Thomas Phillips (priest)

Thomas Phillips (1708–1774) was an English Jesuit priest, known as the biographer of Cardinal Reginald Pole

Life

He was born at Ickford, Buckinghamshire on 5 July 1708, son of a Catholic convert and a great-nephew of William Joyner; Joyner had a sister, Mary Phillips, in Ickford, who had married the attorney Thomas Phillips, and they had a daughter, and a son Thomas who was the convert. Thomas Phillips the younger married Elizabeth Crosse, daughter of Johnshall Crosse of Bledlow, and they had a family of eight sons and one daughter.[1][2][3]

Phillips's early schooling was Protestant, after which he was sent to the College of St Omer. When he had completed his course of rhetoric he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Watten on 7 September 1726, and made the simple vows of the Society on 8 September 1728. He was then moved to the English College, Liège to study a three-year course of philosophy.

Soon after Phillip's admission to holy orders his father died, leaving him independently wealthy. He travelled through the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Italy, visiting universities, and forming friendships. During the third year of his philosophical course, on 17 July 1731, he made a voluntary renunciation of his property to the college at Liège and the provincial father, John Turberville. In the second year of his course of divinity, he sought permission to conduct a course of humanities at St. Omer, against the requirement of the Society to accept assignments, and he was turned down. On 4 July 1733 he withdrew from the Society.[1]

Phillips then went to Rome, where Henry Sheldon, rector of the English College, Rome, introduced him to Charles Edward Stuart, who found for him an appointment as a canon at Tongres (1 September 1739), with a dispensation to serve on the English mission. Returning to England, he officiated as chaplain to George Talbot, 14th Earl of Shrewsbury, at Heythrop Park from 1739 to 1753. He then was chaplain to Sir Richard Acton, 5th Baronet at Aldenham Park, Shropshire; and subsequently (1763–5) to Robert Berkeley of Spetchley Park, Worcestershire.[1][4]

Eventually Phillips came back to Liège, where he was readmitted to the Society of Jesus on 16 June 1768. He died there in July 1774.[1]

Works

Phillips's major work was The History of the Life of Cardinal Pole (1764).[5] His object in it was to give an account of the Council of Trent from a Roman Catholic point of view.[1] There were many Protestant replies. Thomas Secker, at that time Archbishop of Canterbury, saw it as an attack on the Protestant Reformation; and Gloucester Ridley wrote a Review (1766) reflecting Secker's opinion.[6] Other responses came from Timothy Neve, John Jortin, Edward Stone and Richard Tillard. William Cole's unpublished Observations on answers to Phillips's book, and correspondence with the author, went to the British Museum. Phillips himself appended An Answer to the principal Objections to his Study of Sacred Literature (1765).[1][7] He responded to the 1766 Animadversions by Neve, who had defended the characters of Protestant reformers, in later editions of the History.[8]

The biography stayed near to its sources, particularly Angelo Maria Quirini, but also Ludovico Beccadelli and Andras Dudic. Critics have considered that Phillips rearranged Quirini, coming close to plagiarism.[9][10]

Other works were:[1]

Augustin de Backer attributed to him Reasons for the Repeal of the Laws against the Papists, by Robert Berkeley of Spetchley.[1]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Phillips, Thomas (1708-1774)". Dictionary of National Biography. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ↑ Stapleton, Mary Helen Alicia Dolman (Mrs Bryan) (1906). "A History of the Post-reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire: with an account of the families connected with them". Internet Archive. London: Henry Frowde. p. 220. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  3. ↑ Stapleton, Mary Helen Alicia Dolman (Mrs Bryan) (1906). "A History of the Post-reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire: with an account of the families connected with them". Internet Archive. London: Henry Frowde. pp. 261–2. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  4. ↑ Stapleton, Mary Helen Alicia Dolman (Mrs Bryan) (1906). "A History of the Post-reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire: with an account of the families connected with them". Internet Archive. London: Henry Frowde. pp. 147–8. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  5. ↑ 2 pts., Oxford, 1764, 8vo (reprinted 2 vols., Dublin, 1765, 12mo); 2nd edition, without author's name on the title-page, 2 vols. London, 1767.
  6. ↑ Robert G. Ingram (2007). Religion, Reform and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century: Thomas Secker and the Church of England. Boydell Press. p. 92 note 120. ISBN 978-1-84383-348-2.
  7. ↑ William Thomas Lowndes (1861). The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature: Containing an Account of Rare, Curious, and Useful Books, Published in Or Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, from the Invention of Printing... George Bell & Sons. pp. 1858–.
  8. ↑ Major, Emma. "Neve, Timothy". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19919. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  9. ↑ Thomas F. Mayer (23 November 2000). Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet. Cambridge University Press. p. 372. ISBN 978-0-521-37188-9.
  10. ↑ Mayer, T. F. "Pole, Reginald". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22456. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Phillips, Thomas (1708-1774)". Dictionary of National Biography. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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