Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T07:46:26.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Anglican Attitudes: Some Recent Writings on English Religious History, from the Reformation to the Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Extract

It remains a commonplace that what historians write bears some relation to their own time and particular angle of vision. Less often remarked, however, is the tendency for historical interpretations to acquire lives of their own, at least partly independent of the original circumstances that produced them, and to enter as it were the intellectual bloodstream of subsequent generations. A good illustration of this latter proposition is afforded by the history of the English Church. For, since at least the seventeenth century, the very radicalism of the Reformation has proved a continuing source of embarrassment to a section of Church of England opinion; rather than frankly admit their own dissent from the views of many of the Tudor founding fathers, they have regularly sought to rewrite the past in the light of the present. This conservative vision has come to be expressed in terms of a so-called via media, which is deemed to have characterized the English or “Anglican” way of religious reform.

Until quite recently, the historiography was heavily influenced by these same Anglican insiders, other historians being prepared largely to take on trust their claims—especially as regards theological change. Moreover, willingness to follow what is in effect a party line has now received powerful reinforcement from certain revisionist historians, who discern a congruence between the alleged moderation of Anglicanism and their own commitment to a consensual model of English politics in the decades before the Civil War. The old idea of the English Church as epitomizing a mean between the extremes of protestantism and catholicism is once more being pressed into service.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1996

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

The works discussed in this article are Bernard, G., “The Church of England, c.1529–c.1642,” History 75 (1990): 183206CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lambert, S., “Richard Montagu, Arminianism and Censorship,” Past and Present, no. 124 (1989): 3842Google Scholar; White, P., Predestination, Policy and Polemic: Conflict and Consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davies, J., The Caroline Captivity of the Church: Charles I and the Remoulding of Anglicanism (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Conn., 1992)Google Scholar.

1 For a related argument, see MacCulloch, D., “The Myth of the English Reformation,” Journal of British Studies 30 (January 1991): 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Bernard, G. W., “The Church of England, c.1529–c.1642,” History 75 (1990): 183206CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bernard, like his colleague Kevin Sharpe, would appear to be attracted by an “Anglican” version of religious events primarily because of its innately revisionist thrust: see below, pp. 162–66.

3 MacCulloch, D., The Later Reformation in England, 1547–1603 (Basingstoke, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aston, M., England's Iconoclasts, vol. 1Google Scholar, Laws against Images (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 6.

4 Bernard, p. 184; Bucer, M., Metaphrases et Enarrationes Perpetuae Epistolarum D. Pauli Apostoli … Tomus Primus … ad Romanos (Strasbourg, 1536)Google Scholar; Bucer, M., Praelectiones … in Epistolam … ad Ephesios (Basel, 1562)Google Scholar; Common Places of Martin Bucer, ed. Wright, D. F. (Abingdon, 1972), pp. 95118Google Scholar; Martyr, P., In Epistolam S. Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos (Zurich, 1559), esp. pp. 682743Google Scholar.

5 Cardwell, E., Synodalia, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1842), 1:2324Google Scholar; Schaff, P., A History of the Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (London, 1877), 3:193516Google Scholar; see below, pp. 147–48.

6 Haddon, W., A Sight of the Portugall Pearle (London, 1565?)Google Scholar, sigs. Biiii, Cvii–Diii. This is a translation of the original Latin edition, which is not known to survive; Ryan, L. V., “The Haddon-Osorio Controversy (1563–1583),” Church History 22 (1953): 142–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My attention was drawn to this important article by Tom Freeman.

7 Bucer, M., Scripta Anglicana (Basel, 1577), pp. 876–99Google Scholar; Foxe, J., Contra Hieron. Osorium (London, 1577)Google Scholar, fols. 153v–210.

8 Hemmingsen, N., The Epistle of … Saint Paul to the Ephesians (London, 1580), esp. pp. 5372Google Scholar. This was among the last of Hemmingsen's works to be published in England and is also the most overtly anti-Calvinist.

9 Calvin, J., Thirteen Sermons … entreating of the Free Election of God in Jacob, and of Reprobation in Esau, trans. Field, J. (London, 1579)Google Scholar; Calvin, J., Sermons … upon … Ephesians (London, 1577)Google Scholar, dedicated by the translator, Arthur Golding, to Archbishop Grindal. Golding writes of “the doctrine of election and predestination” as “being the chief groundwoorke of this epistle to the Ephesians”: sig. *ii.

10 Bernard, pp. 183, 195–96.

11 Tyacke, N., Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590–1640, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1990), p. 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Tyacke, N., “Arminianism,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Medieval, Renaissance and Reformation Thought, ed. McGrath, A. E. (Oxford, in press)Google Scholar.

13 Bernard (n. 2 above), p. 194; Lambert, S., “Richard Montagu, Arminianism and Censorship,” Past and Present, no. 124 (1989): 3842Google Scholar. Bernard and Lambert also fail to distinguish between “court bishops” and the rest: Fincham, K., Prelate as Pastor: The Episcopate of James I (Oxford, 1990), pp. 4157Google Scholar.

14 Tyacke, N., “Debate: The Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered,” Past and Present, no. 115 (1987): 202–4, 207, 208Google Scholar; Bernard, especially, does not appear to understand how religious censorship worked, writing of Laud's “chaplains” licensing books at “Oxford” (ibid., p. 197), where the relevant authority was, of course, the vice chancellor.

15 See below, p. 154.

16 Compare, however, Fincham, K., “Episcopal Government, 1603–1640,” in The Early Stuart Church, 1603–1642, ed. Fincham, K. (Basingstoke, 1993), pp. 7191CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 White, P., Predestination, Policy and Polemic: Conflict and Consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 5, 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 White, pp. 22–38; The Works of James Arminius, 3 vols., ed. Nichols, J. and Nichols, W. (London, 18251875), 1:30, 578–79Google Scholar; Schaff (n. 5 above), 3:545–49.

19 White, pp. x, 1.

20 Tyacke, N., “Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-revolution,” in The Origins of the English Civil War, ed. Russell, C. (London, 1973), pp. 119–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My italics.

21 White, pp. 39–52, 54, 56; Lloyd, C., ed., The King's Book (London, 1932), pp. 10–13, 50–51, 147–63Google Scholar.

22 Cardwell, , Synodalia (n. 5 above), 1:2324Google Scholar; White, pp. 57–59; Cardwell, E., ed., The Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Laws (Oxford, 1850), p. 21Google Scholar.

23 Cardwell, , Synodalia, 1:6364Google Scholar; see n. 4 above.

24 White, pp. 72–74; The Works of John Jewel, 4 vols., ed. Ayre, J., Parker Society (Cambridge, 18451850), 2:819, 821–22, 828, 841, 923, 933Google Scholar; Porter, H. C., Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 386–89Google Scholar.

25 White, pp. 74–75, my italics; The Decades of Henry Bullinger, 4 vols., ed. Harding, T., Parker Society (Cambridge, 18411852), 3:185–95Google Scholar; see below, pp. 151–52.

26 White, pp. 89–90, 99–100; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists (n. 11 above), pp. 32, 164–65, 251–52Google Scholar; his surviving library suggests that Harsnett was in touch with Lutheran teaching: Goodwin, G., A Catalogue of the Harsnett Library at Colchester (London, 1888), pp. 5, 12, 120, 163Google Scholar.

27 Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 29, 31, 38Google Scholar; Lake, P., Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge, 1982), p. 150CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Babington, G., A Sermon preached at Paules Crosse (London, 1591)Google Scholar; compare White (n. 17 above), pp. 95–97.

28 White, chap. 6; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 3033Google Scholar; Schaff (n. 5 above), 3:581–85.

29 White, chap. 7; Lake, P., Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 4; Lake, P., “Lancelot Andrewes, John Buckeridge and Avant-Garde Conformity at the Court of James I,” in The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, ed. Peck, L. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 113–33Google Scholar.

30 White, pp. 150–52; Rogers, T., The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, ed. Perowne, J. J. S., Parker Society (Cambridge, 1854), pp. 147–49Google Scholar, my italics; Tyacke, , “Debate” (n. 14 above), p. 203Google Scholar.

31 White, pp. 157–59, 169. White also refers to Robert Abbot indulging in “polemic” for “the benefit of undergraduates,” although his “students” would in reality have been pursuing a postgraduate course in theology: ibid., p. 157.

32 White, pp. 165–66; Goode, W., The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants (London, 1850), pp. 126–30Google Scholar.

33 Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists (n. 11 above), p. 36Google Scholar; White, pp. 36–37, 167–74; Thomson, R., Diatriba de Amissione et Intercisione Gratiae et Justifications (Leiden, 1616)Google Scholar; Bertius, P., Hymenaeus Desertor, sive de Sanctorum Perseverantia et Apostasia (Leiden, 1610)Google Scholar.

34 White, p. 202; The Collegiate Suffrage of the Divines of Great Britaine concerning the Five Articles controverted in the Low Countries (London, 1629)Google Scholar; Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, chap. 4.

35 White, pp. 208–9; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 4647Google Scholar.

36 White, p. 209; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 50–51, 96–97, 102–3Google Scholar. White's treatment here of the surviving Beale-Ward correspondence is particularly unsatisfactory: White, p. 234, no. 107.

37 Lambert (n. 13 above), pp. 42–50.

38 Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin, MS Z4.2.10, fols. 151v–52.

39 The Works of … Joseph Hall, 10 vols., ed. Wynter, P. (Oxford, 1863), 1:xliii–xliv, 9:489516Google Scholar; Burton, H., Truth's Triumph over Trent (London, 1629), pp. 341–43Google Scholar. On internal evidence, this book was written when James I was still alive: ibid., pp. 314–15.

40 Montagu, R., Appello Caesarem (London, 1625), pp. 21–22, 28–30, 56–59, 64–65, 7374Google Scholar; The Works of James Arminius (n. 18 above), 1:603Google Scholar; Schaff (n. 5 above), 3:548–49; see above, pp. 151–52.

41 The Works of William Laud, 7 vols., ed. Scott, W. and Bliss, J., Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (Oxford, 18471860), 6:249Google Scholar.

42 White (n. 17 above), pp. 221, 229, 250, and index refs. to “Pembroke”; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists (n. 11 above), pp. 49, 50–51, 76–79, 249, 261Google Scholar; Tyacke, N., “Archbishop Laud,” in Fincham, , ed. (n. 16 above), p. 64Google Scholar; compare Porter (n. 24 above), p. 287, quoted by Bernard (n. 2 above), p. 192.

43 White, p. 254; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 48–49, 81, 224, 227Google Scholar; Tyacke, N., “Arminianism and the Theology of the Restoration Church,” in Britain and the Netherlands, vol. 11, ed. Groenveld, S. and Wintle, M. (Zutphen, 1994)Google Scholar.

44 White, p. 270; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, p. 121Google Scholar; Twisse, W., A Discovery of D. Jackson's Vanitie (Amsterdam, 1631)Google Scholar; Rutherford, S., Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Divina Gratia (Amsterdam, 1636), pp. 351–55Google Scholar.

45 White, pp. 242, 274, 297; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 109–13, 266–68Google Scholar; Tyacke, , “Archbishop Laud,” pp. 5860Google Scholar; Reeve, E., The Communion Booke Catechisme Expounded (London, 1635), sig. C2r–v, pp. 48, 66–67, 132–37Google Scholar.

46 Davies, J., The Caroline Captivity of the Church: Charles I and the Remoulding of Anglicanism (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Davies, pp. 95–97; White, p. 270; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 266–67Google Scholar.

48 Davies, p. 96; Tyacke, , “Archbishop Laud,” p. 58Google Scholar; White, p. 108.

49 Davies, pp. 117–18; White, pp. 251–52, 299–300. As with White, Davies never makes clear what he means by “single” predestination.

50 Davies, pp. 15, 206, 299.

51 Davies, pp. 18–19, 317; Laurence, T., A Sermon preached before the King's Majesty at Whitehall (London, 1637), p. 25Google Scholar.

52 Davies, pp. 19–20; Balcanqual, W., The Honour of Christian Churches (London, 1633), p. 12Google Scholar; Featley, D., The Gentle Lash or the Vindication of Dr. Featley (London, 1644), p. 10Google Scholar; The Diary of John Young, ed. Goodman, F. R. (London, 1928), pp. 108–9Google Scholar.

53 Davies, pp. 50, 92, 122, 299; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 10, 39, 52, 55, 175–76Google Scholar; Raitt, J., The Colloquy of Montbéliard: Religion and Politics in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 5; Laurence, T., Two Sermons (Oxford, 1635), 1:37Google Scholar; Reeve, pp. 132–37; Shelford, R., Five Pious and Learned Discourses (Cambridge, 1635), pp. 4, 15Google Scholar.

54 Davies, pp. 223–25; Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge, D1/41/1/2, Citations 1635; Victoria County History, Wiltshire 8 (1965): 248Google Scholar; Ponting, C. E., “Edington Church,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 25 (1891): 224Google Scholar; Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1635–6, p. 378.

55 Berkshire Record Office, Reading, D/A2/c.77, Ada (Berkshire Archdeaconry), 1635–6, fols. 81v–82, D/A2/c.78, Acta (Berkshire Archdeaconry), 1636–7, fol. 255v. The rector of Newbury was the famous Calvinist William Twisse—future prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly. Davies does not discuss this case, although it features anonymously and repeatedly in his footnotes as evidence of “enforcement”: Davies, p. 224, nn. 76, 80.

56 Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge, D2/4/1/16, Acta (Salisbury Archdeaconry), 1636–41, fols. 32, 65v, 113v, D3/4/7, Acta (Wiltshire Archdeaconry), 1632–42, fol. 56v. It was in March 1638, not December 1637 (Davies, p. 225), that the churchwardens of Fifield were ordered to move and rail their communion table “as in other churches the same is done”: D3/4/7, fol. 56v. I have discussed elsewhere the Aldbourne, Wiltshire, case of May 1637: Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 210–12Google Scholar.

57 Davies, pp. 218, 227–29, and chap. 6 generally; Hertfordshire Record Office, Hertford, ASA7/31, Acta (St. Albans Archdeaconry), 1636–38, fols. 36v–37, my italics. Although Davies misinterprets this document in a diocesan context, strictly speaking it illustrates the local impact of metropolitical instructions.

58 Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Canterbury, Z.4.6, Acta (Canterbury Consistory), 1636–40, fol. 127, my italics. There are similar references at fols. 127v and 150. All are ignored by Davies.

59 Laud, , Works (n. 41 above), 4:121, 225, 6:5960Google Scholar. Instead, Davies relies on an obscure reference during Laud's trial to the “indifferency” of how communion tables should be placed: Davies, p. 231, n. 119; see below, p. 164.

60 Davies, p. 208, n. 16, p. 211, nn. 23, 27–28, p. 213, n. 35; Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, SP16/499/42.

61 Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists (n. 11 above), pp. 199, 209Google Scholar.

62 Davies (n. 46 above), p. 218. It should be pointed out here that the earliest surviving version of the so-called metropolitical order dates from June 1635 and was issued for Gloucester diocese. This says nothing about where communicants should receive, which Davies claims was an essential component. Gloucestershire Record Office, Gloucester, GDR189, fols. 8v–9. I owe this reference to Kenneth Fincham.

63 Davies, pp. 215–16; Laud, , Works, 4:203, 210, 247Google Scholar.

64 Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Conn., 1992), p. 275Google Scholar, n. 1.

65 Sharpe, pp. 279, 285–87; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. x–xi, 266–70Google Scholar; Tyacke, , “Archbishop Laud” (n. 42 above), pp. 5960Google Scholar.

66 Sharpe, pp. 293–94, 296–97, 300; see above, p. 154.

67 Sharpe, pp. 287, 328–32; Laud, , Works (n. 41 above), 5:39–40, 205–7Google Scholar.

68 Sharpe, pp. 333–35; Laud, , Works, 5:421, 6:60Google Scholar; see n. 62 above; for the doctrine of religious things “indifferent”—i.e., not ordained by God, but which can still be legally binding—see Verkamp, B. J., The Indifferent Mean: Adiaphorism in the English Reformation to 1554 (Athens, Ohio, 1977)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 7.

69 Sharpe, pp. 334, 338; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists (n. 11 above), p. 209Google Scholar.

70 Sharpe, pp. 345–48; Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, SP16/233/88.

71 Howell, T. B. and Howell, T. J., eds., A Complete Collection of State Trials, 34 vols. (London, 18161828), 3:548–53, 557–59Google Scholar.

72 Sharpe, pp. 694, 731–32. For an attempt to redress the balance, see Tyacke, N., “The ‘Rise of Puritanism’ and the Legalising of Dissent, 1571–1719,” in From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England, ed. Grell, O. P., Israel, J. I., and Tyacke, N. (Oxford, 1991), pp. 1728CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tyacke, N., The Fortunes of English Puritanism, 1603–1640, Dr. Williams's Library Lecture (London, 1990)Google Scholar.

73 Sharpe, pp. 734, 740; [Floyd, J.?], A Letter of Sir Humfrey Linde [St. Omer] (1634)Google Scholar. Daniel Featley preached Lynde's funeral sermon in 1638, while Stoughton died in post during 1639.

74 Sharpe, pp. 292, 729–30, 757.

75 Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 159, 245Google Scholar; Davies (n. 46 above), pp. 1–4, 49–50, 313–18; see n. 72 above.

76 Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 54, 139, 157–59, 192–94, 198216Google Scholar; Hoyle, D., “A Commons Investigation of Arminianism and Popery in Cambridge on the Eve of the Civil War,” Historical Journal 29 (1986): 419–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hill, C., Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 14.

77 O'Brien, P. K. and Hunt, P. A., “The Rise of a Fiscal State in England, 1485–1815,” Historical Research 66 (1993): 151, 154CrossRefGoogle Scholar.