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Predestination and Parochial Dispute in the 1630s: The Case of the Norwich Lectureships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2008

MATTHEW REYNOLDS
MATTHEW REYNOLDS
Affiliation:
Kennet School, Thatcham, Berkshire RG19 4LL; email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Recently it has been suggested that fundamental disagreements over the theology of grace had little impact upon parish life in early Stuart England. However, by considering the local circumstances and wider national repercussions of an open debate over predestination in the 1630s between two Norwich lecturers, William Bridge and John Chappell, this article will argue the contrary. It will show that the public nature of the clash between Bridge and Chappell, examined by the church courts, ensured that predestination became a politically divisive issue within Norwich's parishes on the eve of the English Civil War.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 407 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

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7 ODNB, s.v. ‘William Bridge (1601–71)’.

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9 It has been suggested that early modern Norwich was a tolerant and religiously harmonious city: M. C. McClendon, The quiet Reformation: magistrates and the emergence of Protestantism in Tudor Norwich, Stanford 1999, 13–14, 17, 28, 253–8. The evidence cited here confutes this thesis.

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11 St Andrew's was a donative cure held by twenty-two trustees, who appointed the parish's stipendiary chaplain and resident lecturer, two posts sometimes held jointly by one incumbent: M. Reynolds, Godly reformers and their opponents in early modern England: religion in Norwich c. 1560–1643, Woodbridge 2005, 64–8, 75, 81–3, 101; Thomas Newhouse, Certaine sermons preached by T. Newhouse set forth by R. Gallard, London 1614 (RSTC 18493), sig. A3r. John Yates's career is explored in M. Reynolds, ‘Puritanism and the emergence of Laudianism in city politics in Norwich, c. 1570–1643’, unpubl. PhD diss. Kent 2002, 72–3, 92–8, 108–12, 123–41.

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16 NRO, DN VSC/2/3b, fo. 3v; The Norwich rate book from Easter 1633 to Easter 1634, ed. W. Rye, Norwich 1903, 52. In 1627 Thomas King was presented at St Michael's for not standing at the Gospel: DN VIS/5/3/2.

17 BL, ms Harleian 3783, fo. 38r; ms Tanner 68, fo. 155r; NRO, NCR, case 16a/15, mayor's court book, 1615–24, fo. 358r; BL, ms Add 18597, fo. 168v.

18 NRO, NCR, case 16a/15, mayor's court book, 1615–24, fo. 508v; Norwich rate book, 36. Prosopographical details are supplied by B. Cozens-Hardy and E. A. Kent, The mayors of Norwich, 1403–1835, Norwich 1938, 75–6, 80.

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21 ODNB, s.v. ‘Miles Corbet (1594/5–1662)’, which confuses Corbet's parentage; B. Levack, The civil lawyers in England, 1603–1641: a political study, Oxford 1971, 220; NRO, MC 46/4, Miles Corbet's apology.

22 SP 16/531/134; Essex Record Office, D/AC/A47, fos 70v, 161v.

23 T. Webster, Godly clergy in early Stuart England: the Caroline Puritan movement c. 1620–1643, Cambridge 1997, 41; London Metropolitan Archives, DL/C/343, fo. 102r. Bridge was licensed on 5 Feb, 1630/1.

24 Lambeth Palace Library, Register Abbot, iii, fos 153r–159v; NRO, DN VSC/2/3a, 2, 7; Norwich rate book, 54. The living of St George Tombland was appropriated to the bishop of Ely, who as rector provided a stipendiary chaplain: DN VAL/2.

25 NRO, NCR, case 16d/5, assembly book, 1613–42, fo. 286r; Norwich rate book, 58; NCR, case 18a, chamberlains' accounts, 1625–48, fos 182r, 183r; J. Venn and J. A. Venn, Alumni cantabrigienses … part 1, Cambridge 1922–7, i. 324.

26 The poems of Richard Corbett, ed. J. A. W. Bennet and H. R. Trevor-Roper, Oxford 1955, pp. xxxii–xli, 56–7; K. Fincham, ‘Episcopal government, 1603–1640’, in K. Fincham (ed.), The early Stuart Church, 1603–1642, Basingstoke 1993, 85. The 1629 directions are printed in William Laud, Works, ed. J. Bliss and W. Scott, Oxford 1847–69, v. 308.

27 NRO, DN REG/16/22, fo. 3r; DN DEP/41/46, fos 581v, 583v. For Gamon's career see DN DEP/40/45, fo. 97v; ms Tanner 68, fos 220r.

28 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fos 580v, 591r–v lists the preachers.

29 Ibid fo. 580v. Gallard had been presented to Sprowston in February 1614/15 by Miles Corbet's father Thomas: DN REG/16/22, consignation book, 1627.

30 See the articles for these divines in ODNB.

31 BL, ms Add 24346, extracts from King's Lynn assembly books, entries for 8 Dec, 1628, 24 July, 11 Oct, 1629; NRO, DN DEP/38/43, fos 389r–v.

32 NRO, DN DEP/38/43, fos 389v, 391r; Norfolk official lists, comp. H. Le Strange, Norwich 1890, 203; DN VIS/6/4; R. Newcourt, Repertorium … or an ecclesiastical parochial history of the diocese of London, London 1710, ii. 578. For John Stalham's subsequent career see K. Wrightson and D. Levine, Poverty and piety in an English village: Terling, 1525–1700, Oxford 1995 edn, 160–4.

33 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fo. 567r; The Anglican canons, 1529–1947, ed. G. Bray (CRS vi, 1998), 341; Visitation articles and injunctions, i.163.

34 The register of the freemen of Norwich, 1548–1713, ed. P. Millican, Norwich 1934, 38; PROB 11/168, fo. 350r; NRO, NCC 55 Hudd, will of Richard Grandorge, proved 1621; Conferences and combination lectures in the Elizabethan Church, 1582–1590, ed. P. Collinson, J. Craig and B. Usher (CRS x, 2003), 214–15.

35 Journals of the House of Commons, ii. 896; Mayors of Norwich, 88.

36 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fo. 567r; An index to Norwich city officers, 1453–1835, comp. T. Hawes (Norfolk Record Society lii, 1986), 113; J. T. Evans, Seventeenth-century Norwich: politics, religion and government, 1620–1690, Oxford 1979, 227.

37 PROB 11/323, fo. 122r; NRO, DN DEP 41/46, fo. 604r.

38 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fo. 568r.

39 NRO, MC 992/1, St Andrew's overseers accounts, 1623–81; ANW 4/38. Significantly, Anthony Norris's concerns over canine intrusion echo Bishop Wren's 1636 orders for railing in communion tables; ms Tanner 68, fo. 33r. For the replacing of altar rails in the 1670s see K. Fincham, ‘“According to ancient custom”: the return of altars in the Restoration Church of England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser. xiii (2003), 29–54.

40 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fo. 568v; DN DEP/43/47, fos 500r–505v, Ingram con Greenwood; ms Tanner 68, fo. 271r.

41 Index to Norwich city officers, 72; Joseph Hall, ‘Hard measure’, in The works of Joseph Hall, ed. P. Hall, Oxford 1837, i, p. lv.

42 ms Tanner 68, fo. 271r; NRO, NCR, case 16a/15, mayor's court book, 1615–24, fo. 532r; Index to Norwich city officers, 87; PROB 11/285, fo. 105r.

43 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fos 569r–v, 586r–v.

44 Ibid fos 568r, 583v.

45 Ibid fos 567r–v, 577r.

46 Ibid fo. 585v; Cust, R., ‘Anti-Puritanism and urban politics: Charles i and Great Yarmouth’, HJ xxxv (1992), 18Google Scholar.

47 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fos 592v, 593v.

48 Ibid fos 585v, 592r; NCR, case 16d/5, assembly book, 1613–42, fo. 312r records Chappell's departure; BL, ms Egerton 2716, fo. 436.

49 Laud, Works, v. 308; NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fos 589v–590r, 600r; Register of the freemen of Norwich, 70, 76.

50 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fo. 581r. Petrus Bertius was a follower of Arminius.

51 NRO, NCR, case 16d/5, assembly book, 1613–42, fo. 232v; Alumni cantabrigienses, i. 324; Lichfield Record Office, B/V/1//37; J. C. Cox and W. H. S. St John-Hope, The chronicles of the … Free Chapel of All Saints' Derby, London 1891, 25.

52 William Prynne, Canterburies doome, London 1646 (Wing P.3917), 178; ODNB, s.v. ‘William Chappell (1582–1649)’; Thomas Hill, ‘To the Christian reader’, in William Fenner, Willful impenitency, the grossest self-murder, London 1648 (Wing F.712).

53 For Laud's emphatic letters on John Chappell's behalf see Laud, Works, vi. 514, 518; vii. 398, 418, 439, 464, 471, 522, 543.

54 ODNB, s.v. ‘Richard Sterne (1595/6–1683)’; R. Thoroton, The antiquities of Nottinghamshire, Nottingham 1790–6, iii. 94.

55 Alumni cantabrigienses, i. 324, states that another contemporary, John Chappell, held Glooston, which is plausible since this Chappell held other livings in the diocese of Lincoln and, like William Sterne, had attended Trinity College. However, he achieved MA, while John Chappell BD was instituted to Glooston: TNA, E 331/Lincoln/8.

56 Cambers, A., ‘Pastoral Laudianism? Religious politics in the 1630s: a Leicestershire rector's annotations’, Midland History xxvii (2002), 39–40Google Scholar, 42; Tyacke, Aspects of English Protestantism, 223.

57 NRO, DN DEP/41/46, fos 587v, 599v.

58 Ibid fos 572r–v, 574r, 591v–592r, 595r–597r; DN VSC/2/4, fo. 1v. Both Cocke and Porter served as Bishop Wren's standing commissioners: ms Tanner 68, fos 220r, 240r. For charges against Davill see BL, ms Add 15903, fo. 75.

59 R. Cust, ‘Charles i and popularity’, in T. Cogswell, R. Cust and P. Lake (eds), Politics, religion and popularity in early Stuart Britain, Cambridge 2002, 247–55; NRO, DN ACT/63/15, fo. 30r. For complaints against Lushington see ms Tanner 220, fo. 136.

60 NRO, NCR, case 16a/20, mayor's court book, 1634–46, fo. 21r; Laud, Works, v. 328, 340. Wren's visitation is discussed in Reynolds, Godly reformers, 187–94

61 NRO, DN CON/16, articles against Edward Wale, clerk, loose file. Depositions for this case survive in DN DEP/42/47a, fos 543r–547v.

62 Jewson, C. B., ‘The English church at Rotterdam and its Norfolk connections’, Norfolk Archaeology xxx (1952), 324–37Google Scholar; Thomas Edwards, Antapologia, London 1644 (Wing E.222), 17–18.

63 Reynolds, Godly reformers, 228–30. Thomas King and his wife Rebecca settled in Rotterdam in 1639, and became co-founders of Bridge's Congregationalist Church at Great Yarmouth in 1643: ms Tanner 68, fos 8v, 10r, 338v; NRO, FC 31/1, fo.1r.

64 ms Tanner 68, fo. 79r; Laud, Works, v. 340.

65 Edwards, Antapologia, 45, citing a letter from Bridge to other Norwich citizens encouraging them to join the Rotterdam congregation.

66 ms Tanner 68, fo. 338r. Metcalfe hailed from Tatterford where his father Leonard was rector, and where in 1614 the living passed to another son, Richard. Nicholas Metcalfe, also baptised at Tatterford, was ordained priest in 1612: Michael Metcalfe, ‘To all the true professors of Christ's Gospel within the city of Norwich, 13 Jan 1637’, New England Historical and Genealogical Register xvi (1862), 279–84, esp. pp. 281–2.

67 George Downham, Rex meus est deus: or a sermon preached in … Christ Church in … Norwich, London 1643 (Wing D.2096A), 3, 8–9.

68 P. Collinson, The religion of Protestants: the Church in English society, 1559–1625, Oxford 1982, 141–4, 149.

69 However the Norwich case contrasts with similar provincial clashes over predestination such as that between Thomas Jackson and Robert Jenison in Newcastle, and Peter Studley's troubling the godly of Shrewsbury: R. Howell, Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan revolution, Oxford 1967, 85–9; Lake, P., ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and a Shropshire axe-murder’, Midland History xv (1990), 37–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.