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The Royal Hunt and the Puritans, 1604–1605

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

B. W. Quintrell
B. W. Quintrell
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

‘As one that honoureth and loveth his most excellent Majesty with all my heart’, wrote Archbishop Hutton to Cecil from Bishop-thorpe in December 1604, ‘I wish less wasting of the Trasure of the Realm, and more Moderation in the lawful exercise of Hunting; both that poor Men's Corn may be less spoiled, and other his Majesty's subjects more spared.’ At the time James I was again in the field, as he had been for much of 1604, complementing his natural propensity for settling the principles of a policy and leaving its working out to his ministers with an addiction to strenuous exercise for his health's sake. He had already allowed delay among his more reluctant bishops in carrying through the series of concessions granted to the puritan clergy at the Hampton Court conference; and as the expiry of the period of grace before the full enforcement of the new canons drew nearer, he made it clear that he did not expect to be troubled with whatever detailed problems might arise. They were his bishops’ responsibility. In Bancroft he seemed to have found the primate he need to succeed Whitgift. Not only would Bancroft enhance the prospects of stability within the state by bringing a sense of discipline and order to the Church, but he had the energy and determination to take charge of ecclesiastical administration for months at a time. For these reasons above all the Calvinist James had overcome his reservations about Bancroft's views on iure divino episcopacy. As the guiding hand in convocation behind the revised and more fully explained canons, Bancroft was undoubtedly best fitted, by experience as well as temperament, to take charge of the efforts to enforce them. By the time he died late in 1610, after a hard struggle to ‘reconstruct’ the English Church, only a minority of its dioceses had not lost clergy through deprivation from their livings, mostly for inconformity and most of them in the southern province; countless others had been suspended. So closely has Bancroft been associated with the efforts to obtain obedience to the new canons, especially to the articles in canon 36 referring to the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty Nine Articles, that debate about his impact on the Church, both in the parliamentary skirmishing at the time and among commentators since, has commonly used as a measure the number of clergy he is supposed to have dispossessed, whether the 300 his puritan critics claimed, the 60 or so he himself once asserted and which R. G. Usher subsequently endorsed, or the 80 to 90 finally established by S. B. Babbage. The case for or against him has always tended to be built on numbers rather than on any assessment of the degree of responsibility he had for what happened. James, although clearly not open to direct attack in parliament, has in any case seemed a peripheral figure, expressing anger and alarm when signs of opposition to conformity came his way, but in no sense providing continuous direction of his bishops’ efforts. Before he departed once more for the countryside in mid-November, he had settled with Bancroft the manner in which the new canons were to be introduced, quietly permitting additional time beyond the deadline at the end of November for all but the most notoriously inconformable clergy in the hope of edging the rest fairly quickly towards full conformity and, where appropriate, subscription to the new terms ‘willingly and ex animo’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 41 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 The Life…of…John Whitgift, ed. Strype, J., London 1718, appendix 247.Google Scholar

2 This respite, due to end on 30 November, had been allowed by proclamation on 16 July 1604 : Stuart Royal Proclamations, i, eds. Larkin, J. L. and Hughes, P. L., Oxford 1973, 87Google Scholar. See also Curtis, M. H., ‘The Hampton Court conference and its aftermath’, History, xlvi (1961), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collinson, P., The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, London 1967, 455–62Google Scholar; Historical Manuscripts Commission (hereafter cited as HMO, Salisbury (Cecil) MSS, xvi, 399.

3 Gardiner, S. R., History of England…1603–1642, London 1894, i, 196Google Scholar; Usher, R. G., The Reconstruction of the English Church, London 1910, ii, 3, 6, 8Google Scholar; Babbage, S. B., Puritanism and Richard Bancroft, London 1962, 217Google Scholar.

4 E.g. Wilson, D. H., James VI and I, London 1956, 209Google Scholar; Knappen, M. M., Tudor Puritanism, Chicago 1939, 327Google Scholar. Usher thought him complacent in late November: Reconstruction, i, 408.

5 , Usher, Reconstruction, i, chap. 6Google Scholar, especially 413–20 where there is much distortion of chronology after his statement (415) that ‘as the months of November, December and January had slipped by without the threatened danger's nearer approach, the first alarm had been displaced by a feeling of exultation’. The rebuke is printed in Salisbury, xvi, 399.

6 Hook, W. F., Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, n.s. v, London 1875, 221Google Scholar; , Gardiner, History, i, 197Google Scholar.

7 For confusion, e.g. Salisbury, xvii, 13.

8 HMC, Twelfth Report, appendix i, 58. The bishop of Lincoln presided in person over courts at his palace at Buckden or in churches at Huntingdon; William Chaderton's own hom e was at Southoe: The State of the Church in … the Diocese of Lincoln, i, ed. Foster, C. W., Lincoln Record Society 1926, lxixGoogle Scholar.

9 The two principal Commons committees, with overlapping membership, were those prompted by Sir Edward Montagu's three grievances on 23 March, and Sir Francis Hastings's concern for confirmation of religion now in use, of 16 April: Commons Journal, (hereafter cited as CJ), i, 151, 173.

10 Usher, although anxious to stress how few petitions there were as support for his belief that Bancroft successfully isolated the radical puritan minority, has introduced ‘ghosts’ of his own (e.g. that from 28 Huntingdon laymen) and regarded as actually presented others thought to be in preparation (e.g. that from ‘some fifty of the Essex gentry’): , Usher, Reconstruction, i, 407, 412Google Scholar. Two petitions, from London and Warwickshire clergy, may also have been presented: Harl. 3791, fo. 157r, SP 14/12/68.

11 BL, Add. MSS 38492, fo. 6r (copy of text, without signatories, in Sir Edward Lewkenor's papers); Salisbury, xvi, 363.

I owe the identification of Hildersham the steward to Mr Arthur Searle.

12 Salisbury, xvi, 363, 368; Petowe, Henry, Elizabeth quasi vivens: Eliza's Funcrall, London 1604Google Scholar, reprinted in Brydges, E., Restituta, iii, London 1815, 24Google Scholar; CJ, i, 151, 173, 231, 233, 237, 240, 241; Calendar of State Papers Venetian, 1601–7, 203–3. The Hildershams shared Pole blood with the Barringtons and the Hastingses and, although rather humbler, had intermarried with prosperous west Essex gentry of similar spiritual leanings; Laurence Chaderton's brother-in-law, Ezekiel Culverwell, became a kinsman by marriage in 1598, and so later did John ‘Century’ White. The Riches found livings for clergy in this circle. See Allegations for Marriage Licences issued by the Bishop of London, i, London 1887, 105, 256Google Scholar; Essex Record Office (hereafter cited as ERO), D/AEW 17/177; PRO. SP 14/10A/81.

13 Salisbury, xvi, 399. This undated rebuke was clearly written after 25 November when Sir Thomas Lake twice wrote to Cecil without mentioning it and before 1 December when another of the king's companions, the earl of Worcester, alluded to it in an undated letter which internal evidence shows must have been written on the same day as Sir Roger Aston's letter to Cecil, dated 1 December; Salisbury, xvi, 366, 367, 374; xvii, 75; Nichols, J., The Progresses…of James I, London 1828, i, 459Google Scholar.

14 Salisbury, xvi, 366.

15 Salisbury, xvii, 271. The phrase is Lewis Pickering's.

16 Add. 8978, fo. 116r; , Foster, State of Church, cxixGoogle Scholar; SP 14/10A/81; , Nichols, Progresses, i, 459Google Scholar. An Abridgement of that Booke which the Ministers of Lincoln diocese delivered to his Majesty, was published in 1605; it drew on experiences in Lincoln, Peterborough and Chester dioceses (53–4).

17 Add. 8978, fo. ii7r; Add. 38492, fo. 96r; SP 14/10A/62, 81; HMC, Tenth Report, appendix ii, 97; Salisbury, xvii, 56–7. This petition, the sole example from the northern province at this time, may well have been prompted more by the immediate needs of the campaign in the south-east than by the disquieting circumstances of the Lancashire ministers. Its organisation owed much to the links which Sir Francis Hastings had from the 1570s been forging at and around Ashby-de-la-Zouch, including some across the county and diocesan boundary into south Derbyshire, with the puritan gentry of S.E. Lancashire. Alexander Reddish, the presenter of the petition, for example, was a Lancashire JP then also sheltering Hastings's protege, William Bradshaw, at Newhall in Derbyshire: Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. William Bradshaw. See also The Letters of Sir Francis Hastings 1574–1609, ed. Cross, Claire, Somerset Record Society 1969, 81–3Google Scholar; Haigh, C., Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, Cambridge 1975, 304Google Scholar.

18 SP14/10A/81.

19 Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, ed. Cardwell, E., Oxford 1839, ii, 74–6Google Scholar; Synodalia, ed. Cardwell, E., Oxford 1842, i, 267–9Google Scholar; , Babbage, Puritanism 249–50Google Scholar; , Foster, State of Church, 363–71Google Scholar. Yelverton was recorder of and member for Northampton.

20 Salisbury, xvi, 379; Stuart Royal Proclamations, i, 103 ; The Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. McClure, N. E., Philadelphia 1939, i, 201Google Scholar; Winwood, R., Memoirs, London 1725, ii, 45; SP 15/36/54Google Scholar.

21 , Foster, State of Church, 364Google Scholar. On Burgess's inability to reconcile himself to the new terms, see his correspondence with both James 1 and Chaderton in Harl. 677, fo. 48r, Harl. 3791, fo. 173r, , Babbage, Puritanism, 381Google Scholar.

22 Salisbury, xvii, 15, 17, 22–4.

23 Salisbury, xvii, 46, 58; SP 14/12/96; HMC, Montagu of Beaulieu MSS, 46; Northamptonshire Record Office (hereafter cited as NRO), PDR Correction Book 36, fos. 179r–188r, Institution Book 4, fos. 12r–16v.

24 HMC, Bucdeuch (Montagu House) MSS, iii, 75; Montagu of Beaulieu, 46; , Usher, Reconstruction, ii, 339, 342Google Scholar. Dove, chastened, blamed Bancroft's circular; but it galvanised no other bishop.

25 Salisbury, xvii, 34.

26 Salisbury, xvii, 28–9.

27 Salisbury, xvii, 165. Cecil tried, like his father, to avoid a place on High Commission. He successfully evaded both the dedication of Barlow's partisan account of the Hampton Court conference and a meeting with Hastings in July 1604 on the eve of publication of the proclamation relating to the new canons, despite repeated efforts by Sir Francis: Salisbury, xvii, 31; Letters of…Hastings, ed. Cross 87; SP 15/36/49; , Curtis, ‘Hampton Court conference’, 3Google Scholar.

28 The Leicestershire petitioners, among them Dr John Chippingale, the archdeacon of Leicester's official, approached Cecil at least twice, and also other courtiers, but not the king: Add. 7878, fo. 108r; Salisbury, xvi, 421; xvii, 7, 46, 58. 133, 165, 570–1. On Brigstock, see Salisbury, xvi, 99–100; NRO, PDR Institution Book 4, fo. 12r; Stone, L., Family and Fortune, Oxford 1973, 38Google Scholar. See also Salisbury, xvii. 38, Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby to his cousin Cecil, 28 January 1605.

29 SP 14/12/69 and 691.

30 , Usher, Reconstruction, i, 417.Google Scholar

31 SP 14/12/74 for examination of 11 and 12 February 1605, printed in Letters, ed. Cross, 91; for allusion to the king's role, Salisbury, xvii, 88–9. Hastings, MP for Somerset in 1604, had gradually taken over management of his family's west country estates; he remained an MP: for later life see Letters, ed. , Cross, 92–119Google Scholar.

32 Northampton had been least sympathetic to Hastings at his examination, SP 14/12/74.

33 The Correspondence of Dr Matthew Hutton, ed. Raine, James, Surtees Society 1843, 171–5Google Scholar, esp. 172: James I, as yet unaware of the contents of Hutton's critical letter of the previous December, to the archbishop, 19 February 1605. See also Salisbury, xvii, 75–6.

34 SP 14/12/73, 87; The Registrum Vagum of Anthony Hanson, transcribed Barton, T. F., I, Norfolk Record Society 1963, 155–6Google Scholar.

35 Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata 1593 to 1609, ed. Baildon, W. P., London 1894, 191.Google Scholar

36 Correspondence of Hutton, 174.

37 SP 40/2, fo. 4gr; Hamilton, A. H. A., Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne, London 1878, 67–71Google Scholar; Watts, S. J., From Border to Middle Shire: Northumberland 1586–1625, Leicester 1975, 141–2Google Scholar; Salisbury, xvii, 254, 382.

38 For allegations against the dean, see Salisbury, xvii, passim, but esp. 617–23. For Sir Edward, see Salisbury, xvii, 258, Buccleuch, i, 237, Montagu of Beaulieu, 46–8; he was again acting as a musters commissioner in Northamptonshire by August : The Montagu Musters Book, ed. Wake, Joan, Northamptonshire Record Society 1935, 3Google Scholar.

39 Salisbury, xvii, 52; Registrum Vagum, i, 151.

40 West Sussex Record Office, Ep I/1/8, fos. 54v-56r. See also Manning, R. B., Religion and Society in Elizabethan Sussex, Leicester 1969, 21Google Scholar in. Norden's patron, Sir Edward Lewkenor, with homes in Sussex and S.W. Suffolk and a parliamentary seat at Maldon was, as his papers show, another useful co-ordinator of the puritan strategy; Add. 38492, passim. See also Denham Parish Registers, 1539–1850 ed., Hervey, S. H. A., Bury St Edmunds 1904, 204–25Google Scholar.

41 As e.g. Robert Johnson and, very probably, David Dee: ERO, D/ACV 4, fo. 25; D/ACA 27, fo. 176r, ‘Viewe of the clargie of Essex’ (formerly PRO 30/15/1/128), p. 12 on Johnson; and Seaver, P. S., The Puritan Lectureships, Stanford Calif. 1970, 223Google Scholar, 359n. 66 on Dee. Usher, Reconstruction, i, 408, confuses Essex (see of London) with diocese of Exeter, where Bishop Cotton had been active earlier in 1604.

42 Salisbury, xvii, 85.

45 , Based on , Babbage, Puritanism, 149–217.Google Scholar

44 In all there were apparently 47 sentences of deprivation passed in the southern province between Dec. 1604 and Dec. 1605 (and 5 in the northern), 24 of them in the sees of Peterborough and Lincoln; in the first six months 39 were passed, 21 in these two dioceses. Ten dioceses seem to have suffered no losses 1604–10.

45 , Babbage, Puritanism, 371Google Scholar, 377. Babbage is right to stress Bancroft's difficulty in dealing with James, but he seriously underestimates the king's experience and understan-ding.

46 , Usher, Reconstruction, ii, 18Google Scholar; , Colltnson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 460Google Scholar; Fuller, Thomas, The Church History of Britain, London 1837, iii, 363Google Scholar; Letters of Chamberlain, i, 201. Culverwell was not put out until 1609.