John Gee, Archbishop Abbot, and the Use of Converts from Rome in Jacobean Anti-Catholicism

Abstract

This article is concerned with one aspect of movement between religions in England at the end of the Jacobean period, namely the polemical use which could be made of the convert to Protestantism. The increasing likelihood of a successful conclusion of the Spanish Match negotiations had for some time been threatening the Protestant Establishment. In this climate, prominent changes of religion were of great interest to polemicists of both sides. As in Elizabeth’s reign, Protestants could attack the Church of Rome by focusing on the apostates from it. The point of reference from which this polemical use of conversion will be analysed is the best-selling vitriolic anti-Catholic tract written by the wavering Protestant minister John Gee, entitled The Foot out of the Snare. Gee is familiar to modern historians as a source on Roman Catholic priests in the 1620s but he is important also for the way in which he was employed as an anti-Catholic writer. His tract originated with the clerical group which gathered around Archbishop Abbot, clerics distinguished by their violent opposition to encroaching Roman Catholicism, evident in the likely success of the Spanish Marriage project and the conversions which had started to occur as the political climate changed. Gee’s tract may be used as a starting point to explore some of the politics and literature of conversion at this time.