Tea at Trianon: Royal Patronage of Illicit Print: Catherine of Braganza and Catholic Books in Late Seventeenth-Century London

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, December 9, 2022

Royal Patronage of Illicit Print: Catherine of Braganza and Catholic Books in Late Seventeenth-Century London

Catherine of Braganza, the Catholic Queen of Charles II, had to deal with many of the same issues as her mother-in-law, Henrietta Maria. From Brill:

In 1662, the English Parliament passed An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing.¹ Among its many provisions, the act prohibited the printing or importation of any texts opposed to the Church of England, including books with Catholic content. Proscribed works were confiscated and either destroyed or ‘damasked’ (i.e., over-printed) for waste paper, while the printers and booksellers faced fines, confiscation of equipment and imprisonment.² That same year, Catherine of Braganza, newly arrived in London, appointed Theodore Sadler as her bookseller-in-ordinary, instructing him to procure for her a list of Catholic devotional books.³ He submitted receipts to the exchequer for seven Roman breviaries, two psalters of Beata Maria hymns, a Roman missal, fifty ‘bookes for a night hearing of mass’ and an Iberian rubric.⁴ Even more books arrived from France.⁵ These orders served to set up Catherine’s Catholic chapel, which had been promised to her in her marriage contract to Charles II.⁶ Together with books ordered by Henrietta Maria, the Queen Mother, a significant number of Catholic books entered into these sanctioned Catholic spaces of London.⁷

The new queen occupied a grey area with regard to the laws governing religion in Restoration England, including those concerning print. Unlike other Catholics in England, she could legitimately order Catholic books for her chapel and private use, just as she had done in the spring of 1662. Yet, on at least two occasions, the activities of Catherine’s booksellers linked her to networks of illicit Catholic printing. She also directly intervened to protect an unlicensed printer from prosecution. Moreover, by the mid-1670s, her residence at Somerset House had become the centre around which the illicit Catholic book trade organized itself. Catherine operated as the heart of a grand network of Catholic print. She leveraged the power afforded her by her status and her marriage treaty to foster and protect the English Catholic population of London through print.

While much scholarly work has been devoted to the relationship between the state and the London book trade, it has focused on Charles II’s censorship activities, particularly the suppression of nonconformist and Whig print.⁸ In contrast, his queen’s activities in relation to the book trade have not been given their full due.⁹ This parallels the general historical treatment of Catherine of Braganza as both passive and ineffectual, particularly with regard to her barrenness. However, Adam Morton has qualified this view by arguing that, while her role as a political agent was less overt than that of Henrietta Maria, it was in no way non-existent. Both Morton and Edward Corp seek to give Catherine agency by emphasizing her promotion of a ‘Baroque Catholic culture’.¹⁰ Other studies have looked at how she attempted to assert her identity through her chapel music.¹¹

While these arguments often focus on high court culture, this article looks instead towards the wider population. After all, recusants of all ranks attended London’s Catholic chapels.¹² Catherine had been sent to England with the understanding that she should serve as the ‘focal point’ for all English Catholics, not just those in the court.¹³ For the majority of this Catholic population, recusant and church papist alike, their faith required breaking the law.¹⁴ Therefore, the queen’s role in illegally providing for this illicit population must be considered. Catherine’s goals and her willingness to trespass against the statutes approved by her husband emerge from this analysis of the power relationship between the queen and print. (Read more.)