ABSTRACT
The Spanish news complemented the earlier Relation from Valladolid by giving an account of the opening ceremonies of English College at Seville, while the news from Holland described a gathering of concerned Englishmen in Amsterdam to discuss the state of affairs in England. In some respects the Philopater was an attempt at damage-control after failure of the Spanish Armada. The Philopater argues specifically that the recusants and their clergy were occupied in spiritual formation and virtuous living; they were not responsible for political action. In the Philopater Persons insisted on the emptiness of English religious forms, dangerous attachment to a merely external structure of social cohesion, a world where people were kept in order by keeping them from the truth. An analysis of the rhetorical strategies of Philopater should begin with choice of pseudonym. Person's offers in the Philopater and its supporting pamphlets, a consistent interpretation of Burghley's practices both in the edict itself and in his religious policy generally.
