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.