"For Such a Time as This": John Dury,

Jean-Baptiste Stouppe, and Cromwellian Diplomacy”

 

Ronald A. Johnson

Purdue University

 

Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Esther 4:14 (KJV)

 

               In 1654, Presbyterian John Dury and Huguenot Jean-Baptiste Stouppe departed England under orders from Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.  Minister Dury moved throughout Switzerland and Germany.  Reverend Stouppe's mission targeted southern France.  Their political objective was the same: to assess the openness of continental Protestants to cooperating with Cromwellian diplomatic strategy vis-à-vis France.  Dury and Stouppe understood that 1650s England was a divinely-appointed time for Cromwellian diplomacy to assist European Protestants, yet they each held different religious and diplomatic expectations for the Protectorate.  Each man used governmental support to advance his version of the Protestant cause. 

Within the relative few historical works focusing on Cromwellian foreign policy from 1654-1658, some contemporary observers and historians view Interregnum foreign relations as guided either by Providentialism or by political pragmatism.[1]  The government-funded efforts of Dury and Stouppe can provide valuable insight into the complex and sometimes puzzling mélange of Cromwellian Protestantism and diplomacy.  Religious and political determinants of English foreign policy do not necessarily represent a zero-sum game.  This paper demonstrates that an examination of the motivations and actions of these two Protestant ministers on behalf of the Protectorate provide a reasonable means to identify and appreciate the relationship between religious objectives and political interests within Cromwellian diplomacy. 

 

John Dury: Champion of Practical Divinity

               Long before Cromwell came to power, John Dury had established a reputation as an international ecumenist.  For over 30 years, he sustained a narrowly focused theological objective of a European Protestant union founded upon a doctrine of practical divinity, intended to halt the schisms that plagued seventeenth-century Protestantism.  Dury proposed teaching practical Christian tenets over controversial theologies.  He published his Body of Practical Divinity as "an orderly disposition of all divine truths" to instruct Christians "not only to make [them] wise unto salvation, but able also to work all [their] works in God.”[2]  Within his lengthy, and oftentimes trite, treatise, Dury suggested that church leaders could continue their doctrinal debates while the laity focused on evangelization.[3]  He argued that European Protestants could achieve harmony if coreligionists would "reflect upon the Interest of the Cause."[4]

               Dury championed this doctrine of practical divinity in Protestant camps across Europe as early as the 1620s, when he accompanied the English ambassador to Sweden.  The Anglican-Arminian turmoil that permeated England in the 1630s stalled Dury's overtures at cross-channel religious ties.  Dury spent the decade of the English civil wars publishing treatises on the Protestant Cause and petitioning Parliament for public funds.

               Following Cromwell’s accession to Lord Protector, Dury reasoned that God had presented a "seasonable time" to rejuvenate his efforts for a Protestant league.[5]  He expected the Protectorate to lead a European alliance of Reformed churches.  In March 1654, Cromwell gave the minister quasi-diplomatic status and government financial backing to seek support for the Protestant cause and his doctrine of practical divinity.  He appointed Dury to accompany Ambassador John Pell to Switzerland.[6]  Historian Wilbur Abbott argues that this Cromwellian-Swiss strategy followed two tracks.  Pell, from Zurich, “endeavored to detach Swiss Protestant cantons from France” and Dury, “visiting churches, synods and courts...from Switzerland to Amsterdam...strove to build up along the eastern border of France a league of Protestant states headed by England.”[7] 

               Dury’s mission on the Continent resulted in failure.  Despite discussions of a Protestant alliance in dozens of cities and cantons across Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands, after three years, Dury returned to England in 1657 “with empty hands.”  Historian Ruth Kleinman suggests that “wherever he went churches received him with respect and dismissed him with professions of goodwill: no one offered him any firm commitments.”[8]  Abbott also notes that the political and economic rivalries between Evangelical states precluded any theological union around a Protestant Interest.[9]  The failed mission ended any Cromwellian hope of a Protestant alliance and Cromwell ceased funding for Dury's Protestant union built upon “A Body of Practical Divinity.”

 

Jean-Baptiste Stouppe: Huguenot spy-minister

               Unlike John Dury’s life-long commitment to the Protestant Cause, Jean-Baptiste Stouppe displayed no traceable theological commitment to a Protestant union prior to his Cromwellian service.[10]  While still a novice minister in London, Stouppe entered the murky arena of Cromwellian intelligence gathering.  In 1654, as Anglo-Dutch tensions subsided, England's foreign interests oscillated between allying with Spain or with France.  Historians Barbara Kleinman and Robert Paul propose that Cromwell felt a special obligation to help the Huguenot minority in France.[11] 

               During the early 1650s, talk of disaffection and rebellion against French Prime Minister Cardinal Mazarin circulated among French Protestants.  A London agent of a French Protestant rebel suggested to Cromwell the possibility of an English-financed revolt in France and nominated Stouppe for the clandestine mission to ascertain the Huguenots’ revolutionary fervor. [12]  Despite Stouppe having no previous government experience, historian Giorgio Vola describes Stouppe as "the man who could put Cromwell in touch with the turbulent, hot-brained Huguenot circles in the South of France."[13]

               In February 1654, Cromwell summoned Stouppe to discuss English diplomatic objectives vis-à-vis France, and in April, Stouppe set out on his first espionage mission.  Anglican Bishop Gilbert Burnet, a friend of Stouppe, recorded that Stouppe went throughout southern France from Paris talking to French Protestants in the guise of a tourist.[14]  Mazarin’s agents, however, knew of Stouppe’s mission.[15]  Cromwell had indicated to Mazarin that French toleration for Huguenots would help facilitate an Anglo-French treaty, yet historian Robert Paul maintains that if Cromwell could have improved “the position of the Huguenots by going to war with France, he would have probably done so.”[16]  Mazarin, likewise, believed Cromwell’s primary interest to foment a Protestant revolt.  To offset Cromwell’s design, Mazarin granted Huguenots religious and political liberties over and above those guaranteed by the Edict of Nantes in 1598. 

               When Stouppe arrived in southern France, he found that Mazarin’s plan had softened the Huguenots’ will to rebel.  After several arrests by French authorities and consultations with Pell and Dury in Zurich, Stouppe returned to London in July 1654 through Germany and Flanders.[17]  Stouppe's proposal to French Huguenots of a Cromwellian-financed Protestant league was received similarly to that of Dury’s proposition to Swiss and German coreligionists in that their work was appreciated, but not acted upon.  Stouppe reported to Cromwell "of the ease [Huguenots] were then in, and of their resolution to be quiet.”[18]  Cromwell evaluated Stouppe’s assessment and decided against pushing further for a Protestant revolt in France.

               The summer of 1655 found Stouppe in the position of minister to a Huguenot church in St. Martin, Switzerland.  During this same time, the Catholic Duke of Savoy attacked Protestants in nearby towns.[19]  In what is probably his most important written contribution to international Protestant cooperation, Stouppe reveals his theological expectations for Cromwellian diplomacy.  He wrote a series of reports on the persecutions in which he appealed to Cromwell to assist the Savoy Protestants.

               According to Stouppe's reporting, the Duke of Savoy ordered reformed adherents to attend Catholic mass under threat of deportation.  Thousands of Protestants fled to the mountains and, in April 1655, Roman clergy, armed Catholic laymen, and French and Irish troops hunted down the Protestant exiles.  Stouppe put the number of Protestants “barbarously murdered, or that dyed [sic] since by cold, famine or other accidents” at 6,000 and estimated the number of refugees in neighboring Switzerland to be over 15,000.[20] 

               In his published account, entitled A Collection of Papers, Stouppe, for effect, likely exaggerated the level of violence in order to advocate English assistance for the Savoy Protestants by connecting Cromwell's religious self-identity with international expectations of Cromwell’s Christian responsibilities.[21]  He wrote that:

 

“Providence hath rais’d your Highness to this great dignity…[as] the Protector of the people of God in all Nations...The whole Christendome have their eyes fixed on his Highness…and they will say that the Protector of Great Britain, is become the Protector of all those that are persecuted for righteousness sake.”[22] 

 

Stouppe’s narrative referenced appointed kings of the Bible and employed millenarian beliefs to underscore the significance of the moment.  “This all the Israel of God expects from [you] upon this occasion, looking upon your Highness as a Zerubbabel, whom God hath sent for the repairing of his Heirusalem…And who knoweth whether thou art come to such a high dignity for such a time as this?”[23]  If historian Peter Gaunt's analysis is correct, Stouppe's suggestions would have resonated with Cromwell's religious self-understanding.  According to Gaunt, "Cromwell believed that he had been chosen by God for a special duty and...that the biblical story of the Israelites was being replayed."[24]

               Cromwell approved Stouppe's requests, “with a vigour that astonished Europe.”[25]  He declared June 14, 1655, “a day of humiliation and fasting” for the Protestant refugees in Switzerland and ordered preachers “to stir the people to a free and liberal collection for their relief.”[26]  Cromwell wrote to Protestants in Geneva that while churches across England collected offerings on behalf of Savoy Protestants, he would send 2,000 pounds of his own money for immediate assistance.[27]  In addition, at Stouppe's recommendation, Cromwell leveraged treaty negotiations to press Mazarin for French restraint on the Duke of Savoy's punitive actions against persecuted Protestants.[28]  Mazarin complied with Cromwell’s request and the two governments signed a commercial treaty in autumn 1655.

 

Dury and Stouppe: After Cromwellian Diplomacy

               Cromwell’s death in 1658 and the Restoration in 1660 of the Stuart monarchy ended seventeenth-century era of English republicanism.  John Dury did not fare well in the post-Cromwell environment.  He published several treatises, including A Declaration of John Durie, which reads as an apologetic to Charles II against allegations of treason.  In this piece, Dury accused Cromwell of sending him on his continental missions “to gain some reputation amongst the Protestant churches to be a zealot for their interest.”[29]  However, under threat of imprisonment, Dury left England and continued to traverse Europe championing his doctrine of practical divinity and the Protestant cause.  Dury’s message gained polite audience but had little resonance.  Thus, in the end, John Dury is best described as a religious opportunist who welcomed state support for his doctrinal efforts but ultimately misunderstood the political realities of the 1650s.  He wanted to be in the state for financial patronage but not of the state to achieve political objectives. 

               In contrast to Dury, Jean-Baptiste Stouppe changed his vocational focus in the post-Cromwell period.  His intelligence service made it implausible for him to remain in England under Charles II.  He translated books of the popular minister Richard Baxter into French.  In 1672, as a colonel in the French army, Stouppe assisted a successful military campaign against the Netherlands and became commander of Utrecht.  From this post in 1673, Stouppe wrote his last major religious treatise, The Religion of the Dutch.[30]  

Stouppe's writings as a Cromwellian agent disclosed expectations that the Protectorate would assist continental coreligionists.  His on-the-ground analysis influenced Cromwell's decisions to act on behalf of European Protestants.  Nonetheless, Stouppe’s political acuteness checked his religious aspirations when the Protectorate did not possess the means to obtain strategic objectives. 

 

Conclusion

               As stated before, this examination of writings and actions of John Dury and Jean-Baptiste Stouppe reveals that the two ministers viewed the 1650s as a divinely-appointed time for Cromwellian diplomacy to assist European Protestants.  The ministers, however, held different religious and diplomatic expectations for the Protectorate.  Dury expected Cromwell’s government to sanction a theological Protestant unity with little regard for shifting political alliances.  Stouppe encouraged Cromwell to assist continental Protestants where the state held a clear interest and capacity to achieve diplomatic objectives. 

               Furthermore, the analysis of the two ministers’ motivations and actions provide another means to understanding the Protectorate’s balance of religious objectives and political interests.  It is not enough to view Cromwellian diplomacy as strictly a plan of religious zeal or a political strategy cloaked in religion.  The appointed time of the Protectorate was short-lived.  Many religious activists in England, besides Dury and Stouppe, including Cromwell himself, possessed religious desires to assist continental Protestants, however, the political path to achieve such an objective was never well-defined.  Stouppe seemed to accept that within the turbulent political reality of the 1650s, the Protectorate could win some religious objectives while jettisoning others.  Dury did not.