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“All One with Tom Thumb”: Arminianism, Popery, and the Story of the Reformation in Early Stuart Cambridge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Margo Todd
Margo Todd
Affiliation:
associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
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Extract

Historians of early-seventeenth-century English religion are deeply divided over whether the church of the 1630s was characterized by more general theological and liturgical agreement and tolerant ecumenism, or by escalating conflict over theology and ceremonies, driven in part by virulent anti-popery and culminating in the violence of the 1640s. Those who see conflict acknowledge that such categories as Puritan and Anglican are unwarranted for what was really a spectrum of opinion, with the moderate range heavily occupied. Still, they find antecedents of the Civil War in longstanding quarrels over theology and ceremony. For those who find the Caroline church a consensual body, on the other hand, the causes of that war “remain elusive.” Having discarded as simplistic the plot line of the received version, which proceeds inexorably from Elizabethan dissent to “Puritan Revolution,” they now substitute short-term contingency and the sudden flourishing of a lunatic fringe. In the process of trying to sort out the complexity of contemporary theological opinion, they have lost the thread of the story they were trying to tell.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 563 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1. On Calvinist consensus, see Tyacke, Nicholas, Anti-Calvinists (Oxford, 1987);Google ScholarCollinson, Patrick, Religion of Protestants (Oxford, 1982);Google Scholar and Lake, Peter, “Calvinism and the English Church 1570–1635,” Past and Present 114 (1987): 32–76.Google ScholarWhite, Peter, Predestination, Policy and Polemic (Cambridge, U.K., 1992)Google Scholar and Davies, Julian, The Caroline Captivity of the Church (Oxford, 1992) offer a very different view of Caroline consensus. Fincham, Kenneth, ed., The Early Stuart Church, includes revisionist and counterrevisionist views.Google Scholar See also Lake, Peter, “Anti-Popery: The Structure of a Prejudice” in Cust, R. and Hughes, A., eds., Conflict in Early Stuart England (Harlow, U.K., 1989)Google Scholar and Milton, Anthony, Catholic and Reformed (Cambridge, 1995).Google Scholar

2. White, , Predestination, p. 311. A good summary of the current state of this historiography is Fincham's introduction to The Early Stuart Church.Google Scholar

3. Cambridge University Library [CUL] MS Com. Ct. 1.18, fol. 82; see also MSS CUR 20.1, it. 6 (22xi), and CUR 18.6(8). Attending on 8 April 1633 were Laney, Collins, Wren, Eden, Love, Ward, Bainbrigg, and Batchcroft. Royal prohibition of preaching on such controversial matters as election prefaced the 1628 Articles of Religion. It had been preceded by the Directions of 1622 and the Proclamation of 1626. Normanton, son of a London cutler, was admitted sizar at Caius in 1620, took his B.A. and M.A. in 1624 and 1627, and remained a fellow of the college from 1627 to 1639, when he left the country and was deprived: , John and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses I: iii (Cambridge, U.K., 1924). Further information about him is not extant.Google Scholar

4. CUL MS Com. Ct. 1.18, fol. 129. University preachers were selected from the divines holding fellowships in the colleges on an irregular rotation; Normanton may have been nominated by his head on this occasion deliberately to test his orthodoxy.

5. CUL MS Com. Ct. 1.18, fols. 129–131v, 134–5. CUR 18.6(8) lists ten heads in attendance at the 11 January meeting that granted a fortnight's leeway (including only Bainbrigg, Sancroft, Batchcroft, and Love for the Calvinist side) and fourteen on 25 January, when Normanton was given an additional two days (outnumbered then were Love, Ward, Bainbrigg, Batchcroft, Brownrigg, and Sancroft). Twelve heads attended on 18 January, eight (listed below) on 27 January (Com Ct. 1.18, fols. 129, 134). Com. Ct. I.18, fols. 130–131v records the articles and Normanton's responses to them on 27 January. On 30 January he finally turned in the sermon in two little books with four leaves, folded in quarto. CUL MS Mm. 1.44 (Baker 33), fols. 225–226, mistakenly reports both the 1633 and the 1636 offenses occuring in 1633, but it gives the most accurate schedule of court days and actions, and recounts Normanton's uncooperativeness with the court (he was committed for contempt by the Calvinist court on 27 January) and the delays thereby entailed. British Library [BL] MS Harl. 7019, fol. 56, reports that Laney and Martin “did maintain that he was not bound to give up a copy of his sermon unless someone would first put in Articles against him.”

6. CUL MS CUR 18.6(8), for 22 February.

7. CUL MSS Com. Ct. 1.18, fols. 134–5; CUR 18.6(8); Mm 1.44, fols. 225–6; Sidney Sussex College MS [SS] Ward F, fols. 112v–98v (22–36 from the back).

8. CUL MS Com.Ct. 1.18, fols. 129–131v; SS Ward F, fol. 110 (23v from the back); BL MS Harl. 7019, fol. 56. Despite Kenneth Parker's arguments against a distinctively Puritan Sabbatarianism in The English Sabbath (Cambridge, U.K., 1988), such strict sabbath observance as Ward urged was by the 1630s rejected by that wing of the English Church that supported Normanton: Lake, “Laudian Style,” p. 173.Google ScholarThe Commons' committee, chaired by Sir Robert Harley, based its report mostly on the Vicechancellor's Court registers brought to London by the registrar, James Tabor, in response to a committee mandate (CULMSCUR20.1, no. 6.21). These do not mention Sabbatarian offense, but the committee also called witnesses, one of whom may have been Ward.Google ScholarOn Harl. 7019 as the committee report, see Hoyle, D., “A Commons Investigation of Arminianism and Popery in Cambridge on the Eve of the Civil War,” Historical Journal (1986): 419–425.Google Scholar

9. Quotes from p. 4 of the sermon in Ward's notes, SS Ward F, f. 109v (24 from the back); emphasis original. The notes distinguish carefully between quotes from Normanton and responses (headed “Rx:”) by Ward. For praise of Carthusians, hermits, flagellants, and the like see fols. 24–25v, 29–30; and BL MS Harl. 7019, fol. 56.Google Scholar

10. SS Ward F, fol. 109v; Ward O.21; Ward L.1–16.Google ScholarFor more information on Ward, see my “Puritan Self-fashioning,” Journal of British Studies 31 (1992)Google Scholarand “ ‘An Act of Discretion’: Evangelical Conformity and the Puritan Dons,” Albion 18 (1986): 581–599.Google Scholar

11. SS Ward L.1–16;Google ScholarThe Whole Works of … James Ussher, ed. Elrington, J. R. (Dublin, 1843-), henceforth UW, 15:521, 526 (Ward to Ussher, 12 August 1634 and 6 May 1635);Google Scholarand especially Ward's De Gratia Discriminans (Cambridge, 1626).Google Scholar

12. CUL MS Com. Ct. 1.18, fols. 130–131v.Google Scholar

13. SS Ward F, fols. 107v, 98v, quotes from the sermon again distinguished from Ward's comments. Bellarmine's De ascensione mentis was published at Douai, 1616; for this and the other works mentioned, see hisGoogle ScholarOpera Omnia, ed. Fèvre, Justin, 12 vols. (Paris, 1870–1874).Google ScholarWard refers to James I, An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance (London, 1609).Google ScholarThe king's Premonition to All the Most Mighty Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendom is in Mcllwain, C.H., ed., The Political Works of James I (Cambridge, Mass., 1918).Google Scholar

14. BL Harl. MS 7019, fol. 56.Google Scholar

15. SS Ward F, fol. 105v (28 from the back); emphasis in original.Google Scholar

16. SS Ward F, fols. 105v–104v (28–29 from back).Google Scholar

17. SS Ward F, fol. lOOv; Hill, Antichrist; Lake, Moderate Puritans, ch. 4, 6.Google Scholar

18. SS Ward fols. 108–107v (25v–26 from the back). Ward's quote from the sermon is on fol. 107v; his comments are on the facing fol., 108.Google ScholarThe story of Tom Thumb is still commonly known; contemporary versions of the two stories include Richard Johnson, History of Thorn-Thumb (London, 1621)Google Scholarand Dekker, Thomas, Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus (London, 1600). Neither would have been taken as history rather than fable.Google Scholar

19. The quote is from the subtitle of Cooke's Pope Joane: A Dialogue Betweene a Protestant and a Papist (London, 1610), a response to Florimond de Remond's Anti-Papesse (1607).Google ScholarAmong Cooke's authorities for the story are Jacobus Philippus de Bergamo, Supplementum chronicarum (Venice, 1483)Google Scholarand Novissime hystoria (Venice, 1503). See also Congnard, La papesse Jeanne (against Blondel) (Saumur, 1615);Google ScholarWare, Robert, Pope Joan (London, 1689);Google Scholarand Spanheim, Fredric, De papa foemina (Leiden, 1701).Google ScholarThe story is reported by Foxe, John, Acts and Monuments (New York, 1965), 2.7, 811; 3.412; 5.455; 8.236. He described Joan as Dutch, coming to Athens with an English monk from the abbey of Fulda; the event occured “by the permission of God” to reveal papal corruption.Google ScholarThe best recent treatment is Alain Boureau, La Papesse Jeanne (Paris, 1988). The story was credited by laity and clergy alike and recounted in commonplace and sermon notebooks: for example, Huntington Library MS HM 1338, fol. 27v.Google Scholar

20. SS Ward F, fol. 107v. Ward identifies the source of his quote as p. 12 of his copy of Normanton's sermon. His own comments are on the facing page.Google Scholar

21. SS Ward F, fol. lOlv (32 from back). The quote is actually from p. 215 of the Homily for Whitsunday: Certaine Sermons and Homilies (London, 1623).Google ScholarJewel, John, An Apology of the Church of England, ed. Booty, J.E. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1963). Ward refers also to the Defense of the Apology;Google Scholarsee Works of John Jewel (Cambridge, U.K., 1848, 1850), vols. 25–26; vol. 23 (1845) contains the debate between Jewel and Harding.Google Scholar

22. Collinson, Patrick, Birthpangs of Protestant England (New York, 1988), ch. 4.Google Scholar

23. BLMSHarl. 7019, fol. 56.Google Scholar

24. CUL MS CUR 18.6(7); Com. Ct. 1.18, fol. 110.Google Scholar

25. CUL MS VC Ct. 1.53, f. 186; BL MS Had. 7019, fol. 53; UW 15:587, 15:579–81, and 16:521; SS Ward O.21.Google Scholar

26. D'Ewes's account is BL MS Harl. 646, fol. 166. I am grateful to Peter Salt for this reference.Google Scholar

27. The Gratia Discriminans was published at Cambridge in 1626; SS Ward L.I—16, M.4, O.12; UW 16:521, 526.Google ScholarMany of Ward's lectures and determinations were published posthumously as Opera Nonnulla (1658). Lake, “Calvinism and the English Church,” argues that Ward's Calvinism was a modified version of an earlier, more rigorous form, but it is still certainly recognizable as Calvinism.Google Scholar

28. CUL MS VC Ct. 1.53, fol. 186; UW 15:579; BL MS Harl. 7019, fol. 53.Google Scholar

29. CUL MS VC Ct. 1.53, fol. 186; UW 15:582 (Ward to Ussher, 7 July 1634). The proposition is as obscure in Latin as in a direct translation: “The one who justifies does not undertake more or less.”Google Scholar

30. CUL MSS VC Ct. 1.57, fols. 64, 74v, 82, 97–91v, 104B; VC Ct. 1.56, fol. 131; MS Mm 2.23, fols. 209–210 (the recantation); BL MS Harl. 7019, fols. 57–58.Google Scholar

31. Tyacke, pp. 44, 50n.Google ScholarMore difficult to place are Smith and Comber, who voted first with one side and then with the other in cases like the ones cited. In the Adams case of 1637, both took the middle position with Collins and voted to defer the sentence for further consideration, either by Adams or by the court. CUL MS VC Ct. 1.57, fols. 91–91v, 104Bv, and 104Fv–104G. The other two heads, Eden and Paske, seem to have been away from Cambridge during the Normanton process.Google Scholar

32. LW 6:323, 7:52; CUL MS Add. 22, fols. 12–20; CUR 78.41(a).Google Scholar

33. Works, ed. Sansom, J. (Oxford, 1834–1855), 1:66, 78–79. His published account of the York House Conference shows his allegiances clearly: Works, 2:21–22.Google Scholar

34. SS Ward O.8.a, fol. 2; UW 15:579–581 (Ward to Ussher, 14 June 1634).Google Scholar

35. Querela Cantabrigiensis (Oxford, 1646), pp. 5–7.Google Scholar