Richard Smith, Richelieu and the French Marriage. The Political Context of Smith's Appointment as Bishop for England in 1624.

Abstract

During the year 1623, as a result of the diplomatic negotiations between England and Spain for the marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta Maria, Catholics in England enjoyed, for the first time for many years, comparative freedom from the operation of the penal laws. In this period of relative tranquility, Pope Gregory XV, yielding to insistent demands by the leaders of the English secular clergy, decided to restore to the Church in England a measure of local episcopal rule. In doing so he broke away from the policy of his immediate predecessors. After the suppression of the English Catholic hierarchy by Queen Elizabeth at the beginning of her reign, successive popes had taken the English Catholics under their immediate protection and had rejected various appeals for the restoration of local bishops. But the restoration did not, in the event, produce the results for which the papacy hoped. William Bishop who was appointed bishop in 1623, died after rather less than a year in office. His successor, Richard Smith, appointed by Urban VIII in 1624, became involved in disputes with the Jesuit and Benedictine clergy on the mission and, after six years of strife, withdrew to France in 1631 and resigned his charge. Rome then reverted to her earlier policy. Though Smith later sought papal permission to return to England, it was refused. After his death at Paris in 1655, the English secular clergy petitioned Rome for another bishop, but without success. The Church in England was to remain without a bishop for another thirty years.