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The Conversion of Bishop King: A Question of Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Alan Davidson
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Extract

John King, Bishop of London, died on Good Friday, 30th March, 1621: “The next day at night he was buried priuately in Paules”. Shortly afterwards, as John Chamberlain tells us in a letter to a friend, it was commonly reported among Catholics that he had died a Catholic: “Wold you thincke the papists were so impudent as to publish that the late bishop of London died a Romish Catholike, and yt goes for current among them, of wch there is no manner of ground nor shadow but that out of charitie (both before and in his sicknes) he relieued some priests that were in prison and want: but this is one of their vsuall courses wch thay haue learned of the father of lies’. And before the year was out the claim had been made and answered in print: the affair, in short, rose to such proportions that Chamberlain's question, however rhetorical in intent, seems to deserve some attempt at an answer. Was it papist impudence? or is there any reason to suppose that Bishop King did die professing himself a Catholic?

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 9 , Issue 5 , April 1968 , pp. 242 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1968

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References

1. John King 1559?-1621. Born Worminghall, Bucks., son of Philip King and Elizabeth Conquest; great-nephew of Robert King, Bishop of Oxford. 1605 Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. 1607-10 Vicechancellor of Oxford. 1611 Bishop of London.

2. SP 14/120/74. John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, 7th April 1621. Carleton had been a pupil of Dr. King's at Christ Church. See Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis, II, 519. The private burial, the absence of a funeral sermon, was noted by Richard Broughton as favouring the conversion story. See Dodd, Church History, 1739, I, 490.

3. SP 14/121/44. The same to the same, 19th May 1621.

4. Vol. 1, 197.

5. Leo Hicks, “Sir Robert Cecil, Father Persons and the Succession 1600-1601,” Arch. Hist. Soc. les., XXIV, 1955, p. 115, n. 74.

6. B.M. Lansdowne 17, art. 19.

7. B.M. Harleian 7042, f. 154v. It is not absolutely clear that this is the meaning of the letter but see f. 153v.

8. Bodl. Ms. Rawl. A289, f. 76. Dorset to Dr. Airay, 12th June 1605. See also George Abbot, A Sermon Preached at Westminster May 26th 1608 At the Fvnerall Solemnities of the Right Honorable Thomas Earle of Dorset, London, 1608, p. 18. In Anthony Wood's opinion, at least, Airay was “a zealous Calvinist,” Ath. Ox. II, 178. He was among the chief opponents of Humphrey Leech.

9. Archives of Archbp. of Westm., Ser. A, X, 36, p. 91. Broughton to More, 14th April 1611. Appropriately, the next sentence mentions Dr. King's nomination to London.

10. Abbot, op. ciL, p. 18.

11. Abbot, op. cit., p. 19.

12. “You shal scarce heare of a Puritan father, but his sonne proues either a Catholike, or an Atheist.” Benjamin Carier, A Carrier to a King (St. Omer), 1632, p. 70. Carter's own father was a Protestant preacher.

13. Phillips, C. J., History of the Sackville Family, London, 1930, I, 237.Google Scholar

14. Francis Godwin, De Praesulibus Angliae …, 1743, p. 195. Godwin had a suspiciously exact and sympathetic knowledge of the Jesuit missions in China; see Lawton, H. W., “Biship Godwin's Man in the Moone ” Review of English Studies, VII, 1931, p. 33.Google Scholar

15. Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed, O. L. Dick, London, 1949, pp. 186-7. It is perhaps unfortunate that Aubrey should be our authority for this. Although the announcement was allegedly made before 1610, it is just possible Aubrey has adapted the tale of the Pope's turning Brownist after the Dutch capture of Rome in D'Avenant's News from Plymouth.

16. Mark, Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, Ed. 2, Oxford, 1892, p. 167.Google Scholar

17. Bodl. MS. Tanner 290, f. 197.

18. Geoffrey, Soden, Godfrey Goodman, London, 1953, p. 1.Google Scholar

19. Among modern writers, Gardiner, Carlyle, Trevor-Roper, H. R., Bass Mullinger, J., Jordan, W. K. and Deane Jones, I.: Soden, op. cit., p. 6.Google Scholar

20. Soden, op. cit., p. 6. A further reminder of how difficult it is to escape Catholicism in the 17th century: Bishop Goodman lodged in his last years with Mrs. Sibilla Aglionby, a Catholic convert. She was the widow of George Aglionby, whose father Dr. John Aglionby, was another of the opponents of Humphrey Leech. George Aglionby was also related to Bishop King. Soden, op. cit., p. 430.

21. This work appeared anonymously: for its authorship see Downside Review, LID, 1935, p. 146-7 and LIV, 1936, p. 512-3.

22. Richard, Broughton, English Protestants Plea (St. Omer), 1621, p. 19.Google Scholar

23. Burleigh was supposed only to have charged his son not to persecute Catholics; which, even if true, need not imply conversion. Moreover, Broughton was not the author of the other claims, which may be found in Sanders and Persons.

24. Broughton, op. cit., p. 58. There are similar passages on pp. 56 and 57. Their confusion, the admission and denial of the charge in one breath, perhaps shews Broughton as guilty of disingenuousness rather than dishonesty.

25. Raymund Webster, D., “Richard Broughton”, Downside Review, LIV, 1936. p. 507.Google Scholar

26. These plain denials, based on the witness of Henry and others who were with the bishop in his illness, and repeated by most Protestant commentators on the story, have no real validity. James I and his ministers were prepared to swear that Queen Anne was never “more Catholic than as misliking the preciseness of the Puritans,” Leo, Hicks, “The Embassy of Sir Anthony Standen in 1603, pt. IV,” Recusant History, VII, ii, pp. 53–54 Google Scholar: Fr. Hicks is quoting SP 78/51/ff 12-18. Lady Falkland said that her husband Henry, Lord Falkland expressed the desire to become a Catholick on his death-bed, but modern writers have not hesitated to dismiss this evidence, though to redress the balance, some of them have antedated Lady Falkland's own conversion by twenty years.

27. Henry King, A Sermon preached at Pavls Crosse, the 25. of November. 1621. Upon occasion of that false and scandalous Report {lately Printed) touching the supposed Apostasie of the right Reuerend Father in God, lohn King, late Lord Bishop of London, London, 1621, pp. 50, 51, 53 and 64.

28. Always supposing that King was correctly reporting: as yet I know of no Catholic source for this.

29. It was witnessed by Thomas Edmonds and George Calvert.

30. See Webb, W. K. L., “Thomas Preston, O.S.B., alias Roger Widdrington.” Biographical Studies, II, iii.Google Scholar

31. Thomas James, Bodley's Librarian, a humourless man, makes the point with unconscious force. “Yet Preston, that is said to be his conuerter, denieth it, & saith plainly in Peters word, but with more truth, / know not the man. “A Manvdvction, or Introduction vnto Divinitie …, Oxford, 1625, p. 127. James goes on to say that the story of Bishop King's conversion was hatched in the Spanish ambassador's house, joined to the equally incredible story that the King had been deposed by Puritans. For James's relations with King. see Wheeler, G. W., Letters addressed to Thomas James, Oxford, 1933, pp. 39, 41.Google Scholar

32. Archives of Archbp. of Westm., Ser. A, XVI, 138. Oliver Almond to Kelli-son, 10th September 1622. “Mr Preston neuer confessed vnto me but denyd yt ever he reconciled or in yt kynd dealt the b. of london.” Yet Preston did seem prepared to accept the story of the conversion, more prepared at least than Almond himself. Almond ought not (perhaps) to have been so sceptical: he doubted the conversion of a persecutor, but he had once lived with Benedict Winchcombe (see below, note 41).

33. Thomas, James, op. cit., p. 127.Google Scholar

34. John, Gee, Foot Out of the Snare, London, 1624 (Ed. 4), pp. 77–78.Google Scholar It is, incidentally, Gee who says that Musket wrote the book. No one has disputed this, but it may be noted that he also calls Musket a Jesuit. For the printing history of the book, see Archives of Archbp. of Westminster, Ser. A, XVII, 3, Broughton to Kellison, 30th January 1623; also Newdigate, C. A., “Birchley—St. Omers?”, The Library, VII, 1926-7, pp. 314–5.Google Scholar

35. John, Gee, op. cit., p. 79.Google Scholar

36. So Thompson, H. L., Christ Church, London, 1900, p. 47,Google Scholar but Wightman was burnt later. This does not mean that King relished the task. See Jordan, W. K., The Development of Religious Toleration in England, II, 45.Google Scholar

37. Harl. Visit. Bucks., p. 146. See also Lee, F. G., History of Thame, 1883, p. 386.Google Scholar John King's parental home, Worminghall, was near to Brill, so that the two families had at least the opportunity to be on close terms: I have had occasion to read through the surviving Belson family papers, but I do not remember any reference to the King family.

38. Foley, Records, III, 740-2. Spenser's was the only execution that King certainly attended.

39. SP 12/248/51.

40. See Archives of Archbp. of Westminster, Ser. A, X, 19, where it is stated that all four martyrs of this year “had beene spared if they would haue taken the othe.”

41. For the conference with Napper, see Bodl. MS. Rawlinson D.399, f. 214. For Winchcombe's Catholicism see SP 14/17/82 and Trinity Coll., Camb. MSS. R.5.14 art. 6; see also E. P. Shirley, Stemmata Shirleiana, Ed. 2, 1873, p. 99.

42. Bodl. MS. Rawlinson D.399, f. 214v.

43. John, King, Lectvres vpon lonas, delivered at Yorke, in the yeare of our Lord 1594, London, 1611, p. 8.Google Scholar This work was first published at Oxford in 1597. If King did, in all innocence, charitably succour priests in his last days, one might say that the curse came home.

44. Archives of Archbp. of Westm., Ser. A, XI, 97, p. 277. This French account, dated 16th June, 1612, continues, “Ce sont des diables acharnés sur le sang des Catholiques dequel ils ne se souilleront pas si tost si pieu y voulle Remédier quand il luy plairra.” The letter-writer was, or claimed to be, in touch with Lord Arundel, a possible informant, but Abbot at least seems to have spent a suspicious amount of time on his knees before the King (see no. 103 in the same volume.)

45. Archives of Archbp. of Westm., Ser. A, XI, 89. Weldon, pointing a different moral, has it that “the said Titular Bishop George Abbot [he means King, but Abbot had previously been Bishop of London], who had sat with the Judges to hear him condemned, withdrew from the company like a man possessed with Orestes' furies”. Weldon's Chronological Notes, 1881, p. 83. But Weldon is not a first-hand witness.

46. Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, 1741, II, 67. See also Bede, Camm, “The Venerable Maurus Scott” Downside Review, XLVI, 1928, p. 208.Google Scholar King was said to have been sufficiently depressed or impressed by Scott's arguments to make him keep silent at Newport's trial. See Challoner, op. cit., p. 70.

47. The words that Musket makes King later address to Almond are of course worthless for our purpose.

48. Challoner, op. cit., p. 76. See also p. 86.

49. See Richard, O'Sullivan, Changing Tides in English Law and History, p. 22, n. 1.Google Scholar (The King's Good Servant, ed. Richard O'Sullivan, Oxford, 1948.)

50. Bede Camm quoting a contemporary, Downside Review, XXXIV, 1915, p. 34.Google Scholar

51. James I, who could never resist a pun, called the bishop “the KING of preachers”, and Coke said much the same. Fuller. Church History, London, 1837, III, p. 293.Google Scholar

52. Dodd, op. cit., p. 490. According to the same letter, the bishop's sister, Jane King, had become a Catholic. Dodd comments “Yet, after all, I don't find, that Mr. Brought on was fully convinced of the truth of the fact… !(p. 491)

53. John, King, A Sermon at Paules Crosse, on behalfe of Paules Church, March 26, 1620, London, 1620, pp. 14 Google Scholar and 41. The King was present, a fact that had given rise to another crop of rumours, see SP 14/113/33.

54. John, King, Vitis Palatina, a sermon appointed to be preached at Whitehall upon the Tuesday after the marriage of the Ladie Elizabeth her Grace, 1614, London, 1614, pp. 37–38.Google Scholar

55. John, King, Lectvres on lonas, p. 8.Google Scholar A Sermon preached in Yorke the seventeenth day of November, In the yeare of our horde, 1595, being the Queenes day (printed with the Lectvres), p. 699. A Sermon preached in Oxon: the 5. day of November, 1607, p. 22. A Sermon preached at Whitehall the 5. day of November, ann. 1608, p. 33.

56. John, King, Lectvres on lonas, p. 8.Google Scholar

57. John, King, A Sermon preached at Whitehall the 5. day of November, ann. 1608, p. 23.Google Scholar

58. Challoner, op. cit., p. 67.

59. There are other possibilities, but they require a book rather than an article. If any one should write such a book, a full biography of King, he would have to explore the relationship between the King family and John Donne; he would have to consider the significance, if any, of Bishop King's involvement in the affairs of the Spanish Cistercian Anglican heretic, who had come to believe in holy and natural universal science and to hold “Christum esse Diabolum”: see Bodl. MS. Ashmolean 826, f. 227-8. And, no doubt, much else.

60. Humphrey Leech, A Triumph of Truth (Douai), 1609, p. 3, Leech was answered by Daniel Price, The Defence of Truth, 1610. Daniel Price died in 1631, and in 1633 a story was circulated that he had died a Catholic, but it seems that this was through a confusion of Daniel with one Theodore Price (also died 1631) whom Prynne had reported to have died a Catholic. See D.N.B. under both Daniel and Theodore; and Ath. Ox., II, 512. For Leech, see also Bodl. MS. Rawlinson D 317a, ff. 122 et seq.

61. Leech, op. cit., p. 26.

62. Leech, op. cit., pp. 59–60.

63. Leech, op. cit., p. 102.

64. See Morris, Troubles …, I, 192. And what might not rumour have made of the Archbishop's scorn for those who in the Essex case would set aside a judicial decision of the Roman Curia? See Bodl. MS. Eng. misc. c.144, p. 46.