“A suppurating ulcer”: religious orders and transnational conflict in Valladolid at the start of the seventeenth century

In recent years, scholarly literature about the post-Reformation period in England, particularly in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, has highlighted the breakdown of conformist norms and, in effect, the emergence of de facto religious pluralism. Although the practice of Catholicism was legally proscribed in England, its adherents, both at home and abroad, sensed this moment of opportunity as the succession issue grew more pressing, particularly as it became clear that Spain, one of the English Catholics’ major patrons, was in the process of withdrawing from attempts to impose its will, militarily, in this matter. As things turned out, the period of toleration at the start of James’ reign in England was short-lived, but be that as it may, just for a moment, some contemporaries saw a moment of flux in the, in any case, fairly unstable settlement of religion. Not least among those looking to make the most of the moment were the Benedictines. Indeed, the entrée of one of the mainstream European religious orders into the English Church was possible because of this context and the prevailing uncertainty. The Royal College of St Alban was founded in Valladolid in 1589. It was the first English college for training Catholic clergy to be based in Spain, the location chosen in an attempt to place English Catholicism close to the patronage of the Spanish monarchy and its international aspirations. To secure its establishment, compromises had to be made and, though there were English Jesuits on the staff, the college was overseen by Spanish members of the Society. However, by the end of the first decade of the college’s existence, it suffered a significant exodus of students to the local Benedictine monastery, a migration that was to be repeated only a few years later. Far more than a mere matter of localised, institutional interest, the events drew comment not just in Spain, but also in England and Rome, as well as throughout the wider English Catholic diaspora. This article explores why contemporaries viewed what happened at Valladolid as significant and with potentially lasting repercussions. It recontextualises the Valladolid stirs within the wider politics of the royal successions in England and Spain, trends in Spanish religious discourse, international disagreements within the Jesuit order and a new option for Catholics in England. Within all this, what scholars have termed the politics of the public sphere loomed large, several parties fearing that their carefully constructed narratives about English Catholicism were being dismantled as competing

ones were formulated for various audiences. The article opens by piecing together from different accounts exactly what happened at Valladolid. It then explores both the micro and macro contexts that explain the events and why they mattered.
Issues surrounding the succession in England and the topic of the public sphere -not to mention Catholics' participation in it -have been the subject of recent historiographical discussion. 2 However, before this attention, the Catholic voice was largely absent from historians' recreated narrative of the period and, though this is changing, the process of reintegrating it is an ongoing one. Perhaps more problematic is that even when Catholicism is taken into account, some scholars treat it as one united constituency. 3 In fact, just as within early modern Protestantism, 4 Catholic opinion about crucial religio-political issues was fractured. When these Catholic disputes do make it onto the historians' radar, there is a tendency to see them only in their immediate context; that is, as internal squabbles not plugged into the wider political environment. Yet this does not account for why such debates created significant amounts of surviving archival material, particularly relating to English exiles in Catholic Europe. Admittedly, the viciousness of such agitations can appear bizarre and even some confessionally Catholic narratives in the modern period were not really able to account for such events. 5 This article makes the case for why such internecine conflicts mattered, and it seeks to recast a particular outburst at the English College at Valladolid in the light of recent historiographical interest in the public politics of the royal succession. What happened at Valladolid was tied to this; the two moments of crisis when Englishmen departed to join the Benedictines were a commentary on English Catholic efforts at home and abroad to deal with potential religious changes in England after the succession. Unsullied by what had been going on during the final decade of Elizabeth's reign, the Benedictines were a fresh voice in what many English Catholics believed was to be an era of de facto toleration under the Stuarts. 6 Untainted by association with the Catholic League in France, but equally reluctant to fudge papal primacy, the Benedictines represented a new Catholic voice in England.

I
After only a decade of its existence, the English College at Valladolid experienced two moments of crisis when a number of students departed to Spanish Benedictine monasteries. The first of these was in 1599 and affected those who had entered the college in 1596 and in 1598. In total, 24 students had entered the college in 1596 and 4 of them joined the Benedictines. 7 Of the 11 who entered in 1598, 8 subsequently joined the monks, 6 of them only one year later. In total, between 1596 and the end of 1598, 39 men entered the college; 12 of them subsequently became Benedictines. If the two who did not enter till a later date (Andrew Shirley and John Tattersall) are discounted, this means that one in four of the college's entrants at this time left to join the Benedictines. This in itself is a notable tally but it must have seemed even more alarming to the college authorities as the number leaving in 1599 was only just below the number (14) of new students joining the college that year. Furthermore, it was customary that not all the students who enrolled would proceed to priestly ordination, whether through unsuitability or naturally occurring drop-out, meaning the proportion of would-be monks as a number of those who actually continued to clerical orders is even higher.
The situation in the college then apparently stabilised, though the revelation at his execution in 1601 that former student Mark Barkworth had secretly joined the Benedictines must have been perceived by the college's authorities as a major defection and, presumably, once again affected morale.
The situation again erupted in 1603. That year saw 15 students leave for the Benedictines, with another 3 departing in 1604. As before, the exodus must have appeared even greater to contemporaries; in 1603 the college welcomed only six new students whilst losing more than double that number to the Spanish Benedictines. To break down the statistics, of the 26 students who entered the college in 1600, 7 left for the Benedictines; of the 1602 class of 28, another 7 departed, so the college was again suffering a roughly one-in-four leakage of new students to the monks. The impact this had can be seen by the fact that two students who arrived in 1603, in the midst of the exodus, left the next year to follow their peers into the Benedictines.
The principal source for piecing together events is the annals of the college written by its former rector, John Blackfan, SJ, composed between late 1619 and early 1623 after he had left Valladolid. 8 Towards the start of 1599, an alumnus of the college, John Gervase, died at his alma mater. 9 Days before his demise, Gervase called to his deathbed the college's minister, who at the time was Blackfan himself. Gervase warned Blackfan to watch over the students "because I see that some of them are being distracted by various leanings, speaking grandly of the Benedictine order". After making jibes at the would-be monks' desire for adulation, Gervase reported that, the previous night, "a man or a demon in human shape, dressed in the habit of Saint Benedict", had entered his room and "covering his face with his cowl and making a profound reverence before me, immediately disappeared". Gervase recounted how he was left trembling, fearing "what evil it might portend for the college".
Blackfan attributed the dying Gervase's vision to delirium but, only a few days later, one of the students informed him that he felt drawn to the Benedictines. Blackfan sent him to the college confessor to discern this calling, who concluded this was a genuine vocation. Thus, Blackfan, at the time deputising for the absent rector, Alonso Rodríguez de Toro, SJ, escorted the student to San Benito's Benedictine monastery in Valladolid. This individual can be identified as John Bradshaw, who entered the Benedictines in April 1599 and, after a month's postulancy, was sent to St Martin's monastery in Compostela. 10 Soon after, another unnamed student -but identifiable as John Roberts 11 -came "singing the same little song" and the pattern was repeated, the student subsequently entering the same monastery. Two months later, the college authorities noticed that four students were missing following a day of recreation. After a fruitless search, members of college staff became suspicious and visited the city's Benedictine monastery the next morning, but still could find no trace of the missing four. The day after, their whereabouts was discovered: "they had by arrangement taken up in some property outside the city belonging to the Benedictines, there awaiting the determination of the abbot to invite them to take the habit in the monastery". These four can be identified as Thomas Hutton, William Johnson, Robert Knaresborough and Thomas Singleton, the latter of whom did not proceed to Benedictine profession and was reportedly an English government spy. 12 The college annals then skip to 1600, leaving this first Benedictine wave of defections hanging, as it were, but with a real sense of anger. Blackfan does not even mention the departure of John Jones, who was accepted into the Benedictine novitiate in October 1599, nor of Stephen Parrott in December; Parrott did not proceed to profession but subsequently, in London, gave testimony, with Singleton, against Mark Barkworth that helped secure his conviction and execution. 13 However, there were rumours the college was not as benevolent towards these wouldbe monks as Blackfan implies. Writing in 1626, nearly three decades later, the pamphleteer and spy, Lewis Owen, contended that John Roberts had first gone to San Benito monastery and been accepted into the Benedictine novitiate without permission. However, when the college's Jesuit superiors learnt of this, they warned the abbot of San Benito that Roberts had been expelled from the college as a drunkard, a destabilising presence and maybe even an English government spy. Believing the accusations, the abbot asked Roberts to leave. Roberts protested that he had been slandered and maintained that the college's Jesuit superiors would readmit him if he returned. Unconvinced, the abbot told Roberts if he returned to the college and was re-admitted, then the abbot would know the truth and accept him as a Benedictine postulant, plus "as many Students as shall come away with you". Unsurprisingly, after he "fained repentance, and humble submission", Roberts was readmitted. The abbot sent word to Roberts that he and any others who wished to come would be accepted by the monastery; he was joined by "two or three other Students" and was duly clothed, leaving the Jesuit superiors upset at the deceit. 14 Unquestionably, there are several inaccuracies in Owen's account, such as the claim that Roberts was the first to leave. 15 However, the furore around Roberts' exit is confirmed by an account written within a few years of the event by the monk, Leander Jones. He affirms that several of the college's staff had visited the monastery and "made so many accusations against him [Roberts] to the monks, that they quite frightened the Prior from his intention of admitting him". He relays the story of Roberts' re-admittance plan, which he says the Jesuits accepted, "hoping that his return from the Monastery would altogether deter the others from thinking of becoming monks". As in Owen's account, Roberts received the habit with four other students who had "escaped from the seminary in secret, and without the knowledge of the Superiors, for they saw from the care the Fathers had taken to prevent Roberts from becoming a monk, they would have no chance of success, if they acquainted them with their own wishes". 16 That events were causing disquiet is evident in a letter from Robert Persons in Rome dated 23 August 1599, responding to letters sent by Blackfan and John Floyd from Valladolid on 6 July, which had detailed the "disorder growen into your howse aboute enteringe into religion". Persons mused that true vocations to religious life were to be celebrated, but he was concerned by those who took them "with levitie, rashnes, or upon passion, discontentmente, desire of lybertie, noveltie, and other such humours or sinister motiouns". He reported that similar things had happened a few years before at the English College in Rome with the Dominicans and the Cassinese Benedictines, "and if they knew of that accidente happened in Valladolid, they would wrighte no doubte such a lesson to those theire Fathers there, as would make them better looke abowte them, and not bee so hastie in acceptinge such fervours of youthe upon so little acquaintance". 17 Blackfan's annals of the college continue, dwelling on the martyrdom of two college alumni in 1601: Roger Filcock, who was attired as a Jesuit for his execution, and Mark Barkworth, who donned the Benedictine habit. As former Valladolid men, Blackfan has them embracing at their trial. 18 However, he does not linger on Barkworth's entry into the Benedictines, even though he had actually tried to enter San Benito's during his time at the college. It was not until Barkworth's journey to England following his ordination in the first half of 1599 that he was received as a novice at Santa Maria of Irache monastery in Ayegui, Navarre, and was told he could make his profession at his death, which he did in England, under the gallows. 19 Blackfan apparently had good reason to be coy about Barkworth's relationship with the Benedictines. In a reeling off of all those who had reportedly been defamed by the Jesuits, the appellant priest, William Clarke, took up the case of Barkworth. The newly ordained cleric was suspected by the Jesuit governance of the college of being a "furtherer, and concurer with certaine youths, that entred into the order of S. Benedict". Learning of this, Clarke alleges that Robert Persons wrote to the college rector demanding Barkworth's dismissal from the college. To enact this, Blackfan accompanied Barkworth, then ill with a fever, to the local Jesuit college, presumably that of San Ambrosio, where the students at the English college attended lectures. 20 Here, the rector of the Jesuit college rebuked Barkworth, telling him to leave the city and fend for himself rather than exploit the Jesuits' hospitality. Barkworth protested, saying that if he had spoken with others about their Benedictine vocations, then it was hardly his fault that they already had such inclinations. Seeing Barkworth's determination, the rector called in some Jesuit laybrothers to enact his command by force, resulting in him being punched in the face so forcefully that he was knocked to the floor. A Spanish Jesuit halted the assault and reproved the assailants, asking them to imagine what the outside world would think if they could see such a scene. Duly reprimanded, Blackfan and the college rector entreated Barkworth to keep quiet about what had happened. Barkworth apparently agreed, was smuggled back into the college and roomed separately to allow his wounds to heal in private. However, some students -only nine or ten then being present as the others had been sent away due to the plague -saw the injured Barkworth return and suspected something was amiss. They found Barkworth's room and scorned the excuse that he was thought to have the plague. William Clarke recorded that he had heard this story of Barkworth "related of three or foure severall parties witnes thereof . . . Of which number some are priests, who have upon their faith, and fidelity, delivered the story thus unto me, (as from his owne mouth) and their owne eyes being witnes to part of it". 21 Though seemingly far-fetched, some details of this tale are corroborated by facts given by Blackfan. The Jesuit notes the departure of Barkworth for the mission -which was July 1599 -before commenting that the plague was rife in Valladolid at the time. This confirms Clarke's allegation that the event happened at a time of plague in the city. Notably, Blackfan then follows with: "Only one from their community's midst was struck down, the rest came crowding round to him as he lay on his bed and for charity's sake paid no heed to the sickness". Revealingly, Blackfan then moves on to recording the ghostly Benedictine visitation received by Gervase. 22 In other words, the details fit with the chronology of Clarke's narrative and, it seems reasonable to presume, the "ill" student was Barkworth. Moreover, the dates reveal something of note. Bradshaw and Roberts, the first two Benedictine defectors, were both clothed in May 1599. Tellingly, Barkworth set off for the mission shortly afterwards, in July. It might be that the alleged attempt at forcing his departure was because the college superiors believed he had been the one encouraging students towards the Benedictines.
Returning to Blackfan's annals, in 1603 he describes the Benedictine problem as "a suppurating ulcer" that caused "wounds which were almost fatal for the whole college". Having claimed that the college, in receipt of Spanish royal patronage, had grown to the point where it "might easily [. . .] be seen as the foremost of the seminaries of our nation", Blackfan alleges that this caused the Spanish Benedictines to become "envious of our reputation and desired to put their own sickle into this harvest, all the more so because they had one martyr [Barkworth] from the college numbered among their ranks, and plotted in secret to win over alumni to themselves". He claims they passed copies of the rule of St Benedict to the students and offered them "promises of splendid things to feed the hungry souls of the young men". 23 Sweet-talked, some students became resentful of the college's rules and routines, formed small cliques and mocked the superiors. Shocked by this, the college's Jesuit leadership opted for gentle encouragement, but to no avail as the students "had decided among themselves what they were going to do". To this end, the students prepared some sort of disturbance. The class beadle, already a priest, refused to ring the bell to call students to study, proclaiming "We refuse to go to lectures today". From the evidence provided, this individual can be identified as Andrew Shirley. 24 Having refused to perform the penances given to him, the college authorities decided to place Shirley in isolation. It is worth noting that this escalating scale of censure was in accordance with new rules for the running of the colleges promulgated by Robert Persons in the name of the Jesuit General in the wake of the first Benedictine exodus. 25 Similarly, on 15 January 1600, Persons had replied to a letter from the then rector of the college, Alonso Rodríguez de Toro, SJ, which had been sent on 23 November 1599, the year of the first Benedictine tumult. In it he outlined the escalation of warnings for refractory behaviour, including issues surrounding "those who lose their vocations and are unruly". Clearly in reference to the first exodus when students had gone missing during recreation, he advised a close eye to be kept on them at this time in case of dangerous private conversations. 26 These new disciplinary steps, drawn up in the wake of the first Benedictine exodus, were here being followed.
To return to Blackfan's recollection of events in 1603; a servant was sent to move the chastised Shirley's bed and other items to the isolation cell, but Shirley, "forcefully brandishing a staff denied him access". A tussle broke out as members of the Jesuit staff tried to remove the weapon from Shirley's grasp, but he cried out, "Help, scholars! A priest is being assaulted", prompting all those of a similar disposition to grab broom handles as weapons, "as had been agreed", and start charging around the college, "not unlike men rushing to take the spoils of a captured fallen city". They menaced the college rector, Pedro Ruiz de Vallejo, SJ, and other Jesuits on the staff, while threatening to report matters to the papal nuncio to Spain. Nobody was spared before the students attempted to force their way out of the college. The rector had ordered all doors to be shut, simply, Blackfan alleges, to prevent the students from scandalising the surrounding populace. However, there were some laypeople in the college at the time; they found shelter during the disturbance but "through them this disaster of ours became public sooner than was good".
Things calming, the riot's leaders were permitted to leave, and hastened directly to the monastery of San Benito; the abbot sent them back to the college, "with orders to conduct themselves peacefully until provision had been made for them elsewhere". Consequently, the abbot went to the papal nuncio, Domenico Ginnasio, as did the college rector, Ruiz de Vallejo, and Joseph Creswell, who was the English Jesuit Vice-Prefect in Spain at the time and was based at the college. According to Blackfan, the abbot's authority was so great that the nuncio would not even listen to the two from the college. The rector tried explaining but, implicitly yet unwisely, blamed the pope for allowing such "tumultuous spirits" to control the destiny of the English mission. The rector's incarceration was promptly ordered, before the nuncio was mollified and instead removed him from his position in the college with immediate effect. Blackfan records that, as a result of these disturbances, twelve students immediately joined the monks and "after them more were co-opted" in small groups until, over five months, twenty-five had departed the college for the Benedictines. 27 He notes it caused lasting difficulties for college discipline and, perhaps more significantly, the loss of benefactors to such an extent that "it seemed as if God himself had withdrawn his blessing". 28 Leander Jones' account corroborates but also expands on the general narrative of Blackfan's recollections. After six students had absconded from the college to the Benedictines in 1603, Jones alleges that Creswell complained to the king of Spain, Philip III, who passed the matter to the President of the Council to investigate. Jones glosses the result; on 18 September 1603, the Council at Valladolid in fact issued a document saying that it had investigated after six students had left without the college superiors' knowledge but in connivance with the Benedictine monks. The Council noted that such behaviour was detrimental to the college's future and that, as experience had shown, different religious orders in England could cause discord amongst English Catholics, so the Benedictines were not to try to recruit from the college. 29 Jones' account continues by claiming that Creswell also sought the support of the Archbishop of Toledo, Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, though the archbishop judged that students should be allowed to join the Benedictines. Outwardly acquiescing to this ruling, Creswell told the students they could join the Benedictines, but they first had to give him notice of their decision. Two did this, but Creswell promptly set about delaying their departure. Meanwhile, four more students, seeing what had happened to those who trusted Creswell, secretly absconded to the monastery of San Benito. It was then that Creswell and the rector went to the nuncio and complained of the monastery receiving runaway students. The four runaways appeared before the nuncio and said that Creswell had prevented students from joining the Benedictines. Unable to deny this, according to Jones, Creswell pleaded with the nuncio to return the students to the college so that they could take the Spiritual Exercises to discern whether they had a true vocation to the Benedictines. The students refused and the nuncio said they could remain in his house to make such a retreat. It was now that the rector made his ill-judged intervention against the Pope's policy of allowing Benedictines on the English mission, a detail to which we shall later return. This resulted in the nuncio commanding Creswell to send all students who wished to join the Benedictines to the monastery the very next day. This he did, though Jones notes that rumours were subsequently spread against their characters. 30 Creswell did not leave matters there; in an open letter dated 20 October 1603, he complained that the college's discipline had been severely damaged by the President-General of the Benedictines' acceptance of the rebel students. In a fairly open insult to the quality of discernment of the Spanish Benedictines, he brought up Stephen Parrott, the spy who testified against Barkworth in England. Parrott had infiltrated the English colleges in Rome, Douai and Valladolid before entering the monastery of San Martino in Compostela, from where, Creswell alleged, he had been expelled for intercepting the correspondence of the monks, but not before he had offered to send them novices from the college at Douai. 31 Undeterred, that same month, the prior of San Benito, Juan del Valle, wrote to the king refuting accusations that they had proselytised in the college, stressing that the Englishmen had approached them, and they had, in fact, been refused the habit several times before finally being accepted. It was his intention that they should not remain there but actually return to England as missioners. 32

II
While allowing for hyperbole within the various narratives in an attempt to justify actions and denigrate the opposition, 33 it is clear that something had happened in which the stakes were deemed to be higher than simply a group of students leaving a college. The affairs were complicated, bitter and debated by a wider audience than just those directly involved in the disputes. 34 The question remains: why, at these two particular moments, was there a haemorrhage of students from the English College at Valladolid into Spanish Benedictine monasteries? The traditional assumption amongst historians is that the monastic defections were indicative of rising anti-Jesuit feeling, the students casting off the shackles of a Society intent on dominating both them and the English Catholic mission. In his annals, Blackfan himself interpreted events this way, claiming that the rioting students accused the Jesuit administration of conspiring "to oppress them as tyrants", and this has become the dominant narrative. 35 For Michael Williams, the Benedictine defections were largely the result of disputes within the college, tensions running high between the students and their superiors over its running, not to mention unhappiness at the imposition of a Spanish rector and their enforced attendance at a local Jesuit college for lectures. 36 John Pollen advanced a similar thesis, emphasising that placing English students under a Spanish administration heightened national tensions. 37 David Lunn is noncommittal, hinting at the wider context of the Archpriest Controversy but, ultimately, emphasising genuine Benedictine vocation accentuated by some wider anti-Jesuit feelings amongst more militant students. 38 Yet none of these arguments quite explains the rapidity of events or their short, sharp nature, defections that, in the eyes of the college authorities, risked total institutional collapse and, according to Thomas McCoog and Peter Harris, represented "arguably the most serious crisis in the early history of the Society [of Jesus]". 39 By reconstructing the wider context, it is possible to explain events. Joseph Creswell, the Jesuit vice-prefect of the English mission for Spain, was in little doubt about what had been behind the defections to the Benedictines. Writing to the president of Douai College, Thomas Worthington, on 30 January 1608, Creswell discussed two students he believed were secretly allied with the Benedictines. Even five years after the Valladolid exoduses, Creswell still blamed monastic machinations, informing Worthington that "it is the devil who attempts now, by way of lewed [sic] persons under pretence of a monk's cowl, what he could not before effect by appellants' cloaks; for neither are such truly and religiously resolved, for the love of Almighty God, to become good monks, nor do they any whit favor of holy St Benedict's spirit, nor ever are like well to keep his rules". 40 The details of the letter are linked to a subsequent dispute that quickly followed the Valladolid stirs -the founding of St Gregory's priory in Douai as the first English Benedictine house 41 -and have frequently coloured understandings of what happened in Spain. Though the events should be treated separately, Creswell's sentiments show how he understood what had happened at Valladolid. In short, he believed that the Benedictines had taken advantage of the training offered by the college at no cost to themselves. In doing this, they undermined the colleges and their Jesuit management, and were auxiliary members of the appellant party who had vilified the Society in their campaign for an archpriest to oversee the English mission.
Totally committed to the Jesuit cause, Creswell was always likely to interpret events this way. However, his linking of the Spanish Benedictine exodus to the Archpriest Controversy is not without merit: the emergence of the Benedictine option was tied to that particular crisis. Though part of a much longer-running conflict, the Archpriest Controversy itself was limited to 1598-1602, when tensions between elements within the secular clergy and English Jesuits erupted in a vitriolic public dispute. The immediate catalyst was a papal attempt to defuse the situation: recognising secular clergy appeals for the appointment of a bishop as unworkable, Rome created the novel position of an archpriest. Granted oversight of the English mission, he was expected to consult with the Jesuits, but had no actual authority over them. In response, a group of secular clerics appealed to Rome -known as the appellants -alleging that this was proof of a Spanishbacked Jesuit takeover of English Catholicism. The controversy eventually ended with the purportedly united English mission officially split in two, the archpriest prohibited from consulting the Jesuit superior on affairs relating to the secular clergy. 42 Writing his manuscript "Treatise of the English Benedictine Mission" in 1635, the monk Augustine Baker noted that, at the time of the dispute, Jesuit numbers were growing, their members ran the colleges and many of the secular clergy supported the Society and its ethos. In this climate, Baker describes the Archpriest Controversy as a creeping "pestilent division of minds or schisme" that went public and was alive in the colleges situated in mainland Europe. Not solely about the installation of an archpriest, Baker suggests that "generally the secular clergie were in some sort averted from the quality of spirit and proceedings of the fathers of the society, and namely of those of our nation". He attests that many students in the colleges believed similarly, but due to college structures were still obliged "to take both their orders and their mission", from the Jesuits. Thus, "diverse of the Alumni at severall times entred into diverse houses of our order, and there tooke the habit and professed in the severall countries and congregations of Italy and Spain". Baker maintained that this action was not a show of support for the appellants; the new monks remained intent on becoming missioners to their homeland and sought the support of a religious order for best achieving this goal, having recognised that the congregational network was a great strength that the Jesuits enjoyed over the secular clergy. 43 Nevertheless, Baker acknowledged that the numbers wishing to join the Spanish Benedictine congregation caused "an uproar". 44 In other words, the Benedictine Baker viewed the Valladolid events as tied to the Archpriest Controversy.
Yet, despite Creswell's reading of the situation, the movement was not necessarily defined by anti-Jesuit sentiment; according to Baker, there may have been some resentment at Jesuit pre-eminence but, ultimately, the Anglo-Spanish monks accepted Jesuit management of the colleges. That is not to claim that there was no unease at changes to English Jesuit structures. In April 1598, the Jesuit Superior General Claudio Acquaviva erected a prefecture, a new administrative structure to aid the English Jesuits. The prefect would act as superior of all English students at Jesuit-run colleges, and was to be appointed by the General. He was to be assisted by two vice-prefects, one for Spain and one for Flanders. Acquaviva nominated Persons as prefect and Creswell as viceprefect in Spain. 45 It is unlikely that the students did not register Creswell's increased importance and it cannot be discounted that unease at the consolidation of Jesuit authority was a motivating factor behind the first departure of students a year later.
However, unease does not equate to outright anti-Jesuit feeling. For all that the students may have felt disquiet at perceived Jesuit pre-eminence, the would-be monks did not wish to side with the secular clergy in the archpriest dispute, whom Baker characterised as operating from a weaker position. That the exodus was not about anti-Jesuit fanaticism is supported by the words of the Benedictine's first martyr, Mark Barkworth, in a letter written whilst awaiting execution: "I offer warmest thanks to the Society of Jesus, and to most deserving men in its ranks. I admire them from the bottom of my heart, and always will. I only wish that all would do the same". 46 Indeed, on 11 March 1601, Henry Garnet, SJ, wrote to Superior General Acquaviva a letter detailing Barkworth's martyrdom, noting he "had shorn his head after the manner of a monk, with a crown, because the Order of the Benedictines in Flanders used to receive the tonsure when the moment of death was near at hand". Garnet added that, as "a mark of affection, he [Barkworth] sent a portion of his hair and of his habit to the Archpriest, and another portion of them to myself". 47 This offering of relics could not be a clearer indication that at least some of the Benedictines refused to take sides in a damaging split then rupturing the English Catholic community.
In short, the Benedictine exodus was not about taking sides in the Archpriest Controversy -in fact, it could be read as a deliberate refusal to do so. What is certain is that anti-Jesuitism was not a primary motivating factor behind the events at Valladolid. For too long, an English Jesuit view of what happened has been given too much credence; as Thomas McCoog has ventured in the context of the Archpriest Controversy, there was a strain of English Jesuit thinking that displayed an "inability to distinguish disagreement from opposition" with a passion that "bordered on paranoia", believing "anti-Jesuitism lurked behind every dispute". 48 This was not the case during the Benedictine crisis in Valladolid.

III
While the Archpriest Controversy created the atmosphere for the Benedictine exodus, there were wider issues also at play. Peter Lake and Michael Questier have argued that, in addition to resentment of the Jesuits and their perceived commitment to Spanish interests, public questions over the English succession were an equally vital element of the Archpriest Controversy. By the end of the sixteenth century the appellants believed that there had been a Jesuit and Hispanophile takeover of the English Catholic mission, which had committed the exile colleges to supporting Spanish claims to the English throne. 49 To counter this, the appellants adopted what could be viewed as a proto-Gallican approach, looking to form alliances with France's Henri IV, freshly reconciled with the Catholic Church and eager to regain his nation's lost influence in English Catholic affairs. 50 The implications of this coalition were not lost on the Jesuits: by March 1596, a leading English member of the Society -there is some dispute over whether it was Persons or Creswell -was lamenting the lack of positive Spanish action over the succession and placed it in the context of what would become the Archpriest Controversy, bemoaning the active efforts of their national and international opponents. 51 Revealingly, the major dates associated with manoeuvrings around the succession issue and the principal clashes of the Archpriest Controversy match almost exactly the timeline of unrest at Valladolid. In 1595, Robert Persons' A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of England appeared, in which he pressed the claims of the Spanish infanta as the future Catholic monarch of England. The appellant, Christopher Bagshaw, asserted that Persons personally had this text presented to students at the English colleges in Spain, including at Valladolid. Bagshaw alleged the students were pressured into supporting the infanta's cause, even when they returned to England, as if "the Catholick faith and the King of Spaine were so lincked together, as it was a point of necessitye in the Catholick faith to put all Europe into his Hands: else the Catholick religion would perish". 52 The following year, Persons' manuscript vision of total Catholic reform, "A Memoriall for the reformation of Englande", 53 went into circulation, purportedly being read daily at dinner time in the Valladolid college. 54 The "Memoriall" offered no role for the Benedictines in the restoration of Catholicism in England, with their former abbeys instead converted into educational establishments. In April 1598, George Blackwell was appointed archpriest, a papal fudge in an effort to calm the English Catholic situation, but one that only further inflamed the situation. The appellants viewed Blackwell as a Jesuit stooge, the newly created position of archpriest being, in effect, the opening salvo in the implementation of Persons' reformation and final Jesuit takeover. Embracing a proto-Gallican position and rejecting alleged Spanish treachery for loyalty to the English crown, in April 1599, the appellant William Watson presented the Attorney-General with denunciations of the Jesuits for actively seeking a Spanish succession. Within a month, John Bradshaw sparked the first exodus from the college at Valladolid. Pointedly, he was clothed on 26 May as Augustine on the feast day of the first Benedictine missionary to England, Augustine of Canterbury.
The Archpriest dispute was partially closed by Pope Clement VIII in 1602, with the ruling that the archpriest would not be allowed to consult or co-operate with the Jesuits. This meant that there were now effectively two separate missions working in England, presenting lay patrons with a choice of Catholic visions to support. Lunn judges that the appellants secured this partial victory because of their French alliance, and that the Jesuits and their missionary approach were out of favour with Clement VIII, who looked more towards Protestant reconciliation, such as had occurred with Henri IV. 55 As the controversy continued, Benedictines were given permission to enter the English missionary field at the end of 1602, thus creating a third option for lay patronage. Due to the apparent tensions between the Jesuits and the new Benedictines at Valladolid, the appellants anticipated that the monks would support them in their struggles. 56 However, apart from John Roberts fraternising with notorious appellants 57 -understandable considering his alleged experience at the hands of the Jesuits in Valladolidthere is scant evidence of this being the case. On 24 March 1603, Elizabeth I died and was succeeded by James VI. The first Valladolid student of the second exodus, John Mores, entered the Benedictines in July 1603 in the wake of the Bye and Main Plots, only a few months after the succession. He was followed by another four students the next month. By this time, Lunn ventures, French support for the appellants was dissipating but Jesuit zeal remained out of favour in Rome, meaning "there occurred the power vacuum which made the Benedictine revival possible". 58 When this opportunity is coupled with the divisions in England as part of the attempted solution to the Archpriest Controversy, it is evident that a window of opportunity opened for a third way within English Catholicism; namely, the Benedictine option. It was the result of a confluence of international and domestic factors, encompassing issues surrounding the succession, the Archpriest Controversy and high international politics between France, Spain and Rome.
However, as pointed out earlier, the Valladolid exoduses were not about taking sides in the Archpriest dispute, nor were they motivated by anti-Jesuitism coupled with anti-Spanish sentiment. If it was about this latter factor then it would not make sense for Englishmen to leave an English institution for a Spanish one. Moreover, the Spanish Benedictines of the Valladolid congregation were generally in sympathy with Jesuit spiritual initiatives such as relatively frequent lay communion, as well as lay devotions and instruction in the vernacular. 59 So these English Benedictine pioneers were not appellants; nor were they part of what the appellant priest Thomas Bluet described as "the Iesuiticall or Spanish faction". 60 That being said, it was true that at this time all English -not to mention Irish and Scottish -colleges were under Jesuit administration, apart from Douai, though this still had a Jesuit confessor and followed a Jesuit routine. An Ignatian spirituality dominated, with little outlet for those interested in different approaches. 61 In other words, a seminarian could be in sympathy with Jesuit religiopolitical positions, but could still wish for a different approach, which was what was being offered by the Spanish Benedictines. As mentioned, Augustine Baker argued that these Anglo-Spanish Benedictines actually admired the advantages the Jesuits enjoyed as a religious order. Feeling a vocation to a religious order, but not wishing to join the Jesuits, these men opted for a third way. As Lunn has noted, there is no evidence that these Anglo-Spanish Benedictines were anti-Spanish, plus they subsequently proved themselves willing to defy the English authorities on issues such as the Oath of Allegiance. Nor did they simply wish to restore monasticism. 62 The exodus from the English College at Valladolid was about taking advantage of the political climate to present a third option in efforts to restore England to the Catholic fold. It would seem that the succession in 1603 offered the chance for a different approach and, what is more, people in England evidently recognised that opportunity. The material circulating in manuscript and print during the Archpriest Controversy underscores this, as attested by not only the involvement of Catholic clergy and laity, but also, for example, the bishop of London, Richard Bancroft, even if he had ulterior motives and simply wanted to cause further division among Catholic missioners. Subsequently, some Catholic lay people chose to host Benedictine chaplains in their homes, taking advantage of this new option where clerical patronage was concerned. Certainly, John Bossy adjudged the Benedictines to have offered something completely different to the articulation of Catholic Reformation previously provided by the Jesuits and the secular clergy. 63

IV
England was not the only public sphere in which the Valladolid stirs were discussed; events in Spain -both secular and religious -and disputes within the international Society of Jesus, helped create the environment for their occurrence. Take first, developments within the Society of Jesus; as mentioned earlier, in 1598, Superior General Acquaviva had erected a prefecture for the English Jesuits. Although the prefect was subject to local superiors relating to domestic and personal matters, he remained under the authority of the General and was autonomous in his duties. When dealing with colleges, he was to liaise with local provincials and rectors. However, this novel structure was not well-received by Spanish and Belgian provincials. 64 Pertinently, the first exodus of students occurred just as the English Jesuits were defending themselves against Spanish Jesuit hostility to this unique administrative structure, which exacerbated their suspicion of national colleges for English subjects in Spain. In other words, as English Jesuits were seeking to make the case for a united Jesuit missionary effort, they suffered their first haemorrhage of students from their principal college in Spain. Moreover, Creswell, appointed vice-prefect and based in Spain, had a record of causing problems in colleges, being held responsible for disquiet at the English College in Rome in the early 1590s. By May 1594, Persons wrote that some members of the Society deemed Creswell impossible to work with because he had alienated so many Spanish rectors. Indeed, following trouble at both Spanish colleges -Valladolid and Seville -it had been decided to replace Creswell and it was only the death of his nominated successor -William Holtin May 1599 that saved Creswell's position. 65 Factionalism at the college in Valladolid, including Creswell's constant sparring with the Spanish Jesuits employed there and at the Seville college, continued between the two Benedictine exoduses and in their immediate aftermath, as witnessed in correspondence with Robert Persons. 66 Unsurprisingly, the wider context of English exceptionalism within the Society's management structures is equally evident in the second exodus. The Castilian Jesuits -in whose province the Valladolid college was located -argued that the collection of alms by the English (and Irish) should be regulated, as they were undermining the support of local benefactors for the Jesuit professed houses. 67 Moreover, at their provincial congregation in January 1603, the Andalusian Jesuits asked that more English students from the Seville college be accepted into the Society. As McCoog observes, it can only be assumed they were not aware of appellant accusations that the Jesuits already accepted too many students for their own Order. 68 If they were aware of these accusations, then this was a deliberate destabilization of the situation. Nevertheless, it is telling that this recommendation occurred at the start of the second Benedictine exodus in Valladolid, raising the possibility that rumours had reached the students there.
At the same time, the global Jesuit order was being put under other pressures. The end of the sixteenth century had already seen the order barred from Paris, as well as facing increasing challenges in Venice, and it was known that neither the incumbent pope, Clement VIII, nor the Duke of Lerma, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, chief minister in Spain, were keen on the Society. Although no actual letters on the events involving the college appear to survive in the nuncio's correspondence, it is clear from elsewhere that he shared the pope's wariness of the Society, writing on 27 December 1603 -the year of the college's second exodus -that "this Monastery of St Benedict of Valladolid is the most exemplary among the religious houses of Spain". 69 It is, therefore, hardly surprising that he acted with such hostility when Creswell and Ruiz de Vallejo made their ill-judged intervention before him. Added to this was papal disapproval of the Alcalá thesis put forward by some Spanish Jesuits in 1601, which drew the pope's ire in March 1602. 70 This led to the nuncio's suspicion that the orders of Spain -or, more specifically, the Jesuits -were too nationally focused at the expense of recognising papal jurisdiction. Creswell for some reason intervened with the nuncio in support of the Alcalá Jesuits that year, meaning his petition before the nuncio over the Valladolid affair was hardly likely to do anything other than cause irritation. 71 Simultaneously, perhaps underscoring the nuncio's fear about Spanish Jesuit national interest, the English Jesuits were being pressured by confreres from their host nation as outlined above. It reached the point at which continual carping from Spanish Jesuits about the English college at Seville caused Robert Persons to lament that members of the Society posed more of a threat to the college's future than the Elizabethan government. 72 In contrast, the standing of San Benito Abbey explains why the Benedictine exoduses happened in Valladolid and not, for example, at Seville. San Benito was one of the most spiritually and intellectually important Benedictine monasteries in Spain and could boast a strong history of royal connection. The abbot from 1598 to 1601, Juan de los Arcos, had secured the right of the monastery to choose its own abbot, offering a stability in sharp contrast to the clashes of authority at the English College and, more widely, within the Society of Jesus as outlined above. As a stable, powerful institution willing to support the English Catholic cause, San Benito offered unrivalled opportunities for a new English Catholic movement. 73 Secular matters within Spain also affected the climate that provoked the Valladolid situation, in particular fallout following the death of Philip II in September 1598. Lobbying by the English Jesuits of his successor, Philip III, had been underway before the Benedictine crises, 74 but it was still an uncertain time, with the English College at Valladolid anxious to ensure continued royal patronage. In a letter to Philip III on 24 April 1599, Creswell reported that he had been informed by a member of the Council of State that, amongst other things, "Spain had been hurt by giving aid to the English Catholics", and that there was talk "that it was treason to advise your Majesty to try on another occasion to send help there, seeing that it was impossible". 75 That the Jesuits were mindful of Spanish support is underlined by Persons' "Memoriall". Apart from pointedly conferring no role to the likes of the Benedictines in the Catholic reform of England, a Spanish version was also circulated, which sought to convince Philip that intervention in England was still possible, especially against the backdrop of the succession. 76 In this light, it becomes even more apparent why the exodus of students from the Jesuit-run college in Valladolid to the Benedictines, should cause such a furore. Within Spanish political circles, whispers had started that it was time to cease support for the English Catholic enterprise, which would include the college at Valladolid. Yet, just at the moment when English Jesuits were promoting a united Catholic front to the new Spanish monarch in order to maintain his support, they haemorrhaged a significant number of English students to a different, not to mention Spanish, institution.
That the Spanish royal succession continued to play a role even in the second exodus is underlined by Creswell's points of attack against those Englishmen leaving the college for the Spanish Benedictines. His initial recourse was to contact the secular and ecclesiastical heads of the host nation: the King and the Archbishop of Toledo, the latter of whom had been installed as subdeacon of Philip II's monastery of El Escorial on its foundation and was uncle to the 1st duke of Lerma. Such a bold move makes sense when it is understood that the holders of the two positions had historically been the principal backers of the English College at Valladolid. 77 Moreover, Persons and those of a similar mind had portrayed the college as having received the direct endorsement of the Spanish monarchy in the fight against heresy during particularly hostile moments of the Anglo-Spanish war. Yet with the new reign already in advanced negotiations towards a peace treaty between the two countries, 78 the defections of the Benedictines could easily be interpreted as a rebuke to the more hawkish English and Spanish investors in that college.
In addition to these developments within Spain and the transnational Society of Jesus was something already alluded to: papal approval of an English Benedictine mission. In 1601, the English monks had petitioned the Spanish General Chapter of the Benedictines to be allowed to enter the mission to their homeland. Subsequently, the Benedictine Spanish General and Abbot of San Benito, Alonso de Corral, had requested that Rome should grant Anglo-Spanish monks a dispensation from their vows of enclosure. It is notable that one of the English Jesuits' principal objections to such an endeavour was their claim that the Benedictines caused turmoil in the seminaries. 79 Nevertheless, the Benedictines' petition was granted by the Inquisition on 20 March 1602 and confirmed by Pope Clement VIII on 4 December 1602. 80 Far from the smears that they were cowering from the dangers in England, this underlines that the Anglo-Spanish Benedictines were seeking to make an entrée into the English missionary scene. Moreover, the idea of a monk, notionally bound by enclosure, particularly in the more stringently observant Valladolid Congregation, engaging in physical missionary work was not as inconceivable within the Spanish Catholic Reformation as may initially be assumed. Spanish monks from the Valladolid congregation had entertained ideas of entering the missionary field in the Americas as early as the 1530s. In June 1598, the monks had been given permission to venture to Peru, setting sail that November. 81 This was also the year of the first exodus from the Valladolid college, thus providing those uneasy with life in the college with a specific example, other than the Jesuits, of a religious order engaged in missionary work. With this template of missionary monks within the global Catholic Reformation before them, those Englishmen who became monks in Spain were not unreasonable in their expectation that they could return to their homeland as missionaries. Equally, aspirant English Benedictines were not solely reliant on contemporary missions for inspiration. Judging by the comments made by Barkworth at his execution, and repeated by George Gervase under the gallows in 1608, these early entrants to the Benedictines were conscious of the importance of missionary monks in England's history, likening their own endeavours to those of the monk, Augustine of Canterbury, sent by Pope Gregory I to convert England in the sixth century. 82 As Lunn observes, they invoked the spirit of the original Benedictine mission to England and imbued it with the energy of the Catholic Reformation. 83

V
The two Benedictine exoduses from the English College at Valladolid happened in a period of change and uncertainty, both nationally and internationally, in the religious as well as secular spheres. For English Catholics, there was a new system of ecclesiastical governance under an archpriest, which exacerbated already-increasing intra-Catholic factionalism. This interacted with manoeuvring over the succession to the English crown, an intense period of lobbying and positioning as the crisis played out. At the same time, the English Jesuits found themselves at odds with some elements of the global Order over the erection of a special administrative prefecture that threatened to undermine the Society's universalism and led to particular difficulties for them as exiles in their host nations. Concurrently, these host nations were caught up in their own political difficulties, such as the succession in Spain and, in France, the Edict of Nantes, which offered toleration to French Huguenots, was made public in November 1598 and registered early 1599.
It was this period of change surrounding the two successions (England and Spain) that made it possible for those who sought ordination abroad to glimpse a new missionary future in their home country, one free from the bad-tempered polemics of the recent past and, perhaps, the allegations that ordained status was itself subversive. When papal approval of a Benedictine mission to England is also considered, it would seem some at the English College in Valladolid grasped this opportunity. Although the Spanish succession occurred just before the first Benedictine exodus from the college, the direction of the new reign remained a live issue till the time of the second movement in 1603, as Philip III sought to extricate himself from aspects of his political inheritance, one of which was the military conflict with England. By 1603, dealings were well underway for an Anglo-Spanish peace. Moreover, the Archdukes in the Spanish Netherlands wanted peace and had little interest in Robert Persons' suggestions on their behalf for the English crown. In such a situation, with the Jesuits -more specifically, Persons -embroiled in a manuscript and print battle with the appellants, the time was right for a new way of being Catholic, unsullied by what had gone before.
Early Modern internecine Catholic conflict was nothing new -from Ireland to the Balkans, different visions of the Catholic Reformation were being debated. 84 In this particular dispute, the secular clergy on the appellant side were defined by their anti-Spanish attitudes, with the Jesuits characterised as Habsburg agents. Yet it was possible to be pro-Spanish without being firmly supportive of the Jesuits. In reality, there was not just one or even two English Catholic positions; there was a spectrum of Catholic opinion that needs to be differentiated, just as historians now generally agree is necessary when approaching early modern Protestantism. Admittedly, Robert Persons may have wanted there to have been just the one position in his bid to position Catholics as king-makers in the English succession, but that this was not the case explains not only the depth of feeling within the Archpriest Controversy, but also the wider and lasting implications of what happened at Valladolid. Indeed, there was a perception, admittedly pushed by secular clergy appellants, that the Jesuits were anti-monastics, disparaging of monks like the Benedictines. 85 In short, what was the choice for a candidate for holy orders who had little issue with a Spanish religio-political position, but did not support the Jesuit vision of life? This new, Benedictine option, represented a direct challenge to both parties within the English mission, but especially the Jesuits, who recognised this by sending a hero of the mission, William Weston, to act as confessor at Valladolid in April 1604. It was hoped that he would help keep the peace amongst the students and "moderate their humour of being Benedictines", a move that was backed by the Jesuit Superior General, his involvement underscoring the international impact made by what had occurred. 86 As well as underlining the range of opinion within early modern Catholicism, the events at Valladolid have wider implications for historical appreciation of the public sphere in the period. The question over the succession was of course being played out in the public sphere, whether Elizabeth I wanted it to or not. Perhaps less widely appreciated was the role being played by Catholics, both English and international, as a key part of this process. 87 The public Archpriest Controversy played into this, the lobbying for favour and denigration of opponents becoming known outside the Catholic community in which the dispute took place. This, in turn, meant events -such as the Benedictine exodus from Valladolid -gained traction if they seemed pertinent, no matter if they occurred outside of the country. Rumours quickly circulated about what had happened at the college, as demonstrated by Luisa de Carvajal's letter to an unnamed Cistercian nun dated 16 November 1603. She was well briefed about what had gone on, citing the problems four years previously, as well as the defections that year, including a number that had been kept quiet. She also thought Persons was unlikely to back the Benedictines establishing themselves in Spain because of the "problems posed by poaching from colleges and luring the youngsters away from them", especially after the colleges had funded their training and the Jesuits worked so hard to form them. 88 Evidently, this Spanish woman, admittedly with an intense interest in England, was well informed of events and the debates surrounding them.
Viewed without the lens of hindsight, such as future Jesuit and Benedictine clashes in Douai, the split at Valladolid was relevant because it undercut Persons' claim to united Catholic opinion when he and his supporters intervened on matters of the succession and treatment of Catholics under the new Stuart monarch. At the same time, it further undermined his vision for the English mission and, ultimately, its survival through the college system. For several decades, English Jesuits had been appealing to the public sphere in Spain for support, promoting English martyrdoms not just to royal patrons but the wider population. 89 The result was that some local members of the Society were not greatly enamoured with this competition for benefactors. Already raising questions about the universality of Jesuit practice in the face of novel English structures and behaviours, the Spanish Jesuit position could only be strengthened by Englishmen departing their national colleges for Spanish monasteries. After all, what justification could there be for a nationally-specific house when Englishmen were happy to enter Spanish Benedictine monasteries?
These events show that issues surrounding the succession were live and vital outside England, not just in terms of international politics, but directly affecting a particular constituency within the kingdom, in this case the Catholic one. It would give rise to a new voice from within that community -the Benedictine one -but it also shows how the public sphere was not confined by national borders. The public sphere involved the macro and the micro, covering not just the question of the national religion, but also intra-Catholic disputes over governance and how the Catholic Reformation should be interpreted and implemented. All of what is covered above looks a lot like the public sphere outlined by Peter Lake and Steve Pincus, 90 but maximised to cross borders and play out in the world of global Catholic Reformation. Indeed, Peter Lake and Michael Questier have re-contextualised the whole Archpriest Controversy -against the backdrop of which this article has argued the Valladolid exoduses should be read -as one of the most significant public post-Reformation debates. 91 What complicates this issue is the transnational nature of it, with the Catholic protagonists appealing to multiple audiences. As Laura Stewart has commented, shared language was of vital importance in the creation of a public sphere in the British context, linguistic compatibility leading to "cross-border publics" in the three kingdoms. 92 This can be taken further to include those who shared that language outside of Britain, English Catholics at home and abroad acting as the very definition of a cross-border public. However, these exiles were not just looking homeward, but were also engaged in transnational public politics, straddling several linguistic worlds depending on their targeted audience. The use of English, Latin or Spanish was a deliberate choice to engage with several audiences, calculated entrées into separate but overlapping spheres, such as Freddy Dominguez has outlined. 93 Here we have English Catholics engaging with and entering into different public arenas unfettered by national boundaries. So, what first appears to be a matter of internal importance for English Catholicism -an appeal to what Peter Lake has termed "private politics" -was never likely to be just that. Rather, it fulfils his definition of pitches made to bring into being and mobilise different support bases or publics, resulting in the "integration of the post-Reformation public sphere with the confessional and dynastic geopolitics of western Europe". 94 What we have here is what Peter Marshall identified as a wider Reformation period phenomenon: rather than unthinking automatons, this was the very much self-aware formation of religious identity 95 ; in this case the creation of a third way of being Catholic in England.