The English Exile Community in Italy and the Political Opposition to Queen Mary I
Author(s): Kenneth R. Bartlett
Source: Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn,
1981), pp. 223-241
Published by: The North American Conference on British Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4048848 .
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The EnglishExile Communityin Italy and the Political Oppositionto QueenMaryI
KennethR. Bartlett
Since the publicationof ChristinaGarrett's The MarianExiles in 1938, historianshave had to look outside the confines of Englandand into the structuresof the various exile communitieson the continent in order to comprehendfully the significanceof the reign of Mary I. Garrett'sargument was that the large numberof Englishmenwho emigratedto the continentin 1553and 1554representednot a headlongflight from persecution but an organizedmigrationof English Protestantsseeking a more felicitous religiousclimatewith the tacit approvalof the queen'sgovernment.
Thesemen and women functionedas a churchin exile, responsibleonly to their own governors, and cut off from the traditionalauthority of the
Crown. Thus, on returningto England after the accession of Elizabeth, this group constituteda coherent faction, the Puritan opposition, which was hostile to the conservativenature of the Elizabethansettlementand dedicatedto the establishmentof a Calvinistpolity.I
However, instructiveas this theory may be for the emigrecommunities in Germanyand Switzerland,it does not answera numberof important questionswhicharise from the politicalactivitiesof the Marianexiles;nor does it adequatelyinvestigatethe compositionand conspiratorialpolicies of the two other major groups of Marian exiles, the French and the
Venetian.Indeed, Garrettdoes not even discussthe existenceof a separate companyof expatriatesresidentin the VenetianRepublic,even though in terms of political and intellectualhistory this communityof exiles played by far the greatestrole in the organizedopposition to the rule of Philip and Mary.
It is the intention of this article to establish the significanceof the
Marianexiles in Italy withinthe generalcontextof the politicalopposition to Mary I. Ratherthan discussthis emigrecommunityonly in relationto the comparativelynarrow activitiesof the religiousrefugeesin Germany
II do not agreewith Garrett'scontentionthat a partyor factionwas forgedfrom the shared experienceof exile underMary.See K.R. Bartlett,"The Role of the MarianExiles," in P.J.
Hasler, ed., The History of Parliament Trust: 7he Parliaments of Elizabeth (London, 1981),

Appendix12:102-110.Therehavealso beenstrongdoubtsraisedaboutthe thesisas a whole.
See D.M. Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government and Religion in England,

1553-1558(London, 1979),p. 339.

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224

Albion

and Switzerland,I propose to connectthe personalitiesand the policies of the Venetiangroup to the widespreadseriesof conspiracies-international in characterand begun even before the death of EdwardVI-which were
directed