‘Published by Her Majesties Command’: Sermons Preached before Catherine of Braganza, Queen Dowager, 1685–88

Abstract This article argues that the sermons preached before Catherine of Braganza as queen dowager in her chapel royal and later published by her command demonstrate that she actively helped to shape the religious politics of the reign of the Catholic king James II. It would be easy to assume that, as queen dowager, Catherine played a very minor role during her final years in England before returning to her homeland of Portugal in 1692. Yet Catherine’s widowhood gave her the opportunity to create the position and role of queen dowager with boundaries that suited her own agenda, and which gave her the chance to promote a certain style of Catholicism and Catholic activism in ways that had not always been possible for her during the reign of her husband, Charles II. Catherine’s time as queen dowager was marked by political and religious uncertainty, yet her legacy as an active promoter of Catholicism has been missed, despite the evidence of her agency through ordering the publication of these sermons. The sermons reveal the extent of Catherine’s important role in the encouragement of Catholicism through her diverse choice of chaplains and in the advancement of particular styles of Catholicism through patronising their publications, and uncover what her views may have been on aspects of contemporary religion and politics. The article, therefore, shows that Catherine played a much more significant role in this than has previously been credited to her, and she gained more agency as queen dowager than she had as queen consort.