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II. The Commission for Ecclesiastical Promotions, 1681–84: An Instrument of Tory Reaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

Robert Beddard
Robert Beddard
Affiliation:
Queens' College, Cambridge
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Extract

‘Promotion’, says Holy Scripture, ‘cometh neither from the east, nor from the west: nor yet from the south’. Clerical aspirants knew better than the psalmist the strange geography of preferment in Restoration England, where the return in 1660 of the Stuarts did much to encourage in churchmen a greater sense of direction and purpose. Our present study is to elucidate one particular period in the history of preferment, that spanned by the short-lived and little-known Commission for Ecclesiastical Promotions which sat at the height and at the helm of the Tory Reaction. To place the Commission in its proper perspective, however, something must be said of the Restoration Settlement itself. It was, of course, no accident that the hereditary monarchy and Anglican Church returned together. Sir Edward Hyde, foremost of the statesmen at the exiled Court and, from January 1658, lord chancellor to Charles II, had bent his energies to achieve this very end. Yet, for the Church, it was a re-establishment rather than an unqualified restoration, for the loyalist nobility and gentry-the real architects of Sion's delivery-were careful not to resurrect Laud's persecuting prelacy. To understand the changed circumstances in which the Church found herself, it is essential to take account of what was not, as well as what was restored. Neither the imperious Court of High Commission nor the self-incriminating ex officio oath was brought back. Shorn of the chief weapons with which she had formerly harried the more wayward of the political nation, the Church returned as part of the only workable constitution England had ever known, that is as a buttress of monarchy.

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Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , 1967 , pp. 11 - 40
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

1 Bosher, R. S., The Making of the Restoration Settlement (revised ed., London, 1957), pp. 55-6, 67, 82, 88-9, 96, 98, 107ffGoogle Scholar . He writes of Hyde's acceptance of the Great Seal, ‘the step was interpreted as final proof of the ascendency of the old Anglican leadership’ (ibid. p. 93. Hereafter cited as Restoration Settlement). Cf. Wormald, B. H. G., Clarendon (Cambridge, 1951) pp. 306–8Google Scholar . He sees Hyde as by 1660 ‘the repository of Charles I’s original uncompromising churchmanship’.

2 13 Car. II, st. I, c. 12, The Ecclesiastical Causes Act, 1661.

3 R. South, A Sermon Preached at Lambeth Chapel upon the Consecration of the Lord Bishop [John Dolberi] of Rochester, Nov. 25, 1661. Quoted in Cragg, G. R., From Puritanism to the Age of Reason (Cambridge, 1950), p. 162Google Scholar.

4 Though repeated attempts were made to reform the law, discipline and administration of the Church at the Restoration, in 1664/65, 1668, 1683/85 and in 1688/89, they were not attended by much success ( Cardwell, E., Synodalia, 2 vols. Oxford, 1842, 11, 631–700Google Scholar ; Lathbury, T., A History of the Convocation, 2nd ed. London, 1853, pp. 278–335Google Scholar ; Sykes, N., From Sheldon to Seeker, Ford Lectures, 1958, Cambridge, 1959, pp. 39-46, 188–92Google Scholar ; Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft, as Archbishop of Canterbury, 1677-1691’, Bodleian Library, Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1965, pp. 308–74Google Scholar , hereafter cited as ‘William Sancroft’). I hope shortly o t give an account of these attempts, the drafts of which are mostly preserved in Sancroft's papers.

5 13 Car. II, st I, c. 2, Act Restoring the Temporal Authority of Ecclesiastical Persons, 1661.

6 13 & 14 Car. II, c. 33; The Licensing Act, 1662, which was continued by 16 & 17 Car. II, c. 7 and revived by 1 Jac. II, c. 17.

7 14 Car. II, c. 4, The Act of Uniformity, 1662. This was applied by the so-called ‘Clarendon Code’, which was particularly concerned with the religious and political orthodoxy of municipal corporations.

8 For a brief discussion of this tradition, see Sykes, N., Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century (Cambridge, 1934), pp. 41–3Google Scholar . His ch. iv, ‘The Ladder of Preferment’, emphasizes the part played by secular interest in ecclesiastical promotion (ibid. pp. 148-88).

9 , Bosher, Restoration Settlement, pp. 89 ffGoogle Scholar . The reluctance of the bishops to consecrate others exasperated Hyde, so much so that most of them were passed over for preferment at the Restoration (ibid. pp. 97-9, 107, 125-6). Cf. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Tanner MSS. 49, fo. 23, Warner to Sheldon, 12 Sept. 1660; Tanner MSS. 48, fo. 25, Skinner to Sheldon, 17 Aug. 1662. Unless indicated to the contrary, MS. citations refer to the Bodleian collections.

10 Stubbs, W., Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum (2nd ed. Oxford, 1897), pp. 121–3Google Scholar . A beginning was also made in replenishing the Scottish episcopate. Cf. , Bosher, Restoration Settlement, pp. 180–4Google Scholar.

11 , Bosher, Restoration Settlement, pp. 181–4; cf. pp. 94, 95.Google Scholar

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13 William III was to make further use of commissioners in the dangerous circumstances of the post-Revolution era to dispose of Crown preferment in England and Ireland.

14 Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft’, chapters IV and V.Google Scholar

15 The attempt merely to see Sancroft's nomination to Canterbury in terms of a compromise candidate is misleading ( Browning, A., Thomas Osborne Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds 1632-1712, 3 vols. Glasgow, 1944/1951, 1, 204Google Scholar ; , Beddard, ‘William Sancroft’, pp. 3-5, 77–81)Google Scholar.

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19 B.M. Add. MS. 18730 (Diary of the Earl of Anglesey), fo. 8IV. sub 5 Feb. 1680[I], ‘This morning spent in business at home and then obtained the Deanery of Exeter of his majesty for his chaplain my son Richard.’

20 Tanner MSS. 35, fo. 36, Lamplugh to Sancroft, Exeter, 4 July 1682; cf. ibid. fo. 20. The cause was probably an information against Annesley and Barnes, that they had misbehaved themselves in a Strand tavern, where upon reproof by another clergyman, they ridiculed him for being married, ‘Besides obscenity & prophanesies in theyr discourse, there was much swearing & Cursing.’

21 Tanner MSS. 36, fo. 99, Francis Turner to Sancroft, Edinburgh, 19 Aug. 1681.

22 Evans, F. M. G. [Mrs C. S. S. Higham], The Principal Secretary of State, A Survey of the Office from 1558 to 1680 (Manchester, 1923), pp. 31, 37, 275Google Scholar ; also appendix IVC, p. 363, Sir Joseph Williamson's notes on the secretary's functions, including that of attending the ceremony of episcopal homage. That the warrant was not wholly effectual in excluding the secretary's influence, see P.R.O., S.P. 29/416, no. 165; S.P. 44/62, pp. 338, 339; S.P. 44/68, pp. 16, 17; Tanner, MSS. 36, fo. 31. Thomson, M. A., The Secretaries of State 1681-1782 (Oxford, 1932)Google Scholar , does not notice this attempted curtailment of the secretaries' influence in preferment.

23 ‘His Majestie’s Order touching the manner of Disposeing Ecclesiasticall Preferments in his Majesties Guift' (endorsement), Whitehall, 27 Feb. 1681, P.R.O., S.P. 29/415, no. 58. Copies: S.P. 44/53, p. 48; S.P. 44/57, pp. 41, 42. The archbishop received his own copy, Lambeth Palace, MS. 943, pp. 831-4. Noticed in Carpenter, E., The Protestant Bishop, p. 49.Google Scholar

24 ‘Revocation of his Majesties Order about Ecclesiasticall preferments of 27th February* (endorsement), Windsor, 9 July, P.R.O., S.P. 44/53, p. 60. There is no mention of the cause. It merely states: ‘We finding it now requisite for divers good reasons and considerations hereafter by Us to be declared, that the said Order…be revoked and made voyd.’

25 Order, Windsor, 21 July 1681, P.R.O., S.P. 29/416, no. 65. Copy: S.P. 44/53, p. 61. Noticed in J.[ames] W. [right], A Compendious View of the late Tumults & Troubles in this Kingdom, by zoay of Annals for Seven Years: viz. From the beginning of the 30th to the End of the 36th Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King Charles II of Blessed Memory [London, 1685], p. 125Google Scholar . Also Carpenter, E., op. cit. p. 49Google Scholar.

26 Order, Windsor, 12 Aug. 1681, P.R.O., S.P. 29/416, no. 95. Copies: ibid. nos. 96, 97. Sancroft's copy: Tanner MSS. 282, fo. 81, printed in Cardwell, E., Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England (2 vols., Oxford, 1839), II, 299–300Google Scholar . Cited hereafter as Documentary Annals. Noticed in Hist. MSS. Comm., VIIth Report: Verney MSS. (London, 1879), Appendix, p. 496Google Scholar ; also P.R.O., Adm. 77/1, no. 127. Sykes notes the Commission as set up in August, but cites the Commissioners as they stood in July, omitting Radnor (From Sheldon to Seeker, p. 31). Carpenter similarly misses Radnor's appointment (The Protestant Bishop, p. 49). All three versions of the Commission are noted in Whiting, C. E. (ed.), The Autobiographies and Letters of Thomas Comber Sometime Precentor of York and Dean of Durham, Surtees Society, vol. CLVI (2 vols., London, 1946/1947), 11, 108, n. 3Google Scholar . Hereafter cited as Comber Autobiographies and Letters.

27 Blencowe, R. W. (ed.), Diary of the Times of Charles the Second by the Honourable Henry Sidney (afterwards Earl of Romney), including his Correspondence with the Countess of Sunderland 2 (vols., London, 1843), I, 217, London, 28 June 1681. Hereafter cited as Sidney Diary and Correspondence.Google Scholar

28 Hist. MSS. Comm., XIth Report, Appendix, Part V: Dartmouth MSS (London, 1887), p. 65, 12 July [1681]. Legge's connexion with York dated at least from 1668, when he became a groom of the bedchamber. Hereafter cited as Dartmouth MSS.Google Scholar

29 B.M., Add. MS. 15643 (‘Register of Committee of Intelligence 1679-1682’), fo. 1, ‘Names of the Lords of the Committee of Intelligence 1679’ lists those of Halifax, Robartes and Hyde. For Seymour, see ibid. fo. 48. Sancroft and Compton were ex qfficio privy coun-cillors from the Temple reorganization of 1679, and were occasionally in attendance at the committee of intelligence.

30 North, R., Lives of the Norths, ed. Jessop, A. (3 vols., London, 1890), I, 301Google Scholar . Hereafter cited North, Lives.

31 Temple, W., Memoirs of Sir William Temple From the Peace concluded 1679. To the Time of the Author's Retirement from Publick Business, ed. Swift, J. (3 vols., London, 1709), pt. III, 125. Hereafter cited as Temple, Memoirs.Google Scholar

32 Foxcroft, H. C., Life and Letters of Sir George Savile First Marquis of Halifax (2 vols., London, 1898), I, 377 ffGoogle Scholar . When told that the Commission was censured as ‘a skreening of Majesty, that ought to transfer its own bounty to the subject’, Halifax Merely laughed at the ‘malice’ of the critics. Browning, A. (ed.), Memoirs of Sir John Reresby (Glasgow, 1936), p. 232Google Scholar.

38 Dartmouth MSS. p. 65, York to Legge, 12 07 [1681].Google Scholar

34 R. A. Beddard, ‘William Sancroft’, pp. 5-6, 14, 16-17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 40, 42 ff. ; Feiling, K., A History of the Tory Party, 1640-1714 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 106, 184, 187–9 ffGoogle Scholar . Hereafter cited as Tory Party.

35 Blencowe, R. W. (ed.), Sidney Diary and Correspondence, 1, 217, Sidney to Orange, London, 28 06 1681.Google Scholar

36 Dartmouth MSS. pp. 44, 46, 65. Sidney thought Seymour ‘very violent’ (Blencowe, loc. cit.). North, Lives, 1, 300.

37 Ibid. pp. 300-1, , Feiling, Tory Party, pp. 103, 194Google Scholar . Radnor refused to quit the Council with , Shaftesbury, saying ‘he did not come in with them, and he will not go out with them’ (, Blencowe (ed.), Sidney Diary and Correspondence, 1, 237)Google Scholar . He had defended the bishops and opposed Monmouth's patent (D[itctionary] N.[ational] B.[iography]). Dartmouth MSS. P. 33.

38 Davies, G., ‘Council and Cabinet, 1679-88’, English Historical Review, XXXVII (1922), 53–5.Google Scholar

39 Jacobsen, G. A., William Blathwayt A Late Seventeenth Century English Administrator (Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany XXI, New Haven, 1932), pp. 90–3Google Scholar . She does not notice his acting as secretary to this Commission.

40 Hist. MSS. Comm., VHth Report, Appendix, Graham MSS. p. 406, newsletter to Viscount Graham, 14 Dec. 1682. It confuses Lake, bishop-nominate of Man, with Dr Edward Lake, chaplain to York and tutor to Anne.

41 Of the 15 attested occasions, 6 were Wednesdays and 5 Fridays.

42 Tanner MSS. 35, fo. 13, Henry, Lord Arundel to Sancroft, 17 May 1682. He recommends Bell for the deanery of Chester, but cannot wait on Sancroft in person, because of attending a trial in the morning, ‘I heare the Lords Commissioners sit early in the afternoone’.

43 This group of bishops, though somewhat eclipsed in political affairs after 1667, were a power in the Church, and did much to school the me n whom the Commission now promoted. Sancroft was patronized by Sheldon and Henchman, the latter as bishop of London attracting hopeful clerics to St Paul's, where Sancroft was dean fro m 1664 till 1678 ( D'oyly, G., The Life of William Sancroft, 2 vols., London, 1821, pp. 133–4)Google Scholar . Dolben, Lak e and Turner had been prebendaries at St Paul's.

44 D.N.B.; Overton, J. H., Lifein the English Church, 1660-1714 (London, 1885), pp. 33-4, 243–4Google Scholar , hereafter cited as English Church; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, P. (3rd ed., 4 vols., London, 1813/1820), IV, 188-9, 869Google Scholar : ‘As he imitated his uncle bishop Williams in the greatness of his parts and abilities, so he by a certain hereditary right succeeded him in his honours, both in his deanery of Westminster, and his archbishoprick of York.’

45 These included Morley, Fell, Compton (as a student and bishop), Crewe (as bishop), Trelawny, Wake, South, Jane, Graham, Aldrich, Hooper, Wigan, Prideaux, and Atterbury. Deans Fell and Aldrich deliberately built up the House's contingent of clerics and politicians from Westminster School. Dolben kept in touch by retaining Westminster in commendam with Rochester.

46 Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft’, ch. v, ‘The Reform of the Church’, pp. 308-20, 351, 355.Google Scholar

47 Singer, S. W. (ed.), The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and of his brother Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester (2 vols., London, 1828), 1, 124 (XCII), 28 03 1685.Google Scholar

48 D.N.B.; Overton, J. H., English Church, p. 87Google Scholar ; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 262–4Google Scholar , and the letter from which he drew his information, MS. Wood F. 42, fo. 243, W. Hopkins to Wood (no date).

49 Thomas and Sancroft were consecrated together, 27 Jan. 1678 (Lambeth Palace, Sancroft Register I, fo. 7v., Actus Consecrationis).

50 Secretary Jenkins described this as ‘a Rule they [the Commissioners] have made to themselves, which is that every man shall be stript of what he holds’ (P.R.O., S.P. 44/62, pp. 338-9, Jenkins to Brevint, 13 Oct. 1681). The rule reflects Sancroft's desire to reform the abuse, cf. Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft’, pp. 207, 293 ffGoogle Scholar.

51 D.N.B. His epitaph highlights his labour for the Church. University Library, Cambridge, MS. Mm. 2.23 (Baker transcripts B), p. 31.

52 Tanner MSS. 36, fo. 88, Ely, 20 Aug. 1681. The reference is to Womock's Vindication of the bishops' right to vote in capital cases. The political importance of this right is stressed in Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft’, pp. 94–5Google Scholar.

63 Tanner MSS. 36, fo. 120, Ely, 19 Sept. 1681; Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 93, Uffington, 24 July [1683]; Tanner MSS. 35, fo. 215, 12 March 1683, endorsed by Sancroft' Dr Womock would be Bishop of Elie'.

54 Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 121, 27 Aug. 1683.

55 Tanner MSS. 35, fo. 215, Clarendon brought Whitby's tract to Womock's attention. That Womock discussed promotion prospects jointly with Sancroft and Clarendon, see Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 93. For the significance of Whitby's Reconciler in the dispute between the bishop and dean of Salisbury, see Whiteman, E. A. O., The Episcopate of Dr Seth Ward, Bishop of Exeter (1662-1667) and Salisbury (1667-1688) with special reference to the ecclesiastical problems of his time (Bodleian Library, MS. D.Phil, d. 1046–1047), ch. xGoogle Scholar.

56 Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 163, 28 Sept. 1683.

57 Moore, A. W., Sodor and Man (Diocesan Histories, London, 1893), p. 142Google Scholar . For the rule of the Stanleys in the island, see Moore, A. W., A History of the Isle of Man (2 vols., London, 1900), I, 211 ffGoogle Scholar.

58 Baker, T., History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, ed. Mayor, J. E. B. (2 vols., Cambridge, 1869), I, 272, n, 681–4Google Scholar , hereafter cited as History of St John's; D.N.B.; Overton, J. H., English Church, p. 82Google Scholar . He had fought in the civil war, in defence of Basing House and Wallingford Castle.

59 Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 11, Dolben to Sancroft, 31 March 1684.

60 Ibid. fo. 10, Lake to Sancroft, 31 March 1684. It is clear that Dolben, not Lake, was the prime mover in this project.

61 The term ‘Yorkist’ had contemporary currency. Roger North's illuminating account of the origin of party distinctions traces the growth of ‘a common Use of slighting and opprobrious Words; such as Yorkist. That served for meer Distinction, but did not scandalise or reflect enough’; hence, the more abusive ‘Tory’ ( North, R., Exatnen: or, an Enquiry into the Credit and Veracity of a Pretended Complete History, London, 1740, pp. 320–1Google Scholar , cited hereafter as Examen).

62 Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 30, Bishop Lamplugh to Sancroft, Exeter, x6 Apr. 1684. Long was a man of some estate and the father of nine children. Lamplugh tells us that ‘his preferment in the Church is very inconsiderable not above 100 l. per annum’. Lamplugh also says he has seen ‘ample testimonies’ of Long's merits under the hands of Sheldon, Henchman and Morley-perhaps proof of the regard of the standing committee of 1660. Cf. Foster, Al. Oxon. III, 937.

63 Whiting, C. E., Comber Autobiographies and Letters, II, 65.Google Scholar

64 Cragg, G. R., From Puritanism to the Age of Reason, pp. 172–4.Google Scholar

65 Feiling, K., Tory Party, pp. 18, 186–7Google Scholar . He was lord president of the Council of Wales and the Marches, a privy councillor, and lord-lieutenant of Gloucester, Hereford, Monmouth, and of the county and city of Bristol. He furthermore ‘maintained good relations with the Hydes’, his kinsmen, and was a steady supporter of York, voting against Exclusion (D.N.B.).

66 Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 25, Dr Thomas Long to Sancroft, Exeter, 15 Apr. 1684.

67 Ibid. fo. 37, Windsor, 21 Apr. 1684.

68 Ibid. fo. 30.

69 , Foster, Al. Oxon., II, 458.Google Scholar

70 Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 108, Beaufort to Sancroft, Badminton, 13 Aug. 1683. After referring Ellis's abilities to Sancroft's judgement, with which he supposes the primate to be conversant as he has seen Ellis at Lambeth, Beaufort magnifies his candidate's loyalty: ‘as to his zeale for his Majesties service, & his ability to promote that within that Diocese, wherin, hee understands all interests [presumably Beaufort’s included], very well, & has bin very ready to serve the King, as hee is well able to do, & the better for his having the language, & that generall acquaintance hee has, being, besides, now the Chanter or Deane (which is the next station to the Bishop in that Church).’

71 D.N.B.; Baker, T., History of St John's, I, 273-4, II, 658, 660, 985–90Google Scholar ; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 545-7, 891Google Scholar ; Cowper, J. Meadows, The Lives of the Deans of Canterbury (Canterbury, 1900), pp. 94–107Google Scholar . Gunning, having fled from Cambridge to Charles I's headquarters at Oxford, was welcomed by Dr Pink, warden of New College, who made him chaplain to the foundation.

72 Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft’, pp. 18-20, 21-2, 48-51, 68-70, 90–3 ff.Google Scholar

73 Ibid. pp. 18-24, 25-33, 1, 8 ff.

74 Windsor, combining access to open country and propinquity to London, was a favourite out-of-town resort of the Court. When the King was in residence, the Cabinet met there often. The Deanery, adjoining the Castle, provided a lodging for the Lord Keeper ( North, R., Lives, I, 321Google Scholar ; Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 115, Turner to Sancroft, Windsor, 22 Aug. 1683).

75 Hascard was rector of St Clement Danes, prebendary of Windsor, and chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles II. He was a graduate of Sancroft's college, Emmanuel (Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, III, 147, n. 3Google Scholar ; Venn, J. and Venn, I. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. IGoogle Scholar . From the Earliest Times to 1715, 4 vols., Cambridge, 1924, II, 326, hereafter cited as Al. Cant.)Google Scholar.

76 Tanner MSS. 36, fo. 31, Edinburgh, 2 June 1681. Compton sent his message by Turner's brother, Thomas, who was his chaplain.

77 P.R.O., S.P. 29/425, No. 2, Commissioners' Report, Whitehall, 15 June 1683, signed by W. Cant., Radnor, Halifax, Rochester, and H. London. They proposed Turner should quit his living of Therfield, Herts., if successful, and Hascard St Clement's ‘in like manner obliged’, if he were chosen. The rectory of Great Haseley was to ‘follow the Deanery of Windsor by your Majesty's Recommendation to That Chapter’.

78 Tanner MSS. 34, fos. 58, 59V., Turner to Sancroft, Amen Corner, 3 July 1683.

79 Baker, T., History of St John's, 1, 273, ‘Catalogus Episcoporum’ says of Turner:' Verum non diu post eo fruimur, duce enim Eboracensi (cui erat a sacris) in Scotiam proficiscente, (dimisso prius magistratu, successoris securus) ei fidus adhaesit, remunerandus brevi de-canatu Windesorensi et episcopatu Roffensi, auctus utroque eodem anno 1683,’Google Scholar

80 Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 115, Windsor, 22 Aug. 1683.

81 Ibid. fo. 142, Therfield, 18 Sept. 1683. Bishop Carleton had gone to Winchester to beg the Almoner's place, ‘to which request I suppose his Majesty has given the worst answer that Hee can give, that Hee will consider of it. This Accident & my appearing at Winchester has sett the Court uppon Guessing & pointing at me for that preaching employment; toward which I have never made the least stepp directly or indirectly, but all from it.’

82 Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Letters 94, fo. 253, Dolben to Turner, 25 Feb. [1684]. Dolben had previously told Sancroft that Turner's ‘coming soe suddenly’ to the Almoner's post ‘will bring Envy with it’, see Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 204, 10 Nov. 1683.

83 Rawlinson Letters 94, fo. 272, 7 June [1684].

84 P.R.O., Adm. 77/2, nos. 93, 94, newsletters to John Squire, at Newcastle, London, 10 and 15 July 1684. Gunning died 6 July. The conge was dated Windsor, 21 July (P.R.O., S.P. 44/57, P. 87).

85 Rawlinson Letters 94, fo. 276, Dolben to Turner, 16 Aug. [1684], remarks ‘After all, theysayyowwill not long abide at Ely, as well as yow like it.’ Cf. Baker, T., History of St John's, I, 273Google Scholar : speaking of Turner's translation ‘ad sedem Eliensem.-non sine interventu ducis Eboracensis; qui succedens Carolo fratri, spes erat (nee vana quidem.) altius evehendum fore…’

86 Burnet, G., History of My Own Time, II, 431.Google Scholar

87 MS. Rawlinson Letters 93, fo. 290, Womock to Turner, Caermarthen, 26 Aug. 1684. Again Womock sends his services to Sancroft, Clarendon and Rochester, hinting at the desirability of an English translation.

88 D.N.B. “The king [in 1660] was also pleas’d to make him a sharer with others of his royal bounty in the disposal of vacant benefices and dignities in the church; and to honour him with being one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary” ( Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 892–4)Google Scholar.

89 P.R.O., S.P. 44/53, p. 104, Commissioners' report, signed by W. Cant., Radnor, Halifax, Rochester and H. London. The King's conge and letter recommendatory, Windsor, 14 April (ibid. p. 138).

90 Tanner MSS. 32. fo. 28: Dolben to Sancroft, 16 Apr. 1684; cf. ibid. fo. 11.

81 North, R., Lives, 1, 182Google Scholar : where the description is only of the Musgraves. It is equally applicable to the Grahams.

92 Dartmouth MSS. p. 53, York to Legge, Edinburgh, 22 Nov. [1680].

93 B.M. Lansdowne MS. 987 (White Kennett's notes), fo. 987; Foster, Al. Oxon. in, 1047; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 534Google Scholar ; P.R.O., S.P. 44/53, p. 152, warrant for the grant of the deanery, Windsor, 21 July 1684.

94 , Foster, Al. Oxon. 11, 593Google Scholar . He was a Christ Church man, and brother to Richard Graham, Viscount Preston, envoy extraordinary to France from 1682 (D.N.B.).

95 Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 94, Turner to Sancroft, Ely House, 16 July 1684; P.R.O., S.P. 44/53 P. 153, warrant presenting Graham, chaplain to the Princess of Denmark, to the prebend void by Smith's promotion, Windsor, 21 July 1684.

96 Tanner MSS. 37, fo. 66, 14 July 1680; cf. Sykes, N., Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century, pp. 151–6Google Scholar : ‘The king’s chaplains constituted indeed a class apart in the contest for promotion, for nomination to their office was accounted traditionally “a sure and certain way to greater preferments”.' Quoting Ballard MSS. VII, fo. 32, White Kennett to Arthur Charlett, 11 May 1700.

97 , Foster, Al. Oxon. 1, 30Google Scholar ; Wood, A., Fasti Oxonienses, or Annals of the University of Oxford, ed. Bliss, P. (London, 1815), col. 338Google Scholar.

98 D.N.B.; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 86Google Scholar ; P.R.O., S.P. 29/423, no. 18, Bishop Me w of Bath and Wells to Jenkins, Taunton, 26 March 1683; Tanner MSS. 35, fo. 220, Tanner MSS. 34, fos. 21, 25. His fervour for king and Church subsequently atoned for his initial refusal to conform on the passage of the Uniformity Act.

99 D.N.B.; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 727–30Google Scholar . After 1660 he ‘turned about with the virtuosi’, took orders and became a fashionable wit and preacher, at St Margaret's, Westminster. His canonries of Westminster and Windsor attest the King's patronage. His sermon before the Commons, 22 Dec. 1680, offended the opposition and delighted the Court, by its patent insinuation of the House's undutifulness to the king. His gift for writing was rapidly employed by the Crown after the Rye House Plot.

100 D.N.B.; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 603Google Scholar ; Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 22, Gulston to Sancroft, Bristol, 21 Apr. 1683, recommending Addison as ‘a person well qualified for that prefirment [Bristol deanery], having merited well abroad’. Cf. Tanner MSS. 36, fo. 217.

101 P.R.O., S.P. 29/424, no. 47, Commissioners' report, Whitehall, 9 May 1683. Signed by W. Cant., Halifax, Rochester and H. London.

102 P.R.O., S.P. 44/53, p. 169, Charles's grant; Lambeth Palace, Sancroft's Register, 11, fos. 3 n v., 312. For the primate's actions against Wood, see Beddard, R. A., ‘William Sancroft’, pp. 262–81.Google Scholar

103 Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 566Google Scholar , states the prebend was ‘for the services he had done the public, during…Lauderdale’s commission in Scotland'.

104 Jovian; an Answer to Julian the Apostate was written at the desire of Sancroft, who was behind not a few of the Tory tracts. It went into two editions in 1683, and won the praise of Morley. The best account of Hickes is contained in the unfinished, and near-contemporary life in MS. Eng. Misc. e. 4, upon which the D.N.B. article is founded. A fuller account of the operation and co-operation of Tory propagandists will be included in a study of the Church of England interest between the Popish Plot and Revolution, upon which I am currently engaged. For Hickes's place in historical scholarship, see Douglas, D. C., English Scholars 1660-1730 (2nd rev. ed. London, 1951)Google Scholar , and in controversial warfare, see Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, IV, 567–70Google Scholar ; Cragg, G. R., From Puritanism to the Age of Reason, pp. 174–5Google Scholar.

105 Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 183, Hickes to Sancroft, Worcester, 13 Oct. 1683. He owns Sancroft ‘the cheif author’ of his promotion.

106 MS. Eng. Misc. e. 4, fos. 20, 21; North, R., Lives, 1, 413–14.Google Scholar

107 “This preferment was obtained for him at the intercession of the Duke of York, and the Lord Arlington, and his patron the Lord Chancellor… his principal friend upon this occasion” ( Sharp, T., The Life ofJohn Sharp, D.D. Lord Archbishop of York, 2 vols., London, 1825, 1, 50, cf. I, 20–7Google Scholar ; Hart, A. Tindal, The Life and Times of John Sharp Archbishop of York, London, 1949, pp. 81–2)Google Scholar . Sharp was Nottingham's adviser on preferment matters, see , Campbell, The Uves of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England (3rd ed., 7 vols., London, 1848), III, 425Google Scholar , Heneage Finch to Sharp (no date).

108 D.N.B. He had a prior promise from Charles, made before the earl of Bath, Bernard; Grenville and Jenkins (Tanner MSS. 36, fo. 117, Jenkins to Sancroft, 14 Sept. 1681).

109 , Venn, Al. Cant. IV, 226Google Scholar ; , Foster, Al. Oxon. IV, 1477Google Scholar . These three well-documented exceptions will be examined at some later date.

110 E.g. P.R.O., S.P. 29/423, no. 55, Commissioners' report for Thompson to be rector of Aldingham, Whitehall, 4 Apr. 1683, cf. S.P. 44/53, p. 90, royal warrant; S.P. 44/53. pp. 135, 136, Commissioners' report, 28 March, and warrant, 3 Apr. 1684, for John Cox to be rector of North Cerney, Gloucester; S.P. 29/437, no. 99, Commissioners' report, 9 Apr. 1684, and S.P. 44/53, p. 138, warrant, 14 Apr. for William Starkey to be rector of Pulham, Norfolk. All are signed by W. Cant., Radnor, Halifax, Rochester and H. London.

111 Lambeth Palace, F 11/Fiats 1678, A-E, item 22 a, b, c, Sancroft's warrant to Sir John Berkenhead, Lambeth, 28 June 1678; Whiting, C. E., Comber Autobiographies and Letters, 1, 9, 48Google Scholar.

112 Ibid. I, 12, 50: the Latin life states ‘e t Archiepiscopus suadet mihi ut acciperem Ecclesiam illam’. Compton carried Comber to Windsor to kiss the hand of Princess Anne, who made him one of her chaplains.

113 Ibid. 11, III, Comber to Sancroft, York, 31 Aug. 1683. That he counted upon Compton, who ‘promised me his utmost assistance’, and Halifax, ‘who hath had some kind Characters of me’, see Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 105, Comber to Sancroft, Newton, Aug. 1683. Cf. the autobiographies, op. cit. 1, 13, 50. The Latin life states the precentorship came ‘per nominationem Archiepiscopi et Episcopi Londinensis’.

114 , Venn, Al. Cant., III, 204Google Scholar . Moore was an Emmanuelist (P.R.O., S.P. 29/423, no. 28, Commissioners' report, Whitehall, 28 March 1683; S.P. 44/53, p. 89, copy).

115 North, R., Examen, pp. 596 ff.Google Scholar , cf. , North, Lives, II, 182Google Scholar . Moore's role is delineated by Jones, J. R., The First Whigs (London, 1961), pp. 200–5Google Scholar.

119 B.M. Add. MS. 15643, fos. 5IV., 52, minutes of the Council meeting of 26 June 1682, following upon the disordered election of sheriffs two days before. Sancroft, Nottingham, Radnor, Clarendon, Halifax, Hyde and Compton signed the warrant committing the offenders o t the Tower. Moore was a major shareholder in the Tory East India Company of which Hyde was patron ( Coleman, D. C., Sir John Banks Baronet and Businessman, Oxford, 1963, p. 89)Google Scholar.

117 P.R.O., S.P. 29/420, no. 19, earl of Nottingham to Jenkins, Bath, 15 Aug. 1682. Jenkins was ‘particularly active… in managing the City of London’, see Feiling, K., Tory Party, p. 195.Google Scholar

118 P.R.O., S.P. 44/55, p. 240, reference to the Commissioners of Fox's petition for Henry Fox, Whitehall, 1 March 1683.

118 Loc. cit. a similar reference for adjudication. Hawkins pleads eleven years' services in the Tower, six and a half years of arrears in his salary and his being put to ‘a great trouble & expense’ in the business of Fitzharris.

120 P.R.O., S.P. 44/53, p. 82, Commissioners' report, Whitehall, 6 Nov. 1682, signed by W. Cant., Radnor, Halifax, Hyde and H. London.

121 Ibid. p. 143, Pollexfen's opinion about the lawful disposal of the vicarage, 29 Apr. 1684; ibid. p. 142, Charles's recommendation, 2 May.

122 Whiting, C. E., Comber Autobiographies and Letters, II, 117Google Scholar , Hickes to Comber, 17 Jan. 1684. He instances the promotion of Richard Bravell to Welton vicarage, Yorkshire. A more arresting example was to be the advance of Thomas Ken, chaplain to Dartmouth's expedition to demolish Tangier in 1683, to Bath and Wells in November 1684.

123 Carte MSS. 70, p. 563, Ormonde to Arran, St James Sq., 10 Jan. 1683. Quoted by Burghclere, Lady, The Life ofJames First Duke of Ormonde 1610-1688 (2 vols., London, 1912), 11, 372Google Scholar.

124 P.R.O., S.P. 44/53, pp. 162-3, ‘Revocation of the Warrant for Commissioners of Ecclesiasticall Affaires’; noticed in J.[ames] W.[right], A Compendious View, p. 202.

125 Feiling, K., Tory Party, pp. 188 ff.Google Scholar ; Kenyon, J. P., Robert Spencer Earl of Sunderland 1641-1702 (London, 1958), pp. 92 ffGoogle Scholar.

126 B.M. Add. MSS. 29582 (Hatton-Finch Correspondence), fo. 121, Bishop Fell of Oxford to Hatton, 25 Jan. [1684].

127 Carte MSS. 70, p. 563, Ormonde to Arran, 10 Jan. 1684. Quoted by , Burghclere, The Life of James First Duke of Ormonde, II, 372.Google Scholar

128 MS. Eng. Misc. e. 4, fos. 19, 20. Halifax signed the recommendation in the end. A copy was transmitted to Hickes, who first heard the news of his promotion from Battely, the archbishop's chaplain (Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 132, Hickes to Sancroft, Winchester, II, Sept. 1683).

129 Ibid. fo. 183, Hickes to Sancroft, Worcester, 13 Oct. 1683.

130 MS. Eng. Misc. e. 4, fo. 20; Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 134. Hickes had had a previous link with the Hydes, having been made by Dr Hyde, principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford and ‘nearly related to the then Lord Chancellor of that name’, tutor to two young gentlemen of ‘families nearly related also to the Hides’ (ibid. fos. 4, 5).

131 To strengthen Graham's candidacy, Turner asked Sancroft to stress the fact that this was the first suit of the kind which Anne had made (Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 94).

132 Seymour attended Council for the last time on 20 Sept. 1682. There is no evidence that he ever acted in his capacity as a Commissioner, for his signature does not occur on any extant report. His retirement from Court was ‘palpably in discontent because hee was not presently made lord privy seale’ (Carte MSS. 219, fo. 396, Ormonde to Arran, 29 Oct. 1682; Feiling, K., Tory Party, pp. 190–1).Google Scholar

133 Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 159, Fell to Sancroft, 12 Oct. 1684.

134 P.R.O., S.P. 44/57, p. 90, Charles's conge to the dean and chapter of Rochester, Whitehall, 27 Sept. 1684; ibid. p. 93, royal assent to the election, Newmarket, 11 Oct. 1684, also a warrant to Sancroft for dispensing with Sprat's retention of Westminster deanery, 18 Oct.

135 Compton reminded Sancroft of Hascard's pretensions to Windsor, which were received at Lambeth with ‘expressions of favour’ (Tanner MSS. 32, fo. 125, Sergeants' Inn, [Aug./Sept. 1684]). Cf. the Commissioners' double return, above, p. 27.

136 Dartmouth MSS. p. 72, York to Legge, [17/18?] Nov. [1681].

137 Edward Cardwell is wrong in doubting that the Commission ‘was really serviceable to the best interests of the church’, on the grounds of its members and ‘the general prevalence of intrigue and duplicity among the courtiers of those unhappy times’ (Documentary Annals, 11, 299 n.).

138 North, R., Lives, 1, 333Google Scholar , cf. 1, 237, Rochester was ‘for preferring loyalists, which were such as ran about drinking and huzzaing, as deserving men, and to encourage the king’s friends’.

139 Tanner MSS. 34, fo. 36, Grimsthorpe, 10 May 1683. Lindsey sent petitions to the Lords Commissioners for the preferment of his candidates, e.g. Tanner MSS. 46, fo. 66, in favour of Samuel Burnet, vicar of Grantham [no date], signed by Lindsey, Rutland, Lichfield and Cambden.

140 Hist. MSS. Corrnn., VIIth Report: Verney MSS., Appendix, p. 480, John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 30 Nov. 1682, mentioning inter alia Henry Somerset, Lawrence Hyde, James Bertie, George Legge and John Churchill.

141 Carpenter, E., The Protestant Bishop, p. 50.Google Scholar