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.
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
[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.
No comments:
Post a Comment