MR BRIAN MAGEE AND THE ENGLISH RECUSANTS
Richard Trappes-Lomax
Ampleforth Journal 44:3 (1939) 201-210

MR BRIAN MAGEE has in The English Recusants set out to form an estimate of the number of Catholics in England and Wales in the period 1559-1781 and has examined a great mass of evidence which includes the opinions of contemporaries, official enquiries, lists of convicted Recusants and the number of Catholic peers, baronets, knights and esquires.[1]

[1]The following articles are concerned with a recent book, The English Recusants by Brian Magee (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1938), reviewed Ampleforth Journal 44:1 (1938). Mr Magee wrote this book to show that a majority of the English people were opposed to change in religion, and that it was not until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth that the balance began to decline against the Catholics. By the end of the reign, a new generation unfamiliar with Catholic practice had reached maturity, and it was inevitable that Catholics should diminish in numbers under the pressure of the penal laws. Nevertheless, the Catholic decline was a slow and gradual process. This thesis needs proof since it attacks the traditional interpretation of the English Reformation which is so strongly entrenched behind the barricades of our school history books. Mr Magee has proved this thesis in his fully documented work.
The discussion which follows is not concerned with the main contention. Colonel Trappes-Lomax considers that the book has raised an issue of major importance to Catholic history, but fears that the case may be vitiated by claiming too much. Readers will be able to judge for themselves whether that criticism is justified or whether Mr Magee has maintained his case. See his Rejoinder

On pp. 204-207 he summarises his conclusions thus :

In the first half of [Elizabeth's] reign [i.e., up to 1587] a majority of the people remained attached to the Catholic faith ... At no time after 1587 do we find any evidence that the Catholics remained a majority of the people; the most optimistic estimates at the turn of the century were that the nation was equally divided . . . Under James I the Catholics gradually diminished ... In or about 1641 [the evidence suggests] a Recusant population of about 200,000 or about 5% of the whole . . . The less open Catholics . . . seem to have been more numerous than the Recusants . . . Catholics of all kinds were [probably] not less than one-eighth of the population . . The Catholics cannot have been less than 10% of the population under Charles I and Charles II and it is extremely probable that allowing for those of all degrees of sympathy they were more numerous still. .. After the fall of James II the Catholics dwindled rapidly and the registrations of 1715-20 point to a proportion of only 5%. By 1781 they seem to have numbered only 70,000, little more than 1%.

The easiest way to visualise these conclusions is to put them in the form of a graph[2]. The line YZ represents the total population of the country; it is conjectural for the years before 1801 when the first census was held, but it is as near as one can hope to get and is generally accepted. The broken line AB represents Mr Magee's conclusions. It will be seen that, since the country's population increased from just under 3,000,000 in 1560 to 4,000,000 in 1600, they demand an actual increase in the number of Catholics all through Elizabeth's reign though it was a decrease relative to the total population. I return to this intrinsic improbability below.

The landslide occurred between 1600 and 1625, for Mr Magee produces ample evidence to show that about the later date there were only some 200,000 bona fide Catholics with probably rather a greater number of schismatics or Church Papists and vague sympathisers. That represents an apostasy of 1,250,000 in 25 years. The determining causes seem to have been the extinction of Marian priests, the inadequate numbers of Seminary priests and others, perhaps 460 in 1603[3], to minister to 1,750,000 Catholics at the end of Elizabeth's reign, which only gives one priest to every 40,000 Catholics, and the disastrous Gunpowder Plot. If Cecil engineered it, his success must have been balm to his calculating soul; if the conspirators begat it, they bear a terrible responsibility.

[3] Magee, op. cit.. p 46.

It is the lack of priests and consequently of opportunities of hearing Mass and receiving the Sacraments which prevents me from believing that the Catholics can have increased under Elizabeth. Consider the number of Anglican ministers in 1603[4], for which year there is a diocesan return giving 8,679: 44 years before that those Anglican rectors and vicars and curates will have been Catholics and there will have been others, perhaps 10,000 in all. Contrast the 460 priests of 1603. That represents a loss of 19 out of every 20. Tens of thousands of men and women must have lived and died without meeting a priest at all regularly and, worse still, tens of thousands of children must have grown up never having known one.

[4] ibid. p. 211.

Though the landslide took place in the reign of James I, the structure was crumbling before Elizabeth died. Force of habit underpinned it for a time, but when the pins were withdrawn with the death of the generation which had been grown men and women in 1559 the thing collapsed. It is therefore illusory in fact, though possibly justifiable by a count of heads, to consider the England of the second half of Elizabeth's reign as Catholic as Mr Magee would have us believe.

Nor can I accept his estimate for the reigns of Charles I and Charles II or the period immediately following the '15. It will be seen by referring to the graph that his figures are 550,000 in 1641, 510,000 in 1680 and 292,500 in 1715—20.

He arrives at those figures thus. He establishes the Catholic percentage of the landowning class as 5% in 1715—20 and as 10% in 1680 and 1641. He thus says in effect that a Catholic landowner's dependants were 100% Catholic. Therefore those percentages hold for the country as a whole. It is interesting to see how he persuades himself of this generalisation, and for this purpose it is necessary to take into account the two articles which he contributed in October 1935 and January 1936 to Numbers 395 and 396 of the Dublin Review. In the first (p. 255) he wrote, 'In 1715-20 the Catholics formed at least 5% of the gentry and probably 5% of the total population', and in the second (pp. 67 and 82) he suggests for 1715-20 a Catholic population of 273,000, which is almost exactly 5% of the population at that time.[5]

[5] 5% of the then population is 292,500.

But on p. 71 of the same article he implicitly admits that this figure is only valid on the assumption that the Catholic gentry influenced 100% of their dependants to Catholicism. He proceeds to argue that although in 1781 they probably did not so influence more than 50% they ' may1 in 1715 have influenced perhaps three quarters.' Even if this could be proved, it would reduce his figure by a quarter to 204,750. But is it in the least probable ? A Catholic squire and more certainly his Catholic wife may well have insisted that their domestic servants should be Catholics, but how can he possibly have ensured that his farm tenants and still less their labourers or the occupants of the cottages in the village at his gates should be Catholic ?

The improbability is increased in the case of those who owned more than one property. If they lived on only one of them they can hardly at all have influenced the tenants and cottagers of those of which they were absentee landlords; if they divided their time between them their influence will have been proportionately diminished. What effective pressure could they in fact have brought to bear? The threat of eviction ? Would it have been possible in the general atmosphere of eighteenth century England to make such a threat, still less to execute it ? Does Mr Magee seriously suppose that other considerations such as the quality of the tenant's farming, his family's length of tenure of his farm and the good character of the tenant himself counted for nothing in the eyes of Catholic squires ? The force of a good example ? Is there any reason to suppose it was always given ? The provision of continuous facilities for Mass and the Sacraments ? This surely was the only effective means and it will only have been present on those properties where chaplains were maintained. I have identified some 226 chaplaincies at this period and even if we assume that further research would disclose another 100, the fact remains that less than half of the 814 Catholic squires at that time provided continuous facilities. Others certainly had chapels in their houses in which itinerant priests would say occasional Masses and from time to time hear confessions, but such intermittent facilities cannot reasonably be held sufficient to keep a tenantry Catholic even if we assume it ever had been so.

I cannot accept anything like a 100% influence or even a 75% and see little reason to suppose that it exceeded 50%, if indeed it was taking the country as a whole as great. The Catholic population for 1715-20 falls therefore to 136,500, or 2.33% of the total population. Against this must be set off those Catholics who lived on the properties of Protestants: Mr Magee does not include them in his reckoning at all. But this accession of strength is more than counterbalanced by another omission on his part. He seems to picture England in 1715-20 as purely a domain of country squires, ignoring the existence of the towns. They were numerous : they had no resident Catholic landlords : the number which had missions[6] was negligible : their citizens were in the main solidly Anglican or Puritan: in 1716. Skipton for instance had one Catholic family among 357, although it was only 3 miles from the Tempests' chaplaincy at Broughton Hall which had been in existence since 1453 and where the names of the chaplains can be traced as far back as 1648.

[6] London, Liverpool, Preston, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Durham, York Worcester, Norwich, Lincoln, Pontefract, Wigan, Bath, Wolverhampton, Havant, Winchester, Bristol, Oxford, Stafford, Monmouth, Hereford, Chester-le-Street, Gainsborough, Swaffham, Seiby, Richmond co. York, Stockton-on-Tees, Hexham and perhaps a few more.

By the time that Mr Magee came to write his book, he seems to have had similar doubts, for on pp. 192 and 193 he writes:

If we were to take the relative numbers of Catholic baronets at the two dates [i.e., 1781 and 1715-20] as our guide, it would seem that the Catholics in 1781 had sunk to less than two-thirds of their strength in 1715-20. If there were 70,000 Catholics in 1781 (which is established), there would on this assumption, have been about 115,000 Catholics in 1715-20, which is little more than 2% of the population. If the Catholic gentry were 5% of the whole at this date, it would appear that they influenced, on the whole, only about one half of their dependants.' He goes on at once to say, 'It will be noticed that this calculation is supported and confirmed by the statement of the Vicars Apostolic that there were 100,000 Catholics in England in 1696.[7] The Vicars Apostolic's total certainly makes the 5%, i.e. 292,500, of Mr Magee's conclusions [p. 207] hazardous and even the 115,000 of pp. 192 and 193 a liberal estimate, for the failure of the '15 had intervened. He was not perhaps unaware of this bearing of the Vicars Apostolic's figure because he continues,' These 100,000 must, however, have been practising Catholics, and we may be certain that there were at least as many more Church Papists.'
[7] Or 1698. See Magee p. 112.

Can we ? And what, all said and done, was a Church Papist ? One who attended the Protestant Church to avoid the fines and to enable him to serve in such offices as Justice of the Peace; one who would probably have been a Catholic but for the penalties involved : one whose conformity may have been insincere, but yet conformed. Even if we accept this nebulous total of 200,000, it is still nearly 100,000 short of the total Mr Magee allows himself in his conclusions.

Now to turn to 1680. On p. 267 of the first Dublin Review article he writes,

If the calculation of 5% for 1715-20 be accepted, this points to 10% for 1680.'

On p. 67 of the second he writes, 'The conclusion would seem to be that the Catholics were probably . . . one-tenth [of the population] in 1680.' Both these calculations equally repose on the assumption that in 1680 the Catholic squires influenced 100% of their dependants to Catholicism. When he came to write his book, he was less confident of this assumption for on p. 171 he writes,

The lists of 1680 establish beyond reasonable doubt that fully one-tenth of the gentry must have been Catholic at that time. Whether this proportion held good for the common people is another matter; the question is discussed below.'

The discussion comes on pp. 190 and 191, but is really an assertion that

For the most part, the principle cujus regio, ejus religio must be the key to the allegiance of the common people. This is borne out by countless local records[8]. William Blundell, for example, of Crosby, in Lancashire, writes that not a single Protestant tenant is to be found on his estate[9]. The assumption that the percentage of Catholic gentry is an index for the whole population can be tested by an extremely valuable piece of evidence, which, though perhaps not so completely reliable as the evidence from the registered estates[10], is still of very great importance. Taken in conjunction with a priori case for supposing a gentleman's tenants and dependants to be of his religion, it is of first rate importance.
[8] I doubt it. Such local records as have come my way do not do more than show that such Catholics as there were tended to live within reach of a chaplaincy or mission, which is antecedently probable, not that no one but Catholics lived on the properties of Catholic landlords.
[9] Crosby is not a good example because it is not typical. It is in Lancashire which with the possible exception of Monmouthshire was then the most Catholic county in the country; a whole series of Catholic squires, many supporting chaplains, buttressed it on all sides but one by the sea. It had been owned by a single family for a long period, that family was unusually tenacious of its Faith, and had long kept a chaplain.
[10] But this evidence applies to the owners of estates and their relations not the tenants and cottagers on them, as can be seen by referring to The English Catholic Nonjurors of 1715, by Estcourt and Payne.

He then quotes the estimate made by Rev. Joseph Berington in his book The State and Behaviour of the English Catholics of the total number (60,000) of Catholics in 1780 and of the number of Catholic peers (8), baronets (19) and gentry (about 150) and say in a footnote that other passages from Berington support the view that the tenants and dependants of a landholder were of his religion. I have been at pains to read this book, but cannot find the passages, unless Mr Magee relies on the following on p. 115,

Excepting in the towns and out of Lancashire, the chief situation of Catholics is in the neighbourhood of the old families of that persuasion. They are the servants, or the children of servants, who have married from those families, and who choose to remain round the old mansion for the convenience of prayers [i.e., Mass] and because they hope to receive favour and assistance from their former masters.

But this passage really only says that Catholics are to be found near Mass-centres — which is antecedently probable — and that they are largely servants. The word 'tenant' is not so much as mentioned. In two other passages Fr Berington clearly attributes the presence of Catholics to the presence of a priest. 'In many counties,' he writes on p. 114, 'there is scarcely a Catholic to be found. This is easily known from the residence of priests' — not of Catholic landlords. And on p. 116, 'When a family of distinction fails, as there seldom continues any conveniency for prayers or instruction, the neighbouring Catholics soon fall away: and when a priest is still maintained, the example of the lord is wanting to encourage the lower class.' On p. 159 he makes it clear that not even the presence of a chaplain in a landowner's house necessarily implied a Catholic nucleus for he writes of 'many... private chaplains to gentlemen, where there are no congregations.'

Even if Fr Berington could be shown to have held that in 1780 a Catholic landowner's tenants were Catholics, it would not prove that in 1680 all the tenants and dependants of a Catholic landlord were Catholics. Mr Magee indeed had doubts on p. 71 of Article no. 2, where he writes that the Catholic gentry 'may in 1680... have influenced perhaps nine-tenths, or some such proportion.' But only 100% influence can justify his total Catholic population of 510,000. Note too his continued omission of the towns.

Again his calculation would have us believe that a Catholic population of 510,000 in 1680 had fallen to the 100,000 of the Vicars Apostolic's report in 1696. That implies a defection in 18 years of four Catholics in every five, or allowing for his 200,000 Church Papists of three in every five. It is difficult to believe that even the frenzy of the Popish Plot and the flight of James II can have produced so wholesale an apostasy. I conclude that his estimate for 1680 is too high.

The Faithful

It is time to turn to the solid core of undoubted Catholics who were willing to suffer the temporal penalties of their Faith; we have for the seventeenth century a series of estimates whose converging testimony cannot lightly be set aside. In 1613 the Papal Nuncio at Brussels implied some 90,000; in 1618 Sarmiento, the Spanish Ambassador in England, estimated 300,000 : in 1637 Panzani, the Papal Agent, estimated 150,000; in 1662 another Papal Agent reported 200,000; in 1670 the Venetian Ambassador estimated slightly over 150,000; in 1677 Alexander Holt, agent to the English Catholic clergy in Rome, reported 200,000; in 1696, as we have already seen, after the Plot and the Revolution, the agent of the Vicars Apostolic wrote to the Pope that there were 100,000. It can reasonably be inferred that the convinced Catholics averaged about 200,000 from the end of James I's reign to the end of James II's, and that they fell to 100,000 by the end of the century. I can see no reason except the rise in the total population to explain a rise in Catholic numbers between 1696 and 1715-20, especially in view of the discouraging failure of the Fifteen.

My final point concerns the period 1600-1640. Mr Magee's figures are some 1,800,000 at the beginning and some 500,000, of whom 300,000 were Church Papists, at the end of it. This implies that in 40 years nearly 1,300,000 Catholics lapsed. It is difficult to believe that possible unless the ties which bound the 1,800,000 to their religion had been of the most tenuous and to call them Catholics seems a misuse of language. This conclusion reinforces from another angle the doubts I expressed earlier in this review about Mr Magee's estimate for the second half of Elizabeth's reign.

The third line CB on the graph represents the solid core of Catholics allowing for the deductions I had suggested. A fourth wavy line is my maximum estimate including schismatics or Church Papists. But even when the numbers are reduced in this way the fact remains that the Catholic body was far stronger in the second half of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth than has hitherto been allowed by Protestant historians and Mr Magee is to be very sincerely congratulated on a fine piece of research which puts that generalisation on a firm footing. May I express the hope that he may now turn to the numbers of priests in the country in the same period and give us the fruit of his labours. Foley has catalogued for each year between 1621 and 1771 the Jesuits, but a similar analysis is needed for the other Orders and the Seculars.