5. Sweden and England

“In the Scandinavian countries”, wrote Mr. Pierre Dominique, “Lutheranism submerged everything else and, when the Jesuits made their counter-attack, they did not find what was found in Germany: a Catholic party already in the minority, but still strong”.(28)

Their only hope then was in the conversion of the sovereign who was secretly in favour of Catholicism; also, this king, Jean III Wasa, had married in 1568 a Polish princess, Catherine, a Roman Catholic. In 1574, Father Nicolai and other Jesuits were brought to the recently established school of theology where they became fervent Roman proselytizers, while officially assuming Lutheranism. Then, the clever negotiator Possevino secured the conversion of Jean III and the care of educating his son Sigismond, the future Sigismond III, king of Poland. When the time came to submit Sweden to the Holy See, the king’s conditions: marriage of priests, use of the vernacular in services and communion in both kinds, all of which had been rejected by the Roman Curia, brought the negotiations to a dead end. In any case, the king, who had lost his first wife, had remarried a Swedish Lutheran. The Jesuits had to leave the country.

“Fifty years later, the Order won another great victory in Sweden. Queen Christine, daughter of Gustave-Adolphe, the last of the Wasas, was converted under the teaching of two Jesuit professors, who had managed to reach Stockholm pretending to be travelling Italian noblemen. But, in order to change her religion without conflicts, she had to abdicate on the 24th of June 1654”.(29)

In England, on the other hand, the situation seemed more faviourable to the Society and it could hope, for a while at least, to bring this country back under the Holy See’s jurisdiction.

(28) Pierre Dominique, op.cit, p.76.
(29) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.137, 138, 139.

“When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, Ireland was still entirely Catholic and England 50 per cent so… In 1542 already, Salmeron and Broet had been sent by the pope to survey Ireland”.(30)

Seminaries had been created under the Jesuits’ direction in Douai, Pont-a- Mousson and Rome, with a view to train English, Irish and Scottish missionaries. In agreement with Philip II of Spain, the Roman Curia worked at overthrowing Elizabeth in favour of the Catholic Mary Stuart. An Irish uprising, provoked by Rome, had been crushed. But the Jesuits, who had arrived in England in 1580, took part in a large Catholic assembly at Southwark.

“Then, under diverse disguises, they spread from county to county, from country house to castle. In the evening, they would hear confession; in the morning, they would preach and give communion, then they would disappear as mysteriously as they had arrived. For, from the 15th of July, Elizabeth had proscribed them”.(31)

They printed and distributed secretly virulent pamphlets against the Queen and the Anglican Church. One of them, Father Campion, was caught, condemned for high treason and hanged. They also plotted at Edinburgh to win to their cause King James of Scotland. The result of all these disturbances was the execution of Mary Stuart in 1587.

Then came the Spanish expedition, the invincible Armada, which made England tremble for a while and brought about the “sacred union” around Elizabeth’s throne. But the Company pursued none the less her projects and was training English priests at Valladolid, Seville, Madrid and Lisbon, while her secret propaganda continued in England under the direction of Father Garnett. After the Gunpowder Plot against James I, successor of Elizabeth, this Father Garnett was condemned for complicity and hanged, like Father Campion.

Under Charles I, then in Cromwell’s Commonwealth, other Jesuits paid for their intrigues with their lives. The Order thought it would triumph under Charles II who, together with Louis XIV, had concluded a secret treaty at Dover, pledging to restore Catholicism in the land.

“The nation was not fully informed of these circumstances, but the little that transpired was enough to create an unbelievable agitation. All England shuddered before Loyola’s spectre and the Jesuits’ conspiracies”.(32)

(30) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.137-139.
(31) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.140-142.
(32) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.140, 142.

A meeting of them in the palace itself brought popular fury to a head.

“Charles II, who enjoyed the life of a king and did not want to go on another ‘journey across the seas’, hanged five Fathers for high treason at Tyburn… This did not abate the Jesuits.. However, Charles II was too prudent and too cynical for their liking, always ready to drop them. They thought victory was in sight when James II acceded to the throne. In fact, the king took up Mary Tudor’s old game, but used softer means. He pretended to convert England and established for the Jesuits, at the palace of Savoy, a college where four hundred students immediately took residence. A downright camarilla (a group of confidential, often scheming advisers; a cabal) of Jesuits took over the Palace…

“All these combinations were the main cause for the 1688 revolution. The Jesuits had to go against a stream too powerful. Then, England had twenty Protestants for each Catholic. The king was overthrown; all the members of the Company put in prison or banished. For some time, the Jesuits recommenced their work of secret agents, but it was nothing more than a futile agitation. They had lost the cause”.(33)

(33) Pierre Dominique, op.cit, pp.101, 102.

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