Friday, November 7, 2008

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).