Part I: The King and Privy Council
Missing from the literature of the Hampton Court Conference, both contemporary documents and modern studies,is a definite list of the participants. The list of the bishops, deans and ministers who took part has been generally established, and some writers, particularly Nicholas Tyacke, have made important comments about these clergy who were invited to the conference.[1] Other participants have not been so carefully identified. Moreover, it appears that some people who were not participants were also present for some of the time. As accurate a list of participants as possible would seem to be a useful tool in trying to establish the history of the conference. Not the least important reason for this is so that we might have an idea of how many people were physically present, and from have an idea of what it must have been like for them.
In this paper I have made use of all the surviving accounts and notices of the conference in order to establish a list of particpants and other who may have been present. The first part lists the Kin and the Privy Council.
A. The King and Prince Henry
1. King James VI & I (1566-1625). No comment on the King is needed here.
2. Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612). Only William Barlow’s The Summe and Substance mentions that King James’ elder son was present for the second day of the conference. Prince Henry, who was nearly ten years old, took no active part in the meeting. In 1606 the Prince would likewise be present for part of the King's conference with eight Scottish ministers.[2] His presence at these events was part of his education in the craft of kingship.
In this paper I have made use of all the surviving accounts and notices of the conference in order to establish a list of particpants and other who may have been present. The first part lists the Kin and the Privy Council.
A. The King and Prince Henry
1. King James VI & I (1566-1625). No comment on the King is needed here.
2. Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594-1612). Only William Barlow’s The Summe and Substance mentions that King James’ elder son was present for the second day of the conference. Prince Henry, who was nearly ten years old, took no active part in the meeting. In 1606 the Prince would likewise be present for part of the King's conference with eight Scottish ministers.[2] His presence at these events was part of his education in the craft of kingship.
B. The Lords of the Council.
Members of the Privy Council also attended the meetings at Hampton Court. In the proclamation of 24 October 1603 James had stated that the conference on ecclesiastical matters was not to be a synod but a body called to advise the King and Council. If in the meetings with the bishops and other learned men he was to find that there were corruptions “which deserve a review and amendment", he will himself "therein proceed according to the laws and customs of this realm by advice of our council, or in our high court of parliament, or by convocation of our clergy, as we shall find reason to lead us".[3] If the Counsellors were to advise the king, it was necessary that they were present at these meetings.
It is not known exactly which Consellors were present. The title page of The Summe and Substance states that "most of the Lords of the Council were present". At the time of the conference the Privy Council had twenty-four members, and the ones who are noted in accounts of the conference are hardly "most" of them. Barlow only mentions the Treasurer, the Chancellor, the Chamberlain, and the king’s principal secretary, Lord Robert Cecil in the narrative of the meeting. The anonymous Harleian Account lists nine counsellors as present: The Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Nottingham, the Earl of Devonshire, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Cecill, the Lord Worcester, Lord Northampton, the Lord Chief Justice ‘at Kingston’. However, only Robert Cecil, the Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Lord Admiral are named in that text. Some other accounts name individual counsellors in the course of the narrative, but do not give a list.
To allow a reasonable estimate to be made of which Privy Counsellors were present, the following list includes all members at the time of the conference and states whether they are mentioned in the accounts and any other reason for thinking they might or might not have been present. The only exception is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Although Whitgift was a Privy Counsellor, he did not attend the conferfence as such and is here listed later, among the Bishops.
This list is a shortened form of the one in chapter 2 of The King’s Own Conference, which includes more exensive notes, especially on the religious views of the Counsellors.
3. Sir Thomas Egerton, Baron Ellesmere & Viscount Brackley (1540?-1617), Lord Chancellor. The sources generally agree that he attended the conference, and took an active part on the second and third days.[4]
4. Sir Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (1536-1608), Lord Treasurer. is mentioned in both the anonymous Harleian Account and Barlow’s The Summe and Substance.[5]
5. Ludovick Stewart, second Duke of Lennox (1574-1624), was the eldest son of Esmé, first duke of Lennox, a cousin and "favourite" of the young King James. He was named to the English Privy Council on 4 May 1603, and naturalized in England on 18 June. It was reported that James meant to make Lennox Lord President of the Council, but in fact he did not do so.[6] Lennox is not mentioned in any of the accounts of the Conference: it is uncertain whether he attended.
6. Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham (1536-1624), Lord Admiral of England, is not mentioned by Barlow, but the Harleian Account says that he was at the Conference and spoke on the apparel of ministers, and in favour of conformity.[7] The day before the conference, Friday, 13 January 1604, Nottingham had met with the Spanish ambassador at Richmond, about five miles from Hampton Court, along with the Earls of Northumberland and Devonshire, Lord Cecil, and Lord Henry Howard, so there is no reason he could not have been at Hampton Court for the conference.[8] It is reasonable to suppose that he favoured conformity.
7. Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632), had been appointed to the Privy Council by James on 25 April 1603. Northumberland is not mentioned in any of the accounts of the conference, but since he was at the meeting at Richmond the day before the conference, he could easily have been present at the conference. It should also be noted that his household Controller, Dudley Carleton, was at Hampton Court at the time of the conference and wrote an account of the first meeting. Carleton’s knowledge would be more easily understood if Northumberland had taken part in the meeting.
8. Gilbert Talbot, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury (1553-1616), had been a Privy Counsellor since Elizabeth’s time, James continued him in the council but gave him no new offices. Shrewasury spent most of his time at Sheffield castle and there is no reference in any document to his attendance at the Hampton Court Conference. That he might not have been at the conference is suggested by the notice in eh Journal of Cecil’s secretary Levinus Munck that letters were sent to Shrewsbury at Sheffield from court in late December.
9. George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland (?-1605) was named to the Privy Council by James on 25 April. There is no reference to him in connection with the conference, and no particular reason to think that he was present.
10. Edward Somerset, fourth earl of Worcester (1553-1628), had been appointed to the Council in 1601 and was continued by James. The Harleian account lists him as at the Conference but does not mention that he took an active part. There is no reason to doubt that he was present.
11. John Erskin, Earl of Mar (1558-1634), was one of the noblemen who accompanied King James from Edinburgh on 5 April 1603: at York he turned back to join Queen Anne. He was named to the Privy Council of England on 4 May 1603 but is not mentioned in any account of the conference. However, Ralph Winwood's Memorials record a letter from the Council of 23 December which Mar and others signed.[9] If Mar was at Court as late as Christmas, he may well have been present at the conference, even though there is nothing to show that he took an active part.
12. Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk (1561-1626), the Lord Chamberlain, had been appointed to the Council on 4 May 1603. He and his uncle Henry had worked closely with Cecil in arranging the peaceful accession of James I. He was at the conference: not only is he listed by the Harleian Account, but Barlow notes that it was he that who shut the door after the bishops had entered the Privy Chamber on the first day of the conference.[10] There is no other record of his participation.
13. Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (1540-1614), second son of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and grandson of the third Duke of Norfolk, had been named to the Privy Council on 4 May 1603.[11] He was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports on 1 January 1604, and on 13 March following was created Baron Howard of Marnhull, Devonshire, and Earl of Northampton. Although he is mentioned in some accounts of the conference, he is the only counsellor about whose attendance there is any serious question: a more detailed discussion of this point is given below.
14. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire, (1563-1606), had succeeded the Earl of Essex as Lieutenant in Ireland, defeated Tyrone's rebellion early in 1603, and was called back to England by James. Mountjoy was named to the Privy Council on 25 April and on 12 July was created Earl of Devnshire. The Harleian account lists Devonshire as having being at the conference, but mentions no active part he took in the meeting. He was one of the counsellors who met with the Spanish Ambassador at Richmond on Friday.
15. Sir William Knollys, Treasurer of the Household (1547-1532), is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, although there is no other evidence for or against his presence at the conference. He is known to have been at Hampton Court on 23 December, since he signed the letter mentioned in the note on the Earl of Mar.
16. Sir Edward Wootton, Comptroller of the Household (1548-1626) is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, and there is no explicit evidence for or against his presence.
17. Sir John Stanhope, Vice-Chamberlain (1545?-1621), is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, and there is no evidence for or against his presence at the conference.
18. Robert, Lord Cecil, Secretary of State (1563?-1612), was the son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, by his second wife. His father had educated him for service to the sovereign. He had been Secretary of State since 1596, Lord Privy Seal since 1597, and was instrumental in ensuring James's quiet accession to the throne. James continued him in office and created him Baron Cecil of Essendon on 31 May 1603. He is mentioned in both Barlow’s account and the anonymous Harleian account.
19. Sir George Hume, Lord Treasurer of Scotland, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1611), was one of the Scots who accompanied King James to England. He was appointed to the English Council on 4 May, and did not return to Scotland. Sometime after 10 May 1603 he replaced Sir John Fortescue as Chancellor of the Exchequer of England. Although he is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, he seems to have been at Court at the time of the conference, and so probably attended. In 1605 he was made Earl of Dunbar, and thereafter played a leading part in James's Scottish policies.
20. Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice (1531?-1607), had been member of the Privy Council since 1571 and Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench since 1592. He is not mentioned in The Summe and Substance but is in the second anonymous account printed by Barlow.[12] In the Harleian Account he is mentioned as the "Lord Chief Justice at Kingston". There is no reason to doubt that he attended the conference at Hampton Court, but it cannot be established what part he played in it.
21. Sir James Elphinstone, a Scot, had been appointed to the council 4 May but is not mentioned in any account of the conference. Levinus Munck mentions that Cecil sent a packet to him on 17 December; which suggests that he was then in Scotland, so that it seems unlikely that he was at the conference.
22. Sir John Herbert, second Secretary of State, had been appointed in 1600 and was clearly Cecil's subordinate, popularly known as 'Mr. Secondary Herbert'."[13] On 10 May he was listed in the council, but as then being "at Bremen". The Venetian secretary Scaramelli noted in a letter of 1 May that Herbert was "just returned from his mission (to Copenhagen)".[14] He is again noted as absent on the 10th, and it is not clear whether he was in England at the time of the conference. He is not mentioned in any of the accounts and was probably not at the conference.
23. Edward Bruce, The Lord of Kinloss, (1548/9-1611), accompanied the King to England in 1603, where he was naturalized by an act of parliament and served the crown until his death. He was appointed to the Privy Council on 4 May. Bruce is not mentioned in any account of the conference, but since he was in London at the time may well have been present.
24. Edward La Zouche, eleventh Baron Zouche, Lord President of the Council of Wales (1556?-1625) is not mentioned in any account of the conference. Levinus Munck records that Cecil sent him a packet of letters on 15 January, so that it is most likely that he was not at Court and did not attend the conference.
25. Thomas, Lord Burleigh, Lord President of the Council of the North, was elder son of William Cecil and half-brother of Robert Cecil. He is not mentioned in any account of the conference, and it is unlikely that he was present: Cecil sent him letters on 23 December.[15]
3. Sir Thomas Egerton, Baron Ellesmere & Viscount Brackley (1540?-1617), Lord Chancellor. The sources generally agree that he attended the conference, and took an active part on the second and third days.[4]
4. Sir Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (1536-1608), Lord Treasurer. is mentioned in both the anonymous Harleian Account and Barlow’s The Summe and Substance.[5]
5. Ludovick Stewart, second Duke of Lennox (1574-1624), was the eldest son of Esmé, first duke of Lennox, a cousin and "favourite" of the young King James. He was named to the English Privy Council on 4 May 1603, and naturalized in England on 18 June. It was reported that James meant to make Lennox Lord President of the Council, but in fact he did not do so.[6] Lennox is not mentioned in any of the accounts of the Conference: it is uncertain whether he attended.
6. Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham (1536-1624), Lord Admiral of England, is not mentioned by Barlow, but the Harleian Account says that he was at the Conference and spoke on the apparel of ministers, and in favour of conformity.[7] The day before the conference, Friday, 13 January 1604, Nottingham had met with the Spanish ambassador at Richmond, about five miles from Hampton Court, along with the Earls of Northumberland and Devonshire, Lord Cecil, and Lord Henry Howard, so there is no reason he could not have been at Hampton Court for the conference.[8] It is reasonable to suppose that he favoured conformity.
7. Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632), had been appointed to the Privy Council by James on 25 April 1603. Northumberland is not mentioned in any of the accounts of the conference, but since he was at the meeting at Richmond the day before the conference, he could easily have been present at the conference. It should also be noted that his household Controller, Dudley Carleton, was at Hampton Court at the time of the conference and wrote an account of the first meeting. Carleton’s knowledge would be more easily understood if Northumberland had taken part in the meeting.
8. Gilbert Talbot, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury (1553-1616), had been a Privy Counsellor since Elizabeth’s time, James continued him in the council but gave him no new offices. Shrewasury spent most of his time at Sheffield castle and there is no reference in any document to his attendance at the Hampton Court Conference. That he might not have been at the conference is suggested by the notice in eh Journal of Cecil’s secretary Levinus Munck that letters were sent to Shrewsbury at Sheffield from court in late December.
9. George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland (?-1605) was named to the Privy Council by James on 25 April. There is no reference to him in connection with the conference, and no particular reason to think that he was present.
10. Edward Somerset, fourth earl of Worcester (1553-1628), had been appointed to the Council in 1601 and was continued by James. The Harleian account lists him as at the Conference but does not mention that he took an active part. There is no reason to doubt that he was present.
11. John Erskin, Earl of Mar (1558-1634), was one of the noblemen who accompanied King James from Edinburgh on 5 April 1603: at York he turned back to join Queen Anne. He was named to the Privy Council of England on 4 May 1603 but is not mentioned in any account of the conference. However, Ralph Winwood's Memorials record a letter from the Council of 23 December which Mar and others signed.[9] If Mar was at Court as late as Christmas, he may well have been present at the conference, even though there is nothing to show that he took an active part.
12. Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk (1561-1626), the Lord Chamberlain, had been appointed to the Council on 4 May 1603. He and his uncle Henry had worked closely with Cecil in arranging the peaceful accession of James I. He was at the conference: not only is he listed by the Harleian Account, but Barlow notes that it was he that who shut the door after the bishops had entered the Privy Chamber on the first day of the conference.[10] There is no other record of his participation.
13. Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (1540-1614), second son of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and grandson of the third Duke of Norfolk, had been named to the Privy Council on 4 May 1603.[11] He was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports on 1 January 1604, and on 13 March following was created Baron Howard of Marnhull, Devonshire, and Earl of Northampton. Although he is mentioned in some accounts of the conference, he is the only counsellor about whose attendance there is any serious question: a more detailed discussion of this point is given below.
14. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire, (1563-1606), had succeeded the Earl of Essex as Lieutenant in Ireland, defeated Tyrone's rebellion early in 1603, and was called back to England by James. Mountjoy was named to the Privy Council on 25 April and on 12 July was created Earl of Devnshire. The Harleian account lists Devonshire as having being at the conference, but mentions no active part he took in the meeting. He was one of the counsellors who met with the Spanish Ambassador at Richmond on Friday.
15. Sir William Knollys, Treasurer of the Household (1547-1532), is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, although there is no other evidence for or against his presence at the conference. He is known to have been at Hampton Court on 23 December, since he signed the letter mentioned in the note on the Earl of Mar.
16. Sir Edward Wootton, Comptroller of the Household (1548-1626) is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, and there is no explicit evidence for or against his presence.
17. Sir John Stanhope, Vice-Chamberlain (1545?-1621), is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, and there is no evidence for or against his presence at the conference.
18. Robert, Lord Cecil, Secretary of State (1563?-1612), was the son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, by his second wife. His father had educated him for service to the sovereign. He had been Secretary of State since 1596, Lord Privy Seal since 1597, and was instrumental in ensuring James's quiet accession to the throne. James continued him in office and created him Baron Cecil of Essendon on 31 May 1603. He is mentioned in both Barlow’s account and the anonymous Harleian account.
19. Sir George Hume, Lord Treasurer of Scotland, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1611), was one of the Scots who accompanied King James to England. He was appointed to the English Council on 4 May, and did not return to Scotland. Sometime after 10 May 1603 he replaced Sir John Fortescue as Chancellor of the Exchequer of England. Although he is not mentioned in any of the records of the conference, he seems to have been at Court at the time of the conference, and so probably attended. In 1605 he was made Earl of Dunbar, and thereafter played a leading part in James's Scottish policies.
20. Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice (1531?-1607), had been member of the Privy Council since 1571 and Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench since 1592. He is not mentioned in The Summe and Substance but is in the second anonymous account printed by Barlow.[12] In the Harleian Account he is mentioned as the "Lord Chief Justice at Kingston". There is no reason to doubt that he attended the conference at Hampton Court, but it cannot be established what part he played in it.
21. Sir James Elphinstone, a Scot, had been appointed to the council 4 May but is not mentioned in any account of the conference. Levinus Munck mentions that Cecil sent a packet to him on 17 December; which suggests that he was then in Scotland, so that it seems unlikely that he was at the conference.
22. Sir John Herbert, second Secretary of State, had been appointed in 1600 and was clearly Cecil's subordinate, popularly known as 'Mr. Secondary Herbert'."[13] On 10 May he was listed in the council, but as then being "at Bremen". The Venetian secretary Scaramelli noted in a letter of 1 May that Herbert was "just returned from his mission (to Copenhagen)".[14] He is again noted as absent on the 10th, and it is not clear whether he was in England at the time of the conference. He is not mentioned in any of the accounts and was probably not at the conference.
23. Edward Bruce, The Lord of Kinloss, (1548/9-1611), accompanied the King to England in 1603, where he was naturalized by an act of parliament and served the crown until his death. He was appointed to the Privy Council on 4 May. Bruce is not mentioned in any account of the conference, but since he was in London at the time may well have been present.
24. Edward La Zouche, eleventh Baron Zouche, Lord President of the Council of Wales (1556?-1625) is not mentioned in any account of the conference. Levinus Munck records that Cecil sent him a packet of letters on 15 January, so that it is most likely that he was not at Court and did not attend the conference.
25. Thomas, Lord Burleigh, Lord President of the Council of the North, was elder son of William Cecil and half-brother of Robert Cecil. He is not mentioned in any account of the conference, and it is unlikely that he was present: Cecil sent him letters on 23 December.[15]
Of the twenty-three Counsellors (apart from the Archbishop of Canterbury), seven were certainly present: Egerton, Buckhurst, Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Cecil, and Popham. Six more, Northumberland, Worcester, Mar, Knollys, Wotton, and Stanhope, could well have been present. Five members, Shrewsbury, Cumberland, Zouche, Burghley, and Elphinstone, seem to have been too far from London to have attended the conference. Although it is not known where Lord Henry Howard was, he does not appear to have been at the conference, as will be argued in the note below. There is no particular reason to think Sir John Herbert, Kinloss, Lennox, and Home were absent, but we cannot certainly say they were present. Thus it appears that between thirteen and seventeen of the counsellors were at the conference.
[1] Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, pp. 11-22.
[2] James Melvill, The Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melvill ... with a Continuation of the Diary, edited by Robert Pitcairn (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1842) p. 658.
[3] Proclamation of 24 October, 1603, printed in Cardwell, pp 148-150.
[4] Barlow, Summe and Substance, pp. H4v, J1r, M2v, N1r, N2v, N3v.
[5] Barlow, Summe and Substance, N2v.
[6] Ibid, p 176.
[7] Usher, Reconstruction, ii. 349.
[8] For the meeting at Richmond, see Jones, "The Journal of Levinus Munk, p. 250. This meeting is mentioned by Dudley Carleton, SPD James I 14/6/21.
[9] Ralph Winwood, Memorials of Affairs of State (1725), ii. 12.
[10] Barlow, Summe and Substance, B2r.
[11] Acts of the Privy Council of England. vol. XXXII., p. 496.
[12] Barlow, Summe and Substance, P2v.
[13] Penry Williams, The Later Tudors, p. 374, n.
[14] CSPV x.34
[15] Not numbered in this list is Sir John Fortescue, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under Elizabeth and, at first, continued in office by James. He was deprived of office and replaced by Lord Home at some point in May 1603. On Fortescue's loss of office, see N. Cuddy "The revival of the entourage", p. 174f and note 4.
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