To 'Truck for Trade with Darksome Things': Faithful Teate's 'Epithalamium' (1655) and Cromwell's 'Western Design'

I1. In 1655 a meditative work by Faithful Teate, formerly of County Cavan, but at that time 'Minister of the Gospel' for Sudbury in Suffolk, appeared in print. The text, entitled A Scripture-map of the wildernesse of sin, is described on the title page as being 'the summe of lxiv lecture sermons ... on cantic 8.5.' It comprises two prefaces - one addressed to 'My Dear Friends of the Burrough and Town of sudbury; Together with all Christian Auditors of the ensuing Lectures', and the other to the 'Ingenuous [sic] reader' - the main work itself and finally, with a separate title page, Teate's poem: 'Epithalamium, or a love-song of the leaning-soul'.12. Teate's reputation has been eclipsed by that of his more famous son the poet laureate Nahum Tate, and his poems - both the 'Epithalamium' (which is appended here) and his major work, Ter Tria (1658) - have received no sustained critical attention until now, although they are texts of significant literary and cultural value.2 It is hoped that this article, which will comprise a brief overview of the poet's life and an extended discussion of the 'Epithalamium' in the context of the Western Design (Cromwell's failed attempt to capture the Spanish West Indies in 1655) will help to redress this neglect and introduce Teate to a wider scholarly audience.3. Teate was born in Ballyhaise, County Cavan in about 1626,3 the eldest son of a puritan doctor of divinity also named Faithful (hereafter referred to as Dr Teate) a landowner of planter stock who had been educated at Trinity College Dublin under James Ussher. Dr Teate was forced to flee his home at the time of the 1641 rising during which Protestant settlers were killed by Irish natives embittered by years of discrimination. The 1641 rising was a catastrophic event which plunged the country into nearly twenty years of war. It was also a defining moment in Irish Protestant history and was referred to for generations after as undeniable proof of the barbarity and godlessness of the native Irish. According to Dr. Teate's own deposition of March 1642, on the morning of 23 October 1641, 'fearing of a rebellion and seeing them begin to arise', he set out for the refuge of Dublin with his eldest son and namesake, the future author of Ter Tria.4 It appears that he was forced to leave his wife and other children behind in Ballyhaise, and although they eventually joined him in Dublin, they suffered 'ill usage' at the hands of the insurgents.5 A pamphlet, published in London to alert English readers to the situation in Ireland, elaborates the story to suggest that God had shown 'extraordinary providence' to Dr Teate. The author claims that on the road to Dublin, exhausted, bleeding and near death, Dr Teate 'came to a house where accidentally an Irish Chirurgion [surgeon] was, who formerly never had reported thither ...' The surgeon attended Dr Teate's injuries, allowing him to continue his journey. Similarly, according to the same report, Dr Teate's wife, travelling separately with her infant son, and both being close to starvation, 'found a little Irish Mader (drinking vessel) full of Butter-milke ... whereby the baby was preserved alive.'6 Over fifty years later, William Turner used the story to demonstrate the 'existence of good angels' in The Complete History of Remarkable Providences.74. Once in Dublin, Dr Teate was appointed provost of Trinity College, where he enrolled the young Faithful. Dr Teate had most likely been offered the position because his hardline puritanism agreed with the politics of those who had appointed him, the then Lord Justices Borlase and Parsons, who were known supporters of Parliament in the dispute with the king that was to lead to civil war in England the following year. Dr. Teate's political views were eventually to cost him his position at Trinity College when the outbreak of the English civil war forced all Irish men to declare for Parliament or the king. By this time, Dublin was in the hands of the Royalists under the lord deputy Ormonde, and in August 1642, Teate's patron, Parsons, was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, along with three other parliamentary supporters. …

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