Reasons humbly offer'd for a Law to enact the Castration of Popish Ecclesiastic[k]s is an anonymous anti-Catholic quarto pamphlet published in London in 1700. The work has been disputedly attributed to Daniel Defoe. [1] [2] [3]
The book accuses the Roman Catholic priests of practicing infanticide and sexual immorality. Concluding that the priests are more lecherous than ordinary men, the author suggests their punishment by enforced castration. Besides its anti-clericalism, the book also advocates for an alliance of the European Protestants against the Catholic France of Louis XIV.
The work is ostensibly very offensive in tone, but G. C. Moore Smith thinks it might be an ironic satire in the manner of Defoe's The Shortest Way with the Dissenters , which promoted increased hostility towards another religious minority in England. [4] The author's broader purpose in this pamphlet was to advocate for a Protestant alliance in Europe against Louis XIV's France. [5]
As evidence of the wickedness of the Roman Catholic priests the author cites the authority of Foxe's Acts and Monuments for accusations of infanticide and sexual immorality. He holds that the celibacy of the priests was ordained by the "Romish Church" in order that they might have a firmer hold upon the women, and he adduces five main arguments in support of his assertion. [6] He argues that enforced chastity has made the priests more lecherous than ordinary men, and that enforced castration may be the only cure to their immense sexual appetite. [7] To the crimes with which the priests are charged is added, in conclusion, the following accusation:
They not only corrupt the Morals of People themselves by such Practices and Principles as above mention'd, but bring over and encourage others to do it; particularly those Italians, &c. who sell and print Aretin's Postures ; and in order to debauch the Minds of Women, and to make them guilty of unnatural Crims[ sic ] invent and sell 'em such things as Modesty forbids to name.
The work was reprinted in Dublin as Reasons humbly offer'd to both houses of parliament, for a new Law to enact the castration or gelding of popish ecclasiastics, in this kingdom ... As the best way to prevent the growth of popery (Dublin, 1710; price 3d; 4to. 16 pp.) [8]
In the 19th century this pamphlet was reprinted by the Protestant Evangelical Mission and Electoral Union in a tract of 32 pages, [9] to which was added an Appendix containing the three following pieces:
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1700.
The words Popery and Papism are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians to label their Roman Catholic opponents, who differed from them in accepting the authority of the Pope over the Christian Church. The words were popularised during the English Reformation (1532–1559), when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and divisions emerged between those who rejected papal authority and those who continued to follow Rome. The words are recognised as pejorative; they have been in widespread use in Protestant writings until the mid-nineteenth century, including use in some laws that remain in force in the United Kingdom.
Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer and bibliographer. He is notable for his massive, clandestine three-volume bibliography of erotic literature published under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.
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The Registration Act was an act of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1704, which required all "Popish" priests to register at their local magistrates' court, to pay two 50-pound bonds to ensure good behavior, and to stay in the county where they registered.
Whiggism or Whiggery is a political philosophy that grew out of the Parliamentarian faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651) and was concretely formulated by Lord Shaftesbury during the Stuart Restoration. The Whigs advocated the supremacy of Parliament, government centralization, and coercive Anglicisation through the educational system. They also staunchly opposed granting freedom of religion, civil rights, or voting rights to anyone who worshipped outside of the Established Churches of the realm. Eventually, the Whigs grudgingly conceded strictly limited religious toleration for Protestant dissenters, while continuing the religious persecution and disenfranchisement of Roman Catholics and Scottish Episcopalians. They were particularly determined to prevent the ascension of a Catholic heir presumptive to the British throne, especially of James II or his legitimate male descendants and instead granted the throne to the Protestant House of Hanover in 1714. Whig ideology is associated with early conservative liberalism.
Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York, placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends. Following the Exclusion Crisis and the failure of the nascent Whig faction to disinherit James, Duke of York in favour of Charles II's illegitimate son James, 1st Duke of Monmouth, L'Estrange used his newspaper The Observator to harangue his opponents and act as a voice for a popular provincial Toryism during the 'Tory Reaction' of 1681–85. Despite serving as an MP from 1685 to 1689 his stock fell under James II's reign as his staunch hostility to religious nonconformism conflicted with James's goals of religious tolerance for both Catholics and Nonconformists. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the collapse of the Restoration political order heralded the end of L'Estrange's career in public life, although his greatest translation work, that of Aesop's Fables, saw publication in 1692.
Hugh Boulter was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, the Primate of All Ireland, from 1724 until his death. He also served as the chaplain to George I from 1719.
The Popery Act 1698 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England enacted in 1700. The long title of the Act was "An Act for the further preventing the Growth of Popery".
Miles Prance was an English Roman Catholic craftsman who was caught up in and perjured himself during the Popish Plot and the resulting anti-Catholic hysteria in London during the reign of Charles II.
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The Roman Catholic Relief Bills were a series of measures introduced over time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the Parliaments of Great Britain and the United Kingdom to remove the restrictions and prohibitions imposed on British and Irish Catholics during the English Reformation. These restrictions had been introduced to enforce the separation of the English church from the Catholic Church which began in 1529 under Henry VIII.
William Clagett (1646–1688) was an English clergyman, known as a controversialist.
Thomas Fairfax, D.D. (1656–1716), was an English Jesuit.
Thomas Bell was an English Roman Catholic priest, and later an anti-Catholic writer.
Events from the year 1704 in Ireland.
John Arnold, widely known as John Arnold of Monmouthshire, was an English Protestant politician and Whig MP. He was one of the most prominent people in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire in the late 17th century. A stark anti-Catholic, he was a notable figure during the Popish plot and the suppression of Catholicism in the country. Arnold represented the constituencies around Monmouth and Southwark in Parliament in the 1680s and 1690s. His strong anti-Catholic beliefs and insurgences against Catholic priests made him an unpopular and controversial figure amongst his peers and in his native Monmouthshire. In his later years, his behaviour became increasingly eccentric, and he was widely believed to have faked an attempt on his own life. Amongst his associates were Titus Oates and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.
The Apparition of Mrs. Veal is a pamphlet that was published anonymously in 1706 and is usually attributed to Daniel Defoe. Titled in full A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next Day after her Death: to one Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury. The 8th of September, 1705, it has been described as "the first modern ghost story".
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