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KINGSHIP AND COUNSEL IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

JACQUELINE ROSE
JACQUELINE ROSE*
Affiliation:
Newnham College, Cambridge
*
Newnham College, Cambridge, CB3 9DF[email protected]
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Abstract

Counsel was central to negotiating the politics of Reformation monarchy in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. In a personal monarchy, particularly one wherein the monarch was supreme governor of the church, shaping the character of the ruler was vital for the smooth functioning of the political system. This article provides a conspectus of a broader project on early modern kingship and counsel which will discuss advice-giving provided by privy councillors, parliaments, preachers, and courtiers between 1509 and 1689. It shows how ecclesiastical counsel was central to defenders of the established church and in absolutist theorizing, and how men between 1558 and 1688 drew on patristic examples of its practice. Comparing ecclesiastical counsel to other genres of advice-giving also shows their common and distinctive features.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 47 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this article were presented to the Political Thought and Intellectual History Seminar, Cambridge, in June 2009; and to the Early Modern British History Seminar, Oxford, in January 2010. I am grateful to John Guy for comments on an extended version of this article, to John Morrill for comments on an earlier draft, and to Julian Hoppit and the Journal's referees for their suggestions.

References

1 John Guy, ‘The rhetoric of counsel in early modern England’, in Dale Hoak, ed., Tudor political culture (Cambridge, 1995).

2 David Colclough, Freedom of speech in early Stuart England (Cambridge, 2005).

3 Collinson, Patrick, ‘If Constantine, then also Theodosius: St Ambrose and the integrity of the Elizabethan ecclesia anglicana’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 30, (1979), pp. 205–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also his edition of the documents in Melanie Barber, Stephen Taylor, and Gabriel Sewell, eds., From the Reformation to the permissive society (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 1–41.

4 Christian, Margaret, ‘Elizabeth's preachers and the government of women: defining and correcting a queen’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 24, (1993), pp. 561–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John E. Booty, ‘The bishop confronts the queen: John Jewel and the failure of the English Reformation’, in F. Forrester Church and Timothy George, eds., Continuity and discontinuity in church history (Leiden, 1979); Peter E. McCullough, ‘Out of Egypt: Richard Fletcher's sermon before Elizabeth I after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots’, in Julia M. Walker, ed., Dissing Elizabeth (Durham, NC, 1998); Collinson, ‘If Constantine’; Patrick Collinson, ‘A mirror of Elizabethan puritanism: the life and letters of “godly Master Dering”’, in Godly people (London, 1983); McLaren, A. N., ‘Delineating the Elizabethan body politic: Knox, Aylmer, and the definition of counsel, 1558–1588’, History of Political Thought, 17, (1996), pp. 224–52Google Scholar; Shami, Jeanne, ‘Kings and desperate men: John Donne preaches at court’, John Donne Journal, 6, (1987), pp. 9–23Google Scholar; Lake, Peter, ‘Constitutional consensus and puritan opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the Spanish Match’, Historical Journal, 25, (1982), pp. 805–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Markku Peltonen, Classical humanism and republicanism in English political thought, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1995), ch. 5. But cf. the broader study by Peter E. McCullough, Sermons at court: politics and religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean preaching (Cambridge, 1998), esp. pp. 82–93, 142–7.

5 For whom I use ‘Anglican’ as a shorthand, although recognizing this is anachronistic before 1640.

6 Erasmus, The education of a Christian prince, ed. Lisa Jardine (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 71, 6, and ch. 2; and Erasmus's ‘Panegyric for Prince Philip of Austria’, in ibid., p. 131.

7 Sir Thomas Elyot, The boke named the gouernour, ed. Henry Herbert Stephen Croft (2 vols., London, 1883), i, pp. 25–6, 262–3; Aristotle, Politics, bk iii, para. 16; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk ii, para. 6.

8 Erasmus, ‘Panegyric’, pp. 114–15; Erasmus, Christian prince, pp. 56–7, 13 (qu.).

9 Guy, ‘Rhetoric of counsel’, pp. 298, 301.

10 T. E. Hartley, ed., Proceedings in the parliaments of Elizabeth I (3 vols., Leicester, 1981–95), ii, p. 329.

11 Ibid., i, pp. 438, 426, 431, 439; for the lack of apology: ibid., i, p. 425.

12 Ellesmere to parliament in 1614, qu. in Colclough, Freedom of speech, pp. 136–7.

13 Ezekiel 3:17–21.

14 Peter Brown, Power and persuasion in late antiquity (Madison, WI, 1992), p. 135.

15 Theodoret, Ecclesiastical history, bk v, ch. 18 (qu. 1854 edn); Sozomen, Ecclesiastical history, bk vii, ch. 5. On the inflation: S. L. Greenslade, ed., Early Latin theology (London, 1956), p. 252; Collinson, ‘If Constantine’, p. 207.

16 Ambrose, ep. 21, p. 204 (qu.), ep. 40, pp. 229–30 (citing Ezekiel), ep. 41, p. 241 (all citations of Ambrose are from Greenslade, ed., Early Latin theology).

17 Ambrose, ep. 51, pp. 256–7; Theodoret, Ecclesiastical history, trans. Roger Cadwallador (Saint-Omer, 1612), pp. 357, 359.

18 Inter alia, for denials of absolutism see Glenn Burgess, The politics of the ancient constitution (Basingstoke, 1992); idem, Absolute monarchy and the Stuart constitution (New Haven, CT, 1996); James Daly, Sir Robert Filmer and English political thought (Toronto, 1979); Miller, John, ‘The potential for “absolutism” in later Stuart England’, History, 69, (1984), pp. 187–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, An English absolutism? (London, 1993); Conrad Russell, The causes of the English Civil War (Oxford, 1990), ch. 6. For defence of the concept: J. P. Sommerville, Politics and ideology in England, 1603–1640 (London, 1986; Harlow, 2nd edn, 1999); John R. Western, Monarchy and revolution (London, 1972); Mark Goldie, ‘Restoration political thought’, in Lionel K. J. Glassey, ed., The reigns of Charles II and James VII and II (London, Basingstoke, 1997); idem, ‘John Locke and Anglican royalism’, Political Studies, 31, (1983), pp. 61–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Goldie, ‘Restoration political thought’, p. 27.

20 The themes of this paragraph are richly described in Mark Goldie, ‘The reception of Hobbes’, in J. H. Burns and Mark Goldie, eds., The Cambridge history of political thought, 1450–1700 (Cambridge, 1991).

21 As shown below regarding Burghley.

22 John Jewel, A defense of the apologie of the Churche of Englande (London, 1571), p. 613.

23 Walter Haddon, A sight of the Portugall pearle, trans. Abraham Hartwell (London, 1565), sig. [E7]v.

24 I take the Admonition Controversy as heralding a change in the nature of argument with a new pressure (although not wholly novel need) to respond to puritan critiques of the church as insufficiently reformed; John Bridges's tract, although published in 1573, pertains to the earlier debate.

25 ‘An admonition to simple men, deceyued by malicious’, in Iniunctions geven by the Quenes Maiestie (London, 1559), sigs. D2v–[D3]r; Jacqueline Rose, Godly kingship in Restoration England: the royal supremacy, 1660–1688 (forthcoming), ch. 1.

26 Alexander Nowell, The reprovfe of M. Dorman … continued (London, 1566), fo. 28v.

27 Ibid., fos. 75r, 143r, 231r–v (my emphasis).

28 Ibid., fos. 274r (qu.), 33r.

29 Ibid., fo. 281r.

30 Ibid., fos. 37r, 157v.

31 Ibid., fos. 209–18.

32 Ibid., fo. 110r. Hosius: bishop of Córduba, anti-Arian adviser to Constantine; his being banished by Constantius in 355 for supporting the Catholic Athanasius provoked a letter on the independence of ecclesiastical from temporal power.

33 Ibid., fos. 184v, 236r, 231r.

34 Ibid., fo. 23v.

35 Ibid., fo. 24v; on Ambrose see also fos. 51v, 91v, 142r.

36 Thomas Stapleton, A counterblast to M. Hornes vayne blast against M. Fekenham (Louvain, 1567), fo. 500r.

37 John Aylmer, An harborowe for faithfvll and trewe svbiectes (‘Strasbourg’ [London], 1559), sig. [i4]r; John Bridges, The supremacie of Christian princes (London, 1573), p. 672, and marginal note to the same. See also Thomas Bilson, The trve difference betweene Christian svbiection and vnchristian rebellion (Oxford, 1585), p. 146.

38 Bridges, Supremacie, pp. 765, [793] (mispag. 893), 812–13.

39 Ibid., pp. 212, 920, 923, 927.

40 Ibid., pp. 1095–6.

41 Ibid., pp. 930–1, 1077.

42 Ibid., pp. 1032–3.

43 Ibid., p. 212.

44 Ibid., pp. 78–9, 222–3.

45 Ibid., pp. 316, 591, 182–3.

46 Walter Haddon, Against Jerome Osorius (London, 1581), sig. A3r–v; Robert Horne, An answeare … to … the declaration of svche scruples and staies of conscience, touching the othe of the supremacy (London, 1566), fo. 39r.

47 Aylmer, Harborowe, sig. Fr.

48 Horne, Answeare, fos. 58v, 17v. Ironically, Horne cited the Arian Eusebius's praise for Constantine.

49 Jewel, Defense, pp. 187, 433; Nowell, Reprovfe, fo. 165v.

50 Matthew Parker, Correspondence, ed. John Bruce and Thomas Thomason Perowne (Cambridge, 1853), nos. 114 (Parker to Cecil, 1561, qu. p. 157), 239 (Parker to Lady Bacon, 6 Feb. 1568, qu. p. 311).

51 Ibid., no. 66 (Parker and others to Elizabeth I, 1559, qu. p. 94; miscited as ep. 51).

52 Ibid., nos. 225 (Parker and others to Elizabeth I, 24 Dec. 1566), 93 (Parker and others to Elizabeth I, ?1560, qu. p. 131).

53 John Jewel, An apologie, or aunswer in defence of the Church of England (London, 1562), fo. 51v; Haddon, Against Jerome Osorius, fo. 59v.

54 Patrick Collinson, ‘The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, in Elizabethan essays (London, 1994); Stephen Alford, The early Elizabethan polity: William Cecil and the British succession crisis, 1558–1569 (Cambridge, 1998); Peltonen, Classical humanism. These posit monarchical republicanism subtly, cf. the cruder assertion that it was a misogynist response to queenship: e.g. Anne McLaren, Political culture in the reign of Elizabeth I (Cambridge, 1999). On the concept, see John F. McDiarmid, ed., The monarchical republic of early modern England (Aldershot, 2007).

55 Natalie Mears, Queenship and political discourse in the Elizabethan realms (Cambridge, 2005).

56 Stephen Alford, ‘The political creed of William Cecil’, in McDiarmid, ed., Monarchical republic, esp. pp. 84–8.

57 John Guy, ed., The reign of Elizabeth I (Cambridge, 1995).

58 John Bridges, A defence of the government established (London, 1587), pp. 280, 277; Richard Hooker, Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity, vii.5.8.

59 Hadrian Saravia, Of the diuerse degrees of the ministers of the gospel (London, 1591), sig. C3r, pp. 4, 55; Matthew Sutcliffe, A treatise of ecclesiasticall discipline (London, 1591, citations from STC 23472), p. 43; Thomas Bilson, The perpetval governement of Christes chvrch (London, 1593), pp. 235, 290.

60 John Whitgift, The defense of the aunswere to the admonition (London, 1574), pp. 699, 701; Bridges, Defence, pp. 1367–8 (1st pag., sig. Rrrr4r–v); Sommerville, J. P., ‘Richard Hooker, Hadrian Saravia, and the advent of the divine right of kings’, History of Political Thought, 4, (1983), pp. 229–45Google Scholar.

61 Richard Cosin, An answer to … an abstract of certaine acts of parliament (London, 1584), p. 317.

62 As Peter Lake has recently outlined: ‘“The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I” (and the fall of Archbishop Grindal) revisited’, in McDiarmid, ed., Monarchical republic, pp. 129–47.

63 E.g. Whitgift, Defense, pp. 459–60.

64 Bridges, Defence, p. 1026.

65 Tracts ascribed to Richard Bancroft, ed. Albert Peel (Cambridge, 1953), p. 127.

66 Sutcliffe, Treatise, p. 148.

67 Hooker, Laws, viii.9.6.

68 Ibid., viii.9.4–5 (referring to Jewel and Nowell).

69 Ibid., vii.18.9.

70 William Goodwin, A sermon preached before the kings most excellent maiestie at Woodstock Aug. 28 1614 (Oxford, 1614), pp. 9, 19 (expressing a rare doubt about this being repeated), pp. 4–5.

71 Robert Wakeman, Salomons exaltation (Oxford, 1605), p. 59; George Carleton, Ivrisdiction regall, episcopall, papall (London, 1610), pp. 30, 107, 283.

72 Carleton, Ivrisdiction, p. 45.

73 Richard Eedes, Six learned and godly sermons (London, 1604), fo. 29r–v.

74 William Laud, Works (7 vols., Oxford, 1847–60), i, pp. 74 (qu.), 8–9; see also his defence of bishops' role in parliament and temporal affairs in Works, vi, pp. 147–233.

75 Eedes, Sermons, fos. 22r, 18r.

76 Ibid., fo. 16r.

77 Qu. in Shami, ‘Kings and desperate men’, pp. 20, 18; John Donne, Sermons, ed. Evelyn M. Simpson and George R. Potter (10 vols., Berkeley, 1953–62), viii, p. 340.

78 Qu. in Shami, ‘Kings and desperate men’, p. 19.

79 Alan Ford, ‘Criticizing the godly prince: Malcolm Hamilton's Passages and consultations’, in Vincent P. Carey and Ute Lotz-Heumann, eds., Taking sides? Colonial and confessional mentalités in early modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp. 134–5, 125 (qu.).

80 Samuel Ward to James Ussher, 5 July 1626, in James Ussher, Works, ed. Charles Richard Elrington (16 vols., Dublin, 1847), xv, p. 347; Bernard qu. in Alan Ford, James Ussher: theology, history, and politics in early-modern Ireland and England (Oxford, 2007), p. 140; citing Ps. 119:46.

81 Anthony Milton, ‘Sacrilege and compromise: court divines and the king's conscience, 1642–1649’. I am grateful to Anthony Milton for a copy of this typescript.

82 Henry Hammond, Of the power of the keys (London, 1647), p. 124.

83 John Bramhall, A replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon (London, 1656), pp. 293, 158, 163.

84 Ibid., pp. 305, 304, 308.

85 On this see Rose, Godly kingship.

86 John Gauden, A pillar of gratitude (London, 1661), pp. 6, 27.

87 Herbert Thorndike, Theological works (6 vols., Oxford, 1844–56), vi, p. 57, v, p. 364; William Falkner, Two treatises (London, 1684), p. 529.

88 John Lloyd, A treatise of the episcopacy, liturgies, and ecclesiastical ceremonies of the primitive times (London, 1660), pp. 25–6 (my emphasis).

89 Samuel Parker, Religion and loyalty (2 vols., London, 1684–5), i, pp. 422 (qu.), 441, 462–3 (qu.), 465–6, ii, p. 26.

90 Ibid., ii, p. 67.

91 Ibid., i, p. 535. St Hilary: bishop of Poitiers, banished by Constantius in 356 for his opposition to Arianism; Liberius: pope, 352–66; banished by Constantius in 355 for supporting Athanasius, forced to retract his Catholic views in 357.

92 Parker, Religion and loyalty, ii, p. 29.

93 Samuel Parker, A discourse in vindication of Bp Bramhall (London, 1673), p. 72; Samuel Parker, Bishop Parker's history of his own time, trans. Thomas Newlin (London, 1727), p. 324. Clergy: e.g. John Wilkins, bishop of Chester, 1668–72.

94 Parker, History, p. 31.

95 Simon Lowth, Of the subject of church-power (London, 1685), p. 360.

96 William Falkner, Christian loyalty (2nd edn, London, 1684), pp. 180–1, 318, 321.

97 Gauden, Pillar, p. 25.

98 The diary of Dr Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester (London, 1843), p. 44.

99 E. H. Plumptre, The life of Thomas Ken (2 vols., 2nd rev. edn, London, 1890), i, pp. 279–80.

100 The diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer (6 vols., Oxford, 1955), iv, p. 541.

101 Thomas Ken, ‘A sermon preached at Whitehall upon Passion Sunday [1688]’, in Prose works, ed. James Thomas Round (London, 1838), pp. 176–8, 198, 203–4, 180, 203, 178. The sermon was posthumously published and probably preached memoriter.

102 Plumptre, Ken, I, pp. 288–93; William Hawkins, A short account of the life of … Thomas Ken (London, 1713), pp. 17–18.

103 John Gutch, Collectanea curiosa (2 vols., Oxford, 1781), i, p. 364.

104 Ibid., i, p. 371.

105 Henry Care, An answer to a paper importing a petition (London, 1688), p. 15.

106 Aristotle, Politics, 1284b, 1288a1; W. R. Newell, ‘Superlative virtue: the problem of monarchy in Aristotle's Politics’, in Carnes Lord and David K. O'Connor, eds., Essays on the foundation of Aristotelian political science (Berkeley, CA, 1991).

107 Eedes, Sermons, fo. 5v.

108 Gutch, Collectanea, i, p. 364; William Cave, A discourse concerning the unity of the catholick church (London, 1684), p. 20; Hooker, Laws, viii.3.5.

109 John Guy suggests to me that the informality of the language may also have helped its longevity.

110 Samuel Parker, A reproof to the rehearsal transprosed (London, 1673), pp. 177–8; Parker, Religion and loyalty, ii, p. 29; Hooker, Laws, vii.18.9; Shami, ‘Kings and desperate men’, p. 18.

111 Dodwell said in advocating in ordine ad spiritualia, Becket went too far, but a more restrained ‘legal defence’ was ‘not only lawful, but commendable, nay obligatory’: Some considerations of present concernment (London, 1675), pp. 34–146, at pp. 119–20, 54.

112 Francis Bacon, ‘Of counsell’, in The essayes or counsels, civill and morall, ed. Michael Kiernan (Oxford, 1985), p. 64.

113 Naomi Tadmor, Family and friends in eighteenth-century England (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 243–4; Saravia, Diuerse degrees, sig. A3r.

114 Collinson, ‘If Constantine’; Kenneth Fincham, ‘Abbot, George (1562–1633)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography.