Italian Reform and English Reformations, c.1535–c.1585 by M. Anne Overell

Author:M. Anne Overell [Overell, M. Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781317111696
Google: _UUfDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-05-06T16:15:06+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Venetian Exile and English Propaganda

False rumours have been circulated there [at Rome] by the malignants to alienate men’s minds from their devotion to the pope, availing themselves of the letters of certain Englishmen abroad in Italy on account of their bad religion.

Pole to the Archbishop of Conza [Girolamo Muzzarelli], Nuncio at Brussels, London, 26 October 1555.1

By the spring of 1554, Vermigli was safely re-settled in Strassburg. On 9 May, he wrote to Calvin about the arrival there of Morison, Cheke and Cooke, who had all been given royal licence to leave England.2 Vermigli already knew the three Englishmen and he commented that they were ‘not less conspicuous for godliness than for learning’.3 Yet Cheke was restless: in May, accompanied by Sir Richard Morison, he visited Zurich and Geneva. On his return to Strassburg, he learned of the Queen’s anger at his visit to Calvin’s city. In need of a less provocative refuge, he decided on Italy. Having met his Italian contacts, Curione and Castellio in Basel, Cheke moved on to Padua, arriving on 10 July.4 He was no longer accompanied by Morison or Cooke, but by Sir Thomas Wrothe, another stout reformer.5

Cheke and Wrothe were the first arrivals of the two parties of English travellers in Italy with which this chapter will be principally concerned. Its objective is to trace the Italian exile of Englishmen who had already established connections with Italian reformers at the court of Edward VI. Then they became travellers in catholic Venice. Did their religious affiliations influence their Italian journeys? Was this a ‘religious’ exile, or a ‘political’ one? This chapter will suggest that it was neither, but that these men were Nicodemites, trying to stay out of trouble in a very troubled place.

The first group in the Veneto increased rapidly. In mid-August, came Sir Peter Carew, a new name in this book, known more as a soldier-adventurer than as a reformer, but he was fluent in Italian and had supported the Edwardian reformation.6 Before the end of August 1554, the Hoby brothers had arrived: Sir Thomas and his older brother, the sociable diplomat Sir Philip. In his Travail and lief of me Thomas Hoby, Hoby listed the Englishmen present in Padua at that time: ‘Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir Jhon Cheeke, Sir Henry Nevill, Sir John Cutts, Mr Bartie [probably Richard Bertie, husband of the Duchess of Suffolk], Mr Tamworth, travelling with three of Sir Anthony Denny’s sons, Mr Henry Cornwallis, Mr John Ashley, Mr Drurye, Mr Henry Kingsmill, Mr Windam, Mr Robert Carew, and Mathew his brother, Mr Brooke, Mr Orphinstrange, with diverse other. And shortlie after here arrived Sir Anthonye Cooke.’7

Cheke, the Hobys and their close friends stayed for about a year. In July 1555, about a month before they decided to leave Northern Italy, a second set of English travellers began to arrive. Their leaders were two noblemen equally conversant with Italian reform: the godly Sir Francis Russell, accompanied by some thirteen gentlemen, all of whom were sympathetic to reform. Then, early

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