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Privy Council Coercion and Religious Conformity at the Inns of Court, 1569–84

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

R. M. Fisher
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Extract

From Henry's divorce to Elizabeth's accession, the most striking religious changes at the Inns of Court were external. As the Reformation progressed, church and chapel were stripped of their medieval ornamentation, in form as in fabric. Despite this outward transformation, there was remarkable continuity in personnel. Change occurred more by the natural process of admission, promotion, retirement and death than by compulsion. This did not mean that there was no regulation whatsoever. Members of the Inns were among those expected to obey the law—whether renouncing the Pope, acknowledging the Supremacy or maintaining uniformity. Nevertheless it is difficult to establish the extent to which religious observance was actually practised at the Inns. Bartlett Green of the Middle Temple, who was burnt for heresy in 1556, testified that he had not heard Mass during Mary's reign. Richard Allington, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, was so engrossed in the worship of mammon that he fearfully confessed before his deathbed audience in 1561 to have ‘never wentte to churche atte tyme of commone prayere'. In 1569, several other members of the legal societies admitted they had rarely attended church since Elizabeth's accession, including Walter Norton of Gray's Inn, ‘by reason of his busines and clientes causes’. Despite the legal requirement, there is no sign of any campaign to enforce religious observance at the Inns or to coerce the legal profession as a whole.

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Articles
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British Catholic History , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , May 1980 , pp. 305 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1980

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References

Notes

1 These developments are traced in my ‘The Reformation of Church and Chapel at the Inns of Court, 1530-1580’, Guildhall Studies in London History, 3 (1979), pp. 223–47Google Scholar and ‘The Inns of Court and the Reformation, 1530-1580’ (Ph.D. Thesis, Cambridge, 1974).

2 Inner Temple Act Book 1, f. 145 (also in A Calendar of Inner Temple Records, 2 vols, ed. F. A. Inderwick [1896-98], 1, p. 191); cf. I.T.A.B., 1, ff. 149, 169 (Inderwick 1, pp. 201-03, 230, and Middle Temple Minutes of Parliament, Book 2, f. 176v [also calendared in Minutes of the Middle Temple, 4 vols, ed. Charles Trice Martin (1904-05), 1, f. 279]).

3 John, Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 8 vols, ed. Cattley, S. R. and Townshend, G. (1837–41), 7, p. 738.Google Scholar

4 Hendred House, Berkshire, Eyston MS.: The confession of Richard Alington, 27 November 1561 (by courtesy of Thomas M. Eyston, Esq.).

5 S.P. 12/60, ff. 202-04V.

6 E.g. Of the benchers, William Forster's Marian nomination as serjeant-at-law was not renewed by Elizabeth and William Roper was removed from the commission of the peace; Thomas Valence and Francis Saunders were imprisoned in the Tower (1562); Edmund Saunders and Anthony Partriche were bound to continual attendance on the privy council (1564).

7 S.P. 12/60, ff. 202, 202v, 204.

8 Calendar of State Papers, Spanish 1558-67, p. 263.

9 See Geoffrey, de C. Parmiter, Elizabethan Popish Recusancy at the Inns of Court (1976), p. 1.Google Scholar This supplement to the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research mainly concerns the strength of recusancy.

10 Stat. 8 Eliz. I, c. 1, 1566 (Statutes of the Realm, 4, pp. 484-6); O'Sullivan, R., Edmund Plowden 1518-85 (1952), pp. 14–16;Google Scholar Maitland, F. W. in The Cambridge Modern History, 2 (1934), pp. 586;Google Scholar Birt, H. N., The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (1907), 538–9;Google Scholar John, Strype, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker (1821), 2, p. 168.Google Scholar

11 S.P. 12/15, f. 195.

12 B.L. Cotton MS. Caligula B. X, ff. 301-08, also in Read, C., Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (repr. 1965), p. 323.Google Scholar

13 Stat. 5 Eliz. I, c. 1, 1563 (S.R. 4, pp. 402-05); Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, 2 vols (repr. 1969), 1, pp, 116–21;Google Scholar Read, Secretary Cecil, p. 270; Trimble, W. R., The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 22–24;Google Scholar Parmiter, pp. 8-10.

14 Bodleian MS. Tanner 50, ff. 207-08, ‘Ordinances decreed for reformation of divers disorders in printing and uttering of Bookes’, 29 June 1566. Cf. C. Blagden, ‘Book Trade Control in 1566’, The Library, 5, ser. 13 (1958), pp. 287-92.

15 Bodleian MS. Tanner 50, ff. 96-97; cf. S.P. 12/44, ff. 109-10; S.P. 12/45, ff. 2-3; Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS. 196, f. 171; B.L. Harleian MS. 398, ff. 7v-8. These copies are variously dated 1566, 1567 and 1568, of which 1567 seems correct.

16 S.P. 12/46, ff. 101, 105; Strype, The history of… Edmund Grindal (1821), pp. 472-3; Trimble, pp. 39-40.

17 Letters of Sir Thomas Copley… to Queen Elizabeth and her Ministers, ed. Christie, R. C. (1897), pp.xxiii–xxiv.Google Scholar

18 C.S.P.S. 1568-79, pp. 50, 52, 58.

19 S.P. 12/47, f. 12.

20 Bodleian MS. Tanner 50, f. 136; cf. MS. 91, f. 150, ‘The effect of the statute of Anno 5 touching the tender and refusall of the oath’.

21 Strype, Grindal, pp. 516-19; John, Stow, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Stype (1720), p. iv.Google Scholar

22 Huntington Library, Ellesmere MS. 2768, f. 23.

23 John Hethe, and Edmund Standen who was possibly of the Rolls Office.

24 Hatfield MS. 159, f. 68. Cf. Fisher, R. M., ‘The Reformation of Clergy at the Inns of Court,1530-1580’, Sixteenth Century Journal (1981).Google Scholar

25 Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols, ed. P. L. Hughes and J. Larkin (New Haven, 1964-69), 1, pp.312-13. Cecil thought this proclamation significant enough to note in his memorial of events—with the correct date (B. L. Harleian MS. 36, f. 352v).

26 Hatfield MS. 157, f. 8B; Read, Secretary Cecil, 437-9,494, n. 20. The document, which has been torn, was probably written in February 1569. Cf. Cecil's memorandum headed ‘Perills’ (see Parmiter, p. 1).

27 Lincoln's Inn Black Book 4, f. III (also in The Records … of Lincoln's Inn: The Black Books, 3 vols, ed. W. P. Baildon [1897-98], 1, p. 370).

28 The role of the privy council has been considered in general by Pulman, M. B., The Elizabethan PrivyCouncil in the Fifteen-Seventies (Berkeley, 1971).Google Scholar

29 Thomas Bawde, Robert Atkinson, Arden Waferer, Thomas Greenwood, Andrew Gray, [John] Lewis, [William] Pollard, John Gray (I.T.); Richard Palmer, [James] Gardener, [John] Wise, [William] Tempest (M.T.); Roger Corham, Gerard Lowther, Henry Harper, John Bowne, Thomas Egerton (L.); Walter Norton, Richard Godfrey, Mark Oglethorpe, Edward Persell, [Ralph] Worsley (G.I.). Trimble, pp. 58-60 and Parmiter, pp. 10-12, summarise their replies.

30 Lewis, Pollard, John Gray, Gardener, Wise, Tempest, Persell, Worsley.

31 S.P. 12/60, ff. 202-04v, ‘An abstract of thexaminacion of such gentilmen of the Innes of Court, which have byn lately conventyd before the quenes majesties commissioners’, (1569).

32 Cf. Prest, W. R., The Inns of Court, 1590-1640 (1972), p. 175.Google Scholar The point summary in Cecil's spiky hand is especially valuable because of the lacuna in the Acts of the Privy Council from 3 May 1567 to 24 May 1570.

33 B. L. Lansdowne MS. 109, ff. 9-10. This undated draft, with corrections by Cecil, was written at this stage without a clause contained in the official council letter.

34 B. L. Lansdowne MS. 11, f. 124.

35 Lansdowne MS. 109, ff. 11-12 (also in Baildon 1, pp. 452-3). This copy is immediatley preceded by Cecil's draft letter.

36 Apart from Cecil's draft, there are at least four copies: a partial copy in I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 181 v-2 (Inderwick 1, pp. 252-4); complete copies in the Petyt and Yelverton collections (I.T. Petyt MS. 538/47, f. 47, B.L. Additional M.S. 48064, ff. 205v-06); a full printed copy in Baildon 1, pp. 370-2 (L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 111v-12v). Parmiter pp. 12-15 examines the I.T. and L.I. copies.

37 This stress on domestic issues differs from that of Prest, p. 175, and Parmiter, p. 9, who over-emphasise external crises.

38 There are two confusing sets of interrogatories in a third hand as ‘The Counceles letters with interrogatories, and the Archbishopes for removing Papistes owt of the Inner Temple’, 1569 and 1571 (I.T. Petyt MS. 538/47, ff. 342-3). The first set, evidently Archbishop Parker's (1571), was addressed to certain Middle Templars. The second set fits Strype's description (Grindal, p. 224) and specifically refers to Papal Bulls (early 1570). Therefore, the two sets should not be treated together (cf. Prest, p. 179n; Parmiter n. 102). The council's letter has not been traced.

39 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 113 (Baildon 1, p. 372).

40 Walsingham Saunders, James Morgan, Francis Pigott, Francis Waferer, Gerard Maryn, James Braybrooke, Hugh Wyott, Richard Clerk, William Atkinson, Simon Egerton, Henry Everard, I.T.A.B.1, ff. 188v-9 (Inderwick 1, pp. 266-7).

41 See Catholic Record Society Publications, 13, p. 138.

42 See Anstruther, G., The Seminary Priests (1969), p. 368.Google Scholar

43 See C.R.S., 13, p. 124. For Atkinson see Parmiter, p. 51-52.

44 Public Record Office, Prerogative Court of Canterbury register, 29 Pyckering, 1575.

45 P.C.C. 32 Drury, 1590. See Parmiter, pp. 50-51.

46 E.g. Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, J. R. (1890–1964), 10, p. 313;Google Scholar S.P. 12/126, no. 39, 12/131, ff. 167-8.

47 Correspondence of Matthew Parker, ed. Bruce, J. and Perowne, T. (1853), p. 384.Google Scholar

48 Lansdowne MS. 13, f. 196; cf. Prest, p. 175.

49 Dictionary of National Biography. The source has not been traced beyond Lingard, J., History of England, 6 (1849), p. 225,Google Scholar but the student was possibly William Mallowes (A.P.C. 6, p. 373; 9, p. 28).

50 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 130, 200 (Baildon 1, pp. 377, 398); S.P. 12/118, f. 138v.

51 Anonymous parliamentary diary, B.L. Cotton MS. Titus F. I, f. 135.

52 Lansdowne MS. 15, f. 158. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, 4 vols (1824), 3, pt 1, pp. 44–46 Google Scholar and Baildon 1, pp. 454-5, print the letter with the wrong date. The council minutes for 17 June 1571 do not record this decision (A.P.C. 8, pp. 30-31).

53 William Roper, Thomas Roper, Anthony Roper, Anthony Wright, William Weston, John Bodily, Thomas Baxter, Hugh Charnock, Theobald Green, Richard Maynell, George Sergeant, Richard Tremayne, Mark Curie, Henry Mayo, John Smithson, Robert Barney, Richard Best, John Barber, Arthur Cary, Robert Walmsley, Robert Johnson, Simon Wormeley (S.P. 12/118, ff. 138-9).

54 Thomas Roper, Weston, Mayo, Smithson.

55 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 7v, 8v, 22v, 26, 29v, 94, 106v, 171v, 179v, 200, 244v, 247, 248, 249v, 267,272,274,281.Though Dawtry was not listed, he was either removed then or discontinued under pressure.

56 Edward Meggs, Nicholas Aylmer, William Hungate, Nicholas Tirwhitt, William Almon, Henry Chetham, William Hillyard, Richard Culpepper, John Wyburne (G.I.); Robert Rowth (I.T.); Thomas Churche, Edward Persell, Anthony Rudd, Henry Hussey, John Hedworth, Thomas Dyke, John Scawen (M.T.), S.P. 12/118, ff. 134-41.

57 I.T. Petyt MS. 538/47, ff. 342-3 (see n. 50 above).

58 Cf. Short-Title Catalogue, no. 15027.

59 See Levine, M., The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, 1558-68 (Stanford, 1966)Google Scholar and Axton, M., ‘The influence of Edmund Plowden's Succession Treatise’, Huntington Library Quarterly 37 (1975), pp. 209–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Plowden's contribution in 1566-67 was known to the government (Hatfield MS. 6, ff. 53, 98v).

60 A.P.C. 8, pp. 246-8. Cf. Prest, pp. 93-94, Parmiter, pp. 17-18.

61 Lansdowne MS. 104, f. 27.

62 Lansdowne MS. 16, f. 54; A.P.C. 8, pp. 110, 124.

63 See Parmiter, pp. 15-16, regarding the suspects called to the bench: Nicholas Hare, Andrew Gray, George Wyott, Humphrey Smith.

64 S.P. 12/95, f. 201, ‘A survey of Chambers and societies of all the Innes of Courte together with certaine devises for the government of the unworthie and unnecessarie number and sorte therof—Maie 1574’; cf. Lansdowne MS. 106, ff. 90-91, 97-98. The statistical summary of numbers and chambers has been tabulated by Parmiter, p. 19. In the final orders the Middle Temple was permitted to convert its former hall into chambers, solicitors were allowed to attend learning exercises at the Inns, and reformation of the Inns of Chancery was referred to the benchers.

65 Those listed at council on 31 May 1574, were Burghley, Lincoln, Howard, Arundell, Warwick, Leicester, Knollys, Croft, Smith and Walsingham. All except Howard signed the copy sent to Lincoln's Inn, with the addition of Bacon, Mildmay and Sussex, L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 181v-2 (Baildon 1, pp. 391-2).

66 S.P. 12/114, f. 39.

67 Walsingham to Aylmer, July 1577, S.P. 12/45, f. 11. The committee, as listed on the dorse of Aylmer's letter, included William Cordell, master of the rolls; Gilbert Gerrard, attorney-general; Thomas Bromley, solicitor-general; and Peter Osborne, adviser to the government, all of whom werebenchers of their Inns.

68 S.P. 12/45, ff. 62-63. As early as 1572 Parker had suggested that the names and qualities of Catholicsshould be certified (Lansdowne MS. 15, f. 82), but Burghley had merely proposed a survey of recusant office-holders in each county (Lansdowne MS. 104, f. 28).

69 The form of the letter is preserved in S.P. 12/116, f. 57.

70 A.P.C. 10, pp. 94-95.

71 S.P. 12/118, ff. 95-96. The others were Barnard's, Clifford's, Furnivall's, New, Staple and Thavies Inns, Strand Inn having been pulled down by Protector Somerset for his mansion.

72 S.P. 12/118, ff. 134-41. For summaries see Trimble, pp. 81-88; Prest, pp. 175-6, Parmiter, pp. 19-27.

73 Gray's Inn Pension Book 1, f. 86v (also in The Pension Book of Gray's Inn: 1. 1569-1669; ed. R. J. Fletcher [1901], pp. 36-37).

74 S.P. 12/144, nos 45-46, endorsed 2 December 1580. Cf. Parmiter, p. 2.

75 S.P. 12/185, ff. 130-1, ‘The names of certen benchers and Baresters of the Innes of coorte’, n.d. [1578-81].

76 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 96v (Baildon 1, p. 366).

77 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 109 (Baildon 1, p, 369).

78 I.T. Petyt MS. 538/47, ff. 342-3. Cf. William Lambarde's statement that many justices of the peace ‘by indirect practice’ never took their oaths of supremacy and office, Eirenarcha (1581), pp. 58-62.

79 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 111, 113 (Baildon 1, pp. 369-72).

80 I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 181-2, I88v-9 (Inderwick 1, pp. 252, 266-7). The missing page included minutes for 22 May 1569 and most of the privy council's letter. Evidence is lacking for Gray's Inn and the Middle Temple.

81 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 181 v-2 (Baildon 1, pp. 291-2); I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 194-5 (Inderwick 1, pp. 276-8); M.T.M.B. 2, f. 112 (Martin 1, pp. 200-01).

82 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 182 (Baildon 1, pp. 392-3).

83 M.T.M.B. 2, f. 138v (Martin 1, p. 233).

84 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 182v, 248 (Baildon 1, pp. 393, 408).

85 G.I.P.B. 1, f. 41Bv (Fletcher 1, p. 17).

86 G.I.P.B. 1, f. 160v (Fletcher 1, p. 54).

87 G.I.P.B. 1, ff. 55, 56 (Fletcher 1, pp. 23-25).

88 M.T.M.B. 2, f. 142v (Martin 1, p. 239).

89 M.T.M.B. 2, f. 150v, 153v-4 (Martin 1, pp. 248, 252-3); I.T.A.B. 1, f. 220 (Inderwick 1, pp. 320-1). See Parmiter, pp. 30-31.

90 M.T.M.B. 2, f. 164 (Martin 1, p. 264).

91 See section 2 above for names and details. Of the remaining expulsions, Francis Brewning has not beentraced, there is insufficient evidence to classify William Barnes, Edward Vavasour and Richard Johnson, and John Cobden appears below.

92 M.T.M.B. 1, f. 96v (Martin 1, p. 180).

93 Francis Saunders, Peter Rosse, Richard Crompton, Matthew Smith, Edward Ameredith.

94 M.T.M.B. 2, ff. 129, 131v (Martin 1, pp. 221, 224).

95 M.T.M.B. 2, ff. 103, 133v, 134, 173v (Martin 1, pp. 188, 227, 228, 274).

96 M.T.M.B. 2, ff. 136v, 147v, 242v, 245 (Martin 1, pp. 231, 244, 347, 350).

97 M.T.M.B. 2, f. 162v (Martin 1, pp. 266-7).

98 I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 188v-9 (inderwick 1, pp. 266-7).

99 John Richardson, Robert Routh, [Nicholas or Walter] Roche.

100 John Netterville, I.T.A.B. 1, f. 192 (Inderwick 1, p. 272).

101 Robert Golding, Thomas Marriott, Thomas Risdon, Anthony Gell, Richard Lane.

102 Unsigned forms of submission for Thomas Bawde and Robert Atkinson remained with the treasurer's papers until at least 1594 (I.T. Misc. MS. 1, f. 2). These were possibly copies of ‘A forme of submission to be made by the gentlemen of the Innes of courte, which be sequestred from their practise and to be pronounced in the hall of theyr severall houses’, n.d. [1569] (B.L. Addit. MS. 28, 571, ff. 70-71; also in Baildon 1, p. 453). In this declaration, which was probably prescribed by the ecclesiastical commissioners, the penitent offender confessed his offences against the law, promised to obey, and affirmed ‘that the boke of common prayer and administración of sacramentes now used in the church of Ingland is good and goodly and conteyneth holsome and sound christian doctryne’.

103 I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 192, 192v, 203, 210, 213v, 224v (Inderwick 1, pp. 272, 273, 291-2, 304, 309-11, 329).

104 I.T.A.B. 1, f. 192 (Inderwick I, p. 272).

105 I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 176v, 196v (Inderwick 1, pp. 242, 280-1).

106 Lansdowne MS. 15, ff. 152-3; I.T.A.B. 1, ff. 188v-9 (Inderwick 1, pp. 266-7).

107 G.I.P.B. 1, ff. 157, 160, 161 (Fletcher 1, pp. 52-54).

108 G.I.P.B. I, ff. 39, 6v, 50v; Lansdowne MS. 97, ff. 179-80; A.P.C. 9, pp. 45-46. Though identification is not definite, others involved in the case were evidently members of the Inns, including Edward Nevill of the same Inn, and two witnesses—Walter Raleigh of Lion's Inn and later the Middle Temple, and Edward Bacon of Gray's Inn.

109 G.I.P.B. 1, ff, 29, 43v; S.P. 12/118, f. 140.

110 John Burman, Wilfrid Lawson, John Lancaster, William Chetwyn, Anthony Witham, William Dallison, Henry Herenden, John Smith, William Bowyer, Thomas Lancaster.

111 G.I.P.B. 1, ff. 86, 87v (Fletcher 1, pp. 35-36).

112 G.I.P.B. 1, ff. 161, 187v, 250 (Fletcher 1, pp. 54, 71, 152).

113 Dean of the chapel's account, 1583-84, G.I.P.B. 1, ff. 323v-4; cf. G.I.P.B. 1, f. 166v (Fletcher 1, pp.56-57).

114 G.I.P.B. 1, ff. 271V-2 (Fletcher 1, pp. 68-70) and Ledger A. Accounts, 1584-1703, frontispiece.

115 G.I.P.B. 1, f. 87 (Fletcher 1, pp. 70-71); Ledger A., f. 12.

116 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 95v (Baildon 1, p. 365). Weston, Roper, Mayo and Smithson were readmitted.

117 Lowther, Harper and Egerton were reconciled.

118 Those reconciled were Robert Barney, Richard Best, John Barber, Arthur Cary, Robert Walmesley, Robert Johnson and Simon Wormeley.

119 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 334v (Baildon 1, p. 424).

120 The unheaded, undated and misplaced list of offenders may be found among miscellaneous jottings in the Lincoln's Inn Admission Register 1, f. 189. This and subsequent evidence cast doubt on Parmiter, pp. 35-36.

121 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 200 (Baildon 1, pp. 397-8).

122 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 151v (Baildon 1, p. 382).

123 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 178v-9 (Baildon 1, pp. 389-91).

124 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 334v (Baildon 1, p. 424).

125 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 358v (Baildon 1, p. 434).

126 L.I.B.B. 5, f. 183 (Baildon 1, p. 393).

127 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 264, 278, 349 (Baildon 1, pp. 412, 414-6, 430-1).

128 L.I.B.B. 5, ff. 113, 200 (Baildon 1, pp. 372, 396-7).

129 Neale 1, pp. 382-92.

130 See S.P. 12/147, ff. 92-99, 121-2.

131 S.P. 12/148, ff. 51-54.

132 S.P. 12/157, f. 119.

133 S.P. 12/164, f. 3.

134 Lansdowne MS. 104, f. 129; Read 1, pp. 293-4.

135 G.I.P.B. 1, f. 443 (Fletcher 1, pp. 60-62).

136 G.I.P.B. 1, f. 142v (Fletcher 1, p. 43); I.T.A.B. 1, f. 210v (Inderwick 1, p. 304); M.T.M.B. 2, f. 139 (Martin 1, p. 234).