Anti-Catholicism, civic consciousness and parliamentarianism: Thomas Scott’s Vox Regis (1624)

The Anglo-Spanish negotiations for a dynastic alliance which began in 1614 had never been popular among a large section of English Protestants, who felt that their monarch should demonstrate a more active commitment to European Calvinism. Such prejudices increased after 1618 when the Bohemian crisis began and James did not support the Elector Palatine against the Habsburg Empire. The anti-Catholic mood reached its peak in October 1623, when the Prince of Wales arrived in London after his failed journey to Madrid. Many Londoners viewed his return as a victory over Spain and demanded a shift in Anglo-Spanish relations. This article considers the political tract Vox Regis (1624), written by Thomas Scott, one of the most prolific anti-Catholic pamphleteers at the time. In this work Scott develops many of the arguments proposed in Parliament in order to persuade James to change his religious and foreign policy. His anti-Catholic attacks vehicle debates on the role of citizens in the Commonwealth and more participatory types of government, in opposition to the crown’s appeal to the raison d’état and the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Thus, Scott relates anti-popery to civic consciousness, linking his discourse to the humanist tradition and anticipating some of the ideological discussions prevalent in England during and after the civil war