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The Other Irish Mission: Spanish Patronage and Catholic Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century

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Book cover Rome and Irish Catholicism in the Atlantic World, 1622–1908

Part of the book series: Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World ((CTAW))

Abstract

This essay focuses on the efforts of the exiled Irish nobility for promoting Irish bishops who were in favour of the Spanish monarchy. By paying particular attention to the cases of David Kearney, and Thomas Walsh, archbishops of Cashel from 1603 to 1624 and from 1626 to 1654 respectively, the essay will investigate how and through which networks these petitions were submitted to the Spanish court in Madrid. Analysis of these strategies will demonstrate the existence of dual strategy: on one side there were the plans carried out by the Irish bishops who wished to obtain the royal patronage; on the other side there were the Spanish kings who aimed to forge strong links with the Irish Catholic hierarchy in order to preserve Catholicism in Ireland.

This study has been undertaken within the framework of the programme Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación (IJCI-2016-30430) and two projects funded by the Dirección General de Investigación del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad El modelo policéntrico de soberanía compartida (siglos XVI–XVIII): una vía alternativa a la construcción del Estado moderno (HAR2013-45357-P) and Sociedad cortesana y redes diplomáticas: la proyección europea de la monarquía de España (1659–1725) (HAR2015-67069-P MINECO/FEDER, UE). I must thank David Govantes-Edwards for the translation of this text.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Miguel Salvá and Pedro Sainz de Baranda, eds., Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España (Madrid: Imprenta de la viuda de Calero, 1845), VII: 401–402.

  2. 2.

    José Sigüenza, Historia primitiva y exacta del Monasterio del Escorial, ed. Miguel Sánchez y Pinillos (Madrid: M. Tello, 1881), 149–150.

  3. 3.

    The appointment is dated to 20 August 1582. See William Mazière Brady, The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland and Ireland AD 1400 to 1875 (Rome: Tipografia della Pace, 1876), II: 111–112; Enrique García Hernán, Ireland and Spain in the Reign of Philip II (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009), 310. On the diplomatic work of the Count of Olivares, see Miguel Ángel Ochoa Brun, Historia de la diplomacia española (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, 2003), VI: 213–220.

  4. 4.

    Enrique García Hernán, “Irish Clerics in Madrid, 1598–1665”, in Irish Communities in Early-Modern Europe, ed. Thomas O’Connor and Mary Ann Lyons (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006), 268.

  5. 5.

    A few days before the blessing of the El Escorial, Bishop Naughten officiated the confirmation of 542 people in Aldeavieja, near Segovia, on orders of the prior of the Royal Monastery. In 1617, the bishop of Tuam, Florence Conry, would replicate his actions, confirming 375 people in this same village. Fabián Crisóstomo Jiménez, Aldeavieja y el Cubillo (Ávila: Miján, 1987), 151–152.

  6. 6.

    Óscar Recio Morales, El socorro de Irlanda en 1601 y la contribución del ejército a la integración social de los irlandeses en España (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2002), 102.

  7. 7.

    García Hernán, Ireland and Spain, 322, 324; Ofelia Rey Castelao, “Exiliados en la España Moderna”, in Exilios en la Europa mediterránea. Actas del Coloquio Internacional. Santiago de Compostela, 12–13 de noviembre de 2009, ed. Julio Hernández Borge and Domingo L. González Lopo (Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 2010), 65; García Hernán, “Irish Clerics”, 269.

  8. 8.

    García Hernán, Ireland and Spain, 339; Enrique García Hernán, “La Misión de Irlanda (1610–1628): Aproximación a una nueva investigación”, in Hacer historia desde Simancas: Homenaje a José Luis Rodríguez de Diego, ed. Alberto Marcos Martín (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 2011), 349–350.

  9. 9.

    Enrique García Hernán, “Obispos irlandeses y la Monarquía Hispánica en el siglo XVI”, in Los extranjeros en la España Moderna. Actas del I Congreso Internacional, celebrado en Málaga del 28 al 30 de Noviembre de 2002, ed. María Begoña Villar García, and Pilar Pezzi Cristóbal (Málaga: s. i., 2003), II: 275–280.

  10. 10.

    BAV, Barb. Lat., MS 2933, fols. 75r–76r; Designation of Thomas Walsh to the diocese of Cashel, Rome, 27 April 1626. Brendan Jennings, OFM, ed., Wadding Papers: 1614–38 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1953), 177; Brady, The Episcopal Succession, II: 22.

  11. 11.

    Benjamin Hazard , Faith and Patronage: The Political Career of Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, c. 1560–1629 (Dublin: Irish Academy Press, 2010), 58–59.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 89; Óscar Recio Morales, Ireland and the Spanish Empire, 1600–1825 (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2010), 57.

  13. 13.

    For the journey of Archbishop David Kearney to Rome and, later, to Madrid, see Cristina Bravo Lozano , Spain and the Irish Mission, 1609–1707 (New York: Routledge, 2018), forthcoming.

  14. 14.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 1862. Memorial on Irish issues, h. 1610.

  15. 15.

    UCD-OFM, D. 01, vol. 1, 83, Brief Relation of Ireland and the diversity of Irish in the same, 1618.

  16. 16.

    Hazard , Faith and Patronage, 89.

  17. 17.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 994, Philip III to the duke of Taurisano, 8 May 1610, Lerma.

  18. 18.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 1862, Memorial on Irish issues, h. 1610.

  19. 19.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 994, Philip III to the duke of Taurisano, 8 May 1610, Lerma.

  20. 20.

    AHN, Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores-Santa Sede, leg. 57, fols. 230r–231r, memorandum by the Counts of Tyrone, Tyrconnell and Berhaven, 1621, order by Philip IV to the Duke of Alburquerque, 23 October 1621, Valsaín; AGS, Estado, leg. 2805, consult of the council of State, 13 December 1624, Madrid. Igor Pérez Tostado, The Irish Influence at the Court of Spain in the Seventeenth Century (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008), 309.

  21. 21.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 3037, document from an Irish Catholic, 29 August 1664, London.

  22. 22.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2102, 69, consult of the council of state, 28 March 1663, Madrid; AGS, Estado, leg. 3037, consult of the council of state, 3 November 1664, Madrid; AHN, Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores-Santa Sede, leg. 71, fol. 101, dispatch of Philip IV, s.f., 1664, Madrid.

  23. 23.

    For example, of the six candidates to the see of Cashel in 1626, five had been trained in Spain. Two of them, Philip Hogan and the Dominican Dominic of the Rosary—Daniel O’Daly—had also been sent to Ireland as missionaries in 1621 and 1623, respectively, with the sponsorship of Philip III and Philip IV. Historical Manuscript Commission, ed., Report on Franciscan Manuscripts preserved at the Convent Merchant’s Quay, Dublin (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1906), 87; Jennings, Wadding Papers, 93, 245.

  24. 24.

    This expression was coined by the nuncio Antonio Caetani in 1617. Salamanca Papers, /S/35/9, Russell Library, Maynooth, memorandum by Antonio Caetani, 21 April 1617, Madrid.

  25. 25.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2806, consult of the council of state, 28 February 1643, Madrid.

  26. 26.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2806, consult of the council of state, 13 June 1643, Madrid.

  27. 27.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2806, consult of the council of state, 12 September 1643, Madrid.

  28. 28.

    The figure of Michael Cantwell is analysed in Cristina Bravo Lozano, “Michael Cantwell and the Pension of Cadiz: A Troubled Irish Jesuit Career in Seventeenth Century Spain”, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 103/412 (2014): 428–446.

  29. 29.

    Hugh de Burgo to Luke Wadding, 20 June 1632, Madrid, in Wadding Papers, 621.

  30. 30.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2788, memorandum by Richard Bermingham, 16 December 1626, Madrid.

  31. 31.

    AHN, Consejos, leg. 15, 225, Philip IV to Juan de Insausti, 3 February 1626, Barbastro. The following day, Philip IV wrote to Urban VIII from Barbastro. See Wadding Papers, 164.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 163–164.

  33. 33.

    Report by the nuncio in Flanders about the candidates for the dioceses of Armagh and Cashel, 21 February 1626, Bruxelles, in Report on Franciscan Manuscripts, 87.

  34. 34.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2542, the count of Molina to Mariana of Austria, 7 September 1668, London.

  35. 35.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2542, consult of the council of state, 4 October 1668, Madrid; Patricia O’Connell, The Irish College at Lisbon, 1580–1834 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001), 50–51; Terry Clavin, “Peter Talbot”, in DNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 53: 711–714.

  36. 36.

    Mark Williams, “Between King, Faith and Reason: Father Peter Talbot (SJ) and Catholic Royalist Thought in Exile”, English Historical Review 127/528 (2012): 1063–1099; Mark Williams, The King’s Irishmen: The Irish in the Exiled Court of Charles II (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2014), 128–157.

  37. 37.

    ASV, Segreteria di Stato, Fiandra, vol. 54, fols. 15r, 150r–152r, Carlo Francesco Airoldi to the secretary of state, 8 December 1668, Bruxelles.

  38. 38.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 3042, Pedro Fernández del Campo y Angulo to Juan Baptista de Arespacochaga, 11 October 1668, Madrid; APF, C, Anglia, vol.1, fol. 342r, Carlo Francesco Airoldi to Federico Baldeschi Colonna, Bruxelles, 18 May 1669.

  39. 39.

    ASV, Segreteria di Stato, Fiandra, vol. 54, fols. 15r, 17r, minutes for abbot Claudio Agretti, 8 December 1668 and 12 January 1669, Rome.

  40. 40.

    APF, C, I, vol. 1, fols. 602rv, Patrick Guinness to an unspecified addressee, 5 November 1668, London; ASV, Segreteria di Stato, Fiandra, vol. 49, fol. 222v, Cardinal Girolamo de Vecchi to Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, 4 October 1664, Bruxelles.

  41. 41.

    APF, C, I, vol. 1, fols. 389r–392v, Nicolas French’s report with the list of candidates for the dioceses of Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, 30 August 1668, Bruxelles; APF, C, I, vol. 1, fol. 516rv, Agretti to Colonna, 21 July 1668, Bruxelles.

  42. 42.

    John G. Simms, “The War of the Two Kings, 1685–91”, in A New History of Ireland. III: Early Modern Ireland, 1534–1691, ed. T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin. and F. J. Byrne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 482.

  43. 43.

    BL, Additional Manuscripts, MS 31248, fols. 175r, 177r, James II to Innocent XI, 19 March 1687, Whitehall; John Canon Monahan, Records relating to the Dioceses of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1886), 37, 114–115; Brady, The Episcopal Succession, I: 247–249.

  44. 44.

    Cristina Bravo Lozano, “Tierras de Misión: La política confesional de la monarquía de España en las Islas Británicas, 1660–1702” (unpublished PhD dissertation: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2014).

  45. 45.

    Laurence F. Renehan, Collections of Irish Church History, ed. D. McCarthy (Dublin: C. M. Warren & Thomas Richardson and Son, 1861), 276; Hazard, Faith and Patronage, 129.

  46. 46.

    APF, C, Anglia, vol. 1, fol. 381r, Airoldi to the archbishop of Cesarea, 5 October 1669, Bruxelles; Brady, The Episcopal Succession, I: 336–337.

  47. 47.

    APF, C, Anglia, vol. 1, fol. 332r, Airoldi to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, 18 May 1669, Bruxelles; Brady, The Episcopal Succession, II: 355.

  48. 48.

    Duffy’s appointment was made possible by the intercession of the Duke of Medina de las Torres and Cardinal Nithard . See HC, V: 162.

  49. 49.

    AGP, Sección Histórica, caja 174, list of chaplains and confessors of the German guard. Madrid; AGP, Expedientes de Personal, caja 2621, exp. 32, order by Antonio Manrique de Guzmán to the grefier and royal purser Joseph García, 20 September 1671, Madrid; Cristina Bravo Lozano, “Poder político y patronato misionero: Mariana de Austria y la praxis confesional regia en el Norte, 1665–1696”, in La corte de los chapines: Mujer y sociedad política en la monarquía de España, 1649–1714, ed. Cristina Bravo Lozano and Roberto Quirós Rosado (Milan: EDUCatt, 2018), 170–172.

  50. 50.

    APF, C, I, vol.3, fols. 278r–279v, petition by Dermot Fay, 1672, Madrid.

  51. 51.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2835, consult of the council of state, 15 November 1672, Madrid.

  52. 52.

    APF, C, I, vol. 3, fols. 278r, 315r, copy of the note sent by monsignor Bottini to Urbano Cerri, 15 July 1673, Rome; APF, C, I, vol. 3, fols. 319r–352r, process on the character of Dermot Fay , 10 January 1673, Madrid.

  53. 53.

    AGP, expedientes de personal, Caja 2621, exp. 32, memorial by Dermot Fay, 1687, Madrid.

  54. 54.

    Bravo Lozano, Spain and the Irish Mission, 1609–1707.

  55. 55.

    Brady, The Episcopal Succession, I: 257; Benignus Millett, OFM, The Irish Franciscans, 1651–1665 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964), 61, 531–532.

  56. 56.

    For Cromwell’s regime, from a religious perspective, see Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985); D. L. Smith, Olivier Cromwell: Política y religión en la revolución inglesa, 1640–1658 (Madrid: Akal, 1999); John Cunningham, “Oliver Cromwell and the ‘Cromwellian’ Settlement of Ireland”, The Historical Journal 53/4 (2010): 919–937.

  57. 57.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 3025, order by Philip IV, 22 April 1653, Aranjuez.

  58. 58.

    The pension of Florence Conry had previously been claimed by Daniel Conry, the secretary of the prelate (and his relative), and by his successor, Archbishop Malachias O’Queely, who followed Thomas Walsh’s example concerning the Cádiz pension. AGS, Estado, leg. 2801, consult of the council of state, 27 May 1631, Madrid; AGS, Estado, leg. 2796, consult of the council of state, 7 June 1633, Madrid.

  59. 59.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2817, consult of the council of state, 6 March 1653, Madrid.

  60. 60.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2817, Baltasar Moscoso y Sandoval to Fernando Ruiz de Contreras, 8 April 1653, Madrid.

  61. 61.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2817, consult of the council of state, 24 April 1653, Madrid.

  62. 62.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 3025, order by Philip IV, 22 April 1653, Aranjuez.

  63. 63.

    Millett, The Irish Franciscans, 518–519.

  64. 64.

    Hazard, Faith and Patronage, 80, 99; UCD-OFM, D. 01, vol. 1, 20, Brief Relation of Ireland and the diversity of Irish in the same, 1618.

  65. 65.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 1493, 371, memorial by David Kearney, 21 August 1610, Aranda.

  66. 66.

    AGP, Real Capilla, caja 82, copy of Philip III’s order concerning the archbishop of Cashel’s pension, 13 September 1610, Lerma; copy of the bull concerning the Cádiz pension, 21 September 1613, Rome. Cristina Bravo Lozano, “‘Ex privilegio apostolico’: La génesis de la Misión de Irlanda: Madrid-Roma, 1609–1619”, in En tierra de confluencias: Italia y la Monarquía Hispánica, siglos XVI–XVII, ed. Cristina Bravo Lozano and Roberto Quirós Rosado (Valencia: Albatros Ediciones, 2013), 201–212.

  67. 67.

    As pointed out by O’Sullivan Beare’s Brief Relation, David Kearney was “entertained by his Majesty with allowance of 1,000 ducados yearly”, UCD-OFM, D. 01, vol. 1, 23, Brief Relation of Ireland and the diversity of Irish in the same, 1618; AGP, Real Capilla, caja 82, memorial by David Kearney, 6 September 1623, Madrid.

  68. 68.

    AGP, Real Capilla, Caja 82, order by Philip IV, 18 March 1628, Madrid; Alonso Pérez de Guzmán’s certificate on behalf of Thomas Walsh, 25 April 1628, Madrid.

  69. 69.

    For these attempts to distract part of the pension see Bravo Lozano, Spain and the Irish Mission, 1609–1707.

  70. 70.

    Ibid.

  71. 71.

    AGP, Real Capilla, Caja 82. Alonso Pérez de Guzmán to Philip IV, 31 May 1654, Madrid.

  72. 72.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2821, consult of the council of state, 27 April 1657, Madrid.

  73. 73.

    ASV, Segreteria di Stato, Fiandra, vol. 65, fol. 290r, Sebastiano Antonio Tanara to Cardinal Angelo Paluzzi degli Alberoni (Altieri), 6 June 1676, Bruxelles.

  74. 74.

    S. Kelsey, “Nicholas French”, in DNB (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 20: 971-972.

  75. 75.

    Cristina Bravo Lozano, “‘Huyendo de los lobos carniceros de su patria’: Las monjas irlandesas en Castilla, una aproximación social y discursiva (1652–1706)”, Hispania Sacra 69/140 (2017): 639–646.

  76. 76.

    APF, Acta, vol. 67, fols. 413r–414r, general congregation, 26 November 1697, Rome.

  77. 77.

    AGS, Secretarías Provinciales, leg. 2520, decree addressed by Charles II to the count of Monterrey, 25 May 1698, Toledo.

  78. 78.

    AHN, Estado, leg. 1442, consult of the council of Flanders, 30 March 1701, Madrid.

  79. 79.

    ASV, Archivio della Nunziatura di Madrid, vol. 56, fols. 48v, 50v–51r, Francesco Acquaviva to Cardinal Portocarrero and the marquis of Mancera, 7 June and 22 July 1702, Madrid.

  80. 80.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 1493, 375, report by Junta de Dos, 27 August 1610, Aranda; for David Kearney’s journeys see Bravo Lozano, Spain and the Irish Mission, 1609–1707.

  81. 81.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2849, memorial by David Kearney, 1619; AGS, Estado, leg. 2781, consult of the council of state, 14 February 1619, Madrid.

  82. 82.

    Bravo Lozano, “Poder político y patronato misionero”, 169–170.

  83. 83.

    Brady, The Episcopal Succession, I: 272.

  84. 84.

    José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, Las Guardas Reales de los Austrias hispanos: Relación biográfica de los guardas reales de los Austrias hispanos (1504–1707) (Madrid: Polifemo, 2013), 344–364; HC, 188; James O’Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern (Dublin: James Duffy, 1895), 475; AGP, Sección Histórica, caja 174, asiento de capellanes y confesores de la guardia alemana, s.f., Madrid.

  85. 85.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2834, consult of the council of state, 26 August 1671, Madrid; on 1 September, Daniel Mackey resigned as chaplain and confessor for the German guard. See Muñoz, “Macquey, Licenciado Daniel”, in Las Guardas Reales de los Austrias hispanos.

  86. 86.

    APF, C, I, vol. 3, fols. 459rv, translation of the judicial acts executed by the Gregory Constable against Peter Talbot and James Lynch, 2 January 1675, Madrid.

  87. 87.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2838, consult of the council of state, 28 February 1675, Madrid; AGS, Dirección General del Tesoro, Inv. 1, 17, note on the concession of 1,000 extra reales to James Lynch, 20 March 1675, Madrid. The concession was made effective on 8 March. See Bravo Lozano, “Poder político y patronato misionero”, 172–173.

  88. 88.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2838, consult of the council of state, 28 February 1675, Madrid.

  89. 89.

    AGS, Dirección General del Tesoro, Inv. 1, 17, consult of the council of Finances, 3 April 1675, Madrid; note concerning the payment of James Lynch’s arrears, August 1675, Madrid.

  90. 90.

    AGS, Estado, leg. 2838, consult of the council of state, 28 February 1675, Madrid.

  91. 91.

    Brady, The Episcopal Succession, II: 356.

  92. 92.

    AHN, Consejos, leg. 4476, exp. 29, consultation issued by the chamber of Castile, 14 October 1709, Madrid.

  93. 93.

    BL, Additional Manuscripts, MS 8478, fols. 221rv, Cardinal Paluzzi to Cardinal Savo Mellini, 5 July 1683, Rome; BL, Additional Manuscripts, MS 8478, fols. 224rv, James Lynch to the secretary of Propaganda Fide, 27 September 1683, Seville.

  94. 94.

    ASV, Archivio della Nunziatura di Madrid, vol. 13, fol. 136rv, order of Propaganda, 6 September 1685, Rome.

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    Cristina Bravo Lozano

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  1. Foreigners University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Matteo Binasco

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Bravo Lozano, C. (2019). The Other Irish Mission: Spanish Patronage and Catholic Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century. In: Binasco, M. (eds) Rome and Irish Catholicism in the Atlantic World, 1622–1908. Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95975-7_10

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