The Jesuits and the Joint Mission to England during 1580-1581 by Malcolm H. South (review)

BOOK REVIEWS337 Manus O'Donnell in 1537, but as early as 1535, the same pope appointed bishops to rival those appointed by Henry VIII. In primatial Armagh, the pope's appointee , Robert Wauchope, even managed to depose the king's appointment. Jesuit missionaries and reform-minded appointees also ensured the spread of Tridentine Catholicism. But Ireland persisted in its Catholicism for other reasons . It was poor, and the gentry more difficult to intimidate with fines. It was simply farther away from England, which made resistance more possible—as could also be seen in the stronger showing of Catholicism in the remote Highlands and Islands and in northern Wales. And finally the culture of Ireland, so much more tenacious than that ofWales and Scotland, found itself in increasing association with the Church of Rome. What is so surprising about Mullett's book is the extent of Catholic activity in the face of centuries of persecution: chapels being built, educational institutions appearing, confraternities maintaining their charitable causes. The eradication of indigenous cultures and languages, so important in the spread of the British Reformation, proved counter-productive in Ireland, where English harassment spurred revivals of Roman Catholic activity. The stubborn appearance of regulars as missionaries also receives the author's attention. Even after the terror of Oliver Cromwell in Ireland, we find the primate Oliver Plunkett complaining in the late l600's about the high number of regulars, whom he found difficult to regulate. The first chapter contains a helpful summary of the current debate over continuity and suggests that it is not so black-and-white as either Bossy or Christopher Haigh tend to view it. There is a staccato quality of the author's approach as he chronicles the periods 1558-1640, 1640-1745, and then 1745-1829, beginning each section with England and Wales, then moving to Scotland and Ireland . The sections on Wales are lean compared to those on the other three countries. But this is a small price to pay for such a fair, measured, and valuable book. John C.Vidmar, O.P. Dominican House ofStudies Washington, D.C. Thefesuits and theJoint Mission to England during 1580-1581. By Malcolm H. South. [Renaissance Studies, Volume 4.] (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press. 1999. Pp. xvi, 172. $7995.) Richard Wilson's Christmas article "Shakespeare and the Jesuits" (Times Literary Supplement, December 19, 1977, pp. 11-13) publicized a trend in contemporary scholarship: faculties and departments of English are interested in Recusancy. Indeed, one finds more sessions devoted to English Catholic writings at literary conferences than one does at comparable gatherings of historians . Scholars such as Peter Davidson and Alison Shell in the United Kingdom, 338BOOK REVIEWS and Arthur Marotti, Dennis Flynn, and Robert Mióla in the United States, explicate literary dimensions of English Catholic culture and explore its influence on "mainstream" English Protestant works. Old issues once resolved on the basis of confessional allegiance, such as Shakespeare's Catholicism, are re-examined. Periodically I would hear literary scholars, slaving away in the archives of the British Province of the Society ofJesus, lament the lack of a good introductory historical guide to English Catholicism written for these new literary explorers. An attempt has been made to answer their prayers. Malcolm South, professor of English in East Carolina University, became interested in English Catholics as he researched Ben Jonson's The Alchemist. Their plight fascinated him. In this volume , he sought "to provide a balanced account that describes the mission of 1580-81 as the opposing sides saw it and [to] evaluate it in light of recent scholarship" (p. v). Working exclusively with easily available published primary sources, e.g., the volumes of the Catholic Record Society, and with an impressive bibliography of secondary literature, South narrates the circumstances surrounding the establishment of aJesuit mission to England to collaborate with the secular clergy already there, the arrival of Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons in 1580, and the government's reaction. His approach is strictly narrative. Nowhere does he offer an explanation why the Society of Jesus, after years of denying petitions for involvement in England, suddenly decided in its favor in late 1579. In his account I noted only...