‘The Great trappaner of England’: Thomas Violet (1609?–1662), crypto-Jews and Jews during the English Revolution and at the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy

Trepanner (archaic); one who ensnares; an entrapper, decoy, swindler

[Oxford English Dictionary]

 In February 1660 a metalworker was tried at the Old Bailey, London on the charge of producing false foreign coinage.[1]  This was a less serious offence than counterfeiting coin of the realm, for which the penalty was death.  While the metalworker’s evidence cannot be regarded as entirely trustworthy, since he naturally sought to avoid implicating himself, what emerges from these legal proceedings is an unusual glimpse into a criminal underworld.  In particular, a scheme by a London goldsmith called Thomas Violet to extort money from certain Jewish merchants.  Violet’s plan was to entice these traders into buying a great quantity of illicit foreign coins.  Then, having informed the authorities, he would catch them red-handed.  It was a fiendish trap set by a man with a name ‘too sweet for so foul a carcass’.  A trap, what is more, that reaffirmed prejudiced beliefs about Jewish criminality, particularly that Jews were guilty of counterfeiting and clipping coins.

I. THE TACIT READMISSION OF JEWS TO ENGLAND

 There were less than 200 Jews openly living among London’s estimated 375,000 inhabitants at this time, and their vulnerability as a community is sometimes forgotten.  Less than five years previously Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) had arrived from Amsterdam to plead the cause of formal Jewish readmission to England.  Jews had been banished from the country in 1290 during the reign of Edward I, and one of Menasseh’s goals was to turn Protestant England into a safe haven for those Jews fleeing from Catholic Spain and Portugal where the Inquisition operated.

Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657)

 After a petition presented to the Council of State and a published pamphlet pleading the case for Jewish readmission, the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell called a conference at Whitehall.  This met four times in December 1655.  But no legally binding decision was reached.  Indeed, there was no Act of Parliament, no proclamation from Cromwell, no order from the Council of State either welcoming Jews to England or changing their status as a community from aliens (foreigners whose allegiance was due to a foreign state) to denizens (foreigners admitted to residence and granted certain rights).  Publicly Cromwell remained undecided on the issue, although he turned a blind eye to secret Jews worshipping privately in their homes.

 Then on 13 March 1656 legal proceedings were begun against António Rodrigues Robles (c.1620–d.1688), a wealthy merchant of Duke’s Place, London who was accused of being a Spanish national.  England was then at war with Spain, having attempted to seize Spanish colonial possessions in the West Indies.  So the goods and property of enemy Spaniards were liable for confiscation.  In his defence Robles claimed that he was actually a Portuguese Jew who had fled to Spain with his family, where the Inquisition had murdered his father and tortured and crippled his mother.  A number of witnesses were examined and the affair forced other members of London’s clandestine Jewish community out into the open because many either had Spanish origins or had resided there.

 Accordingly, on 24 March 1656 Menasseh ben Israel and six of the community’s leaders petitioned Cromwell.  Among them was Antonio Carvajal (c.1596–1659), of whom more shortly.  They asked for permission to practise Judaism privately in their homes, to go about unmolested and to have a burial place for their dead.  Cromwell referred it to the Council of State’s consideration.  They returned this petition, but seemingly without recording the details of their discussion.

The National Archives, SP 18/125 fol. 173, petition to Cromwell (24 March 1656)

 With Cromwell’s death on 3 September 1658 individuals professing their Judaism, both long-term residents and recent immigrants, were collectively vulnerable.  No longer considered under his personal protection they were once more exposed to full-blown prejudice which intermingled ‘horrid’ accusations revolving around the repulsive if familiar themes of deicide, blasphemy, blood, diabolism, magic and money.  Thus throughout 1659 London merchants trading with Spain voiced their complaints against Jewish competitors – those ‘Horseleeches of every Commonwealth, State, and Kingdom’ – by pamphleteering and petitioning.  There was even a proposal to expel or banish the Jews and appropriate their assets for the state’s use.  Violet’s trap was of a piece with this clamour to push the Jews out the door that Oliver Protector had tacitly opened, and close it shut behind them.  Nor was the ploy revealed by the metalworker at the Old Bailey Violet’s only stratagem.  For another was hatching in his mind.

II. THOMAS VIOLET

 According to the anonymous author of The Great Trappaner of England (1660), a vitriolic pamphlet almost certainly issued in co-operation with London’s Jewish community, Violet was an unrepentant wicked dissembler:

a Common and most Horrid Swearer, a debauched Drunkard, especially upon Sabbath days, an Epicure and an abominable Liar, and guilty of many other enormous and Inhumane Crimes to the great Scandal of our Christian Religion especially amongst the Jews.

 This ‘depraved and degenerating’ man was allegedly born at sea.  He was the son of an Antwerp-born musician and a ‘Moorish’ woman, with a maternal grandfather from Lucca in Tuscany.  Ethnically this made Violet unusual and somewhat of an outsider.  For though he was baptised at Whitechapel, he must be placed on the periphery of what it meant to be English.  This is significant because it has been suggested that one of the ways that ‘Englishness’ was being defined during this period was by asserting what it was not.  So perhaps Violet sought to prove his credentials as an Englishman by targeting people regarded as beyond the margins of ‘Englishness’: Jews.

 As a young man Violet was apprenticed into the Goldsmiths’ Company.  But early in his career he lost his temper with the company elites, calling them ‘fools & knaves’.  Later he was charged in court with a number of offences, including the unauthorised export of gold and silver.  After suffering several weeks imprisonment Violet negotiated a pardon.  In exchange, he initiated legal proceedings against what were most likely his former accomplices – including the man who had lodged and trained him.  Violet hoped to be rewarded for this betrayal with a share of the substantial fines imposed on his victims.  Nonetheless, he was not financially reimbursed by the Crown.  Instead Violet was given the office for surveying, sealing, assaying and regulating gold and silver wire thread.  Beset by guilt he subsequently attempted suicide by swallowing mercury.  His mother, however, intervened saving her son’s life with the aid of a neighbour, doctor and apothecary.

 During the English Civil War (1642-1646) Violet sided with the Royalists.  Having been fined for refusing to financially assist the Parliamentarians he became involved in a Machiavellian plot intended to divide the King’s enemies.  On its discovery Violet was tried by a Council of War as a spy and committed prisoner to the Tower of London.  His estate was seized and sequestered, while a debt due to him was assigned to someone else.  Violet would remain imprisoned in the Tower for nearly four years.

 Following his release, probably during summer 1649, Violet begged Parliament for a pardon and the restoration of his sequestered estate.  Lacking a conventional path of advancement, he became a turncoat.  Pragmatically presenting himself as a patriot, Violet set about publicising both his expertise in catching unlicensed exporters of gold and silver, and his solution for reviving trade – imitating Dutch mercantile practice.  Through this strategy he succeeded in obtaining the patronage of John Bradshaw, regicide and first President of the Council of State.  As a result, Violet was apparently instructed to present his plans to the recently established Council of Trade.  These were published in a book entitled The Advancement of Merchandize (1651).

 Afterwards Violet became involved in determining the fate of three ships, the Samson, Salvador and St. George that had been taken as prize goods near Ostend in December 1652, during the First Anglo-Dutch War.  These were laden with valuable cargos of tobacco, wool and silver.  Following a prosecution initiated by Violet in the High Court of Admiralty the silver aboard these ships was unloaded and taken under armed guard to the Tower.  There over the course of almost a year it was melted, minted and then distributed as coin to the army and navy, thus pumping huge amounts of money into circulation.

 An intriguing aspect of this business was the involvement of crypto-Jews, particularly Antonio Carvajal.  He was a major importer of silver from the West Indies and gold from Cadiz, as well as wine from the Canary Islands.  Named as a witness by Violet, Carvajal gave his sworn testimony at Admiralty on 21 November 1653.  Equally noteworthy was Violet’s subsequent allegation that the ‘great Jew’ Carvajal had told him that the Jews planned to advance Cromwell £1,000,000 if he gave two thousand Jewish merchants and their families liberty to settle in England.

 In June 1660, following King Charles II’s return from exile and triumphant entry into London, Violet presented a new ploy concerning the Jews to the Privy Council.  Adopting an expedient and alarmist tone, condemning Jewish worship at a London synagogue as a public scandal, Violet warned that many men and women were converting to Judaism.  Relying heavily on lawyer William Prynne’s A Short Demurrer to the Jews (1656) as well as legal records and precedents, Violet denounced Jews as a cursed nation of blasphemous Christ killers, comparing their religious rituals to Popish superstitions.  He also raised the spectre of international Jewry, attacked Jewish merchants for supposed underhand tricks, and denounced Jewish tax-gatherers for sucking up wealth like a sponge.  Consequently, Violet proposed ensnaring London’s burgeoning Jewish community within the ‘net of the law’, ransoming them to help pay off the national debt and, ultimately, banishment.

 Several weeks later Violet petitioned certain courtiers who had the King’s ear, imploring them to sign a draft warrant enabling the apprehension of London’s Jews – especially those dwelling in Duke’s Place near Aldgate.  As the Jewish Sabbath was approaching, Violet urgently proposed sending thirty or forty soldiers to seize them at prayer while simultaneously securing their properties, money, jewels, merchandise and account books.  Preying on fears of miscegenation, of Jewish seed adulterating Christian blood, as well as child poverty brought about by economic competition, Violet claimed to speak for all English merchants in the City.  Moreover, he hoped to be rewarded with a tenth of any ransom if the Jews were not granted royal licence to remain in London.

 At the end of November 1660 a humble remonstrance concerning the Jews was addressed to the King.  Echoing many of Violet’s calumnies, giving credence to additional rumours and sharing similarities with his scheme, it articulated the grievances of London merchants.  This remonstrance proposed empowering individuals to make inquisitions about the size, behaviour, wealth, habitations and economic activities of the Jewish community.  Two lists of London Jews that have been dated to winter 1660 suggest some of this information was gathered.  Almost certainly their purpose was to facilitate imposing a fine, levying a tax, seizure of goods, imprisonment or even banishment had Charles II been swayed to follow one of these courses.

British Library, Add. MS. 29,868 fol. 16, list of London Jews in 1660

 On 7 December the Privy Council, having read both a petition from the merchants and tradesmen of London calling for the expulsion of the Jews together with a counter-petition pleading for their continued residence, referred this important matter on the King’s instructions to Parliament.  Ten days later the order was presented to the House of Commons, who postponed discussion until the next morning.  Unfortunately, if there was a debate then it is unrecorded in the journals of the Convention Parliament (dissolved 29 December 1660).

 Informed of developments by a London merchant, Violet hastily published A Petition against the Jews (January 1661).  This proved, however, to be an ill-judged effort to gain royal and parliamentary favour.  For ultimately the Jews’ fate rested with Charles II.  And like Cromwell before him, the King showed himself favourably disposed.  The reason probably dates to his exile in Bruges, for in September 1656 Charles had instructed an army officer to negotiate with some leading Amsterdam Jews.  They made assurances that Menasseh’s mission to Cromwell had been undertaken without their consent.  And they may have secretly contributed money to the depleted royal treasury in return for the promise of Charles’s protection on his accession to the English throne.

As for Violet, he continued regularly petitioning the King and Parliament with a number of proposals that would have offered him lucrative employment if they came to fruition.  These concerned remedying alleged abuses practised by the makers of gold and silver thread, regulating the Mint and customs duty, as well as enforcing the tariff on gold and silver exported by the East India Company.  In May 1661, doubtless in recompense for risking his life serving Charles I and consequently enduring lengthy spells of imprisonment, Violet’s model for regulating the customs was taken into consideration.  Yet nearly eleven months later naught had transpired, prompting him to reflect bitterly that pinning his hopes on the turning political tide had yielded ‘nothing but words’.

 On 5 April 1662 Violet orally declared his will.  Believing he had been defrauded, that he was the victim of broken promises, left with debts amounting to almost £2,000 and a number of creditors grasping for money, his debtors either unwilling or unable to pay him, despairing of being flung at any moment into a debtors’ prison where he would inevitably perish, Violet therefore made ‘a Roman Resolution’: to die like a Roman and ‘so put an end to all worldly troubles’.  Just over a week later he decided to ‘truly state’ his case so as to ‘satisfy all the world of some remarkable passages of God’s Providence upon him’.  Haunted by the sad temptation of suicide, here Violet contemplated the central events of his relatively long life.  But despite the many things on his mind, of the Jews whom he had intended to trap, blackmail, ransom and banish there was no mention.

 Then at 1 o’clock on Sunday, 20 April 1662 Violet poisoned himself.  This time the consequences were fatal.  Yet even in agony he continued writing, begging two qualities from Christ he himself had lacked in life – mercy and forgiveness:

now the pangs of death are on me I ask Christ Jesus forgiveness, forgive me, mercy, mercy, sweet Jesus, Pray for me, pray for me, intercede for me, let thy blood wipe away all my sins, this great crying sin.

Thus the ‘Great trappaner of England’ died by his own hand.

The National Archives, Prob 20/2650, Thomas Violet’s will [detail]

 By early May rival claimants to Violet’s estate had begun contesting the contents of his will.  Protracted legal proceedings ensured the matter remained unresolved until mid-July 1663.  Meanwhile Violet was buried in fulfilment of his wish in the parish church of St. Katherine Creechurch, possibly in the same vault where his mother and father lay interred.  Evidently the nature of his demise must have been kept secret since Christian suicides were customarily denied both funeral rites and burial in consecrated ground.  Twenty-nine months earlier the great bell of St. Katherine Creechurch had tolled to mark the passing of Antonio Carvajal, who had died on 2 November 1659 after an unsuccessful operation to remove what was most likely a kidney or bladder stone (Samuel Pepys famously survived a similar procedure performed by the same surgeon).  Carvajal was laid to rest in the newly acquired Jewish burial ground at Mile End.  The synagogue he had helped establish on Creechurch Lane opposite the Great Gate leading into Duke’s Place was situated no more than one hundred yards from Violet’s corpse.

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[1] A full-length version of this essay was originally published in Michael Braddick and David Smith (eds.), The Experience of Revolution in Stuart Britain and Ireland.  Essays for John Morrill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 210–30. It can be accessed here.