Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T17:00:38.518Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Episcopacy and Reform in Mid-Tudor England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Barrett L. Beer
Get access

Extract

In Tudor Prelates and Politics, Lacey Baldwin Smith wrote sympathetically of the dilemma faced by the conservative bishops who saw control over the Church of England slip from their grasp after the accession of Edward VI in 1547, but he gave less attention to the reforming bishops who worked to advance the Protestant cause. At the beginning of the new reign the episcopal bench, according to Smith's calculations, included twelve conservatives, seven reformers, and seven whose religious orientation could not be determined (see Table 1). The ranks of the conservatives were thinned as a consequence of the deprivation of Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, Edmund Bonner of London, Nicholas Heath of Worcester, George Day of Chichester, and Cuthbert Tunstall of Durham. On the other hand, eight new bishops were appointed between 1547 and 1553. These new men together with the Henrician reformers, of whom Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was most important, had responsibility for leading the church during the period which saw the most extensive changes of the Reformation era. This essay examines the careers of the newly-appointed reforming bishops and attempts to assess their achievements and failures as they worked to create a reformed church in England.

The first of the eight new bishops appointed during the reign of Edward VI was Nicholas Ridley, who was named Bishop of Rochester in 1547 and translated to London in 1550. In 1548 Robert Ferrar became Bishop of St. David's in Wales. No new episcopal appointments occurred in 1549, but during the following year John Ponet succeeded Ridley at Rochester while John Hooper took the see of Gloucester.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , Summer 1991 , pp. 231 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Smith, Lacey Baldwin, Tudor Prelates and Politics, 1536–1558 (Princeton, N.J., 1953), pp. 106–31, 305–07Google Scholar. More recent works that deal with the Mid-Tudor bishops include Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (London, 1964)Google Scholar, Heal, Felicity, Of Prelates and Princes: A Study of the Economic and Social Position of the Tudor Episcopate (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houlbrooke, Ralph, “The Protestant Episcopate, 1547–1603: The Pastoral Contribution,” in Church and Society in England: Henry VIII to James I, ed. Heal, F. and O'Day, R. (Hamden, Conn., 1977), pp. 78–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hughes, Philip, The Reformation in England (New York, 1963)Google Scholar. Many of the bishops listed by Smith as having no definite religious orientation were Henrician conservatives who continued to serve under Queen Mary after 1553. Biographical accounts of each of the eight reformers appear in the Dictionary of National Biography.

2 Smith, , Tudor Prelates, p. 106Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 51. Todd, Margo, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 43, 57, 146Google Scholar, emphasizes the links between Protestant reformers and Christian humanism. See also Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth Century England, ed. Lake, Peter and Dowling, Maria (London, 1987), pp. 38–46Google Scholar.

4 Hudson, Winthrop S., John Ponet (1516?–1556): Advocate of Limited Monarchy (Chicago, 1942), pp. 5–10, 163–79Google Scholar. See also Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1978), 1: 221fGoogle Scholar. and Beer, Barrett L., “John Ponet's Shorte Treatise of Politike Power Reassessed,” Sixteenth Century Journal 21, 3 (1990): 373–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Mozley, J. F., Coverdale and His Bibles (London, 1953), p. 11Google Scholar. Todd, , Christian Humanism, pp. 42, 58Google Scholar.

6 Ridley, Jaspcr G., Nicholas Ridley (London, 1952), pp. 23–41Google Scholar. Ridley, Gloster, The Life of Dr. Nicholas Ridley… (London, 1743), is also of valueGoogle Scholar.

7 Jones, G. Lloyd, The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Third Language (Manchester, 1983), p. 202Google Scholar. Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses, 2 vols. (New York, 1967), 1: 224Google Scholar.

8 Beer, Barrett L., “London Parish Clergy and the Protestant Reformation, 1547–1559,” Albion 18, 3 (1986): 375–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Baker, J. Wayne, Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant; The Other Reformed Tradition (Athens, Ohio, 1980), pp. 209–10Google Scholar.

10 Bowker, Margaret, The Henrician Reformation: The Diocese of Lincoln under John Longland, 1521–1547 (Cambridge, 1981), p. 101Google Scholar; Dowling, Maria, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (London, 1986), p. 9Google Scholar.

11 Mozley, , Coverdale, p. 14Google Scholar. Rose-Troup, Frances, The Western Rebellion of 1549 (London, 1913)Google Scholar; Beer, Barrett L., Rebellion and Riot: Popular Disorder in England during the Reign of Edward VI (Kent, Ohio, 1982)Google Scholar.

12 Original letters Relative to the English Reformation, ed. Robinson, H. (Cambridge, 1846), p. 108. MozleyGoogle Scholar.

13 Coverdale, p. 15. Lehmberg, Stanford E., The Reformation of Cathedrals (Princeton, N.J., 1988), pp. 4–9, 258–60Google Scholar.

14 Ridley, J., Nicholas Ridley, pp. 93–95, 123–24Google Scholar.

15 Hudson, , John Ponet, p. 16Google Scholar. Hennessy, George, Novum Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense (London, 1898)Google Scholar.

16 The most recent study of court politics is Starkey, David, The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

17 McConica, James K., English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1965), pp. 200–34Google Scholar. Beer, Barrett L., “A Note on Queen Catherine Parr's Almoner,” Huntington Library Quarterly 25, 4 (1962): 347–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Bush, M. L., The Government Policy of Protector Somerset (Montreal, 1975), pp. 108–09Google Scholar. Ties between Hooper and the Seymour family continued until Easter 1553 when he was licensed to attend on the Duchess of Somerset at the Tower of London. British Library, Royal MS 18C24, fo. 324. Hooper also developed a close relationship with Sir William Cecil. See, for example, Public Record Office, SP10/13/13, Hooper to Cecil, April 17, 1551. This letter is printed in Tytler, P. F., England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, 2 vols. (London, 1839), 1: 364–67Google Scholar.

19 Heal, , Of Prelates and Princes, p. 127Google Scholar.

20 Collinson, Patrick, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967), pp. 104–05Google Scholar. John Hooper, whose views on church government were similar to Ponet's, wrote to Cecil in October 1552 that superintendents had been appointed in Gloucestershire presumably to work under the direction of the bishop. Strype, John, Memorials of the Most Reverend Father in God Thomas Cranmer, 2 vols. (London, 1883), 1: 315; 2: 381Google Scholar.

21 Ridley, J., Ridley, p. 260Google Scholar. The only other bishop to sit on the Council under Edward VI was Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, who remained a councillor only until 1548. Hoak, D. E., The King's Council in the Reign of Edward VI (Cambridge, 1976), p. 48Google Scholar.

22 Graves, Michael A. R., The House of Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary I (Cambridge, 1981), p. 34 and Appendix C: Attendance, pp. 219–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Later Writings of Bishop Hooper, ed. Nevinson, Charles (Cambridge, 1852), pp. 159–75Google Scholar.

24 Hudson, , John Ponet, pp. 39, 42Google Scholar.

25 Ridley, J., Nicholas Ridley, pp. 282–83Google Scholar. Wriothesley, Charles, A Chronicle of England, ed. Hamilton, W. D., 2 vols. (London, 1877), 2: 78Google Scholar.

26 Inner Temple Library, Petyt MS 538, vol. 47, fo. 371; printed in Strype, John, Ecclesiastical Memorials…, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1822), 2: 431Google Scholar.

27 British Library, Harl. MS 420, fos. 90r, 99r, 112r, 114r, 120r, 152r, 160r.

28 Although Hooper is usually identified as a radical Protestant, his religious thought really lies within the mainstream of the European Protestant Reformation. Modern assessments of Hooper may be found in Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (London, 1964), pp. 242–44Google Scholar and Jordan, W. K., Edward VI: The Threshold of Power (London, 1970), pp. 293–306Google Scholar. Traditional attitudes toward Hooper are summarized by Reardon, Bernard M. G., Religious Thought in the Reformation (London, 1981), p. 262Google Scholar, who wrote, “Hooper notoriously held views of an extreme Protestant type.”

29 Early Writings of John Hooper, ed. Carr, Samuel (Cambridge, 1843), pp. 147–151Google Scholar.

30 “A Declaration of Christe…,” Early Writings, pp. 74–5. STC 13, 745.

31 “A Lesson of the Incarnation of Christ,” June 20, 1549, printed in Later Writings, pp. 3–18. STC 13, 760.

32 Later Writings, pp. 364, 389, 391, 413.

33 Ibid., pp. 66–92. STC 13, 757. The Revised Short Title Catalogue has changed the date from “?1551” to 1550.

34 Later Writings, pp. 95–116. STC 13, 756.

35 A Defence for Marriage of Priestes by Scripture and Aunciente Wryters (London, 1549), STC 20,176, sig. ciiiiGoogle Scholar.

36 The Two Liturgies, A.D. 1549 and A.D. 1552 with Other Documents Set Forth by Authority in the Reign of King Edward VI, ed. Ketley, Joseph (Cambridge, 1844), p. 495Google Scholar. STC 4812. Further evidence of Ponet's authorship of the catechism may be found in British Library, Royal MS 18C24, fo. 318r. This entry refers to a license issued to John Day to print the catechism and all other books that shall be made by Ponet and Thomas Becon. The most recent study of the religious literature of this period is Taylor, Roger, “The Edwardian Reformation, 1547–1553: A Study of the Clerical Reformers' Vision for the Church of England and English Society,” (Ph.D. diss., Kent State University, 1990.Google Scholar)

37 British Library, Harl. MS 420, fos. 80r–82r. Bretton, R., “Bishop Robert Ferrar,” Halifax Antiquarian Society Transactions, 1934 (1935): 230–31Google Scholar.

38 The Works of Nicholas Ridley, ed. Christmas, Henry (Cambridge, 1841), p. 532Google Scholar. Ridley's Register and Injunctions are in Guildhall Library Manuscripts, 12 MS 9531, fos. 304v–306v.

39 The Works of Nicholas Ridley, pp. 319–20.

40 Oxley, James E., The Reformation in Essex (Manchester, 1965), p. 164Google Scholar. Davis, John F., Heresy and Reformation in the South-East of England, 1520–1559 (London, 1983), p. 100Google Scholar.

41 Price, F. Douglas, “Gloucester Diocese under Bishop Hooper, 1551–53”, Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch. Soc. Transactions for 1938, 60 (1939): 64Google Scholar.

42 Later Writings, pp. 121–22, 124–25, 153.

43 Later Writings, pp. 140, 144.

44 Price, , “Gloucester Diocese,” p. 86Google Scholar. Jordan, W. K., Edward VI: The Threshold of Power, p. 301Google Scholar.

45 Price, , “Gloucester Diocese,” pp. 141–42Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., p. 149.

47 Public Record Office, SP 10/13/13.

48 Dasent, J. R., ed., Acts of the Privy Council (London, 1890), 4: 256–57Google Scholar.

49 British Library, Harl. MS 420, fo. 86r.

50 Guildhall Library Manuscripts, 12 MS 9531, fos. 314v–315r, Register of Ridley. Recent studies of parochial clergy include Zell, Michael L., “Economic Problems of the Parochial Clergy in the Sixteenth Century,” in Princes and Paupers in the English Church, 1500–1800, ed. O'Day, Rosemary and Heal, Felicity (Totowa, New Jersey, 1981), pp. 19–43Google Scholar, Bowker, Margaret, “The Henrician Reformation and the Parish Clergy,” in The English Reformation Revised, ed. Haigh, Christopher (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 75–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ronald Hutton, “The Local Impact of the Tudor Reformation,” ibid., pp. 114–38.

51 Guildhall Library Manuscripts, 12 MS 9531, fos. 307–318. Another appointee, John Robson, was deprived under Queen Mary but restored in 1565.

52 Ridley, J., Nicholas Ridley, p. 337Google Scholar.

53 Muller, , Gardiner, p. 250Google Scholar. Registra Stephani Gardiner et Johannis Poynet, Episcoporum Wintoniensium, ed. Chitty, Herbert and Malden, H. E. (Oxford, 1930), p. 133Google Scholar. Critical studies of John Bale include Jesse. Harris, W., John Bale: A Study in the Minor Literature of the Reformation (Urbana, Ill., 1940)Google Scholar, Fairfield, Leslie P., John Bale: Mythmaker for the English Reformation (West Lafayette, Ind., 1976)Google Scholar, and King, John N., English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition (Princeton, N.J., 1982), pp. 56–75Google Scholar.

54 Lehmberg, , The Reformation of Cathedrals, pp. 92–94, 256–60Google Scholar. Cathedral clergy are listed in Le Neve, John, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ed. Hardy, Duffus, 3 vols. (London, 1854)Google Scholar; revisions of Le Neve are compiled at the Institute of Historical Research, London. The Works of Nicholas Ridley, p. 332.

55 Guildhall Library Manuscripts, 12 MS 9531, fos. 310–318. Ridley, J., Ridley, pp. 258, 337Google ScholarPubMed. Collinson, Patrick, Archbishop Grindal, 1519–1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church (London, 1979), pp. 58–60Google Scholar.

56 Bush, , The Government Policy of Protector Somerset, pp. 100–126Google Scholar. Beer, , Rebellion and Riot, pp. 38–81Google Scholar.

57 Mozley, , Coverdale, pp. 16–17Google Scholar. Whiting, Robert, “The Reformation in the South West of England,” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Exeter, 1977), pp. 75, 213Google Scholar. Further details may be found in Whiting, , The Blind Devotion of the People (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which appeared after this essay was completed.

58 Davenport, James, Notes on the Bishopric of Worcester, 1547–59 (Worcester, 1916), pp. 11–17Google Scholar.

59 Hudson, , John Ponet, p. 96Google Scholar. Public Record Office, C1/1312/45. Cook also brought an action against Philpot in the Court of Arches. Houlbrooke, Ralph, Church Courts and the People during the English Reformation, 1520–1570 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 200–01Google Scholar, states that Bishop Ponet brought “a draught of change into the diocese” and that he cited twenty-one clergy or farmers of benefices for failure to provide quarterly sermons. Christopher, R. A., “The Social and Educational Background of the Surrey Clergy, 1520–1620,” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1975), pp. 309, 350Google Scholar, argues that the Surrey parishes of the diocese of Winchester were generally quiet, but finds a large number of Protestant wills during the years 1548 to 1553.

60 Williams, Glanmor, “The Protestant Experiment in the Diocese of St. David's, 1534–55,” Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 15 (1953): 220Google Scholar.

61 Williams, Glanmor, “The Protestant Experiment in the Diocese of St. David's, 1534–55,” Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 16 (1955): 46Google Scholar.

62 Burnet, Gilbert, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England 2 vols. (London, 1841), 1: 451, 762Google Scholar.

63 British Library, Harl. MS 420, fos. 111v, 115v–116v.

64 The careers of Rowland Meyrick (1505–66) and Thomas Young (1507–68) are summarized in the Dictionary of National Biography. For Meyrick see also Collinson, , Archbishop Grindal, 1519–1583, p. 65Google Scholar. A biographical account of Young may be found in Garrett, Christina H., The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1939)Google Scholar. John Anwick's defence of Ferrar is undated but was probably written in 1553; see British Library, Microfilm of Hatfield MSS, M485/53, fo. 112v. Other references to Farrar's problems are found in Public Record Office, STAC 3/3/73 and in British Library, Lansd. MS 980, fos. 161–63. See also Strype, , Cranmer, 1: 265–67Google Scholar.

65 Pettegree, Andrew, Foreign Protestant Communities in Sixteenth-Century London (Oxford, 1986), pp. 34–45Google Scholar. Ridley, , Nicholas Ridley, pp. 232–34, 284Google Scholar.

66 Horst, Irwin B., The Radical Brethren: Anabaptism and the English Reformation to 1558 (Nieuwkoop, 1972), p. 108Google Scholar. Cf. Loades, David, “Anabaptism and English Sectarianism in the Mid-Sixteenth Century,” Reform and Reformation: England and the Continent c. 1500–c. 1750, ed. Baker, D. (Oxford, 1979), pp. 59–70Google Scholar.

67 Hooper, , Later Writings, p. 76Google Scholar. Shorte Treatise (1556), sig. Cviiir. STC 20, 178 The Two Liturgies, pp. 503, 511, 514, 516, 521. Hudson, , John Ponet, p. 144Google Scholar. Horst, , The Radical Brethren, pp. 110, 136Google Scholar. Ridley, J., Nicholas Ridley, p. 254Google Scholar.

68 Heal, , Of Prelates and Princes, pp. 129–50Google Scholar.

69 Public Record Office, SP 46/2, fo. 178: Hooper complains that he cannot collect money in city of Gloucester. British Library, Royal MS 18C24, fo. 220r: warrant to discharge Hooper of first fruits and tenths. Royal MS 18C24, fo. 128r: warrant to discharge Coverdale of first fruits and tenths. Royal MS 18C24, fo. 214v: warrant to take bond of John Scory, Bishop of Chichester for payment of first fruits and tenths. Lansd. MS 2, fo. 197r: John Taylor complains to Sir William Cecil of poverty. Public Record Office SP11/1/2: Arrearages of clergy, July 20, 1553.

70 Public Record Office, SP 10/13/4. Stanier, R. S., Magdalen School; A History of Magdalen College School Oxford (Oxford, 1940), pp. 77–79Google Scholar. The charges against Harley arose out of a controversy over the presidency of Magdalen College.

71 Pollard, A. F., England under Protector Somerset (London, 1900), pp. 259–64Google Scholar. Smith, Lacey Baldwin, This Realm of England: 1399 to 1688, fifth ed. (Lexington, Mass., 1988), p. 148Google Scholar. Haigh, Christopher, ed., The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 7, 212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Details concerning John Scory's later career may be found in Strype, , Ecclesiastical Memorials, 3: Pt. 1, 241Google Scholar; Garrett, , The Marian Exiles, pp. 285–86Google Scholar; and Collinson, , Elizabethan Puritan Movement, p. 61Google Scholar; Grindal, p. 274. For John Taylor, see Chapter Acts of the Cathedral Church of St. Mary of Lincoln, 1547–1559, ed. Cole, R. E. G. (Horncastle, 1920), pp. x, 92Google Scholar, and Dewar, Mary, Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office (London, 1964), pp. 67–68, 77Google Scholar. For John Harley see Graves, , The House of Lords, p. 28Google Scholar, and The Literary Remains of Edward VI, ed. Nichols, J. G., 2 vols. (London, 1857), 2: 377Google Scholar. The wills of neither Taylor nor Harley are contained in PROB 10 and 11 at the Public Record Office.