Hampton Court and Burntisland: King James VI & I and the Request for a New Translation of the Scriptures 

 An Address given at the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto 

On Tuesday, 6 December 2011

 By the Reverend Doctor William Craig 

 After that, he moved his Majesty, that there might be a new translation of the Bible, because, those which were allowed in the reigns of Henry the eight, and Edward the sixth, were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the Original. 

‘He’ was John Rainolds, one of the four ministers who had been summoned by King James VI & I to appear at a conference at Hampton Court Palace in January 1604 and present the case for further Reformation in the Church of England. His motion appears to have been the spark that led James’ ordering a new translation of the Bible, which was completed and published sometime in 1611. 

   This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of this translation, known as the Authorized Version or the King James Version (and occasionally as the St James Version), surely the best-known and best-beloved English version of the Scriptures. But before we are finished we will have found that in one place the 400th anniversary of the beginning of the KJV was celebrated a decade ago. 

  In the past few years much has been written about the making of the King James Version. In 2001 came Alistair McGrath’s In the beginning, and Benson Bobrick’s Wide as the Waters: the story of the English Bible and the revolution it inspired which were both overshadowed in 2003 (unfairly, I think) by Adam Nicolson’s widely popular God’s Secretaries; the same year saw David Daniell’s massive The Bible in English: its history and influence. 2010 saw Gordon Campbell’s Bible: the story of the King James Version, 1611-2011, Derek Wilson’s The people's Bible : the remarkable history of the King James version, and The King James Bible after 400 years : literary, linguistic, and cultural influences, edited by Hannibal Hamlin and Norman W. Jones. In 2011 came David Norton’s The King James Bible : a short history from Tyndale to today. This reference to Tyndale reminds us that the history of the English Bible did not begin in 1611, a useful corrective to the naïve error that the KJV is ‘the original’ and other translations have changed it. 

   With all these books, I don’t need to tell you the story of the English Bible; I do want to tell you something about the moment in 1604 when John Rainolds proposed a new translation of the Bible. And I’ll begin with a word about the Conference called by James I [1]  at Hampton Court. 

  Now, as the story of the Hampton Court Conference is usually told, King James conceived the idea because of a petition he received while on his journey from Edinburgh to London (he left on April 5th and officially entered the Tower of London on May 11th). This is the famous Millenary Petition, so called because it claimed to have the support of “more than a thousand of your majesty's subjects and ministers”. It is often said that the petition bore a thousand signatures, but there is no evidence of this. James, we are told, graciously received this petition and agreed to call the representatives of the hierarchy and the puritans "to discuss the general state of the English Church in a conference to be presided over by the King" [2]. 

   Since we need to get on to talking about the Bible, we cannot discuss this petition in any detail: it is enough to note that neither in any official documents nor in the contemporary printed accounts of James’ progress to London is there any mention of this particular petition or of the King’s response to it. In fact the first clear reference to a petition claiming the support of a thousand ministers comes in a responses written in the name of the University of Oxford, apparently written in the summer of 1603 and published in October. It is perfectly possible to read the history of the conference as the King’s own idea and his own usual response to matters that needed settlement. 

  James’ practice of kingship in Scotland shows that he was used to dealing with religious questions by means of conferences in which he himself took part. His relation with the Church of Scotland differed greatly from that of the English sovereigns and their Church. He sat and took part in meetings of the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk in a way one can hardly imagine Elizabeth I doing in the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. On several occasions, moreover, he had held meetings with ministers and his own counsellors to settle Kirk business. As the Scottish historian A. R. MacDonald has pointed out that, "the king gathering a representative group of ministers to discuss important issues was to become a common means of trying to achieve consensus and it was an idea which he was to carry into his English reign, most notably in the Hampton Court Conference of 1604". In fact it would have been surprising if James had not thought of calling a conference when he saw that the affairs of the English Church needed his attention. 

   No one in England seems to have been shy about offering advice on England’s situation and how to improve it. As he wrote later, he had “daily” received "informations” of scandals in the church. From the accounts of his journey south and from the State Papers we know of at least seven petitions that were in part concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. 

   Nor were these his only informations: almost as soon as Elizabeth died and James was proclaimed the Archbishop Whitgift sent Thomas Nevill, dean of Canterbury, to assure the king of the loyalty of the bishops and clergy, to know what he commanded in Ecclesiastical affairs, and to commend the Church of England to his favour and protection. Whitgift and some of the Bishops, particularly Bancroft of London, are said to have feared that the King would "favour the New Discipline", and make changes in church government and liturgy. At the same time a certain "Northamptonshire gentleman who was zealous for the presbyterian party," Lewis Pickering by name, rode to Edinburgh to meet the King. Pickering came swiftly, but it is not known "how far and with what answer he moved the king in that cause". He was disappointed. The King told Neville "that he would uphold the Government of the late Queen, as she left it". This is the first report of James's intention to uphold the English Church as it had been left him, which was to be repeated several times over the next year. So James was aware of the divisions and disagreements in the English Church even before he left Scotland. But there is another bit of advice which is often overlooked, one which seems to have had more influence than any of the petitions, a treatise called Certain Considerations touching the better pacification and edification of the Church of England presented by Francis Bacon soon after the accession. There are more echoes of this tract in the records of Hampton Court than of the Millenary Petition. 

   But we cannot tell the story of the conference in detail. For our business today is with the decision to proceed with the revised translation of the Bible, and for that all that we note is that not one of the petitions or informations James received had a complaint about the translation of the Bible. That is not to say that everyone was happy, though. 

   From the reign of Elizabeth I two translations of scripture were available in England. One, based on a version prepared for the English exiles in the reign of Queen Mary, had been published at Geneva in 1560. It was the first English edition to introduce verse numeration. It also had compendious notes of a Calvinist flavour. In the reign of Elizabeth I this Geneva Bible obtained great popularity in England, although it lacked royal and ecclesiastical authorization. The other had been produced by Archbishop Parker in co-operation with other bishops; it was revision of the Great Bible of 1539. This new translation, Bishops’ Bible, published in 1568 and revised in 1572, was the one ordered to be read in Church. It contained no notes. A W Pollard points out in Records of the English Bible, “The lack of agreement between the Bible which men read in their houses and that which they heard in church must have caused annoyance to both parties.” Still, it is rather hard to find complaints on this score. Hugh Broughton, whom David Norton calls “a man to whom vituperation was second nature and vilification first,” said that the Bishops’ Bible “might well give place to the Al-koran pestered with lies” and that, “When gentlemen find such matters in their Bibles they see no hope of knowledge, and some have turned to deny God to be the author of it.” At some point in Elizabeth’s reign a bill was prepared for Parliament calling for a new translation, “but with whom it originated appears not to be known.” Still, it would seem that the translation of Scripture was on no one’s mind. Until, that is, the 16th of January 1604, when John Rainolds made his request at Hampton Court. 

  What I have to say about this follows the semi-official account of the conference compiled by William Barlow, Dean of Chester and later Bishop of Rochester and of Lincoln in turn. This account, The Sum and Substance of the Conference has been accused of bias and falsification of the record; those of you who have read Nicolson’s God’s Secretaries may recall his blunt statement that “Barlow was lying”. Criticism of Barlow, appeared very early, and was given new life in 1961 in an article by Mark Curtis, on which it appears that Nicolson’s views are based (though it is hard to tell, since God’s Secretaries is not annotated). We cannot take the time now for a proper vindication of William Barlow, but a few points should be made.

   The first is that the complaints of bias and sharp practice all come from writers who were not present at the conference; they are based on hearsay at best. The second is that Nicolson’s argument, which is also Mark Curtis’ position, is that instead of Barlow we should accept another, anonymous account of the conference. This account, which is undated and whose origin is unknown, relates that at the beginning of the conference King James berated the bishops and demanded that they “should deliver upon the Saturday following what they thought in their consciences was needful to be reformed in the church of God.” and that the bishops pleaded that nothing be changed, a plea the king rejected. This account agrees with one other anonymous account but not with eye-witness accounts written during and just after the conference by Tobie Matthew, Bishop of Durham, and by James Montagu, dean of the Chapel Royal. These agree with Barlow that the King spoke graciously to the bishops as the conference opened. I can see no intrinsic reason for preferring an anonymous manuscript of no known provenance to the agreement of three known eye-witnesses, especially when the anonymous source is as badly written as it is, and gives the impression that it has itself been put together from a variety of sources by someone who really didn’t know what was going on. I go into this matter in far greater detail in my doctoral dissertation, and hope that those few comments are enough for the present. 

  With one more general comment about the conference we can get back to the Bible. I said at the outset that John Rainolds was one of four ministers whom James summoned to make the case for further Reformation. The others were Dr. Sparks; Mr. Knewstubbs, and Mr. Chadderton. The other participants in the conference were the Archbishop of Canterbury and eight other bishops: the Dean of the Chapel Royal and six deans of Cathedrals, and two theologians. On the first day, in the presence of the Privy Council, the King met with the bishops and deans and the four ministers were left sitting outside. It was at this session that most of the conference’s work was accomplished. On the second day the four ministers met the King along with the bishops of London and Winchester and the deans; few of their suggestions were accepted. On the third day the bishops and the King finished up their work and the four ministers were then summoned in to hear what had been decided and promise to conform. If, as we are usually told, this conference had been meant to be a debate between two sides, or to be anything like the sort of conference that was called for in the Puritan literature, James went about it in a very funny way. It is no wonder that within two years radical puritans were calling for another conference, since what James had given did not satisfy him. 

   On the second day of the conference John Rainolds made the suggestion of a new translation of the Bible. According to Barlow he gave three examples of mistranslation : 

 For example, first, Galatians 4. 25 the Greek word ευσοιχει, is not well translated, as now it is, Bordereth, neither expressing the force of the word, nor the Apostle’s sense, nor the situation of the place. Secondly, Psalm, 105. 28, they were not obedient; The Original being, They were not disobedient. Thirdly, Psalm, 106. verse 30. Then stood up Phineas and prayed, the Hebrew hath Executed judgement. 

 These are all from the Great Bible of Henry and Edward’s time; the Bishops’ Bible agrees with it in the first case, in some editions it seems to have corrected these faults in the Psalms, but not in that of 1602. Pollard, holding that Barlow is ‘highly prejudiced’ says that 

 We cannot, therefore, feel sure that Rainolds ignored the Bishops' Bible by referring only to the versions allowed in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, in the rather insulting way that the text represents. The renderings to which he objected are found also in the Bishops' Bible, and if Rainolds passed over this, either as a mere reprint, or as not formally 'allowed' (i. e. approved), he was needlessly provocative. 

 We cannot accept this, however. For here the Anonymous Account agrees completely with Barlow: there is no evidence anywhere of other examples of errors. Norton makes a better job of it. 

This is not one of the topics that Rainolds had said he would raise, and, on the surface, the argument is bad because he has cited nothing later than the Great Bible … and there were of course two more recent versions. Looked at more closely, the argument is subtle: he has not attacked the Bishops’ Bible and therefore the Church establishment; but these three readings remain in the 1602 Bishops’ Bible and are corrected in the Geneva Bible … Rainolds probably hoped that his suggestion for a new translation would be dismissed and the much simpler solution followed , adoption of Geneva as the official Bible of the Church. 

 Though our knowledge of the Conference at Hampton Court is limited and we will never really know what Rainolds had in mind, Norton’s suggestion makes sense. 

 Barlow gives the impression that the proposal was given a ho-hum by the bishops and deans:

 To which motion, there was, at the present, no gainsaying, the objections being trivial and old, and already, in print, often answered; only, my Lord of London well added, that if every man’s humour should be followed, there would be no end of translating.

   (One might wonder what Bishop Bancroft would say of all the versions we have to choose from today.) But if the bishops took it in stride, the King’s interest was piqued: 

… his Highness wished, that some especial pains should be taken in that behalf for one uniform translation (professing that he could never, yet, see a Bible well translated in English; but the worst of all, his Majesty thought the Geneva to bee) … 

 At once he enunciated a scheme for the work. It was to be done 

by the best learned in both the Universities, after them to be reviewed by the Bishops, and the chief learned of the Church; from them to be presented to the Privy-Council; and lastly to be ratified by his Royal authority; and so this whole Church to be bound unto it, and none other: 

 This is perhaps the oddest moment in the whole exchange. If the account is accurate—and no other account gives us reason for serious doubt—it seems that James had already had the project of Bible translation in mind. The answer lies in Scotland. 

  The Scots had adopted the Geneva Bible in 1579, in an edition published in Edinburgh by Andrew Arbuthnot with a grandiose dedicatory letter from the Commissioners of the Kirk to James. That October the Scots Parliament enacted that everyone with property above a certain value were to have a Bible and psalm book in their hands, though the edition is not specified. James was then thirteen years old. 

  We saw that some in England wanted a new translation of the Bible, and some wanted the Geneva version made official. In Scotland, however, where the Geneva Version was officially in use, there were also calls for a revision. In May 1601 at a General Assembly meeting at Burntisland Parish Church in Fife—a meeting set for St Andrews moved because the King had been hurt in a hunting accident—some Commissioners said

 that there was sundrie errours that merited to be correctit in the vulgar translation of the Bible, and of the Psalmes in metre; … in the which heads the Assemblie has concludit as followis: First, Anent the translation of the Bible: That every one of the brethren who has best knowledge in the languages, imploy their travails in sundry parts of the vulgar translation in the Byble, that needs to be mendit, and to conferre the same together at the Assemblie [3]. 

 The official record says nothing more, nor does it report any comment from King James, who was present at the meeting. But John Spottiswoode tells us more in his History of the Church of Scotland: 

 After this a proposition was made for a new translation of the Bible, and the correcting of the Psalms in metre. His majesty did urge it earnestly, and with many reasons did persuade the undertaking of the work, showing the necessity and the profit of it, and what a glory the performing thereof should bring to this Church. Speaking of the necessity, he did mention sundry escapes in the common translation, and made it seen that he was no less conversant in the Scriptures than they whose profession it was; and when he came to speak of the Psalms, did recite whole verses of the same, showing both the faults of the metre and the discrepance from the text. It was the joy of all that were present to hear it, and bred not little admiration in the whole Assembly, who approving the motion did recommend the translation to such of the brethren as were most skilled in the languages ; and the revising of the Psalms particularly to Mr Robert Pont ; but nothing was done in the one or the other [4]. 

 Now Norton quotes this much and then goes on to write of the King’s work in revising the Psalms; omitting an important sentence. As Spottiswoode said, nothing was done in Scotland about the decision of the General Assembly; no mention made of it appears in the records of the following meeting. But Spottiswoode goes on: 

Yet did not the king let this his intention fall to the ground, but after his happy coming to the crown of England set the most learned divines of that Church a-work for the translation of the Bible ; which, with great pains and to the singular profit of the Church, they perfected. 

 From what Spottiswoode says you might believe that James and not Dr Rainolds had been the first mover in the new translation. On Spottiswoode’s side we can consider that he had most likely been present at the meeting and that his history “was written at the behest of James, who gave Spottiswoode access to the official records” [5]  The other sources say nothing about the King’s interest in the question of translation, however.

  Once again, as so often in the story of King James and his Bible, we have far too little to build on. Nonetheless, the way he pounced on Rainolds’ suggestion suggests that he had been pondering the question at least since Burntisland. Though Rainolds may have made the suggestion at Hampton Court, it was already the King’s project. 

  It is hardly a surprise, then, to find that while most of the world is celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the KJV in 2011, Burntisland Parish Church in Scotland had a festival in May 2001 to mark four hundred years since the King and General Assembly ‘had agreed to begin work on a new English translation of the Bible’. I would hardly go so far as websites as to jump straight from Burntisland to the KJV and say that “the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, meeting in 1601, decided to publish the new authorized or 'King James' version of the Bible”. Still, Spottiswoode’s account of the King’s interest I the matter suggests that we should not leave Burntisland out of the story. 

  There I must stop; many other things I should like to say would not fit. Thank you for your welcome and your kind patience.

Notes:

I apologize that it has not been possible to bring all the notes to this blog. I reproduce some that are of interest,

1. Please forgive me for not always saying James VI and I, which is the correct style, since his coming to the throne of England was a personal union of the crowns and not a united kingdom. Though James did want a real union he continued as king of Scotland and England. I plead that the conference of 1604 was concerned with the Church of England, of which James I was the supreme governor. Besides, when I see a book called James VI and I, I always think it’s a personal memoir, James the Sixth and I…

2. This fact is contained in almost every book on the period. See, for example, G. V. Akrigg, Jacobean Pageant (London, Hamish Hamilton), p. 304; Bryan Bevan, King James VI & I of Scotland and England (London, Rubicon Press: 1996), p. 84; Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Berkley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 449 and "The Jacobean Religious Settlement", p. 36; Kenneth Fincham, "Early Stuart Polity", in Seventeenth Century Oxford, History of the University of Oxford, vol. IV, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ) pp 179-210, p. 183; Gardiner, History of England, vol. 1. p. 148; A. E. McGrath, In the Beginning, New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 150; John Strype, The Life and Acts of the most Reverend father in God, John Whitgift, DD, the third and last Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (London: for T. Horne et al., 1718), Book IV, Chapter XXXI; J. R. Tanner, English Constitutional Conflicts of the Seventeenth Century, 1603-1689 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962) pp. 26-7; D. H. Willson King James VI and I, p. 201. In "The Ecclesiastical Policy of King James I", JBS 24 (April 1985) pp. 169-207, p 171, Fincham and Lake say more cautiously that the conference "was prompted, it seems, by the request in the Millenary Petition for such a meeting".

3. 'Appendix: 1601, May', Acts & Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland, 1560-1618 (1839), pp. 1069-1098. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=59021  Date accessed: 30 May 2011.

4. The History Of The Church Of Scotland (Edinburgh, for the Bannantyne Club, 1847) iii. 98-99.

5. Maurice Lee Jr.. “Archbishop Spottiswoode as Historian,”  The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 13. No 1 (Nov. 1973), p. 138

An Introduction to Barlow's The Summe and Substance of the Conference.

5. The Harleian Account of the Conference, Part i

The last section called for an examination of the Anonymous Account: since the blog format seems to favour shorter postings, I have taken the opportunity to divide this section.

Since Mark Curtis’ claimed that the anonymous Harleian Account of the Hampton Court Conference as necessary for establishing a reliable account of the conference, which “at all important points … is consistent with the rest of the evidence,”[1] it would be useful to examine the document.
Curtis's claim has been challenged. Frederick Shriver called the Harleian Account far too short and far too thin to replace the Summe and Substance, and said that although "its decidedly 'lay' character provides a glimpse of the conference expressed in an entirely different tone from Barlow's circumspectly official one", its value is only supplementary. He also questioned the claim that it was consistent with the rest of the evidence when he noted that it differs from other accounts: "Sources other than the 'Anonymous Account' -- notably Carleton's letter -- indicate no significant cleavage between the king and his bishops at the end of the first day's conference".[2] More recently, Peter White has suggested that at one point the Harleian account obscures the king's vindication of John Overall's statement about predestination, and at this point becomes incoherent.[3] White follows Barlow's account throughout his discussion, and in a later piece says that "there is no real substitute for Barlow's account of the proceedings".[4] On the other hand, Adam Nicolson, in the popular and widely read God's Secretaries,[5] does not obviously follow any single account, but says that Barlow "was lying", calls his account "a carefully slanted version of events", and clearly includes the Harleian among accounts by "others, more objective (their identity has never been established), taking notes at the same time".[6]
So an examination of the Harleian account is necessary. It is anonymous: what reason is there for believing that it is the work of someone who was taking notes at the conference? The most important evidence for this question will come from comparing it to accounts known to be by eye-witnesses. What of the internal evidence: was this the work of one witness, or have several oral or written reports been used? Several documents suggest that different accounts –or what nowadays would be called different spins were appearing even before the conference ended. If several accounts were used, how were they used? These questions do not appear in the literature on Hampton Court; questions that need to be asked before a judgment can be made on the reliability of the Harleian Account or charges made against Barlows.
The Harleian account is headed "A declaration of the conference had before the King's most excellent Majesty and divers of his honourable privy council", but it does not say who made the declaration, or when, or where.[7] It should be noted that another report in the same group, the second Anonymous Account, also uses the phrase "a declaration of the conference" in this way.
After this heading, the account opens with a list of the participants, beginning with the council:

... to wit: The Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Nottingham, the Earl of Devonshire, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Cecil, the Lord Worcester, Lord Northampton, the Lord Chief Justice at Kingston (sic) between the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London, Bishop of Winchester, Bishop of Durham, Bishop of Carlisle, Bishop of St Davids, Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Peterborough, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of Bristowe [sic], with the Deans of Paul's, Westminster, Windsor, Worcester, Winchester, Chester, Christchurch, Sarum, of the Chapel, on the one side, and Doctor Sparke, Doctor Rainolds, Doctor Field, Mr Chaderton, Mr Knewstubs on the other side.

Some of the names in this list merit comment. First, this is the only account which gives a list of the Privy Counsellors present at the Conference, and among them “Lord Northampton" is named. As we have noted, there was no "Lord Northampton" at the time of the conference at Hampton: Henry Howard was created Earl of Northampton on 13 March 1604. Thus the Harleian Account was written after that date:, since notes taken at the conference would have referred to him as Lord Henry Howard. This suggests that the author of the Harleian Account might not have been using his own notes but some notes made after the conference. Barlow. who refers to Howard in his account, refers to him as “the Lord Henry Howard, now Earl of Northampton.”[8]
This list also mentions "the Lord Chief Justice at Kingston," and the "Bishop of Bristowe" (that is, Bristol). Usher marks the first title "sic": it is most likely an error for the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. It seems likely that the writer was not working from personal memory and notes and was not familiar with the participants. The "Bishop of Bristowe" is a prelate nowhere else mentioned in connection with the conference at Hampton Court; it was noted above why .It is possible but unlikely that the Bishop of Bristol was present: no other account mentions that he took part in the conference. On the other hand, he was named to the committee appointed by the Privy Council after the conference to deal with the planting of preachers in Ireland.[9] Again, both of these notices are the kind of error that suggest the writer of the account was working from someone else's material.[10]
Other indications occur in the Harleian Account which call its integrity and authenticity into question. First there are odd expressions and errors of fact. Then there are two longer passages that show a clear relationship to other accounts, if not dependence on a particular source. We will begin with the odd expressions and errors of fact.
There are, for example, two sentences in the account which break off abruptly and for no apparent reason. The first of these comes in the discussion on the second day about the use of the surplice:

His Majesty replied that before the times of popery such white garments were used in divine service of God by the ministers, whereunto Doctor Reynolds answered that there is indeed mention of such garments used in the time of the fathers Hierom and Chrysostom (as I remember) but as then and in those parts, white garments were the usual colour of dignity in civil use, as well as in Ecclesiastical use, and that those so used in divine ministration were different from the other in daily use, only in more ——. And also some allegation was made that the garments were partly paganish.[11]

At the dash after the words "only in more" Usher notes, "So in the MS". But why does it break off? Might it not be that the writer came to a problem in his source, and not knowing what it was about simply jumped to the next clear sentence: "And also some allegation was made that the garments were partly paganish"? At a later point the narrative again breaks off.[12] In reply to Montagu's argument that the sign of the cross could be added to baptism as the cup of wine and bitter herbs had been added to the Passover meal, Reynolds is quoted as replying:

that herbs were prescribed in the word, and the cup of wine he thought necessarily implied in the appointment of that supper, for that it might not be thought that God would prescribe a supper to be had of bread and meat, but that he would x x x

What has happened here? Has the material simply run out, or is the writer somehow confused? The narrative resumes in the next line with a new topic for discussion: "4. Then his Majesty requiring Dr Reynolds to proceed to the 4th matter by him propounded touching the discipline ..." The "4." should also be noted: none of the other headings are numbered in this way in the account.
There are other expressions which may simply be copyists' errors, but should nonetheless be noted. In the account of Bancroft's interruption of Rainolds on the second day, the Harleian account at one point uses the expression "trunck gowns".[13] This is clearly a mistake for "turkey", which is found in all other reports of Bancroft's outburst, and which the Harleian account used a few lines before this point.[14] There is just the possibility that this error shows the compiler's ignorance, but it could have been made by Usher. Further on, when the Harleian Account reports Rainolds' objections to the Article concerning postbaptismal sin, it states that "he [Rainolds] declared that in the Article 13 (?) it is there said that the Baptized may fall from grace, and commit sin..."[15] The question mark shows that Usher found the number 13 in the manuscript:[16] the words quoted are in fact from Article 16.[17] It is more likely that such an error would have been made by the writer of the Harleian Account than by Rainolds, since it is hard to imagine a scholar of Rainolds's stature not being familiar with the Thirty-nine articles or at least checking them before this conference. Once again the text suggests a writer who was not familiar with the material, and was probably working from someone else's account. Is the figure "13" likely to be mistaken for "16"? A little further on, when the Harleian Account reports Rainolds' request that the Lambeth Articles be added to the Thirty-nine, he is said to have described them as "the 9 articles concluded upon in a conference before the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury about a year ago" The Lambeth Articles were in fact drawn up in response to a theological dispute at Cambridge in 1595, nine years before the conference at Hampton Court, and were made public at that time. Peter White remarks that "Reynolds is of course wrong as to the date of the Lambeth Articles".[18] We must ask whether this is the kind of error someone of Rainolds's position is likely to have made. Several men were present who had taken part in the controversy of 1595 and who knew quite well what had happened and when: though Rainolds himself had not been involved he could hardly have been so ignorant of the case that he thought the articles were only a year old. This error must have been made by the relatively uninformed compiler of the account, since a copyist would hardly write "a year" instead of "nine years ago".
Further on comes another little error that might also be a later copyist’s or printer's error, and of no importance, and is only noted because so many such errors appear in this text and might be another point where a compiler has misunderstood his source. Rainolds is said to quote a verse "alleged" by papists to ascribe virtue to the sign of the cross: Per crucis hoc signum fugiat per nil omne malignum. This verse was well known: Hutton of York quoted it to show that the cross was "much abused in popery" in his notes for the conference.[19] However, in the form quoted here it makes no sense: it should be, Per crucis hoc signum fugiat procul omne malignum. It makes more sense to suggest that a compiler has erred than that Rainolds would have made such a mistake as this. Indeed, in the report of his conference with John Hart in 1584, Rainolds is seen to be well aware of various devotions to the cross. The per crucis verse was not mentioned in that debate.[20]

Notes

[1] Ibid, p. 3.
[2] Shriver, "James I and the Puritans", pp. 64f, 69.
[3] White, Predestination, policy and polemic, p. 147
[4] White "The Via Media of the Jacobean Church", p. 218.
[5] Nicolson, God's Secretaries, Chapter III.
[6]Ibid., pp 48f. Another recent work on the history of the AV, McGrath's In the Beginning, does not provide much narrative of the conference: what is provided seems to be based on the letter of Toby Matthew to Archbishop Hutton.
[7] Usher, Reconstruction, ii. 341.
[8] Barlow, The Summe and Substance, p. 50
[9] SPD James I 14/6/20
[10] Two further points about the list may be mentioned briefly. First, Northampton is the only member of the council referred to as "Lord N." rather than "the Lord N." Secondly, the earls of Nottingham and Devonshire are given that style while Worcester and Northampton are called "Lord". Neither of these points is much more than an oddity, but taken with the others, they increase the doubt that our writer was very familiar with his material.
[11] Usher, Reconstruction, i. 349
[12] Ibid., ii.351
[13] Ibid, ii. 344.
[14] Ibid, Barlow, Summe and Substance, E2r, P2r.
[15] I am assuming that the question mark is Usher's: in two other cases where there are textual oddities in the MS, Usher notes them.
[16] Here we see our need for an edition of the other MS.
[17] Barlow, Summe and Substance, D4v, has "Art. 16. the words are these: After we have received the Holy Ghost, wee may depart from Grace".
[18] Peter White, "The Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered", P&P 101 (1983), p. 38 n.
[19] Cardwell, History of Conferences, p. 157
[20] John Rainolds, The summe of the conference betwene John Rainolds and John Hart touching the head and the faith of the Church (London: John Wolfe, 1584).

An Introduction to William Barlow's The Summe and Substance of the Conference

4. The Reaction to Barlow’s The Summe and Substance of the Conference (II)

Not much attention seems to have been paid to Jacob’s complaints about The Summe and substance of the conference at the time, but his objections were not forgotten. They reappear throughout the seventeenth century and after, and when they appeared they were answered. The controversies were long-winded and perhaps do not need to be repeated in much detail to show the one thing that is important: that there was and could not be a satisfactory conclusion.
In the 1650s Thomas Fuller and Peter Heylyn fought over Fuller's report that some writers had complained that Barlow, the "professed adversary" of the puritans, had set forth the conference "partially" and to their disadvantage. , even though Fuller had only said that others complained, but not that they complained justly; rather he thought they had no case.[1] Despite this, Fuller's remark has been interpreted just as Heylyn took it: the original DNB entry on Barlow remarks that Fuller 'to some extent' endorses the complaint against him. In this exchange, Peter Heylyn also asked how it was, if Barlow had set out the conference partially, that none of the ministers at the conference, or anyone speaking for them, ever demonstrated its "partiality and falsehoods", and that Barlow's book had never been “convicted of any such crime as it stands charged with, in any one particular passage to this very day".[2]
Henry Hickman, a controversialist who wrote much in defence of non-conformity soon found an answer: the puritan ministers never put out an account of the conference in opposition to Barlow's because "it was an evil time, and the prudent might think themselves obliged to be silent". While this is a trivial point, other accounts were known, and it may be asked why these were not put forward in opposition. Hickman also related that Barlow on his deathbed did "with grief complain of the wrong he had done" to Rainolds and his colleagues, by "misreporting some of their answers, and certain passages therein contained". Rather than explain then where he had this story, Hickman promised "to give a satisfactory account to any person of ingenuity that shall desire it".[3]
As might be expected, Heylyn demanded this 'satisfactory account'.[4] Hickman’s account is convoluted, to say the least. He wrote that for the truth of the story, "M. H. did consult Mr. Sparks now with the Lord." Mr Sparks had answered through "his friend Mr. J. M.," that he remembered correctly he had heard it from "Mr H. J., a very aged Minister". Hickman also claimed that Mr Sparks, son of Dr. Sparks, had spoken "with great indignation of the abuse put upon either his Father or Dr. Reynolds" when Barlow was mentioned. He further claimed that a Mr Pierce and his friends and a Mr Wilkinson of Waddesdon could support the story.[5] The Mr Sparks "now with the Lord" is neither Thomas Sparke nor his son but another, a Noel Sparkes. This whole account is like Sir Philip Sidney's Mother Miso, who said of a story, "I will tell you now, what a good old woman told me, what an old wise man told her, what a great learned clerk told him, and gave it him in writing; and here I have it in my prayer book".[6]
Heylyn retorted that "the man himself is dead, from whom we are to take our greatest light in so dark a business", and that the whole story "may be one of those pious frauds devised by the Pamphleter ... for imposing as well upon the dead as upon the living". After the dead man, the story rests on two men known only by their initials, and "as easy to be found, and as honest folk as Nicholas Nemo, in Utopia, or Madam Charity of the Oudemnon street in Mantines, or Doctor H. H. in the Margin of the Libel which is now before us'". Further, he asked why this story "should lie concealed (like a spark raked up in ashes) five and fifty years, and then blaze out on a sudden, when it was not thought of". Finally, he said that he himself had known Thomas Sparke's sons, and "never heard the least word from either of them of any wrong done, or supposed to be done by Doctor Barlow, in drawing up the substance and abridgment of (the conference)".[7]
In 1679 William Barrett, in The Nonconformists Vindicated, repeated the story with full names for the initials.[8] It was repeated again by James Peirce in 1710,[9] answered by John Strype, in his Life of Whitgift in 1718, and again in 1720 in an anonymous answer to James Peirce.[10] The argument ended in a draw. No new arguments or information arose until the twentieth century. The objections to Barlow survived, and one might speak of a puritan, or at least non-conformist historical tradition coming from such works as Neale’s History of the Puritans.[11] The doubts survived in the main-stream received opinion as well; for Barlow has been given a luke-warm acquittal of wilful misrepresentation, at least in the absence of a more correct narrative on the other side, and his work judged to be as fair an account as could be expected from a partisan who had no sympathy for the arguments he was reporting. Even this faint praise was abandoned from 1961, when Mark Curtis championed the Harleian Account as the authentic voice of the conference. The reasons Curtis gave to substantiate his claim that The Summe and Substance is unreliable and "a skilful piece of party propaganda" almost all come from points where it differs from this Harleian Account. He claims, but does not demonstrate that "at all important points" this account is "consistent with the rest of the evidence". The obvious question is why this account should be believed.

NOTES

[1] T. Fuller, Church History of Great Britain, with notes by J. Nichols, iii vols (London: William Tegg, 1868) iii.193. P. Heylyn, Examen Historicum: Or A Discovery and Examination of the Mistakes, Falsities and Defects in Some Modern Histories. (London: for Henry Seile and Richard Royston, 1659), p. 172. Fuller, The Appeal of Injured Innocence, unto the religious learned and ingenuous reader in a controversie betwist the animadvertor, Dr. Peter Heylyn, and the author, Thomas Fuller ... (London: William Godbid, 1659), p. 97.
[2] Peter Heylyn, Examen Historicum, p. 172.
[3] H. Hickman, Patro-scholastiko-dikaiosis, or, A Justification of the Fathers and the Schoolmen Shewing that there are not Selfe-Condemned for denying the Pesivity of Sin (Oxford: Henry Hall for John Adams and Edward Forrest, 1659), p. 38, margin.
[4] Heylyn, Certamen Epistolare, Or The Letter Combate. Managed by Peter Heylyn, D.D. with 1. Mr Baxter of Kederminsiter. 2. Dr. Barnard of Grays-Inne. 3. Mr. Hickman of Mag. C. Oxon, and 4. J. H. of the City of Westminster Esq; With 5. An appendix to the same, in answer to some passages in Mr Fuller's late appeal. (London, J. M. for H. Twyford et al, 1659), p. 122.
[5] H. Hickman, A Review of the Certamen Epistolare betwixt Peter Heylyn D.D. and Hen. Hickman B.D. (London: for John Adams 1659) [August 31], p. 28.
[6] Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, Written by Sir Philip Sidney Knight. Now since the first edition augmented and ended (London : Printed [by John Windet] for William Ponsonbie,1593). pp 80, 81.
[7] Peter Heylyn, Historia Quinqu-articularis (By E.C. for Thomas Johnson, 1660) Qqq2. Heylyn made a more general defence of Barlow in Aerius Redivivvs, or The History of the Puritans ... from the Year 1536 to the Year 1647 (London: Robert Battersby for Christopher Wilkinson and Thomas Archer), 2nd edition, 1672), p. 369.
[8] William Barrett, The Nonconformists Vindicated From the Abuses Put upon them by Mr. Durel and Mr. Scrivener ... (London: for Thomas Parkhurst, 1679) p. 180.
[9] J. Pierce, Vindiciae fratrum dissentientium in Anglia adversus V.C. Gulielimi Nicholsii STP Defensionem Ecclesiae Anglicanae. (London: T. Ilive, 1710), p. 58.
[10] [Grey, Zachary,] Vindication of the Church of England, In Answer to Mr. Peirce's Vindication of the Dissenters ... By A Presbyter of the Church of England (London, to be sold by John Wyat, 1720), p. 111.
[11] Neal, Daniel. History of the Puritans, or Protestant Nonconformists, from the Reformation in 1517 to the Revolution in 1688 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855)

An Introduction to William Barlow's The Summe and Substance of the Conference

3. The Reaction to Barlow’s Summe and Substance of the Conference [I]

C. S. Knighton writes that when Barlow’s Summe and Substance of the Conference appeared, it “was immediately criticized for misrepresentation”. This statement provokes one to ask by whom the account was criticized, and what weight the criticism should be given? It is understandable why a reference work such as the ODNB has few specific references are provided; but here one would dearly love a footnote! The complaint that Barlow had misrepresented the king was made by Henry Jacob in his A Christian and Modest Offer of a most indifferent Conference in 1606, which seems to be the earliest published criticism of Barlow; but Jacob had not taken part in the conference.
According to Barlow himself, King James and the Bishop of London approved his text, as did the King’s Latin secretary, Sir Thomas Lake.[1] Without this approval it would likely never have been published. Bancroft's approval of The Summe and Substance is itself worth noting. Barlow portrays Bancroft as bad-tempered and rather rude, and says that he was rebuked by the King on more than once occasion. In all, he is not that much kinder to the bishop than are the anonymous puritan accounts. Bancroft would hardly have approved the account if he thought this was untrue. We do not know what opinions of the other bishops and deans who participated in the conference may have had. What of the four ministers who represented the case for further reform?
In 1607 Thomas Sparks published A Brotherly Perswasion to Vnitie, which he says he had written two years before, that is, in 1605. After the conference, he writes, he himself conformed, and "privately by word and writing laboured to persuade all whom I met with, to do likewise". In "The Preamble" he quotes from and refers to The Summe and Substance at considerable length, never once dropping a hint that he was not satisfied with the account.
Although Laurence Chaderton did not publish his opinions about The Summe and Substance he made many annotations in his copies of that work and others which have recently been described in detail by Arnold Hunt.[2] It is clear that Chaderton had issues with Barlow, as they say nowadays. He objected to Barlow's calling the ministers "agents for the millenary plaintiffs". Hunt describes several other annotations which are important for understanding Chaderton's position during and after the Conference. Some of these do complain of inaccuracy. At Barlow's report that the King excused Bancroft's indignation at the ministers on the second day because "they did thus traduce the present well settled Church government and also, did proceed in so indirect a course contrary to their own pretence, and the intent of that meeting also", Chaderton notes, "nihil istiusmodi memini, I remember nothing of the sort."[3] Although there is no reason to doubt a private note like this one, to say “I don’t remember” is not the same as saying "the King did not say this." Since both Barlow and Chaderton were present it is difficult to decide between them. No other accounts reports anything to the point:, nor does Sparke mention this passage. However, Barlow was writing soon after the event with the help of other participants' memoirs, while Chaderton was making a private annotation, possibly in the following autumn, as he read the account.
Chaderton similarly noted “not to memory” at Barlow's report that the King "very well approved" Bancroft’s explanation of reading of the Church of England's doctrine on Predestination in the last paragraph of Article 17. Where James is reported to have "left it to be considered" whether Rainolds' doubt might be cleared by adding such words as, "we may often depart from Grace," Chaderton interpreted this as "a departure from the measure, not from the gift". This may put "an orthodox Reformed" gloss on the King's words, but it does not question Barlow's accuracy.[4]
Hunt cites notes by Chaderton on Bancroft's argument for lay baptism and Bilson's point that ministers are not of the essence of the sacrament.[5] In both cases, Chaderton's annotations agree with the opinions that Barlow attributed to the King. Hunt cites no further annotations that have to do with the question of Barlow's reliability, but points out that Chaderton's comments at these points are:

arguably less significant than what he fails to say elsewhere. The crucial events of the second day's Conference--the King's brisk dismissal of the puritan objections to the Prayer Book, his famous remark 'no bishop, no king' and his parting threat that if the puritans did not conform "I will harrie them out of the land or else do worse"--attracted no marginal comment from Chaderton, implying that on these points Barlow's account is a tolerably accurate record of what actually took place.[6]

Before turning to John Rainolds we may note that Chaderton’s comments were private annotations, and never published.
There is no evidence of what John Rainolds thought of The Summe and Substance except onw anecdote which first appeared seventy-five years after that book was published. In 1679 one William Barrett wrote that he was "pretty well assured" that when Barlow's account appeared, Rainolds was seen reading a copy at a stationer's shop in Oxford. When asked what book he was reading, he answered, "It was a book in which he was concerned and wronged". Barrett says further, "If any doubt of this, he may (I suppose) receive satisfaction about it from Dr. Henry Wilkinson, resident at or about Clapham, near London". There is no record at all of what John Knewstub thought of The Summe and Substance.
There is little evidence, then, that the ministers at the conference thought that Barlow had misrepresented it or them, and what evidence there is does not seem to have been widely known. So where did Barlow’s reputation for falsifying come from? The earliest published objection to Barlow's account was made by Henry Jacob, who had been one of the ministers at the meeting "at but not in place",[7] and was so dissatisfied by the conference that he declared it had not met the Puritan demands and called for another conference. He found fault with the whole process of the conference, but first with the published account.[8] He said that to the ministers the conference was "that which is Non Ens", except for the "few that were present". The others knew nothing of the conference, and could put no confidence in the contradictory reports that were circulating. Although Barlow's version was "set forth as the true report", since it was "published only by the Prelates (who are partial) without the knowledge of the other side, [it] deserves no credit". Jacob gave two reasons for this assertion.
The first was that "Doctor Morton" was "allowed to call some part of it into question, even some speeches fathered upon his Majesty, which he was fain to confute as unsound and contrary to divinity", and if Barlow could so abuse the King's speeches, "it is much more likely that speeches of other men are abused". By "Doctor Morton" Jacob seems to mean Thomas Morton (1564-1659). At the time of the conference Morton was the Earl of Rutland's chaplain and lived at Belvoir[9] Castle in Leicestershire. Morton was not present at the conference and could hardly have called Barlow's accuracy into question from his own knowledge. The value of Morton’s comment can only now be judged from its context, but Jacobs did not state where he heard or read what Doctor Morton said. The statement was hard to trace.
The Jesuit Robert Parsons published a tract against Morton in 1607 which may suggest an answer. Parsons says that when Morton wrote of comments which the Summe and Substance attributed to the King about the notes to the Geneva Bible which appear to justify the deposition and killing of princes, "he taketh licence to dissent from his Majesty, signifying in effect that either the conference was not well related, or his Majesty mistook their meaning in those notes".[10] Morton’s original remark seems to be "Wherefore supposing that the Relation of the Conference be direct, yet may you not think his Majesty ... could take exception to the note."[11] That seems to be rather a weak grounding for Jacob's point. After all, the King's comment on the Geneva notes can hardly be described as "some speeches", or Morton's remark as confuting it as unsound.
The second reason Jacob gives is that the prelates, by which he means Barlow, "fraudulently cut off" the King's speeches against the corruptions of the church, "As appeareth by that testimony of the Dean of the Chapel ... That his Majesty did that day wonderfully play the Puritan." This seems to be echoed in Curtis' remark that "Barlow's account fails to mention the king's inquiry about what reform was needed in the Church and the bishop's response thereto".[12] We have already looked at the remark about “playing the puritan” as it had been mistakenly attributed to Lancelot Andrewes. As we saw then, the remark need not refer to anything more than the King's stand against baptism by lay persons, something on which all accounts agree.
The contemporary criticisms of Barlow’s account for misrepresentation, then, seem to depend primarily on Henry Jacob’s complaints. But he was not at the conference. He may have based his opinion on one source we have not yet seriously discussed, that is, the anonymous accounts. These differ so far from the known accounts by eye-witnesses that they must be treated with great caution. It is enough for now to say that Jacob’s statements appear to be based on rumour. It is hard to know how to take the opinion of a person who says in one place that he does not know what happened at the conference and at another accuses an eye witness of getting it wrong.
It is also difficult in reading the modern literature on the conference to avoid sensing a bias in favour of the puritan side, as if we could take anything written against the bishops as being open and transparent, with no agenda beyond the truth, while anything for them is partisan and deeply suspicious.
In the next installment we will look at later reactions to Barlow’s work, and a literary debate over it that lasted into the Eighteenth century.

Notes

[1] HMC Salisbury, xvi, p. 95
[2] Hunt, "Laurence Chaderton and the Hampton Court Conference", pp. 207-228.
[3] Barlow, The Summe and Substance of the Conference (1604), 27-28: Hunt "Laurence Chaderton and the Hampton Court Conference", p. 223.
[4] Barlow, 30; Hunt, "Laurence Chaderton and the Hampton Court Conference", p. 224.
[5] Barlow, 18.
[6] Hunt, "Laurence Chaderton and the Hampton Court Conference", p. 223.
[7] Jacob, A Christian and Modest Offer; HMC Montagu of Beaulieu (1900), p. 34.
[8] Jacob, A Christian and Modest Offer, p. 28ff.
[9] Belvoir is pronounced “Beaver”.
[10] [Robert Parsons] A Treatise tending to Mitigation towardes Catholike-Subiectes in England ... Against the seditious writings and Thomas Morton, Minister, & some others to the contrary (Saint-Omer: Printed by F. Bellet, 1607), pp. 119f. Parsons's note refers to page 103 of the Reply, which in turn refers to "the book of Conference, pag. 47".
[11] [Thomas Morton], A Full Satisfaction concerning a Double Romish Iniquitie; hainous Rebellion, and more then heathenish Aequivocation (London: for Edmund Weaver, 1606), pp. 103, 105.
[12] Curtis, "The Hampton Court Conference and Its Aftermath", p. 8, n.25.

Dramatis Personae of the Conference

Part III. Clergy

i. The Bishops

The Archbishop of Canterbury and eight other bishops took part in the conference at Hamptobn Court. With two exceptions, the lists of participants in the various accounts of the conference agree on which bishops took part. The order of bishops in the following list is that in Barlow's Summe and Substance; the numbers follow on from the “extras” and roughly count how many people might have been present at the conference. The doubtful bishops are placed at the end and are not assigned numbers
42. The Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift (c1530?-1604) was about seventy-three years old. Early in his career at Cambridge he showed sympathy for the radical protestants and objected to the requirement that the surplice be worn in the college chapel: later he became convinced of the rightness of the Queen's policy, and increasingly severe towards nonconformity.[1] He was made Bishop of Worcester in 1577 and Primate in 1583. It has been reported that he expected the worst from a king who had been raised by Presbyterians, and at James's accession Whitgift sent the Dean of Canterbury with expressions of loyalty from the bishops and to ascertain his attitude to the English Church. He was pleased with the king’s response. Whitgift met King James for the first time at Theobalds in April 1603.
One can get the impression that Whitgift was already at his end when the conference met and left all the planning to Bancroft. This is hardly the impression one gets from the only account that gives enough detail of the meetings, which is Barlow's. Furthermore, it was not for a fortnight after the conference that the archbishop caught the chill that ended him.[2] He died at Lambeth on 29 February 1604 after a stroke. Whitgift was not present for the discussions on the second day at Hampton Court: he and most of the other bishops were writing up the decisions that had been reached at the first day's meeting. The absence of most of the bishops from the second session should be kept in mind when reading the discussions by Tyacke and Collinson of four bishops whom they count as sympathetic to the puritans.
43. Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London (1544-1619), was fifty-nine years old. He had been a chaplain and protégé of Whitgift, and he had been bishop of London since 1597. After Whitgift's death he was to succeed him at Canterbury. Thomas Bilson and he were the two bishops chosen to take part in the meeting with the ministers on the second day of the Conference, while the rest of the bishops were with Whitgift writing up the conclusions from Saturday. According to Tobie Matthew Bancroft and Bilson had been chosen by Archbishop Whitgift. Why did he make this choice? Is this evidence that Bancroft was the organizing genius behind the bishops' party at the conference?[3] Here we must remember not only Bancroft's earlier activities in opposition to the Puritan movement, and in particular in the hunt for Martin Marprelate, but also the sermon he preached at Paul's Cross in February 1588, which Collinson has called a landmark in English church history. In it, he defended episcopacy "as being of apostolical, not of dominical provenance".[4] Bancroft was also concerned with the apprehension of Roman Catholic priests and conspirators, as letters in the State Papers show.[5]
It is difficult to describe Bancroft's relationship to King James briefly, but some facts should be noted. His sermon in 1588 had caused an outcry in Scotland because of comments he made about the Scottish Church, and the King's protest to the English government resulted in a letter of submission from Bancroft.[6] Bancroft and James probably met for the first time on Sunday, 1 May 1603, when the bishop preached before the King at Standon. On 22 July the King and Queen spent the day with Bancroft at Fulham Palace on their way to Whitehall before the coronation. There is evidence, from all accounts, that there was friction between the two at the conference. After the conference and after Whitgift's death, the King had the confidence to entrust to Bancroft the presidency of the Convocation and the succession to Canterbury. That last appointment was not made automatically: Sir John Harington has left observations that suggest that the appointment to Canterbury in 1604 was no foregone conclusion: "divers worthy men were named in the vacancy," and popular rumour named Tobie Matthew of Durham. Harington says that Bancroft was chosen as a man more exercised in affairs of the state, and from conjectures from speeches of the King that since Bancroft was unmarried, "he supposed him the fitter, according to Queen Elizabeth's principles of state".[7]
What of Bancroft's churchmanship? Nicholas Tyacke notes the hostility to the puritan requests which he showed at the conference and mentions Bancroft's "direct criticism of predestinarian views", but acknowledges that Bancroft cannot simply be called an "Arminian", since he objected to a false as opposed to a true doctrine of predestination and notes that in 1598 Bancroft had "personally licensed" for publication a translation of a Calvinist treatise which "denied that Christ had died for all mankind and asserted the doctrine of unconditional predestination".[8] We may also note that Bancroft and Laurence Chaderton had been friends since their student days. Kenneth Fincham is not able to fit Bancroft easily into the three categories which organize his study of the Jacobean episcopate, but calls him "an Elizabethan conformist protestant", and noted that Bancroft's friends included both "proto-Arminians such as Barlow, Harsnett and Neile", and "important Calvinists including King, Morton and the Abbot brothers". Samuel Harsnett and George Abbot, who were later to be theological adversaries, were the executors of his will in 1610.
44. Tobie or Tobias Matthew, Bishop of Durham (1546-1628), was aged about fifty-seven. He had become Bishop of Durham in 1595, and in 1606 was named Archbishop of York. In May 1604, as noted just above, it was rumoured that Matthew had been chosen to succeed Whitgift at Canterbury. Kenneth Fincham says that Matthew was "the most celebrated of all the preaching prelates of King James I"; according to his diary, "Matthew gave 721 sermons as Dean, and 550 as Bishop of Durham, and another 721 in his first fifteen years as Archbishop of York".[9] He was both a diligent pastor and a trustworthy statesman, whom the government could trust "to watch and guard the northern shires".[10] He was the first English bishop that James met, and seems to have impressed him with his cheerful humour and wit.
Nicholas Tyacke reports Stephen Egerton's statement of 30 November 1603 that, of Bishops Babington of Worcester, Robinson of Carlisle, Rudd of St David's and Matthew of Durham, "the first three 'are turned Puritans, to whom I doubt not but Durham will join'". It is not clear what Egerton meant by the word "puritan". Tyacke also reports that Matthew wrote to Robert Cecil regarding "the scandalous circumstances of the execution of the now Church's discipline", and that when he was Archbishop of York he protected individual Puritan ministers. Tyacke admits, however, that "to dub such bishops Puritans was to confuse tolerance with agreement, although in light of later usage it is interesting that they also tended to be strong Calvinists". Tyacke uses a sermon of 1592 to show that Matthew's doctrine of election was Calvinist. Kenneth Fincham gives evidence of Matthew's tolerance of slight nonconformity.[11] Matthew was not present when the four ministers appeared before the King on the second day of the conference, since he was with Whitgift writing up the decisions of the first. So the kindness or sympathy he might have had towards the nonconformists did not come into play. After the conference Matthew remained at Durham until the death of Matthew Hutton, when he succeeded as Archbishop of York.
The day after the conference ended Matthew sent an account of the meetings to Archbishop Hutton. It is one of only three surviving accounts of the conference known to be by a participant.
45. Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester (1546/7-1616), was about fifty-seven. He was a native of Winchester and was educated there and at New College, Oxford. Upon ordination he became a noted preacher. William Lamont described him as "a shadowy figure", principally famous for two works whose reputation was at his height after his death.[12] He was made Bishop of Worcester in 1596 and translated to Winchester in 1597.[13] In 1593 Bilson published The Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, in which "the coping-stone was set upon the Elizabethan apologetic for episcopacy", in which he argued that the episcopal office had been "observed from the apostles' time" and was by divine appointment.[14]
Bilson preached at the coronation of King James and Queen Anne, and the royal couple stayed at Bilson's residence at Farnham Castle from 13 to 17 August during their summer progress in 1603.[15] Tyacke notes that "the organizers of Puritan agitation" considered Bilson to be one of their most dangerous foes before the conference: "they wrote, for example of his attempts to discredit Galloway with the King". He also stresses Bilson's affirmation that lay baptism was in accord with antiquity.[16] Bilson's position was, however, not unbending: Kenneth Fincham notes that he "was reported to have said that he himself would not subscribe to everything in the Prayer Book".[17] He and Bancroft represented the bishops' part in the second day of the conference. He remained Bishop of Winchester until his death on 18 June 1616. Anthony à Wood called him, "as reverend and learned a prelate as England ever afforded", and, along with Richard Field (below, number 60), "a principal maintainer of the church of England". Adam Nicolson's statement that he was a member of the Privy Council is an error.[18]
46. Gervase Babington, bishop of Worcester (1550-1610), was about fifty-three years old. He owed his original preferment to the second Earl of Pembroke, who had employed him as tutor to his sons. In 1591 he was elected to the see of Llandaff and translated to Exeter in 1595 and Worcester in 1597. He was said to have supported Essex' rising in 1600.[19] He is one of the three bishops said by Egerton to have "turned Puritan". Kenneth Fincham suggests that Babington, who "began his ministry as a city lecturer and always remained an active preacher", may have been one of the bishops he calls "evangelical", but admits that "his role as visitor and pastor remains obscure".[20] He also suggests that Babington appears to have endorsed the primacy of preaching in the minister's vocation, as against the "Arminian" emphasis on prayer and sacraments.[21] Nicholas Tyacke says that "information about Gervase Babington's disposition towards Puritanism is lacking", but notes that his position on predestination was "more unyielding" than that of the Lambeth Articles, stressing his opposition to Bancroft and Bilson on the question of baptism by lay persons.[22] The Summe and Substance presents him as differing from Bancroft over the meaning of the rubric of private baptism.[23] After the conference Babington remained as Bishop of Worcester.
47. Anthony Rudd, Bishop of St David's, (1549?-1615) was about fifty-four. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1584 he was appointed Dean of Gloucester and was elected to St David's early in 1594. Queen Elizabeth admired his preaching. He preached before James at Greenwich on 14 June 1603.[24] There is no record of his taking an active part at the conference. He is one of the bishops said by Stephen Egerton to have "turned Puritan". Nicholas Tyacke notes that Rudd spoke in the convocation of 1604 against the enforcement of ceremonies such as the cross in baptism, "since both the Puritans and their opponents agreed 'in substance of religion".[25] Fincham would add him to the eighteen prelates who observed the model of the bishop as preaching pastor, with varying degrees of conviction and success, if there were enough information. He remained Bishop of St David's for his life.
48. Anthony Watson, Bishop of Chichester (d.1605) was probably about fifty years old. Tyacke notes that he had been a protégé of the Catholic sympathizer, Lord Lumley.[26] He was appointed Lord Almoner in 1595 and was continued in that office by James. In 1596 he made Bishop of Chichester in 1596 and licensed to retain his other preferments in commendam. He attended the deathbed of Elizabeth I. Fincham counts him as a court bishop who made little impact on his see: he "was appointed to Chichester in 1596, but as Almoner...resided outside the diocese for many months a year."[27] Tyacke notes that Watson and Thomas Dove "appeared actively hostile to the Puritans and their requests" and adds that "Watson had taken a prominent part in arresting some Puritan petitioners in late 1603".[28] It was Watson who brought the activities of Sussex petitioners to the attention of Whitgift and the Council in the fall of 1603. After the conference he remained at Chichester, and died the next year.
49. Henry Robinson, Bishop of Carlisle (1553?-1616), was about fifty. He had been Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, before his election to Carlisle in 1598, and had earlier been chaplain to Edmund Grindal. Nicholas Tyacke, following Collinson, suggests that he "had in the 1580s held religious views probably identical with those of the Puritan Reynolds", and quotes Stephen Egerton's opinion that Robinson, like Babington and Rudd, had "turned Puritan", as noted above.[29] Collinson notes that Robinson and Rainolds had long been in the same college at Oxford, "and were at least as closely allied in the Oxford of the 1590s as were the leading Calvinist divines of Cambridge, Whitaker and Chaderton”. He cites Richard Bancroft, who said that Robinson was Rainolds's "especial and most familiar friend". However, Bancroft's remark is intended to show that Rainolds would agree with Robinson's opinion that titles of honour given to bishops are not repugnant to scripture or antiquity, and that the title of bishop "was then by the usuall language of the Fathers appropriated to him who had the presidentship over the elders".[30] Kenneth Fincham considered Robinson to be an evangelical preaching pastors, and notes the memorial brass that celebrates his "strong leadership and effective government: "on Robinson's crosier were inscribed the words 'for correcting, feeding, watching and directing'".[31] However, Fincham also argues that
to label these evangelical preaching pastors as 'Puritans' would be to collapse sympathy with similarity and mask substantial differences in attitude to government, ceremony, and doctrine. The indulgence that these bishops offered to individual Puritans should not be confused with support for major changes in ceremony or discipline.[32]
50. Thomas Dove, Bishop of Peterborough (1555-1630) was about forty-eight years old. He had been a contemporary of Andrewes at Merchant Taylor's School and at Cambridge. He was made chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, who praised his preaching, saying "that this Dove was a dove with silver wings, who must have been inspired by the grace of Him Who once assumed the form of a dove." He became bishop of Peterborough in 1602. It is reported that at the conference Dove 'alleged out of the Ecclesiastical writers that an ancient father in case of necessity Baptised with sand instead of water'.[33] Tyacke notes that Richard Butler, Dove's commissary, "had earlier caused a furore by maintaining that infants dying unbaptized were damned".[34] It is worth noting that after the conference, in 1611 and 1614 Dove was charged with remissness in allowing silenced ministers to preach; Fuller, however, reports that even James I chided him for being overly strict. There are also letters in the Public Record Office [e.g., one of 4 August 1628] which show that he was somewhat remiss in complying with orders. He remained Bishop of Peterborough until his death.

Bristol and Oxford

Two other bishops are mentioned as having attended the conference, one in the Harleian Account, the other in the Beaulieu papers.
The Bishop of Bristol is listed as a participant in the conference as "B. of Bristowe" in the Harleian Account. Bristol had been vacant since 1593, and John Thornborough (1551-1641) was translated there from Limerick at the beginning of James's reign: he was enthroned on 23 August 1603. The DNB says that he had been translated because "in Ireland he showed himself zealous on behalf of the crown". Thornborough had also been Dean of York and Clerk of the Closet to Elizabeth I. "TM" in the True Narration of the King's journey to London in 1603, says that James "highly commended" Thornborough's "doctrine and method" in a sermon at York on Palm Sunday. The fact that the provision of preachers for Ireland was a topic dealt with at the conference would make him seem to be a useful participant, but there is no other evidence that he was present. Thornborough had been involved in a scandalous divorce and a second marriage.[35]
The Bishop of Oxford is mentioned only in the list of participants in the Beaulieu papers. Oxford had also been vacant for some years. In December 1603, King James nominated John Bridges (died 1618), then Dean of Salisbury, to Oxford. He was elected on 4 January 1604 and consecrated on 12 February. In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury dated 12 January 1604, James referred to Bridges as "Dean of Salisbury, elected Bishop of Oxford". Bridges had been educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge: he graduated BA in 1556, which suggests that at the time of the conference he was in his sixties. The question of his attendance at the conference is inextricable from that of the Dean of Salisbury, which is as yet undetermined. It is possible that Bridges was present, but not necessarily that he was present as Bishop of Oxford. It is understandable that there some confusion could arise when a man had just been named to a new office.
Finally, we must mention Richard Vaughan, Bishop of Chester 1597-1604, whose name appears on the first list in the State Papers of bishops to be invited to the conference but was then struck out. The reason for this was is not known. When Laurence Chaderton requested a respite for some ministers in Lancashire from wearing the surplice and using the cross in baptism, it was agreed that Whitgift should write to Bishop Vaughan on that matter. Vaughan became Bishop of London on Bancroft’s death in 1604 and died in 1607.

Why These Bishops?

Why were these particular bishops chosen for the conference? Precedence may explain the choice of some of the prelates: the sees of Canterbury, York, London, Durham, and Winchester have always had a special position among English bishops, and to this day are the only ones whose precedence does not depend on seniority of consecration. It is not surprising, therefore, that four of these five should have been chosen. The only question then is why Hutton of York did not attend. From the letter he sent to Whitgift in October 1603 concerning matters likely to be raised at the conference it is evident that he was interested and had influence.[36] Perhaps the combination of age and the difficulty of travel kept him away. The other four, along with Anthony Watson of Chichester, who was Lord Almoner, were all known personally to James by August 1603 when he called the conference. Although Barlow lists the remaining five bishops in order of seniority by consecration, they do not seem to have been chosen on that basis of seniority. Several of the fourteen English and Welsh bishops who had not been summoned to at the conference were senior to Thomas Dove, who had only been consecrated in 1602.
The geographic distribution of their sees does not seem to explain why these bishops were chosen. Canterbury, London, Winchester and Chichester are in the south and south-east, Worcester and Peterborough are somewhat but not much further north, St David's is in Wales, and Carlisle and Durham are on the border of Scotland. This does not seem to have been an attempt at a fair geographical distribution. At the conference, however, when the King's wish to have preachers planted in Ireland was discussed, it was decided to do the same in Wales and the Borders of Scotland.[37] Perhaps the presence of St David's, Carlisle, and Durham shows that this idea was already being considered, or that the decision itself is the result of their presence.
As Patrick Collinson has said, the bishops did not form "a monolithic group with but one voice and that the voice of Bancroft".[38] Collinson and Tyacke have noted from Stephen Egerton's comment that Babington, Rudd, Robinson, and Matthew were considered to have had puritan leanings, and been in "closer sympathy with Reynolds and Sparke than they were with their episcopal colleagues, Bancroft and Bilson, just as the two moderate puritan spokesmen held a position closer to the moderate bishops than to the radicals who regarded them as their delegates".[39] None of these four was present on the second day to meet with the four ministers: Bancroft and Bilson alone represented the bishops that day, as was noted above. All the bishops were present at the first session, and in Chapter IV we will see that very many important matters were discussed and decided then. James apparently wanted to hear a range of opinion from his bishops. He may indeed have had advice from Whitgift or his Privy Counsellors or both on the bishops it was best to invite. Only four of the bishops at the conference had preached before the King: the bishops of Lincoln and Ely had also preached before him in 1603, but were not asked to Hampton Court.[40] The main consideration seems to have been that the senior bishops of the Church be present and that there be a variety of opinion.

Notes

[1] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 19, citing P. Collinson, "The 'nott conformytye' of the young John Whitgift", JEH 15, (October 1964), 192-200. Whitgift's career is described well by Sheils in ODNB, vol 58, pp. 717-727.
[2] H. C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1958), p. 407.
[3] See, e.g., MacGrath, In the Beginning, pp. 153-154.
[4] Norman Sykes, Old Priest and New Presbyter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 25-6.
[5] SDP James I 14/2/43, 49, 67; 3/14,
[6] See Owen Chadwick, "Richard Bancroft's Submission", JEH 3 (1952), pp. 58-73, and W. Cargill Thompson, "A Reconsideration of Richard Bancroft's Pauls Cross Sermon", JEH 20 (1969), p. 253.
[7] Kenneth Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, p. 27. Of the bishops at Hampton Court, five (Whitgift, Babbington, Bancroft, Robinson and Watson) were unmarried and four (Bilson, Dove, Matthew, and Rudd) were married. There is no obvious relation between marital status and churchmanship: the fellows of colleges at Oxford and Cambrudge had to be unmarried.
[8] Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 15-17. The work in question was Kimedoncius' Of the Redemption of Mankind. It is not entirely clear what weight one can give to such a "personal license" until one has examined every entry in the Stationers' Registers; a quick glance suggests that there is not much doctrinal difference between books entered under the hand of the bishop and books entered by his chaplains. During the conference, Bancroft referred to Kimedoncius and Chemnitius as authorities favouring the use of the Apocrypha.
[9] Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, pp. 89-90
[10] "Matthew, Tobie", DNB.
[11]Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, pp 17-18; Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, pp. 221-2, 258.
[12] W. M. Lamont "The Rise and Fall of Bishop Bilson", Journal of British Studies 5:2 (May 1966), pp 22-32, p. 22.
[13] "Bilson, Thomas", in DNB
[14] Sykes, Old Prebyter and New Priest, pp. 63-66.
[15] Thomas Bilson, A Sermon preached at Westminster before the King and Queenes Maiesties, at their Coronations on Saint Iames his day, being the 28. of Iuly. 1603. By the Reuerend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of Winchester (London, V.S. for Clement Knight, 1603); J. Nichols, Progresses of King James I, i.251.
[16] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 15; Barlow, Summe and Substance D1v; BL Sloane 271 fo 23.
[17] Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, pp. 65-6.
[18] Nicolson, God's Secretaries, p. 53.
[19] "Babington, Gervase", DNB.
[20] Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, pp. 270-1.
[21] Ibid., p. 236
[22] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, pp. 17f, citing a sermon at Paul's Cross of 1590.
[23] Barlow, Summe and Substance, C3v.
[24] Anthony Rudd, A Sermon preached at Greenwich before the Kings Maiestie vpon Tuesday in Whitsun Weeke being the 14. of Iune. 1603 (London: I Harrison for Thomas Man and Clement Knight, 1603).
[25] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 17, citing BL Harl 7049, fos 284-5. See also Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, pp. 65-6.
[26] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p.22.
[27] Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, p. 292.
[28] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 16, citing HMC Salisbury, xv. 262-3.
[29] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 17
[30] Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 459. Richard Bancroft, A Survay of the pretended holy discipline, Contayning the beginnings, successe, parts, proceedings, authority, and doctrine of it; with some of the manifold, and materiall repugnances, varieties and uncertainties, in that behalf (London: John Wolfe, 1593), pp. 389-92.
[31] Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, pp.12, 253.
[32] Ibid., p. 260
[33] Usher, Reconstruction, ii. 342. The 'first copy" in Barlow says, "The Bishop of Peterborough brought a very foolish argument, with much disgrace to himself." (Usher ii. 338); the second copy has: "the Bishoppe of Peterborow came in with his arguments about Baptisme, which the King made voide to his great reproach..."
[34] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 16, citing BL Add. 8978, p. 94.
[35] P. MacCulloch, Sermons at Court, p. 110, n. 31
[36] Printed in Cardwell, History of Conferences, 151ff.
[37] See the lists of conclusions of the conference, e.g., SPD James I 4/14/16, "The Kingdom of Ireland, the Border of Scotland, & all Wales to be planted with schools and preachers as soon as may be".
[38] Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 459.
[39] Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, p. 18; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 459. Fincham's point (note 91) that sympathy and indulgence do not show that a bishop was "puritan" should be remembered.
[40] See the Calendar of sermons in MacCulloch, Sermons at Court.