Notes on Documentation

I: Surviving Accounts and other contemporary Notes of the Conference

Sixteen contemporary documents which are either accounts of the Hampton Court Conference or provide significant information about what happened at it have survived. In this list those by persons who attended the whole of the conference are marked **, those by persons who are known only to have been present for some part of the meetings are marked *. Those documents not marked are mostly anonymous.

This list is roughly grouped around the two principal accounts of the Conference, Barlow's (no 1) and the Anonymous Harleyan Account (no 5); nos 9-16 do not fall into either group, chiefly because they are too short and do not report the points where the main accounts differ.

**1 The Summe and Substance of the Conference, by William Barlow, dean of Chester. This is a quasi-official account, commissioned by the Archbishop and approved by the King. It was published in quarto, 103 pages, in the summer of 1604 and reprinted several times, including an edition in French. Reprinted by Cardwell in the History of Conferences. Barlow was a participant in the conference and present at all three sessions.

[We should also note that sometime around 1660, a clergyman of London diocese included a Latin translation of The Summe and Substance in his Gesta Britannica, a collection of notes on English church history, now Stowe MS 76 in the British Library. The catalogue identifies the clergyman as probably Roger Ley or Lea. He did not translate either Barlow’s preface to the reader or the appendix. The BL catalogue states that the MS includes “a discussion of the Hampton Court Conference" but does not note it as a translation of Barlow.]
*2. Dudley Carleton’s letter of 15 January 1604 to John Chamberlain describes the first day of the conference. It is preserved in the UK Public Record Office State Papers (14/6/21) and has been published. The portion of the letter on the conference is 245 words. Dudley Carleton was at Hampton Court but not a participant, but he may have witnessed the meeting on the first day.
**3. A letter of James Montagu, Dean of the Chapel Royal, to his mother written the day the conference ended, gives a brief description of the meetings. It has been published in Cardwell’s History of Conferences where it is in the main narrative. It is approximately 1,170 words long. James Montagu was a participant and present at all three sessions. He does not mention the "false start"on Thursday, January 12.

*4 A letter of Bishop Matthew of Durham wrote to Archbishop Matthew Hutton of York describing the conference written on 19 January. Along with all the bishops but two, Bishop Matthew was not present for the second day of the Conference, 16 January, but was elsewhere, writing up the decisions made on the first day. The letter was printed by John Strype in his Life of Whtigift. A copy of this account from which the personal references have been omitted is found in British Library Egerton MS 2877. This account is about 1,720 words in length.

5. The Anonymous Account in British Library Harley MS 828 and Additional MS 38429, first printed by R. G. Usher in 1910, and put forward by Mark Curtis as a more reliable account than Barlow's. It is somewhat more than 5,000 words in length.
6. An anonymous letter dated 15 January 1604 describing the first day, in general agreement with Harley 828. This letter was the first of three documents printed by Barlow at the end of the Summe and Substance as examples of "untrue" accounts of the Conference which were then in circulation. Reprinted by Usher; 333 words. It should be noted that documents 6, 7, and 9 were in circulation before Barlow completed The Summe and Substance, which he stated in a letter to Lord Cecil on May 12 1604 to be "ready for the press".
7. The second anonymous account printed by Barlow is undated. It reports all three days but gives little detail. Generally agrees with Harleian 828. Reprinted by Usher, 396 words.
*8. A letter from Patrick Galloway to the Presbytery of Edinburgh on 10 February describes the conference very briefly and is more important as a covering letter for a list of the decisions that were made at the Conference, which Galloway claims was amended and approved by King James. Although Galloway claims to have been an “ear and eye-witness”, he was apparently only present at the second session. His letter was published by David Calderwood in the History of the Kirk of Scotland.

9. The third document printed by Barlow is also anonymous and undated. It is not an account of the conference but “some of the speeches that are bruted upon Master Doctor Rainolds return to Oxon. concerning the late conference, before his Majesty.” It presents the conference as an unqualified success for the ministers. 197 words
***10. An undated letter of King James to Lord Henry Howard describes as a “revel with the Puritans”. It is printed in Akrigg, Letters of James VI & I, p. 221.
*11. Thomas Sparke, one of the four ministers, wrote at some length about the conference in A Brotherly Perswasion to Unity, in 1607. He mentions Barlow’s account but does not questioning its accuracy.
*12. Roger Wilbraham, a Master of Requests, wrote a brief description of the conference in his journal. This entry agrees with Barlow at some points. It is not entirely clear why Wilbraham was present at the Conference. [Wilbraham, Roger. "The Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham, Solicitor-General in Ireland and Master of Requests, for the Years 1593-1616", edited by Harold Spence Scott, in Camden Miscellany X (London: Royal Historical Society, 1902).]
*13. Sir John Harington as also present, but only on the second day; he wrote a brief note in his Nugae Antiquae. He says that the King rather used upbraidings than arguments with the ministers. [Nugae Antiquae, by Sir John Harington, Knt., and others, selected by the late Henry Harington, newly arranged by Thomas Park. 2 volumes. (London : by J. Wright for Vernor & Hood, &c., 1804) ][
14. Reginald Usher printed a document from Baker MSS M.m.1.45, f. 155-157 as Anonymous Account in Favour of the Bishops. It only describes the second session. As an anonymous account there is no way of judging its information. 843 words.
15. A letter which fell into government hands and has been preserved in the State Papers (14/6/37) includes a brief description of the conference. It is impossible to know where the writer, one Ortelio Renzo, obtained his information, or the copy of the brief note of decisions made at the conference that he includes. It has never been printed.
16 An anonymous account of the conference is found in volume IV of the Historic Manuscript Commission report Various Manuscripts, the ms of F. H. T. Jervois. The writer says he is giving information obtained from a friend at Court. It is of little value except for what rumours were circulating about the conference.