significance of the conversion of Marshal Turenne.

  �������������� Please see my Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge and New York, 1988).

20

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

The Jansenists, of course, were the followers of Cornelius Jansen, a combination of dogmatic predestinarians and moral rigorists, who had taken root in the convent of Port Royal and in the ranks of the Arnauld family. Pursued by the Jesuits, the government and the Holy See, they had stoutly refused to subscribe to the formulary that the authorities had tried to impose upon them, and they had found some support among four puritanical bishops. Louis, it will be remembered, had begun by wanting to suppress the Jansenists before they got out of hand. He had tried to do so but Alexander VII, whom Louis had bullied and humiliated, was not very cooperative, and the Jansenists were proving very difficult to pin down. The next pope, Clement IX, who was contemporary with the War of Devolution, was much more docile. Still, when it came to the nitty gritty of putting four recalcitrant bishops on trial, a large portion of the French episcopate began to murmur, and Louis was faced with an embarrassing confrontation with his clergy. Not that he could not have handled it, but as we have seen, he had the Spanish Low Countries in his mind, and a sanctimonious clergy distracting the country with humble manifestos was the last thing he needed. An opportunity for compromise appeared by which the bishops appeared to make their submission to the Holy See. Clement IX was willing to declare himself satisfied, and so did Louis XIV. As to Marshal Turenne, he was a man of intense ambition, a great general and one of France’s foremost Huguenots. He had advised Louis to call the bluff of the Triple Alliance in 1668 and was one of the principal advocates of a war of revenge against the Dutch by making an alliance with the King of England. He had admission to the council but was held back by his religion and the jealousy of the ministers. On 20 October 1668 he appeared unexpectedly before Louis and announced that he wanted to become a Catholic. Louis was delighted. If we want to assess the impact of these developments on Louis XIV’s thinking, we need to look no further than to the remarkable analysis of Martin Luther and the Reformation that appears in a later draft of his Mémoires, which he composed around 1669: As far as I have been able to understand the ignorance of the clergy in previous centuries, their debaucheries, the bad examples that they set, gave rise, more than anything else to schism and heresy. It all began with some minor differences that the Protestants of Germany and the Huguenots of France hardly consider any more today. These produced greater ones because too much pressure was put upon a violent and bold man, who seeing no other honorable retreat for himself, pushed ahead into the fray, promised the world an easy path to salvation, a means very suitable for flattering human reasoning and drawing the populace. Love of novelty seduced many of them. The interests of various princes mingled in this quarrel.

If we only but think about it, this passage, which so beautifully encapsulates Louis XIV’s notion of the relationship between human nature and religious dogma, applies not only to the Protestants, but also to the Jansenists, and it represents a

Louis XIV’s Religious Policy and his Guerre de Hollande

21

retreat from his original idea that the Jansenists could not be tolerated. It is his excuse for approving the Peace of the Church, and the proof of the pudding was the conversion of Turenne, who, living in a monarchy with respectable clergy and motivated by his own ambitions eventually recognised the path to favour and took it. By this emendation in his thinking, therefore, Louis could conveniently place all of his religious dissenters on the back burner while he pursued his more immediate objectives, confident in the expectation that in time, under his deft manipulations, heresy and disunion would disappear. His most immediate objective, as I keep insisting, was the acquisition of the Spanish Low Countries, but the Triple Alliance still stood in his way, and Louis’s only option was to follow Turenne’s advice and seek to enlist Charles II of England in a war against the Dutch. Charles, who not only wanted to declare his own Catholicity, but also had considerable grievances against the republic, was amenable, at a price. It was in Louis XIV’s council, however, that opinions were mixed. Colbert did not want a war at all. It interfered with his domestic reforms. Lionne, the minister of foreign affairs, went through the motions of pursuing the English alliance, if only in order to hold on to his job. Only Turenne, Le Tellier the minister and his son Louvois, the Secretary of War, were egging Louis on, and Louis, the great manipulator, thought as follows: ‘If I can get Charles II of England to join me in attacking the Dutch, the Spanish, for their own preservation, will come to their defense. He will have no choice then but to declare war against the Spanish and I will then have my war for the conquest of the Spanish Low Countries. It will be a short war, and, afterwards, I can go back to my domestic agenda.’ This is the point that almost everyone misses about the guerre de Hollande. It was never intended to take Amsterdam. It was intended to take Brussels. It was a plan of Louis Quatorzian presumption, and we all know what happens to people who push their luck. The Dutch quite memorably opened the sluices, made William III their stadhouder and lynched the De Witts, but the Spanish did not intervene, which is why Louis was faced with a second campaign against the Dutch. What is less memorable, however, is the subtle connection between these developments and another one of Louis XIV’s religious policies, namely his extension of the régale . The régale, of course, was the right of the king of France to enjoy the income of a large number of dioceses and archdioceses while they were vacant and to appoint to benefices in the interval. In 1274 the Second Council of Lyon had explicitly decreed that this right was not universal, and the kings of France had always abided by this decision, overruling the objections of the parlement of Paris, which made it a point of privilege to be more royalist than the king. It was not even a question of money, since the king had for some years been transferring the accrued income to the new bishop or archbishop. Yet suddenly, on 10 February 1673, Louis XIV issued a declaration extending the régale to all the dioceses and   Mémoires for 1661, pp. 55–6.



22

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

archdioceses of the kingdom. Why would the king, in the midst of a major war, decide to open up this can of worms? The explanation, I would suggest, lies in the functioning of Louis XIV’s council. We have seen that the decision to go to war against the Dutch had been taken against the advice of Colbert. But if it had excluded him from any influence on foreign policy, it had transformed him into a dictator over the finances. It was his responsibility to find the money for the war, and since the ordinary revenues did not suffice, he had no choice but to resort to the same kind of financial expedients from which he had previously extricated the state. Such measures, however, required the good will of the parlement, and what more compatible way to gain this good will than to universalise the régale? It is important to note that it was he who drew up the declaration, and that when he presented it to the council, his rival Le Tellier opposed it. Pomponne, the new minister of foreign affairs, and, it should be noted, a member of the recently reconciled Arnauld family, also disapproved, but apparently kept his silence. The declaration went into effect with nary a whisper, neither from the French episcopate nor from the new pope, Clement X. Louis XIV seemed headed for victory against the Dutch heretics, and what good Catholic could gainsay him? The longer the war dragged on, however, the more the issue became in doubt. In October 1673 the Spanish did enter the war on the side of the Dutch, but early the following year the English parliament forced Charles II to pull out. In 1674 Louis XIV found himself fighting not only the Spanish and the Dutch but also the Emperor and the Empire. Later that year, Louis uncovered a conspiracy between some leading Huguenots and the Dutch. The year 1675 was disastrous, with the death of Turenne, the humiliating surrender of another marshal, and the defeat of the Swedes, the only allies Pomponne had been able to enlist. The worst part of the war was its impact on the finances. Colbert was forced into more and more expedients and these produced a number of popular revolts, notably in Brittany and in Guyenne. The Jansenists, moreover, were not disappearing according to plan. Some of the very same bishops who had resisted the formulary now began to refuse to submit to the extension of the régale. The Jansenists had thus found in the extension of the régale another instrument with which to display their dissent,

  ������������������������������������������������������������c����������������������� Marc Dubruel, ‘La querelle de la régale: Soixante ans de procès au Conseil du Roi’, Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique (1917): 68–92, 119–40, 210–28, and the same author’s ‘La querelle de la régale sous Louis XIV: Les premiers heurts (1673–1676)’, Revue des questions historiques, 97, (1922): 257–311, as well as his ‘La cour de Rome et l’extension de la régale’, Revue d’histoire de l’Eglise de France (1923): 162–83, 466–91.   ������������������������� For Colbert’s draft see, Lettres, Instructions, et Mémoires de Colbert, ed. Pierre Clément (8 vols, Paris, 1861–82), vol. 6, p. 96. For Le Tellier’s opposition, see Pomponne, Mémoires, ed. J. Mavidal (Paris, 1860), pp. 33–4.

Louis XIV’s Religious Policy and his Guerre de Hollande

23

and an apparently inconsequential sop to the vanity of the parlement was coming back to haunt the monarchy.10 The military situation picked up in 1676, 1677 and 1678 and it began to look as if Louis was finally going to achieve the conquest of the Spanish Low Countries. But, in spite of these military successes, the forces of the devout were beginning to gather strength. Against the opposition of the French faction, on 21 September 1676 a conclave elected Bededetto Odescalchi as pope. He was born a subject of the King of Spain, a moral prude, and hostile to the Jesuits. One of his first actions as Pope Innocent XI was to ban the low cut dresses worn by Roman ladies. The Jansenists did not fail to see in him a kindred spirit and quickly established their contacts, which he warmly welcomed. Was he about to reverse previous papal condemnations and provoke a schism? If this threat was not enough, in November of 1677, he sent orders to his internuncio to complain to Louis XIV about the régale. Under the pressure of the Dutch War, that most implausible of all conjunctions appeared in the heavens. The Holy See and the Jansenists were coming together.11

III By themselves the alliance of a few disgruntled bishops and an eccentric pope may not have posed much of a threat. However, at this very time that Louis military fortunes were again looking up, the behaviour of his former ally, Charles II of England, was becoming worrisome. Charles, it will be remembered, did not want to see France in possession of the Spanish Low Countries. Shedding crocodile tears, he made it clear to Louis that, as much as he regretted it, he might be forced to join with his nephew William of Orange in preventing the ultimate French triumph. Once more, as in 1668, Louis was faced with the option of calling his enemies’ bluff. This time, however, the bluff was more impressive. Here was the prospect of a prolonged war against Spain, the Emperor, the Empire, the Dutch and the British, with the combined British and Dutch navies ravaging the French coastline, and with a burgeoning religious dimension, since none of the enemies, irrespective of their religion, would have the slightest hesitation in inciting the French Huguenots to join in. What did Louis XIV do? His moderate minister of foreign affairs Pomponne now came forward and offered a way out by settling, in return for continued English neutrality, for a rectification of his northern frontier and the acquisition of Franche-Comté. As Louis XIV was coming around to this idea, however, he found it impossible to entertain the conclusion that a war which he had begun with the 10  ������������������������������������c���������������������������������� Please see my ‘Louis XIV and the Dutch War’, in Ragnhild Hatton (ed.), Louis XIV and Europe (London and New York, 1976), pp. 153–78 and Dubruel’s ‘Cour de Rome’. 11  ��c������������������c���� Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Nunciatura di Francia 157, fol. 27, Cibo to Varese, 10 Nov. 1677.

24

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

intention of conquering the Spanish Low Countries had purely and simply failed. Instead, he came up with an idea of his own, which his flatterers were quick to encourage. This was that he had established his reputation as a great warrior, that he had done nothing wrong, and that it was his very successes that had aroused the envy of his enemies, who were still out to get him. This combination of conceit and timidity was enough to bring him around to the Peace of Nijmegen late in 1678, and to make him consider it as a great victory over his unsportsmanlike detractors.12 Louis XIV combination of conceits and fears may have been sufficient to lead him to subscribe to the Peace of Nijmegen, but they were not sufficient to survive it. His conceit remained undiminished. The more he reflected upon it, the more he became convinced that he had won the war. But, with the coming of the peace, the fear disappeared. All he could remember were his triumphs, and he found it increasingly difficult to reconcile them with the terms of the peace. The fear turned to anger, anger at the religious dissidents at home who had refused to melt away, anger at his enemies for having combined against him, anger at his foreign minister Pomponne for having counselled moderation, anger at the Pope who had the effrontery to defy him. On 17 May 1679 Louis drove away all the boarders, postulates and solitaires from the convent Port Royal des Champs. In September he began the policy of reunions, attempts to extend his borders by judicial verdict in time of peace. In November 1679, he disgraced Pomponne. Nothing illustrates so perfectly the rage in Louis XIV’s heart than the terms with which he described his reasons for dismissing Pomponne: ‘I have suffered for years from his weakness, his obstinacy, and his laziness. He has caused me considerable losses. I did not profit from all the advantages that I could have, and all that out of indulgence and goodness. Finally, I had to let him go.’13

IV If Louis was going to have another war, and he very much feared that he would, he needed to eliminate once and for all any danger of internal opposition. And so he went on with what the late John B. Wolf has so incisively dubbed ‘A Policy of Violence and Terror’.14 In 1681 we have the beginning of the dragonnades, in a complete reversal of Louis’s previous patience with the Huguenots. In 1682 we have the Declaration of Gallican Liberties, a violent attempt to align the French clergy behind him in case of any further confrontations with the Holy See. Finally in 1685, we have the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Dutch had refused to dance, and the Jansenists, the Holy See and the Huguenots had paid the piper. 12  ��������������������������� Please see my ‘Louis XIV’s Mémoires pour l’histoire de la guerre de Hollande’, FHS, 8/2 (Spring, 1973): 29–50. 13  ����������������������������� BN, Ms Fr 10331, fols 125–30. 14  �������������� John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (New York, 1968), Ch. 25.

Chapter 2

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II (1665–1700) Christopher Storrs

In any attempt to assess the importance of religion in the conduct of international affairs in the generation following the peace of Westphalia in 1648, Spain, or the Catholic Monarchy as it was commonly referred in the early modern period, represents an important test case. For one thing, Spain’s title to its developing empire in the Indies rested in part upon papal grant. For another, in the century or more following the passage of the Catholic Monarchy to the Habsburgs, Charles I of Spain (the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) and his successors had established Spain as the leading secular champion of the Counter-Reformation. In addition, there was a distinctive theological discourse surrounding that Monarchy. In reality, the extent to which those monarchs subordinated the secular interests of the Monarchy to those of Christianity, Catholicism and the Church – and hence the validity of any simple black and white contrast between attitudes and conduct before and after 1648 – must be doubted. On the other hand, when seeking a case study to assess the role of religion in the formulation and execution of foreign policy, few states would appear to be better candidates for examination than Habsburg Spain in view of the way early modern Spain was perceived by



 ���������������������������������c������������������������������������������������� I should like to thank Dr Derek McKay (formerly of the Department of International History of the London School of Economics) for commenting on an earlier version of this paper. I am of course responsible for any errors.   ������������� The title of Rey Catolico (or Reyes Catolicos) was granted by Pope Alexander VI to Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, following their efforts on behalf of Christianity in Spain and overseas, and in support of the Pope against his enemies in Italy, J. Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella (Harlow, 2004), p. 82.   ������������� P. Bakewell, A History of Latin America (Oxford, 1997), p. 129ff.   ������������� P. Williams, Philip II (Basingstoke, 2001), p. 42.   ����������������������� Cf. E. Botella Ordinas, Monarquía de España: discurso teologico 1590–1685 (Madrid, 2006). I should like to thank Eva Botella for drawing this – and her other work – to my attention.   �������������� Ibid., p. 110.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

26

contemporaries – and by subsequent historians – as a polity in which domestic and foreign policy were shaped, even skewed by religious concerns. In what follows, an attempt is made to determine just how far Spanish policy abroad was driven by the motor of religion in the reign of the last Spanish Habsburg, the last Habsburg Carlos II (1665–1700). After identifying the elements of what we might identify as a religious policy, the essay then seeks to demonstrate that the reality of Spanish policy was more nuanced and pragmatic. Unfortunately, any attempt to investigate Spanish policy after 1648 – and more specifically in the reign of Carlos II – is not helped by the fact that Spanish foreign policy in this period has largely been ignored by historians. This neglect is due, of course, to the widely held view that after 1648 (or 1659, when the peace of the Pyrenees between France and Spain was concluded) Spain itself was exhausted, economically and demographically; that it was ruled by a physically and mentally defective monarch in the person of Carlos II, widely derided as El Hechizado or ‘The Bewitched’; and that a Spain in terminal decline was unable to defend the empire built up in an earlier, more heroic age, and therefore played a largely passive role in an age in which one of the main concerns of diplomacy was the looming problem of the Spanish Succession. For many historians – some of them influenced, consciously or not, by variants of the so-called ‘Black Legend’ of Spanish cruelty (whose propagation from the later sixteenth century owed much to religious, above all Protestant sentiment)10 – Spain and its policies were ineffective, unrealistic and ‘quixotic’.11 The reality was less clear-cut and Spain’s experience, while sometimes traumatic, was less disastrous overall than is suggested by the established view. The Spanish Monarchy was certainly no longer a hegemonic power in the second half of the seventeenth century, if it had ever been that. It also suffered serious setbacks, inside and outside Europe. In 1667 Spanish Flanders all but succumbed 

 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Witness the proliferation of books – too many to list here – on the Inquisition, widely regarded as distinctively Spanish, as an aberration and as one of the driving forces of early modern Spanish history.   �������c������������������������������������������������������������������������ The description of the years between 1665 and 1746 as the ‘dark ages’ of modern Spanish history by H. Kamen, The War of the Succession in Spain 1700–15 (London, 1969), p. xi, remains valid but cf. now C. Storrs, The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy 1665–1700 (Oxford, 2006).   �����������������c�����������������������������������������������������c�������� This is a reference to the attempt towards the end of the reign to overcome the King’s failure to produce heirs by subjecting him to exorcism. Cf. R. Cueto Ruiz, Los hechizos de Carlos II y el proceso de fray Froilan Diaz, confesor real (Madrid, 1966), and M. Rey Bueno, El Hechizado. Medicina, alquimia y superstición en la Corte de Carlos II (1661–1700) (Madrid, 1998). 10  ������c������c���� R. Garcia Carcel, La Leyenda Negra. Historia y Opinión (Madrid, 1998); R.L. Kagan, ‘Prescott’s paradigm: American historical scholarship and the decline of Spain’, AHR, 101 (1996). 11  ��������������� For S. Baxter, William III (Harlow, 1966), the Spaniards in this period were – unhelpfully for his hero – determined to go down in a blaze of glory.

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

27

to the forces of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XIV of France, who was Carlos II’s most persistent opponent in Europe; in 1668, the independence of Portugal was at last acknowledged after an exhausting struggle; during the ‘Dutch War’ FrancheComté was seized by the forces of Louis XIV; in 1684 Spain lost the Duchy of Luxembourg; and in 1697 both Barcelona in Europe and Cartagena de Indias in the Americas fell to the forces of the Sun King. However, the Spanish Monarchy never came as close to complete collapse in this period as did the Dutch Republic in 1672. In addition, some of these losses were temporary: Portugal, FrancheComté and parts of Flanders were lost for good, but Barcelona, Luxembourg and Cartagena were recovered at the peace of Rijswijk in 1697. More important, Carlos II’s empire was inherited by his successor, the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V, largely intact and perhaps larger than in 1665. In seeking to explain Spain’s remarkable resilience, most historians tend to emphasise Louis XIV’s supposed reluctance to press his advantage (in the hope of securing the support of Spanish opinion for the succession of a Bourbon on Carlos II’s death), and the intervention of states which had previously opposed a mighty Spain but which, now that the Monarchy was much weaker, recognised the need to come to its defence against the new threat to the European balance posed by Louis XIV’s France.12 Since many of these states – notably England and the United Provinces – were Protestant, it became impossible for Spain to continue to pose as the champion of Counter-Reformation Catholicism, hence this role effectively passed to the more powerful and aggressive France of Louis XIV, His Most Christian Majesty replacing the Catholic King as the great threat in English Protestant eyes in the last third of the seventeenth century. Spain, it has been argued, adopted a more pragmatic policy, one which better accords with Paul Kennedy’s thesis that the period after 1660 saw the maturing of a multipolar system of European states, with each state increasingly making decisions about war and peace on the basis of national interests rather than for transnational, religious causes.13 However, these explanations fail to acknowledge Spain’s (and above all Castile’s) own continued contribution to the survival of the Monarchy in the reign of Carlos II. Contrary to what is often claimed, the king of Spain still maintained large armed forces. On land, Carlos disposed of three main armies: of Flanders, of Lombardy and of Catalonia, besides various garrisons in Africa, Italy and Spain itself, to say nothing of the far smaller forces overseas; in 1675, at the height of the ‘Dutch War’, Carlos’s troops totalled about 80,000 men – and possibly more – about as many as the Dutch Republic (and far more than Charles II of England).14 Carlos II also maintained substantial forces at sea. These included the main fleet, or 12  ��������������������������������c�����c�����c�������������������������� Cf. G.W. Hahlweg, ‘Barriere-Gleichgewicht-Sicherheit. ����������������� Eine Studie uber die Gleichgewichtspolitik und die Strukturwandlung des Staatensystems in Europa 1648–1715’, HZ, 187 (1959): 54–89. 13  ������������ P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987), p. 73. 14  ������������ Cf. Storrs, Resilience, p. 25.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

28

Armada del Mar Oceano, various more local squadrons, and in the Mediterranean a galley fleet (comprising the squadrons of Spain itself, of Naples, of Sicily and of Sardinia, besides a contracted Genoese squadron) which at almost 30 galleys was second only to that of Louis XIV.15 It was in part because of these resources that Spain was such an important member of the coalitions which opposed (and finally contained) the Sun King between 1673 and 1697. Indeed, Spain was the only power which engaged Louis XIV on all fronts in these struggles: on land and sea, in Flanders and on the Rhine, in Catalonia and in Italy. Those coalitions were in many respects, too, a testimony to the success of Spanish diplomacy, which was underpinned by the promises (if not the prompt payment) of Spanish subsidies, Carlos II being served by a number of very able diplomats. These included D. Francisco Manuel de Lira, Carlos’s representative at The Hague between 1671 and 1679, who negotiated the alliance of 1673, the Count of Molina in London, who engineered the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (and England’s abandonment of Louis XIV) in 1674, and D. Gabriel Bernardo de Quiros, who insisted on the return of Luxembourg at Rijswijk in 1697. Last but by no means least – and contrary to what is sometimes claimed – the Spanish king and his ministers were determined to hang onto empire.16 That empire was, in part at least, held together by a common faith, Catholic Christianity. Paul Kennedy’s thesis, with its emphasis on the growing primacy of national and secular states and policies is contradicted by the example of Spain – the Spanish Monarchy – which remained ‘transnational’ or ‘supranational’ in this period, still what John Elliott has labelled a ‘composite monarchy’.17 It included not only Spain (i.e. Castile, Aragon, Navarre and the Basque territories), but also Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and the so-called Tuscan garrisons, or presidios, in Italy; the southern Low Countries, or Flanders; a number of garrisons in north Africa; and various island and mainland territories in the Caribbean, the Americas and the Pacific. Again according to Elliott, religious orthodoxy helped offset the geographical, political and racial diversity of this vast empire. The Francoist school of Spanish historians, triumphant after the Spanish Civil War, tended to emphasise the extent to which early modern Imperial Spain had a distinctive religious identity and mission.18 Without subscribing wholly to this vision, we must acknowledge that religion remained an important foundation of empire and at least an influence on policy.19

15

 �������������� Ibid., p. 71.  ���������������������������� Ibid., p. 13ff., and passim. 17  ��������������������������� J.H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of composite c��������������c������� monarchies’, Past and Present, 137 (1992): 48ff. 18  ��������������������������������������������� Cf. B. Diffie, ‘The Ideology of Hispanidad’, HAHR, 23 (1943): 457ff. For an example of this approach, cf. F.E. de Tejada, El pensamiento politico de los fundadores de Nueva Granada (Seville, 1955), as reviewed in HAHR, 35 (1955): 523–4. 19  �������������� J.H. Elliott, Imperial Spain (London, 1963), p. 381. 16

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

29

In order to understand the values which informed policy in later seventeenthcentury Spain, we need to note how it was formulated and executed. Policy was in theory at least formulated by the king, Carlos II. However, Carlos succeeded as a minor in 1665 and did not reach his majority until 1675; policy until then was in the hands of a regent, the king’s widowed mother, Mariana of Austria, assisted by a regency council, or junta de gobierno, whose members included the archbishop of Toledo (the primate of Castile) and the Inquisitor General. Mariana has not enjoyed a good reputation, not least because of a belief that her (conventional) piety influenced her choice of minister(s) and policy. After her husband Philip IV’s death in 1665 Mariana was only depicted in a nun’s habit. More important, she relied primarily on her Austrian Jesuit confessor, Father Nithard, whose appointment she engineered as Inquisitor General, and ex officio member of the regency council.20 However, Nithard was forced into exile in 1669 by his enemies in Spain, who were led by Carlos II’s illegitimate half-brother, the ambitious Don Juan of Austria. On this occasion Don Juan was denied power, but – having led what was in effect a military coup to overthrow another favourite of Mariana, Fernando Valenzuela – was effectively chief minister between 1677 and his death in 1679.21 Thereafter Carlos II played a greater role. Carlos was himself conventionally pious,22 and during his reign much diplomatic energy was expended in Rome, pressing canonisations and the cult of the Immaculate Conception.23 However, the King’s poor physique and weak character ensured the continuation of faction struggles at his Court which revolved around the persons of his mother and his two wives, Marie Louise of Orleans (who died in 1689) and Mariana of Neuburg, and which contributed to further political instability. The king’s foreign policy decisions usually followed a consulta [advice paper] of the Council of State, the most important body in Spain’s distinctive conciliar system of government. The king was not obliged to follow the advice of the Council of State but generally did so. Indeed, for many contemporaries and later historians, the weakness and incapacity of Carlos II meant that later seventeenthcentury Spain was not a monarchy but an aristocratic republic, with effective 20  ���������� H. Kamen, Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century 1665–1700 (Harlow, 1980), p. 331. 21  ����������������������������������������������������c������ The seizure of Valenzuela in the monastery of the Escorial c�����c��������������� complicated relations between the new regime and Innocent XI, who was determined to defend ecclesiastical privilege. Cf. J.M. Marqués, La Santa Sede y la España de Carlos II. La negociación del nuncio Millini 1675–1685 (Rome, 1981–82), p. 109ff. 22  ��� A. Álvarez Á���������������������ñ����������� Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Virtud coronada: c������������������������������������� Carlos II y la piedad de la c������� casa de Austria’, in P. Fernández Albaladejo, J. Martínez Millan and V. Pinto Crespo (eds), Política, religión e Inquisición en la España Moderna. Homenaje a Joaquin Pérez Villanueva (Madrid, 1996). 23  ���������������� Cf. I. Vázquez, Las negociaciones inmaculistas en la Curia Romana durante el reinado de Carlos II de España (Madrid, 1957); Kamen, Spain in the later seventeenth century, p. 292.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

30

power in the hands of a powerful but also divided and selfish nobility, i.e. the titled nobles and grandees,24 and other influential institutions. Particularly relevant to the present discussion is the role of senior clergy, who may have enjoyed a greater political role in this than in other reigns. In 1669, for example, the papal nuncio in Madrid helped broker the deal which exiled Nithard.25 As for the Spanish clergy, cardinal Portocarrero, archbishop of Toledo, was a member of the Council of State and a major political figure, and was appointed regent in Carlos II’s will.26 Another influential religious figure at Court was the royal confessor. In 1676, Carlos’s then confessor reproached the King for, among other things, the losses (of territory) incurred during his reign.27 Not surprisingly, the importance of the confessor ensured that the appointment was one of the prizes in the faction struggles of the reign.28 These influences ensured that policy in Carlos II’s reign would have at least some religious dimension. But this raises an important conceptual question. What is, or was, a religious foreign policy? One obvious difficulty arises because of the various religious differences in late seventeenth-century Europe, and indeed the world. Spain might have pursued a Christian policy, against Islam, but did it also pursue a (Roman) Catholic policy against Protestantism or individual Protestant states? And what about the differences within the Catholic Church in this period? Here it is worth making the point, an obvious one, that while we talk of the Church, the latter was no unchanging monolith: within the Catholic Church different popes had different priorities, or identified the ‘good’ of Christianity and/or the Catholic church in different ways. Pope Clement X, for example, would not send a representative to the peace congress convened at (Protestant) Nijmegen, during the ‘Dutch War’, but his successor Innocent XI (1676–1689) was less reluctant to do so because his priority was the war against the infidel Turk.29 Equally, throughout the Catholic church different groups were at odds, as they had long been. Simply in the interests of good or stable government, in for example Flanders, Carlos II and his  ������� Kamen, Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century, p. 226ff.  �����c���������������� Albrecht von Kalnein, Juan Jose de Austria en la España de Carlos II (Lleida, 2001), p. 172ff. Cf. also, Marques, Santa Sede, and E. Werner (ed.), ‘Des papstlichen Nuntius Nicolini Reise nach Spanien im Jahre 1686’, Revue Hispanique, 68 (1926). 26  ��������������������� A.R. Pena Izquierdo, La Casa de Palma. La familia Portocarrero en el gobierno de la Monarquía Hispánica (1665–1700) (Cordoba, 2004). 27  ����������������� G. Maura Gamazo, Vida y Reinado de Carlos II (Madrid, 1942; 1990), p. 171ff. 28  ��������������������������������������c����������������������������������� Cf. J.M. de Bernardo Ares, ‘The aristocratic assemblies under the Spanish monarchy (1680–1700)’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 21 (2001), p. 131, and S. Nalle, ‘Absolutism and Absolution: The Royal Confessor in the Habsburg Monarchy, Some Questions for Study’, Yearbook of Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, 10/2 (1990). 29  �����������������������������������������������������c���������c��������� J.T. O’Connor, ‘William Egon von Furstenberg and French Diplomacy in the Rhineleand Prior to the Outbreak of the War of the League of Augsburg in 1688’ (unpublished University of Minnesota Ph.D. thesis, 1965), pp. 13–14. 24

25

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

31

ministers could not ignore these differences: in 1698 Carlos secured a papal bull banning discussion of the supposed descent of the Carmelites from Elisha, which had provoked serious disputes between that order and the Society of Jesus.30 An exhaustive treatment of this subject might also want to distinguish between the narrowly religious (or pious) and the more broadly ethical or moral aspects of the question, and to consider Spanish responses to, for example, the challenge to traditional Christian notions of statecraft represented by Machiavellian, ‘reason of state’ thought and practice.31 These are, clearly, complicated issues, only some of which can be addressed here. Essentially, the following pages seek to show that Spain championed Christianity in its imperial struggle outside Christian Europe; and that it was a champion of Catholicism inside and outside Christendom. Within Europe, however, faced with Louis XIV’s apparent bid at what the age called ‘universal monarchy’, Spain needed allies and could not afford to be a religious warrior. Nevertheless, those same defence needs obliged Spanish policy-makers and diplomats to elaborate subtle, and sometimes not so subtle arguments about what constituted a good Catholic and Christian ruler and what was in the best interests of Catholics and the Church in Protestant states, for example in England before, during and after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 in order to justify alliance with the enemies of Carlos II’s co-religionaries Louis XIV and the exiled James II. Religion cannot be ignored as a factor in Spanish policy after 1648 but how it was articulated, perceived and pursued was not always a simple matter. More important, applying the criteria of what Spaniards thought and said, of what foreigners thought of Spaniards and Spanish policy, and finally what Carlos II and his ministers in fact did, we can see that the Monarchy’s foreign policy was shaped by a worldview in which religion played a key part and was articulated using a religious rhetoric.

I The mindset, or mentalité, of many Spanish policy-makers was informed by a sense of divine ‘providence’ and protection. Initially inspired by the belief in Spain’s imperial mission, in the later seventeenth century, some articulated the view that the Monarchy’s survival in the face of its many setbacks was miraculous, providential. One official and historian, Juan de Lancina, saw the retention of Sicily in these terms: Spain he thought was so weak (at sea) that there was no other 30  �������������������� A. Dominguez Ortiz, La Sociedad Espanola en el Siglo XVII (2 vols, Madrid, 1955), vol. 2, pp. 110–11. 31  �������������������c��� On this large subject, cf. c���������������������������� J. Fernández Santamaria, Razón de Estado y política en el pensamiento español del barroco (1595–1640) (Madrid, 1986), M. Fraga Iribarne, Don Diego de Saavedra y Fajardo y la diplomacia de su época (Madrid, 1956), and R. Rodríguez Monino, Razón de estado y dogmatismo religioso en la España del siglo XVII (Barcelona, 1967).

32

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

explanation for its final triumph over the Messina rebels and Louis XIV.32 Others expressed similar views,33 and it was usual to seek divine favour, and intervention in times of difficulty by means of public prayers and so on.34 Such attitudes and actions were by no means peculiar to Carlos II’s Spain. But there was a distinctive ‘Messianic’ strain in Spanish politics, particularly in the difficult years of the Dutch War, which Don Juan’s supporters readily exploited.35 Some foreign observers identified the Spanish attitude, but were more cynical. In 1673, for example, the Venetian minister in Madrid referred to the belief there ‘that things must happen by divine influence alone, which will thus summarily dispose of human events for their own preservation, defence and honour’.36 Some other diplomats may have shared the Spanish view that Spain’s survival was an expression of divine favour: in 1691, the Savoyard representative in Madrid referred to the miracles of the House of Austria when reporting the arrival of the galleons from the Indies bringing silver which the hard-pressed Carlos II could apply to Spain’s war effort.37 The ministers of some of Carlos II’s Protestant allies were even more critical, castigating the Spaniards as Catholic bigots. In 1690, William III’s envoy in Switzerland, Thomas Coxe, who was seeking to arrange a relief expedition for the Duke of Savoy’s beleaguered Protestant Vaudois subjects – which might then invade Dauphiné and Languedoc and distract Louis XIV by inciting Huguenot rebellion in the south of France – accused the Governor of Milan and Carlos 32  ������������c���� L. Ribot Garcia, La Monarquía de España y la Guerra de Mesina (1674–1678) (Madrid, 2002), p. 94. Cf. explanation of recent defeats in Flanders and success (against odds) at Girona (1684) in terms of divine intervention, A. Espino Lopez, Catalunya durante el reinado de Carlos II. Politica y Guerra en la frontera catalana, 1679–1697 (Barcelona, 1999), p. 58. 33  ���c��������������������c������������������������c�����������������c������������ Discursos de las disposiciones que se pudieran hacer para las operaciones de la proxima campaña [Dec. 1675] and Villahermosa to Carlos II (Brussels), 4 Mar. 1676, both in AGS, Estado series, legajo 2131. 34  ������������������������������������������������c������������� In 1677, at an extraordinary session of the Council of State, convened c��������������c���� to discuss the Monarchy’s beleaguered situation, it was suggested that the King – besides trusting to human resources – should also seek divine aid, ordering prayers in convents and other communities across Spain, consulta of State, AGS/E/2133, 23 Feb 1677. Cf. also AGS/ E/2133, consulta of State, 6 May 1677. 35  ������������������������������� Don Juan sought to justify his coup c�����������c������������������������������������ to Innocent XI by referring to God’s having punished Spain in recent years, Maura, Carlos II, vol. 2, p. 326. Cf. also Bethencourt Massieu, prologue to T. Egido Lopez, Opinión Pública y Oposición al Poder en la España del siglo dieciocho (1713–59) (Valladolid, 1971; 2002), p. 20. Kalnein, Juan José, p. 363, attributes this ‘messianism’ to (Spain’s) Counter-Reformation mentality and to its many difficulties in this period. 36   CSPV, 1673–5, p. 21, Venetian secretary, Madrid, to Doge and Senate, 8 Mar. 1673. 37  ��������������������������������������������������c������������������������������� AST, Lettere Ministri, Spagna, m. 38, Operti to Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, [1691]. Cf. same to same, 3 Nov. 1693, ibid.

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

33

II’s representative in the Swiss cantons (whose co-operation was essential to the project’s success) of bigotry,38 and in 1692 William‘s English envoy in Madrid, Alexander Stanhope, declared: ‘Tis a hard matter for a heretique to learn any truth among them where they think the cause of their Religion concerned.’39 King and policy-makers certainly had a vision of theirs as a Christian, Catholic polity, a vision articulated by endless contemporary writers on political themes.40 But in what sense was Spanish policy religious? Perhaps the most obvious example of Spain’s religious foreign policy was the long-running struggle against the Islamic states of north Africa. Following the fall of Granada, the last Moorish kingdom in the Iberian peninsula – and with it the end of the Reconquista – in 1492, the Spanish monarchs had carried the war against Islam across the Straits of Gibraltar into Africa and into the Mediterranean. Successive popes had granted successive kings of Spain the so-called ecclesiastical graces, i.e. the cruzada, the excusado and the subsidio, in order to fund their galleys in the Mediterranean, although the proceeds were often diverted elsewhere, as the clergy sometimes complained. The struggle in the Mediterranean, which had climaxed in the victory at Lepanto (1571), continued in the reign of Carlos II,41 who also helped to fund the wide-ranging struggle waged by his Austrian Habsburg cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor (and his allies in the Holy League) against the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans.42 However, Spain’s contest with Islam focused after 1648 primarily on the defence in north Africa of a small number of desolate outposts of empire (Ceuta, La Mamora, Larache, Melilla, Oran), which were regarded as the only thing which stood between a more vulnerable Spain and a second Moorish Conquest.43 Certainly, the coasts of the Italian and Iberian 38  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� TNA: PRO, SP 96/7, Coxe to William III, 16/26 Feb. 1690. Cf. C. Storrs, ‘Thomas Coxe and the Lindau Project’, in A. de Lange (ed.), Dall’Europa elle Valli Valdesi (Turin, 1990), p. 199ff. 39  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ TNA: PRO, SP 94/73, fol. 78, Stanhope to Nottingham, 27 Aug. 1692 (NS). 40  ��������c����������������� P. Portocarrero y Guzman, Teatro Monarquico de España [1700], ed. C. Sanz Ayan (Madrid, 1998); I. Vicent López, ‘Entre prudentes y discretos. La conservación de la Monarquía Católica ante el Tratado de Repartición de 1700’, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, ser. IV, 9 (1996). 41  ���������������������������������������������������c��������������������������� In 1668, the Regent was said to have ordered the Viceroy of Naples to send the galleys of Naples and Sicily (about 14 in all) to the Levant, CSPV, 1666–8, p. 265, Piero Mocenigo, Venetian ambassador in England, to Doge and Senate. 14 Sept. 1668. 42  ���������������������� Cf. M. Garzón Pareja, La Hacienda de Carlos II (Madrid, 1980), p. 443ff. (for some opposition). 43  ����������������������� Cf. L. Galindo y Vera, Historia, vicisitudes y política tradicional de España respecto de sus posesiones en las costas de Africa desde la Monarquía gotica … hasta el ultimo siglo (Madrid, 1884) [reissued as Las posesiones hispanoafricanas (Malaga, 1993)]; J. Montes Ramos, El Ejército de Carlos II y Felipe V 1694–1727. El Sitio de Ceuta (Madrid, 1999); H. Sancho de Sopranis, ‘Algunas noticias sobre las fortificaciones de la Mamora’, Archivo del Instituto de Estudios Africanos, 7 (1954); T. García Figueras and C. Rodríguez Joulia Saint-Cyr, Larache. Datos para su historia en el siglo XVII (Madrid, 1973); B. Alonso

34

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

peninsulars were vulnerable.44 Reform and revitalisation of the militia in Castile from 1691 was in part founded upon – or the new burdens justified to the king’s subjects by – fear of an Islamic invasion across the Straits.45 For many in Spain, the struggle in north Africa was a crusade,46 as indeed it was for some of those north African states.47 Unfortunately, Spain’s efforts were not aided by its Christian neighbours. One of the tasks of successive Spanish diplomats at The Hague was to prevent the Moors from buying arms in the Dutch Republic.48 More seriously, perhaps, those north African outposts were frequently attacked by the neighbouring Moorish rulers when Carlos II was at war with Louis XIV in Europe. During the Dutch War, for example, Ceuta was attacked in 1674 and Oran in 1675 and 1677;49 during the Nine Years War Oran was attacked in 1693, Ceuta in 1690 and 1694–95 and Melilla in 1695. It is evident that the king of Morocco and others were encouraged by Louis XIV in order to threaten Spanish imperial communications in the Mediterranean and to distract Carlos II and his ministers from the European struggle: in 1694 French engineers were said to have helped the King of Morocco at Ceuta.50 Not surprisingly, therefore, Spanish propaganda sometimes depicted Louis XIV as anti-Christian, notably as the ally of the Turk.51 Acero, Oran-Mazalquivir, 1589–1639. Una sociedad española en la frontera de Berberia (Madrid, 2000); G. Sánchez Doncel, Presencia de España en Oran (1509–1792) (Toledo, 1991). 44  ���������������������������������������������c�����������c��������������������� Cf. C.M. Fernández Nadal and M.V. Candela Marco, ‘Arquitectura de la guerra en el Reino de Valencia: La defensa de la costa en epoca de Carlos II’, Millars. Espa i Historia, 26 (2003), p. 185ff., for Moorish attacks against Valencia in Carlos II’s reign. 45  ���������ñ���������������������������� Cf. J. Muñoz Rodríguez, Damus ut Des. Los servicios de la ciudad de Murcia a la Corona a finales del siglo XVII (Murcia, 2003), p. 101. 46  ����������������������������������������������c��������������� For this reason the bishops of Spain were expected to and did contribute: c�������������������� in 1677, the bishop of Granada gave 20,000 [ducados?] for Oran, AGS, Galeras/Registros, libro 342 fol. 5, Carlos II to D. Gaspar Bustillos de la Concha, administrator of the rentas reales of Cordoba (Madrid), 17 Aug. 1677. Not surprisingly, defeat in Africa could mean criticism from the clergy. In 1689, for example, a critical memorial was prepared by the Church of Toledo for Carlos II, following the loss of Larache, Real Academia de Historia, Madrid, 9/1838. 47  ����������������������c��������������������������� The Alawi dynasty, which was established in 1666, cultivated c������������������������������� jihad in its foreign policy. (Patricia Mercer, ‘Palace and Jihad in the Early ‘Alawi State in Morocco’, The Journal of African History, 18/4 (1977): 531–53.) I should like to thank the anonymous reader of this chapter for drawing this to my attention. 48  �����������������������c�������ñ������������������������������������������� D. Salinas, ‘La Diplomacia Española a traves de los Embajadores en la Haya (1665–1700)’, Bulletin Hispanique, 90 (1988): 372. 49   M. Herrero �����������c����� Sanchez, El Acercamiento Hispano-Neerlandés (1648–1678) (Madrid, 2000), p. 384. 50  ��������������������������������������������������c����������������������������� AST, Lettere Ministri, Spagna, m. 38, Operti to Victor Amadeus II, 18 Nov. 1694. 51  ������������������ Cf. Espino López, Catalunya en el reinado, p. 336, for the contemporary work, Idea y proceder de Francia (c. 1683–4) which has been attributed to Lira, the former minister

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

35

But it was not only in Europe and Africa that Spain was what we might call a crusading, Christian power. Overseas, in the Indies, the Spaniards were also fighting the non-Christian. Spaniards had an essentially religious or missionary imperial ideology, believing that their objective was the conversion of the indigenous indians.52 This view, which justified the extensive powers over the Church in the Indies, the so-called Patronato, granted by earlier popes,53 had been articulated in Juan de Solorzano Pereira’s Politica indiana (1648);54 it was repeated in Carlos II’s reign by the Chronicler of the Indies, Antonio de Solis, in his History of the Conquest of Mexico (1684). The Church not only provided an imperial ideology; on occasion it was at the forefront of defence and expansion of the Spanish empire in the Americas in the later seventeenth century.55 In 1697, for example, Carlos II authorised the Jesuits to colonise California, a task which had largely defeated the Spanish crown so far, on condition that possession was taken in the name of Spain and that the royal treasury did not have to supply funds; this was the beginning of the sustained integration into the Monarchy of California.56 So far the focus has been on the way Christian Spaniards opposed non-Christians outside Christian Europe. However, within the fractured post-Reformation Christian world, Carlos II also faced non-Catholic enemies. This was less obviously the case in Europe than overseas, where Protestant buccaneers, or privateers (or, in Spanish eyes, pirates) – men like Henry Morgan, who seized Portobello in 1668 and Panama in 1671 – were a major nuisance. Such attacks peaked in the 1680s when the buccaneers represented a graver challenge to Spanish dominion in the Americas than that posed by any sovereign European state or prince. This challenge was much reduced by the 1690s, in part due to the co-operation of Spain’s allies, who were increasingly able to exploit the Spanish empire in less piratical ways, and who therefore increasingly found the buccaneers a threat to their own interests. But at the close of that decade, Madrid faced a Scots attempt to settle at Darien, an attempt which had a proselytising, Protestant (or Calvinist) aspect.57 The Spaniards clearly recognised the religious as well as non-religious threat posed by Protestant buccaneers and Scots. So, too, did others. Pope Innocent XII, for example, allowed the Spanish king to tax the clergy of the at The Hague. 52  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ J.H. Elliott, ‘Spain and its Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in ibid., Spain and its World 1500–1700 (New Haven, 1989), p. 3. 53  ���������������� Cf. J.H. Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (London, 1966), p. 143ff. 54  ������������ D. Brading, Church and State in Bourbon Mexico. The Diocese of Michoacan 1749–1810 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 16. Brading notes the influence of this work beyond 1700. 55  �������������������������������������������������������c���c������������� H.G. Bensusan, ‘The Spanish Struggle against Foreign Encroachment in the Caribbean, 1675–97’, (unpublished PhD thesis, UCLA, 1979), pp. 3, 112ff., 117ff., 165. 56  ������������������������������������������������� F.J. Weber, ‘The Pious Fund of the Californias’, HAHR, 43 (1963): 78ff. 57  �������������������������������������������������������������c���������������������� Cf. C. Storrs, ‘Disaster at Darien (1698–1700)? The Persistence of Spanish Imperial Power on the Eve of the Demise of the Spanish Habsburgs’, EHQ, 29 (1999): 5ff.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

36

Indies in order to fund his counter-measures against the buccaneers and his efforts to dislodge the Scots. That the expedition being prepared against the Scots from Spain was regarded as in some respects as a religious enterprise is suggested by the fact that, although the King’s ministers found it difficult to find ships’ crews for the expedition, it was insisted that they be Catholic.58 It was not only in this sphere that religious attitudes influenced the formation of policy. Carlos II and his ministers were determined to exclude foreigners from their (overseas) empire. They were even more determined to exclude nonCatholics. Their fundamental distrust of English ambitions in the Indies was underpinned by religious concerns.59 Similarly, in the struggle for the lucrative asiento contract, one bidder found Spaniards to denounce his Dutch rival as an unscrupulous Protestant, denunciations which had some force.60 Clearly, the King and his ministers took account of religious issues in framing and executing policy. It is possible that the soldiers who fought to maintain the Monarchy did so too.61 Carlos II championed Catholicism in other ways, not least by means of Spain’s extensive diplomatic network, which was one of the largest in Europe. In December 1680, Carlos’s representative in London, Ronquillo, was told that the advantage of the Catholic religion must take priority over everything else.62 More specifically and practically, all Spanish diplomats residing in Protestant states were expected, as were the representatives of most other Catholic sovereigns, to maintain a chapel for themselves and local Catholics where the latter could not worship legally in public. In February 1676, for example, the instructions prepared for D. Juan de Salazar, recently appointed resident to the city of Hamburg, declared his most important duty to be the protection of the Catholics in that city. He was expected to set them a good personal example, and to maintain a chapel in his house.63 To do so, Carlos II’s diplomats received additional funds to cover the furnishing of a chapel and the salary of a chaplain.64 Those diplomats took these duties seriously. 58

 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� AGI, Panama, legajo 163, [?] to [Navarrete ?] (Madrid), 12 Feb. 1700.  ������������������������������������� Bensusan, ‘Spanish Struggle’, p. 209. 60  ������������������������������������c������������������� Ibid., pp. 199–200. Cf. papel politico en que se prueba como c�������������������c������ deve S. Mag rescindir el contrato hecho del Asiento de los Negros con Baltasar Coymans, Olandes y erege [post 1685], BL, Egerton MS 341, fol. 272. Cf. I.A. Wright, ‘The Coymans Asiento, 1685– 1689’, Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, 6th series, 1 (1924): 23–63. 61  ����������c������������������������������������������������������� This subject has hardly been explored, but for the period to 1668 cf. c������������� L. White, ‘Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers: Origins, Motivation and Loyalty’, War and Society, 19/2 (2001). 62  ��������������������c������������������������������������������������������� A. Portoles, ‘Catolicos en un pais de ereges. ������������������������������ Una mirada desde la monarquía española (1672–1690)’, Espa i Historia, 26 (2003): 29. 63  ����������c������������������������������� Cf. instructions, 8 Feb. 1676, AGS/E/2133. 64  ������������������������������ Salazar was allowed (1676) an ayuda de costa for his journey to and initial costs in Hamburg which was to include the furnishing of the chapel, ibid. His salary was fixed at 170 escudos a month, with a further 500 escudos a year salary for a chaplain, and costs 59

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

37

In 1687, Ronquillo declared that he would rather die than do anything contrary to ‘our’ religion.65 At The Hague, Don Manuel de Lira apparently increased the number of masses in his embassy chapel from three to four a day.66 This was not the limit of Spanish efforts to protect Catholics in Protestant states. On occasion, and just like Louis XIV and other Catholic monarchs, the Spanish sovereigns pressed for the relaxation of local anti-Catholic legislation. In January 1667, for example, Mariana of Austria complained to Charles II of England’s representative in Madrid about the harsh measures introduced against Catholics in England;67 these efforts continued throughout Carlos II’s reign.68 Such intervention was confined to England. In 1682 Carlos ordered the Governor of the Spanish Low Countries, Alessandro Farnese, Prince of Parma, to make representations on behalf of Catholics in the Dutch Republic.69 Some policy-makers at least, and on (some) occasion(s) urged going to the aid of beleaguered princes, articulating a religious (Catholic) argument. In a discussion in the Council of State in 1685, for example, the Constable observed that if James II triumphed over the rebel Duke of Monmouth, this would be good for Catholicism; he therefore approved Ronquillo’s proposal to offer James 4,000 men from the Army of Flanders to put down the rebels.70 Such measures could irritate the host government71 and population.72 In 1688, during the ‘Glorious Revolution’, the Spanish embassy in London was attacked of the chapel. Thus, the chapel absorbed almost 20% of the 2,540 escudos allocated him for the year. 65  �����������������c������������������� Portoles, ‘Catolicos en un pais’: 45. 66  �����������c����� Herrero Sánchez, El Acercamiento, pp. 127–8. 67   CSPV, 1666–8, p. 123, Marin Zorzi (Venetian ambassador in Madrid) to Doge and Senate, 19 Jan. 1667. The Regent was said to be sending money for poor religious. 68  �������������c������������������������������������������������������������������� For the protection of Catholic priests in England before and during Popish Plot, c��� cf. J. Kenyon, The Popish Plot (London, 1972), pp. 50, 252. In London, Borgomanero. and Ronquillo protected the Institute of Mary, ibid., pp. 253–4. Cf. also Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les Affaires des Pays Bas au XVIIe Siècle, eds H. Lonchay, J. Cuvelier and J. Lefevre, 6 vols, vol. 5: Precis de la Correspondance de Charles II (Brussels, 1935), p. 668, Carlos II to Max Emanuel, 30 Jan. 1698. Quiros doubtful of prospects of success, Lonchay, Correspondance, vol., 5, p. 701, Quiros to Carlos II, 29 May 1699. 69  �������������������������������� AGS, Estado series, legajo 3909, Carlos II to Farnese, 13 Jan. 1682; Lonchay, Correspondance, vol. 5, p. 371. 70  ����������������c����������������������������������������� Consulta of Council of State, 3 (2) Aug. 1685, AGS/E/3996. 71  ���������������������������������������������������c�������� In 1676 the Spanish minister in London, Salinas, received a complaint c������������������� about the chapel, Portoles, ‘Catolicos en un pais’: 31. In 1683 the King of Denmark was annoyed by the exercise of Catholicism in Salazar’s house, although the problem was apparently exacerbated by Salazar’s want of credentials, Lonchay, Correspondance, vol. 5, p. 395, Grana to Carlos II, 4 May 1683. 72  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� On 5 Nov. 1668, Bonfire Night, some boys threw fireworks into the coach of the Spanish ambassador in London, CSPV, 1666–8, p. 321, Piero Mocenigo, Venetian ambassador in England, to Doge and Senate. 23 Nov. 1668.

38

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

because of the support of Catholic worship by the ambassador, Ronquillo (and because some Catholics had put their property in his house, hoping to benefit from his diplomatic immunity).73 However, those other sovereigns had to respond to these Spanish concerns. In 1688, for example, William of Orange promised the Governor of Spanish Flanders, the Marquess of Gastanaga, that he would not harm the Catholics in England:74 in this way, William may have prevented the intervention in England of Spain’s Army of Flanders, whose intervention in England on behalf of James II at this juncture might have at the least complicated the toppling of James.75 It may therefore be true that Spain, or the Spanish ambassador in London (and Spanish representatives) had lost out, to the French minister, as the champion or protector of the local Catholics population,76 but we should not ignore the extent to which this remained an important strand in Spanish diplomacy, which was expected – and perhaps even intended, at least in part – to gain credit in Rome. Not surprisingly, Spain’s alliance with Protestant states, its use in Flanders, Italy and Catalonia of subsidy troops supplied by Protestant German princes,77 and the presence in Spanish ports of Protestant English and Dutch sailors during the Dutch War and the Nine Years War provoked unease in Madrid. Protestant troops and sailors not only set a bad example for Carlos II’s Catholic subjects, they also damaged religious buildings and images. It was difficult to ignore these issues because the local clergy and the papal nuncio(s) frequently made formal complaints.78 Not surprisingly, in view of the persistent difficulties such issues

73  ������������ R. Beddard, A Kingdom without a King: The Journal of the Provisional Government in the Revolution of 1688 (London, 1988), pp. 43, 75. Ronquillo was not the only Catholic envoy to suffer; the house of the abbe Terriesi, the representative of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was also ransacked. 74  ������������ J.R. Jones, The Revolution of 1688 (London, 1972), p. 282. 75  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. the abortive proposal for Carlos II and the Emperor Leopold to mediate between James II and William of Orange, 1688, in part to protect the English Catholics, Jones, Revolution of 1688, p. 185. Spain’s attitude towards and role in the ‘Revolution’ of 1688 remains largely unstudied, as does the way English Restoration politicians understood the Army of Flanders between 1660 and 1688. 76  ������� Jones, Revolution of 1688, p. 184. 77  �����������������������������������������������c���������������������������� C. Storrs, ‘Germany’s Indies? The Spanish Monarchy and Germany in the Reign of the Last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II, 1665–1700’, in C. Kent, T.K. Wolber and C.M.K. Hewitt (eds), The Lion and the Eagle. Interdisciplinary Essays on German-Spanish Relations over the Centuries (New York and Oxford, 2000), p. 108ff. 78  �������������������������������������������c���������������������������������� In the spring of 1678, for example, the nuncio submitted a memorial about the excesses committed by heretics in Flanders, Herrero Sánchez, El Acercamiento, p. 131. In 1692 the nuncio complained at allied demands for places of worship in Brussels and Namur, Lonchay, Correspondance, vol. 5, p. 542, Gastañaga to Carlos II, 2 Jan. 1692. Gastanaga denied the charge.

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

39

caused,79 ministers in Madrid preferred to take into service in Flanders in the Nine Years War the (Catholic) troops of Max Emanuel of Bavaria, rather than those of the (Protestant) Elector of Brandenburg, although these were not the only reasons for this preference. Whether Carlos II should allow foreign Protestant troops in his service to worship in their own way was frequently put to so-called juntas de teologos, special committees of clerics and secular officials which considered and advised the king on issues with a major ethical or religious dimension or implication, although the two were often difficult to separate.80 Juntas were a marked feature of Spanish government,81 but were not peculiar to Spain.82 The use of such juntas reflected the expectation that the king should take proper counsel,83 and was neither new,84 nor confined to foreign policy issues.85 In the late 1660s and early 1670s, for example, such juntas were resorted to in connection with the reform of forced Indian labour in Peru.86 Some years later a junta of this type was convened in connection with papal complaints about (breaches of) ecclesiastical Immunities (1683).87 However, war and related issues, including finance, were particularly difficult areas. Philip IV’s will called upon his successor to relieve his subjects as far as possible, and declared that the only justifications for taxation were defence and religion.88 Some juntas, without being designated juntas de teologos, effectively had the same function. Fray Diego Cornejo, a Franciscan, for example, was one of four 79  ��������������� Cf. E. Hubert, Les Pays-Bas espagnols et la republique des Provinces-Unies depuis la paix de Munster jusqu’au traité d’Utrecht. Les questions religieuses et les relations diplomatiques (Brussels, 1907). 80  �������������� Cf. L. Hanke, The Struggle for Justice in Spanish America (Philadelphia, 1949; reissued Dallas, 2002). 81  ��������������������������� Cf. J.F. Baltar Rodríguez, Las Juntas de Gobierno en la Monarquía Hispánica (siglos XVI–XVII) (Madrid, 1998), passim. 82  �����������������������c��������������������������������������������������������� Cf. their use in the Duchy of Modena regarding the marriage of Mary of Modena to James II, 1673, CSPV, 1673–5, pp. 130–32, Mocenigo to Doge and Senate, 7 Oct. 1673 (and Sarotti to same, Milan, ibid., p. 135); and, for the Savoyard state, Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy 1690–1720 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 293ff. 83  ������������c�������������� Cf. M.D. Sánchez González, El deber del consejo en el estado moderno: las juntas ad hoc en España (1471–1665) (Madrid, 1993), and Las Juntas Ordinarias Tribunales permanentes en la Corte de las Austrias (Madrid, 1995). 84  ���������������������������� For their use by Philip II, cf. c������������ Elliott, Imperial Spain, pp. 250–51; and by Philip IV, ibid., p. 297. For their use by Philip V, cf. Kamen, War of Succession, p. 180. 85  ���������������������������������c�������������������������������������������������� Cf. C. Jago, ‘Taxation and Political Culture in Castile’, in R. Kagan and G. Parker (eds), Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World (Cambridge, 1995), p. 48ff. However, the phenomenon has not been adequately studied. 86  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� J.A. Cole, ‘An Abolitionism born of Frustration: The Conde de Lemos and the Potosi Mita, 1667–73’, HAHR, 63 (1983): 307–33, esp. 323, 325, 328. 87  ���c����� Lonchay, Correspondance, vol. 5, p. 402, Consulta of Council of Flanders, 5 Aug. 1683. 88  ��ñ���������������������������������� Muñoz Rodríguez, Damus ut Des, p. 28.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

40

theologians on a junta de Medios, established (1693) after the fall of Rosas to identity new sources of funds with which to galvanise Spain’s war effort.89 The closer connection with Protestant allies in Carlos II’s reign inevitably resulted in numerous references to bodies of this sort. As early as December 1667, for example, a junta de teologos considered the proposed cession of various places in Flanders to the Dutch as guarantee of a loan (to fund the defence of Flanders), the majority (including Nithard) arguing against.90 That same year a junta de teologos considered Don Juan of Austria’s conditions for going to Flanders as Captain-General.91 More than 20 years later, in 1688, yet another junta de teologos was consulted regarding the recognition of William III as King of England;92 in 1691 one was convened on the question of handing the Spanish Low Countries over to the Dutch, which the ecclesiastics effectively vetoed;93 and in 1698 one more junta de teologos was asked for its opinion on allowing Dutch troops into the Barrier Fortresses.94 Spain’s imperial and defence policy in the last third of the seventeenth century was characterised by the frequent assembly of these distinctive committees.

II The formulation of Spanish policy could clearly not avoid taking into account religious concerns. However, there is a powerful case to be made that Carlos II did not in fact pursue a (narrowly) religious (Catholic) foreign policy. Spain’s successes under Carlos II owed much to Spain’s own efforts, rather than divine intervention as many observed. In January 1675, for example, the Marquess del Viso, commander of the fleet blockading Messina (which had thrown off Spanish rule the previous year), declared following the French relief of Messina that the winds obeyed only God; but others made more terrestrial criticisms of Viso and his deployment of the blockading fleet.95 But Spain’s resilience also depended on the help of allies and others. There was a major shift in Spanish policy in the second

 ��������������� Garzón Pareja, Hacienda, p. 293.  �����������c����� Herrero Sánchez, El Acercamiento, p. 126; Maura, Carlos II y su Corte, vol. 1, p. 322. The following year, 1668, a junta de teologos discussed whether Spain could join with Protestant England and the Dutch (and Sweden), von Kalnein, Juan José, p. 64. 91  ������� Maura, Carlos II y su Corte, vol. 1, pp. 322–3. 92  ������������������������������������������� AGS/E/3882, Consultas, 21 and 28 Apr. 1689. 93  ���������������������������������������������������������������� TNA: PRO, SP 94/73 fol. 31, Stanhope to Nottingham, 9 May 1691. 94   Spain under Charles the Second or Extracts from the Correspondence of Alexander Stanhope, ed. Lord Mahon (London, 1844), p. 123, Stanhope to Lexington, 2 Jan. 1698; R. de Schrijver, ‘De eerste Staatse barriere in de zuidelijke Nederlanden (1697–1701)’, BMGN, 18 (1963–4): 65–90. According to Stanhope the theologians were opposed. 95  ���������c���� Ribot Garcia, Monarquia de España, 63ff. 89 90

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

41

half of the seventeenth century.96 Much greater emphasis was put than before 1648 on securing from other states guarantees of the integrity of the Spanish empire, exemplified by the treaties of 1667 and 1670 between Carlos II and Charles II of England in which each guaranteed the other’s territories in Europe and the Caribbean.97 There was greater emphasis too on mobilising those other states to intervene on the Monarchy’s behalf,98 and on membership of large coalitions against Louis XIV.99 In 1667–68, for example, Spain was saved from complete collapse in the Low Countries by the intervention of the Dutch Republic, England and Sweden, all Protestant states.100 In 1672 the Spanish ambassador in London, the Marquess del Fresno was said to have declared that the Regent must support the Dutch out of both gratitude and interest since in the late wars (that of 1667–68) the Republic ‘had profited the Catholic king more than if they had been united to his crown and subject to it’.101 The Dutch and the English continued to contribute to the defence of the Monarchy thereafter. Other Protestant princes and states, too, collaborated with Carlos II. During the Dutch War, the King of Denmark and various German princes were his allies or in his pay; in 1686 the Spanish king joined with non-Catholics (including the Protestant king of Sweden) in the German League of Augsburg; and a number of Protestant German princes also allied with Carlos II and/or supplied him with troops in the Nine Years War.102 In addition, Carlos II’s ability to wage war was underpinned by the insertion into Spain’s fiscal and economic structure(s) of Dutch merchants and financiers.103 96

 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� R. Stradling, ‘A Spanish Statesman of Appeasement: Medina de las Torres and Spanish Policy, 1639–70’, HJ, 19 (1976): 1ff.; von Kalnein, Juan José, pp. 350, 435. 97  ��������������cc�������������������������������������������������������������� K.E. Lane, ‘Buccaneers and Coastal Defense in Late-Seventeenth Century Quito: The Case of Barbacoas’, Colonial and Latin American Historical Review (1997): 147. 98  ���������������������������������������������������������������������c����������� In 1667, the English envoy in Madrid believed that the Spaniards anticipated the intervention of other powers in the event of war against France, W. Godolphin, Hispania Illustrata, or the Maxims of the Spanish Court from the Year 1667 to the Year 1678 (London, 1703), p. 29ff., Godolphin to Arlington, 31 May 1667. 99  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Between 1673 and 1678, and again between 1689 and 1697, Carlos II was a member of a Grand Alliance against Louis XIV; in 1686, as ruler of the Spanish Netherlands (and therefore a member of the Holy Roman Empire, Carlos II was a member of the so-called League of Augsburg of German princes, Storrs, ‘Germany’s Indies?’, p. 112. 100  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. C. Storrs, ‘Models of Penetration of the Spanish Empire 1660–1714: Sweden, Scotland and England’, in A. Macinnes and A. Williamson (eds), Shaping the Stuart World, 1603–1714. The Atlantic Connection (Leiden, 2006), p. 337ff. Between 1668 and 1672 there were abortive efforts to turn the Spanish-Swedish alliance into something stronger and more enduring. Apparently, it foundered on matters of trade – Spain’s refusal to grant access to the Indies – rather than on matters of religion. 101   CSPV, 1671–2, pp. 201–2, Alberti to Doge and Senate, 29 Apr. 1672. 102  �������������������������������������� Storrs, ‘Germany’s Indies?’, p. 113ff. 103  ������������������ Cf. C. Sanz Ayan, Estado, monarquía y finanzas. Estudios de Historia financiera en tiempos de los Austrias (Madrid, 2004); J.A. Sánchez Belén, ‘El comercio de exportación holandés en el Mediterraneo español durante la regencia de doña Mariana de Austria’,

42

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Spanish policy-makers sometimes regretted this dependence on Protestant states, but it was a fact and it obliged them to modify any ambition to pursue a religious foreign policy. Certainly there were devots – and others whose opposition to a particular policy was perhaps secular but best cloaked in religious guise – who urged the resort to juntas de teologos. However, not all who participated in juntas de teologos were hostile to, for example, the presence of Protestant troops, or alliance with Protestant states, and they were able to articulate the argument that Protestant alliances (against Louis XIV) might be more beneficial to religion in the long-term. In December 1667, for example, those who favoured ceding territory to the Dutch argued that if this was not done, then the entire territory was at risk and that, if Flanders fell to Louis, Protestantism would flourish because he would apply in the conquered territory the Edict of Nantes.104 Indeed, not all those who sat on juntas de teologos were hostile, some justified such alliances. In 1689, for example, fray Jose Sobrecasa approved alliance with William of Orange, King of England, although a Protestant.105 For their part, the Council of State and the King need not follow the advice of the junta: in January 1668 Carlos II did conclude an agreement ceding certain places in Gelders as surety for a loan.106 Clearly, even where the religious issue remained important, it was not an insuperable obstacle. In 1688, for example, arguments could be devised – e.g. not harming or opposing James II directly – such that it was possible to ally with William III.107 Equally, the price of foreign alliances included allowing merchants and other subjects of Spain’s allies a privileged position in Spain. The Anglo-Spanish treaty of 1667 saw English merchants in Spain granted a degree of toleration hitherto denied them.108 In fact, despite the fact that the London mob had sacked the Spanish embassy during the ‘Glorious Revolution’, and that Ronquillo was – like other Catholic diplomats who had suffered – insisting on reparation, Carlos II’s representative in London defended the new government in England to the ministers there of other states; and in Rome successive Spanish diplomats defended that regime to the Pope.109 Indeed, throughout the Nine Years War, Spanish ministers in Rome Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, ser. IV, 9 (1996); and H. Sánchez de Sopranis, ‘Las naciones extrangeras en Cadiz durante el siglo XVII’, Estudios de Historia Social de España, 4/2 (1960). 104  ����������c����� Herrro Sanchez, El Acercamiento, p. 129. 105  ������c������������������������������������������������������c����������� Real Academia de Historia, 9/1837, Consulta of Fr. Jose Sobrecasa [1689]. 106  ����������c����� Herrro Sanchez, El Acercamiento, pp. 129–30. The ����������� prompt conclusion c��c�����������������c�� of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle rendered the loan (and cession) unnecessary. 107  ���������������� Cf. AGS/E/3882, c�������������������������������� consulta of State, 28 Apr. 1689. 108  ����c��c���������c���������������������������������������������������� J. McLachlan, ‘Documents Illustrating Anglo-Spanish Trade between the Commercial Treaty of 1667 and the Commercial Treaty and the Asiento Contract of 1713’, CHJ, 4 (1934): 306. 109  ���� Cf. Correspondencia entre dos Embajadores: Don Pedro Ronquillo y el marqués de Cogolludo 1689–91, ed. G. Maura Gamazo (2 vols, Madrid, 1951–52), vol. 1, p. 275,

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

43

not only defended William’s ‘revolutionary’ government in England, they also protected English interests there.110 Throughout the reign – and despite their reluctance to cross the Pope – the Regent, the King and their ministers refused to allow successive popes to dictate policy. In 1666, for example, Pope Alexander VII opposed accepting the mediation of the Protestant Charles II of England to get peace with Portugal – but was told religious issues would not be neglected whoever mediated (and that Mariana’s piety made sure of this).111 Subsequently, in 1676, Mariana gave a vague and insubstantial reply to the papal brief urging peace issued by the newly-elected Pope Innocent XI,112 showed no interest in Innocent’s anti-Turkish projects (1676–83),113 and successfully fended off papal criticisms of the Dutch alliance (and regarding the question of Maastricht) as the Dutch war neared its close.114 Monarch and ministers were also reluctant (1682) to intervene in the Gallican Articles dispute on behalf of Innocent XI for fear Louis XIV would seize it as an excuse to end the recent peace.115 Last, but by no means least, Spanish ministers frequently felt obliged to tell the Pope that – contrary to French propaganda – the Nine Years War was not one of religion. This was Carlos II’s response from the start to Louis XIV’s efforts to depict that conflict as a war between Catholicism and Protestantism (in a clear attempt to split the Grand Alliance). As early as 1688 Carlos dismissed Louis’ claim that the war was a religious war, and that he should not therefore aid the Protestant William III116 but should instead help Louis to restore James II.117 The following year, Carlos II responded to the French monarch’s efforts to keep him neutral (claiming that the war in Germany was one of religion), saying that if there were

Ronquillo to Cogolludo, 19 Aug. 1689. 110  �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Following Queen Mary’s death in 1694, the Spanish ambassador in Rome, the Duke of Medinaceli, sought to convince the Pope that this would not weaken William III’s position in England, AGS/E/3086, Medinaceli to Carlos II, 13 Feb. 1695, Rome. In 1695 the English minister at Livorno, Lambert Blackwell, who was obliged to visit Rome following the seizure of an English ship by Spanish privateers, was secured an audience with the Pope by the Spanish ambassador, whom he described as ‘a partial protector of our nation’, TNA: PRO, SP 98/18, Blackwell to [Shrewsbury] (Livorno), 11 Apr. 1695. 111   CSPV, 1666–8, pp. 114–16, Marin Zorzi, Venetian ambassador in Madrid, to Doge and Senate. 22 Dec. 1666. 112  ������� Maura, Carlos II y su Corte, vol. 2, pp. 288–9. 113  ��������� Marqués, Santa Sede, pp. 207–9. 114  ������������� Ibid. p. 203. 115  ������������������ Ibid., pp. 218–19. 116  ����������c�������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. G. Symcox, ‘Louis XIV and the Outbreak of the Nine Years War’, in Ragnhild Hatton (ed.), Louis XIV and Europe (London and New York, 1976), p. 200. 117  �����������������������������������������������������c����������������������� AST, Lettere Ministri, Spagna, m. 38/98, Operti to Victor Amadeus II, 4 June 1693.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

44

war in Germany Catholicism would also suffer.118 Throughout the reign Spanish ministers were well able to distinguish between Catholic princes who – as mere puppets of the Sun King – did not deserve help: for example, Spanish ministers resented James II’s marriage to Mary of Modena, saying the family of the latter was too unimportant, (too) dependent on Rome, and too close to Louis XIV.119 Spanish policy-makers were also able to distinguish between promoting Catholicism in a measured way and extreme measures which might rebound against Catholicism, including for example those of James II in England before 1688.120 Reflecting both international concerns and the ‘local’ division between ‘French’ and ‘non-French’ Catholics, Ronquillo was by no means fully in favour of the programme of re-Catholicisation embarked upon by James II.121 Carlos II and his ministers were equally ready to use whatever weapon was to hand against Louis XIV. They were therefore prepared, if not entirely happy, to use Huguenots in France in the 1670s122 and Vaudois and Huguenot exiles in Switzerland in order to attack Louis. Despite the criticisms of bigotry by Coxe (above) the Spaniards played their part in realising the so-called Lindau Project devised by the congress of allied ministers in The Hague in the spring of 1690 to organise an armed entry into France by those exiles.123 In 1691 Coloma promised a financial contribution from Carlos II to a joint scheme to recruit Protestant exiles for military service in Piedmont.124 The Pope, whose priority remained the struggle against the Ottomans in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, was more responsive to French propaganda than were Carlos II and his ministers (and subjects), who refused to bow to papal pressure in the Nine Years War to settle with Louis XIV.125 Similarly, while Madrid was embarrassed by the papal condemnation of the edict of toleration issued in 1694 by the Duke of Savoy on behalf of his Vaudois subjects’ edict (and which was demanded by William III and  ���c����� Lonchay, Correspondance, vol. 5, p. 502, Carlos II to Coloma, 29 Jan. 1689.   CSPV, 1673–5, pp. 85–6, Alberti to Doge and Senate, 11 Aug. 1673. 120  ����������c������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. C.F. Scott, ‘Don Pedro Ronquillo and British-Spanish Relations 1674–1691’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of St. Andrews, 1955), passim. 121  ������c����������������������������������������������������������������� S. Pincus, ‘The European Catholic Context of the Revolution of 1688–89: Gallicanism, Innocent XI, and Catholic Opposition’, in Macinnes and Williamson, Shaping the Stuart World, p. 79ff. 122  ������������������������������������� Cf. the treaty between Spain and the c��������������������������c��������������� confederation of the provinces of Guienne, Languedoc, Dauphiné and Provence, concluded in Madrid in July 1674, Consolidated Treaty Series, ed. C. Parry (243 vols, New York, 1969), vol. 13, p. 235ff., and K.H.D. Haley, William of Orange and the English Opposition (Oxford, 1953), pp. 204–5. 123  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. Storrs, ‘Thomas Coxe’, p. 199ff., and D. Maselli, ‘Il Glorioso Rimpatrio nei documenti spagnoli’, in de Lange, Dall’Europa alle Valli Valdesi, p. 191ff. 124  �������������������������������������c����������������������������� AST/LM/Olanda, m. 1, De la Tour to Victor Amadeus II, 22 Mar. 1691. 125  �������������������������������������������������������������c������������������� In 1695, Carlos refused to listen to papal (and Venetian) peace overtures on the grounds of his obligations to his allies, Lonchay, Correspondance, vol. 5, p. 632, Carlos II to Quiros, 13 Oct. 1695. 118 119

The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II

45

the Dutch States-General as the price of their subsidies to him), it did not allow this to undermine their relationship with the Duke of Savoy. Even where there were difficulties between Spain and the Protestant states, we cannot always point to religion as the decisive element. Madrid failed, for example, to convert the intervention on its behalf in 1667–68 of Protestant Sweden into a firm alliance. Similarly, relations with William III deteriorated markedly during both the Dutch War and the Nine Years War. However, religion was not the decisive factor in either case, although it contributed to the mutual distrust and irritation. Far more important in the case of Sweden, was Madrid’s failure to pay promised subsidies and its refusal to allow the Swedes access to the Indies.126 As for William III, Carlos II and his ministers resented the way Spain’s contribution in the Nine Years War was disregarded by his allies (including William and the Dutch), and by his allies’ failure to fulfil their own promises to him; and in 1698– 1700 was offended by William’s negotiation of the Partition Treaties with Louis XIV. Worsening relations with Sweden and William were explained not so much by religion but a determination in Madrid to maintain the empire and Spain’s monopoly of its benefits. In fact, Carlos II and his ministers successfully distinguished between the religious and the secular, and did not allow the former to determine the latter. In 1678, Carlos and his ministers were unwilling to intervene in England on behalf of Charles II’s Catholic subjects,127 no doubt because this would compromise their efforts to bring England into the war against Louis XIV. Carlos II’s subjects were equally subtle. French propaganda during the Nine Years War which sought to depict Louis XIV as fighting a war of religion, and to restore the Catholic James II did not achieve the desired effect in Catalonia, for example: it did not separate the Catalans from their king, or ignite a revolt to match that of 1640.128

III Just what constituted a religious foreign policy is a complex matter, not least for the Spain of His Catholic Majesty, Carlos II. Carlos ruled a global empire which was largely Catholic. Not surprisingly, a Catholic ideology was crucially important in the political discourse of that empire, or Monarchy, then and later.129 Ideally, 126  ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Cf. R. Quatrefage, ‘Diplomatic relationships between Spain and Sweden XVI–XVII centuries’, in E. Martínez Ruíz and M. De Pazzis Pi Corrales (eds), Spain and Sweden in the Baroque Era (1600–1660) (s.l., s.a.), p. 1005ff. ; and Storrs, ‘Models of Penetration’, p. 344ff. 127  ��������� Marqués, Santa Sede, pp. 210–11. 128  �������������������������������������c��������������������������������c���� AST/LM/Spagna, m. 38/98, Operti to Victor Amadeus II, 4 June 1693; Symcox, ‘Outbreak of War’, p. 200; Espino López, Catalunya durante el Reinado, p. 117. 129  �����������c�����������������������������c���������������������������������� Cf. I.M. Vicent López, ‘La Cultura Política Castellana durante la Guerra de Sucesión. El Discurso de la Fidelidad’, in P. Fernández Albaladejo (ed.), Los Borbones.

46

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

because he and his ministers (and subjects) were at least notionally – and for the most part aspired to be – good Christians and Catholics, king and officials would have pursued a Catholic foreign policy. In many respects they did so, particularly in their struggle against the Monarchy’s Moorish opponents. They also sought to defend and promote Catholic interests where possible in Protestant Europe. Indeed, some observers believed Spain was exploiting its religious credentials to support its crumbling imperial position.130 However, while this may be true there was little that was unique about a Catholic sovereign promoting Catholicism in this period: many – most others – did the same. It must also be admitted that the Spanish Monarchy played little role in what was perhaps the most striking confrontation between Christianity and the infidel in the later seventeenth century, i.e. the struggle against the Ottomans and their corsair allies in the Balkans and Mediterranean, a conflict which clearly impinged less upon the territories of the Spanish Monarchy than those of some other states in this period. In addition, in a world in which the Catholic Louis XIV posed the most serious threat to the Monarchy, Carlos II needed allies. The Spanish king had many Catholic allies – his cousin, the Emperor, the Rhine electors, the Catholic Swiss cantons, the Duke of Savoy in the Nine Years War and so on – but needed Protestant support as well and could not therefore simply or always pose as a Catholic (as opposed to Christian) crusader. Religious issues did sometimes complicate relations with those Protestant allies. Indeed, we need to distinguish the different pressure groups at the Court of Carlos II and his mother, including those we might designate devots, who thought religion should determine foreign policy decisions131 and that the king should pursue a Catholic policy. But the devots were rarely allowed to get in the way of securing the support needed to sustain the Monarchy. For too long religion has been underestimated as a factor in international relations after 1648. However, we should not, in seeking to restore the balance, go too far in the other direction and exaggerate the influence of religious attitudes and values on policy-makers. The Spanish Monarchy was, certainly, a polity in which religion was still a major cement and source of identity, and in which religion helped to shape foreign and imperial policy. Nevertheless, it was not the only influence. The example of the Spain of the last Habsburg suggests a pragmatism which ruled out an inflexibly religious – especially Catholic – policy.132 Dinastia y Memoria de Nación en la España del Siglo XVIII (Madrid, 2002), p. 217ff. 130  �������� Cf. the comments c�����������������������������������������������������������������c�� of Arlington reported by Don Pedro Ronquillo from the peace congress at Nijmegen in December 1676, in C.F. Scott, ‘The Peace of Nijmegen: Some Comments on Spanish Foreign Policy and the Activity of Don Pedro Ronquillo’, in J.A.H. Bots and A.G. Weiler (eds), The Peace of Nijmegen 1676–1678/79 La Paix de Nimegue (Amsterdam, 1980), p. 287. 131  ����������������������������������������� Cf. Nithard, opposing deal with England, cited c����������������c���������������� in J.A. Sanchéz Belén, ‘Las relaciones Económicas de la Monarquía Hispánica durante la regencia de Dona Mariana de Austria’, Studia Historica. História Moderna, 20 (1999), p. 145. 132  �����c�������������c������������������������� Cf. Scott, ‘The Peace of Nijmegen’, p. 285ff.

Chapter 3

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy∗ Andrew C. Thompson

What did it mean to have a ‘religious’ foreign policy for the generation of statesmen who dominated the European scene after the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, known collectively as the Peace of Westphalia, brought the Thirty Years War to an end in 1648? The traditional answer to this question was that after 1648 religion ceased to be a major operative force in the foreign policies of most European powers. Many international relations theorists and political scientists saw in 1648 the beginnings of the inevitable (and, of course, highly desirable) process of secularisation. Just as Western politicians have recently had to come to terms with the unwelcome news that religion might not be dead politically, so historians have also begun to reassess the longevity of religious ways of looking at the world and the persistence of confessional thinking. This chapter continues the re-evaluation of religion’s importance for politics. It begins by discussing the evolution of traditional secularising accounts and suggests weaknesses in the assumptions on which such accounts are based. It is crucial to differentiate between a notion of ‘wars of religion’ and a more broadly conceived religious foreign policy. The ways in which religious language and ideas shaped political thinking were undoubtedly altered and transformed in the second half of the seventeenth century. Yet this was not a straight transformation from a religious pre-modernity to a secular modernity with 1648 marking the point of transition. Instead, the process was subtler. Protestants could easily convince themselves that they had adopted new ways of thinking about religious conflict but they were less sure that their Catholic opponents had abandoned confessional zeal. Thus, the process of change exhibited asymmetry with one side moving despite, or perhaps because of, the intransigence of the other. Indeed, the continued emphasis on Catholic zealotry was to become an important component of Protestant

∗ I would like to thank Tony Claydon and Stephen Taylor for their advice.   ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Theodore K. Rabb typifies this tradition with his comment that after 1650 ‘one’s church was to all intents and purposes irrelevant to one’s foreign policy’, Theodore K. Rabb, The struggle for stability in early modern Europe (New York, 1975), p. 81.   ������������ Evan Luard, The balance of power: the system of international relations, 1648–1815 (London, 1992), p. 7.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

48

self-understanding. Consideration of Protestant identity, in turn, suggests ways in which current understandings of the nature of the Enlightenment need to be modified. Enlightened Protestant thinkers made arguments about the need for the state to stand above the church not from a position of strength but rather as an aspiration because they feared that in much of Catholic Europe the precise opposite was true. The geographical focus of this chapter is on Britain. The choice is deliberate. British historians, particularly those of the Whig school, have often portrayed Britain or, more frequently and narrowly, England, as different from (and implicitly superior to) much of continental Europe. One result of this approach has been a tendency to see Britain as the most advanced of the European states in the 150 years before the revolutions in France and America. It was, after all, an English parliament that had resisted the claims of Stuart divine right in the 1640s. In the 1680s the English political nation again asserted itself to remove another tyrant in the events that became known as the Glorious Revolution. In contrast to the absolute monarchies of the continent, Britain was marching decisively towards modernity by 1688 at the very latest. Whether this version of the British past represents a broader historical truth is another matter, but what is beyond dispute is that this story has been both pervasive and persuasive for the way that Britons view themselves and their history. For present purposes, it is some of the concomitant assumptions of the Whig account that are important. As Britain was, according to Whig and progressive historians, the most modern of the European states, it was assumed that it would also be the one in which politics emancipated itself from the fatal distraction of religion the soonest. The belief that the growth of the sovereign state entailed an automatic defeat for other sources of authority, such as churches, was central to this picture. A twofold process of rationalisation was taking place – more efficient governmental structures were accompanied by a mental shift away from the damaging forces of religious irrationality to politics conducted on a more logical and secular basis. State building and the Enlightenment proceeded hand in hand. This chapter challenges the received Whig wisdom. By showing how religion continued to be important for British politics, it indicates how even in one of the supposedly most advanced of the European states the Peace of Westphalia did not constitute the caesura so often assumed. Furthermore, to raise the stakes even further, the claim advanced here is not just that religion was important to domestic 

 ����������������c���������������c������������������������������������������������� Linda Colley traces the importance of the Catholic ‘other’ for British protestant identity in Britons (New Haven, 1992), ch. 1.   ����������������������������������c������������������������������������� The treatment of Huguenots in France, the Vaudois in Piedmont-Savoy and Hungarian Protestants within Habsburg territories all gave rise to concern.   �����������c������������������ Paradigmatic: G.M. Trevelyan, History of England (London, 1926).   ���c��������������������������������������������������������c��������������������� Since the late 1970s, the work of revisionist historians, such as the late Conrad Russell, has attacked the Whig account of constitutional conflict in the seventeenth century.

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

49

politics (this is generally accepted in accounts of both the emergence of political parties in the late seventeenth century and electoral politics in the early eighteenth century) but that religion mattered to foreign policy – the sphere in which the cold calculation of interest, rather than more abstract notions of principle and ideas, is frequently seen to hold sway. Britons may not have paid much attention to the Peace of Westphalia, caught up as they were in their own debilitating internal struggles. Yet the present focus on foreign affairs shows why it is an appropriate starting point for this essay. One of the major developments of this period was increased English, and latterly British, involvement in European affairs. Whig accounts tended to stress English separation and detachment from more general continental trends. Nothing could be further from the truth. To explain the importance of religious ideas for British policy in the entire period from 1648 to 1713 would be impossible within a single essay. For the earlier part of the period the account is necessarily schematic. Much of the chapter concentrates on the changes and transformations that took place in official and semi-official discourse about foreign policy in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century, not least because they provide the foundations for understanding British thinking on foreign policy beyond 1713. One of the key transformations that most commentators note in this period is the rise of the language of the balance of power. The rise of such language is usually seen as indicative of the broader secularising trend. By contrast, this chapter shows how such language was confessionalised and, consequently, an indicator of the precise opposite from what is often assumed. While the choice of this period is partly pragmatic, there is also a broader methodological point to be made. Just as it has often been assumed that Britain was a path-breaker in terms of secularised politics, it is usually alleged that this development took place sooner, rather than later. By indicating the ways in which religious ideas were still central to British foreign policy as late as 1713, the case for a more general revision is strengthened considerably.

I Advocates of the traditional account of Westphalia as ‘decisive break’ have several interesting cards to play. One way in which the treaties marked a break from previous diplomatic practice was that the contracting parties agreed to ignore any formal protests that the Papacy might lodge to the exchange of territories envisioned by the settlement. The Papacy’s refusal to sanction the final settlement,   ���������������� See Tim Harris, Politics under the later Stuarts (London, 1993), ch. 3 and Geoffrey Holmes, British politics in the age of Anne (2nd edn, London, 1987), pp. xx–xxii.   ���������������������������� Luard’s title (see fn 2) of Balance of power for his work on international relations is both typical and indicative.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

50

or even to contemplate negotiating with heretics, has been taken as evidence of a papal withdrawal from European diplomacy. One consequence of this withdrawal was that the other European powers had to reach a modus vivendi as to how to handle future disputes. Papal refusal to play diplomatic ball allegedly contributed to the emergence of a thoroughly secularised European states system. Moreover, mention of the idea of a states system taps into several other strands of argumentation used by Westphalian traditionalists. While the notion of a system of relations between the various European states has a long pedigree, much of the theoretical and historical work on the subject can be traced back to the father of modern German (and arguably European) historiography, Leopold von Ranke. Ranke’s output was both large, encompassing some 50 volumes in the standard edition, and varied. He worked on the history of the Papacy, the history of England and international relations. Underlying all his work was a close examination of the broad range of official papers, mainly related to the conduct of foreign policy, that were just becoming available to historians in the early nineteenth century. It was Ranke who first formulated the notion of the ‘Great Powers’ and, in the same essay, examined the ways in which the great powers developed a system to govern relations between themselves.10 Ranke’s name also appears frequently in relation to other aspects of the transition to the modernity thesis so often adopted by international relations’ theorists. It is said,11 that 1648 marked the end of ‘wars of religion’. Leaving aside the textual difficulties of locating such an utterance in Ranke’s own work,12 there are other problems with suggesting such a rapid collapse in the notion of ‘wars of religion’. The problem here is twofold. On the one hand, given the now near total domination of a ‘realist’ approach to international relations both before and after 1648,13 there is a considerable body of scholarship that asserts that the so-called ‘wars of religion’ of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were nothing of the kind.14 Instead, like all conflict, it was power and its distribution that was at issue. On the other hand, there is smaller body of scholarship that takes the opposite  ����������c��� Jeremy Black, European international relations, 1648–1815 (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 20–21 cautions against this view and W.R. Ward remarks that it was the Catholic powers who had excluded the Papacy anyway, W.R. Ward, Christianity under the Ancien Régime, 1648–1789 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 7–8. 10  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ranke’s essay was first published in 1833 and can be found in English translation in T.H. von Laue, Leopold Ranke: the formative years (Princeton, NJ, 1950), pp. 181–218. 11  ��c�������������� Richard S. Dunn, The age of religious wars, 1559–1689 (London, 1970), p. 78 is typical. 12  �������������������������������������������������������������c����������������� Andrew C. Thompson, ‘The protestant interest and foreign policy in Britain and Hanover, 1719–1736’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2003), pp. 3–4. 13  ��������cc��c�������������������������������c��������������������� For a succinct outline of the realist approach, see Brendan Sims, The impact of Napoleon (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 2–17. 14  ����������������������c���������c�������c����������� Contrast the more nuanced approach in Mack P. Holt, The French wars of religion, 1562–1629 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 1–7. 

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

51

view. Instead of seeing 1648 as the end of ‘wars of religion’, their demise needs to be postponed – perhaps to as late as the Seven Years War.15 These two approaches are, of course, mutually exclusive but both illustrate the problematic nature of putting too much weight on 1648 as a decisive turning point. Debate continues amongst scholars about how early modern Europeans justified conflict.16 What can be said with reasonable certainty is that although the nature of how that justification was made may have changed, the notion that a war had to be just for a Christian to participate in it remained crucial well beyond the period covered by the present work.17 The focus on justifications of conflict is interesting in itself. Whereas realist international theory posits an essentially ahistorical account of why wars take place – they simply are about the struggle for power, even if participants in any given conflict claim otherwise and say, for example, that it is about defending confessional interests – an approach based on the study of justifications offers the historian the opportunity to assess what actors in a particular conflict conceived that they were doing. This does not, of course, preclude the eventual conclusion that the real reasons for conflict were not entirely clear to contemporaries but helpfully it does not preclude a priori the possibility that ideological and religious concerns might help explain why conflict commenced at a particular time and in a particular way. British Protestants in the late seventeenth century had clear ideas about both the causes of and solutions to the international dilemmas that they faced. These ideas were linked to more general precepts about the way that the world worked. Consequently, to comprehend the extent to which religious (or any other) ideas affected foreign policy, it is necessary not only to analyse whether a specific decision might have been the result of Protestant considerations but also to consider broader issues of political culture and the web of assumptions connected to the conduct of politics. Implicit in such an approach is the assumption that while statesmen may have been more fully aware of the machinations of politics and the importance of dynastic and state interests than the ordinary subject, they were not completely immune to broader cultural assumptions. Consequently, a strictly strategic approach to the study of foreign policy may illuminate much in the way of continuities over time but it will also tend to diminish difference and nuance. Decisions are conditioned by the culture in which they are made. Two further points about the Westphalian legacy need to be made. The first can be dealt with relatively briefly as its limitations are explored subsequently. One way in which the Peace of Westphalia has been seen as the harbinger of 15  �������������������� Johannes Burkhardt, Abschied von Religionskrieg: der Siebenjährige Krieg und die päpstliche Diplomatie (Tübingen, 1985). 16  ������������������������������� Contrast James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War, Religious and Secular Concepts 1200–1740 (Princeton, NJ, 1975) with Konrad Repgen, ‘Kriegslegitimationen in Alteuropa. Entwurf einer historischen Typologie’, HZ, 241 (1985): 27–49. 17  �������������������������� Konrad Repgen, ‘What is a “religious “�������������”���������������������������c����������� war”?’, in E.I. Kouri and Tom Scott (eds), Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (London, 1987), p. 316.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

52

more secular politics is that it supposedly inaugurated an era of ‘balance of power’ politics in Europe. While historians of the settlement itself dispute the notion that a balance of power was important for the actual evolution of the treaties,18 there is little doubt that notions of the balance of power did become more prominent in Europe after 1648. This does not mean, however, that the role of religious thinking had necessarily been diminished. Within British foreign policy discourse the balance of power was one of the main bulwarks through which the Protestant interest in Europe could be supported. The growth of balance of power thinking was not, therefore, a marker of secularisation but rather of a transformation of religious and confessional thought. While much of the discussion thus far has focused on the implications that the Peace of Westphalia had for Europe in general, it is important to recall that the settlement was designed to regulate confessional conflict within the Holy Roman Empire. At the time it was clear to all sides that the settlement marked a compromise. This is amply illustrated by the arrangements put in place to decide the confession of the individual territories within the Empire. 1624 was taken to be the Normaljahr [normal or normative year] and all territories were to revert to their confessional status at this point in time. Why was 1624 chosen? For no other reason than that it marked the mid-point between the height of Protestant gains in 1618 and the Catholic revival that reached its zenith in 1630. Other aspects of the settlement included the official recognition of Calvinism as the third confession within the Empire and the provision that disputes about religion were to be resolved by direct negotiation between Protestants and Catholics at the Reichstag rather than through the more complex collegial arrangements that were used in other decisions. The nature of the settlement, together with the fact that armed conflict over religion did not erupt in the Empire after 1648, has led some to suppose that the Peace of Westphalia marked the definitive resolution of confessional conflict in central Europe.19 In the grand narrative of German politics, disputes between Protestants and Catholics now gave way to the struggle between Prussia and Austria for hegemony. The Peace of Westphalia became such an important aspect of the status quo that by the middle of the eighteenth century German jurists listed it as part of the fundamental laws of the Empire.20 Yet it would be short-sighted to argue that the confessional issue had simply disappeared. The settlement brought confessional conflict within a legal framework. Confessional disputes were no longer settled by artillery and infantry but by advocates and supposedly incisive legal arguments. Consequently it is difficult to argue that the Westphalian

18

 �������������������������ä���c�������������������������������������ä��c���� Konrad Repgen, ‘Der Westfälische Friede und die Ursprünge des europäischen Gleichgewichts’, in idem, Von der Reformation zur Gegenwart, eds Klaus Gotto and Hans Günter Hockerts (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna and Zurich, 1988), pp. 53–66. 19  ��c������������� Michael Maurer, Kirche, Staat und Gesellschaft im 17. und 18. ����������� Jahrhundert (Munich, 1999), p. 17. 20  ���������������� J.G. Gagliardo, Reich and Nation (Bloomington and London, 1980), p. 16.

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

53

settlement led to a general diminuendo in religion’s importance to politics. Again, the dominant trend is one of transformation not disappearance.

II The limitations of traditional understandings of the implications of the Peace of Westphalia should now be clear. Considering what happened to British foreign political discourse after 1648 also indicates the continuing importance of religious ideas. Britain in the 1650s was hardly a place where religion was absent from the public agenda. Cromwell’s intense personal faith is seen by many commentators as crucial for understanding his rule.21 It was not just in his struggles with the King and Catholics within the British Isles that Cromwell was able to display his Protestant credentials. His foreign policy has been described as embracing the idea of an ‘aggressive Protestant foreign policy’.22 Indeed, as John Reeve remarks, it is the very emphasis on Protestantism that has led many more realist commentators to criticise Cromwell’s foreign policy as amateurish and overly ideological.23 Cromwell viewed Spain as the main threat to British security. Yet his determination to destroy Spanish power also reflected his view that the Spanish Habsburgs had been Catholicism’s chief recent defenders. The reduction of Spanish power could only help Protestantism’s survival in both Britain and continental Europe. While war with Spain could be easily slotted into a confessional framework, conflict with the Protestant Dutch, which erupted as the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652, might seem less amenable to religious logic. Yet, as Steve Pincus has shown, it was perfectly possible to portray elements of the elite in the United Provinces as ‘popish’ in their politics, even if they were ostensibly Protestant.24 Orangist support for the exiled Stuarts suggested that some of the Dutch had left the paths of righteousness to stray with the tyrannical former British monarchs into Romish fields. The web of association between tyranny, absolute rule, oppression and Catholicism – aptly summarised in the phrase ‘popery and arbitrary government’ – had already been established within British political consciousness and its potency was to remain well into the eighteenth century, and even beyond.25 21  ������������� Peter Gaunt, Oliver Cromwell (Oxford, 1996), pp. 233–8; J.C. Davis, ‘Cromwell’s religion’, in John Morrill (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English revolution (London, 1989), pp. 181–208. 22  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� John Reeve, ‘Britain and the world under the Stuarts, 1603–1689’, in John Morrill (ed.), The Oxford illustrated history of Tudor & Stuart Britain (Oxford, 1996), p. 423. 23  ���������������� Ibid, pp. 423–4. 24  ���������������c���� Steven C.A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the making of English foreign policy, 1650–1668 (Cambridge, 1996), ch. 3. 25  �����������������������������������c�������������������������������������������� Andrew C. Thompson, ‘Popery, politics and private judgement in early Hanoverian Britain’, HJ, 45 (2002): 333–56, and John Wolffe, ‘A transatlantic perspective: Protestantism and national identities in mid-nineteenth-century Britain and the United States’, in Tony

54

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

One feature of Cromwell’s foreign political thinking that was to have longer term importance was the idea that it was necessary to prevent the domination of Europe by a single power. Modern international relations parlance speaks of the need to avoid the hegemony of a single power through the preservation of a multi-polar system. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century British writers on foreign policy had a similar idea but described it in different terms. The dangers of the dominance from the single hegemonic power were encompassed in writing about the threat posed by universal monarchy. The modern multi-polar system was instead described through the need to maintain a balance of power. In Cromwell’s case, the major danger was perceived to come from Spain, hence Cromwell was willing to ally with France to combat the greater threat to European security from across the Pyrenees. While the Spanish Habsburgs had been Europe’s superpower in the first half of the seventeenth century, their power was already waning by the 1650s. France had refused to make peace with Spain at Westphalia in 1648. Instead, Cardinal Mazarin dreamed of expanding French power and taking Spanish-held territory in the Low Countries, Burgundy and even Italy. Mazarin’s schemes were left in tatters when France was rocked by a series of revolts known as the Frondes (1648–53). Spanish forces invaded France. However, with English military support helping tip the balance in his favour, Mazarin was able to repel the Spanish and forced them to make peace in November 1659. The era of Spanish domination of Europe had effectively ended. Mazarin died in March 1661 and the 22-year-old Louis XIV chose not to appoint another first minister and instead assumed absolute power himself. Louis’s policies and desire to secure France’s borders rapidly put him on a collision course with other European powers and it soon became clear that a new potential universal monarch had arrived.26 How best to contain French power was to become the dominant theme in international relations in the later seventeenth century and, with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to criticise those who failed to predict correctly the way that the wind was blowing. In the aftermath of the Restoration, Charles II and James II chose to continue Cromwell’s policy of alliance with France, although for radically different reasons.27 Louis XIV wanted French aggrandisement with the minimum of opposition. Consequently, he wanted England as an ally or, at the very least, neutral. France had been an important supporter of the Stuart restoration and Louis was able to exploit this favour to his advantage. A perennial problem of Stuart monarchs was their inability to raise money. Fiscal security had a dramatic impact on England’s ability to compete on the international stage. It was war and the conduct of foreign policy that absorbed most of a state’s finances in this period. Claydon and Ian McBride (eds), Protestantism and National Identity. Britain and Ireland, c.1650–c.1850 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 291–309. 26  ��������cc��c���cc������������c���������������������c��������������c����� For a succinct account of France’s rise, see Derek McKay and H.M. Scott, The rise of the great powers (Harlow, 1983), ch. 1. 27  ������������������������������������������� Reeve, ‘Britain and the world’, pp. 426–31.

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

55

Charles II’s need for cash made him susceptible to offers of financial assistance from across the Channel, but Louis’s gold came at a price: acquiescence to French designs in Europe. Charles II and, later, James II were prepared to take the French penny because of the problems that they both experienced with raising funds through Parliament. Indeed, the memory of familial difficulties in acquiring parliamentary funds may have quickened their search for financial independence. Yet their choice of ally was not universally popular. French power was growing in the 1660s. For some, it seemed that the Catholic monster was a worrying hydra – following Spanish decapitation, a new (and stronger) French head had appeared. The English political nation was concerned about the future fate of Protestantism, not least because the succession remained unclear. Charles II lacked legitimate male heirs and was regarded as religiously suspect. His brother was no better. For strict Protestants the moral latitude of the later Stuart court suggested more than a whiff of corrupt popery in the air.28 In addition to such domestic concerns, Charles’s foreign political decisions gave little comfort to the Protestant imagination. The Second Anglo-Dutch war (1665–67) was brought to a rapid conclusion after Louis’s successful invasion of the Southern Netherlands in the War of Devolution (1667–68). Why, it was asked, did Charles seem indifferent to the growth of French power and yet, perversely, willing to go to war with the protestant Dutch? A group of anti-French ministers reacted by forcing through the Triple Alliance that brought together England, Sweden and the United Provinces.29 Charles, on the other hand, was set on revenge against the Dutch, following the partial destruction of the English fleet when Dutch ships sailed into the Medway in June 1667. Louis realised that financial incentives might be a solvent of the Triple Alliance and so it proved. Charles believed that French subsidies would allow him to triumph over the Dutch, hopefully boosting his domestic popularity, and do so without recourse to Parliament, enhancing his political position. Charles promised in the treaties of Dover (1670) to support Louis’s assault on the United Provinces with troops and ships in exchange for £225,000 a year in subsidy. He also hinted that he would announce his formal conversion to Catholicism. Louis agreed to support Charles with troops and money, should his change of faith provoke domestic opposition. Unsurprisingly, given the explosive contents of the treaties, they were kept secret from all but the most trusted of Charles’s inner circle.30 England declared war on the United Provinces in March 1672 and Louis invaded soon afterwards. Despite some initial successes, England gained little from the war and was forced to make peace in early 1674. Domestic support for the war had ebbed away, not least because there was suspicion that the war was  �������� Harris, Politics under the later Stuarts, pp. 52–61.  ����������c����� Jonathan Scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-century English political instability in European context (Cambridge, 2000), p. 171. 30  �������������� Paul Seaward, Restoration (London, 1991), pp. 85–6. 28 29

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

56

furthering the cause of ‘popery and arbitrary government’. Various factors had combined to create this impression. In the run up to the war, Charles had agreed to a declaration of indulgence to suspend the penal laws against Protestant dissenters (March 1672). The ministry hoped that this would prevent English and Scottish nonconformists from listening to the siren calls of their Dutch co-religionists to undermine Charles’s war effort. However, the declaration also relaxed laws against Catholics. When Parliament was recalled in February 1673, the declaration was criticised as pro-Catholic. Charles, unwilling to jeopardise the grant of further funds for the war (Louis’s money having proved insufficient), agreed to suspend the declaration. Unsatisfied with mere cancellation, Parliament also passed a Test Act, limiting office to those who took the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, were prepared to subscribe to an anti-Catholic declaration and take communion within the Church of England. Charles’s brother, James, resigned his offices, rather than subscribe to the conditions of the Test Act, increasing political tensions. Moreover, following the death of his first wife, negotiations had begun to marry James to the Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. William of Orange sought to take advantage of these events. He worked hard to further the impression that Charles, James and Louis were involved in a conspiracy to undermine Protestantism in England.31 The parliamentary opposition and other parts of the political nation were more than willing to listen to such arguments. Policy-making and, particularly, reactions to it were being strongly influenced by religious views and preconceptions. Instead of a slow unravelling of the connections between religion and foreign political manoeuvrings in Britain after 1650, the intimate web of association became, if anything, tighter.

III The fear a Catholic monarch would inevitably mean political disaster was so strong that by the late 1670s an active parliamentary opposition had emerged, set on excluding James from the line of succession.32 While the opposition argued that the Church of England would be irreparably damaged by a Catholic monarch and all true Englishmen would find their liberties destroyed, the Stuarts’ supporters argued that the existing legal framework and James’s word was sufficient to safeguard both church and state. From these debates about the rights of crown and the rights of Parliament to determine matters of national concern new political groupings emerged. Whigs argued that a Protestant monarch was the only sure defence against further popish advances and that all Protestants, both inside and outside the Church of England, should unite to prevent James’s accession. Tories stressed the importance of the hereditary principle – James was God’s anointed – and the right enjoyed by all monarchs to the almost unquestioning obedience of  �������� Troost, William III, p. 99.  �������� Harris, Politics under the later Stuarts, ch. 4.

31 32

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

57

their subjects. Parliamentary attempts at exclusion finally failed in 1681. Charles refused to give in to the exclusionists’ demands and did not recall Parliament again. His ability to survive without Parliament had been increased by the provision of further subsidies from Louis XIV – £385,000 over three years promised in March 1681. Charles fell ill suddenly in early February 1685. He was received into the Catholic Church, with his brother standing by, on 5 February and died the next morning. What was to become of Britain with a Catholic on the throne? Whig historians have alleged that all the political fears that their Whig-politician ancestors had expressed during the Exclusion Crisis rapidly and catastrophically came to pass. More recent historical work has sought to add nuance to the Whig myth but, as Tim Harris rightly points out, the perception at the time amongst the majority of James’s subjects was that for the future to be bright, it had, ultimately, to be Orange.33 Or rather, James’s behaviour was to give rise to significant concerns. He relaxed laws against Catholics holding office; he sought to maintain a standing army in peacetime; the monopoly of Anglican worship was broken and he was willing to use his prerogative to circumvent the laws of England. Once more, though, while there were significant domestic reasons for Protestants to worry about James’s policies, the foreign situation also offered little comfort. 1685 witnessed a series of body-blows for European Protestantism. Following James’s accession in February, the Elector Palatine, died in May 1685. The rule of the most important Calvinist electorate in the Empire passed from a Protestant to the Catholic Pfalz-Neubergs. Despite the Westphalian provisions that prevented the confession of a territory being altered by a change of ruler, Protestants throughout Europe were apprehensive about the future. More significantly, in October 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which had granted toleration to his Protestant subjects since 1598. The exodus of Huguenots from France created a wave of anti-French propaganda throughout Europe. In the Protestant territories bordering France, where the Huguenots sought refuge, the word soon spread that Louis was the chief threat to Protestantism in Europe.34 The expulsion of the Huguenots left James in a difficult position. He wanted to stay close to Louis and was reluctant to do anything to anger him. Yet public opinion in England was in uproar about the Huguenots’ treatment. James, like other members of his family, tended to associate Huguenots (and non-Anglican Protestantism more generally)35 with republicanism and, while he may have disapproved of persecution, he remained deeply suspicious of sectaries.36 The  ������������ Tim Harris, Revolution (London, 2006), pp. 182–3.  �������������������������������������������� Robin Gwynn, ‘The Huguenots in Britain, the “���������������������������������� “Protestant International” and the defeat of Louis XIV’, in Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton (eds), From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550–1750 (Brighton, 2001), pp. 412–24. 35  ������������������������c�������������c���� For earlier Stuart suspicions, see Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, ch. 12. 36  �������� Harris, Revolution, pp. 185–7. 33

34

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

58

French alliance, source of so much religious and political trouble since the 1660s, remained a weight round James’s neck. Despite a desire to steer a middle path between his financial backer, Louis XIV, and his nephew and son-in-law, the prince of Orange, James found himself between a rock and a hard place. The political nation and public opinion were suspicious of closer ties with France but William wanted to force James off the fence and into active participation in his projected coalition against Louis.37 Louis, naturally, wished to maintain James’s neutrality in any conflict that might arise with William, even if this decision had financial consequences. There were two essential preconditions for James’s eventual overthrow. The first was the Austrian Habsburg victory over the Turks at Mohács in August 1687.38 With the Turkish threat under control, at least temporarily, the Habsburgs had a breathing space in the east that allowed them to turn their attention to the threat posed by France in the west. The prospects for William’s coalition seemed to be increasing. By November 1687 it was clear that Mary of Modena was pregnant. A male heir would help to secure the Stuarts in Britain. It would also raise the possibility that the switch of monarchical confession that had seemed temporary at James’s accession in 1685 might become more permanent. When William was invited to cross the North Sea by seven leading English politicians, he seized the opportunity with both hands.

IV The rest of the chapter considers the role that religion played in the formulation and justification of foreign policy after the Glorious Revolution but it is worth pausing briefly to recapitulate and reinforce several themes. The first is the necessity of resisting accounts that posit a rapid and inevitable separation of the discourses of religion and foreign policy after 1648. The British case suggests almost the opposite: fear of religious change and an attack on Protestantism was intimately connected to worries about the direction of foreign policy. The Stuart alliance with France was a source of deep disquiet. The two sides of the argument were mutually reinforcing. Dubious foreign political choices were symptomatic of a corrupt court, hell-bent on introducing popish absolutism, just as the claws of the Romish conspiracy, led by Louis XIV, could be seen behind in the tyrannical disregard that both Charles II and James II displayed towards their parliaments and people. At the heart of these disputes lay the issue of the succession. Dynastic confession was viewed as critical for the preservation of Protestantism within the British Isles. Few rulers in the late seventeenth century were advocates of anything other than the monoconfessional state. The default political assumption, indeed one that had been embedded in the Peace of Westphalia itself, was that the confession of the  �������� Troost, William III, pp. 185–6.  �������������� Ibid., p. 187.

37 38

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

59

state tended to follow the ruler’s confession. The foreign political implications of such thinking were also interesting. While it was not the only tie that could bind monarchs together in alliances (blood being another, although it proved not to be thicker than water in the case of James II and William III), a common faith was seen as a ‘natural’ link between princes. A bond of common faith was more likely to hold than more transient economic or political interests. That, at least, was the popular view and it goes a considerable way to explaining popular disquiet at England’s wars with the United Provinces and friendship with France. This nexus of ideas and assumptions provide an important context for understanding William III’s actions after 1688. It was no coincidence that William, as Tony Claydon has shown,39 sought to play up his Protestant credentials after his arrival at Torbay in November 1688. Protestantism provided William with the tools he needed in two particular areas. On the one hand, William needed to justify his rule to his new subjects. Presenting himself as a Protestant saviour helped to confound the doubts of those who raised questions about the legitimacy of his rule. Prior to his arrival, Protestantism had been in danger; now it was not. On the other hand, William’s intervention in British politics was not entirely altruistic. William was keen to win England as an active participant in the emergent coalition against Louis XIV. Therefore, he had an immediate need to sell the war, and the financial burdens that it would inevitably bring, to his new subjects. Portraying the war against Louis as a means both to secure Protestantism at home and help the cause of European Protestantism more generally had considerable advantages for William.40 There is not space here to repeat in detail the manifold ways, so ably identified by Claydon, in which William and his propagandists, such as Gilbert Burnet, set about their task to portray William’s arrival as part of a ‘courtly reformation’ of British politics. What is important to note is that earlier generations of whiggishlyinclined historians misrepresented the nature of the 1688 settlement with an overemphasis on its modernity (and, by extension, secularity). There was a growth in the importance of Parliament in general and the House of Commons in particular after 1688 but this was inspired not by some overriding notion of the manifold destiny of England’s special path to liberty but rather by the practical exigencies of politics. War was expensive and although William made extensive use of debt to finance his wars in the 1690s, he needed revenue to secure the debt against.41 Consequently he was forced to turn to Parliament to grant him the supply against which loans could be raised. The Stuarts had tended to opt for foreign political inaction or sought extra-parliamentary means to fund their military adventures. William, as a newcomer, had no such luxury. His seizure, as some saw it, of the  ��������� Claydon, Revolution.  ���������������� Ibid., pp. 7–18. 41  ����������������������������������������������������������������� For a succinct account of the financial changes, see Craig Rose, England in the 1690s. Revolution, Religion and War (Oxford, 1999), pp. 132–44. The long term implications for the British state are considered in John Brewer, The sinews of power (London, 1989). 39

40

60

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

throne had created enough problems with existing elites so he could not afford to antagonise vested interests further by ignoring the traditional powerbase of the aristocracy and the gentry, Parliament. The stress placed on the religious aspects of William’s campaign to explain and justify his rule serves as an important counterweight to those accounts that seek to regard 1688 as almost the ‘British 1648’ – the break between religious premodernity and secular modernity. Mention has been made already of some of the distortions that arose from this tendency in the work of classical Whig historians. Yet there are also modern proponents of similar views and it is necessary to engage with their arguments directly as well. Steve Pincus has been a vocal advocate of the view that 1688 marked a definitive break with the past.42 He argues strongly against interpretations of 1688 that see it as an essentially conservative event.43 He also wishes to stress the importance of ideas of political economy in determining the ideological underpinnings of the events themselves.44 In his earlier work, Pincus argued that the religious rationale for foreign policy, so visible for Cromwell in the 1650s, lost its force during the second and third Anglo-Dutch wars. For Pincus, because it was possible to portray the Protestant Dutch, the French and the Spanish as potential ‘universal monarchs’, the term had such a wide variety of reference as to render it almost ‘meaningless’ as a useful way of describing political action.45 Pincus is certainly correct that different groups identified the threat of universal monarchy as proceeding from different quarters but it is also important to remember that the term was applied with reasonable consistency by these different groups. Thus, the Cromwellian regime regarded the Orangist party as the major threat (both politically and religiously). The royalist Anglicans of the 1660s also thought that there was a universal monarchist threat from the United Provinces but, instead of the Orangists, singled out the patriot party (as supporters of republicanism, indelibly associated with non-Anglican Protestantism in a British context) as the greater threat.46 The nascent opposition that was to form the Whig party saw, by contrast, the French as the greatest threat in the 1670s. In short, rather than a variety of applications rendering the ‘universal monarchist’

42  �������������������������������c������������c�������������������������� See Alan Houston and Steven Pincus, ‘Introduction. Modernity and laterseventeenth-century England’, in Alan Houston and Steven Pincus (eds), A nation transformed (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 1–19. 43  ����������c�����“��������c�������������������”������������������������������������� Steven Pincus, ‘“To protect English liberties”: the English nationalist revolution of 1688–1689’, in Claydon and McBride (eds), Protestantism and National Identity, pp. 75–104. 44  ����������c���� Steven Pincus, England’s Glorious Revolution (New York, 2006). 45  ����������c��������������������������������������������c����������������������� Steven Pincus, ‘The English debate over universal monarchy’, in John Robertson (ed.), A union for empire (Cambridge, 1995), p. 53. 46  ���������������������������������������������������c��������������������� This seems, to me at least, to be the thrust of Pincus’s own argument in Protestantism and Patriotism, pts I–III.

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

61

label meaningless, it is imperative to locate and disaggregate the particular usages adopted by specific groups.47 Bearing these strictures in mind, the contention adopted here is both that universal monarchist language had not lost its force by 1688 and that the way in which it was deployed continued to display distinctively religious, rather than simply national, characteristics. Granted, the flexibility of deployment remained within the language of universal monarchy. The pattern described here represents the dominant form in which the language was used but it was not the only one. Furthermore, the way in which universal monarchist language was coupled with notions of the balance of power to describe a crucial interrelationship of religious ideology and foreign political strategy was the property of one particular group – the Whigs. In the longer term, it was the Whigs that came to dominate the British political landscape after 1714. Therefore, what is traced here is the history of what was to become the official, or at least semi-official, view.48 There are also more practical and contingent reasons why the variety of applications of universal monarchist language tended to diminish after 1688. The language had previously been a useful tool for those worried about Dutch power. After 1688, with a Dutchman on the throne, it became, if not more difficult, certainly less expedient to criticise the United Provinces. This did not, of course, entirely stop the flow of anti-Dutch writing.49 It did mean, though, that official use of the universal monarchist language was very much directed towards the immediate threat posed by France, not least because of the immediate need to justify the war. Consequently, a certain amount of rationalisation took place within the deployment of the language. Charles Davenant published three essays in 1701 that encapsulate well the official Whig formulation of the relationship between universal monarchy and the balance of power.50 Part of Davenant’s contribution was to articulate a supposed history of British interest in the notion of the balance of power that was to serve as the justification of a particular role for Britain for many years to come. Davenant traced British interest in the importance of maintaining a balance between the various European powers back to Henry VIII’s reign. By allying alternately with Habsburg and Valois, Henry had judiciously ensured that neither became an overwhelming danger to the peace of Europe.51 Elizabeth I had continued Henry’s 47  �������������������� Andrew C. Thompson, Britain, Hanover and the Protestant interest, 1688–1756 (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 36–9. 48  ���������������� See also ibid., c����� ch. 1. 49  ���������������������������������������� See, for example, [Nathaniel Johnston], The dear bargain. Or, A true representation of the state of the English nation under the Dutch. In a letter to a friend [London, 1689] and William Anderton, Remarks upon the present confederacy, and late revolution in England (London, 1693). 50  �������������������� [Charles Davenant], Essays upon I. the Ballance of Power. II. The right of making war, peace and alliances. III. Universal Monarchy (London, 1701). 51  ������������ Ibid., p. 8.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

62

wise policy. Her assistance to both the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion and the Dutch in their revolt against Philip II’s rule had helped prevent Spanish domination of Europe. The language that Davenant used is revealing: Elizabeth had put ‘two invincible bars’ in the way of the path Spain ‘was then making towards universal monarchy’.52 Although complimentary about Tudor foreign policy, Davenant was less impressed by their Stuart successors. James I had broken with the national interest and the desires of Parliament by pressing for a Spanish alliance.53 As Spain posed the greatest threat to the balance of power, the correct strategy would have been for Britain to align herself with the other powers of Europe to remove the risk of Spanish universal monarchy. Following a period of international impotency under Charles I,54 Cromwell sided with the French, believing that Spain still posed the greatest threat.55 Instead it was now France that was the power to be feared and Cromwell’s policies left Charles II and James II with the fatal precedent of a French alliance. The later Stuarts became fatally reliant on French support and even used it against their own people. The dangers to Protestantism from the Franco-Stuart combination were ably illustrated by the Second Anglo-Dutch war, which was ‘a Mine sprung from the Court to blow up the Protestant Interest’.56 Parliament had consistently sought to maintain a balance of power in Europe from 1488 onwards, sometimes with and sometimes without monarchical help. William’s arrival had finally produced a monarch who had both taken Protestant concerns to heart and was also an able leader of the Protestant interest throughout Europe.57 Crucially, astute use of the balance of power was seen as a way of defending British security and more general freedoms for European Protestants. From this conceptual basis, Davenant proceeded to discuss the pros and cons of the recent Partition Treaties designed to settle who would succeed Carlos II as King of Spain. It seemed likely by this stage that the treaties would not solve the problem and there was a risk that Britain would again be plunged into conflict. Leaving aside Davenant’s more quotidian political concerns, the other feature of his work of longer term importance was his discussion of universal monarchy. Just as in relation to his arguments about the balance of power, Davenant placed his analysis of universal monarchy in a historical context. The desire for wealth and power had always existed in human history and this meant that the Assyrians, Babylonians, Macedonians and Romans had all exhibited worrying tendencies in the direction of universal monarchy.58 Charlemagne had hankered to dominate but his attempts had eventually fallen by the way. In the more recent past, the rise of 52

 ������������ Ibid., p. 9.  ���������������� Ibid., pp. 9–10. 54  ������������� Ibid., p. 12. 55  ������������� Ibid., p. 13. 56  ������������� Ibid., p. 18. 57  ���������������� Ibid., pp. 28–9. 58  ����������������� Ibid., pp. 237–8. 53

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

63

Ottoman power in the east had caused concern. Yet it had been the Habsburgs who had posed the greatest threat in the sixteenth century, first through the conglomerate of territories brought together under Charles V and later through the rise of Spain under Philip II.59 Davenant was confident that in his own time, the greatest threat to the balance of power came from the universal monarchist pretensions of France.60 What were some of the characteristics of universal monarchs? Their religious intolerance would inevitably lead to depopulation and consequential damage to trade.61 Religious pluralism was something they feared; differences of opinion in religious matters would be met with tyranny and persecution.62 Lest Davenant had not laid his point on thickly enough, he made particular reference to how Catholic clerics saw in the support of universal monarchy a defence of their own temporal privileges.63 While Davenant admitted that universal monarchy was a phenomenon with a long history, his typology of its most salient features – tyranny, religious intolerance, economic backwardness – read like a list of contemporary Whig complaints against the evils of popery. All of the more recent examples of universal monarchs, real or potential, mentioned by Davenant were Catholic: Charles V, Philip II and Louis XIV. Davenant, and others writing in a similar vein,64 wanted to link universal monarchy explicitly and solely to Catholic princes. In this endeavour, the diplomatic realities tended to work in favour of such a linkage. It was not until the arrival of Frederick II of Prussia on the international scene in 1740 that it could be argued with any degree of plausibility that the liberties of Europe were being endangered by a Protestant prince. It has often been objected that, although the threat from France may have been described in religious language, the defence of Protestantism made no practical difference to conduct of policy. The exigencies of politics meant that Britain continued to make alliances with Catholic powers and, therefore, religion could not have been central to ministerial thinking.65 The objection can be countered in several ways. The first is to draw attention to the dynamic links between notions of the need to preserve a balance of power and contain the power of aspirant universal monarchs. These aspirations were two sides of the same coin and it was the clever use of the former that would achieve the latter. The nature of the international system meant that sometimes Britain would be allied with Catholic powers to achieve the greater end of ensuring that a more powerful Catholic power was unable to dominate the whole of Europe. Such alliances were not fixed but 59

 ������������������ Ibid., pp. 239–48.  �������������� Ibid., p. 272. 61  �������������� Ibid., p. 252. 62  ����������������� Ibid., pp. 293–4. 63  �������������� Ibid., p. 281. 64  ���������������������������������������������������������c������������������� For an extensive survey of the work of another Whig publicist making similar arguments in this period, see Jens Metzdorf, Politik – Propaganda – Patronage: Francis Hare und die englische Publizistik im spanischen Erbfolgekrieg (Mainz, 2000). 65  �������� Troost, William III, p. 99. 60

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

64

were dependent on circumstance. Stuart monarchs had failed to diagnose the problem correctly so had pursued inappropriate alliance partners. William saw that to defeat the power of Louis XIV he needed the support of the Austrian Habsburgs. This was an alliance drawn from necessity, rather than deep-seated ideological compatibility.66 If, as was to happen after 1715, French power declined, then it might be necessary to ally with France to prevent Austria from becoming overmighty. British statesmen were very aware that the ties that held the Grand Alliance together were not necessarily that strong. They remained concerned that the pull of shared confession might destroy the common front against Louis XIV. Moreover, it is also worth remembering that the options for Protestant statesmen were somewhat limited in the late seventeenth century. Once agreement had been reached between Britain and the United Provinces, finding other important Protestant powers with which to ally became somewhat difficult. This was partly a result of the successes that the Counter-Reformation had achieved in pushing back the borders of Protestantism across Europe. For Protestantism to survive, it was argued that it was imperative to make use of the international system. Protestantism should be preserved, wherever possible, on a national basis. Settlements such as the Peace of Westphalia or the Treaty of Oliva (1660), which guaranteed Protestant rights in the Empire and Poland respectively, needed to be defended at all costs.67 The emphasis on the preservation of Protestant rights through treaty was, in many ways, a tacit acknowledgement of the relative weakness of the Protestant position in the late seventeenth century. Whereas in the sixteenth century the conversion traffic had been mainly Catholic princes becoming Protestant (especially within the patchwork of territories that made up the Empire), in the seventeenth century the flow reversed. Protestant rule in the Palatinate ended after the death of the last Protestant elector in 1685. By the late 1690s another Protestant elector had gone. Augustus II (or the Strong), Elector of Luther’s home territory of Saxony, had decided that conversion to Rome was a price worth paying to achieve his election to the Polish crown. Whereas in 1600 the balance of electors had been three Protestant (Saxony, Brandenburg, the Palatinate) to four Catholic (Bohemia, Mainz, Cologne and Trier), by 1700 two Protestant electors (Brandenburg and newly created Hanover) faced seven Catholics, whose numbers had been swelled not only by Saxony and the Palatinate but also by Bavaria, granted electoral status after 1648. The wars of religion of the sixteenth and seventeenth century certainly prompted a wariness amongst many about whether the one true faith, be it Protestant or Catholic, could really be spread by the sword. Sheer exhaustion and widespread destruction played its part in making armed confessional conflict seem less attractive. This development was helped by the growth of enlightened ideas about the importance of religious toleration and the futility of attempts to  ���������� Thompson, Britain, Hanover, pp. 39–40.  ���������������� Ibid., pp. 73–4.

66 67

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

65

invade the sovereignty of conscience, exemplified by John Locke’s 1689 Letter on Toleration. Protestant use of the sorts of apocalyptic language that had been used to describe earlier struggles against Catholics began to decline.68 Yet, while Protestants claimed that coercion would not lead to conversion, the reality in parts of Europe was that Protestants faced a sharp choice between conversion and punishment, be it in France, Piedmont-Savoy, various German territories, Poland, Hungary or the Austrian Habsburg Erbländer. In these circumstances, it becomes clear that Protestant thinkers arguing for the indispensability of religious toleration often expressed more of a hope than reflected a European reality. Enlightened arguments about the importance of conscience permeate our own culture; yet it was not always so. Protestants had developed an antipathy to wars of religion not simply because they found the very notion intellectually objectionable but also because the reality was that, in a Europe-wide confessional war, the Catholics were the odds-on winners. Much of the case advanced here for the continuing importance of religion for the conduct of foreign policy has been built upon a reconstruction of politicalcultural assumptions and the ways in which these continued to shape official thinking. Yet there is a final area that relates more directly to policy that is worth consideration. Succession was a topic of great concern across early modern Europe, not least because monarchical confession was often taken as an indicator of the direction in which popular religiosity would move.69 Succession disputes were also likely to provoke considerable international attention. It was a characteristic of the international relations of this period that dynastic marriages were an important tool of diplomacy and a keen awareness of genealogy and family ties was vital prerequisite for a successful monarch. Disputed successions provoked wars and the eighteenth century is littered with their names – Spanish, Polish, Austrian and Bavarian. Names can sometimes mislead – there were, after all, other reasons why all of the aforementioned conflicts broke out – but they can also sometimes misdirect. Mark Thomson, in an undervalued essay, drew attention to the ways in which the conflict that William III began with France in 1688–89 and that continued, with only a brief period of peace, until 1713 was a ‘war of the British succession’.70 William III lacked legitimate male heirs and the death of his sister-in-law (and successor), Anne’s son, the Duke of Gloucester, in July 1700 prompted a scramble to regulate the succession formally and finally. It was from this process that the Act of Settlement emerged in 1701. The Act named Sophia, dowager Electress of Hanover, and the heirs of her body ‘being protestants’ the

68

 ���������������c���������������������������������������������������������������� Although the decline was slower in sermon literature than is sometimes realised.  �����������������������c���������������������������cc���������������������� For a more detailed discussion of the Protestant succession, see Thompson, Britain, Hanover, ch. 2. 70  �������������������������������������������������������cc��������������������� Mark A. Thomson, ‘The safeguarding of the protestant succession, 1702–18’, in Ragnhild Hatton and J.S. Bromley (eds), William III and Louis XIV: essays by and for Mark A. Thomson (Liverpool, 1968), pp. 237–51. 69

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

66

heirs to the British thrones and, in one fell swoop, excluded more than fifty closer blood relations, who also happened to be Catholic. Louis XIV had welcomed the exiled Stuarts into France, even allowing them to set up court at his old palace of St Germain, after James II’s flight in 1688. He remained the major international backer of the Stuart cause until his death.71 Consequently, British politicians in the first decade of the eighteenth century were very aware of what the consequences of a French victory would be. Not only would there be a risk of French dominance of continental Europe, with one of Louis’s relations taking over the possessions of the Spanish Habsburgs, there was then an even greater risk that the Stuarts would be restored (again) by force. Past experience with James II made this an uninviting prospect and there was little hope that his son and heir, also a devout Catholic, would be any better. Thus, the defeat of Louis XIV would secure European peace by preventing the ascent of another universal monarch and would also contribute to the preservation of Britain’s security and government by reducing the likelihood of a Stuart return. Protestantism would be defended both at home and abroad. The trials and tribulations that supporters of the Protestant succession had to live through in the last years of Anne’s reign are well known.72 The plans concocted by Harley and Bolingbroke to block the Hanoverians and return a Stuart were ultimately dashed by James III’s refusal to renounce Rome. On Anne’s death, in August 1714, the proclamation of her successor Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, proceeded with little incident.73 George I was initially sceptical of the Whigs. A Jacobite uprising in 1715 and a Whig propaganda campaign that presented a Jacobite under every Tory bed soon persuaded him to throw in his political lot with the Whigs. Consequently the Whig notion of foreign policy built around the maintenance of the balance of power, keeping aspirant universal monarchs in check and defending the Protestant interest was to remain at the heart of official British thinking until at least the 1740s.74 Like William III before them, George I and II derived considerable advantage from describing themselves as Protestant monarchs and projecting their foreign policies as centred around the of defence of the Protestant interest in Europe. There is, therefore, a need to re-think radically the impact that the Peace of Westphalia supposedly had on the relationship between religion and foreign policy. Secularisation did not happen quickly and generally – it was more of a protracted patchwork. There was no wholesale rejection of policies informed by confessional concerns. Instead, a process of adaptation took place. By the early eighteenth 71

 �����������������������c������������������������������������������������������ See Edward Gregg, ‘France, Rome and the exiled Stuarts, 1689–1713’, in Edward Corp (with contributions from Edward Gregg, Howard Erskine-Hill and Geoffrey Scott), A court in exile (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 11–75. 72  �������� Holmes, British politics, pp. 85–7; Ragnhild Hatton, George I (London, 1978), pp. 104–8. 73  �������� Hatton, George I, pp. 109–10. 74  ���������� Thompson, Britain, Hanover, pp. 229–37.

After Westphalia: Remodelling a Religious Foreign Policy

67

century very few British Protestants were willing to talk about a war to end all wars that would bring about the final defeat of a Catholic anti-Christ. Instead a more pragmatic approach had been adopted. In a Europe where Protestants felt themselves to be under threat, it was necessary to use the emergent states system creatively to defend Protestant rights. Where treaties and agreements protecting Protestant rights existed, diplomacy should be used to ensure that these were observed. In the last resort, however, the surest defence that Protestants could fall back upon was the workings of the balance of power to prevent the appearance of a Catholic universal monarch and catastrophic destruction of Protestant power that would surely follow his arrival. The means to prevent this destruction may have changed but the fear that such destruction was the ultimate aim of Catholic powers was alive in 1713 as it was in 1648.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 4

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War* David Onnekink

The Nine Years War (1688–97) commenced as several conflicts merged in the autumn of 1688. The first and main event was the French intervention in the Rhine area in September to settle the succession issues in Cologne and the Palatinate, which precipitated a major conflict between France and the League of Augsburg. Almost simultaneously, a Dutch invasion fleet set sail for England, which led Louis XIV to declare war on the Dutch Republic in November. By the spring of 1689 the Grand Alliance was formed to check French hegemonic aspirations. It was based partly on the League of Augsburg, established in 1686 to counter French influence in Germany, and partly on the participation of the Dutch Republic and Britain, now in the Allied camp after the Glorious Revolution. This Grand Alliance was to be prolonged in 1702 with the start of the War of the Spanish Succession. Not everyone interpreted the storm clouds that gathered over Europe in the autumn of 1688 as heralds of an apocalyptic conflict. Not even the Protestant Wind that ensured safe passage of the Dutch fleet across the North Sea could convince the Dutch that arms were being taken up for the sake of religion. Indeed, the last war of religion had been concluded 40 years earlier and a new era had begun. In retrospect the momentous events would be interpreted as the genesis of active Balance of Power strategy by the Allies to curb the insatiable thirst for power of an absolutist king aiming for universal monarchy. And yet it is undeniable that many in the Dutch Republic felt the winds of Providence during these days. Among those, of course, were the Dutch Calvinist ministers, the Huguenot émigrés and the English and Scottish exiles. Gilbert Burnet famously attributed the success of the Dutch fleet to Divine favour. Less obviously, many of the members of the regent elite were also caught up with religious fervour during the momentous events, as will be shown in this chapter. King-Stadholder William III in retrospect described his anxiety after the Nine Years War: ‘I have

*  I am very grateful for the comments on this chapter of Tony Claydon, Jeroen Duindam and Charles-Edouard Levillain. I also wish to thank Kate Delaney for proofreading the text. Any shortcomings are obviously my own.   ��������� Claydon, Revolution, 47.

70

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

always been afraid of a war of religion.’ Was this really how one of the architects of the anti-French coalition and thus founder of the Balance of Power system could view international relations in his age? The war was waged by an interconfessional alliance, comprising Catholic Spain and Austria as well as Protestant England and the Dutch Republic, which makes it difficult to see how the ensuing conflict could have anything to do with religion. Louis XIV’s claim that the war was indeed a war of religion was understandably ridiculed by the Spanish for this particular reason. Indeed, few historians, if any, suggest that the Nine Years War could be a war of religion. However, Andrew Lossky once remarked that the Nine Years War had the ‘hallmarks’ of a religious war. It is the purpose of this chapter to see whether that claim can be substantiated. It will endeavour to do so by analysing attitudes of the ruling elite and diplomats as well as actual decisions on foreign policy in the Dutch Republic in 1688. This analysis will be preceded by a discussion of interpretations and historiography on the Nine Years War, followed by a rationale of methods and definitions. A more fundamental purpose of this chapter is to question the view of a secularisation of international relations after 1648.

I The Nine Years War has seldom captured the imagination of historians. The aim was unclear, the war devoid of major turning points, and the subsequent Peace of Rijswijk rendered insignificant due to the renewed outbreak of hostilities in 1702. The precise nature of this conflict is still open to debate. It has also been referred to as the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Grand Alliance, King William’s War, the War of Orleans or the War of the English Succession. Most of these terms are employed in nationalist historiographies, and clearly the European character of this conflict has been somewhat neglected. Most terms also suggest that the war was essentially a coalition war, fought to maintain a balance    Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d’Orange–Nassau, 3rd series, ed. F.J.L. Krämer (3 vols, Leiden, 1907–9), vol. 2, p. 2, William III to Anthonie Heinsius, 31 Oct. 1697.   ������������������������ Cf. Christopher Storr’s c����������������������������� chapter in this volume, p. 43.   ������������������c������������������������������������������������������� A. Lossky, ‘Political Ideas of William III’, in H.H. Rowen and A. Lossky, Political Ideas and Institutions in the Dutch Republic (Los Angeles, 1985), p. 49.   �����������������������������c�������������������� See my remarks in the introduction to this volume.   �������������������������������������������������c������������������������ ‘La Guerre de la Ligue d’Augsburg’ dominates French historiography. ‘King ������ William’s War’ is often the term used in American studies. German historiography favours ‘Pfälzische Erbfolgekrieg’ or ‘Orléansscher Krieg’, taking their cue from the campaign in the Palatinate that started the war, or the Duke of Orleans, who married the daughter of the Elector Palatinate. An English perspective is evident in the ‘War of the English Succession’. ‘The War of the Grand Alliance’ is also sometimes employed. ‘Nine Years War’ is generally regarded the more neutral term, and will therefore be used in this chapter. Economic

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

71

or safeguard, or to settle the interests of dynasties. Most interpretations argue that the basic rationale for the Grand Alliance seems to have been to form a counterbalance to French power. The Franco-Dutch War (1672–78), the Nine Years War (1688–97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13) are usually regarded as a phase in the Bourbon-Habsburg struggle for hegemony on the continent. Dutch historiography has underlined the coherence of these conflicts by referring to them as the ‘Forty Years War’. They signified struggles for power, territory and wealth. The underlying principle was the restoration of the equilibrium in Europe, by ensuring that the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties were equally strong. For the Dutch, the Nine Years War was only a stage in the ‘Forty Years War’ to contain French expansion. The international system, dominated by Habsburg and France, was essentially bi-polar. The cause of the Nine Years War can then be related to a destabilisation of the Nijmegen settlement. After 1684 the status quo, crystallised in the Twenty Years Truce, was upset by the military successes of Austrian troops against the Turks in Hungary in 1687, which prompted Vienna to rethink the Truce. In 1686 the League of Augsburg had been formed to check French ambitions, whilst Bavaria and Brandenburg were slipping openly into the Habsburg camp. As France, under Louis XIV, was perceived to be pursuing a policy of territorial expansion, gradually a counter-balance formed around the Dutch Republic and the Habsburgs. The Nine Years War can be regarded as the outcome and maturation of this process, the first war in which France had to take on all other major powers. It signified the birth of the Balance of Power, which was first fully developed as a concept in the theory of international relations in the aftermath of the Nine Years War by Charles Davenant. Ostensibly, after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, religion ceased to play a dominant role in international relations. The treaties had secured the religious settlement in the Holy Roman Empire and ended the wars of religion. Conflicts acquired a more secular character. The three Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought over mercantile interests, whereas as from the 1670s a Balance of Power system emerged. This interpretation implies a linear and apparently inevitable decline of religion as a factor in international relations. At face value, then, to contend that the Nine Years War could even resemble a war of religion seems weak; it upsets the neat sequence and transformation historians have attempted to characterise the conflict as the beginning of the commercial wars between England and France.   ����������������� G.N. Clark, ‘The c����c���������������������������� character of the Nine Years War’, CHJ, 11/2 (1954): 168–82.   �������������������� [Charles Davenant], Essays upon I. the Ballance of Power. II. The right of making war, peace and alliances. III. Universal Monarchy (London, 1701).   ����������������������������������������������������������c����������������������� For a good overview of the historiography, see the introduction of Gijs Rommelse, The Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667). International raison d’état, mercantilism and maritime strife (Hilversum, 2006).

72

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

of religious wars into secular wars. However, the apparent decline of religious influence in foreign policy as sketched in the model before, has led to a reluctance among historians to investigate the extent to which religion did actually still play a role in foreign affairs. As such, the interpretation is liable to becoming selfexplanatory. Moreover, even if the sequence described above is essentially correct it is still possible that there were temporary breakdowns in the system; despite secularisation in international relations, religion as a factor could still resurface. This seems to be precisely what happened during the late 1680s. This breakdown may have resulted in a religious war. The years between 1685 and 1691 constituted an atypical period upsetting the existing international order, during which religious factors played a disproportionately important role in comparison with the surrounding periods. Ragnhild Hatton noted an upsurge of politicised religious tension in the mid-1680s.10 Within the framework of strategic considerations, religion in various guises and places came to play a dominant role in certain war theatres, for these years witnessed the march of Catholicism in France, England, Ireland, Germany and Savoy, which was only contained by the Alliance in about 1691. Crucial in this development was the re-emergence of an aggressive form of ‘state-dominated Catholicism’, a phrase coined by Peter Rietbergen to describe the emergence of this phenomenon in England and France under James II and Louis XIV.11 The term seems very useful; after Westphalia, religious differences as such would no longer form a cause for conflict. But this aggressive form of Catholicism was an entirely different matter. In France Louis XIV persecuted hundreds of thousands of Huguenots, whereas in England, and especially Ireland, James II rapidly catholicised the military and tried to gain control of Parliament. These two monarchs made the bolstering of Catholicism with the means of the state central to their policy. And, in all appearance, it influenced their foreign policy as well, and rumours spread about a secret mutual alliance.12 Meanwhile the Emperor was subduing the Calvinist nobility of Hungary.

10  ������������������������������������������c������������������������� R. Hatton, ‘Louis XIV and his fellow monarchs’, in R. Hatton (ed.), Louis XIV and Europe (London, 1976), p. 43. 11  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������c������ P.J.A.N. Rietbergen, ‘William of Orange (1650–1702) between European politics and European Protestantism: the case of the Huguenots’, in J.A.H. Bots and G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes (eds), La révocation de l’édit de Nantes et les Provinces-Unies (Amsterdam, 1986), p. 35. Tony Claydon has also distinguished between an aggressive form of Catholicism and ‘ordinary’ Catholicism, a distinction not based on doctrine but on practice. Tony Claydon, ‘Protestantism, Universal Monarchy and Christendom in William’s War Propaganda, 1688–1697’, in Esther Mijers and David Onnekink (eds), Redefining William III. The Impact of the King-Stadholder in International Context (Aldershot, 2007), p. 135. 12  �cc�����������������c������������������������������������������������������� According to the Dutch ambassador in London, Aernout van Citters, Louis XIV had offered James II the support of the French Navy, BL, Add. MS 17677 UUU, fol. 569, dispatch Citters 15 June 1688; cf. NUL, PwA 2165, anonymous letter 9 June 1688 OS.

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

73

Had these religious tensions been kept domestic, there might have been a possibility to prevent international conflict, but religious warfare was soon exported. The Hungarian rebels sought the help of foreign powers, whereas fleeing Huguenots spread the fear of France throughout the Protestant nations. In the Dutch Republic English and Scottish exiles were plotting to remove their Catholic king from the throne. They failed in 1685 but were successful three years later. An international war of religion was fought in the Duchy of Savoy when the French marshal Catinat persecuted the Protestant Vaudois there. Ragnhild Hatton has reminded us of the deep fear of the German Protestant princes of the power of the Emperor, continuously exhorted by his Jesuit advisers to strengthen the position of Catholicism.13 Of course, the French as well were deeply worried about the formation of alliances against them, as John C. Rule and Geoffrey Symcox, for example, have pointed out.14 As the Polish ambassador in The Hague, Antoine Moreau, noted: the French were concerned, ‘not only by the Princes of the Empire forming a League [of Augsburg in 1686] against France under the pretext of their security, but also a League of Religion between the Protestants princes’.15 We can establish, then, that during these frantic years of the late 1680s politicians were genuinely concerned about their religion. By the late 1680s, then, there was a view on both sides that the dividing line ran along confessional lines, and that tensions were rising.16 The historiography of the ‘Forty Years War’ has never paid much attention to these developments. There are many historians who would see the period between 1672 and 1713 as one characterised by French expansionism under Louis XIV. The dynamic of French expansion and Allied containment created its own logic which followed a more or less predetermined path. When in 1672 the French invaded the Dutch Republic, needless to say the Dutch had no choice but to confront the invaders. In 1688 the Nine Years War started because of French aggression, and in 1702 again, the Dutch had no choice but to confront French infiltration in Flanders and Spain. The English coalition with France in 1672 must be considered irrational and unnatural. The alliance of England with the Dutch and the Habsburgs in 1689 restored the rational course of events. Many historians have defended this paradigm of French expansionism. Simon Groenveld, for instance,

13

 ���������������������������������������c����������� Hatton, ‘Louis XIV and his fellow monarchs’, p. 43.  ������c�������������������������������������������������������������������������� G. Symcox, ‘Louis XIV and the Outbreak of the Nine Years War’ in: Hatton, (ed.), Louis XIV and Europe, pp. 179–212; J.C. Rule, ‘France Caught between Two Balances: the Dilemma of 1688’ in: L.G. Schwoerer (ed.), The Revolution of 1688–1689: Changing Perspectives (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 35–51. 15  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� BL, Add. MS 38493, fol. 10r, Moreau to the King of Poland, 25 June 1686, transl. from French. 16  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Gilbert Burnet called this the ‘the fifth great crisis of the protestant religion’: see ���� Stephen Taylor’s chapter in this volume, p. 179. 14

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

74

argued: ‘The years between 1660 and 1715 form a distinct period in European history: the period of French expansion under Louis XIV.’17 This Ludovican paradigm was disputed by revisionist historians who did not feel that Louis XIV was to blame. Many of them based their findings mainly on meticulous archival research rather than new theories. They rejected the determinism of the older historiography, and opted for short term analyses emphasising contingency. According to Paul Sonnino, for instance, Louis XIV never even intended to invade the Dutch Republic in 1672, and Geoffrey Symcox and John C. Rule argued that the start of the Nine Years War can be explained only from a sequence of events, escalations that led to mobilisation and war in 1689 for which Louis cannot be held solely accountable.18 Andrew Lossky and Ragnhild Hatton argued that the conflict between Louis XIV and William III was ultimately one of mutual mistrust and therefore misunderstanding and misperception.19 Although these interpretations led to different conceptions of the wars, they have one thing in common, namely that they are based on or congruent with a realist interpretation of international relations. By realist I mean here mainly that foreign policy is guided by the interest of sovereign states; interest can be defined in terms of military power, wealth and geo-political considerations. Thus, in these interpretations the Nine Years War was about raw power: which piece of territory, which trade advantages go to whom? Was there an equilibrium of troops, finance, territory? The realist interpretation centres around the Balance of Power model. This cynical, realist warfare followed the irrational and fanatical wars of religion of the seventeenth century, and preceded the ideological and nationalist conflicts of the modern age. The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were characterised by conflicts devoid of religion and political ideology, but propelled by calculated balancing, by expansion and containment. At first sight, Dutch historians have not completely endorsed realism in their analyses of the Nine Years War, as they still do seem to emphasise religion as an important factor in Dutch foreign policy during this period. Peter Rietbergen underlined the importance of Protestantism in William’s calculations in 1688.20 Simon Groenveld ostensibly goes furthest when he wrote about the Dutch invasion of England in 1688: ‘For Liberty and Religion’: This was more than propaganda. It also showed the real aim which the Dutch attached to the enterprise: the conclusion of the

 ������������������������������������������������������������ Simon Groenveld, ‘“J’equippe une flotte très considerable”: ���������������������� the Dutch side of the Glorious revolution’, in R. Beddard (ed.), The revolutions of 1688 (Oxford 1988), p. 213. 18  �������������� Paul Sonnino, Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge and New York, 1988); Symcox, ‘Louis XIV and the Outbreak of the Nine Years War’; Rule, ‘France Caught between Two Balances’. 19  ��������������������������������� See the analysis of Wout Troost, William III, p. 295. 20  ��������������������������������������� Rietbergen, ‘William of Orange’, p. 35. 17

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

75

urgently needed Anglo-Dutch alliance against Louis XIV of France, who in September had invaded the Rhineland, thus initiating the Nine Years War.21

But on closer reading, the religious factor is not given much weight. Groenveld’s analysis, for instance, is essentially set within the framework of a series of alliances the Dutch had made to safeguard their state from the aggression of foreign powers. Rietbergen, whilst mentioning Protestantism as a factor, saw it as a ‘collateral one’. He rather concluded: ‘the only political issue that really counted for William was the equilibrium of Europe, the freedom of the European states’.22 Although there is a long tradition, and still a strong undercurrent, in Dutch historiography, to associate the cause of William III with European Protestantism, few historians believe that the Dutch would have gone to war for religion. Whereas Dutch historians were building partly on a long historiographical tradition that interpreted William as a devout Protestant, non-Dutch historians, on the other hand, had no qualms about rejecting completely religion as a motivation. Jonathan Israel, for instance, presented William as a lukewarm Protestant and argued that religion in his policy was important only in so far as it had propaganda value.23 Thus despite differences, most historians do find common ground: Dutch foreign policy was essentially formulated along strictly rational strategic considerations. On a more general level, this was most famously argued by the Utrecht professor of International Relations J. Boogman, who distinguished two ‘traditions’ in Dutch foreign policy: the naval and pacific strategy, and the continental balance of power strategy.24 In practice Dutch policy-makers wavered between those two strategies, the former being preferred, the second considered necessary in the face of French expansion after 1672. These interpretations were researched in more detail by his students, Johan Aalbers and M.A.M. Franken, in their studies of Dutch foreign policy in the time of Louis XIV and after.25 The ‘Ludovican paradigm’ is now dominant in Dutch historiography.26  ������������������������������������������������������������ Groenveld, ‘J’equippe une flotte très considerable’, p. 241.  ������������������������������������������ Rietbergen, ‘William of Orange’, pp. 35–6. 23  ��������������������������������������������������������������������c������������������� Jonathan Israel, ‘William III and Toleration’, in O.P. Grell, N. Tyacke and J.I. Israel (eds), From Persecution to Toleration, the Glorious Revolution and Religion in England (Oxford, 1991), pp. 129–71. 24  ����������������c���������������������������������������������������������������� J.C. Boogman: ‘Achtergronden, tendenties en tradities van het buitenlands beleid van Nederland (eind zestiende eeuw – 1940)’, in N.C.F. van Sas (ed.), De kracht van Nederland. Internationale positie en buitenlands beleid. (Bloemendaal, 1991), pp. 16–35. 25  ��������������� Johan Aalbers, De Republiek en de vrede van Europa. De buitenlandse politiek van de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden na de vrede van Utrecht (1713), voornamelijk gedurende de jaren 1720–1733. Deel I. Achtergronden en algemene aspecten (Groningen, 1980); M.A.M. Franken, ‘The General Tendencies and Structural Aspects of the Foreign Policy and Diplomacy of the Dutch Republic in the latter half of the seventeenth century’, Acta historiae Neerlandica, 3 (1968): 1–42. 26  ������������������������������������������������������������ Groenveld, ‘J’equippe une flotte très considerable’, p. 213. 21 22

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

76

To style the Nine Years War a religious war from a Dutch perspective, then, is problematic, even if it can be acknowledged that religion was a factor of some significance. There is yet another problem. To expand the argument from a claim that religion did play a role in foreign affairs to identifying a conflict as a war of religion covers considerable conceptual distance. Historiographically, the term normally refers to the French civil wars of the late sixteenth century, but could also be applied to the Dutch Revolt, the Thirty Years War and, indeed, the English Civil War. Whether these conflicts should be described as wars of religion is a matter subject to debate, although recent historiography has somewhat reinstalled religion as the dominant factor in causing the wars of religion proper.27 In all of these conflicts religion played an important role, but so did regional differences, conflicts between king and nobility, and strategic and dynastic considerations. Before we can move on, therefore, there is the matter of definitions to be discussed. It is a point worth making that there does not seem to be a widely accepted definition of ‘religious war’. Quite often historians dismiss the notion of a war as being religious once sufficient evidence has been uncovered that other motivations played a role as well. However, since monocausal explanations for any conflict are bound to be unsatisfactory, the term itself should then be dismissed, but then so should the terms commercial war, dynastic war, and war of succession. To establish whether the Nine Years War can be regarded as a religious conflict, an attempt will be made to formulate a working definition. In order to do so I wish to draw from two disciplines: historians have come up with an empirical definition, whereas political scientists have suggested a definition based on juridical features. Konrad Repgen has made a valuable contribution in his perceptive article on religious war as a historical phenomenon.28 It is Repgen’s contention that a description of a war based on motivation is bound to be unsatisfactory, as sketched above. Since intentions may be multiple, and ulterior motivations probably beyond the knowledge of the historian, neither the phrase succession war nor religious war will do if these are to explain intention. After all, was the War of the Spanish Succession really about succession or about maintaining the Balance of Power? What Repgen argues instead is that the historian should focus on what can be uncovered. Evidence can often be retraced in war proclamations, which may not state ulterior motives, but do state legitimisation. Thus, according to Repgen, a war of religion is characterised by the religious legitimisation of military conflict: … wars should only be termed [religious wars], in so far as at least one of the belligerents lays claim to ‘religion’, a religious law, in order to justify his warfare

27

 ���������������c�������������������� See the introduction to this volume.  �������������������������� Konrad Repgen, ‘What is a “Religious “�������������”���������������������������c����������� War”?’, in E.I. Kouri and Tom Scott (eds), Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (New York, 1987), pp. 311–28. I am thankful to David Trim for pointing me to this article. 28

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

77

and to substantiate publicly why his use of military force against a political authority should be a bellum iustum.29

Repgen’s juxtaposition of the terms ‘war of religion’ and ‘just war’ is interesting. The three main features of just war are proper authority, just cause and good intention. Whereas historians have often contrasted just war with religious war, it is the contention of James Turner Johnson that (what he calls) a ‘holy war’ must not be regarded as an antithesis nor even a parallel version of ‘just war’, but rather as a variant which developed historically integrated with the just war.30 If just war may be commenced by a prince with good intentions for a just cause, likewise, a holy war may be started by a religious leader to settle the fate of a religion, and thus with a good (pious) intention.31 However, is a religious war a holy war? After all, it is perfectly acceptable to suggest that a worldly prince, say, a Lutheran prince in Reformation Germany, engages in religious warfare using mercenary armies. I wish to argue, therefore, that a ‘religious war’ (unlike a holy war) need not be authorised by a religious leader nor fought by pious soldiers. However, a religious war does need to be fought with religious intent or for the sake of religion to make it religious in nature. If we merge these two definitions a working definition of a ‘war of religion’ emerges:32 a war legitimised by religion and/or for religious ends (but possibly fought by secular leaders and soldiers). ‘Religious ends’ may be described as the defence of a particular church settlement, or more broadly a ‘national identity’ essentialised by a specific religion. A war that is limited and fought with secular means can still be a religious war. A religious war can thus acquire two characteristics: it is fought for and/or legitimised by a religion. This view was also implicitly endorsed by Philip Benedict, who argued that Repgen’s definition was too narrow, and that both legitimisation and motivation can sometimes be established.33 This definition will therefore serve as a benchmark in the following analysis, which therefore naturally falls into two sections. The first section deals with an (admittedly cursory) overview of attitudes of Dutch politicians and diplomats. How did they perceive the international situation and the position of the Dutch Republic at the eve of the Nine Years War, and what did they consequently 29

 �������������� Ibid., p. 313.  ������������������ James T. Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (University Park, PA, 2003), pp. 42–6. 31  ��������������������������������� Johnson notes, however, that the compulsory c���������������������������������������c������� piety of the warriors is typical for holy war. Johnson, The Holy War Idea, p. 45. 32  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Admittedly, this definition would not be accepted by Repgen of course, since it is the thrust of his argument that actual conflicts which conform to Johnson’s definition cannot be distinguished by the historian. 33  �������������c�����������������������c�������������������������������������������� Philip Benedict, ‘Religion and Politics in Europe, 1500–1700’, Kaspar von Greyerz et al. (ed.), Religion und Gewalt. Konflikte, Rituale, Deutungen (1500–1800) (Göttingen, 2006), 155–73. Cf. Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England, p. 134. 30

78

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

think they were fighting for? The second section deals with the legitimisation of the war: what did the Dutch proclaim to be fighting for? In both cases, due to constraints of space, the analysis will mainly focus on the momentous events of 1688.

II In his recent study on English Protestantism, Tony Claydon has pointed to what he calls the master narrative of confessional strife in Europe.34 The Protestant states, most notably England, entertained a view of their own history as well as current affairs in Europe which was dominated by the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism. Whilst also arguing that the English were concerned for Christendom as a whole, Claydon shows their ‘confessional geography’ sketched a deep dividing line between Protestant and Catholic Europe, whilst their ‘confessional chronology’, traced the epic conflict back in time.35 For the Dutch, of course, this ‘confessional chronology’ was deeply rooted in the Dutch Revolt, the struggle against Catholic Spain. Whereas this master narrative essentially survived until the late seventeenth century, its contents transformed geographically after the French invasion of 1672. France replaced Spain as the quintessential diabolical opponent. As Simon Schama observed, both the Eighty Years War and the ‘Forty Years War’ were perceived by many as struggles against Catholic tyranny.36 Did contemporaries therefore believe that the Nine Years War was a religious war? We would expect Dutch Calvinist ministers to do so. Indeed, many interpreted the war within the framework of the religious wars initiated by Paris, such as the disastrous combined Anglo-French attack on the Calvinist republic in 1672. Abraham Hellenbroek and Florentius Costerus preached continuously during the Nine Years War, emphasising the Protestant cause and celebrating William III as a godly prince.37 The minister C. van Velzen also attributed William’s success in invading England to Divine favour.38 Hero Sibersma, preaching during the 1700s, described the War of the Spanish Succession as a war of religion.39 He did so by the usual way of analogy: the Dutch Republic (sometimes Protestant Europe) 34  �������������� Tony Claydon, Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge, 2007). 35  ��������� Claydon, Europe and the Making of England, chs 1 and 2. 36  �������c������ Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches. An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London, 1991), p. 53. 37  �����������c����� Roelof Bisschop, Sions vorst en volk. Het tweede-Israëlidee als theocratisch concept in de Gereformeerde kerk van de Republiek tussen ca. 1650 en ca. 1750 (Veenendaal, 1993), pp. 75–92, 93–117, passim. 38  ������������� Ibid., p. 84. 39  �������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 85. On this analogy, see Huisman, Neerlands Israël, and Bisschop, Sions vorst en volk.

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

79

like Israel is fighting God’s enemies. Referring to the 1672 assault, Van Velzen wrote in 1758 that ‘The war which the Roman Catholic princes waged against the Dutch Reformed people was clearly a war of religion’.40 However, writing in 1673, the Gouda minister Jacobus Sceperus denied that the conflict was a religious war.41 The King of France wanted to occupy the United Provinces, but the King of England wished to destroy its merchant fleet. Louis XIV talked England into revenge for the Second Anglo-Dutch War and forced the Dutch to acknowledge that the King of England was master of the seas.42 The causes of the war were therefore secular. Nevertheless, Sceperus did try to understand the conflict within a biblical and providential framework. The Dutch Republic being a new Israel, the attacks were a punishment from God. Perceptively, Sceperus understood that a spiritual interpretation of current events did not necessarily lead to the conclusion that all wars between Protestants and Catholics were ‘religious’, for an apparently secular event could hold spiritual meaning for those sensitive to it. Too often it is assumed that Calvinist ministers advocated a war of religion. In fact, many of them referred to the war as just another disaster, the result of the sins of the nation. Sermons concentrated on the need to re-establish piety, not so much on a particular political agenda.43 We may tentatively conclude, then, that, surprisingly, even though contemporary Calvinist ministers all understood these conflicts in a spiritual way, they did not necessarily see them as wars of religion. Contemporary laymen were equally divided in their analyses. In his 1701 pamphlet Present Prospect of a Religious War in Europe (1701) Daniel Defoe considered the French invasion of the Dutch Republic in 1672 and the Nine Years War to be religious conflicts. In fact, he argued that most wars since the Reformation had been religious wars.44 Neither did he distinguish a process of secularisation. On the contrary, he believed that there was increased likelihood of renewed religious conflict, for ‘If we re-examine the Present State of Europe, we shall find it, as to the Interest of Religion, in worse Circumstances on several Accounts, than it ever yet was since the Treaties of Munster and Westphalia’.45  ���������������������� Quoted in C. Huisman, Neerlands Israël. Het natiebesef der traditioneelgereformeerden in de achttiende eeuw (Dordrecht, 1983), p. 82. Transl. from Dutch. 41  ����c�������� J. Sceperus, De Chaldeen en Babylonieren onder de voeten van de Koninck aller Koningen: voorbeeldende de wraecke Gods door gelijcke vergeldinge, staende te volgen op het bedijf der koningen van Vranckryck en Engelandt, in geval van langer aenhouden deses onrechtveerdigen oorlogs, by hare Majesteyten aengevangen teegens Hollant ende des selfs bondgenooten, voorgestelt uyt Habakuk cap 2 vers 7, 8 (Amsterdam, 1673), p. 39 (Knuttel no. 10958). 42  ��c����c�������� Jacob Sceperus, Manasse teegen Ephraim, dat is Engelant teegen Hollant. Mitsgaeders Oogen-Salve voor hun beyden (Amsterdam, 1653), p. 38 (Knuttel no. 7435). 43  ����������������� Cf. Jill Stern’s chapter c���������������������� in this volume. 44  ���������������� [Daniel Defoe], The Danger of the Protestant Religion Considered from the Present Prospect of a Religious War in Europe (1701). 45  ������������ Ibid., p. 7. 40

80

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

The author of the Consideratien over den Tegenwoordigen Toestant van het Verenigde Nederland [Considerations concerning the present state of the United Netherlands], a pamphlet published in 1672, exhibited a spiritual look on current affairs. Whoever looks at the history of the Dutch Republic, the author stated, would have to admit that Divine Providence, although not always visible to the eyes of the world, even though She moves everything through secret resorts and wheels, in the erection and ascendancy of this state, has shone so brightly that one may not say without reason that God Almighty is the exterior and visible Architect of this exalted republic.46

But others were less convinced. The author of the Europische Mercurius, a twice-yearly Dutch news bulletin, wrote in 1690 ‘that the world nowadays is not that uncomplicated anymore, so as to believe that wars are waged because of religion’, as they used to be.47 Not only had the Nine Years War little to do with religion, religious war was something of the past anyway. Sir William Temple as well criticised those Dutchmen who represented the invasion of the Bishop of Munster in 1665 as a religious matter: ‘I much doubt whether there was ever yet any war of religion, or ever will be; though, perhaps, hardly any without the pretences.’48 Here Temple completely disagreed with Defoe, and its seems fair to say that contemporaries were not only divided over the religious nature of specific wars, but held very different opinions as to what a war of religion would constitute in the first place. Thus, contemporary observers, even Calvinist ministers, were divided about the nature of the Nine Years War. At the same time it still holds that some observers apparently continued to entertain views of this conflict as religious. This observation is not surprising or controversial. After all, a number of chapters in this volume point out that religious rhetoric was rife during this period, mainly expressed in pamphlets that had a distinct anti-French and anti-papal character. This is relevant for the study of the making of foreign policy in so much that it sketches the mental climate and the mindset of Dutch policy-makers, who were relatively closely integrated in the political and social elite. They wrote and read pamphlets and news journals and must have been influenced to some extent by public opinion. But could it really influence policy? 46   Consideratien over den Tegenwoordigen Toestant van het Verenigde Nederland (s.l., 1672), p. 3. 47   Europische Mercurius behelzende al het voornaamste ’t geen zo omtrent de zaaken van staat als oorlog, in alle de koningrijken en landen van Europa, en ook zelfs in verscheidene gewesten van d’andere deelen der wereld, is voorgevallen (Amsterdam 1690–1739), 1690, vol. 1, ‘Aan den Leezer’, p. 1. Transl. from Dutch. I owe this reference to Jeroen Duindam. 48  ������������������������ Quoted in K.H.D. Haley, An English Diplomat in the Low Countries. Sir William Temple and John de Witt 1665����� –���� 1672 (Oxford 1986), p. 68.

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

81

In order to answer this question, attention must be paid to diplomats and policymakers. In what way did diplomats refer to the Nine Years War as a religious conflict? The following cases are illustrative for the attitudes of some diplomats as well as their perception of the role of religion in international relations. Willem van Wassenaar van Sterrenburg, Ambassador Ordinary in Paris from 1680 until 1688, reported the problems that French Protestants encountered after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. His despatches contained references to the Huguenots’ plight.49 He frequently reported how France was in turmoil over religious matters.50 More serious was the propensity of such issues to cause diplomatic incidents. In March 1687 Wassenaar reported that, the French crown being concerned that French Protestants would seek to leave the country, a Dutch ship was boarded in La Rochelle by French authorities.51 Wassenaar’s letters clearly convey concern over the increasing religious persecution and the manner in which this disturbed Franco-Dutch relations, but they hardly breathed a sense of alarm over an impending religious war. Such cannot be said of the reports of the Dutch ambassador stationed in Vienna, Gerard Hamel Bruynincx. If in the Empire rumours of a grand Jesuit plot to definitively crush Protestantism were now mainly a thing of the past, these were not entirely vanished and could apparently resurface in times of crisis. The Hungarian rebellion led by the Protestant Count Imre Thököly might have sharpened such sentiments. In July 1687 Hamel Bruynincx described the fate of Transylvania, besieged by Austrian troops. The Transylvanian prince Michael Apafy I was a zealous supporter of the Protestant interest, and the majority of his subjects adhered to Reformed Christianity. Hamel Bruynincx feared that the occupation of Transylvania would coincide with the destruction of Protestantism in those areas. Significantly, Hamel Bruynincx realised quite well that his endeavours had nothing to do with reasons of state. ‘I know’, he wrote to Grand Pensionary Gaspar Fagel, ‘that this is sensitive material here, and that Transylvania is far away from the State. There is no political interest here, there is only the matter of religion’.52 Hamel Bruynincx’s report acquired an apocalyptic character when, implicitly referring to the Book of Revelation, he wrote that ‘it seems that the devil has escaped from his prison in order to rage against God’s church and truth, according to his nature’.53 Hamel Bruynincx complained about the lethargy of the Protestant German princes: they were ‘lukewarm and weak, their view is more 49

 �����������c����������������������������������������������������������������� E.g. NA, Archief Staten-Generaal 1.01.06 11184, fols 12, 34, 45–6, WassenaarSterrenburg to the States General, 3 Feb. 1687, 14 March 1687, 4 April 1687. 50  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ E.g. ibid., fol. 9, Wassenaar-Sterrenburg to the States General, 24 Jan. 1687. 51  ���������������������������������������������������������������������c������� Ibid., fols 43–4, Wassenaar-Sterrenburg to the States General, 21 March 1687. 52   Weense gezantschapsberichten van 1670–1720, eds G. von Antal and J.C.H. de Pater (2 vols, The Hague, 1929–34), vol. 2, p. 385, Gerard Hamel Bruynincx to Gaspar Fagel, 18 Sept. 1687. Transl. from Dutch. 53  ���������������������������������������c��������������������������������������� Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 381–2, Hamel Bruynincx to Fagel, 10 July 1687. Transl. from Dutch. Cf. Revelation 20: 2, 7.

82

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

that of the world than of God’ – surely an unusual remark for a diplomat.54 It is an excellent illustration of how international affairs could be regarded from both a raison d’état point of view and a religious perspective, and how Bruynincx clearly differentiated between religious and secular interests. If in a diplomat’s eyes Jesuit influence made Vienna potentially more aggressive than Paris, the threat was too distant to be felt in the fatherland.55 However, the German Protestant states experienced this threat more directly. There was a lingering fear that, if at all able, the Emperor would try to undo the Westphalian settlement and destroy Protestantism. After all, the Augsburg Peace settlement had also collapsed in 1618. This was why the succession in Cologne in early 1688 was of such importance to the German princes. According to the Brandenburg first minister, Eberhardt von Danckelmann, the election of the Austrian favourite candidate must be regarded as a blow to Protestantism.56 To Johan Ham, the Dutch envoy in Berlin, he declared that ‘it may be useful to be allied to the House of Austria, but not to be surrounded by her and her allies’.57 In Danckelmann’s view, then, this apocalyptic reversal of the Protestant interest in the Empire was a theoretical possibility. The key, however, to interpreting such scattered concerns over the fate of Protestantism lies in their connection, the fear that such dangers were only elements in what one historian has described as an impending ‘confessional Armageddon’.58 This becomes clear from the negotiations between the Dutch ambassador Hans Willem Bentinck with a representative of the Brandenburg Elector, Paul Fuchs, in August 1688, over an alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany against France. The arguments Bentinck employed to convince Fuchs were remarkable. He sketched a frightening image of the impending attempt of Louis XIV and James II to subvert the Protestant religion of England, the Dutch Republic and ultimately the German principalities as well. Bentinck insinuated that the Austrian Jesuits were in on this Catholic plot, playing on Brandenburg fears of the Emperor’s power.59 Such a plot may seem unconvincing in retrospect, but Fuchs was genuinely impressed.

54   Weense gezantschapsberichten, von Antal and Pater eds, vol. 2, p. 382, Hamel Bruynincx to Fagel, 10 July 1687. Transl. from Dutch. 55  �������������������������������������������c����������� Cf. Hatton, ‘Louis XIV and his fellow monarchs’, p. 26. 56  ��������������������������������c�����������������������������c���������� NUL, Pw A 338, Eberhardt von Danckelmann to Hans Willem Bentinck, 4 July 1688. 57  ���������������������������������������������c������������������������������ NUL, Pwa 519, Johan Ham to Hans Willem Bentinck, 30 June 1688. Transl. from Dutch. 58  ��������������� This phrase is coined c�������������������� by R.W. Ward, Christianity under the Ancien Régime, 1648–1789 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 8. 59  ����������������������������������������������� See the relation of this event by Marion Grew, William Bentinck and William III (Prince of Orange). The Life of Bentinck, Earl of Portland, from the Welbeck Correspondence (London, 1924), pp. 112–20. It is based on Fuch’s report to the Elector.

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

83

It is thus important to stress the interrelatedness of these various perceptions. There was a universal fear that Catholics were plotting on a European scale to gradually supplant Protestantism; this confessional ‘domino theory’ stirred the Protestants into action. Bentinck stressed to Danckelmann the importance of Brandenburg military support on the eve of the invasion of England, or ‘everything will be lost’.60 To Johan Ham, the Dutch envoy in Berlin, likewise, Bentinck had written that unless they would intervene in England, ‘the Republic and Religion are lost’.61 Indeed, Petrus Valckenier, the Dutch envoy in Ratisbon, where the Imperial Diet held its meetings, reported that German Catholics applauded the attempts of James II to abolish the Test Act which would assure that their religion would be on the throne again in England, and that the same would happen in our state [the Dutch Republic], although some flatter themselves that if the first [the victory of Catholicism in England] would not succeed, the second would be attempted, to annihilate the nest of heretics, as they call our state, after which the first will be tried with more certainty.62

It has to be said that such remarks, confirming the Catholic conspiracy narrative, did not dominate the correspondence of these diplomats, but it was certainly present, and it was not marginal. As in the case of the Calvinist and lay observers above, a tentative conclusion must be that the diplomats entertained different views. However, since often the religious interpretation mixed seamlessly with a more secular interpretation, it could be argued that no coherent perception of international relations was held in common. Rather, the views could be described as hybrid. Lastly, attention must be paid to the thoughts of policymakers. To what extent were they convinced of the Catholic conspiracy? At first hand this does not seem obvious. As Ragnhild Hatton once pointedly quoted, Dutch policy-makers were too cool to be stirred by their religious passions: ‘tut tut, what is religion in affairs of state’. But Hatton also noticed that this attitude was temporarily submerged by agitation during the momentous years after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, making the years 1685–91 an unusual period of religious fervour.63 It is here that we must return to William’s remark, to be quoted now in full. Expressing his concern to Heinsius about the free exercise of the Reformed religion abroad in the aftermath of the Peace of Rijswijk, he wrote: … I do not see how the Protestant princes and states could achieve it in these days against the Catholic powers, the more so since we lack the support of Sweden, 60   Correspondentie van Willem III en van Hans Willem Bentinck, ed. �������������������� N. Japikse (5 vols, The Hague, 1927–37), vol. 2, p. 133, Bentinck to Ham 20 July 1688. T���������������c�� ����������������c�� ransl. from Dutch. 61   Correspondentie, ed. Japikse, vol. 2, p. 132, Bentinck to Ham 20 July 1688. Transl. from Dutch. 62  �����������c����������������������c����������������������c������� NA, Fagelarchief, 3.01.18 284, Valckenier to Fagel, 4 March 1688. 63  ���������������������������������������c����������� Hatton, ‘Louis XIV and his fellow monarchs’, p. 26.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

84

Denmark and the Swiss cantons, and now also Saxony. I have always been afraid of a war of religion, fearing that France and the Emperor might come to a secret understanding, which is what becomes clear now. I find it incomprehensible that Sweden, as mediator, lets herself be used or allows that such a notorious breach of the Westphalian settlement with regard to religion is aimed at, as France now tries to do.64

The quote is remarkable, because William had for decades allied himself with the Habsburgs to contain French expansion. It can be concluded that William as well entertained either a hybrid perception of international relations, comprising both the Catholic conspiracy idea and the rational balance of power analysis, or that he felt the international system was in flux. The remark is from 1697, but his fear can be traced back at least ten years earlier and matches precisely the sentiments of Fuchs and Bentinck as described above. In September 1688 William reported to the States of Holland his preparations in recruiting regiments from Brandenburg, Würtemberg, Wolffenbüttel and Celle, for fear of an impending attack from James II and Louis XIV. The rationale of the war preparations was based upon the fear of a Catholic conspiracy. In fact, the extent to which William seemed to draw inspiration from this conspiracy narrative is striking. According to him, there was ‘incontestable proof that both [kings] had already tried to persuade the House of Austria to abandon this State when it would be assaulted’. Confirming the views conveyed by Valckenier, William noted that this would also ‘have as an advantage to religion, that the heresies, both here and in England, would be exterminated and the Catholic Religion re-established’. And although the Emperor had not replied favourably to these proposals, ‘it was not certain that the said House of Austria would always stick to the thoughts it now entertained, because one knows what impression the point of Religion and heresy had on the conscience of popish Princes and States’.65 William thus feared that the Catholic monarchs in Europe might place their religion before their ‘interest’; that James II, Louis XIV and Leopold I might after all come to an understanding. In other words, William may have preferred balance of power strategy, but he suspected that such a strategy might collapse in the face of religious zeal of the Catholic enemy. It could be objected that concern for and sensitivity to the plight of European Protestantism were restricted to William’s small circle of Calvinist advisers. But in fact, the Amsterdam burgomasters shared William’s rationale.66 The worldly   Archives, ed. Krämer, ��ä������������������������������������������������c�������� vol. 2, p. 2, �����������������������������c�������� William III to Heinsius, 31 Oct. 1697.   Secreete Resolutien van de Ed. ����������������������������������������������� Groot Mog. Heeren Staaten van Hollandt en WestVrieslandt. Beginnende met den jaare 1679 en eyndigende met den jaare 1696 incluis. Vol. 5 (s.l., s.a.), p. 231. Transl. from Dutch. 66  ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Hudde’s minutes of a meeting of the Amsterdam Groot Besoigne, printed in J.F. Gebhard, Het Leven van Mr. Nicolaas Cornelisz. Witsen (1641–1717) (2 vols, Utrecht, 1882), vol. 2, pp. 168–74. 64 65

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

85

burgomasters of Amsterdam, who according to many foreigners worshipped their trade rather than God, were hardly known for their religious fervour. However, they were about to change their minds. On Sunday 26 September 1688, only weeks before the Dutch invasion of England that would initiate the Glorious Revolution, the four burgomasters of Amsterdam held a meeting in the City Hall council room. On the agenda was the request of the Prince of Orange to support his expedition to England. One of the burgomasters, Johan Hudde, confessed he was ‘in very great perplexity’ as to whether to support the Prince or not.67 Surprisingly, perhaps, they were impressed by the Prince’s concern for the fate of their religion, and discussed the ‘intent of the King of England to overpower us, for two reasons: political, ecclesiastical’.68 Inclining towards supporting the Prince, they admitted that if the invasion succeeded, ‘the Protestant Religion and our State will both be assured’.69 Thus they confirmed the Protestant domino theory described above. The most remarkable examples of such a spiritual outlook can be traced in the private discussion between some of the key decision-makers during the summer of 1688. William’s confidant, Lord Dijkveld, warned that the conjunction of the English and French crowns would threaten the religion and liberty of the state. The Amsterdam burgomasters, Hudde and Witsen, presumably in an attempt to refrain from commitment to the invasion, preferred to leave matters to Providence. Also, they expressed the fear that the ensuing conflict would be interpreted by the Catholic princes as a religious war.70 In another meeting between William III, Grand Pensionary Gaspar Fagel and Witsen as well, the three men discussing the political situation switched seamlessly to a meticulous theological debate about the nature of Providence. Whereas Witsen argued that it was in the nature of Providence to lead events according to her own doing, William obviously thought that action was needed.71 What can be deducted from these debates is that apparently all men were deeply convinced that a spiritual interpretation of events was possible, and that a correct understanding of the workings of Providence was vital to the decisionmaking process. Even if their rhetoric should perhaps not be taken at face value, it is at least remarkable that they discussed such matters at length at all. That they came to different conclusions is perhaps of less significance.

III A last matter to consider is that of justification, which will be dealt with by turning briefly to the preparations for the invasion of England in 1688. Whereas Simon 67  ������������������������� Hudde’s private notes in connection c����c����������������������������������������������� with the 26 September 1688 meeting of the burgomasters, quoted in Gebhard, Witsen, vol. 2, p. 173. Transl. from Dutch. 68  ����������������������c�� Ibid. Transl. from Dutch. 69  ����������������������c�� Ibid. Transl. from Dutch. 70  ��������� Gebhard, Witsen, vol. 2, p. 321. 71  �������������� Ibid., pp. 326–7.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

86

Groenveld acknowledged that the slogan ‘for religion and liberty’ essentially reflected the real aim of the expedition, Jonathan Israel has regarded the slogan rather as a tool in a sophisticated propaganda to gain support.72 Few other historians have emphasised the religious justification of the invasion of England from a Dutch perspective. It is instructive to focus at length on the pivotal message William sent to the States of Holland in September 1688 in order to legitimate his invasion of England, which resulted in a secret resolution by the States to support the Prince. It is a remarkable piece but not often used by historians, even though it clearly sets out Dutch war policy in 1688. What strikes the reader first is the virtual absence of references to the trade dispute between France and the Dutch Republic, although commerce was referred to in a secret resolution taken a few days earlier to hire German troops. The resolution that precipitated the Glorious Revolution was based upon the following rationale of the Prince: that His Highness had considered the state of affairs, both of the religion and the freedom and well being of the state, both of which are in a perilous constitution. That it was evident that the Kings of France and England both were planning to suppress, if possible, the Reformed religion. That in case of France this cannot be doubted, as that king had annulled one of the most fundamental laws of the realm, which had served to end the civil war in France, namely the Edict of Nantes, and had treated those of the Reformed persuasion in a manner known by each. That the King of England was no less zealous for the popish religion, and had tried to supplant it in his realms.73

Drawing inspiration from the Catholic conspiracy master narrative, William had warned the States of ‘the attempt of the Kings of France and England to ruin us, both with great zeal for the Catholic religion’.74 Only 16 years after the disastrous events of 1672, when Charles II and Louis XIV assaulted and nearly destroyed the Protestant state, such anxiety was not wholly unfounded. To the Dutch there was nothing improbable or irrational about an anti-Dutch and anti-Protestant Anglo-French alliance. The lukewarm burgomasters of Amsterdam even spoke literally of their fear of a war of religion in which James and Louis would fall upon their state.75 The danger in which the Protestant Republic found herself ultimately triggered their decision to support the Prince in his pre-emptive 72

 �����������������������������������������������������������������������������c�������� Israel, J.I., ‘Propaganda in the making of the Glorious Revolution’ in S. Roach, ed., Across the narrow seas (London 1991), pp. 167–78. 73  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Report of William, presented in the States of Holland on Wednesday 29 September 1688. Printed in Secreete Resolutien, p. 230. Transl from Dutch. 74  ����������������������������������������������������������������������c������� Hudde’s notes of the 26 September 1688 meeting of the burgomasters discussing William’s plans, quoted in Gebhard, Witsen, vol. 2, p. 169. Transl. from Dutch. 75  �������������� Ibid., p. 172.

The Last War of Religion? The Dutch and the Nine Years War

87

strike. Neither was it out of line with William’s private thoughts. In December 1688 he wrote from London to his confidant, Lord Dijkveld: ‘It is a great blessing that we have achieved so much in such a short time. God shows His mercy in this, and that through a Parliament these realms may be made useful in order to assist our State and her allies.’76 Thus the Declaration of Reasons issued by William must not be dismissed as a piece of cynical propaganda. It seems very much in line with the considerations of the policy-makers. It displayed the real aim of the Prince to restore the Protestant religion in England, as a first step in recalibrating the balance of power which had swung dangerously against the Protestants in Europe.

IV So, to recapitulate: beginning in the early 1680s several princes made the catholicising of their state central to their policy. Between 1685 and 1688 this process was internationalised by the thousands of exiles who exported religious tensions and by the tendencies of these princes to make mutual alliances. At the same time, the alarmed Protestant princes pulled together as well. When war came, many feared it would be a religious war. It can therefore be established that religion played a disproportionately important role between 1685 and 1688, climaxing in the start of the Nine Years War. As such it was one of the main triggers of this conflict. Religion was in the minds of many politicians and diplomats just before and in 1688, and undeniably formed a building block of the conflict that emerged. But when war came, it was not fought along religious lines. Neither Cologne nor the Palatinate became French pawns; only the British Isles came close to a religious war, which became mainly contained within the Irish campaign. In the correspondence of Dutch diplomats and politicians there are references to the master narrative of a Catholic conspiracy to destroy Protestantism. It inspired a Protestant ‘domino theory’ of international relations, which connected apparent isolated attacks on Protestantism and interpreted these as part of a Catholic master plan. This view runs counter to the more secular interpretation of international developments. It may be concluded that both paradigms, the religious and the balance of power models, were influential. It could be suggested that in the minds of many, no coherent view of international relations could be formed. Rather, diplomats and politicians entertained views which are better described as hybrid, or perhaps they assumed that the international system was in flux: balance of power politics could make way for religious coalitions.77 Needless to say, the limited amount of evidence presented can only be suggestive rather than conclusive.   Correspondentie, ed. Japikse, vol. 5, pp. 74–5, William to Dijkveld 19 Dec. 1688. Transl. from Dutch. 77  ����������������� Tony Claydon (in Europe and the Making of England, pp. 200, 214–15) and Andrew Thompson (in his chapter in this volume) have argued that this hybrid view could be harmonised in the case of British foreign policy. In Thompson’s words: ‘Within British 76

88

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

In retrospect it can be concluded that the Nine Years War was not fought along religious lines. An interconfessional alliance did emerge and was maintained throughout the remainder of the war, which was therefore not a war of religion. But it will greatly enhance our understanding of the hybrid nature of international relations towards the closing of the seventeenth century if we recognise that it nevertheless came dangerously close to being one.

foreign policy discourse the balance of power was one of the main bulwarks through which the Protestant interest in Europe could be supported.’ See page 52 in this volume.

Chapter 5

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability: The Views of Three English Diplomats Stéphane Jettot

While religion is recognised as a decisive factor in domestic politics, its impact on international relations has been debated by historians. Heinz Schilling, through the notion of ‘confessionalisation’, argues that one of the major impacts of the Reformation was to enable sovereigns to tighten their grip on religious matters and church politics. In the Holy Roman Empire it accounted for the princes’ stronger autonomy from the Emperor and in France for an age of so-called ‘absolutism’, based on divine right and a Gallican clergy. The Peace of Westphalia represented an essential step in that process. European princes were increasingly free to play down or alternatively to display the strength of their faith whenever the diplomatic circumstances required it. Princes had the right to choose their allies among their ‘fellow monarchs’ regardless of their respective faiths. This does not mean that they held secular views on international relations but rather that the religious factor became, along with mercantilist ideas or dynastic issues, a theme which could be instrumental in their foreign policy. Hence, religion still had an essential part in European politics, but sovereigns managed to play down its significance whenever it could cross their interests. The example of William III could fit into such a theory. Indeed, while imposing himself as the keystone of a European coalition mixing Catholic and Protestant powers, he managed to meet at home the strong Protestant expectation by supporting the vote of the Toleration Act in 1689 and by reactivating the Protestant cause through widely printed propaganda.

  �������c��������� Heinz Schilling, Religion, political culture and the emergence of Early Modern Society (Leiden, 1992); ibid., ‘La confessionalisation et le système international’, in Lucien Bély (ed.), L’Europe des traités de Westphalie. Esprit de la diplomatie et diplomatie de l’esprit (Paris, 2000), pp. 411–31; Robert von Friedeburg, Self-Defence and Religious Strife in Early Modern Europe. England and Germany, 1530–1680 (Aldershot, 2002); Malcolm R. Thorp and Arthur J. Slavin (eds), Politics, Religion and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honour of de Lamar Jensen (Kirksville (Mo.), 1994).   ��������� Claydon, Revolution; idem. and Ian McBride (eds), Protestantism and National Identity. Britain and Ireland, c.1650–c.1850 (Cambridge, 1998); for an alternative view: Steven Pincus, ‘From Holy Cause to Economic Interest’, in Alan Houston and Steve Pincus (eds), A Nation Transformed (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 272–98.

90

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

However, the intensity of any religious feelings and the state’s inability to control the influence of such passions in a domestic or diplomatic context have also been underlined. Among various examples, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes precisely testifies to the limits of any religious absolutism. It reveals at least two major flaws in royal authority: a gross misjudgement about the number of Huguenots who were likely to convert to Catholicism and the inability to actually prevent the refugees from leaving France. In England, many studies have exposed the profound political disturbances caused by the legal status of nonconformists and Catholics in the Restoration period. The Restored Stuart did not manage to curb the disagreements in Westminster and the open-air protests in the country. The ‘confessionalisation process’ may have started in the middle of the sixteenth century but by the end of the seventeenth century it was still ongoing. Schilling himself stressed its highly unpredictable and confrontational nature. The debate on religion and diplomacy hinges on a political question, namely the ability of a monarch to use the religious factor in his foreign policy without undermining his position both at home and abroad. Anti-Catholic movements after 1685 were orchestrated by some Protestant countries against Louis XIV or James II but they were also an emanation of various social groups whose fear and dissatisfaction represented a threat to the political order both in France and in England. Councillors, pressure groups or individuals could get themselves heard in the refined world of congresses and embassies. Contemporaries were acutely aware of this predicament, and ambassadors, being situated between the court and wider socials groups, provide a suitable insight into this issue.   ��������c��������������������������������������������� ‘La révocation, à bien des égards, fut un drame de la communication c������c�������������c����� …A �����c����� force de s’isoler pour mieux concentrer ses forces, la monarchie s’est progressivement coupée du pays’. Jean-Christian Petitfils, Louis XIV (Paris, 1997), p. 480; Lucien Bély in his biography did not try to exonerate Louis XIV by mentioning his personal implication in the decisionmaking process: ‘Louis XIV préside lui-même un conseil, le 8 octobre 1685 auquel assistent les ministres d’État et le Dauphin – qui semble-t-il, souligne le danger d’une telle politique. Le roi passe outre ces objections et révoque l’Edit de Nantes en octobre 1685’, Louis XIV, le plus grand roi du monde (Paris, 2005), p. 206.   ������������ J.R. Jones, The First Whigs: The politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678–1683 (London, 1961); idem., ‘Parties and party organization in the reign of Charles II’, TRHS, 30 (1948): 20–36; Douglas R. Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics in England, 1661–1689 (London, 1969); Mark Goldie, Political discourse in early modern Britain (Cambridge, 1993); Jonathan Scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-century English political instability in European context (Cambridge, 2000); John Miller, ‘“A Suffering People”: English Quakers and Their Neighbours. c.1650–c.1700’, Past and Present, 188 (2005): 71–103.   �������������������������c������������������������������������������������������ ‘It enabled states and societies to integrate more tightly, an integration that could c��������� not be achieved in any other way because of the specific form of Old European Society. But confessionalisation could also provoke confrontation with religious and political groups fundamentally opposed to this same integration of state and society’. Schilling, Religion, political culture, p. 209.

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability

91

Through the experiences and correspondence of three English diplomats in the second half of the seventeenth century, it will be demonstrated that the role religion should play in foreign policy was intensely discussed. William Godolphin (1635–96), Henry Savile (1642–87) and William Trumbull (1639–1716) have been selected because they all experienced the potentially explosive combination of religion and diplomacy. The course of their respective embassies had been deeply disturbed by religious issues. All three of them were sent to Catholic countries (Spain and France) and they held an intermediate rank on the social ladder. They were neither grandees, Lords sent on specific occasions such as the famous courtiers Lord Sandwich (in 1665) and Lord Portland (in 1698), nor obscure residents in charge of the drudgery of embassy work. Another common feature is that each managed to get a seat in the House of Commons before being sent to the Continent. Therefore, they were familiar with the world of parliamentary politics, its pressure groups and factions, and shared the uneasy position of having one foot in the world of domestic politics with its religious struggles and another in the world of courtiers and royal servants. However, they were far from sharing the same views on the importance that religion should have in English foreign policy. Their respective positions will be considered in chronological order, for they did not belong to the same generation and the political and religious context of their missions differed.

I William Godolphin was entrusted with the responsibility of the whole embassy in Spain in April 1668, a few months after the impeachment of Lord Clarendon and the ‘demise of Anglican Royalist foreign policy’. Godolphin had been secretary to Lord Sandwich, whom he had accompanied during the negotiation of the peace treaty between Spain and Portugal the previous year. He owed his rise to power to the Secretary of State, Lord Arlington, a former ambassador to Spain in 1659 and 1668, a highly influential member of the Privy Council. Arlington intervened to secure Godolphin’s election to the Commons in 1665 from the seat of Camelford. After the disastrous war against Holland, Charles II’s priority was to regain popular support through a new attempt to impose toleration at home and his mediation on the Continent between France and the United Provinces and Spain. Arlington, an experienced diplomat and a partisan of religious toleration, was in a position to carry out such policy. Godolphin then was instructed to guarantee the Spanish court that English Catholics would no longer be persecuted, a fear which had been expressed since the   ���������������c�������������������� See their respective biographies by Timothy Venning, David J. Sturdy and Andrew. A. Hanham in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).   ��������������������������������������������c���� The expression is drawn from Steven C.A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism. Ideology and the making of English foreign policy 1650–1668 (Cambridge 1996), ch. 25.

92

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

English attempt to impose its mediation between Spain and Portugal. Considering that the Pope also offered his good offices, it was essential for the English to defend themselves against any accusation of anti-Catholicism. As an MP and a supporter of the supposedly new, tolerant disposition of the House of Commons, Godolphin could fulfil this mission in a more convincing way. Arlington knew from Lord Sandwich that Godolphin was already suspected of being too sympathetic to the Catholics. Actually, Arlington did not seem to mind Godolphin’s reputation in this regard. As long as Godolphin officially reaffirmed his attachment to the Church of England, he would stay out of trouble. His tolerant view on Catholicism would serve the English mediation by creating a privileged connection with the Spanish court. Godolphin spent ten years as the official ambassador in Madrid, in 1671 reaching the rank of ambassador ordinary. In June 1673, Arlington asked him to spread encouraging rumours about the new toleration bill which was likely to be passed in Westminster. Godolphin gladly obeyed the minister and wrote back, explaining that such news was ‘necessary for me to know in this crisis, to be able to contradict 1000 reports, which would have made things ten times worse than they are in our Parliament and Court, if I were not furnished from you how to deny much, and palliate more’. He was referring to the alarming reports spread by the Spanish ambassador in London, who warned his master about the increasing political instability created by the parliamentary debates on religious toleration. Godolphin set himself the task of getting closer to the Spanish court at the risk of arousing suspicion at home about his Anglicanism. In September 1671, he alluded to ‘the most horrid reports concerning myself that the malice of a man could invent’.10 After the passage of the Test Act in 1673, which disqualified Dissenters or Catholics from exercising any public charge, Godolphin became the focus of more specific rumours. To answer the charge that he had no chaplain at Madrid, he replied: I would not be mistaken, as if I postponed spiritual to Temporal Interests, sub ratione officii & utilis negotii, Good intelligencers, agents, and other parts of his

  �����������������������������������������������������������������������������  ‘Her Majesty [of Spain] had lately heard of renewed sufferings of the Roman Catholicks in England, and did desire my Master, as much as was possible, to take off or mitigate the same … The Queen did much esteem the offer of his mediation, and did not doubt from his Majesty’s Generosity to see his Majesty take such Resolution as were most proper to restore peace to Christendom but to shew his Majesty how that the Pope the very first day of his reign, had with his own hand written unto the Queen, offering his mediation.’ W. Godolphin, Hispania Illustrata or, the Maxims of the Spanish Court and … memorable affairs, from 1667 to 1678 … laid open in letters (to the Lord Arlington) from the Earl of Sandwich, the Earl of Sunderland, and Sir W. Godolphin during their embassies in Spain. Now first published from the originals (London, 1703), p. 86, Lord Sandwich to Arlington, 16 Nov. 1667.   ���������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 183, Godolphin to Arlington, 22 June 1673. 10  ������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., pp. 133, 135, Godolphin to Arlington, 30 Sept./11 Nov. 1671.

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability

93

train may not be less useful to him than a chaplain, and it may happen that he may with less inconveniency spare the latter, than the others.11

Some merchants observed him attending a mass, an accusation to which he responded that his presence was either ‘out of curiosity of hearing music’ or ‘as a spectactor’, ‘in some Balcone or retired place … whithout joyning in any part of the service or knowing how to do it, being at this hour wholly ignorant of the Ceremony’.12 Following the dismissal of Arlington in the autumn of 1674, Godolphin first tried to acquire the help of the new Secretary of State, Sir Joseph Williamson, by sending him a congratulatory letter: ‘Though I have not that union of interests with you which our common studies, education, profession, & other dependances have from our youth twisted together, I should bee a very bad englishman not to rejoyce exceedingly [for your nomination].’13 But despite any protection he could gain from Williamson, he became an easy target when the Popish Plot broke out in late 1678. When asked why he did not hire Protestant servants, he responded: Madrid … is not as Paris, where the English and Scots swarm, nor is the Reformed Religion permitted as in France. I never saw any Spaniards that professed it; I had no choice of Protestants, here being at that time out of my House, two only in Madrid viz a merchant and one other gentleman.14

The final blow took place when Titus Oates denounced him as the principal conspirator in the plot. Oates had spent some time in Spain (Valladolid) and his knowledge of that country gave some credit to the charges. On 12 November 1678, Parliament voted an address for his recall and Charles II acceded to their demand.15 Godolphin was replaced by Sir Henry Goodricke, a staunch Protestant, who joined several parliamentary committees charged with counteracting Catholic threats in 1676. He came with his chaplain and re-established a strict immunity around the embassy. Godolphin wrote several letters to Charles II and James II but did not manage to obtain an amnesty. In a letter to Sidney Godolphin (a distant relation), he 11

 ���������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 194, Godolphin to Arlington, 24 Apr. 1674.  �������������� Ibid., p. 196. 13  ������������������������������������������c�������� Ibid., p. 227, Godolphin to Coventry, 14 Oct. 1674. 14  ��������������������������c������������������������������������������������� Ibid, pp. 406–7, ‘An extract of my Lord Ambassador Godolphin’s letter to Mr Secretary Conventry, in answer to an information against the number of Papists in his Family’. 15  �����������������������������������������c������������������c������������������ ‘Sir William Godolphin, Wee have some speciall reasons to recall you from that your employment of being our Ambassador in the Court of Our good Brother the King of Spaine … wee do hereby require you to repaire unto Us with all convenient diligence, hereof you are not to fail’. TNA: PRO, SP 104/186, n.f., Charles II to Godolphin, 16 Nov. 1678. 12

94

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

complained bitterly about his unfair treatment.16 The monarchs did not dare to cross Parliament. Godolphin did not express his opinion on the religious debates, but he certainly converted to Catholicism at an unknown date. Dismissing the first attacks as mere trifles, he had underestimated the impact on the parliamentary opposition and assumed he was immune on account of his status as the King’s ambassador. Retrospectively, it turned out to be a painful misjudgement. The highly explosive nature of religious debate in the Restoration period led to its extension into foreign policy. If theoretically the monarch preserved his unlimited prerogative in this field, his envoys were under close scrutiny when it came to their religious convictions. On several occasions, Godolphin bitterly denounced these practices. The meddling of Parliament into foreign affairs could only be detrimental to the public good. During the Anglo-Dutch negotiations in 1677, he stressed the disturbing effect induced by the various demonstrations of Protestant zeal in the Commons. The address in favour of an alliance with the United Provinces strengthened the Dutch position in the negotiations at the expense of the English envoys.17 He also recalled the glorious figure of Queen Elizabeth. She knew how to deter MPs from encroaching on her prerogatives on religion and diplomacy, thus imposing herself on the Spanish: ‘In ye dayes of our greater prosperity, when England was more formidable to them than it will bee whenever ye Parlement shall not take to heart His Majty honour their own interest abroad, wch God forbid.’18 Godolphin thus appealed for a stronger royal prerogative which would be able to raise English diplomacy above domestic dissentions.

16  �������������������������������������c����������������������������������������� ‘As for those heavy burdens under which my person, reputation & interests have laboured these last six yeares, the perjuryes of infamous villains who never saw mee, the insolences of mean spirits insulting over my fortune, the desertion of friends, neglect of my faithful services & great losses of my estate &c, I assure you yt I have tasted & digested those bitter things no otherwise then as so many necessary ingredients in the wholesome medicines & dispensations of Providence. I write this from my sick bed where I have been languished (…) [and] my request to yr Lordship is that you would doe mee ye honr in such manner as may be most convenient to cast my name at his Maty feet’. TNA:PRO, SP 94/71/206, William Godolphin to Sidney Godolphin, 19 March 1685. 17  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘I verily believe, had not the House of Commons appeared so eager in their behalf, matters might have been so order’d as to have render’d our defence of them the exchange of many considerable concessions and advantages to our state’, Hispania, p. 388, Godolphin to Coventry, 15 May 1678. 18  ����������c�������������������������������� ‘[The French ambassador stressed] the sadd c������������������������������������� condition of our affaires at home doe at present lessen the credit wee have everywhere with our neighbours … but though wee differ in opinion in this matter, I am confident wee agree in our prayer for the quiet of our country’. TNA: PRO, SP/94/49/63, Godolphin to Jenkins, 14 Feb. 1674.

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability

95

II Henry Savile was in charge of the Parisian embassy from February 1679 to April 1682. Like Godolphin, he owed his preferment to a reshuffle of the Privy Council. In January 1679, the Cavalier Parliament was dissolved and Lord Danby was replaced by Lord Sunderland, who became one of the most influential ministers. It is likely that Savile’s promotion was due to Sunderland’s favour. The two families were closely linked. Sunderland’s sister married Lord Halifax, Henry Savile’s elder brother. Savile also assisted Sunderland when in Paris and served Charles II as ambassador in 1678. Like Godolphin, Savile was instructed to denounce rumours about the persecution of Catholics. When he arrived in Paris, he recalled that ‘the rumours concerning our barbarity increase’, quoting ‘the speeches of the dying jesuits which the Père de la Chaise had translated and shew’d this King [Louis XIV], and wch every body have seen’.19 The year 1679 also marked a new turn in Charles II’s religious policy. The strict Anglican policy imposed by Danby for four years had failed and the House of Commons was again out of control. Outraged by the revelation of a secret agreement between Charles II and Louis XIV, the opposition felt that the priority was to prevent the Duke of York from becoming the next king. In order to appease his parliament, Charles II agreed to his brother’s temporary exile and to a government including ‘heterodox’ Anglican personalities such as Lords Shaftesbury, Halifax and Sunderland. In a letter to his brother, Henry Savile rejoiced at the turn of the events.20 His first initiatives as envoy-extraordinary did not classify him as a strict Anglican: he left London without a chaplain and he went instead to the Charenton Temple to worship with his Protestant French brothers. He also made the protection of the latter his priority. Savile saw the persecution in France as a reply to the Popish Plot: We shall suddenly see more temples demolished, their predecessor having condemned sixteen in Gascony & Poitou within these six months, Brittany and Normandy come next. I doubt theses poor people have the worse quarter in revenge of what is done to the papists in England.21

Like Godolphin in Spain, Savile complained about the alarmist letters sent by the French ambassador in London about the anti-Catholic persecutions. In various memoirs to the French minister Colbert de Croissy, Savile argued that anti-Catholic 19   Letters to and from Henry Savile, ed. William Durrant Cooper (Camden Society vol. 71, 1858), p. 113, Henry Savile to Lord Halifax, 2 Aug. 1679. 20  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘As for the fall of my great friend, he was so long tottering that he gave his friends leisure to prepare themselves …, as to my private interest, I do not think the change at all disavantageous to me, counting upon the five new ones to be so much my friends as to let me have all manner of justice and perhaps some favour’. Letters, ed. Cooper, vol. 1, p. 78, Henry to George Savile, 15 Apr. 1679. 21  �������������������������������������������������������� TNA: PRO, SP 78/143/14, Savile to Jenkins, 16 June 1679.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

96

laws in London did not represent a threat to the French community in England and therefore the English living in France should be secured from any harassment. But Savile felt that Charles II had a more ambitious role to fulfil. In uniting the English Protestants against the persecution of the Huguenots, the King would be able to improve his reputation on the Continent: ‘Both his foreign and domestick concernes would receave a new life from an avow’d protection of all the Protestant in Europe, a station God allmighty has soe long offered to his family’.22 Unlike Godolphin, he strongly advised the ministers and the King to play the Protestant card, even at the cost of losing the French alliance. To his brother, he suggested several moves. Instead of adopting a low profile, he recommended the publication in French of a pamphlet establishing the veracity of the Popish Plot:  I have writt to Mr. Secretary severall times to tell him the necessity of having something put out in print to give an account to the world of our proceedings since the discovery of the plott, which for want of such treatise is wholly unbelieved here. I have made Coleman’s tryall and Oates his depositions be translated, but cannot get them printed.23

Halifax wrote back and tried to warn his brother about the consequences of such an initiative: [I agree with] your countenancing the Protestants, which I think the principall work of an English minister in France … But to think of any greater designs is not fit for our age: we may please ourselves with dreaming of such things, but we must never hope to get further … As for the printing Coleman’s tryal, I doubt your zeal may go a little too fast in it. You are to consider there are several expressions against popery that his Christian Majesty will never allow to be publish’d by his authority, and to make a request which would be deny’d might be of worse consequence than the letting it alone … I hope the notoriety of the fact, as our lawyers call it, is evidence enough of the plott; and yet it is in vain to hope it will ever be confess’d by those that say still there was never any such thing as the Massacre at Paris, or the Gunpowder Treason in England.24

Henry Savile may have been genuinely passionate about the Protestant cause in Paris but simultaneously he may have wished to increase his reputation at home by taking a strong stance against the French Catholics. John Wilmot (1647–80), the Earl of Rochester, his friend and correspondent, alluded, in an ironic tone, to his personal interest:

22

 ��������������������������������������������������������� TNA: PRO, SP 78/173/122, Savile to Jenkins, 22 July 1681.  ���������������� On 5 June 1679, Letters, ed. Cooper, p. 93. 24  ������������������������������� Halifax to Savile, 2 June 1679, Letters, ed. Cooper, p. 98. 23

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability

97

The account which flourishes here of your high Protestancy at Paris; Charenton was never so honour’d as since your residence and ministry in France, to that degree, it is noe doubt, if Parliament be sitting at your return or otherwise, the Mayor and Common Council will petition the King you may be dignified with the title of that place by way of Earldom or Dukedom.25

Savile could clearly see the advantage to be drawn from an English court weakened by the Succession crisis. He was playing with the idea of becoming the spokesman of a whole kingdom by expressing a Protestant zeal which went far beyond his initial instructions. Indeed, in the years 1680–81, Savile grew even more audacious. He called for an immediate Naturalisation Act for the Huguenots, including fiscal inducement to stimulate a general immigration towards England. Such a measure should be taken in all haste since otherwise he feared the Dutch alone would benefit from the French emigration. He could see himself taking on the responsibility of organising the migration and even of playing the matrimonial broker between the Huguenots and English families.26 While Savile may have earned the public’s esteem for his zealous Protestantism, he found himself persona non grata at the French Court. Halifax wrote in May 1680: One piece of intelligence I confess I am not a little pleased with, which is, that upon a contest you had with his Christian Majesty (we will suppose it was for the honour of England or the advancement of the Protestant religion) he thought fit to give you a cuff on the ear. This was discoursed among the most sober newsmongers of St. James’s Park as real truth, and you cannot imagine how such thing as this advanceth you reputation amongst all true lovers of the gospel.27

But again, Halifax warned his brother against any rash initiative. There was a line which he should never cross. Before considering a naturalisation bill, Henry Savile should bear in mind that higher issues were at stake, namely the Succession Bill.28 After the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and the beginning of a Tory reaction against the partisans of a Protestant succession, Halifax reminded his brother of his duties. As a royal envoy, he could not interfere with the French king’s religious policy. It would harm both the Protestant minority in France and the English position in the European diplomatic order: 25

 �����������������c������������������������������� Ibid., p. 108, Rochester to Savile, 25 June 1679.  ������������������������������������������ ‘Most of them are disposed to marry their children c���������������������������������������� rather into England and Holland than in France, amongst this number there is one who will give two hundred thousand crowns’. Ibid., p. 141, Savile to Halifax, 28 Feb. 1680. 27  ����������������������� Halifax to his brother, 31 May 1680, ibid., p. 155. 28  ���������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Your bill of naturalization did not want my help while the Parlt sat, but greater matters depending, it could not be dispatch’d; when the next meeting I doubt not but it will pass, of the session continueth any time’. Halifax to his brother, ibid., p. 176, 20/30 Jan. 1681. 26

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

98

I shall endeavour to justify my Protestantship by doing all that in my power towards the encouragement of those that shall take sanctuary here out of France; though even in that, our present condition consider’d, there is great tenderness to be used in the manner of it, that we may give occasion for a higher persecution against them there, or by disputing a prince’s power over his own subjects draw a question upon us which would hardly be decided in our favour, and we are not strong enough to support our having the wrong end of an argument.29

Halifax implied that one day religious persecutions might be prevented by a foreign intervention. But in the short term, England was not really in a position to interfere with French politics when on the Continent English Catholics were pitied for the persecution they endured at home. An English intervention would no doubt have endangered the country’s safety. The priority in 1681 was to strengthen the royal prerogative, even at the cost of giving up the Protestant cause. Unlike Godolphin, Savile tried to use the religious card during his residence in a Catholic court. He could see the benefit to be gained from his Protestant zeal at a time when any Englishman suspected of Catholic tendencies would definitely have been ostracised. He was clearly in favour of a hard-line Protestant diplomacy but was then told to desist by senior ministers, for in the Succession crisis context such efforts could have undermined the English position in a diplomatic world dominated by the French.

III The last example can be situated between the polar-opposite cases of Godolphin and Savile. Sir William Trumbull was elected to the Commons in 1685 and was then sent to Paris as an envoy-extraordinary from November 1685 to October 1686, in the months following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The various initiatives he took in favour of the persecuted Huguenots have been well documented but it remains to be seen how he solved the conflicting interests between his position as the envoy of a Catholic king and the need to take a stand on the persecution of the Huguenots.30 For a start, Trumbull was convinced that James II chose him to please the majority in the Commons and to dismiss any accusation of a pro-Catholic foreign policy. But he suspected that many things were happening behind the scenes, between James II and the French ambassador: ‘It was not a thing unpopular to name a protestant for that imployment … The

29

 ����������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 212, Halifax to Savile, 28 July 1681.  ������c������������������������������������� C. Pascal, ‘Un ambassadeur désagréable à la cour c������������������������������ de Louis XIV (Sir William Trumbull 1685–1686)’, BSHPF, 43 (1894): 169–297; R. Clarke, Sir William Trumbull in Paris 1685–1686 (Cambridge, 1938). 30

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability

99

Papists, who were behind ye curtain, knew well enough that all matters of moment were to be transacted by Barrillon, ye French ambassador here.’31 In the 1685 election, most of the MPs were, like Trumbull, attached to the defence of the royal prerogative but remained strong Anglicans and hostile to any toleration of Catholics. His main instructions were to defend the rights and liberties of the English merchants. Trumbull was also passionate about the Protestant cause. The Trumbull manuscripts in the British Library contain a large collection of Huguenot pamphlets and letters from various correspondents (Nicolas Fontaine, Jacques Dayrolle), which demonstrate his advocacy for the Protestant cause in France.32 It seems that such concern came from his grandfather who was a diplomat in Brussels during the reign of James I and supported the Dutch rebellion. Trumbull’s father kept up the family Protestant network on the Continent, and on his Grand Tour, William visited his father’s contacts in Montpellier and Saumur. In Paris, he took many initiatives to protect the Huguenots, which exasperated the French ministers, notably Colbert de Croissy. He was also highly critical of James II’s stance towards Louis XIV. In a letter to his father-in-law Sir Charles Cotterell, he did not hide his reluctance to serve a Catholic king: ‘I have seen too much of the friendship between the two kings cementing by the design of promoting popery … as King Charles never failed to sacrify popery to his temporal interest, so he sacrified everything to popery.’33 However, to him, the stakes were much higher than the defence of the Huguenots. He shared Cotterell’s view that a war could soon pit Holland and England against each other.34 Both men seemed to fear the imminence of a devastating war and, unlike Savile, Trumbull did not use the banner of Protestantism to justify his proHuguenot stances. Another factor which could account for his prudence was the faith of his royal master. James II was likely to be accused of belonging to the antiProtestant league. Owen Wynn, from London, warned Trumbull that ‘the public ministers aggravate the cruelties there and publish privately a detail of them … You will have much ado to wipe off the odium that some will endeavour to throw upon the King’.35 On many occasions, he had been cautious enough to use the more secular language of diplomatic immunity and of civil law. As a former member of 31

 All Souls College Library, Oxford, MS. 317, fol. 21.  �����������������������������������������������c�������������������������� Many works from Pierre Jurieu, Pierre Bayle, Michel Vassor in BL, Add. MS 72604. 33  ���������������������������� BL, Add. MS 72516, fol. 88. 34  �������������������������c��������������������������c���������������������������� ‘This looks like to produce a war, for they [the Dutch] seeme to be in a greater readiness than wee are ; but I hope God will prevent the effusion of so much christian blood and the bringing of Protestants to destroy one another’, BL, Add. MS 72516, fol. 62, Charles Cotterell to Trumbull, 26 March 1688. 35  ����� HMC, Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire preserved at Easthampstead Park Berkshire, Papers of Sir William Trumbull (2 vols London, 1924), vol. ��������������������� 1, p. 59, ������ Wynne to Trumbull, 6���c�������� Dec. 1685. 32

100

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

the Doctor’s Common, he focused his intervention on particular cases in which a breach of civil laws could be identified. This explains why he made such a public fuss about the Rye case. In December 1685, some naturalised Huguenots had been captured by a French frigate in English territorial waters, close to the port of Rye. As a former judge of the Admiralty court, he was familiar with the issue and felt entitled to complain about the French encroachment: ‘un procédé si contraire aux droits des gens’ and against the ‘lawes of Nations’.36 This case gave Trumbull the opportunity to stand for the Huguenots without using any religious rhetoric. Likewise, when prevented from bringing home the Huguenots of his household, he argued that the ‘international laws’ were been violated in this matter.37 On his way home, he also objected to the French officials’ searching of his yacht in Calais as an infringement on his diplomatic immunity. The way he interpreted the Revocation of the Edict is also worth stressing. In his memoirs, he drew a portrait of Louis XIV in which the religious convictions of the king were not taken at face value. Louis XIV is not depicted as a passionate Catholic but mainly as ignorant and vain man: In matters of religion, he had another qualification, joined to ye former, wch servd ye purpose of popery & destruction & made hime ye truest bigot I ever saw, wch was an entire ignorance, ye true mother of his cruel devotion. I need give no other instance of this, yt wt mareschal Schomberg told me, who begging to retire & ye king persuading him to be instructed. He told ye k. that he had always payd as true obedience to him as ye meanest & faithfullest of all his subjects, but as to his conscience he submitted that only to God’s will. Having learnt to give to Caesar ye things yt are Caesars & to God ye things yt are gods. The king askd him immediately (with some emotion) ou avez-vous trouvez cela? And it seems so much ye more strange he should never have met with that verse (ye good old mareschall telling His Majesty it was in ye Holy Scriptures) most prince having taken such advantage of it, at least of one part of it to sett aside or enervate ye force of ye other.38

According to Trumbull, the decision to revoke the Edict did not stem from a burning faith but merely from courtly intrigues. If it was not for the various breaches in the ‘droit des gens’, Trumbull would never have interfered in the French persecutions. He also made this point later in his career, when as Secretary of State 36  �������������������������������������������� ‘I represented to him [Colbert de Croissy] ye hardship of this usage, not onely in respect of ye libertie this Kings subjects had in England, and ye Lawes of Nations in all other places’. TNA: PRO, SP 78/148/147, Trumbull to Sunderland, 2 Jan. 1686. 37  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Until they (his servants) prove unworthy of it (when the Ambassador would submit to their just punishment) they cannot be oppressed without violation of international law and without injustice to the king’. HMC, Downshire, vol. 1, Trumbull to Croissy, 12 July 1686. 38  ������������������������������������������������������������������� Autobiography, All Souls College Library, Oxford, ms. 317, fol. 33.

Diplomacy, Religion and Political Stability

101

from 1695 to 1697, he was solicited by the Huguenot interest during the Rijswijk negotiations. Pierre Jurieu, one of the leading members of the French community in Holland, reminded him that former English kings had always been protectors of the Huguenots, quoting various kings from Henri VIII to Charles I. In May 1697, Jurieu solicited him to send a memoir directly to the English ambassadors in The Hague in order to obtain the repeal of the Edict of Fontainebleau.39 It seems that Trumbull gave a sharp rebuff to such downright interference. The Marquis de Perray, another French refugee had to send an apologetic letter on behalf of Jurieu. The latter had to exonerate himself from the accusation of trying to undermine the French king’s authority.40 The degree to which religion could influence foreign policy is not only a matter of debate among historians. Contemporaries were acutely aware of the advantages, and the dangers, of this combination. Religious disputes in England did spill out of the domestic area into the diplomatic sphere. For instance, while both Charles II and James II tried to employ MPs as diplomats for various reasons – to satisfy their patrons, to reassure Parliament or to project on the Continent the image of a harmonious relationship between the King and his assembly – it seems that results were far below expectations. The fact that they were members of the Commons made the problem worse because they were closely watched by their colleagues and either had to show their commitment to the Protestant cause or risk losing credit and being lampooned at home. Judging by the examples of William Godolphin, Henry Savile and William Trumbull, one can see that religious identities still deeply influenced the work of Early Modern English diplomats. Accused by the parliamentary opposition of being a Catholic, Godolphin in Madrid first tried to defend himself and then, because he did not obtain his royal master’s protection, had to spend the rest of life in exile. Savile in Paris displayed a passionate zeal for the defence of the Huguenots. During the Succession crisis, he had a fair chance to improve his credit at home by engaging in such behaviour. However, his brother warned him that the bold measures he took in favour of his Protestant brothers would cause some

39

 ���c�������������������������������������������c������������������������������� ‘factum ou mémoire pour les Protestants de France dans lequel on fait voir les engagements où sont les Roys d’Angleterre à la maintenir dans les libertez et Privilèges qui leur ont été accordez par les Rois de France’; ‘mémoire sur les difficultés et demandes présentées à leurx excellences les ambassadeurs plénipotentiaires du Roy d’Angleterre’, TNA: PRO, SP 103/95, 20 May 1697. 40  �������������������������������âc������������������� ‘Monsieur Jurieu m’a fait la grâce de venir me voir ce c���������������������������� matin et m’a dit que vous aviez trouvé fort mauvaise une requeste qui a couru le monde, présentée par les protestants françois au roy de France et surtout le terme outré de puissance sans borne comme si tous les français réformés estois esclaves de leurs roys.’ TNA: PRO, SP 84/220/418, Perray to Trumbull, 27 Sept. 1697; Perray was Philippe de Courcillon’s brother-in-law, the Marquess of Dangeau and governor of Touraine; on the Huguenot lobbying during the reign of Anne, see: Laurence H. Boles, The Huguenots, the Protestant Interest and the War of the Spanish Succession, 1702–1714 (New York, 1997).

102

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

deep diplomatic fissures. As for Trumbull, he was confronted with the difficult task of representing a Catholic king during the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. While he tried to help the refugees, he could not officially support the Protestant cause. As an experienced lawyer, he used the rhetoric of the ‘international lawes’ to justify his opposition to Louis XIV’s persecutions.

IV These men were aware of the difficulties raised by the mix of religion and diplomacy, and they each reached different solutions to the problem. Suspected of converting to Catholicism by some MPs, Godolphin claimed that he was under only the King’s authority. He held a pre-Civil War view of the royal prerogative, namely that the King should not be held accountable for his religious and foreign policies. Henry Savile took the somewhat opposite stance by trying to induce the King to follow a pro-Huguenot policy. He cited the numerous advantages that English foreign policy could gain from assuming a Protestant stance. The cases of Godolphin and Savile underline the incomplete nature of confessionalisation in England. Charles II was unable to impose strict control over his religious and foreign policies. He could not prevent outside forces from interfering and had to endure their disturbing effects on his decision-making process and in his relations with his envoys. Trumbull’s invocation of ‘international lawes’ enabled him to act in favour of the Huguenots without using religious terminology. Trumbull rejected the legitimacy of interfering in a foreign country in the name of the Protestant cause but argued that James II could intervene in some individual cases when the ‘droit des gens’ had been breached. Such statements contributed to a reformulation of religious issues in terms of legal cases and helped to defuse the explosive combination of religion and foreign policy.

Chapter 6

The Blessed Trinity: The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713 K.A.J. McLay

Immediately upon hearing the news of the allied victory over the armies of Louis XIV at the Battle of Blenheim, 13 August 1704, from Colonel Parkes who had been sent by her captain-general, John Churchill, Earl (later 1st Duke) of Marlborough, Queen Anne wrote to her friend, and Marlborough’s wife, Sarah Churchill, that ‘this glorious victory, which, next to God Almighty, is wholly owing to dear Mr Freeman’. Marlborough was perhaps more modest when, on replying to the House of Lords’ address of thanks for the campaign of 1704, he begged, ‘on this occasion, to do right to all the officers and soldiers I had the honour of having under my command; next to the blessing of God, the good success of this campaign is owing to their extraordinary courage’. A notable feature of both statements is not that the beneficence of God is invoked as contributing to victory but rather (albeit probably not consciously) that the physical in-theatre agency of the commander and soldiers was afforded parity in the achievement of a successful outcome. This expressed equivalence in conduct of warfare between the perceived necessity of Divine intervention and the contribution of an art of war in-theatre grounded upon rational precepts was an increasing feature of warfare in the late seventeenth century. Such a trend can be highlighted by demonstrating first that the religious context of battles and warfare in the years after the conclusion of the Thirty Years War by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (the traditional historiographical watershed) was enduring, both in contemporary consciousness and subsequent histories. Second, that, however, an examination of warfare as a holistic historical  �������������� Edward Gregg, Queen Anne (London, 2001), p. 187. Mr Freeman was the nom de plume initiated by Queen Anne in correspondence with Sarah Churchill during the early 1690s to refer to Marlborough. Sarah was Mrs Freeman while Anne was known as Mrs Morely and the Lord Treasurer, Sidney, Earl Godolphin, as Mr Montgomery. It has been suggested that in adopting these names the then Princess Anne was seeking to anonymise rank and establish a privileged equitable relationship with her principal friend, until 1707, Sarah Churchill. See Gregg, Queen Anne, pp. 81–2.    The Parliamentary History of England, ed. W. Cobbett (36 vols, London, 1806–20), vol. 6, p. 375. 

104

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

event, focusing less on specific battles and instead upon the Clausewitzian notion of the subjective nature or character of war which changes over time, admits an increasing secularism in the art of warfare. And, third, that this increasingly secular character of war might be indexed through the rise of professionalism in the execution of war and in the culture and contemporary conceptualisation of military conduct.

I Causal secularism in military success was not recognised in conflicts prior to the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648. Following the parliamentary triumph at the battle of Nantwich in 1644, Sir Thomas Fairfax wrote to his wife of the ‘great Victory it hath pleased Him [God] to give us over the Irish army’. Similarly, overseas, in their initial conflicts with the native Americans, the Puritan settlers of New England invoked ‘the Evident Hand of Heaven’ to explain victory; while later in the century, in 1690, the French Canadian colonists named the recently built church in Quebec’s lower town, Notre Dame de Victoire, thus accrediting their repulse of the English colonists’ amphibious attempt to capture Quebec to the Holy Mother’s favourable intervention. These latter three examples are drawn from historical contexts which specifically emphasised the role of religion and direction of Providence in military endeavour. Styled His Most Christian Majesty, as ruler of Europe’s foremost Roman Catholic kingdom in the mid-to-late seventeenth century – judged by its military and political influence within Europe – Louis XIV’s military inspiration can be viewed as primarily confessional. Louis’s military muse must, however, be distinguished from the reasons for involving France in a particular conflict which, as will be surveyed, equally drew upon rational calculation in accordance with the precepts of the raison d’état promoted by his father’s chief minister, ArmandJean du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu. Notwithstanding, for example, Louis’s refusal to come to the Holy Roman Empire’s aid in the early 1680s (when Ottoman Turks reached Vienna), in the hope that a distracted Emperor would allow Louis to stabilise France’s eastern frontier and enhance the country’s influence within western Europe, Louis habitually appealed to providential intervention once his    The Fairfax Correspondence: Memorials of the Civil War, ed. Robert Bell (London, 1849), p. 74.   ������������������c���������c��������������������������c����������� Cotton Mather, ‘Decennium Luctuosum’, in Charles H. Lincoln (ed.), Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675–1699 (New York, 1959), p. 184; John Ferling, ‘The New England Soldier: A Study in Changing Perceptions’, American Quarterly, 33 (1981): 31–2.   ����������c������ James Pritchard, In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670–1730 (Cambridge, 2004), p. 337.   �������������� Anthony Levi, Cardinal Richelieu and the Making of France (London, 2001), pp. 181, 254; Paul Sonnino, Louis XIV’s View of the Papacy (Los Angeles, 1966), pp. 15–16.

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

105

kingdom was engaged militarily. Te Deums were frequently ordered to be sung in cathedrals and churches even if the outcome of a battle was ambiguous. Indeed, the alacrity with which Louis ordered thanks be given for Divine help following the naval battle off Malaga on 13 August 1704, undoubtedly helped characterise the decision by his admiral, Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Comte de Toulouse, to disregard the opportunity to reengage from the windward against Admiral Sir George Rooke’s Anglo-Dutch fleet as a signal victory and one which preserved the French marine’s future capability. In a similar manner, the earlier examples of the Puritan appeal to the Divine on the battlefield were bound up in their faith and theology. Generally, the Puritan tradition in warfare has been attributed to three basic stances: pacifistic non-participation, unenthusiastic participation in just wars and enthusiastic prosecution of crusading wars. The historical emphasis has been upon the latter two attitudes, with the overall trend moving from the limited parameters – formed by the specific issue under dispute or by self-defence – of a legitimate war to the unlimited – due to the unbounded belief in the righteousness of the cause – crusade. Acts of war by these Christian soldiers thus reflected the monastic ideal of Militia Christi, albeit in a real conflict. Military service was viewed as a synthesis of an overarching spiritual dimension and mortal soldiering in which God’s Providence in the conduct of martial duty was assured.10 Given the Reformation’s religious legacy and the breadth and experience of the Puritan tradition within the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is therefore unsurprising that providential accounts of significant events in national history have a long lineage. In 1717, the Reverend Thomas Harrison’s sermon, The Duty of Calling to Mind Remarkable Events of Providence, commemorating deliverance from the Great Storm of late November 1703, offset the negativity of God’s judgement manifest by various storms, fires and plagues which had beset the nation from the fourteenth century with the beneficence of providential events such as the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, the Revolution of 1688 with its legacy of Protestant succession and the defeat of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion; while towards the end of the eighteenth century,   �������������� John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667–1714 (London, 1999), pp. 165–7; C. Sevin de Quincy, Histoire Militaire du Regne de Louis Le Grand (4 vols, Paris, 1726), vol. 2, p. 7, vol. 3, p. 3.   ����c��� Quincy, Histoire Militaire, vol. 4, p. 439; C. de la Roncière, Historie de la Marine Française (6 vols, Paris, 1932), vol. 6, pp. 365, 368; L.G. Carr-Laughton, ‘The Battle of Velez Malaga, 1704’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, 68 (1923): 367–90; Richard Harding, Seapower and Naval Warfare 1650–1830 (London, 1999), pp. 171–2.   ����������������������������c����������������������������� Timothy George, ‘War and Peace in the Puritan Tradition’, Church History, 5 (1984): 492–503. 10  ������������������������������������������������������� George, ‘War and Peace’; A.H. Buffington, ‘The Puritan View �������������� of War’, Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications, 5 (1930–33): 67–86; Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia (Pennsylvania, 2001), pp. 17–18.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

106

the Reverend C.E. de Coetlogon similarly preached that the 1688 Revolution along with the Restoration in 1660 and the Reformation of the sixteenth century, were seminal acts of Providence.11 The arguments and testimonies of Harrison and de Coetlogon are reflected in the writings of numerous other contemporaries, both ecclesiastical and civil, of the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and these texts have been appropriately used by historians to show the enduring religious context of early modern history. The work of J.C.D. Clark has been most prominent in this regard. Although originally published twenty years ago, Clark’s book, English Society 1688–1832 (Cambridge, 1985), remains a yardstick in the analysis of an English polity resting upon a Church-State axis whereby deference to religion and ideology (infused by a commitment to divinely appointed hereditary monarchy) underpinned a stable society.12 Clark has subsequently returned to this interpretation, albeit shifting the focus to demonstrate the religiosity of early modern British society by laying bare the limited diffusion of Enlightenment ideals of rationality, secular order and progress and the complicity of received historical opinion in marginalising religion’s organising and explanatory qualities.13 Clark’s evidential base for the contemporary prevalence of providential discourse and the appeal to Divine intervention as explanations for the context, progress and events of early modern British, and by extension European, history cannot be gainsaid. Accordingly, this analysis is also reflected when specifically related to the history of warfare between 1688 and 1713. The outbreak of the Nine Years War (1688–97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–13/14) might be explained by the need to preserve a nascent European balance of power. For both wars, this argument is applied generally through the formation of European Grand Alliances to check the territorial aggrandisement of Louis XIV; while individually for each conflict, specific concerns over preserving the balance of power might be cited. The consequences of the failure of Louis XIV to secure the election of his candidate – Cardinal William Egon von Fürstenburg – over the Elector of Bavaria, Joseph Clement, candidate of both the Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Innocent XI, to the Electorate of Cologne in June 1688 are relevant. Equally, in 1700, the prospect of a Franco-Spanish union of crowns due to the accession – in accordance with the late Spanish king, Carlos II’s will – of Louis XIV’s grandson, Philip, Duc d’Anjou to the Spanish throne and the lodging of a decree in the Parlement de  ����������������� Thomas Harrison, The Duty of Calling to Mind Remarkable Events of Providence (London, 1717), pp. 12–16; C.E. de Coetlogon, National Gratitude for Providential Goodness (London, 1790), pp. 14–18. 12  �������������� J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 1985) which has been expanded and reprinted as J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 2000). 13  �����������������������c���������������������������������������������������������� J.C.D. Clark, ‘Providence, Predestination and Progress: or, did the Enlightenment Fail?’, Albion, 35 (2003): 559–89; Jonathan Clark, ‘What Next?’, Times Literary Supplement, (5 January 2007), pp. 7–8. 11

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

107

Paris that d’Anjou remained third in-line to the French throne behind the Grand Dauphin and his eldest son, Louis, Duc de Bourgogne, contained implications for the balance of power. Admittedly, the prospect of a union of crowns diminished throughout the war as Bourgogne’s three sons were born, but before the end of the Spanish Succession conflict, the elder two offspring (both, Louis, Duc de Bretagne) had died along with Bourgogne himself, his youngest brother Charles, Duc de Berri, and their father the Grand Dauphin; according to the precepts of hereditary Divine right succession, only the vulnerably young four-year-old, Louis, Duc’d’Anjou, lay between his uncle and namesake – by then Philip V of Spain – and the French throne.14 Similarly, however, it is possible to acknowledge the secular aspect of the balance of power and view both wars as predominately derived from such a discourse in which the balance of power supports religion. Thus, the Grand Alliances of 1689 and 1701 were groupings of mainly Protestant states against the foremost Catholic European power with pretensions to a Roman Catholic and absolute ‘universal monarchy’. Similarly, the importance of religion as both a motive and context for the individual conflicts might variously be highlighted. Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and subsequent policy of forced conversion of the French Huguenots cast a religious shadow over the second half of the 1680s and prompted the formation of the League of Augsburg, a defensive alliance comprising the Holy Roman Emperor, Protestant states from the Empire’s south and west German lands, Spain and Sweden, which served as a forerunner to the first Grand Alliance. Those Huguenots who refused to abjure fled into exile with many congregating first in Brandenburg-Prussia and the United Provinces and then in England, coming across from the United Provinces with the Prince of Orange at the outset of the Revolution of 1688. For many of these exiles, the Nine Years War was a confessional conflict, an opportunity to reconstruct their religious and cultural identity in opposition to the principal enemy combatant – Catholic France.15 The legacy of the Edict of Nantes’s revocation also provided the Spanish Succession conflict with a prominent religious context

14

  M. Sheenan, ‘The Development �������������������������������������c��c��������������c����� of British Theory and Practice of the Balance of Power before 1714’, History, 73 (1988): 24–37; Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, pp. 191–9; W. Roosen, ‘The Origins of the War of the Spanish Succession’, in Jeremy Black (ed.), The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe (Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 157–61; Richard Place, ‘Bavaria and the Collapse of Louis XIV’s German Policy, 1687–88’, JMH, 49 (1977): 369–����������� 93; Gregg, Queen Anne, p. 126; Anthony Levi, Louis XIV (London, 2004), pp. 266–73. 15   Memoirs of Isaac Dumont de Bostaquet: a Gentleman of Normandy, trans. and ed. Dianne W. Ressinger, Huguenot Society NS 4 (London, 2005), pp. 213–70; Ruth Whelan, ‘Writing of the Self: Huguenot Autobiography and the Process of Assimilation’, in Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton (eds), From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550–1750 (Brighton, 2001), pp. 463–77.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

108

manifest in the Camisard rebellion within the Languedoc region of France in 1702. The Camisards – the name was commonly thought to be derived from the white peasant smock or camisa worn by the rebels16 – mainly comprised Huguenot peasants who had remained in France following the 1685 revocation. They had settled in disproportionate number in the Languedoc, particularly around Nîmes and the Cévennes mountain range west of the Rhone, and in the early eighteenth century several young Protestant prophets toured the area fuelling their religious conviction. In 1702 the Intendant, Lamoignon de Bâville, along with his senior Catholic adviser Abbé Chayla, became so concerned with this trend that they ordered its suppression. The imprisonment and death of the prophets and their families followed and, combined with the repressive taxation regime, triggered a revolt. The peasant rebels organised themselves into a fairly effective guerrilla force, operating with varying degrees of intensity out of the countryside and the Cévennes massif for most of the war.17 Significantly, however, this guerrilla activity attracted Allied interest as an internal distraction and means of disrupting the French war effort. Money and war supplies were channelled through the English Envoy to Savoy, Richard Hill, who attested to the religious context of this conflict by sending dispatches to London relating progress in what he referred to as his ‘holy war’.18 Given the ease therefore with which the religious causes and contexts of warfare in the post-Westphalian period can be identified and, moreover, the prevalent enduring providential discourse within contemporary histories and mentalities to explain Britain’s progress and conduct in such conflicts, it might seem otiose and anachronistic to argue that the remarks by Queen Anne and Marlborough quoted at the outset of this chapter can be seen as pointing to a shift in perception of success in war. Certainly, religiosity in the conduct of war in-theatre remains a prominent feature of early modern historical battle narratives. Olivier Chaline’s study of the battle of the White Mountain (1620), for example, is an events-based history, microscopically analysing the context and progress of the battle. Accordingly, Chaline urges upon the reader the centrality of various factors impacting upon the real-time progress of the battle such as the weather, battlefield topography and the activities of the soldiers preceding battle; in addition, it is argued that alongside  �������������� B.C. Strayer, Huguenots and Camisards as Aliens in France, 1598–1789: The Struggle for Religious Toleration (Lampeter, 2001), p. 294. Strayer also suggests that the name might well have stemmed from the notion that the rebels were ‘burners of idols’ as a camis was a Japanese idol; or that the name derived from the word camisade which embodied the activity of attacking Catholic strongholds. 17  �����c������ A. Ducasse, La Guerre des Camisards: La Résistance Huguenote sous Louis XIV (Paris, 1970), pp. 9–63; Strayer, Huguenots and Camisards, pp. 296–308; Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, pp. 277–9. 18  ������������������������������������������������������������������������c���� TNA: PRO, SP 92/26, fol. 398, Hill to Hedges, 17 July 1704; Geoffrey Symcox, Victor Amadeus II: Absolutism in the Savoyard State, 1675–1730 (London, 1983), pp. 145–6. 16

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

109

the physical aspects of the battlefield and the soldiery, consideration should be given to the combatants’ mentalities.19 Drawing upon the work of Ernest Jünger, Chaline claims that essentially, ‘la bataille est expérience intérieure [the battle is an inner experience]’20 and thus in a religious age, Divine guidance and providential direction account for battlefield conduct and ultimate success. This approach to the military history of the battle – experiencing it through the eyes and sentiments of the soldiers individually and as a group – was pioneered (as acknowledged by Chaline) by John Keegan’s seminal text, The Face of Battle (London, 1976). Focusing attention on the battle’s rank and file participants to compose a battle narrative has much merit: historical colour and shade are variously applied to convey the nuanced progress of the battle as an event set within the combatants’ prevailing and dominating cultural milieus.21 However, events-based histories of battles dilute and divert attention from a holistic assessment of the nature of the warfare of a period. Battle, albeit rightly viewed as a central focus, historically and contemporaneously is only one aspect of warfare; other factors include logistics, intelligence, command and control, political-military relations and inter-service relations – the list is long. To chart a broader theme such as the increasing secularisation in the conduct of war – regardless whether that be within operational planning, the fighting of a battle or the collection of intelligence – alongside a continuing religious context, the nature of warfare or, in the celebrated philosopher of war, Carl von Clausewitz’s words, war as a ‘total phenomenon’22 rather than one element should be assessed. Appropriately, Clausewitz provides a point of departure for the holistic examination of warfare for he contended that war was comprised of two natures, one objective the other subjective.23 The first (objective) nature is universal in as much as it defines war from other all other endeavours; if ‘all wars are things of the same nature’24 namely, as Michael Howard identified, contests whereby ‘large bodies of men are trying to impose their will on another by violence’25 then the religious context and appeal by either side to Divine help is irrelevant. A substantive distinction can hardly be made between Catholic-, Protestant-, Muslim- or Jewish-directed violence or art of war – all are destructive and possess the potential to kill in equal measure. Clausewitz’s second (subjective) nature of warfare admits a comparative context, however. This nature of war is concerned with character rather than inherent form and it alters  ����������������� Olivier Chaline, La Bataille de la Montagne Blanche (8 Novembre 1620): Un Mystique Chez les Guerriers (Paris, 2000), pp. 11–29, 579–90. 20  ������������� Ibid., p. 14. 21  �������������� John A. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture from Ancient Greece to Modern America (Oxford, 2003), pp. xiii–xxv. 22  ��������������������� Carl von Clausewitz, On War, transl. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, 1976), p. 89. 23  ��������������� Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (London, 2006), p. 31. 24  ������������ Clausewitz, On War, p. 606; Gray, Another Bloody Century, p. 31. 25  ��c������������� Michael Howard, The Causes of Wars and Other Essays (London, 1983), p. 215. 19

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

110

according to the historical context informed by variables such as chronology and technology. Notwithstanding the universalism associated with war’s first nature, Clausewitz thus argued that ‘every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions’.26 Modifications, alterations or wholesale change might therefore be identified in the character of warfare and its conduct in any given epoch. This Clausewitzian distinction between objective and subjective natures of war, admits grounds for considering a tangible shift in perspective expressed within the quotations from Queen Anne and Marlborough. Any examination of an increasing perception of a secular conduct of war set within the enduring religiosity of war’s historical context in the post-Westphalian period requires, however, an index of change. Early modern military history has been, and remains, informed by Michael Roberts’s concept of a ‘Military Revolution’ occurring over the hundred year period, 1560 to 1660. Although there remain some dissenters within the historical community such as John Childs, a banal consensus can be accepted that over the broad chronology of the fifteenth through to the eighteenth century, revolutionary change occurred in military structure, tactics and technology which significantly impacted upon the organisation of European society.27 A unifying element of the revolutionary change in military organisation and practice was the awareness of an increasing professionalism within the military.28 In the absence of substantive norms – a notable feature of modern sociological definitions – identifying professionalism historically is vulnerable to anachronistic ambiguity. Nonetheless, recent consideration of this topic by D.J.B. Trim, has put forward seven ‘markers’ of professionalism against which the historical evidence can be measured.29 The concept of professionalism can thus provide the necessary index of change for the secularising trend within the conduct of warfare despite its enduring religious context. Of the seven markers advanced by Trim, the final  ������������ Clausewitz, On War, p. 593; Gray, Another Bloody Century, p. 32.  ��c�������������� Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560–1660 (Belfast, 1956); John Childs, Warfare in the Seventeenth Century (London, 2003), pp. 22–4; for the details on the consensus over the ‘Military Revolution’ see, Jeremy Black, Military Revolution?: Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800 (London, 1991), Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 1660–1815 (London, 1994), pp. 1–37, Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 1494–1660 (London, 2002), pp. 32–54, Michael Duffy, The Military Revolution and the State, 1500–1800 (Exeter, 1980) and Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1996). 28  ������������������� Christopher Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason (London, 1987), pp. 80–84, 313–18; Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (London, 1983), p. 37. 29  ������������������� D.J.B. Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (Leiden, 2003), pp. 3–13; the seven markers are 1. Discrete occupational identity, 2. Formal hierarchy, 3. Performance, 4. Formal pay system, 5. Distinctive expertise and means of education therein, 6. Efficiency in the execution of expertise, and 7. Distinctive self-conceptualisation. 26 27

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

111

two – ‘efficiency in execution of expertise’ and ‘distinctive self-conceptualisation’ – are particularly concerned with actual combat. The first emphasises a measured competence in undertaking military activities whereby efficiency is achieved through technique and standard process, not through personal flair or appeal to Providence; the second embraces a professional culture in military conduct, namely that officers and soldiers performed their military tasks in contingent, distinct and often ordered ways, thus minimising as far as possible the role of Divine or even rational happenstance.30 Examination of three examples from the warfare of the period 1688 to 1713, which focus upon operational planning, the structuring of command and battlefield management, against these two indices of professionalism should show an increasing secular approach to the art of warfare. Notwithstanding the enduring religious context, participants’ conduct will be seen to be progressively directed by rational precepts and technique with providential explanations for military activities undermined.

II The first example is drawn from the military history of the Revolution of 1688, which might appropriately be considered a theatre of the Nine Years War (1688–97). The specific focus is upon the successful crossing of the Channel in November 1688 by the Prince of Orange’s fleet of three divisions, comprising some 50 warships and less than half that again of fireships along with some 300 transport vessels carrying around 14,000 soldiers. Within the historiography there is a tradition of emphasising the role of the Providential ‘Protestant’ winds: first that a strong easterly gale allowed the Prince’s military and naval force to proceed along the south-west coast, while trapping the English fleet commanded by Lord Dartmouth at its Gunfleet anchorage; and second, that it was a shift in the wind to the west which permitted the Prince’s fleet to come safely to anchor in Torbay under a lee shore on 5 November and disrupt Dartmouth’s progress when he finally managed to weigh.31 Although the role of the wind cannot be denied, the evidence shows the planning and preparation of the crossing to be rational and contingent and directed towards an efficiency in deployment, so that the likely vagaries in the weather or other elements – considered representative of Divine intervention or otherwise – might be accommodated.

 ������������ Trim (ed.), The Chivalric Ethos, pp. 10–11.  �����������������������c������������������������������������������������������� G. Parker, ‘Of Providence and Protestant Winds: The Spanish Armada of 1588 and the Dutch Armada of 1688’, in G. Parker, Empire, War & Faith in Early Modern Europe (London, 2002), pp. 39–66; J.L. Anderson, ‘Combined Operations and the Protestant Wind: Some Maritime Aspects of the Glorious Revolution of 1688’, Great Circle, 9 (1987): 96, 99–107; Lord Macaulay, The History of England, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper (Harmondsworth, 1979), pp. 254, 258–9. 30

31

112

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Prior to the Prince of Orange’s fleet’s second and successful egress from the River Maas a debate had occurred amongst William’s colleagues as to how the fleet should cross the Channel in order best to effect a landing. Bishop Gilbert Burnet recorded that John Wildman was prominent in marshalling the arguments for a two-phase crossing: the men-of-war would secure command of the sea, either by fighting the English fleet or hastening them back into port; then the transports would make a safe and unimpeded passage. The Prince, however, rejected this in favour of a one-step crossing, with the warships and transports comprising one naval entity. In this respect, he was probably conscious of the potential for further delay that might occur under the two-phase conception, recognising that the fleets might lie in sight of each other for some time and that each day longer the army and horses were at sea reduced their capability.32 Implicit in this decision was William’s – albeit unexpressed – desire to avoid engagement. Politically, it was important that he avoided the image of ‘invader-conqueror’, while it was also recognised that a campaign which set out to spill blood would most probably invoke recent memories of the Anglo-Dutch Wars and galvanise the English of whom it was said, ‘our countrymen love no cause, nor man, so well as fighting’.33 William’s decision for a single-phase dash for the coast was, however, largely a product of the debate as to which English coast he was headed for and the exact landing site thereon. The sailing orders of the Prince’s admiral, Arthur Herbert, were less than specific. There has always been a question as to whether the Prince knew himself, and kept his colleagues guessing in deference to operational secrecy or whether he was also uncertain about his intentions when he set sail. It is easy to identify the factors which would influence such a decision and the Prince’s preparations did not omit compiling important information on the state of the country, including detailed information about the garrisons. Obviously, wherever the critical mass of King James’s troops were would carry significant weight in any decision. This is clear from a survey of potential landing sites completed prior to sailing which stated that if disembarkation was to take place on the north-east coast then Yorkshire was the most southerly point at which it could be effected due to the strength of James’s army in London and its immediate environs. This document was not, however, prescriptive, and another assessed coasts and sites as far apart as Tynemouth and Falmouth.34 32  ���������������� Gilbert Burnet, History of My Own Time, ed. M.J. Routh (6 vols, Oxford, 1833), vol. 3, pp. 324–5. 33  ������������������������������������ John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normandy and Duke of Buckingham (4th edn, London, 1753), p. 70. 34  ����������������������������c���������������������������������������������������� NUL, PwA 2204, unf.: ‘Instructie, Bij Sijn Hoogheijt gegeven aanden? ������������ Heer Arthur Herbert’; NUL, PwA 2082–3, unf.: Letter to Bentinck containing the numbers thought to be employed in the English Garrisons, document detailing the governors/commanders of different garrisons in England; NUL, PwA 2185–6, unf.: Papers Relating to the State of England, 1688; NUL, PwA 2199, unf.: Paper Relating to the Fleet and Troops

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

113

Clyve Jones has produced a most concise summary of the landing site question, by looking at how it was conceived on both sides of the Channel.35 His was an early attempt to move the debate on from the Whig myth that the Protestant wind brought William to Torbay and Professor J.P. Kenyon’s contention that political considerations – namely the need to avoid being dependent upon Thomas Osborne, earl Danby and his band of northern supporters including the Earl of Devonshire in Derbyshire and Lord Lumley at Durham – dictated the choice of the southwest coast. Jones agrees with Professor Kenyon that William had decided prior to departure to proceed in that direction but suggests that his motives were as much military as political. Jones argues that the need to avoid an engagement both at sea and at land (upon landing) meant that – to the extent that the wind would allow – William had decided upon the south or south-west coast.36 The relevant document in this regard is a memorandum of a meeting aboard Herbert’s flagship on 1 November. The memorandum indicates that the discussions were largely counter-factual as the participants outlined various contingencies.37 Jones views the important passage as that which deals with the point of disembarkation. He argues that, although no explicit landing site is mentioned, the fact that a southerly course was to be set evidences a decision by William for the south or south-west coast. The course was for ‘de Hooffden’ – (Dutch for the southerly part of the North Sea which stretches down around into the Channel) – and then to continue along the English coast to such places as Cowes, the Southampton river, Poole, and even as far as Exmouth.38 Arguably, however, Jones derives more from the evidence than it bears. Undoubtedly the south and south-west coasts were strongly mooted as potential landing sites, but this was not to the exclusion of other options. Indeed, the contingent nature of the other decisions taken during this meeting also extended to the south-westerly option. Both J.L. Anderson and Jones agree that the Dutch fleet’s tack to the south on the night of 2/3 November did not represent, as Burnet states and Reverend John Whittle implied, a change of mind by the Prince.39 Instead, William simply chose the most appropriate course from the range of options previously considered and in so doing demonstrated competence in military capability and self-awareness as commander to make the choice to ensure the continued progress of the operation. Thus, the ‘Protestant’ for Embarkation, 1688; Correspondentie van Willem III en van Hans Willem Bentinck, ed. N. Japikse, (5 vols, The Hague, 1927–37), vol. 2, no. 570, pp. 617–18; E.B. Powley, The English Navy in the Revolution of 1688 (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 20–21, 62. 35  �������������������������������������������������������������� Clyve Jones, ‘The Protestant Wind of 1688: Myth and Reality’, European Studies Review, 3 (1973): 201–21. 36  ����������������� Ibid., pp. 201–9. 37   Correspondentie, ed. Japikse, vol. 2, no. 576, pp. 623–4. 38  ������������������������������������� Jones, ‘The Protestant Wind’, p. 211. 39  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid.; Anderson, ‘Combined Operations and the Protestant Wind’, pp. 96, 99–107; Burnet, History of My Own Time, vol. 3, pp. 325–6; John Whittle, An Exact Diary of the Late Expedition of the Prince of Orange (London, 1689), pp. 29–34.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

114

wind which brought William’s fleet to anchor safely at Torbay Bay, was therefore only ‘Protestant’ because his operational planning allowed for it to be so.

III The second incidence of warfare to be explored and set against the two indices of professionalism derives from the operational history of the Nine Years War (1688–97). The focus is not the various set piece battles in Flanders between the armies of France and the Grand Alliance, but rather the organisation of combined British army-navy operations. Not only were these operations arguably important strategic handmaidens to the continental maritime elements of King William’s Grand Strategy,40 they also provide evidence of the increasing regularisation of command structures and the deliberative political and professional processes undertaken to achieve that control. Again, proficiency in pre-operational tasks and a notable appreciation amongst the participants that their choices in this respect were structured according to an operational, and increasingly professional norm, reduced the potential role of Providence or chance and the ability to refer to such intervention as a cause of success or failure.41 The structuring of the command for an expeditionary force being sent to the Caribbean and North America in 1693 provides persuasive evidence for the above trends. In late July 1692, the experienced naval commander Sir Francis Wheler had been invited to London for a conference on this expedition. The discussion focused on two papers concerning the land and sea commands which Wheler had previously submitted to Whitehall. Three articles in each document dealt with the command structure of the operation, and indicated that Wheler favoured a unitary and autocratic form in which he possessed sole executive authority.42 In Wheler’s first paper considering the expedition’s naval command, article two expressed the nub by stipulating that the sea command should be independent of the colonial 40

 ��������c������������������������������������������������������������������� K.A.J. McLay, ‘Combined Operations and the European Theatre during the Nine Years’ War, 1688–97’, Historical Research, 78 (2005): 506–38; for a more army-centric view of William’s strategy see John M. Stapleton Jr., ‘The Blue-water Dimension of King William’s War: Amphibious Operations and Allied Strategy during the Nine Years’ War, 1688–1697’, in D.J.B Trim and Mark Charles Fissel (eds), Amphibious Warfare 1000–1700: Commerce, State Fornation and European Expansion (Leiden, 2006), pp. 315–56. 41  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� The following five paragraphs directly embrace and draw upon material in my article, K.A.J. McLay, ‘Sir Francis Wheler’s Caribbean and North American Expedition, 1693: A Case Study in Combined Operational Command during the Reign of William III’, War in History, 14 (2007): 383–407. 42  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� TNA: PRO, SP 42/1, fols 397–410, 413–15, ‘Proposalls Humbly Offered by Sir Francis Wheler Upon his Being Thought on to Goe Commander’, 18 July 1692, ‘Proposalls Humbly Offered by Sir Francis Wheler, Touching the Land Forces’, 18 July 1692, Wheler to Albermarle, 30 July 1692; BL Add. MS 37991, fols 132–3, Nottingham to Blathwayt, 26 July 1692.

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

115

governors. Article 13 underscored this independence with the practical condition that the naval chief should have the freedom to deploy his squadron without reference to another authority in-theatre. The third noteworthy article (number five) sought to bolster the naval commander’s role by nominally commissioning him a lieutenant-colonel (or second-in-command) if he should go ashore with the troops.43 Significantly, Wheler’s paper did not mention a council of war as an arbiter of command decisions; indeed, the overall thrust was that the number of decision-takers should be kept to a minimum. The second paper, focusing on land command, continued in a similar manner. Although the proposal that the naval commander be nominally commissioned a lieutenant-colonel when on shore would have placed him within the army’s command hierarchy, it was not a prelude to reducing the senior soldier’s authority and a case for increasing the scope of the colonel’s command was made. While it was accepted that the island forces would have a pre-existing command structure based upon the governor, articles one and four made it clear that the land commander sent from England should have full authority over the colonial militia and territorially-raised regiments. Furthermore, article three undermined the pre-existing colonial command structure by proposing that all the islands’ forces should combine to form one brigade under a single general officer.44 The underlying logic that this would serve to break down the islands’ regimental loyalties and habits of command, leaving just one individual for the commander of the land forces to treat with, was another example of Wheler’s desire to concentrate command. The Ministry’s response to Wheler can be inferred from certain scribbled marginal comments on his papers. Of the six articles considered, articles two and five of the first paper were ‘agreed’ as was article four of the second paper. The margins of articles one and three of the latter document and article 13 of the former remained blank.45 This pattern could suggest that the Ministry agreed that the service commanders should jointly be mainly responsible for operational direction, but that there was also a willingness to recognise the essential component role of the colonial governors which Wheler, doubtless purposefully, had ignored. Certainly Secretary of State Nottingham reflected gubernatorial interests when he argued

43

 ������������������������������������c������������������������������������������ TNA: PRO SP 42/1, fols 397–406, Articles Two, Five and Thirteen of ‘Proposalls Humbly Offered by Sir Francis Wheler Upon His being Thought On to Goe Commander’, 18 July 1692. 44  �����������������������������������c��������������������������������������� TNA: PRO SP 42/1, fols 407–10, Articles One, Three and Four of ‘Proposalls Humbly Offered by Sir Francis Wheler, Touching the Land Forces’, 18 July 1692. 45  ����������������������������������������� TNA: PRO SP 42/1, fols 397–410, marginal comments c���������������c��������������������� at Articles Two and Five and the blank margin of Article Thirteen of ‘Proposalls Humbly Offered by Sir Francis Wheler Upon His being Thought On to Goe Commander’, 18 July 1692 and marginal comments at Article Four and the blank margins of Articles One and Three of ‘Proposalls Humbly Offered by Sir Francis Wheler, Touching the Land Forces’, 18 July 1692.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

116

that Wheler should not be a supreme commander and that, outside the theatre of combat, the governors should remain in charge of their islands’ troops.46 As these negotiations between Wheler and the Ministry continued, the increasingly frustrated King and Blathwayt intervened to settle upon a command structure quite different from that implied by Wheler’s initial commission as commander-in-chief. First, Sir Francis’s command was to be divided with Colonel John Foulkes, whose military career had included command of the rebel Duke of Monmouth’s White Regiment at the battle of Sedgemoor (1685), and who was for this expedition commissioned commander-in-chief of all the land forces, including colonial troops when they were on board ship and in action ashore. Second, in line with the previous two expeditions to the Caribbean in 1690 and 1692, a council of war was detailed as the sovereign command authority. This transfer of individual authority to a council was underlined by its composition, which included all land and sea officers, the colonial governors, and even the territorial militia officers when in combat or discussing island defence.47 This dialogue on command structure was not uncommon in the late seventeenth century and, similar to the operational preparation for the Channel crossing in 1688, contingency planning was central. The prescriptive nature of command was set alongside the necessity, and ability, for the sovereign command authority – the council of war – to respond to circumstances. Although the final version of Sir Francis’s Instructions was very general in its objectives, combining standard naval duties such as securing island trade with a weak amphibious provision to annoy the French by land or sea as the opportunity arose, the King issued Wheler – newly promoted as Rear-Admiral of the Blue – with a set of detailed Additional Instructions. These directed the rear-admiral to destroy the French island Martinique by repeated descents and crucially outlined a second phase for the expedition. This further circumscribed Wheler’s and, indeed, the council of war’s discretion in command. It was unambiguously stipulated that Wheler’s squadron, plus Colonel John Foulkes’s and Robert Goodwyn’s regiments (the two regiments from England which were to comprise the expedition’s land force), must leave the Caribbean by the end of May and proceed to North America to combine with the New England provinces in an amphibious attempt to seize Canada. Thereafter, before returning to England at the end of September, Wheler was to destroy the French settlements and fisheries on Newfoundland.48 Although the operation was a failure with Wheler making no territorial gains in the Caribbean nor in North America, the mediated process of structuring operational 46

 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� BL, Add, MS 37991, fols 131–2, 141–3, Nottingham to Blathwayt, 26 July, 12 August 1692. 47  ��������������������������������������������������������������������� BL, Add. MS 37991, fols 140–41, Blathwayt to Nottingham, 4 Aug. 1692. 48  ��������������������������������������c�����������������c������������������� TNA: PRO, ADM 2/10, pp. 322–7, ‘Instructions to Sir Francis Wheler Knt’, 25 Nov. 1692; HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of the Late Allan George Finch Esq. (5 vols, 1913–2004), vol. 4, no. 982, pp. 510–11; TNA: PRO, CO 324/5, pp. 261–5, ‘Instructions for Our Trusty and Welbeloved Sir Francis Wheler’, 20 Sept. 1692.

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

117

command shows evidence of the two markers of professionalism. Both Wheler and the Ministry approached the question of command in a systematic manner, seeking to devise a structure which would allow for contingency but also ensure that all participants were directed towards fulfilling the operational instructions. The King and Blathwayt might equally be viewed as structured in their intervention, which rather restricted discretion in command, given their appreciation of the prescriptive form of the Additional Instructions that the King was going to issue. The evidence of all participants in the process demonstrates a shared competence in the military and political issues attendant to the command of the operation thereby fostering a professional culture in approach to the planning of an operation. Ultimately, it might be argued that the broader thrust of the command structure aimed at regulating the theatre of war, thereby reducing the potential role of, or any appeal to, Providence.

IV The third example of warfare with which this essay is concerned, namely battlefield management, is broader than the previous two examples. It eschews a detailed events-based history of battle referred to previously in favour in-theatre regulation of the battlefield space. Battlefield management should not in this instance be connected to modern notions of organisational behaviour or, more specifically, ratios of force to space; such an approach would be outmoded for no evidence could adequately attest to early modern military commanders’ thinking in this manner. Nonetheless, the set piece battles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries meant that the commanders were faced with a field on which to deploy their forces in such a way as hopefully to achieve success. In essence battlefield management was then wholly reliant upon military tactics and their development during this period reflects an increasing professionalism in the efficient use of force and the combatants’ awareness of the necessity of executing different regulated roles on the battlefield. The trend in tactical regularisation thus afforded little creditable scope to the appeal to the Divine either during the battle or as an ex post facto explanation. As noted above, the ‘Military Revolution’ prompted a change in battlefield tactics. Specifically, the increased army size and technological developments, first in gunpowder and then in firearms considerably enhanced the role of the infantry in theatre from the sixteenth century; consequently, field commanders’ tactical disposition was much more flexible. In the seventeenth century, the cousins, Maurice of Nassau and William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, and the Swedish monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, had worked with this tactical flexibility to elongate the line of battle and combine arms: this served to integrate the shock element of the cavalry force with the infantry firepower.49 However, the military  ��������� Roberts, The Military Revolution.

49

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

118

regulation of the early-to-mid seventeenth century battlefield often broke down with chaotic consequence, leaving only appeals to providential intervention for success. It was noteworthy that Adolphus, who had contributed so significantly to the systematisation of warfare, lost his life at Lützen following the disintegration of his regulation of the battle and upon leading a cavalry charge against the Imperial left flank; meanwhile his Pastor, Fabricius, sought to restore order through prayer.50 By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the regulation and structure of the battlefield was increasingly tight and enduring, thereby reducing the potential and incidence of the battle descending into an anarchic melee in which Providence might be invoked. A seminal contribution in this respect was arguably the generalship of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–13/14). Marlborough came to military command late in life. He had served as King James VII and II’s Lieutenant-General, although he was one of the senior officers to desert to William, Prince of Orange during the Revolution of 1688. Despite this disloyalty working in William’s favour, the King had remained suspicious and barely employed Marlborough during the Nine Years War (1688–97), and, in fact, condemned him to the Tower for a period of time. Towards the end of William’s reign, Marlborough was restored to senior military and diplomatic office and, with the accession of Queen Anne, he was appointed Captain-General of the allied armies.51 Marlborough’s four victories over Louis XIV’s armies – Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708) and Malplaquet (1709) – are variously celebrated as the first consistent military check to Louis XIV and lauded for their improvement of allied morale.52 More significant, however, than their consequences was the pattern of regulating the battlefield space and the battle’s conduct which Marlborough developed. Recognising the implications of an elongated line of battle and the necessity to combine effectively shock and fire-power, Marlborough’s battlefield management could be said to resemble the final swing of a pendulum, which is then pushed forward. To control the battlefield for the length of the battle, Marlborough attacked first on either flank, causing the enemy to thin their centre line and commit their reserves and then using the shorter interior, rather than the longer exterior, line of communication gained from his troop deployment, Marlborough would release the cavalry as shock through the centre. This pattern applies to the four battles, including Oudenarde, which was slightly different in form because it was an encounter battle; but even when deploying  �������������������� Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo (London, 1991), pp. 32–4; Michael Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus (Harlow, 1992), pp. 178–9. 51  �������������������� See David Chandler, Marlborough as Military Commander (3rd edn, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 1989) for the most comprehensive biographical treatment of Marlborough. 52  �����������������������������������������������c����� Ibid., pp. 124–50, 166–83, 201–22, 240–72; Strachan, European Armies, pp. 12–13, 16, 18. 50

The Army, the Navy and Providence in the Conduct of Warfare, 1688–1713

119

and engaging on the march, Marlborough adopted the pendulum.53 Marlborough’s tactics ensured that the battle was regulated from the first flank attack to the drive through the middle of the line. Marlborough aspired to a high water mark of military professionalism inasmuch as he approached the tactical regulation of the battlefield methodically, demonstrating self-awareness of not only his military task, but also the tasks he would require of his men. Providence did not need to be invoked for his approach embraced the happenstance of contingency and thus allowed him to celebrate his soldiers’ conduct as expressed in his response to the House of Lords’ address of thanks for the Blenheim campaign quoted at the beginning of this essay.54

V The religious context of warfare in post-Westphalian Europe cannot be denied. The historiographical tradition which suggests it should be is a product of an optimistic consensus seeking to accelerate the start of new age in which the conduct of warfare is shorn of its perceived irrational confessional barbarism. Warfare in the late-seventeenth and early eighteenth century was undoubtedly infused by the legacy of earlier conflict. The Puritan tradition of righteous wars legitimised by religious grievance and of crusading wars marked by religious zeal remained, with the conduct of warfare therefore tending towards the unlimited and accredited to providential guidance. Similarly, Catholic Europe – particularly Louis XIV’s France – proved keen to invoke the Divine in the conduct of warfare. Equally, and notwithstanding the interpretation which promotes the secular element of the balance of power discourse, religious motivations and inspiration can be attributed to the causes of war during this period. Certainly, contemporary testimony and histories embraced the latter explanation and it has been highlighted by modern historians such as J.C.D Clark to show the threadbare birth of enlightened modernity; in addition, the interpretation’s utility within military history allows events-based battle narratives along the line produced by Olivier Chaline to embody the intensity of the combatants’ religious motivation. Nonetheless, evidence such as the comments by Queen Anne and Marlborough indicate that a paradox between the conduct and context of warfare may well have been opening up by the first decade of the eighteenth century. Accepting the appropriate Clausewitzian distinction between warfare’s dual natures, then the mutable second (and subjective) nature allows for this paradox to be explored. The continued dominance of the ‘Military Revolution’ thesis as an explanation   Military Memoirs of Marlborough’s Campaigns, 1702–1712, ed. David Chandler (London, 1998), pp. 37–46, 58–65, 72–5, 86–90, 166–75, 196–7, 203–4, 215; Chandler, Marlborough, pp. 124–50, 166–83, 201–22, 240–72; Strachan, European Armies, pp. 12–13, 16, 18. 54   The Parliamentary History of England, ed. Cobbett, vol. 6, p. 375. 53

120

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

for change in the early modern military vouchsafes increased professionalism as a relevant index for adjustment within the subjective nature of warfare. Although an elusive concept to define historically without straying into anachronism, the last two of Trim’s categories of definition – efficiency and self-conceptualisation – reflect the varied elements of combat experience. The three specific historical examples – the Prince of Orange’s planning of the Channel crossing in 1688, the structuring of the command of Sir Francis Wheler’s combined expeditionary force to the Caribbean and North America in 1692, and the evolution in tactical battlefield management manifest by the Duke of Marlborough’s command during the Spanish Succession conflict – demonstrates these professional traits and thus give credence to this emerging paradox between warfare’s context and conduct. In the planning, preparation and conduct of war towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Trinity of the army, navy and Providence became less blessed.

Chapter 7

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France Matthew Glozier

Religion motivated militant Huguenots who served as soldiers and devise numerous schemes to injure the French king and his realm from the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 till almost the death of Louis XIV in 1715. This occurred despite a secularisation of international relations at the inter-state level in this period. Kings such as William III exploited the religious fervour of ordinary peoples while, at the same time, religious fervour continued to typify statesmen and sovereigns, as well as ordinary people, thus casting doubt on the thesis that international relations after Westphalia were secularised. To some extent this fervour shaped policy-making. The entire focus of this chapter is on soldier émigré Huguenots who did not only ‘resist’ Louis XIV with the sword: merchants and financiers acted against the interests of the French king too, and they were important actors in the so-called ‘Protestant international’. However, by-andlarge Huguenot money was not used to fuel resistance to Louis, which seems curious until the nature and personnel of Huguenot military schemes is examined (as occurs in this chapter). The cornerstone of Huguenot strategy was the invasion of France via Dauphiné in the south-east which assumed a groundswell of support from within France and required political, military and financial aid from the Dutch Republic, Britain and Savoy. The unique position of Savoy and its ruler, Victor Amadeus II, as a Catholic on France’s doorstep, ruling over native Protestants and an increasing number of refugees from France allowed the Huguenots to occupy a position of international strategic importance disproportionate to their number and means. The Huguenots’ chief sponsor was William III who never seriously believed an invasion would succeed. However, the refugees’ zeal was such that it inspired both the Dutch Republic and Britain’s Queen Anne to continue to support them long after William’s death in 1702. Many Huguenot refugees had suffered persecution in France. Though not all those French Protestant soldiers that followed William of Orange were recent or traumatised escapees the Revocation had embittered a good number of them. The association between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the international   ���� See Memoirs of Isaac Dumont de Bostaquet: a Gentleman of Normandy, trans. and ed. Dianne W. Ressinger, Huguenot Society NS 4 (London, 2005), pp. 141–3.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

122

Protestant cause was overt and was exploited by William III – ‘illustrious protector of the refugees’ – and typified by the presence of Friedrich Hermann von Schomberg, for 20 years a naturalised Frenchman, a life-long Calvinist and since 1675 a marshal of France. In response to the 1688 invasion, Britain’s Catholic James II called on what support he could find, including that of Armand de Bourbon, Marquis de Miremont, a Huguenot refugee resident in Britain since about 1686. Though he had been keen to see Miremont depart for the service of Emperor Leopold (whither he had been encouraged by Louis XIV in March 1685), the British king now ordered him to raise a cavalry regiment in his defence. Upon William’s arrival James fled the country and Louis de Durfort-Duras, Earl of Feversham, King James’s Huguenot Commander-in-Chief and Miremont’s uncle, disbanded the English army. Miremont paraded his newly formed regiment and advised them to declare for William, which they agreed to do. When William took up his residence in St James’s Palace, Miremont’s regiment was quartered in Aylesbury and Wendover in defence of the new regime. Almost immediately Miremont began representations to the German princes and to the Dutch Republic to ease the suffering of the Huguenot refugees from his homeland in the south

 ������������������c�������� ‘illustrious protector …’: Dumont de Bostaquet, ed. Ressinger, p. 142.  ���������������������������������������������������������� Miremont’s Horse was raised on 22 Sept. 1688: John Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution (Manchester, 1980), p. xi. It was disbanded on 3 Jan. 1689, before Miremont went off on his travels to the German princes and the Dutch Republic. It did not have any Huguenot officers except for lieutenants Gachen, Saint-Clair and La Penetière, surgeon Louis Auterac and chaplain Jean Dubordieu: Charles Dalton (ed.), English army lists and commission registers, 1661–1714 (6 vols, London, 1892–1904), vol. 2, ‘Bourbon, Armand de, Marquis de Miremont’. For King Louis’s permission see Journal du marquis de Dangeau, ed. Eudore Soulié, Léon Dussieux et al. (19 vols, Paris, 1854–60), vol. 1, p. 133; William Brooks and Paul J. Yarrow, ‘Armand de Bourbon, Marquis de Miremont, and his relations in England’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 23 (2001), p. 188. Miremont was charged by the Duchesse d’Orléans to deliver a letter to her half-brother, Karllutz, Raugraf of the Palatinate, then fighting in Hungary: Briefe der Herzogin Elisabeth Charlotte von Orléans, ed. Wilhelm Ludwig Holland (6 vols, Stuttgart, 1867–81), vol. 6, p. 505, 27 June 1685; William Brooks and Paul J. Yarrow, ‘Three Huguenots at the English court: Louis de Durfort and his nieces, Mlle de Malauze, a correspondent of Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orléans, and Mlle de Roye, governess to the royal children’, Seventeenth–Century French Studies, 22 (2000), p. 185.   ����������������� Matthew Glozier, Scottish soldiers in France in the reign of the Sun King: nursery for men of honour, History of Warfare 24 (Leiden, 2004), p. 222.   ���������������������������������� Although there was evidently some c����������������������������������������������� confusion among them as William gave orders for the runaway horses of Miremont’s and Brandon’s regiments to be gathered up in Lancashire: HMC, Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon (London, 1894), p. 215, Viscount Colchester to Roger Kenyon, 24 Jan. 1689.  

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

123

of France. Their suffering was real as hundreds, if not thousands, of refugees gathered in Geneva; many possessed only the clothes on their back. As a result of real need combined with zeal for revenge a great number of Huguenots left Switzerland to join William III’s newly-established Huguenot regiments in England in late 1688 designed by William to serve him in Ireland against King James’s Jacobite forces. Many may have done so simply because this service was likely to be profitable; but for most of the men in question the key issue was that, in William’s service, they expected to fight Catholics and this religious motivation was of great importance to Huguenot refugees. Marshal Schomberg was appointed to lead William III’s expeditionary force to Ireland in mid-July 1689. The battle of the Boyne (and the later siege of Aughrim) mark the high-point of the struggle in Ireland. Miremont’s younger brother – Louis, Comte de la Caze – was one of hundreds of French refugees killed at the Boyne in July 1690. Schomberg met his end there too, his reputation shattered in William’s view by a poorly managed campaign for which he must bear at least some of the responsibility.10 Still, Schomberg’s reputation ran high among the Huguenots who looked upon him as their ‘hero’ and who were greatly saddened by his passing.11 He was, after all, one of them and they had fared much better throughout his campaign, escaping the worst of the carnage at the Dundalk camp the previous winter.12 In Ireland the Huguenots proved beyond doubt their loyalty and courage to William who said that, seeing Louis XIV was willing to support James’s cause  ����������������� Auguste Verdeil, Histoire du canton de Vaud (3 vols, Lausanne, 1849–52), vol. 2, pp. 312–15.   ������������� Robin Gwynn, Huguenot heritage: the history and contribution of the Huguenots in Britain (London, 1985; 2nd revised edition, Brighton, 2000), pp. 185–6; Matthew Glozier, The Huguenot soldiers of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688: the lions of Judah (Brighton, 2002), pp. 62, 70–71.   �������������� John Kinross, The Boyne and Aughrim: the war of the two kings (Gloucestershire, 1997), p. 28. For a relation of this campaign in Schomberg’s own words see ‘Tagebuch des Irländischen Feldzugs vom Jahr 1689’, printed in Johann F.A. Kazner, Leben Friedrichs von Schomberg oder Schoenburg (2 vols, Mannheim, 1789), vol. 2, no. 85.   ���������������������������������������������������� Charles de Marguetel-Saint-Denis de Saint-Evremond, Lettres, ed. René Ternois (2 vols, Paris, 1967–8), vol. 2, p. 163. 10  ��������������������c���������������� See examination of Schomberg and his campaign c���������������������������� in Pádraig Lenihan, 1690: battle of the Boyne (Stroud, 2003). For the broader context of Schomberg’s life and career see Matthew Glozier, Marshal Schomberg, 1615–1690: ‘the ablest soldier of his age’: international soldiering and the formation of state armies in seventeenth-century Europe (Brighton, 2005). 11   Dumont de Bostaquet, ed. Ressinger, p. 229. 12  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Significantly, Dumont de Bostaquet’s cavalry regiment was almost untouched by illness during the camp. He supports the notion that James’s forces, camped nearby, suffered almost as much as Schomberg’s that winter: Dumont de Bostaquet, ed. Ressinger, pp. 217–21. 

124

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

in Ireland, he would sponsor Protestant resistance in France. Trapped in Ireland, William was forced to leave the details of sponsoring home-grown French resistance to the Dutch grand pensionary, Anthonie Heinsius, whose intelligence network suggested the ease with which 3–4,000 refugee Huguenot soldiers might be got into Dauphiné via Savoy.13 It was supposed that the hot-headed Marquis de Miremont – ‘the last Protestant prince of the house of Bourbon’ – and a number of equally zealous Huguenot officers would be sent to Geneva to recruit refugees for the operation under pretext of gathering them for William’s service in Britain.14 Miremont departed for Switzerland to encourage refugees to take up arms against Louis XIV and collected money for this purpose from a number of minor German Protestant rulers.15 Though the recruiting of Huguenots in Switzerland continued throughout 1688–90 the Swiss cantons remained neutral, despite the best efforts of the Duke of Savoy to encourage them into a formal alliance with him against France.16 Perhaps because it was too obvious in this respect, when a draft treaty was completed between Victor Amadeus II of Savoy and the Swiss cantons in 1690, it met with the disapproval of William.17 The Huguenots had good reason to hope for resistance from within France. Samuel Mours estimated that no more than 19 per cent of France’s Protestants had fled the country by 1690, leaving behind many false converts as a ready-made fifth column.18 The combination of numerous Protestant refugees escaping across France’s borders and the international assistance lent to them, resulted in fears that international intervention would reach into the heart of France. It also bordered Savoy which witnessed the return to their valleys in the Vaud region of native

13   Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, 3rd series, ed. F.J.L. Krämer (3 vols, Leiden, 1907–1909), vol. 1, p. 66; Christopher Storrs, ‘Machiavelli dethroned: Victor Amadeus II and the making of the Anglo–Savoyard alliance of 1690’, EHQ, 22/3 (1992): 354. 14  ��������������� Charles Weiss, Histoire des réfugiés protestants de France depuis la révocation de l’édit de Nantes jusqu’à nos jours (2 vols, Paris, 1853), vol. 2, p. 98; Eugène and Emilie Haag, La France protestante; ou vie des protestants français qui se sont faut un nom dans l’histoire (9 vols, Paris, 1846–59; reprinted 10 vols, Montpellier, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 1081–4; Orentin Douen, Les prémiers pasteurs du désert (1685–1700) (3 vols, Paris, 1879), vol. 2, p. 91 et seq; HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of the Late Allan George Finch Esq. (5 vols, 1913–2004). 15  ���������������������������������������� Marie, Baroness Alexandre de Chambrier, Henri de Mirmand et les réfugiés de révocation de l’édict de Nantes, 1650–1721 (Neuchâtel, 1910), p. 193; Shears, ‘Armand de Bourbon’, p. 400. 16  ��������������������������������������������������������������������c������������ Christopher Storrs, ‘Diplomatic relations between William III and Victor Amadeus II, 1690–96’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1990), p. 144. 17  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 2, p. 305, Nottingham to William III, Whitehall, 22 June 1690; Storrs, ‘Machiavelli dethroned’: 358. 18  ����������������� Quoted in Gwynn, Huguenot heritage, p. 23.

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

125

Protestants in the glorieuse rentrée led by Henri Arnaud in 1689.19 These Vaudois were augmented by 500–600 Huguenot refugees, including a considerable number of officers and men transferred from units in the Dutch Republic and Britain to join the attempt by the Vaudois to regain their Alpine valleys. This was not only a risky enterprise with small chance of success; the Huguenot volunteers were paid poorly, if at all, and faced execution if captured by King Louis’s forces. Yet a number of officers accepted loss of commissioned rank, serving in the rank-andfile, in order to participate in this somewhat dubious enterprise. As Charles de la Bonde, Sieur d’Iberville, Louis XIV’s ambassador in Geneva, ruefully wrote to Louvois, Secretary of State for War: ‘You would scarcely believe … the esteem in which all the Calvinists hold [the Vaudois], based on the notion that they are the earliest repositories of their beliefs.’20 The unexpected success of the glorieuse rentrée made Savoy an even greater threat to France’s domestic security, a fact William intended to exploit and one that pushed Victor Amadeus towards an alliance with him.21 Indeed, William had engineered the situation by sponsoring the return of the Vaudois through his envoy to the Swiss cantons, Thomas Coxe, from November 1689 via the so-called Lindau Project.22 The Huguenots, therefore, played an early and vital role in Williamite foreign policy and military strategy.

I William fostered the plan for an invasion of France via Dauphiné in conspiracy with Claude Brousson, the itinerant pastor of the Huguenot church in the désert, using the latter’s deep knowledge of local clandestine Protestant networks.23 Though William first prompted Brousson to formulate the scheme he thought it  ������������c���� Geoffrey Symcox, Victor Amadeus II: absolutism in the Savoy state, 1675–1730 (London, 1983), pp. 102–3; Henri Arnaud, Histoire de la gloriouse rentrée des Vaudois dans leurs vallées (Cassal, 1710). 20  ������������������� Quoted in Verdeil, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 311. 21  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� TNA: PRO, SP 96/7, Coxe to Shrewsbury (The Hague) 13 Sept. 1689 OS; Christopher Storrs, ‘Thomas Coxe and the Lindau project’, in A. de Lange (ed.), Dall’Europa alle Valli Valdesi (Turin, 1990), p. 202; Charles Almeras, La révolte des Camisards (Paris, 1960), pp. 50, 52; A. Borrel, Biographie de Claude Brousson (Nimes, 1852), p. 13; Lucie RauzierFontayne and Samuel Maurs, Claude Brousson (Geneva, 1948), pp. 86–90; Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois et de son administration militaire (4 vols, Paris, 1864–5), vol. 4, p. 15; Christopher Storrs, ‘The army of Lombardy and the resilience of Spanish power in Italy in the reign of Carlos II (1665–1700) (part 1)’, War in History, 4/4 (December 1997): 381. 22  ������������������������������ Storrs, ‘Thomas Coxe’, p. 199. 23  ���������c����������c�������������������������������������������������������������� Henri Bosc, ‘Le maréchal Montreuil et la défense du littoral méditerranéen pendant le guerre de Camisards (mars–novembre 1703)’, BSHPF, 112 (1966): 6; Charles Bost, Les prédicants protestants des Cévennes et du bas-Languadoc, 1684–1700 (2 vols, Paris, 1912), vol. 2, p. 515. 19

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

126

‘scarce practicable’, but understood that its success would depend on a speedy dispatch of the campaign in Ireland.24 William’s Spanish allies equally doubted the scheme’s chances: the allies’ plan to re-take French-held Casale was one thing, but invading France was quite another.25 Specific impetus for direct action required planning of the sort that few individuals were equipped to conduct. Claude Brousson was the central figure in a web of plans to foment action in France’s south. He wrote to a key personality of the Huguenot international, Henri de Mirmand, Seigneur de Roubiac et Vestric, praying for the Protestant powers to send ‘a good captain to disperse the royal troops’.26 Meanwhile, in England William III was induced by the militant Marquis de Miremont and his circle to support an armed invasion to restore Protestants’ rights in France.27 In the words of Emmanuel La Roy Ladurie, Miremont’s invasion ‘was aimed at exploiting not only the Protestants’ despair but also “the universal discontent” of subjects of both faiths’.28 Thus Miremont also called for ‘the abolition of stamped paper [duties] and intolerable taxes’ and the destruction of tax offices, providing a summation of contemporary Huguenot pamphlet discourse.29 Waiting in Savoy, as early as 1 July 1689, there were 14 companies of French Huguenots and seven Piedmontese; in all 1,100 men, under the command of Solomon Blosset de Loches.30 In France Brousson gathered together at least 400 men to augment a slightly larger force mustered by the firebrand pastor, François Vivent. Initially they armed guards to protect clandestine night-time meetings of Protestants. It was the constant and violent pressure placed on secret Protestant meetings that caused Vivent to put aside the sword of the spirit in order to take up that of steel. This also underlay Brousson’s support for treasonable activity, as what Huguenot soldiers planned to do with weapons he was already doing through

 ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 3, p. 17, Nottingham to Carmarthen, 17 Feb. 1691.  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� AGS, Estado 3989, Coloma to Carlos II (The Hague), 21 Nov. 1690; Christopher Storrs, ‘The army of Lombardy and the resilience of Spanish power in Italy in the reign of Carlos II (1665–1700) (part II)’, War in History, 5/1 (Jan. 1998): 19–20; Derek McKay, Prince Eugene of Savoy (London, 1977), p. 33. 26  ������������������������������������ Brousson to Miremont, 26 Aug. 1689, cited c������������������������������������������� in François Teulon, ‘François Vivent, prédicant cévenol’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Paris, 1946), pp. 56–7, 66, 69; HMC, Manuscripts of the House of Lords 1689–1702 (7 vols, London, 1887–1908), vol. 2, p. 170; Narcissus Luttrell, A brief historical relation of state affairs from September 1678 to April 1714 (6 vols, Oxford, 1857), vol. 2, p. 172. 27  ������������������������������������ Teulon, ‘François Vivent’, pp. 56–7. 28  �������������������������������������������� Miremont quoted in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The peasants of Languedoc, ed. John Day (Urbana, 1974), pp. 272–3. 29  ����� E.g. Sighs of an enslaved France (1689), cited in Le Roy Ladurie, Peasants of Languedoc, p. 273. 30  ������������������� Matthijs Bokhorst, Nederlands-Zwitserse betrekkingen voor en na 1700 (Amsterdam, 1930), p. 176. 24

25

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

127

his preaching. In Vivent’s case, this turned into outright guerrilla warfare and he was called, with some justification, ‘the revolutionary general of the Cévennes’.31 In September 1689, Vivent and 83 men attacked the royal militia at Malezon and took several prisoners. He mustered nearly 800 men in early 1690 in expectation of an invasion led by the first Duke of Schomberg, encouraged by Miremont who addressed his plans to Schomberg and gave him a map of the countryside.32 Brousson counted on the dissatisfaction of the Protestants of the South and supposed they would take up weapons at once if helped. With French troops occupied on all borders while the provinces were full of religionnaires (as they were called), this appeared to be a favourable scheme. Two thousand men selected and ordered by elite officers were to penetrate into Dauphiné via Geneva, Nyon and Coppet, to appear at the secret prayer assemblies of their brothers-inreligion, informed in advance and brought together to use weapons, under pretext of defending their ministers.33 A Huguenot regiment was raised with invasion in mind. It would become Miremont’s Dragoons, but started its life under Colonel Balthazar in Switzerland in 1690.34 Balthazar was probably Swiss, but the unit’s officers and men were all Huguenot refugees. The regiment spent some time on the Dutch establishment and some on the English; it came under the command of Miremont sometime between 1693 and 1695.35 Miremont collaborated with Brousson who persisted in his supplications to the English and Dutch, requesting from these two powers a company intended to raise in revolt the Protestants of Languedoc and the Cévennes.

 ��������� Almeras, La révolte des Camisards, p. 52; ‘Histoire des Martyrs’, Papiers Antoine Court, Bibliothèque de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français (Paris), MS 639, fols 555–7; Teulon, ‘François Vivent’, pp. 31, 34–6, 62–3. 32  ��������� Verdeil, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 322, 327. 33  ����� Ibid. 34  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Balthazar/Barthazar/Miremont Dragoon regiment was raised in Switzerland in 1690 from the Huguenot refugees there and was sent to Piedmont where it served from 1691 to 1695. Afterwards it went to Flanders and entered English pay on 1 March 1695/6. After the Peace of Rijswijk it was sent to Ireland and disbanded in March 1699. 35  ������c���������� Evidence of this change c��������� of command c������� comes c���������������������������������� in the form of Major Charles Couteau’s petition (probably 1699 or 1700), stating that he had served as major of the regiment of Balthazar in Piedmont, and afterwards of Miremont, from 1690 to the 1697 Peace of Rijswijk (BL, Add. MS 9718, fol. 201). His wife and three children were living in Morges (Vaud) in Switzerland, but he also supported three children of his brother, escapees from persecution. His mother and father were put to death in France. He had only his Irish pension and begged permission to go to live with his family, holding himself ready to serve King William at the first order which he would receive either through the King’s minister at Berne or through the Marquis d’Arsellières at Geneva: Gian Carlo Boeri, The army of the Duke of Savoy 1688–1713 (web published, available from [email protected], accessed 12 Dec. 2006). 31

128

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

On 28 May 1690, the Vaudois signed a treaty with Victor Amadeus and in June the Duke agreed with Gutierre Gomez de Fueñsalida for Spanish assistance against Louis XIV.36 In July 1690 the Duke of Savoy’s joining the Alliance powers led the Englishman, William, Lord Paget, to exclaim: ‘a door is now opened into France, big enough … to get in at and enter the strong man’s [Louis’s] house’.37 He was encouraged by Henri de Mirmand (though some historians have mistakenly attributed the plan to the Marquis de Miremont).38 The Dutch States General was to pay a third of the money designed to subsidise the Duke of Savoy and the Allies’ designs on France, yet it remained unpaid in December.39 In Switzerland, Miremont helped raise a number of Huguenot regiments, along with those channelled into Geneva via Schaffhausen and Lindau in Germany. Two refugees, Jacques de Julien and Gabriel Malet, arrived via Geneva, with 1,400 men. In October 1690 (by which time Schomberg’s death at the Boyne had been broadcast across Europe), the Huguenot force in Savoy numbered 3,000. A further 700 Huguenots remained from Arnaud’s expedition to relieve the Vaudois; 800 now served under de Loches, 800 under Lieutenant-Colonel Julien, 400 under Lieutenant-Colonel Malet, with a further 200 dragoons under Balthazar. When Victor Amadeus II joined the Alliance powers, these units were incorporated into his army.40 At the time of the Boyne victory, it was even thought (in July 1690) that they might establish an independent Protestant state to act as a buffer between Louis XIV and Savoy.41 Philibert, Comte de la Torre, Savoyard minister to The Hague, suggested the idea though it was not mentioned in the treaty between Savoy and the Swiss cantons or in his instructions from Victor Amadeus. The fact that Miremont advocated violent reprisal against the French king well into the reign of Queen Anne gives a clue to the more bizarre side of his character: in exile he used (as did his abjured brother still in France) the same coat-of-arms as his distant 36  ��c�������������������������������������������������������c���� Victor Amadeus to Govone, 6 May 1690, quoted in Arturo Pascal, Le valli durante la guera di rimpatrio dei valdesi, I, dalla conquista del colle Pis al reintro sul castelo della Balziglia (Turin, 1967), pt. ii, pp. 919–53; treaties in Conte Clemente Solaro della Margarita, Traités publics de la royale maison de Savoie, avec les puissances étrangères: depuis la paix de Château-Cambrésis jusqu’à nos jours (6 vols, Turin, 1844), vol. 2, pp. 121–31. 37  ����������������������������� Paget to Colt, 13 July 1690, c���������c����� cited in McKay, Prince Eugene, p. 33. 38  ��������� Verdeil, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 332; Guillaume de Lamberty, Mémoires pour servir à 1’histoire du XVIII siécle, contenant les négociations, traitez, resolutions et autres documents authentiques concernant les affaires d’état (14 vols, Amsterdam, 1728), vol. 3, p. 238. Chambrier argues convincingly for Mirmand: Chambrier, Henri de Mirmand, p. 193. 39  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 3, p. 307, Nottingham to Carmarthen, 29 Dec. 1691. 40  ������������������������������� Storrs, ‘Thomas Coxe’, p. 211. 41   Het Archief van den Raadpensionaris Anthonie Heinsius, ed. H.J. van der Heim (3 vols, The Hague, 1867–80), vol. 1, p. 200, Heemskerk to Fagel (Vienna) 5 Aug. 1690.

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

129

cousin, King Louis. Their branch of the royal family, known as Bourbon-Malauze and descended from a natural son of an early Duc de Bourbon, had dropped from its arms the bend sinister indicating illegitimate descent.42 At the very least this was impolite, but at most it shows that Miremont may have harboured visions of invading the country at the head of a Huguenot army and becoming monarch of a Protestant state in the kingdom’s south.43 Miremont’s royal blood was wellrecognised and in England Edward Villiers, Earl of Jersey, noted it (and the Marquis’s capacity for drink): ‘We have dined with Prince Miremont today. If such things often happen I shall get the gout.’44 Miremont’s sister called him the ‘poor miserable prince’.45 Not surprisingly, De la Torre had to work hard to overcome Victor Amadeus’s distrust of the Huguenots as former subjects of the French king.46 Ultimately, the Duke’s fears were confirmed; the Huguenot commanders, Julien, Montbrun and Malet returned to France and became Catholics, though this is said to have been due in part to disputes within the Huguenot regiments in Savoy: a French agent claimed to have Julien’s agreement to return and convert in August 1692, while Malet demanded a pension of 5,000 livres and an elite company of Swiss soldiers in French service.47 Schomberg appears to have been aware of their divided loyalty; a French agent reported that the Duke ‘menaced’ Julien, knowing he was on the

42  ����������c����c���������������� Their direct ancestor, Charles, bâtard de Bourbon, Baron de Chaudesaigues et Malauze, Vicomte de Lavedan (d. 1502), was the natural son of Jean II, Duc de Bourbon (1426–88) by Louise, daughter of Jean d’Albret, Vicomte de Tartas. 43  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� The affront was well-known to Louis XIV, who in 1697 forbade the marriage of Miremont’s niece to Jérôme de Phelypeaux, son of the minister Pontchartrain, due to the fact: Journal du marquis de Dangeau, vol. 15, pp. 327, 351; Brooks and Yarrow, ‘Three Huguenots at the English court’, pp. 181–2. 44  ����� HMC, Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath etc. (3 vols, Hereford, 1908), vol. 3, p. 349, Earl of Jersey to Matthew Prior (Whitehall), 22 May 1699. 45  �����������������������c��������������������������������������� ‘M. de Miremont, a French refugee, living with his sister Mme [sic] de Malauze, at Somerset House. They were of a great family, and she called him ce pauvre miserable prince’: The complete letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. R. Halsband (3 vols, Oxford, 1965–67), vol. 2, p. 43; The Yale edition of Horace Walpole’s correspondence, 32, 33: correspondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory, ed. W.S. Lewis, A. Dayle Wallace and E.M. Martz (3 vols, London, 1966), vol. 1, p. 257. 46  ��c������������� Archivo di stato (Turin), Lettere ministri, Olanda (hereafter AST/LM), m. 3, La Torre to St Thomas (The Hague), 2 Oct. 1693 and C. Contessa et al. (eds), La campagne di guerra in Piemonte (1703–1708) el’assedio di Torino (1706) (9 vols, Turin, 1907–33), vol. 1, p. 244, Victor Amadeus to Sales, 16 Oct. 1703. 47  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 465, letter dated 28 Aug. 1692; Haag, La France protestante, vol. 6 (Julien: pp. 101–2), vol. 7 (Montauban: p. 190; Malet: p. 456); Weiss, Histoire des réfugiés protestants, vol. 2, p. 198; Storrs, War, diplomacy and the rise of Savoy, p. 53, n. 171.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

130

verge of returning to France to convert in exchange for ‘advantageous offers’ and a pension of 3,000 livres.48 The Dutch subsidy promised through Geneva remained in arrears, leaving the pastors inside France to depend upon public donations for the purchase of arms.49 Enthusiasm for the scheme was strong internationally and it attracted the desire to participate from Claude Brousson’s own son, Barthélemy, a refugee officer in the Dutch army. In response, the pastor wrote to friends in Holland, imploring them to ‘remember my son always [of me], and share your pious remonstrances with him’.50 All involved experienced bitter disappointment upon hearing of Schomberg’s death at the Boyne on 1 July 1690 which threw the plan into confusion so that nothing was affected.51 The Allies had to work hard to keep the Huguenot force in Savoy together for a further six months; they called for the appointment of a Protestant of international standing to lead them, a prince of Brandenburg or a Schomberg.52 The real (if temporary) reprieve militant action won for Protestants inside France fed the idea that large-scale military operations might persuade the King to alter his decision and restore the privileges of the Edict of Nantes.53 In the words of André Fabre Huguenot militants within and outside France were ‘fomenting a legitimate revolt against a felonious king who had revoked the irrevocable’.54 This stance prompted Brousson to make similar overtones to Schomberg’s two sons: Charles, second Duke of Schomberg, soon to lead an expedition to Savoy, while his brother, Meinhard, Duke of Leinster, would command William’s army in Ireland.

II On 15 November 1690, Schomberg’s successor, Charles, took his seat in the House of Lords, but was almost immediately, thereafter, appointed to command auxiliary forces in Savoy, with the rank of lieutenant-general. Plans were put forward in early-1691 to raise three Huguenot battalions (under Miremont, HenriLaurent de Montbrun and Hector du Puy de Montauban) for a projected invasion

 ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 541, letter dated 27 Apr. 1693, and p. 546, letter dated 11 May 1693. 49  ������ Bost, Prédicants, vol. 1, pp. 434–6, 439–41, 444–6. 50  ��������������������������������������������������� Letter from Brousson, printed in Rauzier-Fontayne, Claude Brousson, p. 199. 51  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Teulon, ‘François Vivent’, pp. 74, 78–80, 85–92, 95–100, 111–12; Walter C. Utt and Brian E. Strayer, The bellicose dove: Claude Brousson and Protestant resistance to Louis XIV, 1647–1698 (Brighton, 2003), pp. 57, 71. 52  �����������������������������������������������c������������������������� AST/Imprese militari/ m. 1/43/6, Coloma’s project, 27 June 1690; Storrs, ‘Machiavelli dethroned’: 356. 53  ����������������������������������������� Teulon, ‘François Vivent’, pp. 36–8, 48. 54  ����é André Fabre, ������������������������������������� ‘Marie Durand et sa famille’, BSHPF, 122 (1976): 169. 48

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

131

of France under Charles’s overall command.55 Soon after the Boyne victory, two new Huguenot regiments were raised in Holland from French refugees for the purpose of invading France from the south, and the Elector of Brandenburg added another battalion to the force commanded by the Huguenots, Joël de Cornuourd and Jacques Laumonier, Marquis de Varennes.56 It was hoped that both brothers Schomberg would bring success to their commands – Meinhard in Ireland and Charles in Savoy – in order to further William’s designs to strike at Louis XIV in a direct way by defeating him in Ireland and invading France. Contemporaries saw a direct link between Ireland and France: in July 1691 Carl Rudolf, Duke of Württemberg-Neustadt, noted: ‘to all appearances the Irish business will soon be over, and we shall soon be thinking of a descent on France to save the common cause [Protestantism] from slavery’.57 Charles von Schomberg also commanded by virtue of his family connections, as the reputation of the exiled Schombergs remained an important force in France. Charles’s brother, Meinhard, had married the half-sister of Charlotte of the Palatinate, Duchesse d’Orléans, who remained a link between the French court and the Schombergs.58 Significantly, she was also the stepmother of Anne d’Orléans, Victor Amadeus’s wife from 1684.59 For this reason, when Savoy requested help from William III in resisting France, its duke nominated the Schombergs as his natural protectors.60 Geographical factors similarly pushed the younger Schomberg into the command of this force; Savoy was a convenient launching place for an invasion of France through Dauphiné and the Huguenots wished to have one of their own to lead the assault: ‘One needs a prince who is tested with the French [Huguenot] troops … and Count Charles de Schomberg [is thus appointed] for captain-general.’61 The appointment also confirmed the Schombergs’ ongoing role as mediators between

 �����������������������c���������������������������������������������� AST/LM/Olanda, m. 1, Victor Amadeus to La Torre, 8 Apr. 1691; Storrs, War, diplomacy and the rise of Savoy, p. 53. 56  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 3, p. 17. 57   The Danish force in Ireland, 1690–1691, ed. K. Danaher and J.G. Simms (Dublin, 1962), p. 116, Württemberg to Christian V of Denmark (Athlone), 1 July 1691. 58  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Robert Oresko, ‘The Glorious Revolution of 1688–9 and the house of Savoy’, in J.I. Israel (ed.), The Anglo-Dutch moment: essays on the Glorious Revolution and its world impact (Cambridge, 1991), p. 376. 59  ������������������������������������������������������ Anne (1669–1728), daughter of Philip I, Duc d’Orléans. 60  ��������������������������c���������������������������������c���������������������� Mario Viora, ‘Notizie e documenti sugli interventi diplomatici dell’Inghilterra in favore dei Valdesi durante il regno di Vittorio Amadeo II’, Studi urbinati, 2 (1928): 86, AST, LC m. 82, Victor Amadeus to William III, 2 June 1690; Oresko, ‘Glorious Revolution’, p. 377. 61  ����������������� TNA: PRO, SP8/7, King William’s War Chest, no. 43, Mémoire pour l’entrée dans la France (Zürich, 31 May 1691). 55

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

132

varying confessional elements of the European polity and proved that the late marshal was not the only family member who could be used and abused by it.62 Charles received intelligence for the invasion in a letter from Brousson, dated 8 March 1691: it was folded into minute proportions and relayed the news that up to 12,000 men might be raised across Languedoc, Cévennes, Vivarais and Dauphiné. In response, Schomberg’s envoy, François Huc du Vigan, assured Brousson that William was in favour of the scheme and would send troops. There would have to be 9–10,000 men to join the local uprising via a disembarkation at the French toeholds on the Mediterranean at Aigues-Mortes and Montpellier whence the Huguenot force could penetrate into the Cévennes.63 Claude Brousson insisted that it was ‘extremely important to make yourself master of the Cévennes’, but assured William and Schomberg that 2,000 Camisards led by competent English, Huguenot and Savoyard officers could deal with the King’s estimated 12,000 cavalry, infantry and militia forces and ‘make a grand affair’ of it.64 Despite utmost security, Brousson’s letter to Schomberg was intercepted by Louis’s intendant, Nicolas de Lamoignan de Bâville, when its couriers were arrested outside Geneva. The plan was known to the French by mid-August and Bâville was convinced that the invasion posed a real threat and assured the King, ‘one cannot doubt that the king’s enemies hope with all their strength to cause this land to revolt’.65 Indeed, one report stated Schomberg was at the head of 9,000 Vaudois and refugee Frenchmen, in nine regiments (under Balthasar, Blosset de Loches, Malet, Julien, Saint-André and Miremont), in alliance with 6,000 Spaniards.66 The letter deeply embarrassed peace-minded pastors within France, including Antoine Court, and later forced a strong denial from Brousson when he was put on trial and it was used as the chief evidence against him.67 The scheme was outright treason, though Laurent Theis is one scholar who claims that Brousson ‘deluded himself into believing that participation in the invasion plan was not treason’, but

62

 ��������������������������������������������� Oresko, ‘Glorious Revolution’, p. 380, n. 55.  ��������������� Léopold Nègre, Vie et ministère de Claude Brousson, 1647–1698 (Paris, 1878), pp. 59–60; Abraham Borrel, ‘L’école de théologie ou académie de Nîmes’, BSHPF, 3 (1855): 332–3. 64  ������ Bost, Prédicants, vol. 1, pp. 406–12; Nègre, Vie et ministère de Claude Brousson, pp. 161–3; Almeras, La révolte des Camisards, p. 52; Guy Rowlands, ‘Louis XIV, Vittorio Amadeo and French military failure in Italy, 1689–96’, EHR, 115/462 (June 2000): 536–69. 65  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, pp. 337–8, letter from James Coxe, codenamed De Alet or Saint-Aubin, 20 Aug. 1691; Antoine Court, Claude Brousson, ed. Hélène Kern and Pierre Bourguet (Paris, 1961), p. 25. 66  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 345, letter dated 31 Aug. 1691, and p. 346, letter dated 3 Sept. 1691. 67  ������� Court, Claude Brousson, p. 25. 63

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

133

rather a valid attempt to restore liberties guaranteed by Henri IV.68 All involved were influenced by the ideas of Pierre Jurieu, the leading voice among the refugee pastors, and by a large pamphlet literature emanating from the Dutch Republic.69 Brousson himself blamed the Revocation for the ‘bad disposition’ of many French Calvinists: ‘One is able to protest truthfully and to take God as witness that they have returned without any orders from foreign powers, and that it is their own zeal and the obligation of their own consciences which have brought them back into the kingdom.’70 He also claimed that, if pushed too far, the King could expect nothing but armed insurrection as the response to his incursion on liberty of conscience: ‘It is always strange … that subjects should take up arms against their prince. But they do not take them up except to defend their own lives … The patience of the most moderate changes to fury when it is pushed to the limit.’71 Theirs was, therefore, a ‘just war’. Despite all of the moral and military support available to the project, it came to nothing, leaving Vivent to be arrested and executed in the following year, and Brousson to flee to Holland, where he formulated a second plan under the patronage of William.

III In 1692 many Huguenot soldiers transferred from Ireland in order to serve in the Allied army formed to invade the south of France via the duchy of Savoy. A number of them sacrificed the opportunity to take up land grants in Ireland, by then (relatively) pacified: William was keen to promote their settlement there – Jurieu hoped to see as many as 4,000 or 5,000 refugees so settled.72 To aid the attempt on 68  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� When he was finally arrested and interrogated in late 1698 Brousson claimed (disingenuously) that he was, in fact, the ‘mystical dove’ of peace and that it was the firebrand, Vivent – the ‘lion of the tribe of Judah’ – who designed the plan, according to his idea of a ‘muscular approach’ towards King Louis: Laurent Theis, ‘Claude Brousson en 1692’, BSHPF, 139 (1993): 135–6; Claude Brousson, Relation sommaire des mervailles que dieu fait en France, dans les Cévennes et dans le bas-Languedoc, pour l’instruction and la consolation de son église désolée (Amsterdam, 1694), p. 53. 69  ������������������������������������ Teulon, ‘François Vivent’, pp. 51–8. 70  ���������� Brousson, Remonstrances to the League powers (1692), printed in Bost, Prédicants, vol. 1, p. 415. 71  ������ Bost, Prédicants, vol. 1, p. 85. 72  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, pp. 169–70, Newsletter, London, 23 June 1693, p. 286, Memorial from François de Gaultier de Saint-Blancard, ?May 1691, and pp. 326–7, Jurieu to Nottingham, 14 July 1693; Walter Utt, Home to our valleys! (Mountain View, 1977), p. v; AAE, cahiers d’Angleterre, Iberville to Louvois, 22 Nov. 1689; Utt and Strayer, Bellicose Dove, pp. 79, 82; and Raymond Hylton, ‘The Huguenot settlement at Portarlington, 1692–1771’, in C. Edric Caldicott, Hugh Gough and Jean-Paul Pittion (eds), The Huguenots and Ireland: anatomy of an emigration (Dublin, 1987), pp. 297–315 (I owe this latter reference to Harman Murtagh and David Trim).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

134

southern France in 1692, Charles von Schomberg was expected to lead a vigorous attack. Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, expressed popular faith in Schomberg’s military experience and popularity among the Huguenot refugees: I tell you that I am led into it by very considerable persons here, and that all the French Protestants here are not only very pressing for such an attempt on France, but that all there do expect and are ready for it, and in their wishes have marked out Count Schomberg for this expedition.73

An invasion route was chosen via the Barcelonette valley, ignoring the Duke of Savoy’s preferred direction through Aosta or Susa. An estimated 12,000 allied troops swelled the Savoyard army, including Huguenot units from Brandenburg commanded by Colonel de Cornuaud and the Marquis de Varennes.74 Events in Flanders spurred on the attempt from Savoy with the Alliance forces overrunning Namur in June 1692 and winning the battle of Steinkerk in August. An Alliance force blockaded French-held Casale while Schomberg entered Dauphiné at the head of a force of Huguenots (including William’s former aide-de-camp in Ireland, Henri, Comte de Louvigny), but including detachments from the Spanish army of Lombardy and artillery from the Duke of Savoy.75 The force took Guillestre and Gap and when Embrun fell to them on 15 August it threw Dauphiné into panic, due in part to Schomberg turning over the government of the place to Huguenots; hopes were high for the attack to continue into the heart of France.76 Schomberg addressed the inhabitants of Embrun, claiming that he would re-establish their rights in France, but would also respect the privileges of Catholics.77 In this Schomberg followed his orders to extract subsistence from all levels of society, including the common people and nobility ‘and many of the great lords’, and to re-establish the form of taille taxation levied in the reign of

 ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 3, pp. 17–18, Nottingham to Carmarthen, 27 Feb. 1691.  �� Joël de Cornuaud (1637–1718) and Jacques Laumonier, Marquis de Varennes (1641–1717): Chambrier, Henri de Mirmand, p. 193, n. 2; Storrs, War, diplomacy and the rise of Savoy, p. 282. 75  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� AGS Estado 3417/48, Leganos to Carlos II (Turin), 30 June 1692; Storrs, ‘The army of Lombardy (I)’: 388. NA, SG/8644/241, 243, Victor Amadeus to Fagel (Turin), 6 and 13 June 1692; Storrs, War, diplomacy and the rise of Savoy, p. 58; HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 450, letter dated 4 Aug. 1692. Louvigny died in August 1693: HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 603, letter to Nottingham, 31 Aug. 1693. 76  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, pp. 463–4, letter dated 28 Aug. 1692, and p. 481, letter dated 22 Sept. 1692; Symcox, Victor Amadeus II, p. 111. 77  �������������������� Marquis de Saporta, Les derniers représentants de la famille de Mme de Sévigné en Provence (Paris, 1889); Weiss, Histoire des réfugiés protestants, vol. 1, p. 184; André Mailhet, ‘Les protestants du Diois et des Baronnies en 1692, pendant l’invasion du Dauphiné’, BSHPF, 58 (1909): 7. 73 74

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

135

Henri IV.78 Nevertheless, Schomberg burnt 49 villages and many châteaux and extracted 30,000 livres from Gap and 14,000 écus from Embrun and took all the silver bullion there.79 Enthusiasm ran so high that one Huguenot soldier is reported to have said: ‘we will be unhappy indeed if we are not delivered [from persecution] in six months’.80 But disputes among the leadership of the invasion force, coupled with the failure of the locals to rise in numbers strong enough to carry it forward, led to a retreat back across the Alps as the cold weather of autumn came on.81 By this time Savoy was in crisis and Schomberg’s army marched back into a country overrun by the forces of Louis XIV under the command of Nicolas Catinat de la Franconnerie.82 Its arrival briefly checked the progress of the French army, but Charles von Schomberg was far from happy with the general quality of the men he commanded. In his eyes the campaign was mismanaged by William’s allies and Charles agreed to retain his position only after William III presented him, in December, with the command of the regiment of Foot Guards formerly led by his distant cousin, Henry, Lord Sidney.83 Undoubtedly, Schomberg was also concerned by bickering within the ranks of the Huguenot regiments. In the following year’s campaign, Joseph Hill, for one, doubted much could be achieved. He reported in July 1693: ‘the Savoyards still in preparation to enter Provence. And tho’ all are held up with hopes of your descent and making diversion … yet if nothing comes of it you will find them cooler, except you will feed them with more money than I fear you can spare’.84 Throughout August the Duke of Savoy held off Catinat, attempting to create an opportunity to enter France with up to 30,000 men, but to no avail.85 In the following month, Schomberg’s force  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, pp. 804–7, Mémoire pour la subsistence des troupes qui pourront entrer en France du coste du Dauphiné, Provence or Languedoc, ?1692. 79  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 467, letter dated 1 Sept. 1692. 80  ����������������������������������������������������������������� Quoted in Walter Utt, ‘L’itinéraire sinueux du pasteur Clarion’, BSHPF, 177 (1971): 266–73. 81  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For example, the Spanish commanders were horrified at the idea of taking winter quarters in Dauphiné: AGS Estado 3417/106, Leganos to Carlos II (Genoa), 12 Oct. 1692; Storrs, ‘The army of Lombardy (II)’: 19. At least some booty had been taken: see agreement for the payment of contributions by the community of Guillestre in Documents inédits relatifs à l’histoire et toppographie militaire des Alpes: la campagne de 1692 dans le Haut Dauphiné, ed. Albert de Rochas d’Aiglun (Paris, 1874). 82   De briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius 1702–1720, ed. ������������������������ A.J. Veenendaal Jr. (19 vols, RGP, The Hague, 1976–2001), vol. 2, p. 509. 83  �����������������c�������� Newsletter, 27 Dec. 1690, cited c������������������������������������������������������ in W. Troost, ‘William III, Brandenburg, and the construction of the anti-French coalition, 1672–88’, in Israel (ed.), Anglo-Dutch moment, p. 308. 84  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 213, Hill to Southwell (Rotterdam), 28 July 1693. 85  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 245, letter to Nottingham (Rochefort), 30 Aug. 1693, and pp. 573–4, letter to Nottingham, 6 July 1693. 78

136

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

was drawn into a pitched battle on the plains of Marsaglia on 4 October 1693. Schomberg commanded the left wing of the central part of the army that was defeated and he himself was mortally wounded.86 He would have been left for dead on the battlefield had not his faithful Huguenot servant, Monginot de la Salle, carried him to nearby Turin.87 His will, proved in London on 13 November 1693 and written in Savoy in the hours before his death, demonstrates how heavily he relied upon Huguenots in his household.88 Yet many among the refugees had predicted this failure and Henri Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny (now Earl of Galway in the Irish peerage), wrote to Henri de Mirmand from Ireland, saying he would work for a home for the refugees there instead.89 As soon as the disaster at Marsaglia was known in England Galway was appointed, in November 1693, Commander-in-Chief of the English and Huguenot forces in Piedmont. He was also to be William III’s envoy extraordinary for England and Holland at the court of Turin. His arrival was a comfort to the large number of Huguenots serving there in William’s forces and in those of Savoy, but Galway’s duties turned out to be more diplomatic than military. The Earl soon discovered that Victor Amadeus had entered into secret negotiations with France so that all he could do was to ensure a small degree of freedom of worship for the Vaudois Protestants. When the Duke of Savoy publicly announced his treaty with France, Galway had just enough time to withdraw his forces into Milan and capture the French subsidy sent by Louis XIV to Victor Amadeus. Most of the Huguenots that formed part of Schomberg’s force in Savoy returned to Britain and, as a result, in 1694, 510 Huguenot officers burdened William III’s military budget there. Despite hopes of yet another attempt on France the same year under the Marquis de Miremont, 11 Huguenot officers joined the troop of horse of Major Charles de la Tour, Comte de Paulin, in the Earl of Macclesfield’s 86  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 260, Blathwayt to Nottingham, 16 Oct. 1693. According to one account he was taken prisoner but exchanged for his father’s old friend, the Grand Prior de Vendôme, who was wounded in the thigh: HMC, Manuscripts of the Marquess of Downshire preserved at Easthampstead Park Berkshire, Papers of Sir William Trumbull (2 vols London, 1924), vol. 1, pt. i, p. 434; Jacques Abbadie, La mort du juste … sermon [occasioned by the death of Charles, second Duke of Schomberg] (London, 1693). 87   Memoires of the transactions in Savoy during this war: wherein the Duke of Savoy’s foul play with the allies, and his secret correspondence with the French king, are [demonstrated], ed. John Savage (London, 1697), p. 72 passim. It is most unlikely that this man was Etienne Monginot de La Salle, the well-known Paris doctor who was in his 66th year in 1693. However, it may be one of his sons, Etienne, Paul or Jacques, all of whom were naturalised in England on 31 January 1690: Orentin Douen, La révocation de l’édit de Nantes à Paris (3 vols, Paris, 1894), vol. 3, pp. 224–9. 88  �����������c������������������������������ It was subscribed by Jean Dubourdieu, his chaplain c������������������������������������������ (who had also served his father), Abraham Beneset du Teron, his secretary, Paul Artaud and Paul Sancerre, surgeons to the Duke, and David Castres, the chief of his kitchen: Douen, La révocation, vol. 3, p. 220. 89  ����������������������������������c������������������ Galway to Mirmand (Dublin), 11 March 1693: MS C17 O, cited c������������������� in Chambrier, Henri de Mirmand, p. 196.

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

137

regiment.90 This unit was also attractive because the Earl was married to a Huguenot lady and maintained strong links with refugees in Britain and internationally. One reason for the attraction to Paulin’s company may be the fact that he was related to Meinhard, third Duke of Schomberg. Having been captured by the Jacobites in Ireland while serving as a cornet in Galway’s cavalry regiment during the Irish Wars, la Tour was sent by their commander, the Marquis de Saint-Ruth, to be illtreated in France. In response William’s general, Godard van Reede van Ginckel, was determined to see his own French Catholic prisoners hanged.91 It is difficult to say whether this militant attitude was shared by the Count and his Huguenot soldiers, but it seems likely, especially as the vast majority of Huguenots in Anglo-Dutch service remained in the four extant regiments that had been created in 1689.92

IV At the same time as his brother, Charles considered the attempt on Dauphiné, Meinhard von Schomberg, now Duke of Leinster in the peerage of Ireland, helped formulate plans at a council of war formed at Portsmouth for expediting an invasion of France via the north-eastern ports of Saint-Malo and Brest.93 Both Leinster and the Earl of Galway were keen to lead the expedition, and the Huguenots were happy to follow them, with the design to burn the port of Saint-Malo and its shipping, and to harm that of Brest, with its powder magazine.94 To this end, Leinster was to embark 17 infantry regiments and 200 dragoons, in order to rendezvous with Admiral Russell’s fleet, already at sea, where a council of war would be held and a decision taken as to the best means by which they could accomplish their design.95 Leinster called on the services of at least one well-informed Huguenot refugee, Pierre Goudy, who arrived from Holland to offer advice.96 One problem for the forces was that Leinster was as cautious as his father had been in Ireland, when it came to committing himself to battle. He had already 90  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ TNA: PRO, SP 8/15, no. 8, Dubourdieu to Earl of Shrewsbury, ?Apr. 1694: CSPD, 1694–95, p. 122. 91  ����� HMC, Fourth Report (London, 1874), pt. i, pp. 320–21, Ginckel to Coningsby, 9 July 1691. 92   Hertford Sessions Rolls, vol. 1, p. 417; HMC, Fourth Report, pt. i, p. 135; BL, Add. MS 9731, fol. 31, Bellasise to Blathwayt, 3 Nov. 1697. 93  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, p. 51, Leinster to Nottingham (St James’s Square) 29 March 1692; Luttrell, Brief historical relation, vol. 2, pp. 465, 473; HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 427, letter dated 13 June 1692. 94  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, p. 291, Portland to Nottingham (camp at Genappe) 14 July 1692, and Queen to Admiral Russell, 14 July 1692, p. 312. 95  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, p. 312, Queen to Leinster (Whitehall), 14 July 1692. 96  �������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 155, Nottingham to Russell, 14 May 1692.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

138

spoken of his reservations, regarding the number of men at his disposal – too few, according to him – and, only one day after the orders for a speedy embarkation arrived, Leinster’s fellow commanders expressed unease at his inertia. Thus, while the Earl of Nottingham requested more troops to be sent to Portsmouth, Leinster already ‘gave the occasion for it by often declaring that he could not undertake any considerable thing with those troops which were here’.97 This was in direct opposition to the opinion of William’s chief confidant, the Earl of Portland.98 Part of the trouble, Leinster was sure, fell to the senior commanders of the force who were still arguing among themselves as to seniority. Some claimed precedence, having been commissioned by William in the United Provinces, while others held commissions from him as King in Britain.99 William had to step in to solve this debate and he laid down the rule that the commissions were to be viewed as equal and seniority determined by the date of creation, regardless of the origin of the patent to command. But damage had been done, and it was revealed in some sarcastic comments aimed at the length of time that had already been taken by Leinster to get his force ready for action. The general public was already making disparaging comments about Leinster’s hesitation, with John Evelyn talking of the fleet’s ‘long pretence of making a descent on France’.100 Within the Navy itself, Admiral Russell said that ‘after so long a discourse, all Christendom is prepared to receive some great account from so great and so long a preparation’.101 Though ‘all agreed the attempt was difficult’, it was thought ‘the ground was good’, but after all Leinster’s delays, rounding Guernsey the weather turned bad, and wind and thick fog forced the fleet to anchor in the Channel. In such conditions, it was resolved to send only a small squadron, under the vice-admirals, Sir George Rooke and Gerard Callenburg, but this was spotted and fired upon by the French. The attempt on Brest fared no better, with Russell blaming the late August embarkation for the inability, due to bad weather, of their forces to affect anything there.102 The soldiers were also ill in large numbers and Leinster reported that ‘several have the small pox’, so that he thought the force would be ruined

97

 ������������������������������������������������������������ Ibid., p. 316, Nottingham to same (Whitehall), 15 July 1692.  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, p. 316; John Ehrman, The navy in the wars of William III 1689–1697: its state and direction (Cambridge, 1953), p. 402; David Onnekink, The AngloDutch favourite: the career of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland (1649–1709) (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 159–60. 99  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 331, Nottingham to Blathwayt (Whitehall) 22 July 1692. These disputes continued to cause problems in William’s army: HMC, Frankland-Russell-Astley (London, 1900), p. 81, Dr George Clarke to Lord Cutts (Whitehall), 7 Aug. 1694. 100   The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E.S. de Beer (6 vols, Oxford, 1955), vol. 5, p. 111, 25 July 1692. 101  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, pp. 349–50, Russell to Nottingham (off Portsmouth), 29 July 1692. 102  ���������� Onnekink, Anglo-Dutch favourite, p. 158. 98

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

139

unless it put into shore.103 With failure obviously in his sights, Leinster started apportioning blame and (in his eyes) this fell on the military supplier, Mr Buckle, who had run off with large sums of money intended for troops’ provisions.104 By 20 July 1692, despite large sums of money forwarded to expedite the plan and the Queen’s personal intervention to push them on, the forces at Portsmouth had been frustrated in their attempts to breach the defences of either Saint-Malo or Brest.105 Still at sea on 28 July, Leinster reported his frustration at being unable successfully to worry the French off the coast of Normandy.106 Two ships returned intact, but many more fell victim to mortars and bombs, launched at them from the French coast.107 Nine days later, Admiral Russell was ready to attribute blame for the disappointing outcome of the adventure, claiming that, when the plan was formulated, troops were to be got ready no later than May. Russell was well aware that the disappointment occasioned by the failed adventure against Saint-Malo and Brest, would reflect on him: ‘I wish we may have the opportunity to redeem this disappointment, which is in itself a great misfortune and your lordship [Portland] will easily imagine the ill use which some here will make of it.’108 He also feared for the real losers in the piece, the Huguenots: ‘I pity the Duke of Leinster and Lord Galway, and lament my own misfortune, that from me some service is expected, when it is morally impossible that all the assistance I can give will signify anything.’109 William had no option but to re-deploy the force as best he could and, by 14 August, it had arrived in the Downs, ready to return to Holland, but further misfortune afflicted it; as Leinster had received no orders, he kept the men aboard ship, where their close confinement resulted in an outbreak of fever that carried many of them to their death.110 Still, it is clear that other uses were designed for the Huguenots and their leadership and to this end the Huguenot engineer, Colonel du Cambon, worked with Leinster to formulate a plan for the invasion of Dunkirk so that ‘some attempt will be made against the place if possible’.111 The international importance of this plan was great and the  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, p. 380, Leinster to Nottingham (Breda), 10 Aug. 1692.  ��������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 395, Leinster to Nottingham (Breda), 14 August 1692. 105  ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 278, Nottingham to Treasury Commissioners, 1 July, Portland to Nottingham (Ganeppe), 4 July (p. 291) and Queen Mary II to Russell (Whitehall), 1 Aug. 1692 (p. 359). 106  ������������������������������������ Ibid., p. 344, Leinster to Russell (Breda), 28 July 1692. 107  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 325, Nottingham to Sir Henry Bellasyse (Whitehall), 20 July 1692. 108  ��������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 369, Nottingham to Portland (Whitehall), 5 Aug. 1692. 109  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Ibid., pp. 349–50, Russell to Nottingham (off Portsmouth), 29 July 1692. 110  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 395, Leinster to Nottingham (Downs), Aug. 1692 and (p. 396), Portland to Nottingham (camp at Lambeck), 14 Aug. 1692. 111  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 444, Blathwayt to Nottingham (Grammen), 5 Sept. 1692. François du Puy du Cambon (d.1693), colonel of a Huguenot regiment in Dutch and English service. Report of his death contained in HMC, Finch, vol. 5, p. 229, Nottingham to Blathwayt (Whitehall), 11 Aug. 1693. 103 104

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

140

Scottish Lord Advocate, Sir George Lockhart of Lee, expressed no doubt that, if the attack failed to proceed, the Jacobites in Scotland would rise up, aided by their compatriots in the French army.112 The much more involved plans for an assault upon Dunkirk witnessed an equal level of intransigence from Leinster.113 Menno van Coehorn agreed that much preparation work remained to be done, but William ordered a march upon Dunkirk and a combined attack with a naval squadron ‘if at all possible’.114 Galway now doubted the plan, seeing clearly on what a flimsy base the combined operation was built. Furthermore, the British corps was exposed to attack by the French marshal de Boufflers, stationed at Bergues.115 When eight French battalions moved towards Ypres, William abandoned the scheme as it was now untenable.116

V The Huguenots were destined to remain an exiled people. The 1697 Treaty of Rijswijk, which concluded the Nine Years War or War of the Grand Alliance (1688–97), failed to secure their return to France. There was no effective Huguenot lobby group to argue in favour of the inclusion of a general relief for Protestants in France. In any case, such a hope was unrealistic, and the two options open to the refugees – armed force and negotiation – looked equally ineffective in this, arguably their darkest year since the Revocation. From this point onwards, Huguenot soldiers suffered mass unemployment during a time of general (if temporary) peace. French and English observers understood that William would try to make use of the Huguenot soldiers wherever the energy of these itinerants could be diverted as he continued to enjoy the loyalty and dependence of thousands of Huguenots.117 After 1697, it was clear to many

 ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 4, p. 471, Lockhart to James Johnston, 24 Sept. 1692.   Correspondentie van Willem III en van Hans Willem Bentinck, ed. N. ����������� Japikse (5 vols, The Hague, 1927–37), vol. 2, pp. 201–2; Edouard d’Auvergne, A relation of the most remarkable transactions in the last campaigne of the confederate army … in the Spanish Netherlands, 1692 (London, 1693), pp. 56–8. 114   Correspondentie, ed. Japikse, vol. 2, pp. 68–9; HMC, Finch, vol. 4, pp. 431, 444, 448. 115   Correspondentie, ed. Japikse, vol. 2, pp. 203–4. 116  �������������������������������������������� Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 172–3 and vol. 2, p. 204. 117  �������������������������������������������c������������������������������������� Gerald E. Aylmer, ‘Unbelief in seventeenth-century England’, in Gerald E. Aylmer (ed.), Puritans and revolutionaries: essays in seventeenth-century history presented to Christopher Hill (Oxford, 1978); Robert M. Kingdon, Du droit des magistrates: Theodore Beza, Classiques de la pensée politique 7 (Geneva, 1971); Bernard Cottret, The Huguenots in England: immigration and settlement, c.1550–1700 (Cambridge, 1985), p. 239. 112

113

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

141

refugees that they had little option but to abide by King William; even the Marquis de Miremont committed himself to England by taking an oath of denization.118 One man who continued to formulate ideas for the Huguenots’ use was the Marquis de Miremont. Like his compatriots, Miremont was now unemployed and needed to know there was some future for himself and his co-religionists. Hope for a return to their home in France was the only cure for such despondency. Perhaps with this in mind he had, throughout his time in William’s army, maintained contact with the King’s principal supporters in England.119 He had witnessed first-hand the confusion inherent in a large multi-national force such as William’s army was in Flanders in the 1690s.120 He might well have hoped to use this experience to mould a superior force to re-enter his homeland, especially as Brousson (executed in 1698) and Vivent (executed in early 1692) had done so much to strengthen the resolve of those Huguenots still inside France through constant preaching and the holding of secret meetings where sermons could last all night.121 The Calvinist Bourbon marquis was promoted to the rank of brigadier in the Dutch army in 1698, but there is little evidence of the life of this implacable enemy of King Louis during the intervening years. A few items remain, including passes issued to him for journeys to and from Holland.122 Though it is difficult to overestimate his income and credit, he was not poor. Furthermore, his denizen status allowed him to petition to be granted, a certain parcel of land in or near the parishes of Long Sutton, Holbeach, Quaplode, and Molton in Lincolnshire, on 30 March 1698.123 Soon after the accession of Queen Anne in 1702, Miremont was 118

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������� Miremont was granted denization on 30 April 1697: TNA: PRO, SPDom. Entry Book 347, 87, published in CSPD, 1697, p. 139. 119  ����� HMC, Finch, vol. 3, p. 19, Countess to Earl of Nottingham, 17 Feb. 1691. Predictably he was also involved in the minutia of daily regimental life, e.g. requesting 100 guineas for 10 or 12 officers that were to accompany him to the continent in 1690: HMC, Finch, vol. 3, p. 380. 120  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� For example ‘M. Miremont writes that Lord Dursley has no orders to give him directions how to act. I understood Lord Dursley was to concert with the Pensioner [Heinsius], and direct M. Miremont accordingly, and have writ again to his lordship to this purpose. If you have any commands for him, I will transmit them’: HMC, Finch, vol. 2, pp. 399, 431, Nottingham to William, 5 Aug. 1690 and Nottingham to Sir Robert Southwell, 26 Aug. 1690. 121  ����������������� Utt and Strayer, Bellicose dove, pp. 69–71. 122  ���������������������c������������������������������������������������������������ ‘I have your letter acquainting me with the ill treatment you and Monsieur Goulon have received at Gravesend. I have also received a letter from the mayor of Gravesend assuring me of your release, and that your detention was only that he might examine the persons named in your passport. I regret the incident’: Charles Le Goulon, lieutenantgeneral of Artillery under William III, author of Memoires pour l’attaque et pour la defense d’une place (Wesel, 1706); Shears, ‘Armand de Bourbon’, p. 410. 123  ��������������������������������������������������������c������������������ The original petition was referred to Treasury on 30 March 1698: TNA: PRO, SP44/238, fol. 197, published in CSPD, 1698, p. 170. For a discussion of the assets of

142

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

made a major-general in the English army and awarded a pension of 10s. a day on the Irish Establishment.124 Plans of attacking France were re-invigorated by the re-entry of the Duke of Savoy into the alliance of nations leagued against Louis XIV and the start of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–13). But a projected expedition of the refugees into the south of France was deferred. Many among them were then enrolled in Swiss regiments that fought in Piedmont and Holland and took their fight against Louis to other nations united against their old fatherland. Others returned secretly to the most agitated parts of Languedoc to foment insurrection.125 The Marquis de Miremont proposed to find recruits in Francophone Switzerland where there was (in the words of Arsellières) ‘a quantity of [French] foreigners, itinerants, extremely dishevelled and consequently suitable to be made soldiers of so they can eat’.126 When the Camisard revolt broke out in the Cévennes in 1702 the Marquis announced that he would support it with 6–7,000 refugees and carry weapons into the heart of France; it need not cost a great deal of money and he was a native of Languedoc so knew the region well.127 In spite of the coincidence of the beginning of the war in the Cévennes in 1702 with that of the Spanish succession struggle there remained good reasons for strangers to be involved in the conflict. It took more than a year for the usefulness of the revolt to be realised among the Allies. At first they would not aid it and then did so grudgingly until the home-grown Huguenot hero, Jean Cavalier, met with success against Marshal de Broglie, chief of the troops of Languedoc, at the beginning of 1703.128 At that moment the French court reacted and public opinion and foreign self-interest led to the revolt being taken seriously. But the Camisard war was never a big enough event to unite the allies in its favour. Admittedly the Feversham and Miremont see Brooks and Yarrow, ‘Three Huguenots at the English court’, pp. 181–93; Brooks and Yarrow, ‘Armand de Bourbon’, pp. 190, 192. 124  �����������c��������������������������������������������������������������������� He was an acting major-general as early as 1695, when his was one of eight names recorded in that rank: ‘A list of the general officers and of the colonels and commanding officers of his majesty’s land forces’ (30 December 1695): HMC, House of Lords, 1695–7, p. 131. At the time his regiment contained the standard eight troops and companies, 38 commissioned officers, 71 non-commissioned officers, 480 private soldiers, altogether 590: HMC, House of Lords, p. 132. 125  �����������c����������������������������� See the discussion of these plans in the context c������������������������cc���������������� of the Spanish succession struggle in Lawrence Huey Boles, The Huguenots, the Protestant interest and the War of the Spanish Succession, 1702–1714, American University Studies 9, History 188 (New York, 1997). 126  ���������� Lamberty, Mémoires, vol. 3, p. 237; Verdeil, Histoire, vol. 2, p. 339. 127   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed., Veenendaal, vol. 2, p. 222, no. 574, Miremont to Heinsius (London) 14 May 1703; Instructions as envoy to Cévennes, 1703: BL, Add. MS 29590, fol. 245. 128   Jean Cavalier (1681–1740), hero of Camisard resistance in the south of France and later a colonel in the Dutch army: Jean Cavalier, Mémoires sur la guerre des Cévennes, ed. François Puaux (Payot, 1918); ‘Mémoires de Mazel, Marion et Bonbonnoux’, BSHPF (1938): 41ff.

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

143

Alliance powers considered sending military aid, but Marshal de Villars continued to prevent weapons being transported into Languedoc well into 1704. There was no lack of information: David Flotard, a refugee from Vigan, was sent in June 1703 by England’s Queen Anne and Holland with a note encouraging the Camisards.129 Despite the drawbacks, Heinsius favoured Miremont’s invasion scheme, perhaps swayed by the Marquis’s earnest belief that he could rescue the reformed religion in France.130 Miremont chose this moment to capitalise on his old invasion project to promote insurrection among the Protestants of the south.131 The covert nature of the arrangements is evident in Nottingham’s request to Miremont that his two French agents be sent to the Lord Treasurer where they would receive money to get them to Portsmouth and Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s fleet.132 From England, Richard Hill tried to persuade Victor Amadeus to use his two remaining Huguenot regiments ‘to persuade them into arms and assist them to march into Dauphiné to the assistance of the Cévennois [Camisards], sending with them some regular troops’.133 One of the Savoyard regiments was that commanded by Louis de Portes (later Conte di Verriè) which consisted entirely of French refugees in Savoy service.134 Miremont himself claimed to receive encouragement from both Richard Hill and Albert van der Meer, the English and Dutch representatives respectively.135

129

 ������������������������������������������������������������������� 15,000 Huguenots were said to be ready in England under Miremont’s command: c�������� HMC, Manuscripts of the Duke of Buccleugh and Queensberry (2 vols, London, 1903), vol. 2, pt. ii, p. 688, letter to Sir L. Blackwell, 6 Nov. 1703. 130   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 2, p. 253, no. 648, Miremont to Heinsius (London) 28 May 1703 and p. 259, no. 667, Miremont to Heinsius (London) 31 May 1703. 131  ��� See letters to Godolphin and Nottingham, 1703: BL, Add. MS 29588, fols 407, 446. 132  ������������� TNA: PRO, SP Entry Book 209, 57, published in CSPD, 1702–3, ed. Robert Pentland Mahaffy (London, 1916), vol. 1, p. 720, Nottingham to Miremont (Whitehall), 17 May 1703. 133   The diplomatic correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Richard Hill, envoy extraordinary from the court of St. James to the Duke of Savoy in the reign of Queen Anne: from July 1703 to May 1706, ed. William Blackley (2 vols, London, 1845), vol. 1, p. 59, Hill’s instructions, 9 Nov. 1703 OS; De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 2, p. 305, no. 857, van Vrijbergen to Heinsius (The Hague), 29 Aug. 1704. 134  ������������������������������������ The de Portes infantry regiment was c����������������������������������� commanded by Louis de Portes from 4 November 1703 to 1739: P. Bianchi, ‘Huguenots in the army of Savoy-Piedmont: Protestant soldiers and civilians in the Savoyard state from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century’, in Matthew Glozier and David Onnekink (eds), War, religion and service: Huguenot soldiering, 1685–1713 (Aldershot, 2007). 135   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, p. 343, no. 946, van Vrijbergen to Heinsius (London) 16 Sept. 1704.

144

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

At the centre of the désert refuge was a strong, hostile party allied with the Camisards; they were people without much wealth and led by prophets (which looked to the outside world suspiciously like delirious impostors). Even the Marquis d’Arsellières, the English agent in Geneva charged with negotiating between England and the Dutch Republic for the relief of the Camisards and who had sympathy with their cause, could only describe those of them who withdrew to Geneva in autumn 1704 as ‘unlettered people … of little use to the majority’ and despaired ‘to conceive of how they could have resisted’ for so long.136 In this new epoch of the civil war in the Cévennes in the south of France in 1704 Miremont took his body of militant refugees to Piedmont where, under the orders of the Duke of Savoy, he was to watch for an opportunity to advance into Languedoc. He was active in sending agents to gather advance intelligence and eager to the degree of neglecting to arrange their passports.137 Miremont assured Heinsius that Queen Anne was determined to support the Camisards and that Nottingham was in accord with her. This fact was confirmed to the Marquis by conversations with Prince George of Denmark, the royal consort, and David Flotard, the British diplomatic agent sent to The Netherlands.138 Heinsius hoped to see raised a ‘fine corps’ of men, but another eager refugee (and Miremont’s recruiting captain for the invasion), Colonel Pierre de Belcastel, regretted to inform him that Miremont was mistaken; he would not find in Switzerland or Germany the required number of refugees and de Belcastel had had trouble getting permission from the canton of Bern to raise 3,000 Huguenot recruits.139 Perhaps in response to this information, Miremont thought to use Huguenot veterans from William’s campaigns in Ireland and Portugal to augment his troops in Piedmont, rather than rely on an uncertain reserve of men left in the Swiss cantons.140 136  ����������������������������������������������������������� Gaspard Perrinet, Marquis d’Arsellières (1645–1710). Haag, La France Protestante, vol. 8, pp. 193–4; Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1557–1696, Preserved in the Public Record Office, ed. J. Redlington (6 vols, 1557–1728, London, 1868–89), vol. 20, p. 815; for his career to 1695 see HMC, Buccleuch, vol. 2, p. 199; BL, Add. MS 61145, fols 1–222, Arsellières to Marlborough 1702–1709; BL, Add. MS 56247, fos 126–7v, Arsellières to Blathwayt; David Bayne Horn (ed.), British diplomatic representatives, 1689–1789 (London, 1932), p. 112. 137  �����������c���������������������������c��������������������������������������������� His pastry-chef, Monplaisir, and Dalbiac, a subaltern of his regiment, were detained for lack of passports: De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 2, p. 425, no. 1087, Sparre to Heinsius (Sas de Gendt), 27 Aug. 1703. 138   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 2, p. 451, no. 1142, Miremont to Heinsius (London) 11 Sept. 1703. 139  �������������c���������������� Pierre de Belcastel (d.1710): The correspondence 1701–1711 of John Churchill First Duke of Marlborough and Anthonie Heinsius Grand Pensionary of Holland, ed. B. van ’t Hoff (WHG, Utrecht, 1951), p. 100, no. 164, Heinsius to Marlborough (The Hague), 11 March 1704; De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, pp. 345–6, no. 953, Belcastel to Heinsius (Turin), 19 Sept. 1704. 140   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, p. 354, no. 975, van Vrijbergen to Heinsius (London), 23 Sept. 1704.

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

145

Early in 1704 Queen Anne promoted Miremont to the rank of lieutenantgeneral and appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-Dutch forces in Piedmont, which consisted largely of French refugees.141 Miremont hoped that his promotion would lend greater weight to his demands on Heinsius for assistance and it was believed he would bring many refugees into the service of Britain or the Dutch Republic.142 His men admired him and he created a professional force loyal to Queen Anne that was ‘willing to serve, wherever commanded’.143 However, his plan for the invasion of southern France never eventuated, in part due to his rivalry with the adventurer, the ex-abbé Anthoine de la Bourlie (better known by the name of the Marquis de Guiscard), who proposed a similar undertaking.144 Primarily, Miremont’s failure was due to the Duke of Savoy concluding a peace with the French king. This led John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough – who often suspected the reliability of the Huguenots – to plead with Heinsius that ‘there should be no time lost in hindering M. Belcastel from going on with his levies’.145 In the event, the Franco-Savoyard alliance ended almost as soon as it had begun. Heinsius valued Miremont’s invasion plan and insisted that Churchill do what he could to push it forward.146 On his part, Churchill thought it worth getting the Duke of Savoy into a state ‘to act offensively’ in the summer campaigning season of 1704. Yet this did not include Miremont whose own plan to raise between 6,000 and 8,000 men was thought by Churchill to be too expensive (even with the Dutch paying a third of the cost).147 The Englishman suggested Prussians would be cheaper to employ – plus he would then be responsible for any success achieved by their

141

 ���������������������������� BL, Add. MS 28948, fol. 98.   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, p. 264, no. 749, Miremont to Heinsius (London), 4 Aug. 1704 and p. 268, no. 759, van Vrijbergen to Heinsius (London) 5 Aug. 1704. 143  ����� HMC, Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland Preserved at Welbeck Abbey (10 vols, London, 1891–1931), vol. 3, p. 163, Henry Fairfax to Robert Harley, 4 Dec. 1704. 144  ������������c��������������������������������������������c������������ In 1704 Guiscard raised a regiment of Huguenot dragoons (commanded by François Hubert de la Fabrèque from February 1706): Charles Lart, ‘The Huguenot regiments’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 9 (1911): 503–6. Antoine de La Bourlie, Marquis de, Mémoires du marquis de Guiscard dans lequel est contenu le récit des entreprises qu’il a faictes dans le royaume et hors du royaume de France pour le recouvrement de la liberté de la patrie (Delft, 1705). 145   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, pp. 92–3, no. 252, van Vrijbergen to Heinsius (London) 25 March 1704; Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 107, no. 176, Marlborough to Heinsius (Mayance), 30 May 1704. 146   Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 113, no. 185, Heinsius to Marlborough (The Hague), 27 June 1704. 147   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, p. 101, no. 274, Miremont to Heinsius (London), 31 March 1704; Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, pp. 127–8, no. 210, Marlborough to Heinsius (Sefelingen), 28 Aug. 1704. 142

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

146

efforts.148 Perhaps they would be easier to get; Richard Hill reported Belcastel’s trouble: ‘he does not find it so easy to raise a body of 2,000 men for the assistance of the Cévennois as he does believe, or as they do believe who sent him’.149 Churchill was still undermining the designs of Miremont and Belcastel in September 1704 when he reminded the Grand Pensionary that their plan was impracticable and ‘I should think we should do very well not to go on with the expense’ of it.150 One third of the 300,000 crowns required for the scheme (to be paid by the Dutch) might be saved, said Churchill, ‘by laying aside M. Belcastel’s project and not being too prodigal in the Marquis de Miremont’s, neither of which are like to have any great effect’.151 Churchill placed greater trust in Huguenots of longer standing in the Netherlands, preferring to forward the career of Colonel d’Ivoy whom he praised to Heinsius in the same breath he used to disparage Miremont.152 Even Heinsius saw the need to suspend support for Belcastel’s plan to raise 8,000 men in Switzerland, yet he said there was too much support in England to restrain Miremont. Richard Hill said: ‘If the marquis can bring us 6,000 men we shall value his alliance as much as we do that of the Emperor at present. It is men that we want in Italy, and His Royal highness the Duke of Savoy is extremely perplexed to get them.’153 Only the withholding of funds could suspend the Marquis’s activity and this is what Heinsius decided to do.154 At this moment of weakness, Churchill redoubled his insistence that 8,000 objective foreigners from Prussia ‘will be of more use to the common cause than the projects of Belcastel and Miremont’.155 Of all these plans Miremont knew nothing and Churchill even jollied him along by writing encouraging notes to him at Queen Anne’s command ‘to keep him in good humour’ for the coming campaign of 1705.156 In response, Heinsius could only agree on the importance of keeping Miremont on-side, but   Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 128.  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Hill to Sir Charles Hedges (Turin), 5 Aug. 1704: TNA: PRO, SP 92/26, fol. 412. 150   Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 136, no. 219, Marlborough to Heinsius (Weissembourg), 19 Sept. 1704. 151   Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 137, no. 221, Marlborough to Heinsius (camp at Weissembourg), 26 Sept. 1704. 152  ������������������������������������������������������ Frédéric Thomas de Hangest-Genlis d’Ivoy (1663–1719): Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 137. For his French ancestry see Haag, La France Protestante, vol. 5, p. 429. 153  ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Hill to Hedges (Turin), 19 Sept. 1704: TNA: PRO, SP 92/26, fols 446–8. 154  �����������������c����������������������������������������������������� He was well-respected in England throughout the 1690s: Saint-Evremond, Lettres, ed. Ternois, vol. 2, pp. 163–4, 188, Saint-Evremond to Miremont, c.1692; Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 139, no. 223, Heinsius to Marlborough (The Hague), 3 Oct. 1704. 155   Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 141, no. 226, Marlborough to Heinsius (Weissembourg), 13 Oct. 1704. 156  ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 164, no. 263, Marlborough to Heinsius (London), 2 Feb. 1705. 148 149

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

147

said he ‘knew not what would satisfy him [Miremont] if his levy is not granted’.157 However, by the end of October 1704 even the Marquis’s supporters, including d’Arsellières, expressed the gravest doubts about the likely success of invading Vivarais via Aosta in order to aid the Camisards.158 Miremont’s evident political and military failure among the Allies emphasises the futility of advancing the Huguenot cause by force of arms. Increasingly the role of champion of the Huguenots in exile was passing to men of the pen rather than the sword, such as Henri de Mirmand and Jacques de Barjac, Marquis de Rochegude.159 Louis XIV’s resident at Geneva, Pierre Cadiot de La Closure, gave a suitably withering assessment of the threat posed by Miremont: The illusions of these people [Protestant agitators in the Cévennes] and of the Marquis de Miremont who comes with a corps of 8,000 men, all French, with the aim of taking the war into Dauphiné via the valleys [of Savoy] and those of the Cévennes, with the aim of causing a general revolution within all those provinces where there are new converts [from Protestantism]; that Cavalier will join with them with his regiment. I believe that to be their project. But the Marquis de Miremont is not in Piedmont, nor the 10,000 men which he needs.160

The Dutch too had their doubts about the value of Miremont’s efforts.161 He had tarried too long raising men in Piedmont and what initiative there might have been was now lost.162 At this time the Marquis’s secretary was Charles Portales (related to a former deputy to Vivent in the Cévennes), who was given a miniature portrait of the Marquis which shows him in middle-age and, seemingly, far from the peak of physical and mental fitness.163 To prevent the discovery of his designs in 1705, Miremont attempted to maintain utmost secrecy: ‘There has been much talk, and even overtures made to stir up the Camisards, which the Marquis de Miremont was to have done about 157

 �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., p. 165, no. 263b, Heinsius to Marlborough (The Hague), 2 Feb. 1705.   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 3, p. 399, no. 1092, van Hoornbeek to Heinsius (Rotterdam), 26 Oct. 1704. 159  ������c����������c������������������������ For Rochegude’s activities see Chambrier, Henri de Mirmand, pp. 254, 258, 260, 282, 352, 354–5, 396 and Correspondentie van Willem III, ed. Japikse, vol. 3, passim. 160  ����� AAE, Correspondance politique, république de Genève 25, fols 112–13, La Closure to Bâville, 26 Nov. 1704. 161   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 4, p. 21, no. 40, van Hoornbeek to Heinsius (Rotterdam), 11 Jan. 1705. 162  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 32, no. 72, van Vrijbergen to Heinsius (The Hague), 20 Jan. 1705. 163  �������������������������������������������������������c�������������c����������� The miniature portrait was handed down through the direct line of descendants of Portales, and it was, in 1963, in the possession of Mr T. Lindsay Stack, who kindly allowed the image to be reproduced in the Huguenot Society’s Proceedings: Shears, ‘Armand de Bourbon’, p. 3. 158

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

148

a year ago: but it cannot be believed that he will venture to give any news until his enterprise is nearly complete.’164 The Marquis went so far as to rally 3,000 refugee Huguenots to his banner in England and the Netherlands with the hope of embarking them for Savoy by 1 May.165 Churchill saw the plan as yet another scheme hatched by desperate exiles, while the threat was readily dismissed by the French government: There is nothing in the report mentioned in the Dutch Gazette that 15,500 [sic] French refugees have offered to serve under the Marquis de Miremont; whereas perhaps there are not so many in the three kingdoms who would voluntarily take service in the Foot [infantry] … It is the opinion of the best men that nothing can be done for de Miremont.166

This remained the state of Miremont’s affairs throughout 1706. Yet another scheme was proposed by Miremont in 1707 and it says much about his prestige among the refugees that ‘several French [Huguenots] offered him their service’.167

VI After the Camisard rising came to an end there remained a small body of hard-core Huguenot officers keen to strike at France. Some Huguenot veterans joined Louis le Maingre de Bouciquault, Chevalier de Seissan, who in 1710 led an abortive Dutch-sponsored attempt upon the French South coast (at Sète in Hérault in the Languedoc).168 In 1711 Seissan was promoted to major-general of the infantry of the States General and colonel of a regiment of French Huguenot deserters on the  ����� HMC, Duke of Portland, vol. 8, p. 212, intercepted letter, 8 Feb. 1706; De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 5, p. 81, no. 151, Miremont to Heinsius (London), 19 Feb. 1706. 165   Correspondence of John Churchill, ed. Van ‘t Hoff, p. 224, no. 367, Marlborough to Heinsius (London), 12 Feb. 1706; De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 5, p. 105, no. 191, Buys to Heinsius (London), 2 March 1706. 166   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 5, p. 214, intelligence sent to Thelluson, 12 Feb. 1706. 167   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. ������������������������������������� Veenendaal, vol. 6, p. 232, no. 461, Saunière de L’Hermitage to Heinsius (London), 29 Apr. 1707. 168  �����c��������������������������� A descendant of Jean le Maingre, c����������c�c������� called ‘Boucicault’ (c.1366–1421), Marshal of France, captured at Agincourt and one of the few noblemen whose life was spared, but who died in English captivity six years later: Le livre des faicts du bon messire Jean le Maingre, dit Boucicault et gouverneur de Gennes (Paris, 1620), BN, F. fr. 1,432, reprinted in Claude Bernard Petitot (ed.), Collection complète des mèmoires relatifs à l’histoire de France (Paris, 1819), vol. 7. Seissan is a village in Gers, Gascony. 164

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

149

Dutch establishment.169 Later that year Seissan moved from Dutch service to that of Saxony, but (more professional soldier than Calvinist militant) he was serving Spain by 1719.170 His disenchantment with such schemes may be evident in his prose work; his comedy in five acts, Les Amazones revoltées, was critical of the knightly-military ethos.171 In Britain, so long as Churchill retained his favoured position, Miremont was eager to maintain parity of seniority with him. To this end he sent to the Lord Treasurer in 1711 a memorial, reminding Godolphin that he and Churchill had been made brigadiers on the same day and major-generals likewise. Miremont desired that he might be created a general of infantry of the same date as Churchill so that the generals who were once his cadets might not have precedence over him.172 Arguably Miremont’s promotion was a way of remaining potent in the cause of his compatriots and the royal marquis certainly stayed in touch with political and diplomatic developments in Savoy, awaiting another chance to invade France.173 In 1713, as a sign of his still great influence, Queen Anne appointed Miremont Commissioner at the Congress of Utrecht to act in concert with all the plenipotentiaries of the Protestant princes with the aim of aiding the Huguenots in France.174 Miremont did all he could in the matter, holding frequent meetings with

169

 ����������������������������������� See agreement relating to Seissan’s command of two French deserter regiments, 1711: BL, Add. MS 61377, fols 133–4; Establishment for his regiment: BL, Add. MS 61318, fol. 16; Accounts for pay of Seissan’s regiment: BL, Add. MS 61330, fols 180–87; Letters to Marlborough 1709–12: BL, Add. MS 61313, fols 117, 209; 61314, fols 38, 62, 98–103; 61315, fols 21, 200–203; and memorial to Cardonnel: 61295, fols 9–10. 170  ����������������������� In Saxony from 1711 he commanded c������������������������������������������������� a regiment bearing his own name (led by Count Fleming from 1715), then in 1717 the 10th infantry regiment, called von Lowendahl’s: J.W. Wijn, F.J.G. ten Raa and F. de Bas (eds), Het Staatsche Leger 1568–1795 (11 vols, Breda, The Hague, 1911–64), vol. 8, pt. 3, memorandum 2. In December 1719, in secret Seissan was consigned by the Spanish government to Great Britain, concerning peace talks: Repertorium voor de Nederlandsche krijgsgeschiedenis (23 vols, The Hague, 1905), vol. 2. 171  �����������������������c������������������������������ Louis Le Maingre de Bouciquault, Chevalier de Seissen, Les Amazones revoltées, roman moderne. comedie en cinq actes, sur l’histoire universelle, & la fable, avec des notes politiques. Sur les travaux d’Hercule, la chevalerie-militaire, & la découverte du nouveau monde, &c (Rotterdam, 1738). 172  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� HMC, Duke of Portland, vol. 10, p. 69, Ingoldsby to Lord Treasurer, 10 July 1711. 173   Briefwisseling tussen Simon van Slingelandt en Sicco van Goslinga, ed. W. A. van Rappard (The Hague, 1978), p. 130, no. 122, Slingelandt to Goslinga (Soesdijck), 14 Oct. 1712; BL, Add. MS 22211, fols 13, 17. 174  ����� HMC, Eighth report: report and appendix pt. 1 (Darlington, 1881), item 40b, credentials for Miremont, employed to negotiate with the ministers and all princes and states at the congress at Utrecht, to better the condition of the French Protestant refugees (9 June 1712).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

150

the Protestant plenipotentiaries and pressing for strong measures to be taken.175 In April 1713 he presented the French plenipotentiaries with a petition, praying King Louis to grant liberty of conscience to the Protestants. His success in this venture can, however, be gauged by the letter he wrote to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, complaining of the ‘injustices of the world’.176 Following this, from the time of the accession of King George II in 1727 until the Marquis’s death in 1732, Miremont led a quiet life in Somerset House as a private member of society, but was always ready to help Huguenot refugees. Never forgotten, with the consolidation of the Hanoverian rule, Miremont’s pension was raised to £1,000 a year.177

VII Schemes for the Huguenots to invade France continued, but became more fanciful. Indeed, it could be said that the idea of invading France passed from the strategically possible into the realm of prophetic vision and fantasy, a fact demonstrated by the bizarre, near-millenarian ideas of the abjured Catholics, the Marquis de Langalerie and the self-styled Comte de Linange.178 These aristocratic chancers of the Age of Reason combined the fashionable ideas of contemporary romance literature with apocalyptic visions when in 1709 Linange advocated a landing on France’s western coast in collusion with an Anglo-Dutch force supported by Huguenots within France. Ultimately he planned to replace Louis XIV with the Duke of Lorraine and (unbelievably) received money from England and the Dutch to do so and even maintained contact with the Duke of Marlborough.179 Linange   De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 13, no. 671, pp. 441–3, Saunière de L’Hermitage to Heinsius (London), 13 June 1712; no. 760, pp. 498–9; Saunière de L’Hermitage to Heinsius (London), 28 June 1712; and vol. 14, pp. 152–3, no. 251, Buquoit to Heinsius (Leiden), 24 Oct. 1712. 176  ����� HMC, Duke of Portland, vol. 10, p. 87, Miremont to Oxford (Utrecht), 31 Jan. 1713. 177  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� To be paid from 29 Sept. 1713 ‘the same being intended by us [King George I] to be in lieu of all and every other pension, allowance or payment whatsoever directed to be made to him in our kingdom of Ireland by any Establishment signed by us in that behalf’: Out Letters (Ireland), vol. 10, p. 338, published in Cal. Treas. Bks, 1713 (London, 1955), vol. 27, pt. 2, p. 395. The £1,000 per annum pension on the Irish Establishment was ratified in 1715 and 1717: Cal. Treas. Bks, 1714–1715 (London, 1957), vol. 29, pt. 2, p. 594 and Cal. Treas. Bks, 1717 (London, 1957), vol. 31, pt. 2, p. 536. However he was already receiving 10 shillings per diem in 1702: ‘List of persons to be pensioned in Ireland, from 24 June 1702’, TNA: PRO, SP Signet Office 15, 41–6, published in CSPD, 1702–3, ed. Mahaffy, vol. 1, p. 228. 178  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Arthur de Boislisle, ‘Les aventures du marquis de Langalerie (1661–1717)’, Revue historique, 23 (1898): 1–42. 179  ����������������������� John T. O’Connor, ‘Une conspiration c������������ chimérique c������������������������ tramée par un “comte “c���������������”��� imaginaire”’, in Yves-Marie Bercé and Elena Fasano Guarini (eds), Complots et conjurations dans 175

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

151

also proposed a landing in Normandy, just as King William and Meinhard von Schomberg had done 17 years before.180 The impostor, Linange, was imprisoned briefly in the Bastille, but escaped and formed his friendship with Langalerie (a genuine Huguenot descendant) in the Netherlands.181 Both the adventurers were converts to visionary Protestantism and for them strategy gave way to pure fancy when they pleaded that Huguenot pastors, guarded by up to 10,000 soldiers should preach the (Protestant) gospel in Catholic lands.182 To this end, Langalerie contacted Heinsius, and drew together a network of Huguenot officers in The Hague and Amsterdam, including prominent men such as Major-General de Lislemarais.183 Langalerie placed no strategic value in the plan, but was driven by zeal for the conversion to the reformed faith of Louis XIV. This he foresaw in dreams, a fact that links him to the visionary prophets of the Camisard wars rather than to the militant Huguenot soldiers-in-exile represented by Miremont. Linange’s flight of fancy from strict military strategy is all the more surprising because he had been a lieutenant-general in the French army.184 Perhaps reflecting the unbelievable plight of the Huguenot refugees, some of them were very willing indeed to further the schemes of the adventurers. Lislemarais gave them 10,000 florins in exchange for the outlandish title of Grand Seneschal of the Theocracy of the Incarnate Word in their new kingdom to be formed in the pirate capital of Madagascar in collusion with the Ottoman Turk. Their ultimate design was to invade Rome itself.185 In one sense at least this plan was credited by the international powers as the Dutch soon moved to arrest Langalerie and Linange, rather than allow them to upset the delicate peace that l’Europe moderne (Rome, 1996), pp. 411–21. 180  ��������������� O’Connor, ‘Une c������������ conspiration c���������� chimérique, pp. 411–21. 181  ������������������c������������������������������������������������� Langalerie was descended from the aunt of Charles de La Motte-Fouqué, Baron de Thonnaiboutonne et de Saint-Saurin (1625–1701), a refugee in Berlin after the Revocation, whose forfeited lands in France passed to his paternal aunts, the Comtesse de Soissons and the Marquise de Langalerie: NA, eerste afdeling, Staten-Generaal, liassen requesten, inv. no. 7583, Charles de La Motte-Fouqué, Baron de Thonnaiboutonne, 29 Nov. 1697. See Carolyn Lougee Chappell, ‘The pains I took to save my/his family: escape accounts by a Huguenot mother and daughter after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes’, FHS, 22/1 (1999): 28. 182  ���������c���c����������������������������c������������������������������� Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Handschriften und Inkunabelsammlung, Vienna: Marquis de Langalerie, Journal chrétien, 6969, fols 108–9; John T. O’Connor, ‘The religious zealot and the charlatan: two French adventurers in early eighteenth-century Amsterdam’, in Jan A.F. de Jongste and Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr. (eds), Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic 1688–1720. Politics, War, and Finance (The Hague, 2002), p. 230. 183  ������������������������������c���������������������������������������� Henri de Bois-Billaud de Montaciel, Chevalier de Lislemarais (d.1722): De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius 1702–1720, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 12, p. 49, no. 72, C.C. van Lintelo to Heinsius, 13 May 1711. 184  ������������������������������������� O’Connor, ‘Religious zealot’, p. 232. 185  ���������� Lamberty, Mémoires, vol. 9, pp. 578–9.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

152

prevailed, following the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession.186 It was Lislemarais (perhaps cherishing this last, admittedly bizarre, ray of hope for the return to France of the exiled Huguenots) who warned them. Even while on the run, Linange found time to encourage another Huguenot, Colonel de Viçouse, to intercede with Heinsius to support one more plan to strike at Louis XIV in the Protestant heartland of the south of France.187 Both the adventurers were arrested and tried in Vienna, where the inconsistent, contradictory nature of their schemes was revealed.188

VIII Under the sponsorship of William III at least three serious, large-scale attempts were contemplated against France in the desperate early years of the 1690s. For King William they offered the possibility of weakening the French king’s forces in Flanders by diverting attention to domestic insurrection, giving respite to William’s hard-pressed army. For the Huguenots that made up the majority of the schemes’ personnel, they offered the hope of re-entering their homeland as part of a victorious army that would force Louis XIV to re-constitute the Edict of Nantes. William thought the invasion plans held little chance of success, yet he was desperate enough (and the Huguenots sufficiently pressing) to venture precious resources on attacking France directly from both the north and south. Just how much William ventured can be seen in the ill-fated attempt on Saint-Malo and Brest. The lack of success here tarnished Meinhard von Schomberg’s reputation and saw a great deal of time and money wasted through a fatal combination of inaction and bad luck. But this was a purely military failure; it relied little, if at all, upon local support from within France. The invasion of Dauphiné and the Cévennes was an entirely different matter as it was exactly the presence of strong local, popular and widespread support which offered the hope of success. The same forces conspired to prevent victory in the south as a combination of inaction, lack of resources and indecision among the allied high-command ensured that little was achieved. The planning of these operations was never the problem as is demonstrated by the elaborate strategic council offered to Schomberg by Brousson and Vivent in 1691, describing the invasion route of the Huguenot regiments in meticulous detail. The undermanned state of Miremont’s dragoons typifies the frustrations that beset the force as a whole with the arrears of the Dutch subsidy merely  ������������������������c�������������� Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiev, Vienna, Turkai, 180, fol. 108, Robert Sutton, English ambassador to Vienna, 27 June 1716; O’Connor, ‘Religious zealot’, p. 235. 187  ������������������������������������� François, Baron de Viçouse (d.1732): De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed. Veenendaal, vol. 17, no. 1175, p. 830, Linange to Heinsius, 19 June 1716; Letter from d’Argenson published in Lamberty, Mémoires, vol. 9, p. 569. 188  ���������������������������������������� O’Connor, ‘Religious zealot’, pp. 235–6. 186

Schomberg, Miremont and Huguenot Invasions of France

153

adding further incentive to deserters and detractors. The Schomberg brothers were apparently happy to follow William’s direction in leading invasion armies into France and they remained popular choices for command among the Huguenot soldiery throughout the 1690s. Just how much confidence the Schombergs had in these plans may be judged by Meinhard’s reluctance to throw himself at the Breton coast. At the same time, Charles was frustrated in Savoy by problems within his alliance force, the arrival of French forces and the pitched battle he was obliged to fight at Marsaglia. While the Schombergs were as keen as all the Huguenots to regain their rights and property in France they remained members of an international ruling class quite removed from the vast majority of refugees. The Marquis de Miremont was a different figure. He seems to have shared with many exiled Huguenots a bitterness unfamiliar to the Schombergs. He was just as grand as them with his royal blood and family connections, but unlike the Schombergs he was destitute except for the little property left to him in England by his uncle, Feversham. His enthusiasm for schemes of invasion of France evidently knew no bounds. The fact that he continued to advocate invasion long after the 1697 Peace of Rijswijk failed to guarantee the Huguenots’ return to France may say something about his grip on reality. Most of those Huguenots keen to invade France in 1692 did not harbour the same desire a decade later though, indeed, the Camisard wars offered the occasion for hope among some of them. There was nothing straightforward or predictable about Huguenot militancy. Huguenots as professional soldiers are typified by Schomberg, while for Huguenots driven by Protestant zeal Miremont is the exemplar. Beyond this divide between professional and zealot, the more radical movement of the Camisards demonstrates the potential for wide-scale, community-based Huguenot action, which itself prompted the prophetic eccentrics like Linange. Hindsight proves the Huguenots were destined to be exiles in a diaspora that would take them as far as Russia and the New World, but the attempts on France in the 1690s demonstrate the lengths to which some of them were prepared to go to alter that fate. In this they were, arguably, the heirs of the sixteenth-century religious warriors, using violence and armed intimidation to affect change in their status in France. The final word might go to one of the chief protagonists, Claude Brousson, who said it was the Revocation itself that had driven otherwise lawabiding and loyal French Protestants to resent their king and want to harm him. Thus it was not a long-term tradition of resistance, but immediate circumstances that encouraged Huguenot refugees to contemplate the invasion of their former homeland in defiance of the King who had mistreated them.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 8

The States General on Religion and War: Manifestos, Policy Documents and Prayer Days in the Dutch Republic, 1672–1713* Donald Haks

It is a commonly held view that during the course of the seventeenth century religion and war gradually became less intertwined with each other. The argument goes that the gap widened between religion and international politics. Memories of recent religious wars in France and Germany would also have made people wary about repeating the same mistakes. Statesmen at the end of the seventeenth century were led by raison d’état in which religious motives were of secondary importance. But how convincing is this argument? Immediately after concluding the Peace of Rijswijk in 1697, William III sighed that he had always feared a religious war. But the outcome of the peace talks in fact left him, he believed, with no choice other than to proceed with the war rather than surrendering anything concerning the Protestant religion. How does the general view on international politics relate to comments such as this made by the Stadholder-king? Andrew Lossky made some shrewd observations in The New Cambridge Modern History about the relationship between religion and war between 1688 and 1720. He argued that statesmen were mainly driven by political considerations and that religion did not play a major role in their decisions. The ProtestantCatholic composition of the alliances against Louis XIV was evidence of this. Yet at the same time, religious politics certainly came into play on occasion, and sometimes could even cut right through existing alliances. Attempts were made to neutralise religious motives precisely because they could flare up and were a potential threat to peace. Sketching the characters of Louis XIV and William III, Lossky illustrated the differences between them. Originally, and in contrast to his later years, Louis XIV did not claim that God had a direct influence upon everyday life. William III, on the other hand, had always considered himself to be very much God’s instrument, working for the Protestant and general good, and directed by God’s divine Providence. Lossky summed this up in a later study as follows:

*

 I am grateful to Theresa Stanton for making the translation into English.   Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, 3rd series, ed. F.J.L. Krämer (3 vols, Leiden, 1907–1909), vol. 2, p. 2 (1697). 

156

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

‘To separate Church and State in seventeenth-century Europe would make the historian liable to the charge of unpardonable anachronism’. Nevertheless, very few people subscribed to this view. Heinz Schilling argued that during the latter years of the period between 1250 and 1750 religion was used as a trump card, primarily for reasons of propaganda, to blame an opponent for waging a religious war. André Corvisier wrote along similar lines, pointing out that religion at the end of the seventeenth century mainly played a role with regard to its power to galvanise people into action. A similarly sceptical view is expounded by Dutch historians. Religion is not mentioned as an important factor in any of the chapters on the wars between the Republic and Louis XIV that feature in both editions of the Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden [General History of the Low Countries]. Rather, political and economic factors play a key role here. Historians such as Pieter Geyl and Ernst Kossmann believed that religious arguments were primarily used opportunistically. Although they would in no way deny the religious integrity of, for example, William III, they suggest rather that he referred to religion primarily for the benefit of his political programme and not as a genuine motive. One exception to this rule was M.A.M. Franken. In contrast to the practical and utilitarian foreign policy pursued by John de Witt, Franken recognised more fundamental and religious motives in William III. However, Franken never got around to elaborating this point further in his study. This chapter will attempt to take the historical discussion about the relationship between religion and war in the Dutch Republic between 1672 and 1713 a few steps further. The objective is to determine whether, and if so, how, and why, the Republic made references to religion in official and public statements as far as the wars against Louis XIV were concerned. It will also explore with the help of a few examples how far these public statements reflect the thoughts and beliefs of   ������������������������������������������������������� Andrew Lossky, ‘International relations in Europe’, in The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 6, J.S. Bromley (ed.), The rise of Great Britain and Russia 1688–1715/25 (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 154–93, esp. 188–92; idem, Louis XIV and the French monarchy (New Brunswick, N.J., 1994), p. viii.   �������c��������� Heinz Schilling, Siedler Geschichte Europa. Die Neue Zeit. Vom Christenheits Europa zum Europa der Staaten, 1250 bis 1750 (Berlin, 1999), pp. 450–52; L. Bély et al., Guerre et paix dans l’Europe du XVIIe siècle (2 vols, Paris, 1991), vol. 2, pp. 367–9.    Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (12 vols, Utrecht and Antwerp, 1949–58), vol. 3, pp. 123–61, pp. 321–61 (J. Kramer) and Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (15 vols, Haarlem, 1977–83), vol. 8, pp. 266–78 (K.H.D. Haley), pp. 279–96 (D.J. Roorda), vol. 9, pp. 15–31 (A.J. Veenendaal Jr). Nor is religion a relevant factor in the five articles published in Simon Groenveld, Maurits Ebben and Raymond Fagel (eds), Tussen Münster & Aken. De Nederlandse Republiek als grote mogendheid (1648–1748) (Maastricht, 2005).   ��������� P. Geyl, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Stam (6 vols, Amsterdam, 1961–62), vol. 3, p. 760; vol. 4, p. 897; E.H. Kossmann, ‘Koning-stadhouder Willem III’, in idem, Vergankelijkheid en continuïteit (Amsterdam, 1995), pp. 87–101.   ���������������� M.A.M. Franken, Coenraad van Beuningen’s politieke en diplomatieke aktiviteiten in de jaren 1667–1684 (Groningen, 1966), pp. 20–21.

The States General on Religion and War

157

leading figures, in other words how far they reflect everyday attitudes. The focus is on the States General. They were responsible for the Republic’s foreign policy. The States General decided on issues such as war and peace, concluded treaties, decided on the allocation of troops and funds, appointed and briefed ambassadors, and informed the public about the Republic’s foreign policy. The States General relied on the provinces to approve their decisions. Once this approval was obtained, the States General embodied the will of the seven provinces of the Republic and therefore of the Republic as a whole. The States General explained their policy in manifestos, internal policy documents and public addresses. It was through these documents that they presented an outline of their policies and made themselves accountable. In this way, the documents fulfilled a role in the political process by presenting a line of argument as well as shaping public opinion. In the political context of the Dutch Republic, reasoning and persuasion were important tools to achieve consensus. This is why we are focusing on these public statements of the States General.

I In his work entitled Krieg und Frieden im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV, the German historian Heinz Duchhardt argues that it was an undisputed rule that a war in the early-modern period had to commence with a formal manifesto in which the war was declared. Public announcements and declarations outlining the grounds on which the war was being waged had to make it clear that the country declaring war had no option open to it other than war itself in order to defend its rights. This ensured that the war was a ‘just war’. Later on, we will examine a few of the war manifestos dating from the period 1672 to 1713. However, I would like to begin by saying a few words about the context and nature of the phenomenon of the war manifesto. The doctrine of the just war goes back a long way. The idea itself can be traced right back to the classical scholars. However, the doctrine was elaborated upon by Christian theologians during the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas laid down three conditions that had to be met for a war to be considered a just war. First of all, the war had to be declared by an appropriate person with the right authority, namely a sovereign ruler. In addition to this, there should be a suitable reason for the war, namely restoring order and balance. And finally, the war should be waged with the right intentions; that is, to restore peace. This last condition was irreconcilable  ��������c�������� Heinz Duchhardt, Krieg und Frieden im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV (Düsseldorf, 1987), p. 20.   ���������������������������������������������������c�������������������������������� An extensive body of literature exists on the subject of the just war. We refer to: Roland H. Bainton, Christian attitudes towards war and peace. A historical survey and critical re-evaluation (London, 1961); James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War, Religious and Secular Concepts 1200–1740 (Princeton, NJ, 1975). 

158

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

with disproportionate damage and cruelty. Hugo de Groot provided the doctrine of the just war with a moral foundation by basing it on natural law. But even he did not clearly outline the criteria that were needed to make a war a just one. For example, could a war waged for religious reasons be considered a ‘just’ war? Grotius did not think so as he believed that religious wars did not spring from nature and could therefore not be justified. It was therefore extremely important to be able to justify a war. Konrad Repgen has studied approximately two hundred war manifestos issued by sovereign rulers from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. One obvious conclusion is that war manifestos were primarily documents to publicly justify a war. A manifesto does not so much clarify, writes Repgen, why ‘Country A’ began a war against ‘Country B’, but expresses what A wishes to make explicitly public concerning its reasons for beginning a war with B. According to Repgen, this justification overshadowed objective arguments, whereby little effort was made to recognise nuances or to respect the facts. In this respect, the manifesto was meant to win hearts and minds. Manifestos were generally published in several different languages as the authors intended them to be read by international audiences. In actual fact, the public also consisted of one’s fellow countrymen. A manifesto could be used in this way to create unity, help people buy into the war, and prepare citizens for the sacrifices that would have to be made. According to Duchhardt, a war manifesto was intended first and foremost for domestic purposes.10 From the two hundred war manifestos that Repgen studied, he distilled a dozen Leitbegriffe or concepts. They represent anchor points as it were for the various arguments in the manifesto and include the following: defending against a universal monarchy, crushing a rebellion, rights of inheritance, balance of power, trading interests, crusades or ‘Türkenkrieg’, preventive measures to ward off an attack, religious grounds, defending subjects against an aggressor, defending ‘liberties’, obligations towards a treaty and reprisals for injustice. This conceptual framework can be useful when examining several Dutch war manifestos. We will be focusing on the declarations of war issued by the States General in 1689 and 1702 and a number of other related documents. On 9 March 1689, the States General declared war on France and published their declaration simultaneously in Dutch, French and German.11 The States General raked up the background details of this new war beginning with the events of 1672 when the King of France, despite the existing treaties, disrupted the tranquillity and peace of the Republic and brought it to the brink of collapse. Courage was not lost in this desperate situation and under the leadership of the Prince of Orange, and trusting that God did not wish to see the state fall for unjust reasons, the Republic defended her Protestant faith, freedom and her beloved nation. After the   �������������������������������������������������������������������������c���� Konrad Repgen, ‘Kriegslegimitationen in Alteuropa. Entwurf ����������������������c���� einer historischen Typologie’, HZ, 241 (1985): 27–49. 10  ��c�������� Duchhardt, Krieg und Frieden, pp. 22–3. 11  ������������������� Knuttel, no. 13092.

The States General on Religion and War

159

needless spillage of blood and acts of cruelty by the French, the Peace of Nijmegen was concluded in 1678. Since then, France had repeatedly violated the peace and wrecked havoc on the Republic’s shipping industry and trade. The King of France went on to persecute his Protestant subjects in a horrible fashion. Dutchmen who had settled in France for business reasons were treated in equally shameful ways, ships were seized and their crews thrown into jail. In November 1688, France declared war on the Republic. To avoid losing her liberty and freedom to practise her religion, and with the cruel persecution of Protestants in France as a horrific example, the Republic had to take up arms and defend herself. If one compares this manifesto with the motives listed by Repgen, one can say that the States General were taking up arms against the violation of agreements and an external aggressor, and were defending their freedom, religion and trading interests. This was not the first time the States General referred to the threat that was hanging over the Protestant church. On 28 October 1688, they published a resolution explaining why they had decided to supply William III with men and ships to support his venture to England.12 This resolution is an interesting piece of work. Without contradicting William’s famous Declaration which had been used by William to justify his voyage to England, the States General stuck to their own line of argument. They largely kept quiet about the English liberties that William announced he would defend and did not utter a word about the suspected fraud surrounding the birth of James II’s son. The States General decreed that the kings of France and England were intent on destroying the United Provinces and stamping out the Protestant faith in both England and the Republic. It was for the sake of the liberty and religion of the Republic that they had decided to back William III. On 29 September 1688, in the States of Holland and just over a week later on 8 October in the States General, the policy of the States General was decided upon in the presence of the Prince.13 On this occasion, references were made to the ‘dangerous predicament’ in which the Protestant religion found itself, solidarity with Protestants elsewhere, and the vital need to protect the Protestant religion against the threat posed by France and England. The manifesto issued by the States General on 8 May 1702 was more detailed than the one issued in March 1689.14 Once again, no holds were barred with regard to describing the events leading up to it. Emotional references were made to the Eighty Years War in which huge sacrifices had been made to gain freedom and establish the Protestant religion. The Republic remembered these sacrifices when in 1672 and 1688 France had tried to occupy and destroy the Republic. This plot 12

 ������������������� Knuttel, no. 12785.  ������c�����������������������������������������������������c���������������������� NA, Archief Staten van Holland, 3.01.04.01, inv. no. 303; Archief Staten Generaal, 1.01.03, inv. No. 4592. An edition in Kronijk van het Historisch Genootschap, 14 (1858), pp. 135–42. 14  ��������������� War manifestos concerning c��c��������������������������������cc���������������������� the War of the Spanish Succession were published recently in Duchhardt, Krieg und Frieden, pp. 35–46. Dutch versions in Knuttel, nos 14760, 14766, 14769. 13

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

160

was included in the 1702 manifesto under the term ‘universal monarchy’. From the end of the 1660s it became an international trend to accuse Louis XIV of aiming for a ‘universal monarchy’ and even a ‘universal religion’.15 In the 1702 manifesto, the States General vehemently stressed the fact that Louis XIV had repeatedly broken treaties, both with regard to the Peace of Rijswijk of 1697 as well as the (second) Partition Treaty concluded between William III and Louis XIV in 1700. By accepting the last will and testament of the deceased Spanish king Carlos II, the French king showed himself to be a usurper. A union between the French and Spanish crowns would bring the whole of Europe under the French yoke. The Republic’s very existence would come under threat: the barrier of the Spanish Netherlands had been lost, the events of 1672 could be repeated, and trade had been damaged: this is why the state had to take up arms and protect its subjects, freedom and religion. Prior to publishing this manifesto, the States General had issued a different public statement – quite a remarkable one.16 The reason behind this statement was the death in Kensington of the Stadhouder-king on 19 March of that same year. On 23 March the States General learned of his demise. They immediately decided to issue a public statement. Two days later they approved a draft that had been hastily prepared by the States of Holland. This was circulated and, during the course of the following ten days, each of the other provinces gave its approval.17 In this public statement, the States General made it known that the provinces were united in their commitment to protect their union and the nation. These were dangerous times, the state was bereft of its leader and the alliance with the foreign sovereigns now lacked the credibility and authority that William III had given it. This is why the States General declared that they were united in a cooperative line of defence to safeguard freedom and the practice of the true reformed religion. They also announced that they would unconditionally uphold the alliances that had been formed with foreign rulers. They would do everything required of honest, resolute regents and allies to defend the Republic, the freedom of its citizens and their right to practise their chosen religion. By referring to their loyalty to the alliances that had been formed, the States General not only tried to reassure their foreign friends, but placed the imminent war in an international context because they realised that the freedom of all Europe and the very survival of Protestantism in general – ‘het gantsche Protestantsche wesen’ – was at stake.

 �����������c��� Franz Bosbach, Monarchia Universalis. Ein politischer Leitbegriff der frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen, 1988). 16   Verklaringen van de respective Provincien gedaen ter Vergaderinge van haer Hoogh Mog., tot onderhoudinge van Eendracht, tot beschermingen van den Staet, ende tot handthavinge van de Gemeene sake (Knuttel, no. 14748). 17  ��c������c��������������������������������������������������������������������� Reconstruction through the resolutions of the States of Holland and the States General. 15

The States General on Religion and War

161

II Wars cost money. Because war and peace in the United Provinces was an issue that concerned all the provinces, they bore joint responsibility for financing any wars. The States General drew up the budget that was required to go to war. The provinces had to unanimously approve of all the expenditures. In this way, the provinces played a crucial role. During William III’s reign he had exercised a great deal of influence over the decision-making process in his capacity as stadhouder. However, after his death in 1702, the seat of power in the Republic switched to the States of Holland and their Grand Pensionary. For instance, in January 1703 Grand Pensionary Heinsius put pressure upon the States General by entering their meeting with the full complement of the States of Holland and insisting that the proposed war budget be agreed upon quickly. The essence of his argument was that the Republic had to wage wars to protect the nation’s freedom and the Protestant faith.18 Indeed, the wars waged against Louis XIV exhausted the United Provinces.19 The state just about managed to keep its head above water by raising taxes and taking out loans. It was therefore vital to achieve consensus among the provinces. The Generale Petitie was the pivotal document in this decision-making process.20 It was issued each year. It began with a general political statement. Details about the Republic’s financial situation were given because finances, as was stated in the Generale Petitie of 1698, were ‘the soul of the entire work’. The extent to which the provinces honoured their financial obligations was also discussed. Being in arrears with payments was a recurring situation during the wars against Louis XIV, and the Republic relied on Holland’s capacity to bear the burden. Successive petitions reminded the provinces of what they owed. Seemingly, it could not be taken for granted that a province would accept the Generale Petitie unconditionally without first discussing it or raising objections, and it was not unusual for a province to block it altogether. The line of argument used in the Generale Petitie was therefore very important and was geared towards 18  �������������� Jan Wagenaar, Vaderlandsche Historie (21 vols, Amsterdam, 1790–96), vol. 17, pp. 177–80. 19  ������������c���������������������c��������������������������������������������� Wantje Fritschy, ‘The Poor, the Rich, and the Taxes in Heinsius’ Times’, in Jan A.F. de Jongste and Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr. (eds), Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic 1688–1720. Politics, War, and Finance (The Hague, 2002), pp. 242–59; J. Aalbers, ‘Holland’s Financial Problems (1713–1733) and the Wars against Louis XIV’, in A.C. Duke and C.A. Tamse (eds), Britain and the Netherlands, vol. 6 (War and Society) (The Hague, 1977), pp. 79–93. 20  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� A.Th. van Deursen, ‘Staatsinstellingen in de Noordelijke Nederlanden 1579–1780’, in Blok, Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, vol. 5, pp. 369–71; idem, ‘De Raad van State onder de Republiek van 1588–1795’, in Raad van State. 450 jaar (The Hague, 1981), pp. 77–85; P.W. van Wissing. ‘De Staten van Oorlog te Lande en de Generale Petities, 1576–1795’, in Broncommentaren X–XII (The Hague, 1990), pp. 45–64.

162

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

convincing the provinces that it was essential to continue the war and accept all its military and financial burdens. In keeping with the importance of this document, responsibility for preparing the Generale Petitie lay at the highest level. The Generale Petitie was drafted by the Treasurer, one of the highest officials in the Republic21 and was forwarded to the Council of State before it was decided upon by the States General. It was then submitted to the provinces for their approval, and the discussion shifted to the different state assemblies. The fact that the Generale Petitie was prepared at the highest official level and that decisions about it were made at the highest government level underscores the importance of this document. From a general point of view, the 41 petitions issued between 1672 and 1713 are all very similar.22 They also use the same type of arguments that appeared in the declarations of war to justify the wars, namely: defending the Republic against an external aggressor, the impending threat of a universal monarchy; economic interests, particularly those concerning the Republic’s trade; and protecting the Protestant religion. The Republic, it was stated, was being challenged by a dangerous and tenacious enemy and all that it had built up in the past, including its accumulated wealth, was under threat. Of course, there were differences over the years, especially in the Generale Petities that were issued between 1706 and 1713, in which Treasurer Jacob Hop was not exactly short of arguments. In scores of pages he focused on a series of factors that would determine the outcome of the war: the nation’s key sources of income; the government of countries; the cultural identity of the people; lessons learned from history; international politics and the military situation at the time; the psychology of war; and finally the role played by religion in the wars that were being waged. Hop made a distinction between the natural resources of France and the artificial resources of the Republic. France had a larger population, a favourable climate, fertile ground, access to a lot of trade and industry, and better access to the profitable trade routes to North and South America. The Dutch Republic on the other hand, so it was argued, was dependent upon trade and peaceful relations with countless countries. It was therefore vulnerable and nowhere was this difference in natural power more acutely highlighted than in the fact that, time after time, France quickly recovered from seemingly heavy defeats. Remarkably for an official document of a republic, it contained words of admiration for a monarchical government. The French king could make decisions swiftly and execute them 21  ��������������� J.Th. de Smidt et al. ������� (eds), Van tresorier tot thesaurier-generaal. Zes ����������� eeuwen financieel beleid in handen van een hoge Nederlandse ambtsdrager (Hilversum, 1996), esp. chs 3–6. Concerning the authorship of the general petitions: W.A. van Rappard, ‘Welke generale petitiën schreef Simon van Slingelandt’, Nederlands Archievenblad, 73 (1969): 30–40. 22  ������c���������������������������������������������������c����������������� NA, Archief Staten Generaal, 1.01.05, inv. no. 8080–8154 (contains both the ordinaris as well as the extraordinaris petitions. The political views are included in the ordinaris petition).

The States General on Religion and War

163

instantly. In contrast to this efficiency, the Republic and the Grand Alliance were weighed down by their laborious decision-making processes. The author of these petitions pointed out a similar difference in the character of the French and the Dutch: the former were restless and bellicose, the latter slow and carefree. Proof of this could be seen throughout history. For example, the fact that the French king was bent on annexing the Spanish Low Countries as far back as the time of Richelieu; the invasion in 1672; the taking in 1702 of the barrier by surprise within only ‘one hour’, and the subsequent occupation of the Spanish Low Countries held just as many warnings. The reader was told repeatedly that history had proved that victories on the battlefield were rarely decisive and were often counteracted by disasters elsewhere. This outcome was also attributed to a psychological factor: good fortune often led to complacency. History again appeared to offer some useful lessons: the forefathers had never given in to despair during their struggle for freedom, not even in 1672, and had always implemented strong policies. How much space was there for a religious component in such an analysis? In 19 of the 41 general petitions issued during the years 1672 to 1713 the States General made an explicit link between religion and war, in 17 others God’s benevolence towards the Republic was underlined and in five of the petitions religion was not mentioned at all. These last five were compiled during years of relative tranquillity, between the Nine Years War and the War of Spanish Succession. The link between religion and war was expressed in three different ways. Firstly, war was interpreted in terms of protecting the Protestant religion. This was more than just a rallying cry. It is interesting that in the petition drawn up in January 1672 when the French invasion was indeed imminent but not yet a fact, only the argument for protecting the state and fatherland was mentioned. In the petition that followed a year later, when the French had already occupied the eastern part of the Republic and Utrecht cathedral had resurrected its former Catholic glory with a mass, protecting liberty and protecting religion were both mentioned. Secondly, the difference in religion between France and the Republic as such was viewed as a problem. France strove for a universal monarchy and the expansion of the Catholic faith and therefore aimed to subjugate the Republic. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 a third argument was added. The French king allowed his Protestant subjects to be cruelly persecuted and the petition of 1690 also referred to the destruction of the Palatinate in 1688–89, which was held up as proof that the French were out to destroy Protestantism. When reading through the Generale Petities one can detect a general political analysis intended to convince the provinces of the Dutch Republic to faithfully submit their financial contributions. Naturally, this analysis was anything but ‘objective’. The information provided was usually selective and the arguments suggestive. The petitions expressed the view of the States General. This is apparent not only when they referred to the intentions of France which were always presented in a negative light. The reader was kept in the dark about how the negotiations in 1709 and 1710 had progressed and in particular about the role of the allies. The discussions were dismissed as a ploy by the French who were

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

164

trying to drive a wedge between the allies. Not one word was mentioned about the break-up of the alliance between the two Maritime Powers from the end of 1710. But we can indeed conclude that, as far as the States General were concerned, religion was one of a series of factors that determined the cause and effect of the wars against France. The religious differences between France and the Republic represented a source of conflict, and protecting the Protestant faith was viewed as an important objective of the struggle.

III There is scarcely any more fitting evidence to hand to demonstrate the link between church and state, and between religion and war, in the second half of the seventeenth century than the ecclesiastical rites that were dedicated to war and peace. Catholics held a procession or said mass. Protestants had their prayer days. Both of them had one thing in common, namely that they commemorated or celebrated events on the battlefield or at the negotiating table in a religious context. Michèle Fogel has shown how, in seventeenth-century France, the Te Deum laudamus was the main instrument used to involve the people in the war effort.23 Protestant England witnessed a sharp increase in the number of prayer days during the reign of William and Mary. They were part of what Tony Claydon called the ‘godly revolution’; all religious activities that were implemented after 1689 were meant to legitimise William III’s regime.24 Prayer days were also held in the United Provinces.25 They took place soon after the early days of the Dutch Revolt in 1572, originally proclaimed by the stadhouder or the assembly of the States, and from 1584 by the States General. Successive synods discussed the purpose of the prayer day and the form it should take. Finally, a rule was laid down by the national synods of Middelburg in 1581 and later Dordrecht in 1618–19: in times of war, plague, rising prices, intense religious persecution and other general disasters, the church would request the government to use its authority to order the proclamation of public prayer days. Good fortune and joy also could prompt the proclamation of prayer days. The most frequent reasons were military or naval victories and the conclusion of a peace treaty. Prayer days therefore came in different guises: as days of fasting during which supplications for help were directed towards God and penance carried out to atone for past sins or as a day of thanksgiving for all the support received and

 ��c������������ Michèle Fogel, Les cérémonies de l’information dans la France du XVIe au milieu du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1989), pp. 189–245. 24  ��������� Claydon, Revolution. 25  ����������� N.C. Kist, Neerland’s bededagen en biddagsbrieven (2 vols, Leiden, 1848–49). Vol. 1 is a monograph. Vol. 2 contains the letters that were issued from 1572 to 1795. Vol. 2 is fundamental, but lacks accuracy. 23

The States General on Religion and War

165

favours granted. In both cases, it was the public service in the Protestant church that brought people together in a communal prayer to God. Prayer days were proclaimed on special occasions. This is why they did not take place on set days of the year, at least not until 1713. The unusual nature of the prayer day is also highlighted by the fact that the prayer day never fell on a Sunday, but rather on a weekday; usually a Wednesday. The sobriety of the prayer day was emphasised by placing restrictions on the behaviour of the faithful on the day in question. They had to abstain from food and drink, curtail their usual activities, and visiting inns and playing games were strictly off limits. However, things were less rigid in practice. The main intention was that the prayer day should be entered into in a ‘Christian spirit’. How did a prayer day come into being? The States General proclaimed a prayer day upon the recommendation of one of the States assemblies. As soon as a date was selected, the wheels of a well-oiled machine sprang into action. The States General sent a letter to each province informing them of their decision. The provinces in turn informed the towns and rural areas of the announcement, which was often printed. The interval between the decision being made by the States General and the actual prayer day was never more than two to three weeks. During this brief interlude, the authorities, the church, clergymen and the church congregations were all informed about the impending event, allowing people to prepare for it throughout the entire Republic. The number of prayer days proclaimed by the States General between 1672 and 1713 was 64; an average of 1.5 per year.26 This was lower than the average during the Eighty Years War, but more than in the eighteenth century. The prayer days were not evenly distributed over these years. The following table shows that the number of prayer days rose significantly during the war years compared to the years of peace. Prayer days 1672–1713 1672–78 (Dutch War) 11 1679–87 (peace) 7 1688–97 (Nine Years War) 18 1698–1701 (peace) 3 1702–13 (War of the Spanish Succession) 25 Some of the war years were peak years, such as 1675 with no fewer than four prayer days and 1706 with three. Both years gave cause for celebration: 1675 for averting danger following the retreat of the French army from Dutch soil, 1706 for the great triumphs in the Southern Netherlands, Northern Italy and Spain. However, during the peace years of 1679 and 1698, both of which followed the 26  ������������������������������������������������c�������������c������������ Ibid., vol. 2. The prayer day of 1 Feb. 1673 which was held because of the c�������� conquest of Coevorden is missing from the list.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

166

conclusion of a peace agreement, the States General refrained from proclaiming a prayer day altogether. According to N.C. Kist’s study on prayer days, the States General had a tendency to proclaim prayer days to celebrate successes rather than misfortunes.27 The numbers support this thesis. However, one can also interpret the tendency in a different way. The total number of fasting days for the period amounts to 12, the number of thanksgiving days 18, and the number of combination days 34. It would certainly be against the very nature of the prayer day to ignore defeats and indeed defeats were fully covered. In 1690 a prayer day that had already been announced was cancelled following defeats at Fleurus and Beachy Head. The original optimistic-sounding letter proclaiming the prayer day was hastily altered and the new letter acquired a sombre tone. The element of reflection and praying to God becomes even stronger if one observes that alongside the special prayer days the States General sometimes announced periods of weekly or monthly national prayers. Such periods of special prayers occurred during times of heightened and prolonged anxiety such as the spring of 1672. Therefore, it was certainly not the case that the States General announced prayer days only to celebrate a festive occasion; they were just as likely to hold prayer days to bring people together to help them get through difficult times. The letter issued by the States General to announce a prayer day consisted of a description of the actual circumstances of war, the objectives of the war, and a call to request God’s assistance. From the government’s point of view it was very important to spell out the objective of the war effort. The goal was defined in the following terms: freedom, religion and fatherland. Freedom had been won at a high price and had to be preserved. This indicated that the Republic felt that its freedom and independence were under threat, and, using the reference to the earlier struggle, a plea was made to the nation’s common past to justify the battle against France. Religion, usually referred to as the true or reformed religion, had to be protected and its growth encouraged both to avoid the threat from outside as well as to show solidarity with Protestants outside the Republic. The States General referred to the fatherland in two different ways in these public letters: to itself, but also in direct association with freedom and religion. Freedom, religion and fatherland together summed up the attributes of the state that had to be protected. The political message of the States General was that the Republic was fighting for a just cause. The enemy was preparing for war, amassing troops on the borders, or had already entered into battle. The enemy was powerful, devious and tyrannical. The state was therefore forced to act in the legal defence of the nation. The recent developments of the war were often clearly described in the prayer-day announcements. That was logical because the prayer day was in fact proclaimed as a direct response to recent events. Given that there was a period of at least several weeks and sometimes months between the actual event and the prayer day, the news was not really up-to-date. But repeating the information certainly served 27

 ���������������������� Ibid., vol. 1, p. 162.

The States General on Religion and War

167

a purpose in that it explained the dangers being faced by the Republic and the actions that had to be taken. It explained policy. The prayer-day announcements also carried a religious message. Different letters spoke of the wrath of God which had been unleashed as a fitting punishment for the rise in the number of sins being committed throughout the country. The thwarted peace talks of 1709, for example, were viewed in this light. Only by acknowledging the will of God and through humility, contrition and prayer could one hope for His blessing. In fact, it was impossible to stand up to the enemy without God’s assistance. Depending on the circumstances, these announcements varied in tone and could be sombre, cautionary, joyful, or rousing. The hand of God was visible throughout the course of history. That was the essence of the religious message: a belief in Providence and the need to defend the true, reformed religion. In addition, the States General also looked beyond the borders of their own Republic. Between 1681 and 1689 the States General repeatedly tried to draw attention to the plight of oppressed Protestants abroad. They called for prayers to soften the hearts of the foreign sovereign rulers. Generally speaking, one can say that the States General definitely sharpened their tone during this particular period of renewed religious persecution. A harsher tone towards France and solidarity with fellow-Protestants who were being persecuted went hand-in-hand here.28 One can therefore ask how far one can discern a thread of continuity running through the prayer days proclaimed by the States General over the course of time. Were the passages, particularly those on protecting and promoting the Protestant religion, part of a long tradition or were they something new? It would seem that both counts are true. In general, from the first prayer day at the end of the sixteenth century, protecting freedom and the Protestant religion – the ‘pillar of this nation’ as it was called in 1628 – were the main themes, albeit in their own context and also with differences in the choice of words. But during the period of the Eighty Years War, protecting the Protestant religion was a more obvious theme than in the decades that followed. England posed a greater threat at the time which saddened the States General because – as stated in 1665 – England, ‘was confirmed in the same Protestant Religion’. They repeated this point of view in response to the war waged by the English king, Charles II, against the Republic in 1672. They wrote that nothing would give them greater joy than to see ‘us united once again with a Nation, bound by the holy ties of the same religion’.29 One can therefore conclude that defending the Protestant religion was a constant source of worry for the States General. The struggle against the Catholic, French foe only served to sharpen this attitude.

28

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For solidarity with fellow Protestants in the prayer-day letters, see ibid., vol. 1, pp. 333–8. 29   Antwoort of contra-manifest van de Staten Generael der Vereenigde Nederlandsche Provintien op de Declaratie van Oorlogh des Konings van Groot-Britannien (The Hague, 1673) (Knuttel, no. 10845).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

168

The letter of the States General was merely an announcement. It was followed, of course, by the prayer day itself. Then it was the clergy’s turn to speak. Using the letter issued by the States General as their departure point, they focused their sermon on the circumstances in which the country found itself and placed these in a moral and religious context.30 In the words of Joris van Eijnatten, the prayer day became ‘a primary medium through which both the magistrate and the preacher affirmed and reaffirmed communal standards, aims and values’.31 The prayer day was an extremely important instrument for the States General. Indeed, the people could be addressed en masse. The States General exploited this opportunity to the full. They did this by emphasising the righteousness of the war and the objectives of the state and then placing them in a religious context.

IV So far we have seen that the States General placed the wars against Louis XIV in the context of a battle to protect freedom and religion or, in other words, for the independence of the Republic and the protection of the Protestant religion. How do the statements made by the States General correspond with a number of general ideas in the Republic? Concepts such as freedom, religion and fatherland have been the subject of renewed research. In his analysis of the concept ‘fatherland’ in pamphlets published between 1600 and 1750, Guido de Bruin speaks about the unbreakable trinity of the concepts fatherland, freedom and Protestant religion.32 It was only when they were united in this way that they meant something in the Dutch context. Freedom and the Protestant religion were interdependent. After all, after the Dutch Revolt, freedom meant the establishment of the Protestant religion as the dominant religion while the Protestant religion could not be maintained if freedom were to be lost. The concept of fatherland did not have any meaning at all, according to De Bruin, without its roots in the independence of the state and the Protestant religion. These concepts, however, underwent a process of change.33 The Dutch Revolt was begun to preserve ‘liberties’, the old privileges and customs that the towns 30

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� See for the sermons, D. Haks, ‘Propaganda from the pulpit?’, in De Jongste and Veenendaal, Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic, pp. 89–115. 31  ��������������������� Joris van Eijnatten, God, Nederland en Oranje. Dutch Calvinism and the search for the social centre (Amsterdam, 1993), p. 39. 32  ������������������������� G. de Bruin, ‘Het begrip “vaderland” ����������������������������������������������������� in de pamfletliteratuur ten tijde van de Republiek, 1600–1750’, in N.C.F. van Sas (ed.), Vaderland. Een geschiedenis van de vijftiende eeuw tot 1940 (Amsterdam, 1999), p. 146. 33  ������������������������������������������������������������� Martin van Gelderen, ‘De Nederlandse Opstand (1555–1610) van “vrijheden” “����������� naar “oude vrijheid” en de “vrijheid der consciëntien”’, in E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier and W.R.E. Velema (eds), Vrijheid. Een geschiedenis van de vijftiende tot de twintigste eeuw (Amsterdam, 1999), pp. 27–53.

The States General on Religion and War

169

and provincial bodies were trying to maintain. The concept of freedom also contained the more general notion of ‘inherent freedom’ and resistance to tyranny. The States General availed themselves of the latter interpretation in 1581 when they renounced Philip II in the Acte van Verlatinge (Act of Abjuration). During the course of the seventeenth century, as the new nation gradually began to take shape, the concept of freedom increasingly became associated with the new nation’s independence, i.e. sovereignty. But other meanings continued to survive or emerged for the first time. Freedom was worked out as a political-theoretical concept and caught on as the motto and political creed of John de Witt’s party.34 The States General repeatedly made references to the concept of freedom between 1672 and 1713. They associated freedom with the freedom to decide, for example on legislation and, of course, on the choice of religion. In general, they meant that freedom was synonymous with the independence and sovereignty of the state. During the Dutch Revolt, the concept of freedom quickly came to include freedom of conscience.35 In article 13 of the Union of Utrecht (1579) this principle was laid down as the cornerstone of the new nation with the conclusion that everyone would be free to pursue his or her own religious beliefs and that no one should be persecuted on the grounds of religion. But opinion differed about the religious content of the concept of freedom. The libertines interpreted this as unconditional freedom of expression and freedom to practice one’s religion. While the Calvinist interpretation at the other end of the spectrum interpreted freedom to mean freedom for the Protestant church and that people would be bound to the Protestant teachings. As is well known, this difference in opinion was resolved by the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618–19 and absorbed into the policy of the States General. The Protestant church became the dominant church of the people and the nation. After the Eighty Years War ended, the States General confirmed once again during the Great Assembly of 1651 that the Protestant church should be protected by the authorities and that it represented the foundation of the United Provinces.36 In concordance with this, between 1672 and 1713 the States General understood the concept of ‘religion’ to mean the Protestant faith. They defended it against the threat from Louis XIV and emphasised the link between the wars that the French king had subjected them to and the defence of the Protestant faith. In this way, freedom and the Protestant religion were two facets, or characteristics, of the Dutch nation. On the other hand, the concept of ‘fatherland’ within the Dutch context has proved rather elusive and hard to define. Sometimes the meaning is restricted to a local or regional association, sometimes it relates to the entire country. The term ‘fatherland’ can be traced back to the Middle Ages to mean the inhabitants of the country, the supposed characteristics of these inhabitants, 34  �������� See the contributions c������������������������������������������������������������������ of Hans W. Blom and G.O. van de Klashorst to Haitsma Mulier and Velema, Vrijheid. 35  ����������������������������������������������� Van Gelderen, ‘Nederlandse Opstand’, pp. 42–50. 36  ��������������� S. Groenveld. ‘Unie, religie en militie. Binnenlandse verhoudingen in de Nederlandse Republiek voor en na de Munsterse vrede’, ZE, 13 (1997): 67–87.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

170

their common history, or patriotic resistance to an external enemy and aggressor.37 As we have seen, the States General frequently used the concept of ‘fatherland’ between 1672 and 1713. They too were not always clear in their definition of this term, but seem to have meant the character of the nation in particular, the cultural features, that were expressed in aspects of freedom and the Protestant religion, and in the ‘love’ for the fatherland. The concept of fatherland in this vision has all the properties of an umbrella term. Various authors have stated that it was actually during the wars against France that its meaning increased in significance.38 Alongside the concepts, there are personal thoughts and beliefs. In this respect, we are especially interested in the political leaders. After all, they were part of the political scene to which the States General belonged. A study into the more personal side of politics would benefit greatly from having access to private documents such as journals and letters, such as we have for Ralph Josselin, Nehemiah Wallington and Pierre Ignace Chavatte.39 Hardly any journals or autobiographies are known to exist of the Republic’s political leaders from this period, such as the stadhouder, the grand pensionary and the ambassadors. On the other hand, they did write numerous letters to each other which can be divided into different categories. Official correspondence was read aloud at the meetings of the States General, but there were also private letters intended exclusively for the eyes of the recipient in which the author was able to express his innermost thoughts more freely. The letters between, for example, the stadhouder and the grand pensionary or the ambassador and the grand pensionary facilitated, in contrast to the more formal type of letter, the exchange of more private thoughts. Remarks similar to many of the official statements made by the States General can be found in a short letter, sent by the still youthful Stadhouder of Friesland, Henry Casimir II van Nassau-Dietz in June 1672, to the States of Friesland when the situation in the Republic was at its worst. The citizens’ wealth, the freedom the forefathers had fought so hard to win and – above everything else – the true reformed religion were all in the gravest danger. He therefore offered his help out of the innate love he bore for his fatherland.40 The Prince, who was only 15 years old, had obviously written his letter in a style that would appeal to the recipient. 37

 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Karin Tilmans, ‘De ontwikkeling van het vaderland-begrip in de laat-middeleeuwse en vroeg-moderne geschiedschrijving van de Nederlanden’, in Van Sas, Vaderland, pp. 7–53. 38  �����������������������������������������������������c����������������������������� Peter van Rooden, ‘Godsdienst en nationalisme in de achttiende eeuw: het voorbeeld van de Republiek’, in Van Sas, Vaderland, pp. 201–36; Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined. Changing perceptions of national identity in the rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish public churches, 1685–1722 (Leiden and Boston, 2005), pp. 412–15. 39  �����c��������� A. Macfarlane, The family life of Ralph Josselin, a seventeenth century clergyman (Cambridge, 1970); P.S. Seaver, Wallington’s world. A Puritan artisan in seventeenth century London (London, 1985); A. Lottin, Chavatte, ouvrier Lillois. Un contemporain de Louis XIV (Paris, 1979). 40   Archives, 2nd series, vol. 5, ed. G. Groen van Prinsterer, p. 249 (1672).

The States General on Religion and War

171

This can be considered as a sign that he was expressing popular sentiments. We find similar expressions in less stylised letters. In this way, Grand Pensionary Anthonie Heinsius repeatedly linked the general interests of the Republic with the interests of the Protestant faith. The survival of the fatherland could not be separated from the practice of the Protestant religion and destroying the enemy was a means to achieve this goal. In his private correspondence, Heinsius used exactly the same expressions and turns of phrase used by the States General in their manifestos. In a missive to Amsterdam pensionary William Buys in 1708, he wrote that the future peace would ‘make freedom, religion and the well-being of this country sustainable not just for us, but for all the generations that follow’.41 This Protestant attitude fuelled both anti-papal sentiments and a feeling of solidarity with fellow-Protestants outside the Republic. One view at the time was that one could not expect anything good to come from Catholics. Heinsius was of the opinion that Catholic sovereigns undermined the Peace of Rijswijk because, contrary to the terms laid out in the peace agreement, they did not wish to take action against ‘papal excesses’ in Protestant areas. They wriggled out of any criticisms that were made of such excesses, while approving the persecution of the Protestants. When the Allies took over the Southern Netherlands in 1706 and an administration was set up in which citizens from the Southern Netherlands would take part, Heinsius was worried that people who stood on the ‘side of the Jesuits’ would come into the government and would therefore work against the Dutch and English administrations.42 Even so, anti-papal sentiments rarely bubbled to the surface in these letters. This informal exchange of letters provides much more evidence of the solidarity that was felt with the Protestants who were being persecuted in France, Italy, Silesia and Hungary. The persecution of the Protestants was written about with intense indignation. One of the most powerful authors in this respect was Jacob Surendonck, advisor to Heinsius. He did not tire of encouraging his master to link political and religious objectives. He was convinced that any failure to support fellow-Protestants abroad would be punished by God.43 With this we touch upon the question of to what extent the political leaders of the Republic believed that Providence had a defining role, as can be seen in the statements of the States General. There are three types of references to God   Archives, 3rd series, ed. Krämer, vol. 1, pp. 97, 121–2 (1690); De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius 1702–1720, ed. A.J. Veenendaal Jr. (19 vols, RGP, The Hague, 1976–2001), vol. 7, p. 385 (1708). Cf. Archives, 3rd series, ed. Krämer, vol. 1, pp. 77–8 (1690) where Heinsius wishes William III good health ‘ten dienste van de gemeene saeke en de protestantse religie’ and De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed., Veenendaal, vol. 14, p. 580 (1713): ‘pour le bien de la commune et de la religion protestante’. 42   Archives, 3rd series, ed. Krämer, vol. 2, p. 245 (1698); De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed., Veenendaal, vol. 5, p. 366 (1706). 43   Archives, 3rd series, ed. Krämer, vol. 1, p. 36 (1689); De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed., Veenendaal, vol. 1, p. 281 (1702); vol. 7, pp. 1–2, 53 (1708). 41

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

172

in the letters exchanged by the Dutch: first of all, the letters in which God was petitioned for help during times of adversity; then there was the view that God was on the side of the Republic, based on the favourable outcome of the conflict; and finally the letters in which defeat was explained as God’s will. The elderly Field Marshall Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, who defended the territory that lay to the southeast of Amsterdam in 1672, called upon God’s help in almost every letter he sent from his perilous position. When spectacular events took place, such as the successful military campaign of 1688, and the victories during the War of the Spanish Succession, it was widely assumed that God had intervened and that His hand was clearly visible.44 It is true that defeats and failed negotiations were less likely to be attributed to God’s divine intervention in personal correspondence than was the case with the prayer-day announcements compiled by the States General. Yet there was an awareness that God sometimes made things difficult for the Republic and on a number of occasions defeats were attributed to God’s will.45 In 1701, Heinsius wrote to William III that as long as one does what one can, the rest can be left to Providence.46 In other words, the fate of the nation ultimately lay in God’s hands. There are countless more examples of such remarks. What do they tell us? For one, the public statements of the States General and the private comments made by a few political leaders were very much on the same line. In this respect, there were seemingly few inconsistencies with the sentiments that were expressed in private compared to those aired in public. However, this does not mean that the political leaders of 1672, 1688 and 1702 allowed their actions to be dictated by religion. While there was most certainly a link between their personal convictions and their deeds, it is nevertheless difficult to determine how far this went and what form it took. Suffice it to say, between 1672 and 1713 religion and war were intertwined in the personal beliefs and consciousness of those who occupied the highest political office.

 ����������������������� For Nassau-Siegen, see Archives, 2nd series, ed. Groen van Prinsterer, vol. 5, passim and particularly p. 296 (1672); Correspondentie van Willem III en van Hans Willem Bentinck, ed. ���������������������������������������������������������������� N. Japikse (5 vols, The Hague, 1927–37), vol. 1, p. 373 (1692); The correspondence 1701–1711 of John Churchill First Duke of Marlborough and Anthonie Heinsius Grand Pensionary of Holland, ed. B. van ’t Hoff (WHG, Utrecht, 1951), p. 366 (1706); De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed., Veenendaal, vol. 6, p. 602 (1706); vol. 7, p. 385 (1708), vol. 8, pp. 47, 111 (1708); vol. 9, p. 523 (1709). 45   Archives, 2nd series, ed. Groen van Prinsterer, vol. 5, p. 364 (1678); 3rd series, ed. Krämer, vol. 1, p. 252 (1692), p. 318 (1693); De Briefwisseling van Anthonie Heinsius, ed., Veenendaal, vol. 6, p. 294 (1707). 46   Archives, 3rd series, ed. Krämer, vol. 1, pp. 475, 487 (1696); vol. 3, p. 358 (1701). 44

The States General on Religion and War

173

V At the beginning of this chapter we posed the question whether, how and why the Dutch Republic made religious references in its official and public documents with regard to the wars against Louis XIV. We focused on the States General as the highest authority of the Republic on issues concerning war and peace. In various publications the States General made an explicit link between protecting the Protestant religion and the wars waged against Louis XIV. They used various arguments to support this. The main reason was the need to defend both the Protestant church and the Protestant religion. The States General wanted to preserve what had taken more than one hundred years to build up in the United Provinces and they defended this objective relentlessly as a reason to wage war. Moreover, church and religion, the States General seemed to imply, expressed the Protestant nature of the Dutch state and nation. That vision illustrated the existential nature that the wars against Louis XIV had acquired in the eyes of the States General. In addition, particularly in the 1680s, the persecution of the Protestants in France was held up as a horrific example to the Republic. These persecutions prompted the States General to make repeated calls for solidarity among their fellow-Protestants. With this came the realisation that an international Protestant community existed – ‘het gantsche Protestantsche wesen’ – which had to be strengthened and expanded, as it were, in order to act as a buffer against the Catholic threat. Thus, the States General repeatedly emphasised the international religious context whenever they published documents justifying their efforts to wage war. It is well known that religion was deeply rooted in views about the birth of the Dutch state. That was apparent in the brief discussion above about the intellectual debate concerning the notions of freedom, religion and fatherland. The fact that these three concepts had been internalised in the convictions and beliefs of contemporaries could be construed from a number of personal testimonies by the political leaders of the Republic. Religion, war and foreign policy between 1672 and 1713 were, in their opinion, all bound up with each other, even though it is difficult to confirm this in more detail. The explanations of the States General and the wording they used seem at first glance to closely resemble what is known as a ‘confessional state’. This entails striving to achieve a religious uniformity within a single territory, in an alliance between church and state during the period that followed the Reformation. This alliance expressed itself in a number of different social areas and through the church drove its message into people’s homes.47 The active role played by the States General in advocating the religious objectives of the war effort, and the  ���������������� R. Po-Cia Hsia, Social discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550–1750 (London and New York, 1989), esp. ch. 4; Heinz Schilling, ‘Confessional Europe’, in Thomas A. Brady Jr., Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy (eds) Handbook of European History 1400–1600. Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, vol. II, (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1995), pp. 641–81. 47

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

174

belligerent Protestant tone it used to do this, seem to point in this direction. However, appearances are deceptive. The Republic was only partially a ‘confessional state’. The government and the political envoys were indeed Protestant, as was their message to the public. The States General proclaimed what it had concluded once again at the Great Assembly of 1651, namely that the Protestant religion was the cornerstone of the United Provinces and as such deserved to be protected. But the States General were also the guardian of article 13 of the Union of Utrecht, which proclaimed freedom of conscience. At the end of the seventeenth century almost 40 per cent of the population in the Republic was Catholic. Of course, the government had to consider them too. What stands out is that the States General expressed itself in strongly Protestant terms at the time but was never anti-Catholic. This position corresponds with Willem Frijhoff’s division of religious practice into three main spheres: a public sphere in which the people’s church proclaimed its message, a private sphere where freedom of conscience could be brought into practice and an intermediate zone where tolerance in day-to-day encounters prevailed.48 But there was more. It was the States General’s duty to protect the Protestant faith. They took this one step further by linking the Protestant faith with the idea of freedom, in the sense of the independence of the state. Religion and freedom can be seen as elements or features of the wider concept of fatherland. Dutch historians have been rather reluctant to apply the concept of fatherland to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They particularly emphasise the variation and the lack of clarity that characterises this concept.49 Statements made by the States General between 1672 and 1713 also make it possible to emphasise unity. The Protestant religion formed a unifying force in the Republic and this is why the States General kept stressing the importance of preserving the Protestant religion in various ways: the formal justifications of war, the arguments to support the soaring financial burdens and the ritual of the prayer day.50 In the concept of the fatherland that was so often used by the States General, freedom and religion come together, as do prosperity and the common past which stood at the cradle of the

48

 ����������������������������������� Willem Frijhoff, ‘Dimensions de la coexistence c��������c�� confessionelle’, c������������������������������� in C. BerkvensStevelinck, J. Israel and G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes (eds), The emergence of tolerance in the Dutch Republic (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1997), pp. 213–37. 49  �������� See the contribution c�������������������������������������� of Van Rooden in Van Sas, Vaderland and by the same author ‘Public orders into moral communities: eighteenth-century fast and thanksgiving day sermons in the Dutch Republic and New England’, in Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (eds), Retribution, repentance and reconciliation (Suffolk and New York, 2004), pp. 218–39. Very stimulating is the British discussion on faith and nationality in Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (eds), Protestantism and national identity. Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850 (Cambridge, 1998). 50  ������������������������� See for the unifying and centralising c����������������������������������� role of the Protestant church, c���c�������������������� Willem Frijhoff, ‘Religious toleration in the United Provinces: from “case” to “model”’, in R. Po-Chia Hsia and Henk van Nierop (eds), Calvinism and religious toleration in the Dutch Golden Age (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 27–53, esp. p. 50.

The States General on Religion and War

175

Dutch Republic. Thus we differ considerably from the opinions of historians like Geyl and Kossmann, who viewed religion merely as a convenient argument to communicate. Nothing is further from the truth. Religion, the Protestant religion, played a crucial role in the defence of the Republic during the years 1672 to 1713 by creating a self-image of national unity, expressed in the concept of the fatherland.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 9

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism: Roger Morrice’s Perception of European Politics in the 1680s* Stephen Taylor

The aim of this chapter is modest: to examine the attitudes of one Englishman to events in Europe during the 1680s, and particularly during the period between the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and the outbreak of war in western Europe in 1689. It cannot even be claimed that my subject, Roger Morrice, played a particularly important part in these events – in contrast to many other individuals discussed in this volume, he exerted no influence whatsoever over the making of foreign policy or the conduct of war. Indeed, his significance for historians lies almost entirely in the fact that he composed his Entring Book, a journal or narrative of public affairs between 1678 and 1691 which extends to almost one million words. This document has been well known to historians of late seventeenth-century politics and religion, and especially nonconformity, since the 1940s, but hitherto no attempt has been made to utilise it to contribute to our understanding of European politics. Perhaps this is not surprising. All of *

 I am grateful to Tim Harris, John Spurr, Lois Schwoerer and Tom Freeman for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. Versions were also read at the conference of the Williamite Universe at Het Loo in January 2005 and at the North American Conference on British Studies in Denver, Colorado, in November 2005. I would like to thank the participants in those events for their suggestions. I owe a particular debt to Mark Goldie, not only for his great kindness in commenting on two drafts of this chapter, but also for introducing me to Roger Morrice and inviting me to participate in the editing of the Entring Book. Some of the research for this paper was completed in 2007 while I was a Visiting Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, and Pforzheimer Fellow at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. I am greatly indebted to both institutions for the offer of these fellowships and for providing the ideal environment for research.    The Entring Book of Roger Morrice, ed. Mark Goldie, John Spurr, Tim Harris, Stephen Taylor, Mark Knights and Jason McElligott (6 vols, Woodbridge, 2007).   ���������������������������������������� A definitive account of Morrice and his Entring Book is now provided by Mark Goldie, The Entring Book of Roger Morrice. I. Roger Morrice and the Puritan Whigs (Woodbridge, 2007). Extensive use has also been made of the manuscript by Douglas R. Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics in England 1661–1689. A Study in the

178

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Morrice’s information about Europe is second-hand, and he is himself a rather shadowy figure. Beyond the Entring Book and his collections on the history of early Puritanism, Morrice has left remarkably little trace in the historical record. Born in 1628, almost certainly the son of a north Staffordshire yeoman farmer, he attended both Oxford and Cambridge, before briefly becoming vicar of Duffield in Derbyshire between 1658 and 1662. He was ejected in 1662, presumably because he would not subscribe to the Act of Uniformity, and thereafter there is no evidence that he preached in any nonconformist conventicle. Instead, for at least part of the next three decades he was chaplain in turn to Denzil, Lord Holles and Sir John Maynard. But there is no evidence of him exercising a ministerial function within the families of these two veteran Presbyterians. Rather, from the late 1670s if not earlier, the evidence suggests that he was employed as ‘“a man of business” – secretary, confidential agent, steward – and not only for his immediate patrons’. We know he acted as an election agent for Lord Paget and Robert Harley, and we also know – from the Entring Book itself – that he gathered and disbursed news. Mark Goldie, in his introduction to the recently published edition of the Entring Book, concludes that ‘it is perhaps appropriate to describe him, in those years [1678–91], as a journalist’. Why, then, does Morrice’s perception of European affairs merit investigation? While it is important not to exaggerate Morrice’s significance, he was nonetheless more than an obscure nonconformist. First, he stands out because of his role as gatherer and recorder of news and information. Morrice was, quite simply, remarkably well informed. The Entring Book contains a mass of news and information about the court, the Church, and London politics, much of which has not survived in other sources. He possessed a range of informants at the very heart of politics in the capital, though identifying them is all but impossible. As will be seen, he was also well informed about events in Europe. The Entring Book offers striking testimony to the range and depth of foreign news circulating in London in the 1680s. The example of Morrice certainly supports the claim made by Steven Pincus that Englishmen took a lively and knowledgeable interest in European

Perpetuation and Tempering of Parliamentarianism (New Brunswick, NJ, 1969), Robin Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage. The History and Contribution of the Huguenots in Britain (2nd edn, Brighton, 2001), and David Norman Marshall, ‘Protestant Dissent in England in the Reign of James II’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Hull, 1976).   ������������c��������������������������������������������������� This is indicated by the brevity of his entry in A.G. Matthews, Calamy Revised. Being a Revision of Edmund Calamy’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–2 (Oxford, 1934), p. 355, and the fact that he was omitted from the original Dictionary of National Biography.   ���������� Matthews, Calamy Revised, p. 355.   �������� Goldie, Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, pp. 47–52.   ���� Ibid., pp. 116–27.

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

179

affairs during the Restoration. Second, Morrice is representative of a distinctive political tendency during this period, identified by Goldie as Puritan or Presbyterian Whig. This group, in which both Holles and Maynard were prominent, maintained Puritan political values after the Restoration, but was much more than merely the political wing of Protestant dissent. Far broader in its composition than those who adhered to dissenting worship, it provided a powerful voice, opposing arbitrary government and High Church pretensions, calling for comprehension and frequent parliaments. What Morrice knew, what he recorded, and what he thought about it are, therefore, interesting questions, and the answers provide an insight into the attitudes towards Europe held by a much broader group of Englishmen, a group who did much to define the character of whiggery in the 1680s. The chronological scope of this paper is clearly restricted to the coverage of the Entring Book, but, in fact, the main focus is even more limited. It will concentrate primarily on the period between 1685 and 1689, the years identified by that other great commentator on this period, Gilbert Burnet, as ‘the fifth great crisis of the protestant religion’. Burnet’s perspective was emphatically European. The first four crises were European events: the first occurred in 1547 with the Emperor’s defeat of Elector John Frederick of Saxony at Mühlberg; the second took place towards the end of Mary’s reign, when the rapprochement between Habsburg and Valois, which was to culminate in the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, threatened an alliance ‘to extirpate heresy’; the third lasted from 1585 to 1589, with the French League, the assassination of William of Orange, the victories of the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands, and the Spanish Armada; the fourth began with the Battle of White Mountain and the defeat of the Elector Palatine, Frederick V, in 1620.10 The fifth crisis was no different. The accession of James II, an open Catholic, to the thrones of Britain was only the first in a series of events that combined to make the year 1685 ‘the most fatal to the protestant religion’.11 It was followed by the death of Charles II, the Protestant Elector Palatine, and the succession of the Duke of Neuburg, another Catholic; by Louis XIV’s revocation   ����������������c�������������������������������������������������������������������� Steven C. A. Pincus, ‘From butterboxes to wooden shoes: the shift in English popular sentiments from anti-Dutch to anti-French in the 1670s’, HJ, 38 (1995): 335–6.   �������� Goldie, Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, ch. 4.   ���������������� Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time, ed. M.J. Routh (2nd edn, 6 vols, Oxford, 1833), vol. 3, p. 75. Note, however, that Burnet was not consistent in his numbering and description of the crises. Elsewhere he dates the ‘fifth crisis’ from the French invasion of the Dutch Republic in 1672. Gilbert Burnet, Burnet’s History of My Own Time, ed. Osmund Airy (2 vols, Oxford, 1897), vol. 2, p. 574. Yet another chronology can be found in the fragments of Burnet’s original memoirs. A Supplement to Burnet’s History of My Own Time, ed. H.C. Foxcroft (Oxford, 1902), pp. 172–7. See also Charles Firth, ‘Burnet as a Historian’, in Essays Historical and Literary (Oxford, 1938), pp. 174–209, esp. pp. 208–9. 10   Burnet’s History of My Own Time, ed. Airy, vol. 1, pp. 558–74. 11   Burnet’s History of His Own Time, ed. Routh, vol. 3, p. 74.

180

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

of the Edict of Nantes; and by the beginning of the persecution of the Vaudois by the Duke of Savoy. In the remainder of this chapter, the account of this period preserved by Roger Morrice in his Entring Book will be explored in more detail. First, what Morrice knew about events in Europe, what he recorded, and from where he obtained his information will be examined. Then, second, his perception and understanding of European affairs – and, in particular, his distinctive vision of the nature of European politics – will be discussed.

I Much of what Morrice records about events in Europe is predictable. The first account of the persecution of the Huguenots in France appears under the heading for 12 October 1685,12 nearly three weeks before his account of the Edict of Fontainebleau, and thereafter there are regular bulletins about the various edicts issued by Louis XIV, the spread of the persecution across France, the sufferings of the Huguenots, and reactions in other states, all of which is occasionally interspersed with some edifying accounts of individual martyrdoms. Reports of the struggle between the Emperor and the Turks, and in particular the siege of Buda, also feature regularly in the Entring Book, along with details of the Hungarian uprising and the efforts of Michael Apafy to maintain the independence of his principality of Transylvania. Dutch affairs appear with equal frequency, though Morrice’s account lacks the narrative drive of the persecution of the Huguenots or the war in the east. Franco-Dutch and Anglo-Dutch relations predominate, and a variety of issues are discussed – the growing threat of war between the French and the Dutch, the presence of both English and Huguenot exiles in Holland, disputes with the English over the right to search ships at sea and Bantam in the East Indies. Morrice also shows a particular interest in the politics of the Empire. Relations between the Emperor, the Dutch and the French tend to dominate his account, so much is reported about tensions in the Palatinate and the rest of the Rhineland. But he was also alert to the actions of the Duke of Hanover and the Elector of Brandenburg, whom he recognised as the two leading Protestant princes in Germany, and to the role of Sweden, another powerful Protestant state, in the politics of the Empire. Consequently, the efforts of the King of Denmark, a Protestant but an ally of France, to seize Hamburg and of the Protestant princes to divest that king of the Duchy of Holstein feature prominently in what Morrice records about northern Europe. Comments about events elsewhere in Europe are much less common in the Entring Book. The Papacy figures occasionally, though almost invariably in terms of its relations with the major Catholic rulers of Europe – Leopold I, Louis XIV 12  �����c�������������c���������������c�����������������������c���������������������� Morrice does, in fact, mention attacks on the Huguenots twice previously, in 1682 and 1684. Entring Book, vol. 2, pp. 315–16, 486. But only in October 1685 did he begin to provide consistent treatment of the persecution.

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

181

and James II. Significantly, Morrice’s interest in the Papacy is sustained, and even heightened, after the fall of James II. But, with the exception of a few references to Venice, the other Italian states are almost entirely absent. The same, perhaps more surprisingly, can be said of both Spain and Portugal – this is perhaps as striking an illustration as one can find of the collapse of Spanish power in the second half of the seventeenth century and its rapid eclipse in the eyes of Englishmen as the bogeyman of the Counter-Reformation. Little is said about events in the Mediterranean – Algerian pirates do feature on a number of occasions, but it is their raids on Atlantic shipping rather than their impact on the politics of the Mediterranean that concern Morrice.13 Events in the Baltic beyond the boundaries of the Empire are almost equally neglected – Poland and Russia barely feature in Morrice’s reports, and nor does Sweden except as a German power. If the scope of the Entring Book is limited geographically, it is also limited thematically. Morrice’s focus is almost entirely on international relations or on relations between Catholics and Protestants. He clearly recognised the importance of dynastic politics for these themes. Reports about the health of Louis XIV regularly punctuate the Entring Book, as do digressions on the marriage treaties and lines of succession in various states.14 Indeed, Morrice usually only displays an interest in the internal politics of European states when they impinge on his central preoccupations. Thus, in April 1688 he records news from Venice about the revolt of the janissaries in Constantinople, but the real significance of this event is in western Europe: if the Emperor is not being distracted by the Turks, Morrice believes that Louis XIV will neither ‘make any War upon the Palatinate this yeare’ nor give any assistance to the King of Denmark in his conflict with Sweden and Brandenburg over Holstein and Hamburg.15 Similarly, he was interested in the proceedings of the Papacy and the Inquisition against Molinos and the Quietists primarily as another example of the intolerance of the Catholic church towards those who attempted to purge that church of some of its excrescences.16 I have characterised Morrice’s coverage of European news as predictable, and so it was. Few, if any, of his stories would give even an attentive scholar of the period pause for thought. On the surface, at least, Morrice’s reporting is very similar to what can be found in countless other newsletters from this period.17 Careful comparison with other sources of news available to the public, however, 13

 ��������������������� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 86.  ��������������� See, e.g., ibid., vol. 3, pp. 365–6 for the marriages of Princesses Mary and Anne; vol. 3, p. 1 for the Duke of Bavaria; vol. 4, pp. 68–9 for the marriages of the children of the Duke of Brandenburg; and vol. 4, p. 135 on the Palatinate. 15  ���� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 253. 16  ���� Ibid., pp. 125–6. 17  ��������� The most comprehensive c��������������������������c������������������������������������������ list of manuscript newsletters for this period has been compiled by Mark Knights and printed by Mark Goldie in Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, pp. 569–71. The only major omission of which I am aware is the collection of newsletters from various correspondents sent to Sir Richard Bulstrode between 1667 and 1689. Harry 14

182

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

reveals some suggestive differences. The detailed newsletters of Robert Yard, for example, contained very few accounts of the persecution of the Huguenots in France. Given that he was the editor of the London Gazette and his newsletters were also a semi-official production of the office of the secretaries of state, this is hardly surprising. But there are other, less predictable contrasts with Morrice. Unlike Morrice Yard included regular reports from northern Europe ­ – from Copenhagen, Stockholm, Muscovy, and especially Hamburg – and also from Venice and Marseilles about events in the Mediterranean.18 His emphasis was also subtly different. The substance of the reports tended to highlight war and diplomacy, but often what was emphasised was the implication of such events for trade. Thus, in the summer of 1687 a recurrent theme of these news stories was the freedom of trade through the Sound. A rather different comparison with Morrice is provided by the newsletters sent between 1675 and 1678 to Richard Bulstrode, the British envoy in Brussels, by Edward Coleman, the secretary to the Duchess of York.19 Very little foreign news is included in this series of letters, presumably because Bulstrode, strategically located on one of Europe’s major information networks, had no need for stories re-circulated from London. Indeed, he was an important correspondent and source of information for Yard.20 Most of the foreign news that Coleman did supply came from Rome, with an occasional titbit from Paris. It seems likely that he had access Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Pforzheimer MS 103C Boxes 6–10 and Pforzheimer G8249, Misc MS 1416–20. 18  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������c��� Longleat House, Wiltshire, MSS 68, fols 77–88. These are not newsletters as such, but appear instead to be office copies, written in bound volumes, from which clerks would have extracted of copied the news stories into the manuscript newsletters sent out from the office of the secretary of state. They are commonly described as the Muddiman newsletters. See J.G. Muddiman, The King’s Journalist 1659–1689. Studies in the Reign of Charles II (London, 1923), pp. v–vi. However, Henry Muddiman was only writer of the Gazette in 1665–6. Between c.1673 and 1702 that role was performed by Robert Yard, a clerk in the secretary of state’s office, and it seems likely that these volumes were his copies. J.C. Sainty, Office-Holders in Modern Britain. II: Officials of the Secretaries of State 1660–1782 (London, 1973), pp. 92, 119. Yard is an obscure figure, about whom little is known. The History of Parliament. The House of Commons 1690–1715, ed. Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and David Hayton (5 vols, Cambridge, 2002), vol. 5, pp. 947–8. See also Peter Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State and their Monopoly of Licensed News 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 49–51. 19  ������������������������������c������������������������������������������ Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Pforzheimer MS 103C, Boxes 6–7. Many, but not all, of Coleman’s newsletters are endorsed ‘E.C.’ by Bulstrode. On Coleman, see Andrew Barclay, ‘Coleman, Edward (1636–1678)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5871, accessed 30 Sept. 2007]; Andrew Barclay, ‘The Rise of Edward Coleman’, HJ, 42 (1999): 109–31. Coleman’s activities as a newsletter writer, however, have yet to be studied. 20  �����������������������������������������c����������������������������������� See, e.g., Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Pforzheimer MS 103C, Box 9, Yard to Bulstrode, 31 Aug. 1685, 2 Aug. 1686.

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

183

to this information through contacts in the household of the Duke and Duchess of York. This supposition is strengthened when the general character of Coleman’s newsletters is considered. They were not general newsletters; nor, one suspects, did they have a wide circulation. Their content was weighted disproportionately towards stories with a Catholic interest, and a significant number revealed intimate knowledge of the Duke of York’s court. Coleman was clearly writing as a Catholic for his co-religionists, and probably only for a small and trusted group. The parallel with Morrice, who was, in all likelihood, gathering news for a small coterie of Puritan Whigs, is striking. What is more, Morrice’s ideological preoccupations are revealed by the news that he collected. In essence, and to anticipate the argument of the second half of this paper, Morrice’s interest in European affairs was confined to what might be called ‘protestant Europe’ – that is, not only the Protestant states of Europe, but also those areas with Protestant minorities and those courts and states whose politics and actions might affect the welfare of European Protestantism.

II From where did Morrice obtain his information? This is not an easy question to answer, as he was rarely explicit about his sources. The best known source of news about foreign affairs for Englishmen in this period – and virtually the only printed source – was the official London Gazette. Appearing twice a week through most of this period, much of its content comprised news from the cities of Europe.21 Some of what Morrice records came from the Gazette – some of this is acknowledged explicitly, but much of it is not. On at least one occasion his debt to the Gazette is made clear by the repetition of an error – in November 1688 he follows the Gazette in referring to the capture by the French of Fredericksburg, which was almost certainly an error for Kaiserslautern.22 But Morrice could also be sceptical about the contents of the Gazette – he doubted, for example, the official account of the number of men killed at the siege of Buda in July 1686.23 Even more strikingly, he sometimes gives very different accounts of events recorded in the Gazette. Thus, in December 1687 Morrice offers a vivid description of the entry of the French ambassador into Rome accompanied by ‘about 300 Horse and a Rabble’; the Gazette, by contrast, provides a formal version with no hint whatsoever of the offence given to the Pope.24 A great deal of his news of Europe, moreover, has no parallel whatsoever in the Gazette. Thus, his first account of the persecution

 �������� Fraser, Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, pp. 52–3, 60–77.   Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 349; London Gazette, 2403 (22–24 Nov. 1688). It seems likely that Kaiserslautern was meant as it surrendered to the French on 30 September 1688 and is not otherwise mentioned by Morrice. 23   Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 198. 24   London Gazette, 2299 (28 Nov.–1 Dec. 1687). 21 22

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

184

of the Huguenots in October 1685, including the death of some in Montauban, is – perhaps unsurprisingly – entirely absent from the Gazette.25 It seems likely, therefore, that Morrice’s methods of gathering news resembled those used by the compilers of the London Gazette, though there are no references in the Entring Book to suggest that, like them, he made use of the ‘gazettes’ published in some other European cities.26 The few references that Morrice does make to his sources suggest that he was part of a remarkably extensive network of correspondents stretching across Europe, probably embracing both private individuals and the writers of manuscript newsletters. Some of these people probably wrote directly to Morrice – the news that they supplied may have been valuable currency as he traversed the capital gathering other news, and he may also have reciprocated by providing accounts of events in England. What is certain is that his network of contacts in London gave him access to a great deal of foreign correspondence. Thus, for example, in July 1686 he summarises ‘Many Letters from Constantinople to our Exchange’, while on another occasion he reports news from Constantinople which has been received in letters from ‘the States of Venice’ to the Venetian ambassador in London – the version of the same events published in the Gazette, incidentally, appears to have arrived direct from the Ottoman capital.27 The geographical breadth and number of Morrice’s correspondents were quite remarkable. He was well informed about Protestant communities in Upper Hungary and Transylvania. Closer to home, in France, he reports eyewitnesses to events in Provence, around Geneva, and in ‘that part … furthest from Paris’ on the road to Holland.28 He refers to ‘many letters’ or a ‘common report’ from France, to ‘French accounts’ of the siege of Munhács [Montgatz], to ‘Letters’ about events in Savoy, clearly suggesting a number of different correspondents.29 That this was not simply a figure of speech is illustrated by the arrival of news from Hungary in November 1686 that the town of Szeged [Zegeden] had fallen to the Turks, which was based on one ‘very credible report’.30 He also demonstrates considerable

  Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 35–6. In April 1686 John Evelyn noted how ‘extraordinary’ it was that the Gazette ‘never all this time, spoke one syllable of this wonderfull proceeding in France’. The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E.S. de Beer (6 vols, Oxford, 1955), vol. 4, p. 487. 26  �������� Fraser, Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, pp. 35–56, provides the best account of how news was collected for publication in the London Gazette. It is possible, however, that careful collation of the foreign news in the Entring Book with the Dutch and French gazettes will reveal that Morrice did have access to them. 27   Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 179; vol. 4, p. 253; London Gazette, 2337 (9–12 Apr. 1688). 28  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 62–3; vol. 4, p. 121. For ����������������������������������������� Upper Hungary and Transylvania, see, e.g., vol. 3, pp. 187, 198; vol. 4, pp. 211–13; vol. 5, p. 438. 29  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 42, 344, 198, 210. 30  ���� Ibid., p. 283. 25

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

185

discrimination in his handling of the news, commenting on occasions that, despite what ‘Some say’, he does not believe the reports.31

III Morrice was, therefore, a well-informed and discriminating observer of foreign affairs in the 1680s. We now have some idea of what he knew about events in Europe, but what did he think about them? Answering this question also poses significant challenges. The Entring Book is a remarkably impersonal document; at no point does Morrice provide any kind of extended commentary on his own views, and even revealing asides are very few and far between. But the news that Morrice selected for inclusion in the Entring Book and the way in which he recorded it, together with the occasional more personal comment, do tell us quite a lot about his perception of European politics. It is, therefore, to this theme that we shall turn next. As has already been suggested, the issue that dominates Morrice’s account of the 1680s is religion, and especially the state of the Protestant churches on the continent.32 Predictably, the story that stands out above all others is the persecution of the Huguenots in France.33 Between 1685 and 1688, if reports about the response to the persecution in England and Holland are included, there are 42 news stories about the Huguenots – no other single story receives this level of attention.34 Morrice notes the appearance of a succession of edicts, including a detailed summary of the Edict of Fontainebleau, though it is often difficult precisely to work out to which edict he is referring. His first report, on 12 October 1685, highlights the tactics of the French – to quarter troops on the Huguenots and to force them to mass – but 31  �������� See ibid., p. 190 for his scepticism about reports that Buda had fallen in July 1686, and p. 213 for his refusal to believe that the Danes had joined the League of Augsburg in August 1686. 32  ������������c����������������������c��������������������������������������������� For some discussion of the importance of religion in the newspaper press of this period, see Thomas O’Malley, ‘Religion and the Newspaper Press, 1660–1685: A Study of the London Gazette’, in Michael Harris and Alan Lee (eds), The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries (Rutherford, Madison and Teaneck, 1986), pp. 25–46, and, for an earlier period, Göran Leth, ‘A Protestant Public Sphere: The Early European Newspaper Press’, Studies in Newspaper and Periodical History (1993): 67–90. 33  �����c��������cc�������������c���������������������������������������������� An excellent account of Morrice’s treatment of the Huguenots is provided by Robin Gwynn, ‘Roger Morrice and the Huguenot Refugees’, in Jason McElligott (ed.), Fear, Exclusion and Revolution. Roger Morrice and Britain in the 1680s (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 32–48. 34  �����������������������c�����������������������������c�������������������������� This was against the background not only of the persecution of the Huguenots in France, but also, as Robin Gwynn has shown, of the flood of immigration into England in the 1680s, and particularly in the years 1685–88. Robin Gwynn, ‘The Arrival of Huguenot Refugees in England 1680–1705’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 21/4 (1969 for 1968): 366–73.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

186

he notes that few have been killed and that several have escaped by sea, including some to England. At this point he talks merely of the ‘hardships’ inflicted on the Huguenots, which have not been paralleled ‘of late yeares’.35 Two weeks later, on 26 October, however, his report is much more pessimistic, noting that ‘the Persecution in France is far more cruell then it is either reported, or believed by us to be’. He tells of ‘great numbers’ being starved and deprived of sleep before being forced to mass, of others being tortured, and the fact that few were killed is made another element of their suffering, the soldiers ‘telling them such Rogues as they should never have the honour of Martyrdome’.36 This account sets the pattern for what follows, and Morrice’s language makes his sympathy for the Huguenots clear – their ‘persecutions and torments’ were ‘inexpressible’; ‘New French Edicts are issued out more seveare and bloudy then the former’; ‘The Persecution againe rages in France’; ‘there is two more cruell and bloudy Edicts published in France then any that went before them’; ‘Cruelties are constantly renewed in France’; ‘the cruelties are as great or greater if it can possible be there then formerly’; Louis XIV has ‘cruelly persecuted and Butchered his own Protestant Subjects’.37 Morrice was familiar with John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments – in 1683 he had solicited subscriptions for a lavish new edition38 – and it is clear that, in his re-telling of edifying tales of suffering, he was locating the Huguenots firmly within a martyrological tradition that stretched back to the sixteenth century but was still vibrant and acutely relevant to the experiences of English Protestants in the reign of James II. The established characteristics of the Foxeian tradition can easily be identified in Morrice’s reportage: the barbarity of the persecutors is contrasted with the patient, calm, Christ-like endurance by the victims clinging tenaciously to the true faith.39 One woman, for example, terminally ill after giving birth was dragged naked into the streets and then torn apart by a mob stirred up by a priest after she refused the sacrament.40 But it is also possible to see in Morrice’s text the way in which, as Tom Freeman has noted, English Protestants ‘broadened the definition of martyrdom’ in the later seventeenth century.41 Killings, he admitted, were rare, but men were sent to the galleys and women into nunneries, while others were subjected to torments inexpressibly more dreadfull then death it selfe, keepeing them still without meat and sleepe, pricking and pierceing them with sharp instraments of   Entring Book, vol. 3, pp. 35–6.  ���� Ibid., p. 42. 37  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 62, 184, 251, 290, 314; vol. 4, pp. 116, 139. 38  �������� Goldie, Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, p. 50. 39  �����������������������������������������������c�������������������������� Thomas S. Freeman, ‘Over their Dead Bodies: Concepts of Martyrdom in Late Medieval and Early Modern England’, in Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas F. Mayer (eds), Martyrs and Martyrdom in England c.1400–1700 (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 20, 43–51. 40   Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 168. 41  ����������������������������������������� Freeman, ‘Over their Dead Bodies’, p. 30. 35 36

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

187

Steele made on purpose, And that they lately brought two Barons in chaines into the Streets, and baited them as we use to do Bulls and Bears.42

Those who suffered for the true faith did not have to experience death to become martyrs. Morrice also conveys a clear sense of the dynamics of the persecution. He described Louis XIV’s attempts to apply the edicts to French Protestants living abroad.43 Then, in the summer of 1686, he recounted the beginning of the ‘second Persecution’, that is, the persecution of converts who had recanted.44 Through the rest of 1686 and into 1687 Morrice reported on a number of occasions the renewal of the persecution, noting now that many were ‘put to cruell deaths, and severall burnt, [but] with very little noise, and very privatly’.45 The persecution also had a geographical dynamic, Morrice describing its move into areas less firmly under the control of the French state, such as Alsace, and then from Calvinist France into the Lutheran, semi-independent city of Strasburg.46 This account provides a context from which it is impossible to divorce Morrice’s news about French aggression along its northern and north-eastern borders. From early 1687 he recorded the growing tensions between the Dutch and the French – the establishment of French forts along the Rhine; rumours of the mobilisation of French forces in Flanders and along the Rhine in early 1687; Louis XIV’s attempts to reassure his neighbours about his intentions.47 Morrice did not, it is true, portray the growth of FrancoDutch tension as an extension of Louis XIV’s attack on the Huguenots, but the links between the two are apparent. He made a direct connection between the security of the Dutch and the progress of popery and the French interest in England, noting in October 1687 that the ‘States and the Prince [of Orange] … would be left very weak if England should be overrun by either’.48 Similarly, in April 1687, he reported on the way in which William linked ‘Popery and the designes of France’ and on his determination to oppose both ‘inflexibly’.49 Not that it was only the Dutch who were threatened by Louis; so too were German protestants. His efforts to install Cardinal von Fürstenberg as Cardinal Elector of Cologne in 1688 were seen in explicitly confessional terms. If the attempt was successful, as Morrice believed it would be in January 1688, the consequence would be to give to the

  Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 168; vol. 4, pp. 116–17.  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 119. 44  ���� Ibid., p. 167. 45  ���� Ibid., p. 251. 46  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 167; vol. 4, p. 86. 47  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 361; vol. 4, pp. 219, 18, 251. 48  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 130. The following month, he noted that the triumph of popery in England would be ‘fatall to the Dutch Interest’. Ibid., p. 178. 49  ���� Ibid., p. 73. 42 43

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

188

French ‘free passage that way into Protestant Princes Countryes that lye beyond’ Cologne.50 Moreover, the tentacles of French influence stretched well beyond her borders. If anything reported in the Entring Book in these years eclipsed the cruelties perpetrated against the Huguenots, it was the persecution of the Protestants in the Duchy of Savoy. Once again, clear echoes of the Foxeian tradition can be discerned. The fate of the Savoyard Protestants was of particular interest to Morrice because, like Foxe, he identified them as Waldensians, the direct spiritual heirs of the heretical community of the twelfth and thirteenth century seen by many of the Reformers as proto-Protestants.51 For Morrice, indeed, the Waldensians and Albigensians (he tended to conflate the two) provided a direct link between the Reformed interest of his day and primitive Christianity, since they were themselves the successors of the Bagaudae, persecuted in the third century by the Emperor Diocletian.52 The resilience of the Waldensians in the face of repeated persecution through the centuries was an important testimony to the truth and primitive origins of the Reformed religion; their fate at the hands of the Duke of Savoy was a powerful warning of the threat to that cause posed by the forces of the Counter-Reformation. The Duke sent his army against the Protestant communities concentrated in the mountain valleys, who resisted with some help from the Swiss.53 But by the late spring of 1685 the resistance had been overcome with dire consequences, as Morrice records in a passage reminiscent of many early modern Protestant accounts of popish persecution: The late persecution in Savoy has been more inhumane and barberous then any wee have yet heard of, there are as its thought about eight or ten, or more thousands killed, some men and women eighty yeares old &c, before whose faces their daughters and grand Daughters (some of them but ten yeares of age or under) were prostituted, and then both young and old put to death, some young children a yeare or two old hung upon the tops of their pikes, and then cast to the ground with great force [.] The rest are fled, and children under ten years old to be brought up Papists.54

Significantly, Morrice was in no doubt who was behind this persecution: it was Louis XIV who had ‘directed and encouraged’ the Duke of Savoy.55 In a 50

 ���� Ibid., p. 214.   The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Josiah Pratt (8 vols, 4th edn, London, 1877), vol. 2, pp. 264–71. See also John R. Knott, Discourses of Martyrdom in English Literature, 1563–1694 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 109–10. So too did Milton and Bunyan. Ibid., pp. 165–8, 223–4. 52   Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 125; vol. 4, pp. 212–13; vol. 5, p. 249. 53  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 114. 54  ���� Ibid., pp. 124–5. 55  ���� Ibid., p. 105. 51

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

189

similar way, French influence in northern Germany was exerted through the King of Denmark, who, despite the fact that he was a Protestant, acted as Louis XIV’s client.56 Repeatedly, the Danes were portrayed as a threat to the Protestant powers of northern Europe and as hindering the development of a Protestant alliance against the French. Morrice even reported one rumour that the King of Denmark was in a negotiation with ‘all the Popish Princes’ to form a Catholic league.57 The selection of news recorded in the Entring Book and the way it is presented makes it clear that Morrice regarded France as an aggressive agent of the CounterReformation, both at home and abroad. To make this point might be seen as entering into an area of controversy in recent historiography. Steven Pincus has argued, in a series of articles, that historians have given ‘an insufficiently nuanced account of the role played by religion’ in English politics in the 1680s.58 His argument, as I understand it, is that the antagonism of Englishmen to France in the 1670s and 1680s was determined not by Protestantism but by hostility to Louis XIV’s attempts to make himself a universal monarch. Pincus does not, in fact, claim that religion and Protestantism were unimportant in determining English attitudes towards France. He argues, instead, that those he calls ‘English nationalists’, those who opposed James II and endorsed the revolution of 1688, ‘loathed the political and religious style of Louis XIV’ and were deeply attached to English political and religious culture.59 He finds little evidence of a Protestant crusading spirit. Rather, Protestantism ‘was merely one part of the national identity of England. Faith was to be defended, but only as part of the citizen’s rights and property, and as a constitutional religion protected by law.’60 The construction of an argument on the basis of a case study is, of course, fraught with difficulties. One case study is easily countered by another. But Morrice’s deep interest in European affairs and his significance as an exemplar of Puritan Whig opinion suggest that it is worth developing this analysis of his understanding of 56

 ���� Ibid., p. 246.  ���� Ibid., pp. 198–9. 58  ����������c�������������c����������������������������������������������������������� Steven Pincus, ‘To Protect English Liberties: The English Nationalist Revolution of 1688–1689’, in Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (eds), Protestantism and National Identity. Britain and Ireland, c.1650–c.1850 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 75–104, quotation at pp. 78–9. Pincus’s argument is best understood in the broader context of his account of the rhetoric of ‘universal monarchy’ and of the development of a more sceptical view of the relationship between religion and politics in the later seventeenth century. See, inter alia, Steven C.A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism. The making of English foreign policy 1650–1688 (Cambridge, 1996); Steven C.A. Pincus, ‘The English Debate over Universal Monarchy’, in John Robertson (ed.), A Union for Empire. Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 37–62; Steve Pincus, ‘From Holy Cause to Economic Interest: The Study of Population and the Invention of the State’, in Alan Houston and Steve Pincus (eds), A Nation Transformed. England after the Restoration (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 272–98. 59  ���c�������������c�������������������������������������������������� Pincus, ‘To Protect English Liberties’, p. 80. The emphasis is mine. 60  ���� Ibid., p. 94. 57

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

190

European politics in the 1680s a little further.61 It should be recognised that there is much evidence in the Entring Book to support the idea that he did not interpret European politics solely in terms of religion, of the struggle between Catholics and Protestants. Morrice himself was well aware of the fact that a confessional analysis has significant limitations. As has already been noted, he pointed out that Louis XIV’s most important ally in northern Europe was the Protestant King of Denmark. He was also alert to divisions among the Catholic powers. He reported regularly, and broadly accurately, on the tensions between France and the Papacy and between Louis XIV and the Emperor. Rumours of war between Leopold I and Louis XIV occur regularly in the Entring Book through the later 1680s, though Morrice often expressed scepticism about the likelihood of an open breach, if only because both monarchs had other priorities.62 But he joined in speculation that Louis XIV encouraged the Ottomans in their war against the Habsburgs, hoping to weaken the Empire and to gain thereby ‘either the Title of Emperour or so much of the Empire himselfe as he thought fit’.63 The motives of Pope Innocent XI were subject to similar scrutiny: did he support the war against the Turk ‘to promote Christianity’ or ‘to lessen the King of France’s family and power’?64 It was not even clear to Morrice that Louis XIV was motivated by Catholic piety or zeal in his persecution of the Huguenots rather than by dynastic ambition, suggesting at one point that he had ‘Butchered his own Protestant Subjects’ only to gain an interest in the Spanish Inquisition and thus to strengthen his claim to the Spanish throne.65 As Europe slipped towards war in the summer of 1688, an analysis that emphasised the politics of power and dynasticism became ever more compelling. Prince Joseph Clement of Bavaria may have been part of a family of ‘very zealous Papists’, but they were ‘of the Popes faction’ and committed enemies of France. His election as Archbishop-Elector of Cologne was a significant defeat for Louis XIV.66 Morrice revealed no surprise when, twelve months later, he received reports that the Pope was proclaiming throughout Italy that ‘the French King makes not that War upon the account of Religion, but only to Tyranize over his Neighbours, and to increase his own dominions &c’.67 Indeed, when commenting on the resolution of Leopold I to support William III not only in opposition to France but also in the 61

 �����������������������������������c������������������c����������������������� A more wide-ranging response to Pincus’s arguments, focusing on public debate in the 1690s, is offered by Tony Claydon, ‘Protestantism, Universal Monarchy and Christendom in William’s War Propaganda, 1689–1697’, in Esther Mijers and David Onnekink (eds), Redefining William III. The Impact of the King-Stadholder in International Context (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 125–42. 62   Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 342; vol. 4, pp. 204–5. 63  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 284. 64  ���� Ibid. 65  ���� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 139. 66  ���� Ibid., p. 298. 67  ���� Ibid., vol. 5, p. 131.

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

191

invasion of England, despite the fact that he was ‘entirely under the Government of the Jesuits’, Morrice recognised quite clearly that the politics of the European states were not necessarily determined by religion: ‘Thus we may see that where there is discretion matters may be so ordered that those who have very opposite Church interests, may come to a hearty conjunction as to the promoting of their Civill interests.’68 So was Morrice a perceptive observer of European Realpolitik, sharing along with his compatriots a hostility to Louis XIV’s ambition for universal monarchy? In the end, this analysis is no more convincing than the idea that he saw the Sun King as the Counter-Reformation incarnate, waging war on Protestant enemies at home and abroad. Nor, as should be clear by now, was he simply an observer, recording the rumours and news as Europe descended into war. All of these interpretations are too simplistic, as they ignore an important dimension of what Morrice was saying in the Entring Book. Morrice’s worldview, as will be seen, was confessional and Protestant. Louis XIV was not, of course, the only major Catholic monarch of the late seventeenth century who had significant Protestant minorities living in his territories, or who found those Protestants an unwelcome presence, both offensive to God and threatening to the stability of civil society. Leopold I was in much the same situation. He too was, as Morrice recognised, a zealous Catholic, anxious to demonstrate his loyalty to the church. Consequently, it is hardly surprising to find that Morrice’s account of the persecution of Protestants in France and Savoy is punctuated by descriptions of their sufferings in the Habsburg lands, especially Hungary and Transylvania. Once again, he is remarkably well informed. In March 1687 he noted that the practice of Protestantism had been prohibited in Kosice and Eperies, two towns in upper Hungary that had surrendered voluntarily to the Emperor, as well as several others that had not.69 Indeed, he was deeply suspicious of Leopold as a Catholic ruler, arguing that the war in the east had been directed not against the Turks, who merely ‘gave an occasion to turne it upon them’, but against the Hungarians, ‘and especially against the Protestant Interest there’.70 This perspective led Morrice to describe the fall of Buda to the Imperial forces in August 1686 in a striking way. Remarkably, and in striking contrast to many newsletter writers, he did not greet it as a Christian victory over the infidel, or even as a major step in the liberation of a Christian population from Muslim rule.71 That interpretation was, in fact, almost wholly absent from all of his commentary on the Austro-Turkish war between 1685 and 1688. Rather, he claimed that it will presage ‘the murder and destruction of the Protestants in Hungary’, many of whom have already been ‘put to the sword’, and undermine the position of Prince Michael Apafy, the ruler of the semi-independent principality of Transylvania, ‘who is 68

 ���� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 442.  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 387. 70  ���� Ibid., p. 245. 71  �������������������������������������������������������������������� See, e.g., Folger Shakespeare Library, MS L.C. 1709 (18 Sept. 1686). 69

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

192

the very pillar, strength and back of the Protestant Interest in those Countryes’.72 On this occasion, Morrice was prescient. Within eighteen months the Emperor’s forces had occupied most of Transylvania, leaving Apafy in possession of only one significant town and facing total defeat at the hands of the ‘Popish party’, unless the Protestant princes of the Empire were able to mediate with Leopold I on his behalf.73 To recognise that the Emperor was an intolerant Catholic prince was one thing, but Morrice used this insight to argue that there was a community of interest between Leopold I, Louis XIV and Innocent XI that had the potential to override all other considerations. A recurrent spectre in the pages of the Entring Book throughout these years is that of a Catholic league, composed of all the leading Catholic rulers in Europe, to extirpate Protestantism – or, in Morrice’s own words, ‘to extirpate the Northren Heresie’.74 In December 1685, for example, a report of peace negotiations between the Empire and the Turks was accompanied by the observation that ‘then its very likely there will be a Universall Confederation amongst Popish Princes for the Extirpation of the Northren Heresie’.75 Similarly, he reported that the purpose of Lord Thomas Howard’s embassy to Rome in the summer of 1688 was to mediate between the Catholic powers, ‘the Pope, the King of France the King of Spain, the Emperour, and all the house of Austria for the extirpation of the Northren Heresie’, the destruction of Holland and the re-conversion of England.76 This interpretation was unaffected even by the outbreak of war against France and the conclusion of the Grand Alliance in 1689. Reading Morrice’s account of European politics between 1689 and 1691 one is struck by the fragility of the Alliance. In particular, the election of Alexander VIII as Pope in October 1689 created a new threat to the Protestant cause. Not only did Morrice recognise, quite correctly, that the new Pope was not as hostile as his predecessor towards Louis XIV, but he also portrayed him reinvigorating efforts to establish unity among ‘all Catholick Princes … not only for the preservation of themselves against Hereticks, but for the Extirpation of Heresie’.77 From that point he included repeated reports about attempts, usually instigated by the Pope, to create a Catholic ‘League’, and one of his last entries, on 3 January 1691, included an account of peace negotiations between the Emperor and Louis XIV.78 It is easy for the modern reader of the Entring Book to skip over these and similar passages – there are no fewer that twenty reports about the creation of a Catholic league between 1685 and 1691. Not only do we know that such an alliance never materialised, but we also know enough about diplomatic relations in this period   Entring Book, vol. 3, p. 245.  ���� Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 211–12. 74  ������������� See, eg, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 32, 45, 198; vol. 4, pp. 178, 305, 309. 75  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 70. 76  ���� Ibid., vol. 4, p. 303. 77  ���� Ibid., vol. 5, p. 193. 78  ���� Ibid., pp. 264, 551. 72

73

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

193

to be confident that it was never any more than a Protestant nightmare. But this reading fails to do justice to the text. There is nothing in Morrice’s reporting of rumours about a Catholic league to suggest that the quality of the information on which they were based was inferior to that of any other news that he recorded. He was as keen as ever to establish the reliability of his information – one account, that has the Emperor himself leaking ‘the secret that was in the imagination of most’, came directly from an Englishman who was a colonel in the imperial forces.79 For Morrice, the prospect of the formation of a Catholic league, embracing France, the Emperor and the Papacy, was one of the realities of European politics throughout the 1680s.

IV A recent collection of essays, based on a conference about Roger Morrice and his Entring Book, is entitled Fear, Exclusion and Revolution.80 One of the major themes of the volume, highlighted in the title, is the climate of fear that pervaded the consciousness of English Protestants in the 1680s. That fear can be seen all too vividly in Morrice’s perception of European politics in the 1680s. He was a well-informed, politically astute nonconformist, with enormous familiarity with the world of politics in London, and he was clearly well aware of the realities of European power politics in this period. But, despite what he knew about events on the continent, his recurrent fear – the interpretation that repeatedly informs his analysis of European politics – was of a Catholic league against Protestantism. This does not mean that he looked for, or welcomed, a religious war. On the contrary, that was precisely the scenario that Morrice – and, one suspects, many other Protestants – feared. The Protestants were, quite simply, too weak. Even allied together, the Dutch, Brandenburg, Sweden and the German Protestant princes were ‘so few and have such very distinct interests that they are nothing in number compared to the Papall Combination against them’.81 His worldview is summed up in a vivid passage, written in January 1688, which echoes Burnet’s proclamation of the beginning of the fifth great crisis of Protestantism in 1685 quoted at the beginning of this paper: The Providence of God for these four last yeares especially with respect to the Protestant Interest abrode in the World is to be greatly adored and Reverenced, and often and seriously to be laid to heart for in most Kingdomes and States it is utterly suppressed, and in others dangerously threatned, in Bohemia, Walacia, Moldovia, all Hungary and severall other Countries it is quite utterly 79  ���� Ibid., vol. 3, p. 161. The Englishman was Francis, Viscount Taaffe, son of the 2nd Earl of Carlingford. 80  �������c�������� Jason McElligott (ed.), Fear, Exclusion and Revolution. 81   Entring Book, vol. 4, p. 214.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

194

destroyed. So it is in France where there were lately at least eighteene hundred thousand Protestants, so are also the Albigences, and Waldences in the Duke of Savoys Teretories that have been eminent for their piety almost since the Apostles or their immediat successours time … And Geneva is now in great hazard that has been for so long a time a hiding place for so many. And the Prince of Transilvania that is very eminent for piety as well as for other excellent qualifications is in great danger of being utterly destroyed, who has been the protector generall of Protestants in that part of the World, and if God in displeasur for our sins suffer wicked men to destroy that Prince who cannot be preserved but by a miracle of mercy the Protestants have no place of refuge to fly to in all those Countryes. And as thus the Protestants are universally weakened, so they are in most places utterly suppressed in some others utterly destroyed, and in some others cruelly tormented or Persecuted as in France Savoy Hungary &c … and which is far worst of all the Protestants in this day of their adversity are full of complaints of their Sufferings and of their feares, but very unhumbled under the sense of their earthly-mindednesse sensuallity and their grievous declentions in all the practicall part of Godlynesse.82

As was said at the beginning of this paper, Morrice cannot be portrayed as some kind of representative Englishman in the 1680s. But, arguably, the Entring Book reveals to us more than the views of one individual. Morrice was an intelligent, politically active and astute representative of Puritan whiggery, a strand of opinion that has been neglected until recently but was an influential element in English politics and thought during the Restoration. It should not be forgotten that he was employed as a gatherer of news, and it is not difficult to find reports in his Entring Book to support just about every possible analysis of European politics in this period. But, if his comments on European affairs are read as a whole, it is clear that Morrice was at least one Englishman who remained convinced that European politics could only be understood in terms of religious struggle and religious war. One is left in no doubt at all that the essential framework within which he understood events in Europe was religious; his interpretation of European politics was unequivocally international, confessional and providential. Morrice identified with the Reformed cause throughout Europe, from Transylvania to the banks of the Thames. For him Europe was divided into two camps, and the Protestants were much the weaker, on the defensive against the great Catholic powers of France, the Papacy and the Empire. God was testing his faithful children and calling them to repentance. Is it possible even to detect a touch of the apocalyptic in his observations, that he is observing the ordeals of the godly in their struggle with the anti-Christ as the last days approach?

82

 ���� Ibid., pp. 212–13.

An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism

195

Mark Goldie, among others, has recently done much to remind us of the importance of religion, and Puritanism in particular, in the formation and development of Restoration whiggery.83 As this chapter reveals, the concerns of the Puritan Whigs were not parochial; they identified with the Protestant cause throughout Europe and they were acutely conscious of the threat posed by the Counter-Reformation abroad as well as at home.84 An appreciation of this fact makes it easier to understand the importance both of Protestantism and of Europe in Whig politics and ideology after the revolution of 1688 and into the eighteenth century. We can, perhaps, better understand why ideas of the Protestant interest and the defence of Protestantism in Europe remained so important to Whig politicians in the age of Walpole and Newcastle.85 That said, the degree of continuity should not be exaggerated. One might suggest that after the revolution, if not in the 1680s, Morrice’s worldview was slightly old-fashioned, more redolent of an earlier generation of Puritanism, fearful of the threat from popery both at home and abroad.86 The contrast between Morrice and Burnet is suggestive. The tone of Morrice’s account of the state of the Reformed interest in January 1688, quoted above, is quite different from Burnet’s description of the onset of the fifth great crisis of European Protestantism. Burnet, another individual whose whiggery was formed as much as anything by religion and Protestantism, was of a slightly younger generation and came from a different ecclesiastical tradition. Crucially, perhaps, he was also writing – or, at least, revising his text – with the benefit of hindsight, from a time when the Protestant cause appeared less embattled. Burnet concluded his History with an account of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. By this time the geopolitical situation had been transformed: France had been decisively defeated by William III and the Duke of Marlborough; England had emerged triumphant as a global power; the Protestant succession had been secured, and the threat from Counter-Reformation Catholicism to European Protestantism had received a decisive check. In his account of the crisis of the 1680s he was setting the scene for the raising up by providence of William III as a deliverer for God’s chosen people, just as God had raised up deliverers in the four earlier crises. Burnet’s tone was optimistic. Morrice’s providentialism, by contrast, was penitential, pessimistic, fearful, almost apocalyptic; the sufferings of his co-religionists were a call to repentance. 83

 �������������c������������������������������ Goldie, Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, esp. c����� ch. 4.  ������������������������������������������� W.R. Ward, ‘The Protestant Frame of Mind’, History Today, 40 (Sept. 1990): 18–24; J.F. Bosher, ‘The Franco-Catholic Danger 1660–1715’, History, 79 (1994): 5–30. 85  ��������cc������������ For an account of the continuing c������������������c��������������������������������������������� importance of ideas of the Protestant interest in the eighteenth century, see Andrew Thompson, Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756 (Woodbridge, 2006). 86  ���������������������������������������������������������������c������������������ Cf. Goldie’s more general observation that ‘Puritan Whig politics persisted until the Revolution, yet declined rapidly thereafter. The process is complex, and … during the 1690s and beyond, considerable remnants of it, ambiguously intermingled with new patterns of thought and action.’ Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, p. 194. 84

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 10

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace: War, Peace and Religion in the Political Rhetoric of the United Provinces 1648–1672 Jill Stern

It is not given to every observer to pinpoint the moment when a nation’s troubles begin but Abraham van de Velde, minister of the public church, was characteristically in no doubt. The critical date was 5 June 1648, the day on which most, but not all, of the Dutch Republic celebrated the end of the long hostilities with Spain. On that day, Van de Velde contended, an angry heaven had declared war on the United Provinces. The consequences of that divine rage were plain to see. The forces of discord had erupted with the ill-fated notion of the stadholder William II to attack Amsterdam, a decision taken on 5 June 1650. No coincidence there, argued Van de Velde. The powers that be had left the West India Company friendless and Brazil had been lost, a decision confirmed on 5 June 1654. In addition, the heir to the House of Orange had been excluded from the offices of his forefathers and a new philosophy, Cartesianism, had invaded the seats of learning to the dishonour of God. All this because in 1648 the peacemakers had left God’s church defenceless. Let no one accuse Van de Velde of inconsistency. This broadside had been delivered in the form of a sermon and published in the same year 1659. In a series of sermons given in Utrecht in 1648 Van de Velde had denounced the Treaty of Munster which had brought an end to war between Spain and the Republic as a ‘damned peace’ and a violation of the Republic’s undertakings so displeasing to the Almighty that it had rained ever since. Why in 1659, so long after the end of the war, was Van de Velde still so disturbed about the consequences of the peace of 1648 and its effect on the public church? In this chapter I hope to explain why the rhetoric of war, peace and religion featured in the polemic of political pamphlets for at least twenty years after the Treaty of Munster. My research reveals that the language and imagery which had surrounded the conclusion of the war in 1648 continued to resonate with, on the one hand those who deplored the peace and its alleged disastrous effects upon  ���������������������� Abraham van de Velde, Biddaghs Meditatie en Na-trachtinge (1659), np.  ����������������� Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic, Its Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1995), p. 602.  

198

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

the Reformed Church, and on the other those who welcomed the cessation of hostilities and argued for a varying degree of religious freedom. I will argue that this rhetoric of war, peace and religion was a reflection of internal faction in the Republic as much as any real comment on external affairs. On the one hand we will find a group who were seeking to remove the language of the defence of the Reformed religion from the conduct of external and internal affairs and replace it with one focusing on a Republic based on provincial sovereignty and bound by those interests and principles which were shared by all citizens. On the other hand, there were those who were bound to the public church and its interests, who presented the Calvinist faith as the primary bond of internal unity and war against Spain as a unifying force which would counter-balance those tendencies towards a provincially-based Erastian policy which they feared so much.

I For Van de Velde, as for many others, the Treaty of Munster represented as great a threat to the interests of the public church as the years of the Truce (1609–21). These 11 years without war were to form a reference point for authors of political polemic. During the Truce a theological contest concerning the relationship between predestination and freewill which had raged between the supporters of Franciscus Gomarius and Jacobus Arminius had taken on a markedly political complexion. The term ‘Arminian’, used pejoratively by their opponents, came to refer to those who advocated a church which was under the control of local magistrates and a political settlement which emphasised provincial sovereignty rather than the unifying forces of the stadholder and the States General. While outwardly conforming to the Reformed faith, many Arminians were sympathetic to or tolerant of the various forms of the Christian religion which flourished locally. They had strong support in the Holland towns and were generally in favour of a continued peace. Their opponents, known usually as Counter-Remonstrants, argued for a Reformed church acting as a unifying force in a centrifugal state, independent of local or provincial authorities and hostile to any public display of other forms of religion. The maintenance and defence of the Reformed church would be the task of the stadholder. Counter-Remonstrants believed that the Truce had been a Spanish device intended to foment religious and political disunity and favoured the re-commencement of war against Spain in 1621 The trial and execution of the Pensionary of Holland, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, in 1619 had left the stadholder and the Counter-Remonstrants of the Reformed church victorious but it was soon apparent that the issues raised in the struggle and the language deployed would not simply go away. Writers of political pamphlets during the 1640s argued that the impending end of the war with Spain marked the triumph of that same ‘Arminian’ party whose policies had provoked so much discord and faction during the Truce years of 1609–21. Once freed from the unifying constraints of war against Spain, it was

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

199

argued, they would be free to pursue their policies of limiting the influence of the public church and its ministers and permitting the growth of the number of Roman Catholics and sectaries. In the eyes of one writer the Arminian peacemakers had no less than the Jesuits as their allies. France, unwilling to see the Dutch Republic make a separate peace, played on these fears. In a pamphlet of 1647 a fictional French gentleman of the Protestant faith urged his co-religionists in the Republic to consider that a policy of peace with Spain was the choice of Remonstrants and papists both of whom had the ears of those who governed in the towns. In a pamphlet containing a fictitious conversation between a Fleming and a Hollander who was a Roman Catholic, the Fleming announced with pleasure that the King of Spain had many associates in Holland and the Roman Catholic replied that he hoped to see many of his friends take up positions in the town halls of Holland as a result of the peace negotiation. In some quarters there was clearly widespread suspicion of the motives of many of the town regents. It was alleged that while humble burghers they were stout defenders of the public church, but a place on the cushions transformed them into a libertine elite intent on subjugating the Reformed ministry to their authority and subordinating the concerns of the Reformed faith to those of a ‘worldly’ interest. It was clearly the fear of many writers that the Roman Catholics were on the offensive in the Republic, aided and abetted by an indulgent town magistracy in Holland who were unwilling to enforce the placards against Roman Catholic worship, preferring instead to turn a blind eye in the interests of civic harmony. A writer of 1643, alarmed at rumours of peace negotiations with Spain, complained that in some areas of the Republic the papists were already a majority, openly practising their faith and saying that they recognised the King of Spain as their lawful overlord. At least 7,000 every year were won over to Catholicism and every priest had oversight of 16,000 worshippers. Priests and Jesuits outnumbered the ministers of the Reformed Church and many individuals holding public office were closet papists. If it was like this during a war, what would it be like in time

  Discors D’ un Personnage des-interessé sur la paix qui se traicte entre le roy d’espagne et les etats generaux des provinces unies (s.l., 1647), p. 16 (Knuttel no. 5512).    Lettre escrite par un Gentilhomme Francoys faisant profession de la Religion Reformée a un amy Hollandais, au sujet des libelles diffamatoires qui se publient en Hollande contre les Francois…(1647), np (Knuttel no. 5511).    Onverwachte Tijdingen uyt Vlaenderen voorgestellt in een t’samen Spraecke tusschen een Paepschen HOLLANDER en VLAMINGH (s.l., 1647), np (Knuttel no. 5513).    Den Britannischen Blixem of Subite Verwerringhe in Enghelandt, Schotlandt ende Yerlandt tot waerschouwinghe van de Geunieerde Provincien (s.l., 1642), np (Knuttel no. 4869). 

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

200

of peace, the writer enquired, when religious fervour in the national cause might well diminish. For writers such as these the Calvinist faith was the bond which held together the seven provinces. It was their abiding contention that Spain, having failed to subjugate the Republic by military means, was now seeking to achieve its objective by peace. Without the unity which war by necessity had wrought, the Union of Utrecht would dissolve into discord, each province would promulgate its own religious settlement and the Reformed church would be left defenceless. As we have seen, the roots of this rhetoric ran deep. Every attempt to attain peace with Spain had been marked by similar sentiments. In the period before the Truce of 1609 many Calvinists had insisted that there should be no peace with Spain while at the same time mobilising the provincial synods against the Arminians. As war and peace hung in the balance in 1621, an anonymous writer had insisted that the Truce was the work of the Arminians and their intent was to damage the public church.10 In 1629, as tentative negotiations with Spain began, a pamphlet writer predicted that peace would elevate the enemies of the public church and then all would be lost for the true religion was ‘the right foot upon which the Fatherland stood and the right hand which held it fast’.11 Talk of peace produced angry rhetoric in which the citizens of the Republic were urged to continue the war for with peace would come internal discord, the triumph of the Jesuit mission and the downfall of the public church.12 Opposed to this strand of rhetoric was the language of peace and toleration. The unsuccessful negotiations with Spain in 1629 had led to the formation of peace parties, particularly in some of the Holland towns where the burden of taxes for the war was most acutely felt. Hitherto, the stadholder Frederick Henry had played off the ‘Arminians’ against the Counter-Remonstrants, arbitrating between the two, but in 1633 he threw his weight behind the Counter-Remonstrants and the war party. The tradition of Oldenbarnevelt was revived by the opponents of Frederick Henry and once again confrontation between the stadholder and the States of Holland

  Noodige bedenckingen der Trouhertighe Nederlanders over de aen-staende Munstersche handelinghe van Vrede ofte Treves (s.l., 1643), np (Knuttel no. 5014).    Openhertige en Trouhertige Requeste Ghepresenteert ende overghegheven aen de Ed. Mogh. Heeren Staten van Zeelant / den 16 Meerte 1648 (s.l., 1648), np (Knuttel no. 5712).   �������� Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 423. 10   Den Compaignen van de verre-sienden Waerschouwer-Thoonende met vele redenen waerom tot bevestinghe van den Staet van dese Landen den Oorlogh veel dienstiger is dan den Treves (1621), np (Knuttel no. 3204). 11   Ghespreck van langhe Piet met Keesje Maet, belanghende den Treves met den Spaigniaert (s.l., 1629), np (Knuttel no. 3924). 12   Ver-sienden Bril dienende op de jegenwoordige Vredeshandelinge (1633), np (Knuttel no 4309). 

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

201

had become the central element in Dutch politics.13 Following the capture of Breda in 1637 and the defeat of the Spanish at Rocroi in 1643 the frontiers appeared secure. In the eyes of the peace party the war fought by Frederick Henry had now changed from defensive to offensive with the aim of extending the boundaries of the Republic and they were not in agreement with this. They did not believe that the interests of their towns would be served by any further territorial expansion which would encompass towns and cities such as Antwerp which were trading rivals.14 Groups such as these argued that common interests bound together the seven provinces but, true to the tradition of Oldenbarnevelt, they did not perceive the Reformed faith as one of these unifying bonds. Their rhetoric can be seen in the pamphlets to support the peace negotiations in the years leading up to 1648. For one anonymous author, expressing the views of many, the union of the seven provinces did not lie in the maintenance of the so-called True Reformed religion but in the defence of freedom of conscience which had led directly to the wealth and prosperity which the Republic currently enjoyed.15 Peace once established, it might be expected that this strand of polemic might lose its vigour but it was to break forth sporadically for two decades to come. It might help us to understand this if we consider the Treaty of Munster as not so much the crowning of a national struggle for independence as the victory of a particular party.16 On the one hand there was the majority party in Holland and its supporters in other provinces who had argued for peace with Spain and internally an Erastian settlement in which the public church acknowledged the supremacy of the secular government in most spheres. For this group each province was sovereign. On the other hand there were those who favoured the prolongation of war who gathered round the young stadholder William II and who saw the Reformed church as the main bond of the Republic and one which must be placed beyond the control of town magistrates. Peace did not resolve these issues. In 1650 there was a disagreement between William II and the province of Holland over the decommissioning of troops. In reality the numbers concerned were small but at stake was the issue as to whether the soldiers were completely under the authority of the province which paid for them or if the stadholder as captain-general of the army of the Republic had the ultimate decision. For Holland decommissioning was a tangible symbol of peace whereas for William II, whose aversion to the Treaty of Munster was well known, the troops were not only a symbol of his authority but kept alive the possibility that war might be renewed, in this case to assist his brother-in-law Charles Stuart. 1650 witnessed a starburst of pamphlets composed by ministers of the Reformed church in which they bemoaned the peace of 1648 and its dire effects for the public  �������� Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 523–4.  ������������������������������������������������ J.H.G. Geurts, ‘De moeilijke weg naar Münster’, ZE, 13 (1997): 68. 15   Examen over seker Boecxken Genaemt Nederlands Beroerde Inghewanden (s.l., 1647), np (Knuttel no. 5520). 16  ��������������������������������������������������������������� G. van de Plaat, ‘De Vrede van Münster in de historiographie’, ZE, 13, (1997): 43. 13

14

202

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

church. The evocatively termed Na-ween van de vrede [Aftershocks of the Peace], attributed to the Reformed minister Petrus Wittewrongel, was uncompromising in its stance. The Treaty of Munster was a ‘monstrous peace’. To the citizens of the Republic he urged: ‘war has been for you a bond of union and unity, peace of discord and disunity’. Peace threatened the bonds of the Union and with the Union, religion. As a result of peace the country was swarming with papists and sectaries, objects of Catholic devotion were openly on sale and the rights and privileges of the public church were under attack by the papists and their Arminian allies. He concluded that without war the Republic could not be maintained.17 His fellow Reformed minister Maximilian Teellinck, observing the bitter dispute, agreed with Wittewrongel that peace was already tainting the Republic. In a pamphlet addressed to the Prince of Orange he insisted that the True Reformed Religion as set out at the Synod of Dordrecht in 1619 must be maintained. All papists should be driven from the seven provinces and control of church order and authority should not lie in the hands of the Arminian regents.18 In a pamphlet attributed to the Reformed minister Jacobus Stermont, images of dissolution occur once more. For this writer the Union of Utrecht had been forged in the course of war and once peace was made the seven provinces would go their own separate ways. The Reformed religion would be placed in dire danger for those of a libertine and Arminian spirit would follow the maxim of Grotius that each town and province would decide on its own religion.19 The language of the ministers did not go unopposed. In a pamphlet of 1650 a fictional Hollander defended the Treaty of Munster against its critics, extolled the values of peace and expressed his fear that the stadholder William II was hell-bent on dragging the Republic into a war against England in the interests of his brother-in-law Charles II. Emboldened, he argued against the presumption of Stermont that the defence of the Reformed faith was the principal aim of the Union of Utrecht. The contrary was the case. No country where religion was persecuted could be accounted free. It was in the defence of just such principles that the Republic had fought against Spain.20 The Lord God was a peace-loving God, asserted another writer, and in persuading the other provinces to embrace peace Holland was fulfilling the divine obligation. The United Provinces was a free Republic in which there was a public church but followers of other forms of Christianity should be treated with toleration. Was it not the case, the author 17   De Na-Ween van de Vrede ofte Ontdeckinge vande kommerlijcke gheleghentheydt onses lieven Vaderlants (s.l., 1650), np (Knuttel no. 6756). 18   Vrymoedige Aenspraeck aen Syn Hoogheyt De Heere Prince van Oraengien (1650), pp. 11, 14–15 (Knuttel no. 6857). 19   Oogen-salve voor de blinde Hollander Begrepen in seeckere Missive van een recht Patriot ende getrou liefhebber des Vaderlands (1650), np (Knuttel no. 6852). 20   Het Rechte Derde Deel van ‘t Hollands Praatje aangaande de wettige Souverainiteyt van de Groot-Mogende Heeren Staten van Hollandt (s.l., 1650), pp. 9, 28–9 (Knuttel no. 6842).

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

203

enquired rhetorically, that the papists just like the Calvinists had given their lives in the defence of the northern provinces?21

II The unexpected death of William II in November 1650 marked the triumph of the party of Holland. Under the guidance of Holland, the majority of provinces declared that they would not appoint a new stadholder. Supporters of the House of Orange addressed themselves to the cause of his posthumous son William III and the attempt to place him in the offices of his forefathers. The stadholder had traditionally been seen as the defender of the Reformed faith and many of its adherents supported the claims of the young Prince of Orange. In anonymous political pamphlets they sought to attack the current government and advance the interests of William III. Their strategy was to create a wave of internal discord which, should the times be propitious, could lead to the restoration of the Prince. They continued to deploy the language of war and religion in a way which makes it clear that this form of rhetoric was designed to reflect internal difficulties in the Republic as much as any form of commentary on contemporary foreign policy. This is illustrated by the political polemic of the First Anglo-Dutch war. A reading of the Knuttel collection of political pamphlets22 reveals that contemporaries were naturally taxed about the looming war with England and its effects on Dutch commerce. The government was criticised for its alleged failure to prepare the navy adequately and individual sea captains faced charges of cowardice. Some writers were quick to allege that matters had been conducted with greater speed, expediency and security when there had been a stadholder who was also admiral-general of Holland in charge and there were calls for the infant William III to be appointed captain- and admiral-general with the Stadholder of Friesland, William Frederick as his lieutenant. Yet alongside the rhetoric about the current war, the traditional polemic surrounding the issues of religion and the Treaty of Munster continued to appear. A pamphlet of 1652 which was alleged to emanate from a minister of the Reformed church laid out a list of accusations against the party of Holland. They had made a shameful peace with Spain, giving no support to Frederick Henry in his strategy of capturing Ghent, Antwerp and Dunkirk. Spain had purchased their support with gold. They had tried to deprive William II of his prestige and authority so that the province of Holland would dominate the Republic. It was even hinted that they had contrived to bring about his death. They were engaged in a secret correspondence with England with the objective of rooting out the supporters of the Prince of Orange. Like England the 21   Den Rechten Ommeganck vande Gevioleerde Stadt van Amsterdam (s.l., 1650), np (Knuttel no. 6781). 22  ��������������������������� Willem P.C. Knuttel (ed.), Catalogus van de pamfletten-verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (9 vols, 1978).

204

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

government of the Republic tolerated all manner of sectaries and failed to provide any support or security for the public church which had suffered grievously from the effects of the peace. For the leaders of the government their only religion was profit.23 The noted preacher Jacobus Stermont acknowledged that the call to peace in the late 1640s had aroused powerful emotions but he warned that Spain and the papists had only pursued peace because they could not defeat the Republic in war. Once the war with Spain was concluded, internal schism would tear the provinces apart. In a situation such as this a righteous war was infinitely preferable to a dishonourable peace in which papists and sectaries worked to undermine the fabric of the state. The security of the Republic would only be assured if the House of Orange, to whom so much was owed, was once again placed in high office.24 By 1653 the Republic was engaged in a life or death struggle with England. The governing group found themselves with their backs against the wall. The Dutch fleet had been mauled off Portland Bill, Harwich and Scheveningen and there was widespread unemployment and hunger. In the summer of 1653 riots erupted throughout the province of Holland. The rioters sported Orangist favours and cried ‘vive le prince’. The political polemic of the time reflected internal events as much as the catastrophes at sea and pamphlet writers drew on the rhetoric of past crises to shed light on current ills. A pamphlet Dienstige Aenmerkingen op den Spaensen Raedt [Useful remarks on the Spanish Counsel] which was republished in 1653 had first seen the light of day in 1617 during the critical years of struggle between the Arminian and Counter-Remonstrant parties. The unknown author of the 1653 edition who added a preface and other remarks to the original document described himself as an ‘honest patriot’ and warned his readers against ‘forgetfulness’ which he described as the ‘sister of death’. Only those who remembered their nation’s past struggle could correctly interpret contemporary events. It was alleged that in the early years of the seventeenth century Justus Lipsius had advised the King of Spain that the Dutch could not be defeated in war but that peace might bring civil discord and internal collapse in its wake. Thus the King, it was said, must play the fox rather than the lion, seek out allies in the Holland towns and encourage papists and sectaries. In signing the Treaty of Munster, Spain had adopted the same policy. Peace was but a Trojan Horse. Sadly now in 1653 there was no stadholder like Maurice, to rein in those magistrates who, in the author’s words, viewed all religion as a ‘pure invention’. Jesuits were flooding into the Republic to steal souls, libertine magistrates permitted a swarm of sectaries to flourish and

23   Artyckelen Teghen de Loevesteynsche Heeren de With, Keyser en Stelling-Wert ende hunne adherenten (Amsterdam, 1652), np (Knuttel no. 7297). 24   Memorie van seeckere Predicatie Gedaen door D: Jac Stermont in ‘s Graven-Hage den 10 Martii 1652 (s.l., 1652), np (Knuttel no. 7324).

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

205

provincial sovereignty had replaced national unity. The author concluded obliquely by asking his readers to hold the Prince of Orange in respect.25 The unknown author of the pamphlet Ontdeckinghe van den tegenwoordigen stande onses Vader-Landts [Discovery of the current state of our Fatherland] published in 1653 did acknowledge the exigencies of the current war with England but asserted that the sufferings of the Republic were God’s punishment upon a regent oligarchy who had made a disadvantageous peace in 1648 and had scorned the cause of the Reformed church. These creatures pretended to be good patriots and members of the public church but their base intent was to turn their backs on the States General and the Union, to renounce the Synod of Dordrecht and destroy the base of the Reformed faith in the Republic. Their strategy to achieve this was to declare that each province was sovereign and could select any religious policy they chose. These present day regents, he argued, held to the principles of Oldenbarnevelt and like him they were deploying peace as a means of gaining control of the levers of power at municipal and provincial level.26

III What was the purpose of polemic such as this? Did the writers seriously imagine that the Republic should embark on a second war against the King of Spain to put right the failings of the Treaty of Munster? Scrutinising the pamphlet literature, there is no evidence that they considered anything of the kind. There were no calls to renew the war against Spain, indeed the current war against England militated against any such approach. These pamphlets were not intended to promulgate views on current foreign policy; rather they were designed to support factions within the Republic who sought to gain power at the expense of the current incumbents. In Ontdeckinghe van den tegenwoordigen stande onses Vader-Landts the writer urged captains of the civic militia and deacons of the guilds to purge their town councils of all magistrates who held to those pernicious maxims. The references to Oldenbarnevelt and the period of the Truce make plain that these authors were drawing comparisons between that time and their own and in so doing deploying the rhetoric which earlier writers had used. However, it is noticeable that when it came to the current war with England those who wielded the pen against the Treaty of Munster and for the defence of the Reformed faith were not all of one mind. For some this war did not fit their criterion of a nation uniting under the banner of the Reformed faith against a foreign Catholic foe. On the one hand there were those such as Jacobus Stermont,   Dienstige Aenmerkingen op den Spaensen Raedt Eertyds door Justus Lipsius, Erich Puteanus en Fr. Campanella gegeven aende Koninck van Spaengien (Haarlem, 1653), pp. 3, 13–14, 18–19, 25–6 (Knuttel no. 7451). 26   Ontdeckinghe van den tegenwoordigen stande onses Vader-Landts (Middelburg, 1653), np (Knuttel no. 7462). 25

206

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

court preacher at the Hague, who waxed hot against the English, seeing the war as a chance to achieve the restoration of Charles II and with this the promotion of his nephew the young Prince of Orange. In a pamphlet of 1652 attributed to Stermont the minister urged war against the English who had murdered their king and trampled religion underfoot. Cromwell was described as the ‘Mohammed of London’ and England as a land of sectaries in which honest Presbyterians found themselves under attack and women were permitted to preach from the pulpit.27 Stermont’s own ventures from the pulpit were rebuked by the States of Holland in 1652 when he was ordered to desist from preaching after speaking against peace with England.28 Yet for others among his brethren in the public church matters were not so simple. Sections of the Reformed church had long enjoyed links with the Presbyterians in England. Gisbertus Voetius, a leader of the more intransigent wing of the public church, had visited England and enjoyed cordial relations with his co-religionists. In the time of stadholder William II both Voetius and his colleague André Rivet had encouraged the alliance of Charles II and the Scots Presbyterians.29 As the polemic of the Anglo-Dutch war revealed, these ties of religion were to prove powerful. One pamphlet of 1652 argued that war with England would shame both the honour of God for both nations shared the same Protestant faith and both had had cause to fight for their religion. In addition, the author argued, both countries were republics. War could only profit the common enemy Spain and would offend so many tender consciences in the Dutch Republic that they would leave the country rather than be drawn into the war.30 Another writer of 1652 advised his fellow countrymen that it would be better if England and the Dutch Republic combined to defend their common religion against her numerous foes.31 Pamphleteers friendly to the ruling States Party enjoyed the discomfiture of those who had most loudly criticised the peace with Spain and now felt themselves torn between the demands of religion and the national interest. In a pamphlet of 1652 a fictional housewife related how she had heard some ministers pray in the church for ‘our brothers in parliament’. Her husband, enraged by news of English attacks on Dutch vessels, took a different view and stormed out of the church. Her fellow gossip Trijntje related how in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam minister

27   Eenvoudich Advys om met de meest Spoet ende de minste Schade te gheraken uyt den Schadelicken Oorloch met Engelandt (s.l., 1652), pp. 4, 6, 27 (Knuttel no. 7257). 28   Resolutien van tijdt tot tijdt genomen by de Ed. Gr. Mog Heeren Staten van Holland en Westvriesland (s.l., 1653), np (Knuttel no. 7323). 29   Maximilien uit den Bogaard, Den Gereformeerden en Oranje tijdens het eerste Stadhouderloze Tijdperk (Groningen, 1954), pp. 56, 68. 30   Christelijk en Politique Redenen Waer om dat Nederlandt en Engelandt tegens malcanderen niet mooghen Oorloghen (Rotterdam, 1652), np (Knuttel no. 7204). 31   Consideratien over de tegenwoordighe Vrede-handelinghe tusschen Englandt en Nederlandt (Rotterdam, 1652), np (Knuttel no. 7206).

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

207

Wittewrongel, that scourge of the peacemakers of 1648, had appealed for alms for ‘our brothers in England’.32 For Wittewrongel and those of his stamp, this was the wrong war. Their ‘war’ was to be waged against a papist power, ideally Spain, and would unite the nation in defence of the Reformed faith against its enemies both without and within the Republic. They had no stomach for a war against fellow Protestants. And what of the party of peace, those who in 1648 had argued the benefits of the cessation of hostilities and the defence of religious liberty? Some writers rallied to the national cause but others continued to deploy the rhetoric of the 1640s. Even as war with England loomed, the consequences of the peace of 1648 continued to be debated and defended. In a pamphlet of 1652, the unknown author, suspected of being a Remonstrant minister, insisted that even if the Treaty of Munster had brought no territorial gains, peace itself should be considered prize enough for any Christian person for whom the freedom and the welfare of the state was paramount. The opponents of the peace of 1648, supposedly the ministers Stermont, Voetius, Wittewrongel and Teellinck, were described as a ‘Scots consistory’ whose object was to impose upon the Republic the single minded intolerance of their Scots’ contemporaries.33 1653 was a devastating year for the Dutch war effort yet a writer of the same period pointed to the example of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane who ordered Peter to put away his sword as one for all earthly governments to follow. The current war, he opined, was forced upon a reluctant government by the English. Meanwhile rather than criticising their rulers, all citizens should flock to their support for they were not forcing religious consciences but rather leaving people to worship freely.34 A pamphlet of 1654 argued that the Anglo-Dutch war was no less than a divine punishment upon the nation. God had granted peace to the Republic in 1648 but instead of giving hearty and devout thanks the people had scorned the peace and the peacemakers and none more so than those preachers of the Reformed church who had continued to trumpet the cause of war. They had also taken advantage of days of prayer to rail against those who were not of the Reformed faith be they Mennonites, Socinians or papists. From their pulpits these ministers had excoriated a government which rightly placed the peace and prosperity of its subjects before consideration of their religion.35   Het Hollants wijve-praetjen tusschen drie gebueren, Trijntje, Grietje en Neeltje noopende den tegenwoordighen staet der Vrye Vereenichde Nederlanden (Haarlem, 1652), np (Knuttel no. 7233). 33   Den Englischen Duyvel ontdeckt door een Botte Schelm, in twaalf Artikelen van Cromwels geloof uyt-ghestrooydt teghens de Loevensteynsche Heeren (s.l., 1652), pp. 7, 16 (Knuttel no. 7301). 34  ����������������������c���� Christelyke Borger-Plicht, In een Biddags Predicatie over de laatste bede van het Vader Onse (Rotterdam, 1653), pp. 31, 33, 35 (Knuttel no. 7469). 35   Den vrolijken Democryt, Lacchende met ‘s Werelds Ijdelheden, met de Tegensprake van den weenenden Heraclytus Rotterdam (Rotterdam, 1654), pp. 8, 21 (Knuttel no. 7596). 32

208

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

For these writers the Republic had no need of war to maintain unity of purpose. Rather men should gather before the standard of those liberties and freedoms whose defence had led to the founding of the new state. Not the Reformed faith but liberty of religion was their touchstone. Developments in the United Provinces reinforced this rhetoric. After the death of Stadholder William II the policy of the States of Holland had been to maintain the Republic’s recently gained commercial hegemony. The Pensionary John de Witt and his supporters believed that the position of the Republic could best be guaranteed and consolidated by a series of defensive alliances by which the great powers of Europe including England, France and the Republic combined to contain regional conflicts which might threaten the peace of Europe. During the 1650s this strategy was not attainable as France and Spain were at war and trade rivalries had led to war between the Dutch and England. However, by the end of the decade, de Witt’s policy was bearing fruit when England, France and the Republic joined forces to dictate terms to end the conflict between Denmark and Sweden. In 1662 a defensive alliance was concluded between France and the Dutch Republic.36 In 1662 Pieter de la Court published his highly contentious tract Interest van Holland [Interest of Holland]. The bulk of the work was composed of an attack on the principles of monarchy, the concept of the single leader and the persons and policies of the former Orangist stadholders. Thus it played an important part in the debate on internal politics in the Republic. However, in his writing de la Court made explicit the intentions of the peace makers of 1648 that the welfare of the Republic and particularly the province of Holland was based on international peace.37 Offensive wars, he argued, had been the downfall of nearly all republics, particularly those whose wealth was based on trade. Only a policy based on external peace could create the internal political conditions in which commerce and industry could flourish. Central to this was the concept of freedom of religion which de la Court described as ‘the very first of all God’s blessings’. By this de la Court was not referring merely to freedom of conscience. Even the most hardline members of the Reformed church did not usually quarrel with that. Rather he argued that the talented entrepreneur and the skilled craftsmen would not stay where they could not practise their religion in peace. De la Court envisaged a world in which the self interest of the individual and the interests of the community would be integrated not by ties of religious unity but by a government which represented and exemplified their shared objectives.38 In 1663 Holland determined to introduce a new form of Public Prayer which would place prayers for the province before those for the States General and omit any supplications for the welfare of the Prince of Orange who was now 36  �������������������������������������c������������������� J.C.Boogman, ‘De raison d’état-politicus Johan de Witt’, BMGN, 90 (1975), pp. 384, 392–5. 37  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Hans Blom, ‘Oorlog, handel en staatsbelang in het politieke denken rond 1648’, ZE, 13 (1997): 68. 38   Interest van Holland (Amsterdam, 1662), pp. 35–6, 63–5 (Knuttel no. 8652).

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

209

described as a private individual. The proposals provoked outrage. Supporters of the public church argued that religion was a matter reserved for the States General and no province could go it alone in adopting a new formula. In reality practice was far from clear on this score but the flood of rhetoric which ensued revealed how the concept of provincial sovereignty as practised by Holland was seen as profoundly threatening to the unity of the seven provinces and the welfare of the Reformed religion. The insult to the Prince of Orange was deeply resented. In some respects it was as if the arguments of 1648 and of the years of the Truce were being rehearsed once more. The author of a pamphlet of 1663 agreed with de la Court that commerce was the foundation of the state and peace an essential component of prosperity. Coupled with this was an acerbic analysis of the way in which the Reformed ministers and their supporters called upon the causes of unity and religion to maintain their own selfish interests. This author had an expansive view of religious practice. He generously asserted that the Belgic Confession was good, the Augsburg Confession good and the English religious settlement good. All, thought he, believed that their religious practice was best but to force this practice on to others or deny each the expression of their faith was simply wrong and would lead to internal schism.39 Such language was not limited to the supporters of John de Witt and the States Party but could gain support from those whose loyalties might appear to lie elsewhere. Notable in this respect is the pamphlet written by the Roman Catholic Jean Nicholas de Parival entitled Ware Interest van Holland [True interest of Holland] which was published in 1662. Parival was a supporter of the Prince of Orange and hotly contested the attack by de la Court on the institution of the stadholderate and the persons of the former stadholders. However, he had no time for those critics of the peace settlement of 1648 whom he characterised as ministers of the Reformed religion intent on an offensive war to drive the Spanish out of the seventeen provinces. He believed their attitude to be fundamentally misconceived. The twin pillars of the Republic, he argued, were peace and trade. If the United Provinces had declared freedom of worship for all its citizens he did not doubt that Stadholder Frederick Henry would have won over the Southern provinces to the cause of the North. Instead, he asserted, religion had been deployed to promote faction in the Republic. This was a disastrous policy for freedom of worship as tacitly permitted in the Holland towns was the basis of the prosperity of the United Provinces. If Spain were to declare for a programme of religious freedom in its dominions, he announced, the grass would soon be growing in the streets of Haarlem and Leiden.40 Parival’s polemic serves as a cautionary reminder that though those sections of the Reformed ministry who condemned the Peace of 1648 and deplored the Arminian programme were stout defenders of the Prince of Orange, they were not 39   Den Schotschen Duyvel, Betabbert in den Verresenen Barnevelt (Utrecht, 1663), pp. 39, 55, 57 (Knuttel no. 8801). 40   Ware Interest van Holland (Leiden, 1662), p. 99 (Knuttel no. 8653B).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

210

his only source of support. Certainly, members of the Reformed ministry urged the cause of the Prince in both sermons and pamphlets but it was the nature of Orangism to draw its support from a much wider constituency and Parival was not alone amongst Orangists in contemplating a religious settlement which would not have been to the liking of this vociferous group.41 The language of war and religion which they propagated was undoubtedly of use to the Prince with its condemnation of the policies of John de Witt and his supporters and its emphasis upon the stadholderate as maintainer and defender of the True Reformed Faith but Orangism was never entirely defined by this brand of rhetoric. Political polemic emphasising peace and religious toleration continued to appear sporadically throughout the rest of the 1660s in spite of the Second Anglo-Dutch war and the incursions of the Bishop of Munster into the northeastern provinces of the Republic. In a pamphlet of 1668 the anonymous author defended the policy of the current Dutch government in avoiding offensive wars. He similarly congratulated de Witt and his supporters on their policy of religious toleration. Some princes, he argued, used the cause of religion to divide and rule their subjects. A wise ruler, whether prince or regent, knew that differences in religion were not of the essence when there was a common core of belief in God the Father and Jesus Christ. Papists should certainly not be excluded from local and civic office on account of their faith.42 A writer of the same year went further. In his pamphlet a fictional Hollander lauded de Witt’s diplomacy in securing the defensive Triple Alliance of England, Sweden and the Republic to curb French pretensions. Answering the fulminations of a fictional Zeelander against the freedoms permitted by the government to sectaries and Socinians, the Hollander stoutly contended that the latter were among the most pious and god fearing of all religious groups and among the most worthy citizens of the Republic. Warning to his theme, he informed the Zeelander that Holland would never be ashamed to be described as a freedom loving province in which not only did all Christians have freedom of religion but even the Jews, Persians and Turks if they were minded to come. This principle, he contended, is the jewel in our crown.43 De la Court’s vision of a Holland at peace with its neighbours and permitting a variety of religious practice did not go unanswered. Much of the rhetoric of the opposition was strikingly similar to that propounded by those who were against the Treaty of Munster in 1648. One anonymous writer of 1662 urged his readers to see the hand of the old enemy Spain in the pages of Interest van Holland. Writings such as these, he fulminated, were the best way in the world to bring about internal  ����������������������������������������������������� Jill Stern, ‘Religion and the Orangists, 1650–1675’, Dutch Crossing, 30 (2006): 189–92. 42   Naecte Wederleggingh ofte Korte Aenmerckinghe Dienende to Antwoordt op de Consideratien van de Heeren Gecommitteerde Raad van Zeeland (s.l., 1668), pp. 23–4, 27–8 (Knuttel no. 9961). 43   Den Zeeuwsen Buatist, of Binnenlandsen Verrader, Ontdeckt in een Oproering en Landverdervend Pasquil (Rotterdam, 1668), pp. 23–4, 27–8 (Knuttel no. 9662). 41

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

211

confusion and cause the Republic to fall once more into Spanish hands. The writer trod a familiar path when he emphasised the breakdown of unity which he alleged would follow the free practice of all religions as proposed by de la Court.44 The refrain was joined by another anonymous publication of the same year whose author may well have been a minister of the Reformed church. For this writer similarly the Spanish were lying low in order to ruin the Republic by means of peace. He conceded that wars at sea might be disastrous for a trading nation such as the Dutch Republic but argued that war on land had brought the country nothing but good. The only course to strengthen the Republic at this time of confusion was to defend and maintain the True Reformed faith as agreed at the Synod of Dordrecht in 1619.45 Another writer of 1662 despaired that the True Reformed Religion for which the nation had fought long was so contemptuously cast aside. He reflected that the far-sighted province of Zeeland, long-doubtful of the benefits of the Treaty of Munster, had insisted in 1645 that no peace should be made that was detrimental to the interests of the public church. What peace and prosperity could there be, he asked, if the true religion was not sustained and protected? The Reformed religion was the soul of the nation, the foundation upon which this flourishing state had been based and the principal, indeed the only, bond which united the seven provinces. Now the Dutch were to be brought once more under the yoke of the Roman anti-Christ for such could be the only conclusion of a policy which encouraged freedom of worship.46 Much of this writing drew on the rhetoric of the past. Authors alleged that those who wanted to change the formula for Public Prayer were doing the work of Spain and several writers compared the present situation to the years of the Truce earlier in the century. The republication in 1663 of a pamphlet first printed in 1618 and entitled Gulden Legende van den Nieuwen St. Jan [Golden Legend of the New St John] took its readers back to that critical second decade of the seventeenth century and the accusation that Grand Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was using the period of the Truce to break the authority of the public church. The implication was that the present Grand Pensionary, John de Witt, was embarked on the same policy. For another writer de Witt was the ‘risen Barnevelt’ and the Republic was once more threatened by the application of his maxims. In theory peace could only be a good thing but not if it were to be used as an opportunity to permit novelties in religion which would bring down the Republic from within. Changes in religion would foreshadow changes in the Union. To illustrate the dangers a fictional Zeelander described a print in his possession which depicted a friar holding out a sealed letter of peace and thereby tempting the States General 44   Helle-vrucht over den Herbooren Ende Nieu-regnerende Hollantschen CROMWEL (s.l., 1662), p. 7 (Knuttel no. 8656). 45   Bedenckingen op het Boek ‘Interest van Holland’ (1662), pp. 11–12, 41–2. 46   Haeghs Hof-Praetje ofte ‘t Samen-spraeck tusschen een Hagenaer, Amsterdammer ende Leyenaer (1662), pp. 28–30 (Knuttel no. 8654).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

212

into a concealed net. The author argued accordingly that there was no better maxim than that a state should be maintained on the same principles on which it was founded. Lipsius was cited in defence of the argument that a state should recognise only one religion and a diversity of faiths would bring down the wrath of God. The Reformed religion must be maintained and the placards against the papists enforced.47 While the rhetoric of one group reiterated the dangers from Spain, Pieter de la Court in 1662 assured his readers that they need never fear a threat from France as the French were not in a position to wage war against the Republic either on land or at sea.48 De la Court’s reluctance to see any danger from France was not his alone. The political pamphlets of the late 1660’s and 1670 and 1671 show little or no evidence of any concern about the French threat. Those writers who had deplored the Peace of 1648 and its consequences for the public church were generally pro-French, particularly as Cardinal Mazarin had been opposed to any unilateral peace between Spain and the Dutch Republic. Writing after the French invasion of 1672, an unknown author pointed out that the Reformed minister Landsman had preached for over seven years on the danger from France and was denied his pulpit for his pains.49 However, Landsman’s sermons have not survived and his prescience does not appear to have been shared by his colleagues in the Reformed ministry. Yet following the French invasion of 1672 this latter group were swift to deploy their traditional rhetoric though the enemy was now not Spain but France. Central to the debate was the Prince of Orange, newly appointed as captain-general of the Republic’s forces. Louis XIV, wrote one writer, had stormed out of the west hell-bent on the destruction of the Republic’s freedom and religion. Guided by God’s providence, the seven provinces had unanimously voted to appoint William III, the bearer of unity, as captain-general, and it was he, a newly arisen Numa Pompilius, who would purge the Netherlands of faction and defend the Protestant faith.50 For a writer of similar stamp the Prince of Orange was another David chosen by God and the United Provinces for the defence of the Fatherland and

  Gulden Legende van den Nieuwen St. Jan (1663), p. 4 (Knuttel no. 8794; s.l., 1618, Knuttel no. 2757); Den Ver-resenen Barnevelt (1663), pp. 3, 40 (Knuttel no. 8798); Onwederleggelijcke Bewys-Redenen (1663), pp. 11, 18–19 (Knuttel no. 8806); Beduncklicken Brief van d’een Vrient aen d’ander in Hollant (1663), pp. 4, 13 (Knuttel no. 8786); De gansche distructie van den nieuw-gebooren Cromwel (1663), pp. 77, 181, 191, 271 (Knuttel no. 8806D). 48   Interest van Holland, p. 162. 49   Vervolgh op het Bootsmans Praetje van het schip Hollandia van de Princen en Predicanten (s.l., 1672), np (Knuttel no. 10303). 50   Inwijdingh van sijn Hoogheit Willem Henrick de Derde, Prince van Oranje (1672), np (Knuttel no. 9968A). 47

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

213

Church.51 Perhaps God had brought the Republic low, opined a clutch of Zeeland ministers, in order that William III might save it and with the Republic the Reformed faith which was under threat not only from the ravages of Louis but from the machinations of the brothers de Witt and their supporters.52 Pamphleteers described the desecration of the churches in the provinces occupied by Louis’s troops and chronicled the sufferings of the French Huguenots.53 A print which was also issued amidst the contents of a political pamphlet and forms part of the Knuttel collection provided a visual testimony of this conjunction of ideas. In the centre of the print was sited a church and the accompanying text explained that the building and all it represented had been the butt of malicious slanders. In the churchyard, protecting the church, was a stout orange tree and on its branches stood the images of the stadholder Princes of Orange. The figure of William III was accompanied by a caption assuring the readers that the Prince had been chosen by God and it was God’s work he was engaged in. A rope was lassoed around the trunk of the tree and a number of figures were seen straining to pull the tree down. Among their number was the devil himself and the whore of Babylon and her legions representing the forces of Catholicism. The French court placed to the left of the church looked on at the proceedings. In the churchyard itself, two men could be seen frantically trying to hack through the trunk of the tree. The print identified them as Jan and Kees, that is John and Cornelis de Witt. The situation appeared desperate but salvation was assured. In a small inset at the top of the print there was the image of a boat at sea. The text explained that just as Christ in a boat on the Sea of Galilee was awoken by Peter during a storm and arose to quell the waves, so God would save the Republic in its time of need.54 The appointment of the Prince of Orange as captain-general and later, in July, as stadholder of the province of Holland took its place in this particular reading of Dutch history. A pamphleteer of 1672, a ‘lover of Fatherland and Church’, declared himself delighted with the Prince’s promotion. On his deathbed the former stadholder Frederick Henry had commended to his son and his people the three foundations of the Republic which were the army, the Union of Utrecht and the Calvinist faith. However, the supporters of the maxims of Oldenbarnevelt had supported the Treaty of Munster in order to reduce the military authority of William II and attack the Reformed religion. They were determined to undo the work of the Synod of Dordrecht of 1619 and following the death of William II 51   Zegenwensch aan sijn Hoogheyt den Heere Prince van Orange als Capiteyn Generaal van ‘t Vereenigd Nederland (1672), p. 7 (Knuttel no. 9962). 52   Aensprake uyt naem der kercken van Zeelant (1672), np (Knuttel no. 10256). 53   Oorloghs Bazuyne, Geblaesen ter opweckinge van alle Ingesetenen in de nogh overige Provincien, Steden en Sterckten van Nederlandt (1672), pp. 32–3 (Knuttel no. 10631). 54  ������������������������������������������cc�������������������������� Knuttel no. 10278 (1672). The image also occurs in Abraham van Stolk, Katalogus der Historie-Spot-en Zinneprenten Betrekkelyk de Geschiedenis van Nederland (11 vols in 10, 1895–1933) (Atlas van Stolk), no. 2495.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

214

they permitted novelties in religion, changed the formula for Public Prayer and banned supplications for the Prince of Orange.55 Faced with the rapid capture of fortresses in the east of the country and the seemingly inexorable progress of the French army, delegates were dispatched to sue for peace. Writers opposed to this development, drew on the rhetoric of the past to buttress their argument. They pointed out that the French were likely to make excessive demands for freedom of worship for Roman Catholics in the Republic, just as they had in the negotiations preceding the peace of Munster. Papists were a growing serpent in the bosom of the Republic and an ever present threat to the primacy of the Calvinist faith. War not peace should be the cry of all lovers of the Fatherland.56 War was the theme of another notable pamphlet. The anonymous author argued that it was war which had moulded the success of the Republic and the internal discord during the Truce years only proved the truth of that maxim. War had made the Republic great in Europe whereas peace had brought it low. The True Reformed Religion was the sheet anchor of the state but following the peace of Munster there had been no further reformation but deformation. Arminians and atheists had taken their places on the cushions in the town halls and the teachings of Descartes had flourished unchallenged. Now that the Prince of Orange was restored to the offices of his forefathers he would purge the town halls of these creatures and faithful teachers would be restored to their pulpits. War would restore the fame of the Republic in Europe and buttress the cause of the Reformed faith.57 Pamphleteers compared the career and policies of John de Witt with that of his predecessor Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. For one writer the ghost of Oldenbarnevelt, the nation’s traitor, lived again in the person of de Witt. Both were enemies of the Republic and the Reformed faith, seeking to arouse the town magistrates against the public church and placing local consistories under political control. Roman Catholics, Arminians and sectaries flourished under their leadership. In seeking peace with Spain, Oldenbarnevelt had betrayed the nation’s interests and de Witt was alleged to have taken French gold in pursuit of his policy of preventing the return of the House of Orange to the office of stadholder.58 Like his great-uncle Maurice, William III had arisen to lead the struggle against the aggressor and defend the interests of the public church.

  Brevis Discursus de Revolutionibus hujus Anni. KürtzerDiscurs ���������������������������������� von der Revolution oder ümlauft dieses Jahr (1672), np (Knuttel no. 10116). 56   Copie Ed. Gr. Mo. Heeren bysondre goeden Vrienden, Nabuyren en Bontgenooten (1672), np (Knuttel no. 10133). 57   Geneesmiddelen voor Hollants Qualen. Vertoonende de quade regeringe der Loevesteinse Factie (1672), pp. 5–6, 18 (Knuttel no. 10376). 58   ‘t Leven en Bedrijf van Mr. Jan van Oldenbarnevelt over-eengebraght met dat van Mr. Jan de Wit (s.l., 1672), np (Knuttel no. 10432). 55

A Righteous War and a Papist Peace

215

IV The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 has traditionally been regarded as a watershed in early modern European history. The headship of a secular Emperor and the Papacy was replaced by a network of fully autonomous states acknowledging no superior spiritual authority. Now religion was a matter for each individual state to address. It was believed that there would be no more wars of religion and political and economic interests would now take precedence over religious beliefs.59 An examination of the rhetoric of Dutch political pamphlets in the years 1648–72 suggests that religion continued to be linked to issues of war and peace, Westphalia notwithstanding. We should not be surprised at this. There are very few events which effect a sudden and radical change in the language of political discourse; the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Iron Curtain may be a rare example of one such occurrence. Rather it appears that much political rhetoric consciously rehearses the same issues. The republication in the Dutch Republic of pamphlets first printed decades before suggests that much political discourse followed well-trod themes. The reissuing of pamphlets was not unique to the United Provinces. In his magisterial study of the pamphleteering of the Frondes Hubert Carrier described how works attacking Concini which were first published during the regency of Marie de Medici during the first two decades of the seventeenth church were reprinted during the Frondes with Mazarin as the object of their attack.60 We are clearly dealing here with a normative language in which conflicts of faction and ideology could be expressed. Dutch rhetoric linking war, peace and religion had a long history. It had flourished in the years of the Truce when Counter-Remonstrants urged the eradication of the Arminian ‘heresy’ and the resumption of the war against Spain. It resurfaced on each occasion when peace negotiations with Spain were mooted. At its heart lay the conviction that the Union of Utrecht, forged in war, would not survive peace, the nation would fracture politically and the public church would lose its dominance. It was alleged that the peacemakers were playing Spain’s game and they were often accused of being in secret alliance with the enemy. In 1672 writers were able to adroitly substitute France for Spain as the national enemy and John de Witt and his supporters as the traitors. While the language deployed spoke of war and peace, it was not so much a commentary on contemporary foreign policy as the rhetoric of internal faction. The vast majority of pamphlets were issued anonymously but on occasions contemporaries attributed these works to individuals. It would appear that much of this type of political discourse emanated from ministers of the Reformed church. They formed a valuable cohort of supporters for the cause of the young Prince 59  ����������������������������������� Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies, 1650. Bevochten Eendracht (The Hague, 1999), p. 41. 60  ���������������� Hubert Carrier, La Presse de la Fronde (La Conquête de l’Opinion) (Geneva, 1989), p. 308.

216

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

of Orange after 1650 but as we have seen they were not always an homogenous group. During the First Anglo-Dutch war there were ministers of the public church for whom the Reformed faith had a greater call on their loyalties than William III for they were reluctant to wage war against their co-religionists in England. The example of the Roman Catholic Orangist Jean Nicholas de Parival and his advocacy of peace and freedom of religious worship suggests that confessional allegiance still had a role to play in the formulation of political discourse. There had always been those who saw the nation living prosperously, at peace with Spain and enjoying the fruits of religious diversity. During the 1640s this strand of polemic grew stronger. It was to some extent appropriated by the supporters of John de Witt, wars with England notwithstanding. It is exemplified in the writings of Pieter de la Court where peace and freedom of worship became a sine qua non of political liberty and prosperity. Inevitably it could not flourish in the climate of 1672 but it remained available to be deployed at a more propitious time. The French invasion of 1672 revitalised the language of war and religion. France was effortlessly substituted for Spain as the threat to Fatherland and faith. It could be argued that in the light of the hostilities the rhetoric of internal political faction found its apogee. Authors deplored the ill preparedness of the Republic’s soldiery, the factional struggles within the provinces and the declining authority of the public church. All of these faults, it was alleged, were the result of the Treaty of Munster and its effects on the Republic. Arguments about the peace revived as war raged on. The persistence of this strand of political discourse indicates that it was clearly believed to draw a response from those who read or listened to these pamphlets. The Treaty of Westphalia notwithstanding, people did not stop being religious and religion did not stop being an important factor in their lives and the way in which they viewed the wider world. The language of war and religion was one to which they were accustomed and one to which they were well suited to respond at this most critical time in the history of the Dutch Republic.

Chapter 11

Defending the True Faith: Religious Themes in Dutch Pamphlets on England, 1688–1689 Emma Bergin

The importance of the pamphlet war that raged between England and the Dutch Republic in the crucial months surrounding William III’s invasion of England in November 1688 has not gone unnoticed by historians examining the Revolutionary period. Neither has the fact that much of the literature constituted officially sponsored propaganda emanating from both the Williamite and Jacobite camps. The pivotal role played by pamphleteers and printers in the Republic itself, especially in the production of opposition works destined for England, has also been recognised. As A.Th. van Deursen correctly pointed out, during this period a battle to win the hearts and minds of the English public, and in particular those of dissenting opinion, was taking place via the pamphlet medium. However, surprisingly little attention has been afforded to the nature of the public debate or to the impact of such pamphlets in the Dutch Republic over the same period.   ��c��������c������ Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (Princeton, 1986), pp. 484–7; James Jones, The Revolution of 1688 in England (Birkenhead, 1972), pp. 226–8; John Miller, Popery and Politics in England 1660–1688 (London, 1973), pp. 252–7; Peter Rietbergen, ‘ ‘s-Werelds schouwtoneel. Oorlog, politiek en economie in noord-west Europa ten tijde van Willem III’, in Alfred Bachrach, J.P. Sigmond and A.J. Veenendaal (eds), Willem III. De stadhouder-koning en zijn tijd (Amsterdam, 1988), pp. 68–88; Craig Rose, England in the 1690s. Revolution, Religion and War (Oxford, 1999), pp. 28–37; Lois Schwoerer, ‘Propaganda in the Revolution of 1688–89’, AHR, 82/4 (Oct., 1977): 843–74.   ���������������� Paul Hoftijzer, Engelse Boekverkopers bij de Beurs. ����������������������� De geschiedenis van de Amsterdamse boekhandels Bruyning en Swart, 1637–1724 (Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 152–3; Paul Hoftijzer, ‘Een venster op Europa. Culturele betrekkingen tussen Groot-Brittannië en de Nederlandse Republiek’, in Bachrach, Sigmond and Veenendaal (eds), Willem III, pp. 124–7.   ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ A.Th. van Deursen, ‘Propaganda. The battle for public opinion’, in John North and Peter Klein (eds), Science and Culture under William and Mary (Amsterdam, 1992), pp. 23–37.   ��c������������������������������������������������������������������������� Except Van Deursen’s ‘Propaganda’ and to a limited extent Peter Rietbergen, ‘A Fateful Alliance? William III and England in Dutch Historiography, 1688–9 – 1988–9’, in J.I. Israel (ed.), The Anglo-Dutch Moment. Essays on the Glorious Revolution and its World Impact (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 463–80.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

218

Yet this key aspect of the Dutch side of the Revolution merits closer examination for whilst the political, strategic and economic objectives of Dutch policy-makers have been brought to light, the way that individuals outside the ruling elite understood and perceived the event still remains unclear. In particular, although the religious case for intervention in England as laid out in William III’s Declaration of Reasons and the States-General’s Resolution is generally regarded as mere propaganda designed to legitimate the developments of 1688–89, the extent to which religious concerns were a motivating factor for the Dutch public has not been fully explored. This essay does not aim to engage in the debate regarding the role of religion in the thinking of Dutch policy-makers, rather it intends to examine Dutch perceptions of the English and European situations by analysing the nature of the public debate surrounding the Revolution as carried out in the pamphlet literature of the period. The main aim of the essay is to demonstrate that Dutch perceptions and attitudes did not change profoundly after 1648 and that, at least for the Dutch public, problems in foreign policy could still be understood in religious terms. It will be shown that not only did the language and imagery used by pamphleteers remain predominantly religious, but also that the re-cycling of the same rhetoric as used during the ‘wars of religion’ was possible, and indeed common.

I Aside from the conspicuous scarcity of surviving memoirs, diaries and personal letters written in the Republic during the Revolutionary period, the main justification for basing this study on pamphlet literature is the integral role of the medium in Dutch political life. Indeed, as can be seen by the Republic’s overall pattern of output, pamphlets were not only an established means of commenting on affairs of state, but a distinct tradition of discussion and debate through pamphlets

 ���������������� Stephen Baxter, William III (London, 1966), pp. 213–14; Simon Groenveld, ‘“J’equippe une flotte très considerable”: The Dutch side of the Glorious Revolution’, in R. Beddard (ed.), The Revolutions of 1688 (Oxford, 1991), p. 231; Keith Haley, ‘The Dutch, the invasion of England and the alliance of 1689’, in Lois Schwoerer (ed.), The Revolution of 1688–89: Changing Perspectives (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 28–9; J.I. Israel, ‘The Dutch role in the Glorious Revolution’, in idem, (ed.), The Anglo-Dutch Moment, p. 118.   ������������� William III, Declaratien van syn Hoogheyt Wilhelm Hendrik (1688) (Knuttel nos 12774–8); States General, Resolutie, Inhoudende de redenen, die haer Ho. Mo. hebben bewogen, om Syne Hoogheydt, In Persoon naer Engelandt overgaende (1688) (Knuttel no. 12785). See also Dale Hoak, ‘The Anglo-Dutch Revolution of 1688–89’, in Dale Hoak and Mordechai Feingold (eds), The World of William and Mary. Anglo-Dutch Perspectives on the Revolution of 1688–89 (Stanford, 1996), p. 11; J.I. Israel, ‘William III and Toleration’, in O.L. Grell, J.I. Israel and N. Tyacke (eds), From Persecution to Toleration. The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England (Oxford, 1991), pp. 130–31. 

Defending the True Faith

219

existed (see Chart 11.1). This custom first began during the Revolt against Spain in the late sixteenth century when rebel pamphleteers embarked upon an extensive propaganda campaign directed against Spain’s political, military and religious leaders, as well as the Spanish nation in general. From that point onwards the public criticism of government policies and political personalities became a common attribute of Dutch pamphlets and, after the controversies of the early seventeenth century, politics and religion were debated regularly through the pamphlet medium. 600

Rampjaar of 1672 500

Number of pamphlets

400

300

Dispute between William II and Amsterdam 1650 Arminian-Gomarist Controversy and fall of Oldenbarnevelt 1618

200

100

Truce Crisis 1607-1609

Peace negotiations at Münster 1648

First and Second Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-54) (1664-67)

New truce proposals and continuing religious disputes

The Glorious Revolution 1688-1689

Militia issue 1684

Death of Mary II 1695

0 1600 1604 1608 1612 1616 1620 1624 1628 1632 1636 1640 1644 1648 1652 1656 1660 1664 1668 1672 1676 1680 1684 1688 1692 1696 1700 Year

Chart 11.1 Dutch pamphlet output 1600–1700, annotated with some of the main subjects of discussion Source: Derived from W.P.C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamfletten-verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Utrecht, 1978).

In fact, Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies have argued that pamphlets were a manifestation of a wider phenomenon they have termed the discussiecultuur [discussion culture] of the Republic, which pervaded not only Dutch politics, but   �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� All figures are derived from Knuttel. Figures refer to Dutch-language pamphlets only in order to indicate those primarily intended for domestic consumption. All quotations are my own translations.   ������������������������c������������������������������������������������������� Koenraad Swart, ‘The Black Legend during the Eighty Years War’, in John Bromley and Ernst Kossmann (eds), Some Political Mythologies. Britain and the Netherlands V (The Hague, 1973), p. 47.   ��������������� Craig Harline, Pamphlets, Printing and Political Culture in the early Dutch Republic (Dordrecht, 1987), pp. 8–10.

220

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

everyday life.10 Marked by the habitual exchange of opinion and a responsibility to take into account the views of others, this culture of discussion owed its existence largely to the de-centralised nature of the Republic’s political set-up, for in a system where local elites remained the focus of decision-making, it was constantly necessary to reach a consensus through considered debate. As local issues could quickly become national ones and vice versa, not only did regents have to consult extensively with their counterparts in other towns, regions and provinces, they also had to be responsive to the needs and feelings of their local communities.11 This was firstly due to the Republic’s high level of urbanisation which meant that regents lived in close proximity to those they represented, including the many traders, merchants and entrepreneurs from whose milieu they generally stemmed; and secondly, because the Republic lacked an effective police force this made the regents sensitive to any kind of public criticism which might stir up discontent and consequently there had to be willingness to compromise.12 Therefore when political disagreements inevitably arose, whether in relation to domestic or foreign affairs, the ensuing deliberations between regents were not only conducted behind closed doors, but also frequently in the public arena. With local, regional or provincial concerns at stake, any kind of political dispute was usually accompanied by a flurry of pamphlets emanating from opposing interest groups who sought not only to explain and justify events, policies and actions, but also to mobilise support amongst the public.13 As a result the discussion of politics was significantly broadened, for due to the Republic’s high levels of literacy, relatively good wages and widespread availability of printers, pamphlets were generally accessible thus expanding the scope for participation in political discourse.14 Furthermore, because individuals outside the ruling elite could keep abreast of all the latest political developments they were also able to voice their 10  ���������������������������������� Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies, 1650 Bevochten Eendracht (The Hague, 1999), p. 218. 11  �������������������������������c�����������������c������������c���������c������������ Henk van Nierop, ‘Popular participation in politics in the Dutch Republic’, in Peter Blickle (ed.), Resistance, Representation and Community (Oxford, 1997), pp. 272–90. 12  ����������������� A.Th. van Deursen, Plain Lives in a Golden Age. Popular Culture, Religion and Society in seventeenth century Holland (Cambridge, 1991), p. 193; Keith Haley, The Dutch in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1972), p. 61; J.L. Price, Holland and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1994), p. 90. 13  ��������������������������������� See for example Simon Groenveld, De Prins voor Amsterdam reacties uit pamfletten op de aanslag van 1650 (Bussum, 1967); C. van de Haar, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe en de Pamflettenstrijd van de jaren 1689 en 1690’, TvG, 64 (1956), 155–77; Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic. Its ���������������������������� Rise, Greatness and Fall (Oxford, 1995), pp. 438–9, pp. 495–6, pp. 510–11; Jill Stern, ‘The rhetoric of popular Orangism, 1650–72’, Historical Research, 77/196 (May, 2004): 202–24. 14  ����������������� Marika Keblusek, Boeken in de Hofstad. Haagse Boekcultuur in de Gouden Eeuw (Hilversum, 1997), p. 364; Michiel van Otegem, ‘Tijd, snelheid, afstand; de mechanica van het pamflet’, ZE, 17/1 (2001): 52; J.L. Price, Dutch Society, 1588–1713 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 103–6, p. 121, pp. 180–86; Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches (New

Defending the True Faith

221

opinions on issues of common concern via the pamphlet medium and, because of the Republic’s relatively ineffective censorship system, there was little regents could do to stop them.15 However, whilst pamphlets can be regarded as evidence of a thriving discussiecultuur, the extent to which they can be deemed representative of what might be called ‘public opinion’ (if such a thing existed at all in the seventeenth century) is debatable.16 In the first instance, although pamphlets were usually intended for a socially-broad audience, as they were not sold by subscription and because few appear in inventory records, tracing readers and estimating consumption levels is extremely problematic.17 Secondly, even though printers aimed production at a national market, the majority of pamphlets were actually printed in Holland, which obviously raises the question of exactly whose opinion was being represented.18 Finally, Craig Harline’s study has shown that pamphlets were generally written by the best educated members of society, but as they frequently published anonymously it is often difficult to determine provenance or accurately establish the social position of authors.19 Nevertheless, although it may be misleading to equate the pamphlet literature with ‘public opinion’, the medium was clearly an important facet of Dutch political life and it is evident that there was a public buying it, reading it, discussing it and contributing to it. For that reason it is possible to argue that at the very least, the volume of pamphlets reflects the volume of public concern over a particular issue or controversy.

II The Revolutionary period was undoubtedly one of intense deliberation, for the whole episode generated one of the great peaks of Dutch pamphlet production in the seventeenth century (see Chart 11.1). Indeed, the fact that some 539 Dutchlanguage pamphlets were published in the years 1688 and 1689 is in itself evidence of the volume of public discussion surrounding the event. The most striking feature York, 1987), p. 167; Paul Zumthor, Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland (London, 1962), pp. 102–19. 15  ����������������� Ingrid Weekhout, Boekencensuur in de Noordelijke Nederlanden. De vrijheid van drukpers in de zeventiende eeuw (The Hague, 1998). 16  �������������������������������������������� The opposite argument is made by Groenveld, De Prins, p. 5; Craig Harline, ‘Mars Bruised: Images of War in the Dutch Republic, 1641–1648’, BMGN, 104 (1989): 190. 17  ������������� Van Deursen, Plain Lives, p. 138; Alexandra Halasz, The Marketplace of Print, Pamphlets and the Public Sphere in early modern England (Cambridge, 1997), p. 13. 18  ��������� Harline, Pamphlets, p. 83; Graham Gibbs, ‘The role of the Dutch Republic as the intellectual entrepôt of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, BMGN, 86 (1971), p. 323. 19  ��������� Harline, Pamphlets, p. 102. For a detailed study of anonymous authorship see Marcy North, The Anonymous Renaissance (Chicago, 2003).

222

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

of the literature was the remarkably high degree of interest in foreign affairs. Some 481 pamphlets (89.2 per cent) were concerned with matters arising outside of the Dutch Republic and, perhaps not surprisingly, English affairs were very much at the forefront of that debate (see Chart 11.2). In fact, constituting 66.8 per cent of the pamphlets on foreign affairs alone, those two years witnessed a level of output on England unmatched at any point throughout the century (see Chart 11.3).

Chart 11.2 Dutch pamphlet themes 1688–89

Chart 11.3 Dutch pamphlets on England 1600–1700, annotated with some of the main subjects of discussion

Defending the True Faith

223

Chart 11.4 Provenance of pamphlets published on England between 1688 and 1689 In terms of the provenance of the literature published on English affairs, the first attribute of note is that a large proportion simply comprised news reports, battle accounts or reproductions of official documents that were printed with little or no commentary (see Chart 11.4). With copies of reports sent by the Dutch ambassador Aernout van Citters, as well as documents dispensed by Parliament, James II and various other political figures available, it seems likely that these pamphlets aimed to supplement the information contained in the Republic’s numerous newspapers.20 Although these pamphlets do not shed much light on the way that English affairs were perceived they are still significant for in the first instance they illustrate that the progress of William’s expedition was a chief topic of interest for the Dutch public, particularly between the sailing of the fleet in November 1688 and William’s coronation in the spring of 1689. Secondly, because developments in Scotland and Ireland were also addressed, they reveal that the Dutch public were aware that William’s actions had evoked a reaction, albeit differing, in each of James’s kingdoms and as such, they were conscious that the Revolution was very much a British event.21 20  �������������������������������������� For example see: Aernout van Citters, Advysen Uyt Engelandt, den 26 Nov (1688) (Knuttel no. 12801); Prince George and Princess Anne, Brief van Prince George Aen den Koningh van Engelandt en Brief van de Princesse van Denemarken (1688) (Knuttel no. 12814); Anon., Nieuwe en nader Advijsen uyt Engelandt, Schotlandt en Yerlandt (s.l., 1689) (Knuttel no. 13159); James II, Syn Majesteyts Redenen, Waaromme deselve vertrocken is van Rochester (1689) (Knuttel no. 13155a). 21  ����������������������������������c������������������������������������������c�� Tim Harris has highlighted that each of James’s kingdoms had their own distinct ‘revolution’, see Tim Harris, ‘Incompatible revolutions?: the Established Church and

224

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Aside from the reproduction of official documents and news reports, the second noteworthy characteristic is that 22.8 per cent of pamphlets were composed by Dutch nationals or by foreign authors who were eminent members of Dutch society. These pamphleteers were generally highly educated and some of those individuals whom it has been possible to identify include the artist Pieter Fris, the poet Joan Pluimer, Johann Georg Graevius, a German classical scholar and Professor of rhetoric at Utrecht, Jacobus Perizonius, the Professor of eloquence and history at Franeker, the Sephardi-Jewish writer Gregorio Leti and Wilhelmus Velingius, a Reformed preacher in Rotterdam�.22 Pamphlets were also forthcoming from Dutch members of William’s propaganda team, the most prominent of whom was the etcher����������������������������c������������������������c������������� Romeyn de Hooghe, who produced at least seven satirical prints in 1689.23 Most pamphlets however, appear to have been written independently and as such they cannot strictly be classed as propaganda for they were not produced as part of a co-ordinated effort. Nevertheless these pamphlets definitely helped William’s cause for they were chiefly published in the wake of his expedition, with the aim of supporting and legitimating his actions before a Dutch domestic audience. In contrast, the translated works of British authors which accounted for 17.4 per cent of output primarily appeared in the period preceding William’s departure. Being originally intended for distribution in England, these works focused on James II’s efforts to repeal the Penal Laws and Test Acts, as well as his renewed Declaration of Liberty of Conscience in April 1688. As works both supporting and opposing the King’s measures were available, to a large extent the debate that was taking place in England over those issues was also being played out in the Dutch Republic. However, whilst pro-repeal pamphlets such as Samuel Parker’s Reasons for Abrogating the Test, Henry Care’s Draconica and William Penn’s Great and Popular Objection against the Repeal of the Penal Laws and Tests were translated, the overwhelming majority of works were critical of both the King and his religious policies.24 In addition to anti-Stuart bestsellers composed in England including the revolutions of 1688–9 in Ireland, England and Scotland’, in Alan Macinnes and Jane Ohlmeyer (eds), The Stuart Kingdoms in the seventeenth century (Scarborough, 2002), pp. 204–25; Tim Harris, ‘The People, the Law, and the Constitution in Scotland and England: A Comparative Approach to the Glorious Revolution’, Journal of British Studies, 38 (Jan., 1999): 28–58. 22  ��������������������c������������������c����������������������� Biographies and articles relating to each of these individuals can c��������������� be found on the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (DBNL) web site, accessible via www.dbnl.org. 23  �������������������������������������������������������� Knuttel nos 13075, 13075a, 13230, 13230a, 13229, 13075b, 13151 (1689). De Hooghe’s entire output is catalogued in F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings and Woodcuts ca. 1450–1700, vol. 9 (1954). 24  ��������������� Samuel Parker, Redenen voor het Afstellen en Vernietigen, van de Test (1688) (Knuttel no. 12903); Anon. [Henry Care], Een Extract van alle de Penale Wetten Ter Zaake van Godsdienst (1688) (Knuttel no. 12910); Anon. [William Penn], De groote en gemeene objectie tegen het afschaffen der Penale Wetten en Tests (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12913).

Defending the True Faith

225

Thomas Brown’s Heraclitus ridens redivivus, the Marques of Halifax’s A Letter From a Clergyman in the city and Samuel Johnson’s The Way to Peace amongst all Protestants, pamphlets written by British exiles in the Republic were also available.25 Gilbert Burnet, the Anglican bishop turned Williamite propagandist, was the most prolific exile, publishing 12 identifiable pieces between 1688 and 1689.26 The works of British authors were therefore clearly prominent in the lead-up to the Revolution, but whether these were translated to satisfy market demands or in response to an official request is more difficult to ascertain.27 Attention also needs to be drawn to the ‘unknown’ category of pamphleteers which comprised 11.4 per cent of the output on English affairs. That the origin of these pamphleteers cannot be determined with any certainty no doubt reflects the fact that from January 1688 onwards, William and his advisers began to take an active role in the distribution of works criticising his father-in-law. Although William had initially been passive in the production of anti-Stuart pamphlets, undertaking no active supervision over their composition, a change occurred following the King’s religious policies of 1687 and the announcement of the Queen’s pregnancy later in the year.28 It was at that time that the Stadholder’s propaganda team was formed, with Hans Willem Bentinck acting as a liaison between William and the political and religious exiles, which included both Huguenot refugees and British Protestants.29 The creation of this team was also a reaction to the reports sent by William’s intelligence agents in England such as Henry Sidney and James Johnstone, who continually emphasised the need for William to keep ahead of the Court’s propaganda.30 Yet although some of the key figures involved can be identified such as Burnet, De Hooghe, the Grand Pensionary Gaspar Fagel, the political writer Eric Walten and the widow Swart, an English refugee printer, the secretive nature of the operation means that unfortunately little is known about the other members of the team or the actual technicalities of its execution.

25  ���������������������� Anon. [Thomas Brown], Den Lachende Heraclitus Weer verreesen (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12963); Anon. [George Saville], Een Brief Van een Kerkelijke Persoon in de stad London (1688) (Knuttel no. 12931); Anon. [Samuel Johnson], De Weg tot Vreede (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12958). 26  �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Knuttel nos 12873, 12893, 12889, 12905, 12906, 12908, 12949, 12956, 13019 (1688); Knuttel nos 13154, 13156, 13235 (1689). 27  �������������������������������������� A similar point is made in Hoftijzer, Engelse Boekverkopers, p. 154. 28  ������������������������������������������� Hoftijzer, ‘Een venster op Europa’, p. 128. 29  ���������������� David Onnekink, The Anglo-Dutch Favourite. The Career of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland (1649–1709) (Aldershot, 2007), p. 124. 30  ���c������ Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, p. 555; Jones, The Revolution of 1688, p. 226.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

226

III The overriding theme of the pamphlet literature was that Europe’s Protestantism and liberties were under threat from a resurgent Catholicism headed by Louis XIV, James II and the Jesuits. Louis XIV’s Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was taken as the first sign of this to which was later added James II’s pro-Catholic policies and the birth of the Prince of Wales. As illustrated by Romeyn de Hooghe’s graphicprint of 1689, both the domestic and foreign policies of these two Kings were not viewed in isolation, but were seen as part of a co-ordinated campaign to eradicate the Protestant religion (see Figure 11.1).31 Since Louis and James were understood to be united in this mutual aim, William’s intervention in England was seen as absolutely necessary for it was believed that the Republic was next on the Catholic ‘hit list’. Thus the expedition to England was regarded as an essentially defensive measure designed to protect Protestantism and liberty not only in England, but also in the Republic and throughout Europe. John Carswell has asserted that the belief in an international Jesuit conspiracy designed to eliminate the Protestant religion was ‘ludicrously wide of the mark’ and in reality it was, for there is no evidence to validate the existence of such a plot.32 Yet conspiracies real or imagined were an ever-present feature of early modern life and, as Barry Coward and Julian Swann’s collection of essays has shown, they were so because they offered an apparently rational and convincing explanation for patterns of political behaviour.33 With the weakened position of European Protestantism glaringly apparent by the latter half of the seventeenth century and with no indication that the progress of the Counter-Reformation or French-style absolutism were going to cease, the events which occurred from 1685 onwards certainly fitted into the general pattern of problems that the Dutch faced in Europe after 1672. Indeed, it was often commonplace to fear crypto-Catholic conspiracies in Protestant countries and the increasingly aggressive approach taken by Louis XIV in the territorial, economic and religious spheres only served to reinforce awareness of the dangers that France posed to the Republic, especially when supported by England.34

 �������������������������� Anon. [Romeyn de Hooghe], Armée van de Heylige Ligue voor der Jesuiten Monarchy (1689) (Knuttel no. 13230). 32  �������������� John Carswell, The Descent on England. A Study of the English Revolution and its European Background (New York, 1969), p. 57. 33  ������������������������������������� Barry Coward and Julian Swann (eds), Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, 2004). 34  ���������������� M.A.M. Franken, Coenraad van Beuningen’s Politieke en Diplomatieke Aktiviteiten in de jaren 1667–1684 (Groningen, 1966); M.A.M. Franken, ‘The General Tendencies and Structural Aspects of the Foreign Policy and Diplomacy of the Dutch Republic in the latter half of the seventeenth century’, Acta Historiae Neerlandica, 3 (1968): 1–42; Groenveld, ‘J’equippe une flotte très considerable’, p. 231; Keith Haley, William of Orange and the 31

Defending the True Faith

227

Figure 11.1 Arlequin sur l’ Hypogryphe à la Croisade Lojoliste (1689), Knuttel 13230; Armée van de Heylige Ligue voor der Jesuiten Monarchy (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2805. English Opposition 1672–74 (Oxford, 1953); Haley, ‘The Dutch, the invasion of England and the alliance of 1689’, pp. 28–9.

228

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

The origin of this perceived conspiracy can therefore be traced back to the period surrounding Louis XIV’s Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October 1685.35 At that time not only were reports of the forced conversions quickly condemned by Protestant and Catholic nations alike, but with the influx of around 70,000 refugees, the suffering of the Huguenots particularly struck a cord with the Dutch public.36 Reminding them of their own ordeal at the hands of French troops during the invasion of 1672, most Dutch towns organised collections for their relief and even Dutch Catholics aimed to show their disapproval, with the Catholic community of Haarlem contributing more than one-third of the 8,000 guilders raised by the town for the refugees.37 The impact of the Revocation on Dutch opinion was also heightened by the publication of a wide range of official documents, news reports and personal accounts which appeared in the Republic primarily between 1685 and 1687. Predominantly being translations of Frenchlanguage originals, not only did these pamphlets recount in lurid detail how secret Huguenot assemblies had been violently murdered by Louis’ dragonnades, women and children alike, but also how those refusing conversion had been put on galleys and sold in America as slaves.38 Especially prominent was the story of the recently ordained Huguenot minister Fulcran Rey, who was tortured and hung for refusing to convert to Catholicism.39 Pamphleteers also took advantage of the Republic’s lax censorship system to publish overt attacks on Louis XIV himself. In the Conversation between a Frenchman and a Hollander for instance, a recently arrived Huguenot refugee and a welcoming Hollander not only criticised the brutality of the dragonnades, but also Louis’s policy of encouraging the persecution of Protestants in neighbouring

35  �������c����������������������������c���������������������������������������� Jean Orcibal, ‘Louis XIV and the Edict of Nantes’, in Ragnhild Hatton (ed.), Louis XIV and Absolutism (London, 1976), pp. 154–77. 36  �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Graham Gibbs, ‘Some Intellectual and Political Influences of the Huguenot Émigrés �������� in the United Provinces, 1680–1720’, BMGN, 90/2 (1975): 256; H.P.H. Nusteling, ‘The Netherlands and the Huguenot Émigrés’, in J.A.H. Bots and G.H.M. Posthumus Meyes (eds), La Revocation de l’Edit de Nantes et les Provinces-Unies, 1685 (Amsterdam, 1986), pp. 17–35. 37  ���������������������c����������������������������������������������c�� Graham Gibbs, ‘The reception of the Huguenots in England and the Dutch Republic, 1680–1690’, in Grell, Israel and Tyacke (eds), From Persecution to Toleration, pp. 275–306; G.H.M. Posthumus Meyes and Frouke Wieringa, Vlucht naar de Vrijheid: De Hugenoten en de Nederlanden (Amsterdam, 1985), p. 72. 38  ������� Anon., Waerachtig Verhael Van ’t gepasseert … tot Nimes (s.l., 1686) (Knuttel no. 12455); Anon., Waerachtig Verhael Van al ‘t gepasseerde … tot Metz (s.l., 1686) (Knuttel no. 12457); Anon., Oprechte Verhael van de wreetheden, gepleeght door de Franse Dragonders (s.l., 1686) (Knuttel no. 12458); Anon., Brief … Behelsende, hoe dat die van de Gereformeerde Religie uyt Vrankrijk na de Eylanden van America werden toegevoert, en aldaar tot slaven verkogt (1687) (Knuttel. no. 12568). 39  ������� Anon., Brief van een Gereformeerd Vluchteling, aangaande de Persoon en Dood van Fulcran Rey (1687) (Knuttel no. 12563).

Defending the True Faith

229

areas.40 Reminiscent of pamphlets published during the rampjaar [year of disaster] of 1672, a more direct approach was taken by other pamphleteers who used cipher letters to calculate that LVDoViCVs (Louis) equalled 666, the number of the beast of the Revelation, thereby identifying him as the Antichrist.41 How much influence such pamphlets exerted is hard to gauge, but it seems likely that they would have contributed to the Republic’s increasingly anti-Catholic atmosphere. Indeed, even as early as 1681 the French ambassador D’Avaux had already reported the loss of support from previously pro-French regents, particularly in Friesland and Groningen, who had been disturbed by accounts of the Huguenots’ suffering.42 Such feelings resurfaced in 1685 prompting D’Avaux to inform the King that there were only four or five pro-French regents remaining in Amsterdam because of the uproar caused by his religious policies.43 The presence of the refugees further aroused anti-Catholic sentiments across the Republic and by 1686 the harassment of Catholics was allegedly widespread, chiefly in Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen and Zeeland.44 Louis’s treatment of the Huguenots even aroused a strong response in Holland, for in late 1685 both Leiden and Delft voted to support the establishment of a commission to look into the stricter application of anti-Catholic placards.45 Similar measures were again contemplated in 1687 following the arrival of Vaudois refugees fleeing the Piedmont valley and by September of that year there was a majority in the States of Holland for a general placard aimed at restricting Catholic freedoms and for expelling Jesuits.46 Given that the inter-related issues of religious toleration and the persecuting nature of Catholicism soon came to the forefront of debate in the Republic, one would perhaps expect that corresponding worries regarding James II would have immediately surfaced in the pamphlet literature.47 James was after all, a zealous Catholic convert and his admiration for the French monarch was no secret. Surprisingly however, this was not the case and actually very few concerns were expressed about either his Catholicism or his intentions in the domestic and  ������� Anon., Samenspraak tusschen een Fransman en een Hollander (s.l., 1685) (Knuttel no. 12301). 41  ������� Anon., Aanmerkingh, Op dese onderstaande Syffer Letteren (s.l., 1685) (Knuttel no. 12304); Anon., Waerachtig Prophetie (s.l., 1686) (Knuttel no. 12469). 42  ���������������c�����������������������������������������c������������������ Haley, ‘The Dutch, the invasion of England and the alliance of 1689’, p. 23. 43  �������� Troost, William III, p. 185; Gibbs, ‘Some Intellectual and Political Influences’, p. 274. 44  ��������������c��������������������������������� Gibbs, ‘The reception of the Huguenots’, p. 304. 45  �������� Israel, The Dutch Republic, p. 646. 46  �������� Israel, The Dutch Republic, p. 649; P.J.A.N. Rietbergen, ‘William of Orange (1650–1702) between European politics and European Protestantism: the case of the Huguenots’, in Bots and Posthumus Meyjes (eds), La Revocation, pp. 43–4. 47  �����������������������c���������������������������������������������������������� Rosalie Colie, ‘John Locke in the Republic of Letters’, in John Bromley and Ernst Kossmann (eds), Papers delivered to the Oxford-Netherlands historical conference, 1959. Britain and the Netherlands I. (London, 1960), pp. 111–29. 40

230

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

foreign spheres. During the Argyle and Monmouth rebellions of 1685 for example, a number of anonymous Dutch pamphleteers voiced their support for the King, rejecting the rebels’ arguments that he was aiming to introduce Catholicism and arbitrary government.48 In fact, not only did these pamphleteers see no parallel between their own historical experience and the present situation in England but, because they regarded the rebellions as inherently illegal actions against a lawful sovereign, they even chided the rebels for using the Protestant religion as a pretext for unjust armed resistance.49 Nor was any anxiety expressed over James’s association with Louis XIV for one pamphleteer who drew a parallel with AngloDutch relations during the era of Elizabeth I, asserted that with James as King, England and the Republic could live as brothers, united by their nations’ Protestant interests and maintain the balance of power in Europe.50 A positive attitude towards James was also shown by Adriaen Paets, the Rotterdam regent and proponent of toleration, who placed his opinions on the King’s Catholicism in the context of a general discussion about the benefits of toleration.51 In the published letter of 12 September 1685 which was addressed to his close friend Pierre Bayle, Paets began by acknowledging the importance of the Protestant religion to the English nation, stating that he could understand why many were anxious about James ascending the throne. However, as a believer in every individual’s right to follow his own conscience, Paets stated that he respected James’s conversion to Catholicism even if he did not necessarily agree with his choice. Therefore, to Paets, James was the legitimate ruler of England and the fact that he had sworn to protect the Anglican Church and to govern lawfully was confidence enough that he would not break his word, even despite his adherence to Catholicism.52 In the 1686–87 period, relatively little attention was paid to English affairs and it was not until early 1688 that perceptions of James really began to alter.53 At that time not only did the King’s religious policies come to the forefront of debate in the Republic, but he also began to be associated with, or implicated in, the supposed international conspiracy to eradicate Protestantism. Indeed, once James became prominent his domestic policies were no longer viewed in purely political 48  �������������������� The rebels’ various Declarations were also translated: Earl of Argyle [James Stewart], Declaratie van Archibald, Graaf van Argyle (s.l., 1685) (Knuttel no. 12320); Anon., De Declaratie en Apologie der Protestanten (1685) (Knuttel no. 12321); Duke of Monmouth [Robert Ferguson], Declaratie van Jacobus Hertog van Monmouth (s.l., 1685) (Knuttel no. 12331). 49  ������� Anon., Den Brittanischen Blixem (s.l., 1685), pp. 2–4 (Knuttel no. 12362); Anon., Jacob Scott voor desen Hartoog van Monmouth (s.l., 1685), p. 1 (Knuttel no. 12338); Anon., Samen-spraak gehouden op den Bergh van Parnas (s.l., 1685), p. 3 (Knuttel, 12364). 50   Brittanischen Blixem, p. 6. 51  ����������������������� Anon. [Adriaen Paets], Brief van H.V.P. aan B**** (1685) (Knuttel no. 12363). 52   Brief, pp. 1–3. 53  ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Only 19 pamphlets were published on England during the 1686–87 period.

Defending the True Faith

231

terms, but always with a religious colouration. This changing attitude towards James was initially stimulated by the publication of the most significant pamphlet to address the King’s religious policies. Composed by Gaspar Fagel in November 1687, A Letter Written by Heer Pensionary Fagel was definitely a ‘hot topic’ for domestic audiences in early 1688.54 This was firstly due to the fact that it bore the name of the Grand Pensionary and was therefore guaranteed to rouse curiosity, but secondly and more importantly, because the pamphlet laid out in clear terms the Prince and Princess of Orange’s opposition to James’s attempts to repeal the Penal Laws and Test Acts. The main argument of Fagel’s Letter was that whilst William and Mary approved of James granting full toleration to Dissenters, they would only consent to Catholics to having the same level of freedom as in the Republic.55 In objecting to the repeal of the Penal Laws and Tests, the Letter argued that those statutes should remain in force and Catholics continue to be excluded from office, because they could not be trusted to respect the freedom of others.56 The Letter therefore made it clear that William and Mary would not consent to repeal because they regarded the Penal Laws and Tests to be vital to the security of the Protestant religion. Soon appearing in English, French and Latin editions, the immediate impact of the pamphlet in England and the Republic cannot be overstated.57 With great effect the Letter was distributed in both countries and it was evidently intended to reach a socially broad audience for at just eight pages long it would have been cheap to buy and quick to read. Furthermore, not only was its language clear and understandable, it had the most important authority in the Republic behind it; the Prince and Princess of Orange. An immediate pamphlet conflict surrounding the Letter also arose during the spring of 1688, further drawing public attention to the King’s measures, and it is evident that readers were keen to get their hands on the various pieces. As the Rotterdam Quaker Benjamin Furly wrote to John Locke on 22 February: ‘… our friend tells me he saw this day at the Burgermasters a French answer to the Pensioners Letter’, and three days later: ‘I cannot get The answer to F.s Letter in this towne in French, ‘tis this day come out in Dutch, but I have not seen it … Pray try the widow Browning or Swart about the manus ….’58 Yet despite the claims of two Jacobite propagandists that James was sincere in offering toleration to all, the majority of works argued that repeal was just a pretext for the wholesale  �������������� Gaspar Fagel, Een Brief geschreven door den Heer Pensionaris Fagel (1688) (Knuttel no. 12869–72). 55   Een Brief, p. 2. 56  ������������ Ibid., p. 4. 57  �������������� Gaspar Fagel, A Letter Writ by Mijn Heer Fagel (1688) (Knuttel no. 12866); Gaspar Fagel, Lettre, Escrite par Monsieur Fagel (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12868); Gaspar Fagel, Literae Illustr: Domini Fagel (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12687). 58  �������������������������c����������������������������������������� Benjamin Furly to John Locke, 12/22 Feb. 1688 and 15/25 Feb. 1688, The Correspondence of John Locke, vol. 3, ed. E.S. de Beer (Oxford, 1978), pp. 363–8. 54

232

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

re-introduction of Catholicism.59 Reminiscent of the views expressed by Dutch pamphleteers in 1685, it was asserted that when James ascended the throne there had been great hopes that he would maintain the balance of power between Spain and France. However, it was declared that this would not now be realised because James had been overcome by his zeal for Catholicism.60 In line with this argument, it was therefore alleged that as soon as the opportunity arose James would seek the destruction of his Protestant subjects, following the examples set by Louis XIV and Phillip II of course, because it was a fundamental Catholic belief that heresy must be destroyed.61 Certainly all Protestants were brought up with this knowledge, one pamphleteer asserted, before going on to argue that for this reason the Penal Laws and Tests in England, as well as the anti-Catholic placards in Holland, should remain in force: The Papists bear an inborn enmity against those of the Reformed Religion, and are always inclined to oppress them; therefore the Penal Laws in England, and the strong Placards here in Holland are the only bulwarks to maintain the security of the Religion and Government.62

Readers were also reminded of past Catholic atrocities such as the Italian and Spanish Inquisitions, the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the violence committed under Alva and the Irish Rebellion to suggest they might reoccur at any moment.63 To further accentuate such themes, a medal was struck by the Dutch engraver Jan Smeltzing, the executor of a large number of anti-James pieces (see Figure 11.2). Represented on one side was the mitre of the Church of England, the chalice, wafer and rosary of Rome, and the dove of the Nonconformists, all having the free Bible as their common centre alongside Fagel’s Letter; whereas the reverse symbolised James, trampling on Liberty of Conscience, devouring his coronation oath, removing the Tests and Penal Laws, which were presented as sealing the safety of the country.64

59  ������� Anon., Antwoord op den gesupposeerden Brief, geschreven door den Heer Fagel (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12879); Anon. [John Northleigh], Parliamentum Pacificum Of Het Vreedzaame Parlement (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12887). 60  ������� Anon., Consideratien Over den Brief van de Heer Fagel (s.l., 1688), p. 3 (Knuttel no. 12875); Gilbert Burnet, Verantwoordinge van Dr Gilbert Burnet (s.l., 1688), p. 18 (Knuttel no. 12893). 61   Consideratien over den Brief, p. 11. 62  ������� Anon., Weerklank Op de uitvlugtige Antwoord (s.l., 1688), pp. 4–12 (Knuttel no. 12885). 63  ������� Anon., Aenmerkingen op een Geschrift (s.l., 1688), p. 35 (Knuttel no. 12881). 64  ������������ E. Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland, Plates LXI–LXX (London, 1907), p. 620.

Defending the True Faith

233

Figure 11.2 The Religious State of England (1688), E. Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland, Plates LXI–LXX (London, 1907), 620. The Fagel Letter controversy clearly stimulated Dutch interest in the religious situation in England for the ensuing period saw a further 40 pamphlets address the issue. Predominantly translated from English-language originals, the common theme of the literature was that James’ Declaration of Liberty of Conscience, as well as his attempts at repeal, had been cooked up by his Catholic schemers in order to cause divisions in Protestantism. Certainly pamphlets such as Burnet’s An Apology for the Church of England, Halifax’s Letter to a Dissenter and the anonymous A Letter to a Person of Quality focused on such an argument, making the case that James’s measures were just pretext to separate Dissenters from the Church of England so that Catholicism could surreptitiously increase.65 In seeking to emphasise the success of this plan so far, Thomas Brown’s Heraclitus ridens redivivus, for example, depicted the pro-repeal Dissenter Henry Care as the ‘darling of the Papists’ who was confident that once the Penal Laws and Tests were removed, the way would be open for them to destroy the Church of England: This Church of England you know is our greatest obstacle; it vexes me to think that such an heretical church should be established by Law; these Laws are such unlucky fortifications, that they stand more in our way than walls and Bastions. Could we but once level their works, you would not find it long before we fell to storming, and I think we have already made considerable advances.66

65  ������������������������ Anon. [Gilbert Burnet], Een Apologie voor de Kerk van Engeland (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12956); Anon. [George Saville], Brief aan een Dissenter (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12929); Anon., Brief Aen een Persoon van Qualiteyt (1688) (Knuttel no. 12930). 66  ���������������������� Anon. [Thomas Brown], Den Lachende Heraclitus Weer verreesen, pp. 5–6.

234

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

The possibility of serious religious divisions occurring in England not only aroused fears that the country was heading towards Civil War, but also led Dutch pamphleteers to assume that if English Protestantism was undermined then the same would happen in the Republic. Such beliefs were especially prominent in the anonymous English Protestants Joy which was portrayed as a discussion between a Dutchman and an Englishman over the repeal issue.67 At the beginning of the pamphlet the Dutchman began by requesting the latest news from England because he had read Fagel’s Letter and was aware of the controversy surrounding the King’s religious policies.68 However, rather than reporting on the situation in England, the Englishman questioned William and Mary’s motives for commenting on the King’s policies. In reply the amazed Dutchman argued that that William and Mary were entitled to give their thoughts on the issue because Protestantism was a pillar of the Dutch state and if it was wobbling in England, then it may do the same in the Republic: And therefore their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange (together as hero and heroine of the People, for the maintenance of Religion, and the laws, and of the welfare of the land cherished in their hearts, and the care they bear that our united pillars remain joined and unbroken in their steadfastness) have done very well to have noticed this in time, and to have expressed their sentiments in this way.69

In fact, the Dutchman not only rebuked the Englishman for being naive, but also utilised the arguments of British authors to stress the dangerously divisive nature of James’s policies: If the Test were to be abolished and repealed your kingdom shall (by those men that attempt to change the Religion and Government in Church and Politics) become so wretched that the whole Kingdom shall be unstable and be divided into Papal Bishops, Deacons, and Pastors, and a complete Papal Hierarchy will be erected right in the centre of this.70

As the pamphleteer viewed James’s policies as a threat to Protestantism in both England and the Republic, the Dutchman also strongly defended the States General’s decision not to return the six British regiments serving in the Republic on the grounds that they would be used to secure the conversion of England by force if the King’s attempts at repeal failed. This was bound to happen according to the 67  ������� Anon., Engelsche Protestantse Vreugde, Vervattende sekere Rede-kavelinge tusschen een Nederlander en Engelsman, Over ende ter saecke vande Abolitie van den Text, ende de Wetten van Engelandt (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12940). 68   Engelsche Protestantse Vreugde, p. 2. 69  ������������ Ibid., p. 3. 70  ��������������� Ibid., pp. 5–6.

Defending the True Faith

235

pamphleteer, because after reading Fagel’s Letter James realised that William and Mary would not give him their support. For that reason and because the resistance to repeal had increased, the King’s Catholic schemers had persuaded him to recall the regiments in order to ensure Parliament’s consent.71 Therefore having weighed things up, it was explained that William and the States General could not return the regiments for they would be contributing to the ruin of Protestants not just in England, but also in the Republic: But their High Mightinesses [the States General] together with the Prince of Orange, have reflected and considered, that he [James] is resolved to employ these aforementioned 6 Regiments to no other end, than to force his own people to abolish the Test and Penal Laws … and should our Nation send these Troops it would have an eternal disgrace attached to it and it would be unjustifiable to God that by such a supply we should contribute such a remarkable disadvantage to your Kingdom and to our State …72

Doubts regarding James’s intentions were further cultivated by overtly placing his policies at the heart of the supposed international Jesuit conspiracy to eradicate Protestantism. This message was mainly conveyed via explicit pieces of anti-Jesuit propaganda which were either depicted as purportedly clandestine correspondence or presented as conversations between Catholic priests and, in order to strengthen the impact of this propaganda, two main conspirators were put in the frame; James II’s confessor Edward Peters (or Petre) and Louis XIV’s confessor François d’Aix de la Chaise.73 Drawing on classic anti-Jesuit mythology, these pamphlets continually portrayed James and Louis as dupes of their Jesuit confessors who had sucked the Kings into their plans to destroy Protestantism either by religious zeal or bribery.74 The policy of forced conversions in France was presented as the first stage of this scheme, with La Chaise bragging that it had resulted in the conversion of more Protestants in the space of a year than the teachings of Christ

71  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� James’s requests for the return of the regiments and the States General’s replies were also translated: Ignatius White, Memorie van den Heer Marquis d’Albyville (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12741); James II, By de Konigh, Proclamatie, commanderende het wederkeeren van alle sijne Majesteyts Onderdanen (1688) (Knuttel no. 12745); States General, Antwoort Van de Ho. Mo. Heeren Staten Generael …Op de Memorie by den Heere Marquis d’Albyville (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12742). 72   Engelsche Protestantse Vreugde, p. 9. 73  �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Knuttel nos 12921, 12922, 12924, 12925, 12926, 12950, 12954, 12968, 12971 (1688). 74  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For the development of this anti-Jesuit mythology see Arnold Marotti, ‘Alienating Catholics in early modern England: Recusant Women, Jesuits and Ideological Fantasies’, pp. 1–34 and Julian Yates, ‘Parasitic Geographies: manifesting Catholic Identity in early modern England’, pp. 63–84, both in Arnold Marotti (ed.), Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts (Basingstoke, 1999).

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

236

and his Apostles did in ten. In fact, it was asserted that the Jesuits now have such a hold over Louis that he has even abandoned his attempts at gaining universal monarchy: On the other side he is a Prince so enlightened, and who very well observes that what we put upon him, is contrary to his interests, and that nothing is more opposite to his great designs, and his glory, he aiming to make himself the Terror of all Europe … the people’s fears begin to lessen, as to his aspiring to a universal Monarchy: and men must be assured, that he thinks no more on that, nothing being more opposite to that design, as the policy that we instruct him in.75

As the Jesuits’ scheme was progressing well in France, the next stage was the conversion of England. However, because James was not as powerful as Louis they had to use stealth tactics, such as the King’s Declaration of Liberty of Conscience and his attempts at repeal, for their plan to succeed.76 One of the supposed Discard Letters written by an English Protestant, for example, referred to the King’s closeting campaign, explaining that when the King first enquired about repeal ‘there was not one single person found, who was willing to take off the Test and the Penal Laws, since doing that would undermine the foundations of the Protestant Religion’, yet since James’s Declaration great changes have occurred for … men today see the Monks in their usual habits with their great beards …. wandering around the City, and the Jesuits with wrinkled foreheads … like Locusts, jumping from street to street, from one House to another. Men hear nothing else spoken of but conversion …77

The King’s continuing attempts to pack Parliament were also viewed as a constituent element of this conspiracy, but there were varying theories regarding his motivation in so doing. According to one supposed letter written by Father Peters, James was making applications to the shires and corporations to ensure that favourable persons were chosen in order to secure Parliament’s consent for repeal.78 However, according to other pamphleteers, James’s recall of the six regiments and his attempts to pack Parliament were proof that he harboured hostile intentions towards the Republic. Such anxieties were certainly depicted in one of the Discarded Letters from a Protestant in London, although like most members of  ������� Anon., Antwoort Van den Eerwaerdigen Vader la Chaise (s.l., 1688), p. 3 (Knuttel no. 12924). 76  ������� Anon., Brief van Pater la Chaise … Aan Vader Peters (s.l., 1688), p. 7, (Knuttel no. 12968). 77  ������� Anon., Den Afgesette Post (s.l., 1688), pp. 13–14, (Knuttel no. 12925). 78  ������ Anon., De Ontmomde Jesuit, of Samen-spraak tusschen…Vader la Chaise …Vader Peters …en Vader Taschart (s.l., 1688), p. 16 (Knuttel no. 12954). 75

Defending the True Faith

237

the English opposition he was confident that James would not receive any support for such action in England.79 Similar worries were also put forward in a letter from a Dutch Protestant who asserted that James only wanted a compliant Parliament so that he could get funding to launch a war against the Republic: … he will find the means to acquire money, possibly for the commencement of war against the States and it would principally be against those of Holland because the fears he has of the Prince of Orange … and in the direction of the Grand Pensionary Fagel, are very great.80

Yet the ultimate evidence that James was now determined to secure the reCatholicisation of England came with the birth of the Prince of Wales in June 1688. Indeed, the overriding opinion of pamphleteers was that the birth of a male child was just too fortuitous and it must therefore have been the result of a Jesuit conspiracy. Such views were not only put forward in the overt pieces of anti-Jesuit propaganda, but also in a further 16 pamphlets published during the summer of 1688.81 The first seeds of doubt regarding the Queen’s pregnancy had been raised during the Fagel Letter controversy when pamphleteers had described the initial reports of the pregnancy as lies and wishful dreams. As one of Burnet’s works stated: You say you are informed, that such and such Great Men doubted of it [Fagel’s Letter]; but some might as well pretend to doubt of the Truth of that Letter, (though they knew it to be true) as believe her Majesty to be with child, almost before she knew it herself; and that she was quick, when the Embryo, as Anatomists say, is not much above an Inch long; I do not think that Popish Successors, like certain weeds, grow faster than others.82

This scepticism continued throughout the pregnancy and emphasis was placed on the Queen’s inability to conceive given her many miscarriages. As a result, it was either suggested that the Queen had walked around for nine months with a cushion upon her belly or the conception was lampooned as a ‘Catholic miracle’.83 However even if the Queen was really pregnant, it was asserted that the Jesuits had   Den Afgesette Post, p. 13.  ������� Anon., Brief van een Voorwerp (1688), p. 4 (Knuttel no. 12926). 81  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� Knuttel nos 12862, 12863, 12865, 12966, 12968, 12971, 12975, 12978, 12979, 12981, 12982, 12986, 12988, 12989, 12990, 12991 (1688). 82  ������������������������ Anon. [Gilbert Burnet], Reflectien op den Heer Fagels Brief (s.l., 1688), p. 8 (Knuttel no. 12873). 83  ������� Anon., Brief van den Eerwaardigen Pater Peters (s.l., 1688), p. 4 (Knuttel no. 12921); Anon., Brief van Pater la Chaise…Aan Vader Peters (s.l., 1688), p. 13 (Knuttel no. 12968); Den Afgesette Post, pp. 27–8; Anon., Het Orakel Aangesproken Door de Magten der Aarde (s.l., 1688), p. 8 (Knuttel no. 12975). 79

80

238

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

switched the child, who had apparently died soon after, for a suppositious infant who was snuck into the bedchamber.84 The Prince’s true origin was therefore a matter of speculation and various rumours were being banded around the Republic as La Chaise purportedly lamented: I have received a letter out of The Hague by which I am told that in Holland they use very irreverent expressions of the young Prince … they say this is a Miller’s son: others say it was a carpenters son from Holborn (a street in London) … others say he was a month old …. others say he had six teeth in his mouth …85

The belief that a replacement child had been foisted upon the English nation was clearly gaining credence in the Republic for not only was Albeville’s celebratory fete ruined by a hostile crowd who hurled insults about the King and stones at the ambassador’s windows, but it was also tackled in two short poems.86 The Miller’s Prince in The Hague centred on the idea that James was a fool for trying to deceive everyone by passing off a miller’s son as the Prince of Wales. Indeed, the poet warned James that people were aware of his ‘wretched game’ and that they did not think much of it.87 The English Waking Dreamer was however, even harsher in its assessment of the birth, portraying the child as a deceit by Father Peters and a work of the Antichrist: ‘A Prince cursed! on Gods people in slavery / To carry, men prepare Ships and Galleys / To banish and condemn, all who will not flatter / The Roman Antichrist, or the purple Beast, / Who have been Enemies of Gods Church from her beginning ….’88 The threat that the Prince posed to Protestantism was certainly a dominant theme of the literature and to reinforce such a point, his birth was repeatedly associated with the reign of Mary Tudor.89 As a historical reminder of the dangers of a zealous Catholic monarch, Mary of Modena was cast in the role of a second ‘Bloody Mary’, with one Jesuit supposedly reporting that the Queen told him she hoped ‘that the Roman Catholic Religion should again bloom in these three Kingdoms, as it did during the time of Queen Mary’. In fact,

84  ������� Anon., Brief van Vader Peters …Aan Pater la Chaise (s.l., 1688), p. 10 (Knuttel no. 12971). See also Rachel Weil, ‘The Politics of Legitimacy: women and the warmingpan scandal’, in Schwoerer (ed.), The Revolution of 1688–89, pp. 65–83. 85   Brief van Pater la Chaise …Aan Vader Peters, pp. 14–15. 86  �����������������������������������c����c������������������������������������ Jonathan Israel, ‘The Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the English Revolution of 1688’, TvG, 103 (1990): 425. 87  ������� Anon., Den Molenaers Prins in den Haegh (1688), np (Knuttel no. 12991). 88  ������� Anon., Den Engelschen Ontwaeckten Droomer (s.l., 1688), np (Knuttel no. 12979). 89  ������������c����������� See in particular Anon., ‘t Swanger gaen Vande tegenwoordige Koninginne van Engeland, Vergeleken by die Aardige Jesuitse Historien Voorgevallen ten tijden van Maria …in t jaar 1556 (1688) (Knuttel no. 12863).

Defending the True Faith

239

the Jesuit asserts, the Queen should be given the title, ‘Protector of the Faith’, in whose footsteps the Prince of Wales will follow.90 Given the above it is perhaps not too surprising to find that following the announcement of William’s expedition, when pamphleteers sought to justify his actions they generally did so by reiterating the official line given in the Declaration and the Resolution; William and the States were defending England’s Protestantism and liberties which had been grievously assaulted by a resurgent Catholicism.91 William was therefore portrayed as England’s selfless deliverer and his Declaration cited as proof that he did not want ‘honour, or Glory, or to commit deeds that will stand for eternity, But to release the people laden with the Roman Yoke from their heavy burden’.92 Yet although pamphleteers generally denied any dynastic motivation, insisting that William was not acting ‘for the Kingdom’s honourable Crown, Nor to shed War blood for his Father-in-law’s Throne’, one author advocated that he should take the opportunity to ‘kick St James from his Throne, And put on the Throne, her lawful head and Lord’.93 As for the States, they were merely assisting William in this task, for whilst their previous disputes with James over the colony of Bantam were acknowledged, it was emphasised that the regents had ‘let these small provocations go by’ because they were not just causes of war. Rather, as one pamphleteer explained, ‘it is for the business of Religion that we have made these preparations, for the Protestant Religion and the Freedom of England’.94 William’s expedition was therefore seen as absolutely essential not only to rescue England from slavery and Catholicism, but also to save the Republic from the same fate. This reasoning was certainly used by Whig pamphleteers such as John Wildman, whose Memorial from the English Protestants reminded the Dutch that: … these Attempts and endeavours to subvert our Liberty in our Religion and Government, is a part of that general Design, that was formed and concluded many Years ago in the secret Councils of the Papist Princes, and chiefly by

  De Afgesette Post, p. 9.  ������������� William III, Declaratien van syn Hoogheyt Wilhelm Hendrik (1688) (Knuttel nos 12774–8); States General, Resolutie, Inhoudende de redenen, die haer Ho. Mo. ������� Hebben bewogen, om Syne Hoogheydt, In Persoon naer Engelandt overgaende (1688) (Knuttel no. 12785). 92  ������� Anon., Ter eeren van … Wilhelm III (1688), np (Knuttel no. 13031). 93  ������� Anon., Gedichten op de Brittannise Krijghs-Tocht (s.l., 1688), np (Knuttel no. 13023b); Anon, Den Engelschen Bokkum (1688), p. 22 (Knuttel no. 12667). 94  ������������� Anon [T.W.], Helden-spoor, In de Noord-zee gemaakt (1688), p. 4 (Knuttel no. 13027). 90 91

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

240

the management of the Jesuits, to root out from Europe the Profession of the Protestant Reformed Religion and the Liberties of the People.95

In a similar vein, one anonymous printer who evidently recognised the relevance of a Civil War pamphlet that purported to be a ‘distress cry from the orthodox in England’, reprinted part of the work which he used to show the unconvinced: ‘God will open your eyes to see, that your ruin depends on us: our enemies are yours; those who hate us, hate you; their aim against us is also against you; those who go after our Religion and Freedom, also go after yours.’96 Such conviction was particularly evident after William’s first abortive attempt to sail on 30 October, which not only kept the fleet held in at Hellevoetsluis, but also led some advisers to question whether the expedition would be able to proceed at all.97 Reacting to this news one pamphleteer warned: By this measure men shall not only bring punishment on themselves, but also misery on that Land where the King has a Bastard-child; by this suspension and recall of the Fleet men shall see thousands of people in England perish … And should men not expect to bring a judgement from God on themselves, if they put this great business aside? The English Protestants stand, with open arms, and look for their deliverance.98

Indeed, he asserted that action against James was now vital, for once England was lost to Catholicism then the Republic would fall too: … if the Fleet was laid up, even though it was ready for the design on England, so can we, to all outward appearances, expect the force and all the power of the two great Pharaohs, the one at sea and the other on Land, as one has already come as far as Philipsburg … and he shall not wait long until he carries out his Jesuits design, together with England.99

 ���������������������� Anon. [John Wildman?], Memorie van de Engelsche Protestanten Aan haare Hoogheden den Prince en Princesse van Orangie (s.l., 1688), p. 8 (Knuttel nos 13011– 14). Wildman’s authorship is posited in Lois Schwoerer, The declaration of rights, 1689 (Baltimore, 1981), p. 154. 96  ������� Anon., Droevige Tranen en Benauwde Suchtingen der Verdrukte (s.l., 1688), p. 3 (Knuttel no. 13008). For the original see Anon, Het inghewant der bedrukte (s.l., 1643) (Knuttel no. 4980). 97  ��������������� Edward Powley, The naval side of King William’s war 16th/26th November 1688 – 14th June 1690 (London, 1972), pp. 45–6. 98  ������ Anon, Hollants, Engelants En aller Protestanten aenstaende Wee (1688), p. 4 (Knuttel no. 13023). 99  ������������ Ibid., p. 7. 95

Defending the True Faith

241

Consequently, given the set-back to the fleet and the perceived necessity of the expedition, William’s successful landing in England and the ensuing developments which culminated in his elevation to the throne were interpreted as a work of divine Providence. As the Remonstrant theologian Philippus van Limborch wrote to John Locke, Truly no sane person can believe that so great and sudden a change in such a mighty kingdom can have come about without the especial direction of God. For my part, I acknowledge in this with gratitude the inexpressible loving-kindness of the Deity, in that he has in his mercy brought about the liberation of England as well as our own country, under the auspices of the Prince of Orange, from the threat of bondage to the Papacy.100

In line with this belief William was praised as God’s chosen instrument whom He had used not only ‘to deliver the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland from the slavery of Popedom’, but also to prevent the ‘sworn enterprise of the Kings of France and England, that is, of the Jesuit Fathers La Chaise and Peters’ to subject the Republic to the same fate.101 God’s will was undeniably evident according to pamphleteers, for just as He sent a three-day storm to destroy Spanish ships during the Revolt and sent great waves to overwhelm the Anglo-French fleet in 1672, so God had now sent an east wind and a calm sea to carry the Prince of Orange to England with his blessings.102 It was therefore apparent that William had been wonderfully guided by the Almighty’s hand to protect His chosen people once again: ‘God has now in many ways delivered these our Netherlands (and very miraculously) from her Enemies; Here he does it in reverse, and has weighed the balance, In the hope that Neêrlands stock will bear even better fruit.’103 This emphasis on Providence, the depiction of William as God’s tool, the references to earlier deliverances and the assertion of God’s especial protection of the Dutch, all reflected the continuing belief that the Republic was a second Israel and its inhabitants God’s chosen people.104 As G. Groenhuis and C. Huisman  ��������������������c������������c������������������������� Philippus van Limborch to John Locke, 27 Jan./6 Feb. 1689, The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. De Beer, p. 542. 101  ������� Anon., Hollants Heyl In haar Eenigheyt, met Engeland gelegen (1689), pp. 3–4 (Knuttel no. 13291). 102  �������������������������� N.N. [Johannes Quintius], Een Woort op Zijn Tijd (1689), pp. 37–8 (Knuttel no. 13294); Gedichten op de Brittannise Krijghs-Tocht, np; Anon [H.B.], De Staat der Strydende Kercke (s.l., 1688), p. 17 (Knuttel no. 13028b); Anon., De Goddelyke bestieringe overde machten der aarde (1689), p. 2 (Knuttel no. 13295). 103  ������������� Ibid., p. 35. 104  ������������������������������������������c�����������������c����������� G. Groenhuis, ‘Calvinism and National Consciousness: the Dutch Republic as the New Israel’, in A.C. Duke and C.A. Tamse (eds), Church and State since the Reformation: papers delivered to the seventh Anglo-Dutch historical conference. Britain and the Netherlands VII (The Hague, 1981), pp. 118–33; G. Groenhuis, De Predikanten. 100

242

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

have demonstrated, this Reformed concept of nationhood was developed during the Revolt of the sixteenth century when Calvinist preachers began to compare their own struggle against Spain with the experience of the Israelites of the Old Testament.105 Central to the notion of Neêrlands Israel was that a special relationship between God and the Republic existed; God had entered into a covenant with the Dutch whereby He would protect them as long as they continued to champion His cause.106 At the heart of this covenant was the strict observance of the true religion and its defence against the idolatry of Rome, the Antichristian whore of Babylon.107 Comparisons between the Republic and Israel continued to be drawn throughout the seventeenth century, particularly at times of national crisis, and although these parallels occurred most frequently in the works of strict Calvinist ministers, it has been shown that other Protestant groups such as Remonstrants and Mennonites also identified themselves just as strongly with the Israelites.108 In fact, as Pasi Ihalainen has shown, the concept’s use in the Dutch Republic was much more diverse than in other countries, chiefly because it supported the co-existence of several layers of identity which could refer simultaneously to local, provincial, national and international Protestant communities.109 Thus the inter-changeability of the concept allowed pamphleteers to include all shades of Protestantism under one banner and to present the Republic as acting as the champion of their cause in Europe. Therefore pamphleteers interpreting the events of 1688–89 from this standpoint, maintained that William’s elevation to the throne was justified because it was in line with God’s will; God was aware that the two Catholic kings and their Jesuit confessors were conspiring to eradicate the true religion and so He used the Prince to prevent their wicked plans. As Johann Georg Graevius asserted, We must know to thank God, that the condition of Europe being brought in so great a danger, and while the other Princes themselves, as if poisoned by a deadly sleep-tonic, stayed quiet, only the Prince of Orange, enlightened by a Heavenly power in his mind, had all too long before perceived the deceits, arts De sociale positie van de gereformeerde predikanten in de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden voor 1700 (Groningen, 1977), pp. 77–103; Cornelis Huisman, Neerlands Israël (Gouda, 1953); Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, pp. 69–113. 105  ��������������������������������������������� Groenhuis, ‘Calvinism’, pp. 118–21; Huisman, Neerlands Israël, p. 140. 106  ��������� Huisman, Neerlands Israël, p. 140. 107  ���������������������������������� Groenhuis, ‘Calvinism’, pp. 126–8. 108  ����������� Groenhuis, De Predikanten, pp. 80–81; Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, p. 97; Koenraad Swart, The Miracle of the Dutch Republic as seen in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1967), p. 18. 109  ���������������� Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined. Changing perceptions of national identity in the rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish public churches, 1685–1722 (Leiden and Boston, 2005), pp. 121–9. See also Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: religious and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Basingstoke, 1988) and Claydon, Revolution.

Defending the True Faith

243

and undertakings of our very frightful enemies, who were attempting to rule not only our Republic, but the whole of Europe, and to the pure Religion, with all the roots and fibrous plants of it, the one time to destroy.110

In order to strengthen this argument pamphleteers not only reminded readers of the contrasting natures of the two churches, but they also drew attention to recent examples of the cruel, persecuting nature of Catholicism.111 Louis XIV’s attacks on Protestantism in France, Piedmont and Savoy were repeatedly cited and parallels were drawn between the Revocation, the ordering of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and the atrocities committed by the Duke of Alva.112 According to pamphleteers Louis was the chief servant of the Antichrist and his brutality knew no bounds, he was ‘an oppressor, the cruellest persecutor and destroyer of the true Belief … a ghastly Tyranny’.113 Not only was he variously depicted as Croesus, Bajazeth, Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh, but most frequently as Nero, the ultimate paradigm of megalomania, evil, cruelty and persecution.114 James’s removal from the throne was also interpreted in similar terms and although constitutional justifications for his removal were put forward in the translated works of British pamphleteers such as Burnet’s Enquiry into the Measures of Submission and Robert Ferguson’s Brief Justification, the only Dutch contribution to this line of reasoning came from Eric Walten’s The Orthodox Policy.115 Rather the predominant argument used by Dutch pamphleteers was that God had stripped James of his throne not only as punishment for his endeavours to impose slavery and Catholicism on the English nation, but also because he had abandoned the true religion. Readers were therefore reminded that the downfall of those who oppose God’s will had been shown by history and in this light James was likened to Saul.116 In fact, according to one Remonstrant pamphleteer who quoted 110  ���������������������� Johann Georg Graevius, Reeden Over de seer voorspoedige togt na Brittannien (1689), pp. 9–10 (Knuttel no. 13274). 111   De Goddelyke bestieringe, p. 12. 112   Den Engelschen Bokkum, pp. 10–13; De Staat der Strydende Kercke, pp. 14–15; Een Woort op Zijn Tijd, p. 20; De Goddelyke bestieringe, pp. 8, 32. 113  �������c��� G. Mulock, Geestelijke en Wereltlijke Meditatien (1689), p. 13 (Knuttel no. 13286). 114  ������������������ Ibid., pp. 14–15; De Staat der Strydende Kercke, p. 23; De Goddelyke bestieringe, p. 29. 115  ������������������������ Anon. [Gilbert Burnet], Ondersoek Over de manier van onderwerping Aan de Hoochste Macht (1688) (Knuttel no. 13019); Anon. [Robert Ferguson], Korte Justificatie Van de Overkomst des Princen van Orangie in Engeland (1689) (Knuttel no. 13234); Eric Walten, De Regtsinnige Policey (1689) (Knuttel no. 13250). For ���������������������������� information on Walten’s contribution see Hans Blom, ‘Our Prince is King! The Impact of the Glorious Revolution on political debate in the Dutch Republic’, Parliaments, Estates and Representations, 10 (1990): 45–57. 116  ������ Anon., Extract uyt een Brief (1688), p. 4 (Knuttel no. 13021); Geestelijke en Wereltijke, p. 12; Helden-spoor, p. 6.

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

244

Hebrews 6:4–6 to prove his case, because of his efforts to promote Catholicism and as he intended to follow the example set by Louis in so doing, James was now The English Julianus, the afvalligen [apostate or fallen away] who now had no hope of salvation because he had deliberately turned away from Christ.117 However, whilst another pamphleteer believed that James had been justly punished, he still held out hope that he could again be brought back into God’s grace, but only if he rejected Catholicism, Turn again ô Sulamith! turn again, so you may look upon your God whom you have forsaken and gone over to Idolatry. Turn again to me (spoke the Lord) so shall I again turn to you. Detest the cunning adultery of the bloodthirsty Jesuits and deceitful French.118

As for the exclusion of the Prince of Wales from the line of succession, this was taken as evidence of God’s determination to combat the machinations of James’s ‘evil councillors’ who had worked to undermine the true faith. Consequently the supposed illegitimacy of the Prince continued to be addressed and emphasis was placed on the established belief that he was the product of an organised conspiracy.119 Yet the young Prince was not merely regarded as a substitute child, but also as an embodiment of the near triumph of the false church. As one pamphleteer asserted, ‘He is a fright for many Tyrants … Men see his father’s virtue in him’.120 Indeed it is instructive that the Prince of Wales was represented in five of de Hooghe’s prints and played a key role in three, for although these were overt pieces of propaganda intended to legitimate William’s accession to the throne, as Dorothy George has argued, ‘… not only do prints seek to influence public opinion, they also reflect that opinion [for] the most effective propaganda takes into account themes that may be expected to elicit a positive response’.121 If this is so then it is worth noting

117

 ������������������c���������������������������������������� This was a reference to Julian the Apostate the mid-fourth c������������� century Roman Emperor who abandoned Christianity for paganism. Anon., De Engelsche Julianus, Of den afvalligen Koning van Groot Brittanje, Jacobus de Tweede (s.l., 1689), p. 2 (Knuttel no. 13219). This should not be confused with Anon. [Samuel Johnson], Julianus Den Apostaat (1688) (Knuttel no. 12992). 118   Geestelijke en Wereltijke, p. 11. 119  ������� Anon., De onwettelyke Getuygen (1688) (Knuttel no. 12988); Eric Walten, Mirakel der Mirakelen (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12989); Anon. [Gregorio Leti], De Minnerye van Messalina (1689) (Knuttel no. 13221); Anon. [Gregorio Leti], De Minnerye …Tweede Deel (1689) (Knuttel no. 13222); Anon., Een Volkomen Antwoort Op de Depositien …Wegens de Geboorte van den Prins van Walles (1689) (Knuttel no. 13223); Eric Walten, De nieuwe-modische Getuigen (s.l., 1689) (Knuttel no. 13224); Anon., Den Ouden Bastaard, Beschermer van den Nieuwen (1689) (Knuttel no. 13226). 120   Den Engelschen Bokkum, p. 29. 121  ������������������� M. Dorothy George, English Political Caricature to 1792: A Study in Public Opinion and Propaganda (Oxford, 1959), p. 1.

Defending the True Faith

245

that the common theme of these prints was that the Jesuit conspiracy to eradicate European Protestantism, to which the Prince of Wales was integral, had been thwarted by William’s providential intervention in England. In La Belle Constance for example, the figure of Constantia (representing Princess Anne, the full hardy Protestant) recoils in horror as James, Louis and the Jesuits attempt to secure her conversion by forcing her to look upon the Prince of Wales, but thankfully their plans are frustrated by William’s providential arrival (see Figure 11.3).122 Similarly, L’Europe Allarmee pour le fils d’un Meunier sees all those involved in the Jesuit conspiracy congregate around the young Prince to grieve over the failure of their plans to destroy Protestantism, especially Louis, who laments that he has been frustrated in his ‘dessein par Hollande’ (see Figure 11.4).123 Such themes were even more explicit in L’Epiphane du Nouveau Antichrist in which Louis, James and the Dauphin, egged on by their Jesuit confessors, spin their ‘Star of Unrest’ throughout Europe whilst the young Prince, who is identified as the Antichrist, looks on (see Figure 11.5).124 However, they are prevented from going any further by William who enters carrying a spear and freedom hat, signifying the triumph of personal liberty. Similar views were also expressed by Dutch pamphleteers who hailed William as a true Christian prince, praising him with the title ‘Heroic protector of Britain, the true Defender of Religion, Guardian of the Freedom, Restorer of the Law’.125 In keeping with the idea of Neêrlands Israel, pamphleteers drew upon the imagery of the Revolt, portraying William as the Head of the Batavians and the Sea Beggars, as well as David, Joshua, Moses and Samson.126 Pieter Fris depicted William as the Dutch Mars who sailed to safeguard the tribe of Dutch Protestants from the tyranny of the two Catholic kings, whereas Wilhelmus Velingius stressed both the national and international consequences of William’s actions by using a range of Israelite parallels which included references to Solomon as ‘God’s Stadholder’ and to William and Mary as rulers whom God had ‘set on the throne of Israel’.127

 �������������������������� Anon. [Romeyn de Hooghe], La Belle Constance (1689) (Knuttel no. 13075b).  �������������������������� Anon. [Romeyn de Hooghe], L’Europe Allarmee pour le fils d’un Meunier (�������������������������������� s.l., 1689) �������������������������� (Knuttel no. 13229). 124  �������������������������� Anon. [Romeyn �������������������� de Hooghe], L’Epiphane du Nouveau Antichrist (������������� s.l., 1689), ������� (Knuttel no. 13230a). 125  ��c����������������� Jacobus Perizonius, Seegreeden Voor De Krooning van Groot Britanjen (1689), p. 15 (Knuttel no. 13275). 126   Den Engelschen Bokkum, p. 23; Helden-spoor, pp. 6–7; Ter eeren van … Wilhelm �������� III, np; Joan Pluimer, Gedichten, op en aan den ��������������������� Prinse van Oranje (1689), p. 5 (Knuttel no. 13273); Geestelijke en Wereltijke, pp. 3–12; Gedichten op de Brittannise Krijghs-Tocht, np; Jacobus Spinnewiel (1689), np (Knuttel no. 13220a). 127  ������������� Pieter Fris, De Geregtigheyt vol Moedt, Over het vertreck van den Nederlandschen Mars (1689), p. 5 (Knuttel no. 13264); Wilhelmus Velingius, Nederlands Dank- en VierDags-Taal (1689), p. 8 (Knuttel no. 13277); Ihalainen, Protestant Nations, p. 130. 122 123

246

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Figure 11.3 La Belle Constance (1689), Knuttel 13230b; La Belle Constance (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2802.

Defending the True Faith

247

Figure 11.4 L’Europe Allarmee pour le fils d’un Meunier (1689), Knuttel 13229; L’Europe Allarmée pour le fils d’un Meunier (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2746.

248

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Figure 11.5 L’Epiphane du Nouveau Antichrist (1689), Knuttel 13230a; L’Epiphane du Nouveau Antichrist (1689), Rotterdam, Het Schielandshuis, Atlas van Stolk no. 2768.

Defending the True Faith

249

The literature discussed above clearly represents a Protestant response to the events of 1688–89 and as such, it sheds little light on the way Dutch Catholics perceived William’s intervention in England. In fact, through their efforts to unite all Protestant denominations into a supra-national entity, those pamphleteers explicitly excluded the Republic’s Catholic inhabitants from the common cause. Yet despite this, and the fact that at times of national crisis fears often arose that Dutch Catholics would be used as a fifth column to bring down the Republic, there was actually little overt denigration of the Republic’s Catholic inhabitants. Only two works criticised the purported feelings of Dutch Catholics, for example, with their authors dubiously maintaining that not only did they pray for the failure of William’s enterprise in the ‘hope they can again wash their hands in Protestant blood …’, but they also ‘unashamedly dare to smear the Expedition of his Highness to England and say it was to rise up against his Father-in-law’.128 The fact that the town councils in Holland, in an effort to quell any potential domestic disturbances, had issued warnings to the Calvinist clergy not to stir up anti-Catholicism amongst the populace in general, can partly explain the lack of vilification of the Republic’s Catholic inhabitants.129 However, a more important contributory factor was the need to exonerate certain Catholics, namely the Republic’s international Catholic allies and particularly the Habsburgs, from the perceived conspiracy against Protestantism. Pamphleteers in general therefore conveniently ignored or quickly skirted over this problematic issue, with the exception of a series of three propaganda pamphlets.130 In tackling the subject head-on, these pamphlets avoided fervent religious language and instead focused on explaining that due to the unsteady continental situation, the expedition to England and the Republic’s Catholic alliances, were now of central importance not only to the balance of power in Europe, but also to the very survival of the Dutch state itself. Indeed, by concentrating on the mutual dangers of an AngloFrench alliance to both the Republic and the Empire, these pamphlets were able to justify the inclusion of the Republic’s Catholic allies in the godly struggle against the forces of Louis XIV.

III In conclusion, the pamphlets published on England in the Dutch Republic during the years 1688 and 1689 not only demonstrate the Dutch public’s preoccupation with religious matters, but also the sustained use of religious rhetoric, language and  ���������� Hollants, Engelants En aller Protestanten, p. 6; De Goddelyke bestieringe, p. vi.  ������������������������������������������������ Israel, ‘William III and Toleration’, pp. 147–8. 130  ������� Anon., De Machten der Aerden in optocht na het Orakel (1688) (Knuttel no. 12865); Anon., Het Orakel Aangesproken Door de Magten der Aarde (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12975); Anon., Nieuwe Voorseggingen (s.l., 1688) (Knuttel no. 12978). ��I c��� can find no evidence on the STCN or EEBO that these pamphlets were published in English. 128 129

250

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

imagery of earlier periods. Although the extent to which the pamphlet literature affected ‘public opinion’ is difficult to gauge, it is likely that these pamphlets played an important role in creating a vision of the world that allowed a wide range of support to develop for the enterprise to England. In fact, even though a significant proportion of the literature was state-sponsored propaganda, it was a propaganda which knew its audience and is evidence in itself of the Dutch public’s concern for religious issues. Therefore, whilst the defence of the Protestant religion may not have been high on the agenda of William and his associates, they clearly expected it to be the overriding concern for the public they were addressing. This is further substantiated by the fact that those pamphlets published in reaction to William’s intervention in England clearly viewed foreign policy in religious terms. Nor were all of those pamphlets written by preachers and neither were they part of the co-ordinated propaganda effort. Rather, those pamphleteers regarded the interests of the Dutch fatherland, international Protestantism and European liberty as identical. For that reason, they believed the Republic to be fulfilling its role as the protector of Protestantism from the perceived threat of a resurgent Catholicism which aimed to reduce Europe to slavery and persecution.

Conclusion Benjamin J. Kaplan

What role did religion play in Europe’s wars and international relations, and in the foreign policy and political discourse of Europe’s countries, in the period between the Peace of Westphalia and the Treaty of Utrecht? As David Onnekink observes in his Introduction to this volume, a long historiographic tradition offers a neat answer to this question: very little. Rooted in notions of progress and modernity, this tradition holds that a sharp distinction must be drawn between Europe’s conflicts before and after 1648. In the century prior to Westphalia, Protestants and Catholics sought to resolve by force of arms the new religious divisions created by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Their desire to end religious schism and to see what each confessional group regarded as the one true faith prevail played a crucial role in causing the wars that plagued various lands, in particular France, Germany, and the Netherlands. By 1648, however, bitter experience had taught Europeans that such efforts were in vain, and in the Peace of Westphalia they finally accepted religious pluralism. A new age dawned, characterised by a secularism that was to emerge full-blown in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. In this new age, political and economic interests prevailed over religious beliefs. Rational calculation – raison d’état and mercantilism – motivated the foreign policies and wars conducted by Europe’s powers. Such is the scholarly consensus this volume probes and challenges. The essays included in the volume are quite varied in methodology and focus. Some examine the views and motives of particular individuals: Louis XIV (Sonnino), three English diplomats (Jettot), the dissenting English minister Roger Morrice (Taylor). Others analyse the foreign policy of governments, namely those of Spain (Storrs), England (Thompson), and the Dutch Republic (Onnekink). Still other essays focus on political rhetoric and public discourse (Haks, Stern, Bergin), while the role of religion in the conduct of warfare is also addressed (McLay, Glozier). What emerges from these essays is some real difference in opinion among scholars as to the degree and nature of secularisation in European politics in the period in question. Some scholars, in particular Sonnino and McLay, offer evidence that supports the longstanding scholarly consensus. Others suggest that the consensus requires substantial revision. Significantly, those scholars focusing on rhetoric and discourse tend to the latter view. The most radically revisionist case is made by Emma Bergin. Arguing that foreign policy was ‘still understood in religious terms’, she points out that Dutch pamphlet literature in the 1680s–90s used the same metaphors and images – indeed, were sometimes the very same pamphlets – as those issued during the Revolt against Spain; casting William

252

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

III as an Old Testament hero, they portrayed Catholic persecutors as agents of the Antichrist and spied in their actions a coordinated campaign to extirpate Protestantism. In this way, Bergin challenges the fundamental contrast drawn between a pre-1648 ‘age of religious wars’ and a post-1648 more secular era. Part of the problem with this contrast, as Onnekink observes, is that it is often based on an idealised notion of pre-1648 conflict – idealised in the sense of attributing such conflict to purely religious motives. In fact, a great deal of historiography focusing on the earlier period has emphasised the calculating, self-interested, political dimensions of such conflict – so much so that a countermovement began in the 1980s (and continues) to reassert the role of religion. Of course, the fundamental point, on which all scholars would agree, is that religion and politics were inextricably intertwined in this earlier period. Yet so were they too after 1648, for example in the concept of a ‘universal monarchy’ such as Louis XIV was accused of striving for, in the intrinsic connection Protestants saw between their own faith and ‘moderate’ government, in the providential favour and elect status many countries claimed to enjoy, and in the persistent belief that religious unity was the most powerful, reliable basis for political unity. Such considerations suggest that such change as did occur over the seventeenth century amounted to subtle modulations, not sharp alterations, in the relation between religion and politics. Christopher Storrs broaches a similar problem when he asks, what precisely is a ‘religious’ foreign policy? Examining Spain, Storrs finds conflicting religious imperatives: a desire to combat Islam on the one hand and Protestantism on the other. Ironically, to pursue the first conflict successfully, Spain’s government under Carlos II needed to make alliances with Protestant powers. Indeed, Spain’s survival in this period depended in part on such alliances. To be in a position to promote the interests of the Catholic faith, Spain’s government had to pursue policies that, at first glance, seem secular: it had to ensure the security and territorial integrity of the country. These observations point to a more fundamental problem with the concepts of ‘religious war’ and ‘religious foreign policy’: the narrow and static definition of religion on which they are often based. Intolerance and a readiness to wage war against other confessions were indeed fundamental characteristics of the form of Christian religiosity known as ‘confessional’. But, in the history of Christianity, they are hardly the only definitions of true religion or measures of genuine piety. Christianity itself was changing in the latter half of the seventeenth century, and at least among some people new forms of piety were supplanting confessionalism. Among these forms were pietism, in its various manifestations; ‘reasonable’ religion, with its hostility to ‘fanaticism’ and ‘enthusiasm’; and deism, the threat of which provoked traditional, Trinitarian churches to make common cause with one another. Did the role of religion diminish, then, or did religion change in such a way as to dictate less belligerent policies? Even if one defines a religious policy in confessional terms, however, the decades that followed the Peace of Westphalia witnessed quite enough strife as to raise doubts about a purported secularisation of politics. It is perhaps difficult for

Conclusion

253

us to recapture the feeling of so many people in the 1680s, especially Protestants like Roger Morrice, that Europe had plunged into a continental religious crisis. That feeling was triggered first and foremost, of course, by Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The revocation was hardly an isolated event, though: among other near-simultaneous traumas one should recall the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution in Britain, the succession crisis in the Palatinate, the forced recatholicisation of parts of western Germany, and the persecution of Waldensians in Piedmont and Savoy, Calvinists and Lutherans in Hungary, and Lutherans in Silesia. Anglican Bishop Gilbert Burnet called it ‘the fifth great crisis of the Protestant religion’, a conjunction of assaults so severe that it threatened Protestantism with extirpation. No wonder Protestants in this era championed an international ‘balance of power’: while the latter sounds like a secular concept, in practice, as Andrew Thompson points out, it served Protestants’ religious interest. Strife continued in the early eighteenth century with the War of the Camisards in southern France, the Fourth Swiss War of Religion, the ‘Deutsche Religionsstreit’, the turmoil in England surrounding the Hanoverian succession, and religious riots in a string of German cities. Clearly, the central question of this volume as to the role of religion in politics and political discourse in Europe after Westphalia does not admit of a yes-or-no answer, and even to couch an answer in terms of more or less religious influence may be unhelpful. More than anything else, perhaps, we need to be more precise as to whom we are talking about. To put it another way, we need to integrate more social history into our political history. For what may not have been a ‘religious war’ for one person or group may well have been that for another. Glozier’s essay, for example, makes clear that for William III, the plots he sponsored to invade France in the 1690s were simply a way to divert Louis XIV’s forces from Flanders; for many Huguenot participants, however, these plots were a desperate attempt to force Louis XIV to restore the Edict of Nantes. Heirs of the French wars of religion, they saw the plots, as did some other Protestants, also as part of a broader campaign to counter the international threat of Catholicism. Similarly, it seems important for us to determine who the authors and audience were of the Dutch pamphlets that couched political issues in terms of confessional antagonisms. Were such antagonisms stronger among some social groups than others? Perhaps we will find that such antagonisms were like accusations of witchcraft: that they continued strong into the eighteenth century among many segments of Europe’s population, but that at a certain point they stopped being taken seriously by ruling elites and ceased to form a basis for governmental action.

  Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnet’s History of his own time (3 vols, London, 1725), vol. 3, p. 1120.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Index

Aalbers, J. 75 Acts Act of Abjuration (1581) 169 Act of Settlement (1701) 65 Act of Toleration (1689) 89 Act of Uniformity (1662) 178 Test Acts 56, 83, 92, 224, 230, 232–6 Africa 35 muslim states in 13, 33, 34 muslim–Spanish conflict in 34 Spanish enc 33–4 Spanish army in 27–8, 33 Agincourt, Battle of (1415) 148 Aigues-Mortes 132 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of (1668) 19 Albeville, Marquis of, see White, Ignatius Albigensians 188, 194 Alexander VI, Pope 25n Alexander VII, Pope 19–20, 43, 192 Algerian pirates 181 Alps 125, 135 Alsace 187 Alva, Duke of 232, 243 America 13, 28, 114, 153, 228 Native Americans 35, 104 North 116, 120, 162 South 162 Revolution in (1776) 48 Spanish Empire in 27–8, 35 Amsterdam 21, 172 Assault on (1650) 197, 219 (chart) burgomasters of 84–6 Catholic churches in 19 Huguenot officers in 151 Nieuwe Kerk in 206 ������������ pensionary of 171 pro-French regents in 229 ��������c���������� Anderson J.L. 113 Anglican Church, see Church of England Anglo-Dutch Wars 71, 112 First (1652–4) 53, 203, 205–8, 216

Second (1665–7) 28, 55, 60, 62, 79–80, 210 Third (1672–4) 55, 60, 79 Anglo-Spanish treaty (1667) 42 Anne, Queen of England 103, 108, 110, 119, 121, 143–6, 149, accession of 118, 141 correspondence of, with Sarah Churchill 103n death of 66 marriage of 181n reign of 66, 101n, 128 representation of 245 son of 65 Anne d’Orléans (Duchess of Savoy) 131 Antemurale Christianitas 11 Anti-Christ 194, 211, 229, 238, 243, 252 antichristian 242 Antonio de Agurto, Francisco, Marquis of Gastañaga 38 Antwerp 19, 201, 203 Aosta 134, 147 Apocalyptic 81–2, 194–5 conflict 69 language 65 millenarian 150 visions 150 Apostles 194, 236 Aquinas, Thomas 157 Aragon 28 Ferdinand of 25n Argyll, Earl of, see Campbell, Archibald Arlington, see Bennett, Henry Armada, Spanish 12, 28, 179 Arminian 198, 209, 215, 219 (chart) Arminians 3, 198–200, 202, 214; see also Remonstrants Arminian party 198, 204 Arminius, Jacobus 198 Arnaud, Henri 125, 128 Arnauld, Simon, Marquis de Pomponne 22–4

256

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Arnauld family 20 Arsellières, Marquis d’ 144, 147 Asiento 36 Assyrians 62 Atheists 214 Atlantic Ocean 181 Aughrim, Siege of (1691) 123 Augsburg confession 209 League of (1686) 41, 69, 70–71, 73, 107, 185n Peace of (1555) 2–3, 82 Augustus II, Elector of Saxony 64 Austria, House of, see Habsburg, House of Avaux, Comte d’, see Mesmes, Jean Auvergne, Henri de la Tour d’, Duke of Turenne 19–22 Babylon, Whore of 78, 213, 242 Babylonians 62 Bagaudae 188 Bainton, Roland 9 Bajazeth 243 Balance of Power 2, 13, 27, 48, 52, 62–3, 66–7, 69–71, 74–6, 84, 87, 230, 232, 253 Balkans 33, 44, 46 Balthazar, Colonel 127–8, 132 Baltic 181 Bantam 180, 239 Barcelona 27 Barcelonette, Valley of 134 Barjac, Jacques de, Marquis de Rochegude 147 Barrier fortresses 40 Bartholomew Day Massacre (1572) 96, 232, 243 Basque territories 28 Bastille 151 Batavians 245 Bavaria 64–5, 71 Elector of, see Joseph Clement; Max ���c�������� Emanuel Baxter, Stephen 73 Bayle, Pierre 230 Beachy Head, Battle of (1690) 166 Belcastel, Pierre de 144–6 Belgic Confession 209

Bellum iustum, see Just War Benedict, Philip 6, 77 Bennett, Henry, Earl of Arlington 46n, 91–3 Bentinck, Hans Willem, 1st Earl of Portland 82–4, 91, 138–9, 225 Bergin, Emma 15, 251–2 Bergues 140 Berlin 151n Dutc 82–3 Bern, Canton of 144 Bernardo de Quiros, D. Gabriel 28, 37n Berri, Charles, Duke of 107 Bible 100, 232 Old Testament 242, 252 see also Revelation, book of Bireley, Robert 5 Black Legend 11–12, 26 Blackwell, Lambert 43n Blathwayt, William 116–17 Blenheim, Battle of (1704) 103, 118–19 Blosset de Loches, Solomon 126, 128, 132 Bohemia 64, 193 Bois-Billaud, Henri de Montaciel, Chevalier de Lislemarais 151–2 Bolingbroke, Viscount, see St John, Henry Bonde, Charles de la, Sieur d’Iberville 125 Boogman, J. 75 Borgomañero, Marquis de, see Este, Carlo Boufflers, Duke of, see François, Louis Bourbon, House of French branch 71, 105, 124 Spanish branch 27 Bourbon, Armand de, Marquis de Miremont 122–130, 132, 136, 141–53 Bourgogne, Louis, Duke of 107 Bourlie, Anthoine de la, Marquis de Guiscard 145 Boyne, Battle of (1690) 123, 128, 130–31 Brandenburg-Prussia 8, 52, 64, 71, 82, 130, 180–81, 193 Elector of 39, 63, 131, 181n; see also Frederick first minister of 82 Huguenot refugees in 107, 134 military support of 83–4, 134, 145–6 representative of 82

Index Brasil 197 Breda, Fall of (1637) 201 Brest 137–9, 152 Bretagne, Louis, Duke of 107 Britain 4, 13, 48, 53, 56–62, 64, 69, 87, 105–6, 108, 121, 136, 149, 245; see also England British army 114, 140, 234–6 authors 224–5, 234, 243 diplomats 14, 114, 182 Empire 180 exiles of, in Depublic 225 foreign policy 13, 49, 52–4, 61–3, 125 historians 48, 174 monarchs of 53, 66, 121–2, 138, 179 navy of 23, 114 politics 53, 59–61, 64, 66, 223, 253 Britons 48, 49 Hanoverian Era 15, 150 Hanoverian Succession 66, 253 Protestants in 48, 51, 67, 225 refugees in 122, 124, 137, 145 British Isles, see Britain Brittany 22, 153 Broglie, Marshal de 142 Brousson, Barthélemy 130 Brousson, Claude 125–7, 130, 132–3, 141, 152–3 Brown, Thomas 225, 233 Heraclitus ridens redivivus (1688) 225, 233 Browning, widow 231 Bruin, Guido de 168 Brussels 21, 38n English envoy in 99, 182 Buccaneers 35–6 Buckle, Mr 139 Buda, Siege of (1686) 180, 183, 185n, 191 Bulstrode, Sir Richard 181n, 182 Bunyan, John 188n Burgundy 54 Burke, Peter 11n Burnet, Gilbert 112–13, 233, 237, 243 as propagandist 59, 225

257

notion of ‘fifth great crisis of the Protestant religion’ 73n, 179, 193, 195, 253 on Peace of Utrecht (1713) 195 view of Dutch invasion of 1688 69 works An Apology for the Church of England (1688) 233 Enquiry into the Measures of Submission (1688) 243 History of His own Time 195 Buys, William 171 Cadiot de La Closure, Pierre 147 Calais 100 California 35 Callenburg, Gerard 138 Calvinism (or Reformed religion) 3, 35, 52, 86, 93, 166, 188, 194–5, 198, 200, 213, 240, 242 Calvinist church in Dutch Republic 79, 198–203, 205–9, 211–13, 215–16, 224 ‘True reformed religion’ (Dutch Calvinism) 15, 160, 167, 170, 201–2, 210–11, 214 France 7, 143, 151; see also Huguenots Hungary 81 Poland 7 Calvinist ‘Calvinist International’ 5 militants 149 ministers 69, 78–80, 199, 201–2, 206–7, 209–10, 212, 215, 224, 242, 249 nobility 72, 122, 141 states 3, 57, 78 Calvinists 11, 83, 84, 86, 125, 200–201, 253 Cambridge School 10 Cambridge University 178 Camisards 107, 132, 143–4, 146–7, 153 rebellion of (1702–1710) 7, 32, 142, 144, 148, 151, 153, 253 Campbell, Archibald, Earl of Argyll 230 Canada 116

258

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Care, Henry 224, 233 Draconica (1688) 224 Caribbean 28, 41, 114, 116, 120 Carl Rudolf, Duke of WürttembergNeustadt 131 Carlos II, King of Spain 23, 26–8, 31, 38, 62, 93n, 160, 192, 199, 204, 205, 252 armies of 27 character of 29 confessor of 30 death of 27 navies of 27 policy of 29–31, 34–7, 39–45 realm of 27, 45 reign of 26–7, 30, 33, 35, 37, 40 religious policy of 29–32, 34–41, 43–6 representative of 28, 32, 36, 42 will of 30, 106 Carmelites 31 Carrier, Hubert 215 Carswell, John 226 Cartagena de Indias 27 Cartesianism 197 Casale 126 Castile 27–8 militia of 34 primate of 29 Catalonia 28, 45 Catalans 45 Spanish army in 27, 38 Cateau-Cambrésis, Peace of (1559) 179 Catholic Catholic adviser 108, 235 alliance with Protestant states 31–2, 38, 40–43, 45–6, 54, 57–8, 62–4, 70, 88–9, 96, 107, 126, 208, 249, 252 armies 39 atrocities 232 church 30, 57, 181 clergy 63, 235 conflict with Protestantism 1, 11–12, 14, 30, 43, 47, 48n, 52, 55, 64–5, 67, 78–9, 82–7, 93, 109, 123, 173, 181, 190, 205, 229, 249, 251, 253

diplomats 42 foreign policy 40, 46, 98, 226 ideology 45 league of states 99, 189, 192–3; see also Holy League minorities 13, 19, 36–8, 45, 56, 90–91, 174, 199, 228, 231, 249 nobility 20 revival 52, 239, 250 states and monarchs 3, 5, 7, 8, 11–14, 25, 31, 33, 36–7, 41, 44–6, 50n, 56–7, 63–4, 66–7, 70, 73, 78, 84–5, 89, 91, 98–9, 102, 104, 107, 119, 121–2, 151, 155, 167, 171, 179–80, 189–92, 194, 226, 228, 230, 238, 242, 245, 249 strongholds 108 theologians 18 Catholicism 11, 14, 18, 21–2, 25, 27–8, 31, 36–7, 43–4, 46–7, 53, 55, 72–3, 78, 86, 90, 92, 94, 102, 163, 181, 190, 195, 199, 202, 213–14, 226, 228–9, 230, 232–3, 237–40, 243–4, 252 Catholics 31, 38, 44–6, 52, 92, 96, 98, 100–101, 123, 134, 137, 150, 164, 199, 209, 214, 216, 229, 233 legislation against 37, 56–7, 66, 92, 174, 229, 232; see also Acts: Test Acts persecution of 95, 243, 252 toleration of 99 re-catholicisation 44, 72, 84, 87, 232, 237, 253 Catinat de la Franconnerie, Nicolas 73, 135 Cavalier, Jean 142, 147 Cavendish, William, Earl of Devonshire 113 Caze, Louis, Comte de la 123 Celle 84 Ceuta 33–4 Cévennes 127, 132, 147, 152 Cévennes Rebellion (1702–1710), see Camisards Cévennois, see Camisards Chaise, Père de la 95, 241 Chaline, Olivier 108–9, 119

Index Channel 22, 55, 111–13, 116, 120, 138 Charenton Temple 95, 97 Charlemagne 62 Charles I, King of England 62, 101 Charles II, King of England 27, 37, 43, 93, 95–6, 101–2, 202, 206 Catholic convictions of 21, 55 Catholic subjects of 45, 91 relations with Louis XIV 23, 54–5, 62, 95 Parliament 58 Spain 41 Restoration of 206 war against the Dutch Republic 7, 21–2, 86, 167; see also AngloDutch Wars Charles V, Emperor 25, 63, 179; see also Holy Roman Emperor Charlotte, Duchesse of Orléans 131 Chavatte, Pierre Ignace 170 Chayla, Abbé 108 Childs, John 110 Christ, see Jesus Christian Christendom 9, 11, 31, 78, 92n, 104, 138 Christianity 6, 19, 25, 28, 31, 46, 188, 190, 198, 202, 244n, 252 christians 46, 51, 99n, 191, 207, 210 Europe 35 kingship 6, 17, 27, 96–7, 245 militancy 6 Militia Christi 105 policy 30–31 soldiers 105, 191 spirit 165, 186 state 33–5 theologians 157 Church of England 56–7, 92, 230, 232–3, 253 Anglicans, Anglicanism 60, 91–2, 95, 99, 225 High Church 179 Churchill, John, 1st Duke of Marlborough 103, 108, 110, 119–20, 145–6, 148–50, 195 Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough 103

259

Citters, Aernout van 72n, 223 Clarendon, see Hyde, Henry Clark, J.C.D. 106, 119 Clausewitz, Carl von 109–10 Clausewitzian 104, 110, 119 Claydon, Tony 6, 7, 11, 59, 77, 164 Clement IX, Pope 20 Clement X, Pope 22, 30 Clergy 63 Dutch 165, 168, 249 French 18, 20–22, 24, 89 Spanish 30, 33–4n, 35, 38–9 Coehoorn, Menno van 140 Coevorden 165n Colbert, Jean Baptiste 19, 21–22 Colbert de Croissy, Charles 95, 99 Cold War 215 Coleman, Edward 182–3 Collinson, Patrick 5, 10 Cologne 64, 69, 82, 87, 106, 187, 190 Commons, House of, see Parliament Composite Monarchy 28 Comprehension 179 Concini, Concino 215 Confessional 6, 8, 47, 49, 51–3, 66, 73, 78, 83, 104, 119, 132, 173–4, 187, 190–91, 194, 209, 216, 251–2 confession 52, 57, 58–9, 64–5, 252 confessionalisation 89–90, 102 conflict, see religious war interconfessional 70, 88 period 11 soldiers 5 Confessor 5, 29–30, 235, 242, 245 Constantinople 181, 184 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury 95 Copenhagen 182 Coppet 127 Cornejo, Fray Diego 39 Cornuourd, Joël de 131, 134 Corvisier, André 156 Costerus, Florentius 78 Cotterell, Sir Charles 9 Council, Royal, French 20–21, 29 Council, Spanish Regent (junto de gobierno) 28 Council of State, Dutch 162

260

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Council of State, Spanish 29–30, 32n, 37, 42 Counter-Reformation 25, 27, 32n, 64, 181, 188–9, 191, 195, 226, 251 Counter-Remonstrants 198, 200, 204, 215 Court, Pieter de la 208–12, 216 Interest van Holland 208, 210 Coward, Barry 226 Cowes 113 Coxe, Thomas 32, 44, 125 Croesus, King of Lydia 243 Cromwell, Oliver 7, 53–4, 60, 62, 206 Crusade, see religious war Cruzada 33 Cultural Turn 4 d’Aix de la Chaise, François 235, 238 Danby, Earl of, see Osborne, Thomas Danckelmann, Eberhart von 82–3 d’Anjou, Louis, Duke of 107 d’Anjou, Philip, Duke of 106 Darien 35 Dauphiné 32, 44n, 121, 124–5, 127, 131–2, 134–5n, 143, 147, 152 Davenant, Charles 61–3, 71 David 212, 245 Davis, Natalie Zemon 3 Dayrolle, Jacques 99 de Bâville, Lamoignon, 108 de Bourbon, Louis-Alexandre, Comte de Toulouse 105 de Coetlogon, C.E. 106 Declaration of Indulgence (1672) 56 Declaration of Liberty of Conscience (1688) 224, 233, 236 Declaration of Reasons (1688) 15, 87, 159, 218, 239 Defoe, Daniel, 1–2, 8, 79, 80 Present Prospect of a Religious War inEurope (1701) 1, 79 Deism 252 Del Fresno, Marquess 41 Delft 229 Denmark, 3, 84, 208 Danes 185n, 189 King of 37n, 41, 180–81, 189–90 Derbyshire 113, 178 Descartes 214 Désert 125, 144

Deursen, A. Th., 217 ‘Deutsche Religionsstreit’ 253 Devil 81, 213 diabolical 78 Devolution, Law of 19 Devolution, War of (1668) 20, 55 Devots 42, 46 Dijkveld, see Weede, Everard van Diocletian, Roman Emperor 188 Diplomatic immunity 38, 93, 99–100 Discussiecultuur 219, 221 Dissenters Dutch 198 English 14, 56, 90, 92, 177, 179, 193, 217, 231–3, 251 French 21–2; see also Huguenots Scottish 56 Divine intervention, see God Dogma 4, 18–20 Dordrecht, Synod of (1618–1619) 169, 202, 205, 211, 213 Dover, Treaty of (1670) 55 Downs 139 Droit des gens 100, 102 Duchhardt, Heinz 157–8 Dumont du Bostaquet, Isaac 123n Dunkirk 139–40, 203 du Plessis, Armand-Jean, Duke of Richelieu 104, 163 Du Puy du Cambon, François 139 Durfort-Duras, Louis de, Earl of Feversham 122, 153 Durham 113 Durkheim, Emile, 4 Dutch Republic 13–14, 27, 34, 36, 42, 53, 60–61, 75, 77–8, 82, 91, 156–7, 169, 173, 175, 180, 193, 197, 199, 201–2, 208, 216, 218, 222, 224, 226, 249, 251; see also Holland Catholics in19, 37, 209, 228, 249 citizens of, inFc159 commerce and finance 41, 203, 211 exiles in 73, 107, 138 foreign policy 41, 69–71, 161–3, 210; see also Anglo-Dutch Wars invasion of England (1688) 69, 74, 83–6, 113, 120, 122, 191, 217–18, 223, 239

Index relations with Austria 81 Brandenburg-Prussia 82–3 England 56, 64, 94, 105, 180, 217, 230, 233; see also Anglo-Dutch Wars France 81, 180, 187, 208; see also Franco-Dutch War Holy Roman Empire 83, 180Huguenots 121–2, 125, 130, 137, 141, 144–52 Spain 41, 43, 45, 212; see also Eighty Years War 245, 249 representative of 72n, 143, 223 troops of in Barrier fortresses 40 see also Triple Alliance; FrancoDutch War; Nine Years War; Spain, Spanish Succession War government 171; see also States General; Holland, States of public opinion in 15, 218–19, 223–4, 228, 231–3, 245, 249–51, 253 religious identity of 79–80, 83, 173, 234, 241–2 Dutch Revolt (1566–) 3–5, 62, 76, 78, 99, 164, 168–9 Eastern Orthodoxy 11 East Indies 180 Eighty Years War (1568–1648) 3, 78, 159, 165, 167, 169 Eijnatten, Joris van 168 Elector Palatine 57, 70n, 179; see also Frederick V Elisha 31 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 61–2, 94, 230 Elliott, John 28 Embrun 134–5 Emperor, see Holy Roman Emperor England 5–7, 12, 14–15, 43, 48, 50, 90–91, 94, 96–7, 101–2, 115–16, 136, 184–5, 195, 203, 218, 222–6, 230, 232–5, 249, 251, 253; see also Britain Catholicism in 37–8, 45, 72, 83–4, 86, 91–2, 95, 98, 187, 192, 236–7, 240 Civil War (1642–1649) 3–5, 9, 28, 76, 102, 234, 240

261

exiles inthe Dutch Republic 69, 73, 180, 225 foreign policy 1, 7, 8, 11, 38, 41, 49, 54, 102, 104, 208 relations with Austria 73 Brandenburg-Prussia 145 Dutch Republic 59, 73, 99, 101, 164, 167, 206–7, 216–17; see also AngloDutch Wars; Triple Alliance Huguenots 96–7, 107, 123, 126–7, 129, 132, 136, 141–4, 146, 148, 150, 153, 186 France 19, 21, 23, 28, 45, 54, 59, 71n, 85–6, 98, 128, 159, 189, 241 Savoy 108, 136 Spain 33, 36, 41–2, 46n, 92 government of 42–3, 171; see also Parliament; Glorious Revolution King of, see Charles II; James II; William II nation 11, 48, 55, 230, 238, 243 Protestantism in 8, 27, 31, 38, 40n, 41, 56, 70, 78, 87, 159, 164, 186, 189, 206, 234, 236, 239–40 public opinion in 57, 183, 194, 217, 231 Enlightenment 48, 65, 106, 251 Erastian 198 Escorial 29n Este, Carlo Emanuel of, Marquis of Borgomañero 37, 373 Europe 7, 14, 17–18, 26, 30–31, 35–6, 41, 47–9, 55, 57, 62–5, 67, 69–70, 74, 79, 89, 97, 119, 128, 132, 156, 160, 178–85, 190–95, 208, 214–15, 218, 226, 236, 240, 242–3, 245, 250–51 balance of 27, 52, 61–2, 71, 75, 88n, 106, 230, 249 Catholic 48, 78, 84, 104, 107, 119, 192 Central 8, 52 Christian 31, 35 conflicts in 2–3, 34, 51–2, 65, 190, 251 Eastern 8 history of 1, 106

262

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

liberties of 63, 75, 160, 250 Northern 180, 182, 189 peace of 1, 61, 66, 208 Protestant 13, 46, 52–3, 57, 59, 62, 64, 66, 78, 84, 87–8n, 96, 178, 183, 189, 195, 226, 245 religious tension in 8, 52, 65, 78, 83, 190, 192, 194, 253 secularised 50, 251 states system of 27, 50, 54 Western 13, 104, 178, 181 Europische Mercurius 80 Evelyn, John 138 Exclusion Crisis (1679–1681) 57, 101, 253 Excusado 33 Exmouth 113 Fabre, André 130 Fabrèque, François Hubert de la 145n Fabricius, Pastor 118 Fagel, Gaspar 81, 85, 225, 231, 233–5, 237 A Letter Written by Heer Pensionary Fagel (1687) 231, 233–5, 237 Fairfax, Sir Thomas 104 Falmouth 112 Farnese, Alessandro, Prince of Parma 37 Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma 179 Fatherland 14, 82, 142, 163, 166, 168–71, 173–5, 200, 205, 212–14, 216, 250 Father Petre, see Peters, Edward Ferdinand, King of Aragon 25n Ferguson, Robert 243 Brief Justification (1688) 243 Feversham, see Durfort-Duras, Louis de Finch, Daniel, 2nd Earl of Nottingham 115, 134, 138, 144 Flanders, Spanish, see Spain, Spanish Netherlands Flanders 27–8, 30, 32n, 40, 42, 73, 114, 127n, 134, 141, 152, 187, 253; see also Spain, Spanish Netherlands Spanish army in 27, 37–9 Fleurus, Battle of (1690) 166 Flotard, David 143–4 Fogel, Michèle 164 Fontaine, Nicolas 99 Fontainebleau, Edict of, see Nantes, Edict

of, revocation Foulkes, John 116 Fourth Swiss War of Religion, see Villmergen, Second war of Foxe, John 186, 188 Acts and Monuments 186 France 3, 13–15, 20, 27, 55, 64–5, 71, 78, 82, 89, 104–7, 129–30, 142, 148, 162–3, 166, 184, 194, 212–13, 251 as Catholic state 11–12, 72, 104, 119, 163, 167, 187, 189, 192–4, 236, 241 as ‘universal monarchy’ 8, 60, 63, 163 foreign policy of 23, 40, 43, 54, 61–2, 71, 74–5, 104, 114, 126, 189, 208, 212 relations with Austria 84, 190 Denmark 180 Dutch Republic 86, 159, 164, 199, 208, 214–16, 226 England 54–5, 58–9, 62, 64, 73, 85–6, 91, 96, 98, 159, 189, 241, 249 Ireland 131 Morocco 34 Papacy 190 Savoy 131, 136 Spain 26, 208, 232 representative of 95, 98–9, 183, 229 Huguenots in, exiles 32, 44, 57, 90, 97–9, 107–8, 121, 123–4, 130, 132, 134, 140–41, 149–50, 152–3, 186, 191 intended invasions of 121, 124–6, 128, 130–31, 133–5, 137–8, 142, 144–5, 148–50, 152–3; see also Camisards King of, see Louis XIV persecution in 7, 81, 93, 95–6, 100, 121, 137, 143, 159, 167, 171, 173, 180, 182, 185–6, 194, 235, 243 revolution in(1789) 48; see also Fronde Stuarts in66 wars of religion in(1562–98/1629) 3–5, 62, 76, 155, 253 Franch-Comté 23, 27

Index Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) 13, 19, 21, 23, 27, 30, 32, 34, 38, 41, 43, 45, 71, 73, 77, 79, 212 François, Louis, Duke of Boufflers 140 Francoist School of historians 28 Franeker University 224 Franken, M.M. 75, 156 Frederick V, Elector Palatine 179 Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg 39, 82, 131 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg 180 Frederick II, King of Prussia 63 Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange 200–201, 203 Fredericksburg 183 Freedom 5, 56, 59, 74, 85–6, 158, 163, 167–71, 173–4, 207–8, 212, 214, 216, 239–40, 245 for Catholics 229, 231 for Protestants 1, 62, 133, 136, 150, 158–61, 163, 168–9, 174, 198, 201, 207–11, 216 of Europe 63, 75, 86, 160, 174, 226, 250 of trade 99, 182 Freeman, Tom 186 Friesland 170, 229 States of 170 Frijhoff, Willem 174, 219 Fris, Pieter 224, 245 Fronde (1648–1653) 17, 54, 215 Fuchs, Paul 82, 84 Furly, Benjamin231 Fürstenburg, Wilhelm Egon von 106, 187 Galilea, Sea of 213 Gallican Liberties 24, 43 Gap 134–5 Gastañaga, Marquis of, see Antonio de Agurto, Francisco, Gelderland 229 Generale Petitie 161, 163 Geneva 127, 130, 132, 184, 194 English agent in144 French representative in125, 147 Huguenot refugees in123–4, 128, 144 Genua, Spanish fleet of 28

263

George, Dorothy 244 George I, King of England, Elector of Hanover 66, 150n George II, King of England 66, 150 George, Prince of Denmark 144, 223n Georgian Era 13 Gerard, Charles, Earl of Macclesfield 136–7 Germany 4, 6, 44, 52, 65, 69, 72, 77, 107, 128, 144, 155, 189, 251, 253 Catholics in83 princes of 38, 41, 73, 81–2, 122, 124, 180, 193 Protestants in20, 38, 41, 73, 81–2, 124, 180, 187, 193 troops 86 Gethsemane, Garden of 207 Geyl, Pieter 156, 175 Ghent 19, 203 Gibraltar, Straits of 33 Girona 32n glorieuse rentrée 125 Glorious Revolution 8, 14, 31, 37, 42, 48, 58, 69, 84, 121, 195, 217, 223, 239, 245, 249, 253 Gloucester, William Duke of 65 Glozier, Matthew 7, 14, 251, 253 God 19, 82, 94, 96, 133, 191, 194, 206, 210, 235, 240 assistance of 166–7, 195 chosen people of 195, 238, 241 church of 81, 195 direction from 109, 241 Divine intervention 32, 40, 87, 104, 167, 172, 213, 243–4 Divine Providence 12, 14, 31, 69, 80, 85, 94n, 103–6, 111, 114, 117–19, 120, 155, 167, 171–2, 193, 195, 212, 241 providential 12–13, 31, 79, 104–6, 108–9, 111, 118–19, 194–5, 245, 252 Divine right 48, 56 enemies of 79, 238 goodness, mercy, blessing, peace of 1, 87, 103, 202, 207–8, 244 instrument of 155, 241, 245 judgment of 105, 240

264

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

o ffering military victory 103–4 ordinances of 6 preventing conflict 99n Protector of Dutch state 80, 158, 163, 172, 213, 241–2 punishment of 32n, 79, 171, 205 supplications, prayers to 32, 164–6, 172 Supreme Power 18 will of 100, 167, 172, 241–3 winds obeying 40, 69, 241 worship of 85 wrath of 167, 197, 212 Godolphin, Sidney 149, 225 Godolphin, William 91–4, 96, 98, 101–2 Goldie, Mark 178–9, 195 Gomarius, Franciscus 198 Gomez de Fueñsalida, Gutierre 128 Goodrick, Sir Henry 93 Goodwyn, Robert 116 Goudy, Pierre 137 Graevius, Johann Georg 224 Granada 33 Bishop of 34n Grand Alliance (1689) 41n, 43, 64, 69, 71, 107, 114, 163, 192 Grand Dauphin(Louis) 107 Great Assembly (1651) 169, 174 Great Storm (1703) 105 Greyerz, Kaspar von 10 Groenhuis, G. 241 Groenveld, Simon 73–5, 86 Groningen 229 Groot, Hugo de 158, 202 Guernsey 138 Guerre de Hollande, see Franco-Dutch War Guillestre 134 Guiscard, Marquis de 145 Gunfleet 111 Gunpowder Plot (1605) 12, 96, 105 Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden 117–18 Guyenne 22, 44n Haarlem 209, 228 Habsburg, House of 11, 19, 48n, 61, 63, 71, 73, 179, 190–91 Austrian branch of 11, 32–3, 52, 58,

64–5 Spanish branch of 25–6, 46, 53–4, 66 The Hague 19, 206, 238 Allied Congress in 44 English ambassador in 101 Huguenot officers in 151 Polish ambassador in 73 Savoyard minister in 128 Spanish ambassador in 28, 34–5n, 37 Haks, Donald 6, 14 Halifax, Marquis of, see Savile, George Ham, Johan 82–3 Hamburg 36, 181–2 Hamel Bruynincx, Gerard 81–2 Hanover 64 Duke of 180; see also George I Elector of, see George I Electress of, see Sophia Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford 66, 150, 178 Harline, Craig 221 Harris, Tim 57 Harrison, Thomas 105–6 Harwich 204 Hatton, Ragnhild 72–4, 83 Heinsius, Anthonie 83, 124, 143–6, 151–2, 161, 171–2 Hellenbroek, Abraham 78 Hellevoetsluis 240 Henri IV, King of France 133, 135 Henry VIII, King of England 61, 101 Henry Casimir II van Nassau Dietz, Stadholder of Friesland 170 Hérault 148 Herbert, Arthur 112–13 Heresy 5, 20–21, 84, 179, 215, 232 heretic 22, 38n, 50, 83, 188, 192, 233 Hill, Joseph 135 Hill, Richard 108, 143, 146 Holland 97n, 136–7, 139, 141–3, 184–5, 192, 198, 199–204, 208–10, 213, 221, 228–9, 232, 237–8, 245, 249; see also Dutch Republic French community in 101, 130–31, 133, 180 English exiles in 180 relations with England 99 States of 84, 86, 159–61, 200, 206,

Index 208, 229 Holles, Lord Denzil 178–9 Holstein, Duchy of 180–81 Holt, Mack P. 3, 4 Holy League (1571) 33, 179 Holy Mother 104 Holy Roman Emperor 2, 5, 22–3, 25, 33, 46, 72–3, 82, 84, 89, 104, 106–7, 122, 146, 179–81, 188, 190–93, 215; see also Charles V; Leopold I Holy Roman Empire 2–3, 6, 14, 22–3, 41n, 52, 57, 64, 71, 73, 81–2, 89, 107, 180–81, 190, 192, 194, 249 Imperial Diet 52, 83 Holy See, see papacy Holy War, see religious war Hooghe, Romeyn de 224–6, 244 Hop, Jacob 162 House of Lords, see Parliament Howard, Lord Thomas 192 Howard, Michael 109 Huc du Vigant, François 132 Hudde, Johan 84n, 85 Huguenots Church of 125; see also Calvinism, Calvinist Dragonnades 185, 228 exiles 44, 57, 69, 73, 97, 100–101, 121–4, 127, 134, 137, 140, 147–8, 150–53, 180, 225, 228 funds of 121 inFc14, 18, 20, 22–4, 90, 99, 102, 108, 141, 149–51 ‘international’ 126; see also Protestant, Protestant International pamphlets 126 persecution of 14, 72, 81, 96, 98, 107, 121, 180, 182, 184–5, 187–8, 190, 213, 228–9 rebellion of, see Camisards soldiers 7, 14, 62, 121–37, 139–40, 142–5, 148, 150–53, 253 Huisman, C. 241 Hungary 11, 71, 122n P 48n, 65, 72, 171, 184, 191, 193–4, 253 Rebellion of (1703–11) 7, 73, 81, 180 Hyde, Henry, 1st Earl of Clarendon 91

265

Iberian Peninsula 33 Iconoclastic Fury (1566) 3 Idolatry 242, 244 Ignatieff, Michael 12 Ihalainen, Pasi 6, 242 Immaculate Conception, Cult of 29 Indians, see Americans, Native Indies, Spanish 25, 35–6, 45 Infidels 30, 35, 46, 191 Innocent XI, Pope 23–4, 30, 32n, 43, 106, 190, 192 Innocent XII, Pope 35 Inquisition, see Spain, Spanish Inquisition; Italy, Italian Inquisition Inquisitor General 29 Intolerance, see Toleration, Intolerance Ireland 104, 127n, 131, 150n, 223–4n, 241 British army in 130–31 Catholicism in 72 Huguenot soldiers in 123, 126, 133–4, 136–7 Irish Campaign (1689–1691) 8, 87, 123–4, 126, 137, 144 Irish Establishment 142 Irish Rebellion (1641) 232 Iron Curtain215 Isabella, Queen of Castile 25n Islam 11, 30, 34, 109, 191, 252 Islamic states 13, 33 Israel 79 Israelites 242 Israel, Jonathan 75, 86 Italy 25n, 28, 33, 38, 54, 146, 165, 181, 190 Italian Inquisition 232 Protestants persecuted in 171 Spanish army in 27, 125n, 126n Ivoy, Frédéric Thomas de Hangest-Genlis d’ 146 Jacobite 66, 123, 137, 140, 217, 231 Rebellion (1715) 66, 105 James III, ‘Old Pretender’ 159, 226, 237–8, 239, 244–5 James II, King of England 56, 90, 93, 102, 118, 159, 181, 186, 189, 223, 229, 234–6, 238–40, 243 accession 56, 58, 179, 230, 232

266

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Catholic convictions 44, 56, 66, 72, 82–3, 86, 122, 224, 226, 230–33, 235, 237, 244–5 exclusion of 56 exiled 31, 66 marriage with Mary Modena 39n, 44, 56 and Monmouth 37 relations with Dutch Republic 84–6 France 54–5, 58, 98–9, 226, 230 Parliament 58, 62, 98, 101, 237 Spain 42, 62 William of Orange 38, 58, 59, 112 restoration of 43, 45, 123; see also Jacobite Janissaries 181 Jansen, Cornelius 20 Jansenists 13, 18–24 Jean II, Duke of Bourbon 129n Jersey, Earl of, see Villiers, Edward Jesuits advisers 73, 82, 236 anti-Jesuit sentiments 235, 237 confessors 5, 29, 235, 241–2, 245 conspiracy, designs of 12, 81–2, 204, 226, 235–7, 240, 245 Jesuits 20, 23, 35, 95, 171, 191, 199–200, 226, 229, 236, 238–40, 244 Society of Jesus 31 Jesus 18, 207, 210, 213, 235, 244 Jettot, Stephane 14, 251 Jew 210 Jewish 109, 224 Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen 172 John Frederick of Saxony 3, 179 Johnson, James 225 Johnson, James Turner 10, 77 Johnson, Samuel 225 The Way to Peace amongst all Protestants (1688) 225 Jones, Clyve 113 Joseph Clement, Elector of Bavaria 106, 190 Joshua 245 Josselin, Ralph 170 Juan, Don 29, 32, 40

Juan de Salazar, D. de 36, 37n Julien, Jacques de 128–9, 132 Jünger, Ernest 109 Juntas de teologos 39–40, 42 Junto de gobierno, see Council, Spanish Regent Junto de Medios 40 Jurieu, Pierre 101, 133 Just War 51, 77, 119, 133, 157–8, 166, 168, 173 Kaiserslautern 183 Kaplan, Benjamin 9 Kappel First War of (1529) 3 Second War of (1531) 3 Keegan, John 109 Kelsay, John 10 Kennedy, Paul 27–8 Kensington Palace 160 Kenyon, J.P. 113 Khelmnytsky Rebellion (1648–54) 7 Kist, N.C. 166 Knights War (1522) 2 Kossmann, Ernst 156, 175 La Mamora 33 Lamoignan de Bâville 132 Lancashire 122n Lancina, Juan de 31 Landsman, minister 212 Langalerie, Marquis de 150–52 Languedoc 32, 44n, 107, 127, 132, 142, 148 Larache 33–4n La Rochelle 81 La Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel 126 Laumonier, Jacques, Marquis de Varennes 131, 134 Legge, George, 1st Baron Dartmouth 111 Leiden 209, 229 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor 22–3, 38n, 72, 82, 84, 104, 106–7, 122, 146, 180, 190–93 Lepanto, Battle of (1571) 33 Leti, Gregorio 224 Libertines 169, 199, 202, 204 Liberty, see freedom Limborch, Philippus van 241

Index Linange, Comte de 150–53 Lincolnshire 141 Lindau 128 Lindau Project (1690) 44, 125 Lionne, Hugues de 21 Lipsius, Justus 204, 212 Lislemarais, Chevalier de, see BoisBillaud, Henri de Montaciel Livorno English minister in43n Locke, John 65, 231, 241 Letter on Toleration (1689) 65 Lockhart of Lee, Sir George 140 Lombardy, Spanish army in 27, 134 London 87, 95, 96, 99, 108, 112, 114, 136, 178, 182, 184, 193, 206, 236 City 236 Dutc 72n French ambassador in 95 Holborn 238 Spanish ambassador in 28, 36–8, 41–2, 92 Venetian ambassador in 184 Westminster 90, 92 London Gazette 182–4 Lorraine, Duke of 150 Lossky, Andrew 70, 74, 155 Louis XIV, King of France 13, 15, 59, 64, 101, 121–2, 128–9, 131, 135–6, 142, 147, 151, 155–6, 160, 162–3, 190, 192; see also France and Catholicism 18, 20, 31, 37, 43, 45–6, 63, 70, 72, 82, 84, 100, 180, 190–92, 226, 232, 235–6, 243–5 and dissenters 21, 24, 57, 72, 97, 102, 123–5, 150, 159, 179, 186–9, 228–30, 253 and Jansenists 20, 24 character 17 foreign policy of 13, 19, 21–4, 41–2, 54, 69–71, 73–5, 79, 82, 90, 103–6, 118–19, 145, 152, 153, 160–61, 168–9, 173, 181, 190, 212–13, 249, 251–2 ideas 17–20 Mémoires for the Instruction of the Dauphin 17, 18, 20 relations with

267

England 28, 55–8, 66, 82, 84, 95, 99 Pope 20, 23–4 Spain 27, 32, 34, 44–5 see also ‘universal monarchy’; Franco-Dutch War; Nine Years War; Spain, Spanish Succession War; Triple Alliance Louvigny, Henri, Comte de 134 Louvois, see Tellier, François Michel le Lumley, Richard, Lord 113 Luther, Martin 20, 64 Lutheran 3, 77, 187, 253 Lützen, Battle of (1632) 118 Luxembourg 27, 28 Lyon, Second Council of 21 Maas River 112 Maastricht 43 Macclesfield, Earl of, see Gerard, Charles Macedonians 62 Machiavellian 31 McLay, K.A.J. 14, 251 Madagascar 151 Madrid 35, 38–9, 44–5 English envoy in 33, 37, 41n, 92–3, 101 Papal nuncio in 30 ���������c��� Savoyard representative in 32 Venetian ambassador in 32, 43n �������������������� Maingre de Bouciquault, Louis de, Chevalier de Seissen 148–9 Les Amazones revoltées (1738) Mainz 64 Malaga, Battle of (1704) 105 Malet, Gabriel 128–9, 132 Malezon 127 Malplaquet, Battle of (1709) Manuel de Lira, D. Francisco 28, 34n, 37 Mariana of Austria (Queen of Spain) 29, 33n, 37, 41, 46 Maria Theresa 19 Marie Louise of Orleans (Queen of Spain) 29 ‘Maritime Powers’ 164 Marnef, Guido 5 Mars 245 Marsaglia 136, 153

268

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Marseilles 182 Marxist historiography 4 Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, Queen of England 39n, 44, 56, 58, 182–3, 225, 237–9 Mary II Stuart, Princess of Orange and Queen of England 231, 234–5 Mary Tudor, Queen of England 238 Massue, Henri, Marquis de Ruvigny 136–7, 139–40 Maurice, Prince of Orange 204, 214 Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria 39 Maynard, Sir John 178–9 Mazarin, Cardinal 17, 19, 54, 212, 215 Medinaceli, Duke of 43n Medici, Marie de 215 Mediterranean Sea 28, 33, 44, 46, 132, 181–2 Meer, Albert van de 143 Mellila 33, 35 Mennonites 207, 242 Mercantilism 2, 7, 71, 89, 251 Mercenaries 5, 14, 77 Mesmes, Jean Antoine, Comte d’Avaux 229 Messianic 13, 32 Messina 32, 40 blockade of 40 Michael I Apafy, Prince of Transylvania 81, 180, 191–2, 194 Middelburg, Synod of (1581) 164 Middle Ages 11, 157 Milan 28 allied forces in 136 governor of 32 Military Revolution 110, 117, 119 Millenarian, see apocalyptic Milton, John 188n Miremont, see Bourbon, Armand de Mirmand, Henri de, Seigneur de Roubiac et Vestric 126, 128, 136, 147 Missionary 35 Modena, Duchy of 39n Modernity thesis 8–9, 47–8, 50, 57, 60, 119, 251 Mohács, Battle of (1687) 58 Moldavia 193 Molina, Count of 28

Molinos 181 Monginot de la Salle, Etienne 136 Montbrun, Henri-Laurent de 129–30 Montgatz 184 Montpellier 99, 132 Moors 33–4, 46 conquest of 33 kingdom of 33 Moreau, Antoine 73 Morgan, Henry 35 Morocco, King of 34 Morrice, Roger 14, 177–80, 182–3, 185–95, 251, 253 Entring Book 14, 177–81, 185, 189–94 Morrill, John 5 Moses 245 Mours, Samuel 124 Muddiman, Henry 182n Mühlberg, Battle of (1547) 179 Münster 80, 210 Treaty of (1648), see Westphalia, Peace of Müntzer, Thomas, 2 Muscovy 182 Muslim, see Islam Namur 38n Siege of (1692) 134 Nantes, Edict of (1598) 5, 42, 86, 107, 130, 152, 253 revocation of (1685) 7–8, 24, 57, 80, 83, 89, 98, 100–102, 121, 133, 140, 153, 163, 177, 180, 185, 226, 228, 253 Naples Spanish fleet of 28 viceroy of 33n Nassau-Dillenburg, William, Count of 117 Navarre 28 Nebuchadnezzar 243 Neêrlands Israel 242, 245 Nero, Roman Emperor 243 Neuburg, Duke of 179 Newcastle, Duke of, see Pelham, Louis New Cultural Historians 3 New England 116 Newfoundland 116 Newspapers 185n, 223

Index Newtonian worldview 2 New World, see America Nierop, Henk van 4 Nijmegen, Peace of (1678) 24, 30, 46n, 71, 159 Nîmes 108 Nine Years War (1688–97) 8, 14, 34, 38–9, 41–2–6, 69–71, 73–81, 87–8, 106–7, 111, 114, 118, 163, 165 Nishikawa, Sugiko 8 Nithard, Father 29–30, 40, 46n Nonconformists, see dissenters Normaljahr (1624) 52 Normandy 139, 151 North America, see America North Sea 58, 69, 113 Nottingham, Earl of, see Finch, Daniel Nyon 127 Oates, Titus 93, 96 Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van 198, 201, 205, 211, 213–14 Oliva, Treaty of (1660) 64 Onnekink, David 13, 251–2 Oran 33–4 Orange, House of 197, 203–4, 208, 214 Orangism 210, 213 supporters of 53, 60, 203–4, 211, 216 Orleans, Duke of 70n, 131n Orthodoxy 28, 240; see also Eastern Orthodoxy; Russia, Orthodox church Osborne, Thomas, Earl of Danby 95, 113 Osnabrück, Treaty of, see Westphalia, Peace of Ostend 19 Ottomans 11, 30, 33, 35, 44, 46, 58, 63, 71, 151, 180–81, 184, 190–91, 210 Oudenarde, Battle of (1708) 118 Oxford University 178 Pacific Ocean 28 Paets, Adriaen 230 Paganism 11, 244n Paget, William 128, 178 Palatinate 64, 69, 87, 131, 163, 180–81, 253 Elector of: 57; see also Frederick V Palmer-Fernandez, Gabriel 8, 9

269

Panama 35 Papacy 13, 20, 23, 24, 49, 50, 180–81, 190, 193–4, 215, 241 Paris 78, 82, 93, 96–7, 99, 182, 184 Dutch ambassador in 81 English ambassador in 95, 98, 101 Parlement of 21–33, 106–7 Parival, Jean Nicholas de 209–10, 216 Ware Interest van Holland 209 Parker, Samuel 224 Reasons for Abrogating the Test (1688) 224 Parlements (French) 19 of Paris 21–3, 106–7 Parliament (England), 22, 48, 55–60, 62, 72, 87, 91–4, 95, 97, 101, 104, 179, 206, 223, 235–7 House of Commons 59, 91–2, 94–5, 98, 101 House of Lords 103, 119, 130 Partition Treaties (1698, 1700) 45, 62, 160 Patronato 35 Paulin, Comte de, see Tour, Charles de la Peasant War (1524) 2 Pelham, Louis, Duke of Newcastle 195 Penal laws 56, 224, 231–3, 235–6 Penn, William 224 Great and Popular Objection against the Repeal of the Penal Laws and Test (1688) 224 Perizonius, Jacobus 224 Perray, Marquis de 101 Persecution 63, 164, 167, 169, 171, 187, 202, 228–9, 243, 250, 252 of Catholics 91, 95 of Huguenots 11, 57, 72, 81, 95–6, 98, 100, 102, 121, 135, 159, 163, 173, 180, 182–3, 185–6, 190–91, 194, 253 of Hungarians 194, 253 of Lutherans 253 of Waldensians 7, 73, 127n, 180, 188, 191, 194, 253 Persians 210 Peru 39 Peter, disciple 207, 213 Peters, Edward 235–6, 241 Pettegree, Andrew 6

270

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Pfalz-Neuberg 57 Pharaoh 243 Philip II, King of S 62–3, 169, 232 Philip IV, King ����������� of Spain 19, 29, 39 Philip V, King ����������� of Spain 27, 107 Philipsburg 240 Piedmont, see Savoy Pincus, Steven 7, 53, 60, 178, 189n, 190n Pirates 35, 151, 181 Plumier, Joan 224 Pocock, John 10 Poland-Lithuania 7, 11, 64–5, 181 Pollmann, Judith 4 Pomponne, Marquis de, see Arnauld, Simon Popery 12, 53, 55–6, 63, 96, 99–100, 187, 195 Popish 1, 53, 56, 58, 84, 86, 188–9, 192, 237 papist 95, 99, 188, 190, 197, 199, 202–4, 207, 210, 212, 214, 232–3, 239 Popish Plot (1678) 12, 37n, 93, 95–6 Portales, Charles 147 Portes, Louis de, Conte di Verriè 143 Portland, Earl of, see Bentinck Portland Bill 204 Portobello 35 Portocarrero, Archbishop 30 Port Royal 20, 24 Portsmouth 137, 138–9, 143 Portugal 27, 43, 91–2, 144, 181 Prayer days 164–8, 172, 174 Presbyterians 178–9, 206 Presidios 28 Privateers 35 Privy Council 91, 95 Protestant 7 cause 78, 89, 96, 98–9, 101–2, 122, 192, 195 churches 8, 159, 165, 169, 173, 185 conflict with Catholicism 1, 8, 30, 43, 52, 78–9, 86–7, 95, 181, 190–91, 193, 251 foreign policy 13, 38, 53, 98, 249 ‘Protestant Interest’ 13, 52, 62, 66, 81–2, 88n, 121, 192–3, 195, 230 ‘Protestant International’ 14 ‘Protestant Wind’ 12, 69, 111, 113–14

Protestantism 13, 18, 26, 42, 48, 53–4, 57–60, 62, 64–6, 74–5, 78, 81–2, 84–5, 87, 94, 97–99, 109, 131, 151, 155, 158–9, 164, 167, 169–71, 174–5, 179, 189, 191–2, 195, 199, 206, 212, 226, 231, 233–6, 238–40, 242–3, 245, 249, 250, 252–3 Protestants 1, 47, 55, 62–3, 65, 67, 83, 87, 93, 96, 159, 166–7, 171, 173, 183–4, 191, 207, 231, 235, 242, 252–3 inEngland, see England inFrance, see France, Huguenots in inGermany, see Germany inH, see H in S, see Waldensians rhetoric 6 soldiers 38–9, 42, 44, 121 states, princes 13, 30–32, 36–8, 40–42, 45–6, 53, 64, 66, 73, 78, 81–3, 86–7, 89–90, 107, 124, 126, 128–9, 149, 179–80, 183, 188–9, 192–4, 226, 228, 230, 252–3 succession 65n, 66, 97, 105, 195 union 1, 2–3, Provence 44n, 135 Providence, see God Prussia, see Brandenburg-Prussia King of, see Frederick II Public church (Dutch) 15, 197–202, 204–6, 209, 211–12, 214–16 Public Prayer 208, 211, 214 Puritan 105, 119 Puritans in Ac104 inEngland 3, 13–14, 179, 183, 195 in Fc20 Puritanism 178, 189, 194–5 Puy de Montauban, Hector de 130 Pyrenees 54 Peace of the (1659) 26 Quaker 231 Quebec 104 Quietists 181 Raison d’état 13, 31, 82, 104, 155, 251 Ramillies, Battle of (1706) 118

Index Rampjaar, see Franco-Dutch War; Anglo-Dutch War, Third Ranke, Leopold von 50 Realist historiography 2–3, 10, 50–51, 74 Realpolitik 191 Reconquista 11, 33 Reede van Ginckel, Godard van 137 Reeve, John 53 Reformation 20, 71, 79, 89, 105–6, 173, 251 Reformation Era 2, 5, 6, 35 Wars of the, see religious wars Reformed religion, see Calvinism Régale 21–3 Reichstag, see Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Diet Religious war confession conflict 4, 8–9, 11, 52, 64–5, 78, 82, 107, 253 context of war 103–4, 119, 173 crusade 9, 34–5, 46, 105, 119, 158, 189 holy war 9–10, 77, 108 interpretation 10, 79, 83, 85 religious war 1–5, 8–10, 12, 14, 31, 43, 45–6, 65, 69–73, 76–81, 84–7, 153, 156, 158, 193–4, 215, 253 religious warriors 153 religious wars (‘classic’: 1522–1648) 2–5, 9, 50–51, 62, 64, 71, 74, 76, 153, 218, 252 Remonstrants 199, 207, 241–3; see also Arminian, Arminians Repgen, Konrad 10, 76, 158–9 Republican party, Dutch 60, 169, 206, 209 Restoration (1660) 13–14, 38n, 54, 89, 94, 106, 179, 206 Revelation, Book of 81 Rey, Fulcran 228 Rhine 28 Rhone 108 Richelieu, Duke of, see du Plessis, Armand-Jean Rietbergen, Peter 72, 74–5 Rijswijk, Peace of (1697) 27–8, 70, 83, 101, 127n, 140, 153, 155, 160, 171 Rivet, André 206 Roberts, Michael, 110 Rocroi, Battle of (1643) 201

271

Roman Catholic, see Catholic Romans 62 Rome 29, 38, 44, 64, 66, 151, 182, 232, 242 English ambassador in 192 French ambassador in 183 Spanish ambassador in42–3n �������������������������� Ronquillo, Pedro de 36–8, 42, 44, 46n Rooke, Sir George 105, 138 Rosas 40 Rotterdam 224, 230–31 Rule, John C., 73–4 Russell, Conrad 48n Russell, Edward 137–9 Russia 153, 181 Orthodox church of 7 Ruvigny, Marquis de, see Massue, Henri Rye 100 St John, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke 66 Saint-Malo 137–8, 152 Saint-Ruth, Marquis de 137 Samson 245 Sandwich, Lord 91–2 Sardinia 28 Spanish fleet of 28 Saumur 99 Savile, Henry 91, 95–8, 101–2 Savile, George, Lord Halifax 95–7, 225 A letter From a Clergyman inthe city (1688) 225 A letter to a Dissenter 233 Savoy, Duchy of 39n, 65, 121, 124–5, 128, 134–6, 142–3, 145, 148–9, 153, 184, 188, 191, 194, 243, 253 Catholicism in72–3 Duke of, see Victor Amadeus English envoy in 108 Huguenot forc 129–33, 147 Piedmont 44, 126, 136, 142, 144–5, 147, 229, 243, 253 representative of 32, 128 Waldensians in, see Waldensians Saxony 3–4, 64, 84, 149, 179 Elector of, see John Frederick Sceperus, Jacobus 79 Schaffhausen 128 Schafner, Martin 6

272

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Schama, Simon 78 Scheveningen 204 Schilling, Heinz 89–90, 156 Schmalkaldic Wars First (1546–7) 2, 179 Second (1552–5) 3 Schomberg, Friedrich Hermann von, 1st Duke of 100, 122–3, 127–30 Schomberg, Charles, 2nd Duke of 130–31, 134–6, 153 Schomberg, Meinhard, 3rd Duke of, Duke of Leinster 130–31, 137–9, 151–3 Scotland 140, 223, 241 Scots 35–6, 73, 93, 206–7 Scott, James, Duke of Monmouth 37, 116, 229 Rebellion of (1685) 230 Scribner, Bob 11 Sea Beggars 245 Sectaries 57, 199, 202, 204, 206, 210, 214 Secular, secularised, secularisation 2, 8, 13–14, 25, 28, 39, 42, 45, 47–50, 52, 59–60, 66, 70–72, 77, 79, 82–3, 87, 89, 99, 104, 106–7, 109–11, 119, 121, 201, 215, 251–3 Sedgemoor, Battle of (1685) 116 Sète 148 Seven Years War (1756–63) 8, 51 Shaftesbury, see Cooper, Anthony Ashley Shovel, Sir Cloudesley 143 Sibersma, Hero 78 Sicily 28, 31, 33n Sickingen, Franz von 2 Sidney, Henry 135 Siebenhüner, Kim 10 Silesia 171, 253 Skinner, Quentin10 Smeltzing, Jan 232 Sobrecasa, Fray Jose 42 Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge 8 Socinians 207, 210 Solis, Antonio de 35 History of the Conquest of Mexico (1684) 35 Solomon 245 Solorzano Pereira, Juan de 35 Politica indiana (1648) 35

Somerset House 129n, 150 Sonnino, Paul 13, 74, 251 Sophia, Electress of Hanover 65 Sound, The 182 Southampton River 113 Spain 3, 11–13, 19, 22–3, 25, 27–9, 32–3, 35–6, 38–42, 45–6, 53–5, 60, 62, 65, 73, 91–5, 107, 128, 134, 149, 165, 181, 190, 192, 219, 232, 241–2, 251–2 as Catholic state 30–31, 37, 70, 78 foreign policy 13, 26, 31, 33, 40 King of, see Philip, Carlos, Charles relations with Dutch Republic 126, 197–216, 219; see also Dutch Revolt England 42, 53–4, 62–3 France 26, 106, 160 Islam 33–4 representatives 34, 36–8, 41–2, 92 Spanish Civil War 28 Spanish Empire 3, 28, 35, 40–41 Spanish Inquisition 11–12, 181, 190, 232 Spanish Netherlands 17, 19, 20–21, 23–4, 26, 28, 37–8, 40 Spanish Succession War (1702–13) 1, 8, 69, 71, 76, 78, 106–7, 118, 120, 142, 152, 163, 165, 172 Spencer, Robert, Earl of Sunderland 95 Spies, Marijke 219 Staffordshire 178 States General, Dutch 45, 128, 148, 157–61, 163–74, 198, 205, 209, 211, 218, 234, 239 States party, see Republican Party, Dutch Stanhope, Alexander 33, 40n Steinkerk, Battle of (1692) 134 Stermont, Jacobus 202–3, 205–7 Stern, Jill 15 Stockholm 182 Storrs, Christopher 13, 251–2 Strasburg 187 Stuart alliance with France 62 anti-Stuart sentiment 224–5 court 55 Divine right 48 dynasty 58, 62

Index England 7 exiled 53, 66 foreign policy of 59, 64 Restoration of 54, 90 supporters of 56 Subsidio 33 Surendonck, Jacob 171 Susa 134 Swann, Julian 226 Swart, widow 225, 231 Sweden 3, 6, 19, 22, 40n, 41, 45, 55, 83–4, 107, 117, 180–81, 193, 208, 210 King of, see Gustavus Adolphus Switzerland 3, 7, 32–3, 44, 46, 84, 123–5, 127–9, 142, 144, 146, 188, 253 Symcox, Geoffrey 73–4 Taaffe, Francis Viscount 193n Tarnogród Confederation (1715–16) 7 Taylor, Stephen 14, 15, 251 Te Deum laudamus 164 Teellinck, Maxmilian 202–7 Tellier, François Michel le, Marquis de Louvois 21, 125 Tellier, Michel le, Marquis de Barbezieux, seigneur de Chaville et de Viroflay 21–2 Temple, Sir William 80 Thomson, Mark 65 Theis, Laurent 132 Thirty Years War (1618–48) 2–5, 17, 47, 76, 103–4, 179 Thököly, Count Imre 81 Thompson, Andrew 7, 13, 251, 253 Toledo Archbishop of 29–30 church of 34n Toleration 9, 18, 21, 42, 44, 57, 64–5, 89, 91–2, 99, 174, 198, 200, 202, 204, 210, 229–31 Intolerance 7, 9, 63, 181, 192, 207, 252 Torbay 111, 113–14 Tories 56, 66, 97 Torre, Comte de la 128 Toulouse, Comte de, see Bourbon, LouisAlexandre Tour, Charles de la, Comte de Paulin 136–7

273

Transylvania 81, 180, 184, 191–2, 194 Prince of, see Michael Apafy Trier 64 Trim, D.J.B. 110, 120 Trinitarian Churches 252 Trinity 120 Triple Alliance (1667) 19, 21, 55, 210 ‘True reformed religion’, see Calvinism Trumbull, William 91, 98–102 Tudor 62 Turenne, Duke of, see Auvergne Turin 136 Turks, see Ottomans Twelve Years Truce (1609–21) 198–200, 205, 209, 211, 214–5 Twenty Years Truce (1684) 71 Tynemouth 112 United Provinces, see Dutch Republic ‘universal monarchy’ 8, 31, 54, 60–63, 69, 107, 158, 160, 163, 189n, 191, 236, 252 ‘universal religion’ 8, 160 Utrecht 163, 197 Peace of (1713) 149, 195, 251 Union of (1579) 15, 169, 174, 200, 213, 215 University 224 Valckenier, Petrus 83–4 Valenzuela, Fernando 29 Valenzuela 29n Valladolid 93 Valois 61, 179 Vaudois, see Waldensians Velde, Abraham van de 197–8 Velingius, Wilhelmus 224–5 Velzen, C. van 78–9 Venice 181–2, 184, 44n, ambassador of, inLondon 184 minister of, in Madrid 32 Verrie, Conte di, see Portes, Louis de Viçouse, Colonel de 152 Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy 32, 44–6, 121, 124–5, 128, 131, 134–6, 142–3, 145–6, 185, 188, 194 Vienna 71, 82, 104, 152 Dutch ambassador in 81

274

War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713

Vigan 143 Villars, Claude Louis Hector, Duke of Villars 143 Villiers, Edward, Earl of Jersey 129 Villmergen War First (1656) 7 Second (1712) 7, 253 Viso, Marquess del 40 Vivarais 132, 147 Vivent, François 126–7, 133, 141, 147, 152 Voetius, Gisbertus 206–7 Walacia 193 Waldensians 44, 125, 136, 188, 229 persecution of 7, 32, 48n, 73, 128, 132, 180, 188, 194, 253 Wallington, Nehemiah 170 Walpole, Robert 195 Walten, Eric 225, 243 The Orthodox Policy 243 Warfare 13–14, 73, 74, 76–7, 103–6, 108–111, 114, 118–20, 127, 251 Wassenaar van Sterrenburg, Willem van 81 Weede van Dijkveld, Everard van 85, 87 West Indian Company 197 Westminister 89 Westphalia, Peace of (1648), westphalian 1–3, 7–8, 13, 15, 25, 47, 48–52, 54, 57, 58, 64, 66, 71–2, 82, 84, 89, 103, 108, 110, 119, 121, 197–8, 201–3, 205, 207–216, 251–3 Peace of Osnabrück (1648) 47 Peace of Münster (1648) 1, 15, 47, 79, 197–8, 201–5, 207, 210–11, 213–14, 216, 219 (chart) Wheler, Sir Francis 114–16, 120 Whig historiography 4, 48–9, 57, 59, 60, 113 Whigs 56, 60–61, 63, 66, 113, 179, 183, 189, 194–5, 239 White, Ignatius, Marquis of Albeville� 238 Whitehall 114 White Mountain Battle (1620) 108, 179 Whittle, John 113 Wildman, John 112, 239

Memorial from the English Protestants 239 William I, Prince of Orange 107, 111–13, 118, 120, 179 William II, Prince of Orange 202, 208 William III, Prince of Orange and King of England 38, 64–6, 69, 74, 85, 124–6, 128, 130–41, 144, 150–53, 156, 160–61, 190, 195–6, 203, 206, 212–14, 216 as King of England 40, 42–3, 45, 242, 244–5, 250–51, 253 as Prince of Orange and Stadholder 21, 23, 58, 158, 202–3, 205–6, 208–9, 212–14, 224, 231, 234 as Protestant 43, 59–60, 62, 74–5, 78, 83–4, 89, 121–2, 155, 158, 172, 187, 217, 241–2, 245, 249 invasion of England 12, 15, 56, 58, 85–7, 107, 111–12, 114, 118, 120, 159, 218, 223, 225–6, 235, 237, 240–42, 249 representatives of 32–3 William Frederick, Stadholder of Friesland 203 Williamson, Sir Joseph 93 Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester 96 Witsen, Nicolaas 85 Witt, Cornelis de 21, 213 Witt, John de 15, 21, 156, 169, 208–11, 213–16 Wittewrongel, Petrus 202, 207 Wolf, John B. 24 Wolfenbüttel 84 Württemberg 84 Yard, Robert 182 Ypres 140 York, Duchess of, see Mary of Modena York, Duke of, see James II Zegeden 184 Zeeland 210–11, 213, 229 Zwinglian 3