A Chance Discovery
In August 2022 Leandra De Lisle published her biography of Queen Henrietta Maria. CRAY volunteer Lotte Daniel discovered a reference to how Somerset House, the home of Queen Henrietta Maria, was used as a Catholic mission and one of its converts was Crayford’s Anglican rector, Dr Thomas Vane.
Converts included ‘An English Countess’, ‘Dr Vane, Almoner, otherwise chaplain, to His Majesty’, ‘two other young ministers’, the ‘daughter of a Puritan father and a Catholic mother’, an ‘English Gentleman of the Protestant religion, who was a member of the King’s Council in Ireland’, and ‘Catholics were so exceedingly multiplied’ in parts of London that it was said that in ‘Bloomsbury there are as many or more than Protestants.
The book described how the latest Italian compositions by Monteverdi were played at the masses held in Somerset House to attract a fashionable London crowd. Once inside, Father Cyprien, who led the Capuchin Catholic mission, used his sermons to challenge Protestant theology. Those in the congregation who argued back were invited for private talks in which their views might be changed. One of those who was challenged to debate his faith by Father Cyprien was Dr Thomas Vane.
The Memoirs of Father Cyprien
Having found the reference in Leandra De Lisle’s book we undertook further research on the chapel at Somerset House. CRAY volunteer Christine Hudson discovered references to what happened there in 1641 in a recently digitised Victorian book: THE COURT AND TIMES of CHARLES THE FIRST (1848). This book quoted at length passages from MEMOIRS OF THE MISSION IN ENGLAND OF THE CAPUCHIN FRIARS OF THE PROVINCE OF PARIS, FROM THE YEAR 1630 TO 1669. BY FATHER CYPRIEN OF GAMACHE, ONE OF THE CAPUCAINS BELONGING TO THE HOUSEHOLD OF HENRIETTA MARIA, QUEEN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.
Capuchin Catholic Conversions at Somerset House
Part of Queen Henrietta-Maria’s marriage agreement allowed her to practise her Catholic religion. To do this she was accompanied to London by a retinue of Capuchin monks who set up residence at her new home, Somerset House on the Strand. The Capuchins soon became something of a novelty in a country where Catholic priests and chapels were banned. They were visited by wealthy Londoners curious to learn more about their ‘alien culture.’ The Capuchins quickly pointed out to these tourists that far from being exotic monks like them were once the bedrock of English society. England had been ‘full of monasteries and of holy friars’ like them before the Tudor break with Rome. This ‘religious tourism’ in 1630s London, provided ample opportunity for the Capuchins to seek converts to the Catholic faith. father Cyprien remembered in his memoirs that, ‘one converted person brought several others, who were either related to him or friends of his’. One of these converts brought to Somerset House would be Crayford rector, Dr Thomas Vane.
Catholic conversions accelerated once Henrietta-Maria’s new Catholic chapel had been built at Somerset House. Once it was opened in 1636, the Capuchins made it the centre of what they saw as their English mission. The beauty of the chapel’s interior and the elegance of the church music played there attracted London’s elite. Fr Cyprien records that the doors could not be closed for three successive days, only then being closed so Charles I and some of his courtiers could see the sight for themselves. The chapel, with its optical illusions, grand paintings and 40-foot-tall monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament, would have been striking to the public crowds that flocked in to see it. Fr Cyprien tells us that the chapel remained open to ‘satisfy the devotion of the Catholics and the curiosity of the Protestants’. The Capuchins at the chapel would hear confession, celebrate Mass, carry the sacrament to the ill or imprisoned, lead confraternities, deliver lectures and even teach children. Much of this was done in both French and English, and such a sight must have been impactful on Charles I’s Chaplain Extraordinaire, Dr Thomas Vane who was ordered to attend Somerset house to prepare the King and Queen’s daughter for a marriage vital to the cash strapped Stuart monarch.
Dr Vane Mentor to Mary Stuart
A key passage of Father Cyprien’s memoir explained why Dr Vane was at Somerset House. We already knew that he was Chaplain Extraordinaire to King Charles I. However we made the discovery that Henrietta Maria invited him to Somerset house to prepare her nine-year-old daughter Mary (Marie) Stuart for her marriage to the Dutch Protestant heir Willem Prince of Nassau. This was a very difficult time for Charles as he was seeking an alliance with the wealthy Dutch House of Orange that would help him to fund ‘The Bishop’s War’ against rebel Presbyterian Scots.
Father Cyprien’s diary recounted how Vane was given a room in Somerset House adjacent to the Queen’s Catholic chapel and this was how Father Cyprien drew him into theological debate and converted him to Catholicism. Here is a description of what happened in Cyprien’s own words:
Prince William of Nassau, son of the Prince of Orange, having come to England to seek Mary Stuart, eldest daughter of King Charles I in marriage, Dr Vane, almoner, otherwise chaplain, to his Majesty, one of the ablest and most eminent of his divines, was appointed to preach before that young prince in a large apartment in Somerset House. The Queen’s chapel was very near to it.
The proximity of Queen Henrietta Maria’s chapel gave Father Cyprien the opportunity to debate differences in theology between the Roman Catholic and Anglican faiths. Vane tried to stress the common ground between his faith and the doctrines outlined by Father Cyprien. Vane felt that both Catholics and Protestants could find their way to salvation. Cyprien told him bluntly that he was mistaken and that he would only find his way to God by accepting the sacraments of the Catholic church.
Father Cyprien of Gamache was then preaching there, and saw the minister familiarly, manifested great friendship for him, conversed with him mildly on the diversity of religions, one of which only was the true one; proved, by strong reasons, that this true religion was that of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Romish Church. The minister admitted that one might certainly be saved in it, but that salvation was not excluded from the Protestant Church, which agreed with the Romish in all those fundamental points. He was told in reply that the sacraments are fundamental points, particularly the Lord’s Supper, in which the two religions are opposed: and, since it was admitted that certain points were fundamental and not others, all that God has revealed and that is proposed by the Holy Church belongs alike to the faith, and must be alike believed by true believers.
Vane was thrown into turmoil by Cyprien’s blunt response to his beliefs. However, to follow Father Cyprien’s advice would mean he would lose his position as both Crayford’s rector and as Chaplain Extraordinaire to King Charles I. This would not just affect him personally, but would both impoverish and endanger the lives of his wife and children. Despite Cyprien’s persuasive powers, he felt that he couldn’t put his family through the upheaval that conversion to Catholicism would bring. Cyprien noted in his diary:
These reasons, and several others, threw the minister into great agitation; but worldly interests, the revenues of several benefices, which he must have lost on embracing the Catholic religion, induced him to continue in the Protestant.
The Petition against Dr Vane
We know that even before Dr Vane’s visits to Somerset House, Vane’s beliefs conflicted with the beliefs of local Puritans in Dartford, who had accused him of ‘pernicious popery.’ Their 1640 petition to Sir Edward Dering’s Parliamentary Committee of Religion was seeking to have him removed from his position as rector of Crayford. It also indicates that he already held very Catholic beliefs and hence must have been easily persuaded by the arguments of Henrietta Maria’s priest.
As Vane was asked by the Queen to preside over coaching Mary Stuart for her wedding to the Prince of Nassau, he was forced to write to Dering to request a delay in his hearing so that he could fulfil his duties as Chaplain Extraordinaire. Vane was at a huge turning point in his life. The position as Crayford rector was a valuable one. The tithes from the hop fields that surrounded St Paulinus church kept him and his family in a comfortable lifestyle. Father Cyprien felt that this was the main factor stopping him from converting to Catholicism.
Vane’s Conversion after serious illness
The stress of the petition against Vane and the doubts over whether to leave the Anglican church and convert to the church of Rome perhaps explains whilst the troubled Crayford rector became dangerously ill in 1641. The political situation was swiftly moving towards a civil war. Converting to Catholicism at this time would undoubtedly endanger not only his life but the lives of his wife and children.
Cyprien explained how Vane’s illness persuaded him to take a leap of faith. Perhaps thinking he might be so ill that he might die. Cyprien received him into the Catholic church on his sickbed:
A few months afterwards he fell so sick that he expected to die. All the conferences which had passed on the subject of religion then recurred to his mind. He made serious reflections upon them; weighed with great care the reasons adduced in favour of the Church of Rome; and, finally, being convinced that it was the only true one, he sent at night to beg Father Cyprien to come to see him. On his arrival, “Father,” said he, “our conferences, with the grace of God, have enlightened my mind. I doubt no longer that the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church is the true one. I am resolved to live and die in it. I believe all that it believes, and reject and condemn all that it condemns. I will make, if you please, the profession to you.” After some instructions on so important a subject, he confessed with a strong feeling of grief, received absolution of his heresy and of his other sins; and the following night, according to his desire, the Holy Communion and extreme unction were administered to him.
A Final Sermon at St Paulinus
With the weight of indecision off of his mind, Vane recovered his health and returned to Crayford to give one final sermon announcing his Catholic beliefs. he would have known that as a Protestant apostate at a time of religious discord, he would need to flee to save his life.
Instead of dying in these holy dispositions, as it was wished, being so well prepared, he recovered his health, preached in his parish with the permission of his confessor, a thoroughly Catholic sermon, which deprived him of all his temporal goods, and banished him from England.
Vane’s Exile in Paris
However, he still had to persuade his family to take the same leap of faith. Vane probably knew that the volatile political environment would require him soon to flee to save his life. He managed to persuade his family to convert and by 1642 was in Paris. He immediately began work on a book which he dedicated to Henrietta Maria which sought to justify his conversion. Father Cyprien recorded that it made quite a stir back in England:
His wife and his children, after several refusals, followed him in his conversion and banishment. They live with him in Paris, where he wrote an English book, entitled “The Stray Sheep Returned to the Fold, * which has made a great number of Catholics in England.
You can now read Vane’s book online as it has been digitised by the University of Michigan:https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A65197.0001.001?view=toc
Vane’s loyalty to the Royalist cause comes through in the forward to his book which was first printed in 1642 and was reprinted many times up to the 1660s and the restoration.
TO THE MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY OF HENRIETTE MARIE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND, &c.
MADAM,
To be a nursing Mother to the Church is the dignity and duty of a QUEENE; to which attribute see∣ing you have a right, as well by your virtue as your honour, I am emboldened to prostrate my selfe, with this small Treatise, at your Royal feet. It hath pleased God out of his infinite, and by mee, never-to-be-forgotten mercy, to call me to the Communion of the Catholique Church; for which I have also been called to account, and that in your Majesties family; which hath moved me (with other considerations) as to publish this my defence, so to crave your Majesties Patronage both of it & me. Never did persecution against Catholiques in England rage as now it doth; where like Herod, who as soon as Christ was borne, sent forth men to destroy him; So they, as soon as one is made a Catholique, or known to be so, seek his destruction. And as Herod because he would be sure (as he thought) to destroy Christ, destroyed all the Children that were about his age; So doe they pursue the legal Protestants, as having a little resemblance with Catholiques, that so they may (as they hope) sponge out all the remains and memory of the Catholique religion.
And as God sent our Saviour into the world, and subjected him to all humane infirmities (except sinne) like unto us, that he might be mercifull; So hath he humbled your Majesty, even to a lower descent of suffering (considering your exaltation, from whence it must take its measure) than any other, who like an invaluable Diamond, were made to be firmely set in the most precious esteem of mankind; but by the unrelenting malice of monsters have been brought to extreme degrees of calamity: whose excellence as it is endeared to us all by your sufferings; so our sufferings (your heart being the more intended by the sense of your own) we hope, shall render your Majesty the more propitious to us; who suffer not only as good subjects to the King but to God also in the Ca∣tholique religion. Your gracious soule hath more antidote in it, then all the world hath poison; which will therefore in your affliction make you like the Sun, which shows his great∣est countenance in his lowest declension; and bring you out of it, like gold out of the fire, refined, not consumed; which when it doth, as the good thief did our Saviour on the Crosse; So we beseech you, Madam, remember us when you come into your Kingdome. In the meantime, we will remember you in our prayers; That your fortune may surmount your greatness, and your virtue, your fortune; That your greatnesse may be above envy, your goodnesse above detraction; That your illustrious example may darken the ages past, and lighten them to come; that you may live beloved and die lamented; lamented by earth, but joy’d by heaven; of which you shall be a part as well as a partaker, in giving the happinesse of your presence, and receive as a reward of all your sufferings a never fading Diadem of glory: So prayers,
MADAM, Your Majesties Most humble, most loyal, and most devoted servant,
THO. VANE.
Escaping Religious Persecution
Vane’s conversion had occurred just in time for him to safely escape to France. Only a year after his conversion at Somerset House, the English Civil War broke out in the summer of 1642. Crayford’s proximity to London placed it firmly in the Parliamentarian sphere. However, by renouncing his Anglican faith Vane had lost his livelihood. To support himself and his family whilst in France, Vane trained in medicine and qualified as a physician. Cyprien recorded that he applied himself with “ardour” to his new profession:
In order to subsist, theology being thenceforth useless to him, he applied with ardour to the study of medicine, took his doctor’s degree, and, when he had begun to support himself by that profession.
We know that Vane spent most of the Civil War in France. After the failure of the Second Civil War in 1648 his hopes of returning to England were dashed. We have not been able to find evidence as to whether he did return to England at some point during the Interregnum. We know that he was fined £100 by a Kent Committee that included Crayford’s Lord of the Manor, William Draper, for his royalist sympathies. This was reduced on appeal to £10, which possibly indicates he returned at some point. Copies of his book continued to be printed in Paris, with a copy in the National Library of Australia dated 1666. He was probably dead by this time. Father Cyprien refers to Vane’s death in his memoirs, but a specific date for his death has eluded our research.
God purposing, as we may believe, to bestow upon him a happier life, sent a fever which consigned him to the grave, after receiving all the sacraments of the Church, exhibiting many acts of contrition, rendering devout thanks to the Divine Majesty for having called him to the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion. He left a disconsolate wife and several children, of whom Providence took such care that they are all well provided for: some in honourable offices in certain religious orders; others are employed in the court of England: and his wife is married again to a gentleman of piety and condition, to whom she shows equal respect and love, and by whom she is reciprocally so fondly loved, that their union may serve for a perfect model to married people.
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