Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:13:23.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

George Abbot: ‘The Wanted Archbishop’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

S. M. Holland
S. M. Holland
Affiliation:
Doctoral research student in the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Historians and biographers of George Abbot traditionally have viewed King James's appointment of the forty-eight year old bishop of London to the archbishopric of Canterbury on 4 March 1611 as both unexpected and unpopular. Although Fuller conceived him to be “of a more fatherly presence than those who might have been his fathers for age in the Church of England,” there was a significant body of opinion that held he was unfit for such an important post for two major reasons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 172 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1987

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. Fuller, Thomas, Worthies, 2 vols. (London, 1811), 2: 360.Google Scholar

2. Heylin, Peter, Cyprianus Anglicus (Dublin, 1719), Pt. 1, p. 41.Google Scholar

3. Weisby, Paul A., George Abbot: The Unwanted Archbishop, (London, 1962).Google Scholar

4. Russell, J., ed., The Life of Dr. George Abbot, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, reprinted with some additions and corrections from the Biographia Britannica (Guildford, 1777), p. 17.Google Scholar

5. Tyacke, Nicholas, “Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-Revolution,” in Russell, Conrad, ed., Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), p. 125.Google Scholar

6. 1 John 4:1.

7. Cobbett, William, Complete Collection of State Trials, 33 vols. (London, 1809–1826), 2: 817;Google Scholar Burney MS (British Library) 363.f.25, George Abbot to I. Casaubon, 7 September 1613.

8. Sloane MS (British Library) 1710. f. 306b, George Abbot to G. Monteigne (bishop of London), 3 September 1622.

9. Calderwood, David, History of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. Thompson, Thomas, 8 vols. (Edinburgh, 1842–1849), 6: 735.Google Scholar

10. Mason, Francis, Of the Consecration of the bishops of the Church of England (London, 1613), Epistle Dedicatory, p. 4.Google Scholar

11. Wilkins, David, Conciliae Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 4 vols. (London, 1737), 4: 479.Google Scholar

12. State Papers Domestic 14/67/58. Abbot to Thomas Dove, 24 November 1611; S.P. Dom. 14/67/90. Abbot to T. Dove, 24 November 1611; S.P. Dom. 147/777/90. Abbot to T. Dove, 28 September 1614. (State Papers are held in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London. The first number denotes the reigning monarch “no. 12 is Queen Elizabeth, no. 14 James I, and no. 16 Charles I”; the second number denotes the volume and the third is the folio number. Hereafter cited as S.P. Dom.)

13. Bancroft, Richard, Visitation Articles for the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry (London, 1609);Google ScholarAbbot, George, Visitation Articles for the Diocese of Lincoln (London, 1613), p. 7.Google Scholar

14. S.P. Dom. 147/677/58.

15. Collinson, Patrick, The Religion of the Protestants (Oxford, 1982), p. 258.Google ScholarAbbot, George, Exposition on the Prophet Jonah, ed. Webster, G., 2 vols. (London, 1845), 1: 14.Google Scholar

16. Abbot, George, Cheapside Cross Censured and Condemmed (London, 1641), p. 7.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., pp. 5,7, 2, 10,8.

18. Sorlien, Robert P. ed. The Diary of John Manningham, (Hanover, N.H., 1976), p. 183.Google Scholar

19. Dent, C.M., Protestant Reformers in Elizabethan Oxford (Oxford, 1983), p. 229.Google Scholar

20. Barlow, William, Sum and Substance of the Hampton Court Conference (London, 1604).Google Scholar

21. Additional MS 38,492. f.81b; Harleian MS 3,795. f.7a. (British Library).

22. Heylin, , Cyprianus, p. 40.Google Scholar

23. S.P. Dom. 147/44/68. I owe this reference to Dr. K.C. Fincham; S.P. Dom. 14/58/39, George Abbot to the Earl of Salisbury, 26 November 1610; S.P. Dom. 14/58/50, George Abbot to the Earl of Salisbury, 1 December 1610.

24. Abbot, Robert, The Old Way, A sermon preached at Oxford, 8 07 1610 (London, 1610)Google Scholar, Dedication.

25. Lansdowne MS 92, NO. 7 (British Library).

26. S.P. Dom 14/80/113.

27. Calderwood, , History of the Kirk, 6: 152.Google Scholar

28. Wheeler, G.W., ed., Letters of Sir T. Bodley to T. James (Oxford, 1926), p. 184.Google Scholar

29. Prerogative Court of Canterbury. 96 Wingfield. Dated 28 October 1610. (These are probate records housed in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London. Hereafter cited as P.C.C.)

30. S.P. Dom. 14/56/9.

31. Tanner MS 280. 1119–128 (Bodleian).

32. SirCoke, Edward, The Twelfth part of the Reports, (London, 1677), no. 87.Google Scholar

33. Trevor-Roper, Hugh R., “King James and His Bishops,” History Today 5 (1955): 575.Google Scholar

34. Heylin, , Cyprianus, p. 34.Google Scholar

35. Abbot, George, The answer of the Vice-Chancellor, the Doctors, both the Proctors and other the Heads of Houses in the University of Oxford… to the humble petition of the ministers of the Church of England, desiring Reformation of certain ceremonies and abuses of the Church (Oxford, 1603).Google Scholar

36. Wake, Isaac, Rex Platonicus (Oxford, 1607), pp. 52–53;Google Scholar postscript. (My translation of “te procanellarium delegerim, cuius de bene meritis, quia satis dicere non possum, dicam nihil”).

37. P.C.C. 1 Dorset. Dated 11 August 1607.

38. Dent, , Protestant Reformers, p. 151.Google Scholar

39. Abbot, , Jonah, Dedication (dated 10 10 1600).Google Scholar

40. Cardwell, E., Synodalia, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1842), 1: 334.Google Scholar

41. Abbot, George, A Sermon preached at Westminster May 26, 1608 at the funeral solemnities of the Right Honourable Thomas, Earl of Dorset, late Lord High Treasurer of England (London, 1608).Google Scholar

42. P.C.C. I Dorset.

43. Lee, Maurice, Government by Pen: Scotland Under James VI and I (London, 1980), p. vii.Google Scholar

44. S.P. Dom. 14/35/36.

45. Russell, , Life of Archbishop Abbot, p. 6.Google Scholar

46. SirHart, William, The Examinations, Arraignment and Conviction of G. Sprot (London, 1609).Google Scholar Preface by George Abbot, p. 25.

47. Ibid., pp. 31, 37.

48. S.P. Dom. 38/9 (Docquet; 24 December 1609).

49. Additional MS 6178. f. 208 (British Library).

50. Davies, John, The Scourge of Folly (London, 1610), p. 187.Google Scholar

51. Wheeler, , Letters, p. 205.Google Scholar

52. Heylin, , Cyprianus, p. 41.Google Scholar

53. Fuller, , Worthies, 2: 360.Google Scholar

54. Birch, Thomas, Court and Times of James I, ed. Williams, Robert Folkestone, 2 vols. (London, 1849), 1: 110.Google Scholar

55. S.P. Dom. 14/61/107.

56. Tanner MS 280. f.119–128 (Bodleian); Additional MS 29,546. 1.85. (British Library), Petition of George Abot to James I, Ca. 1623.

57. Abbot, , Jonah, 1: 42.Google Scholar

58. Sloane MS 3828. 1. 1–3 (British Library).

59. Fox, Arthur William, Book of Bachelors (London, 1899), p. 157.Google Scholar (Fox applies this ode to Abbot.) The translation used is from Shepherd, W.G., Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes (Reading, 1983). p. 131.Google Scholar

60. Hyde, Edward, First Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1888), 1: 118.Google Scholar