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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
We finding (right dread and soveraigne Lord), in the sacred records of God that the most worthy kings set over his people sanctifyed the entrance of their raigne with clensing the house of God from all idolatry and superstition and reforming the ministers thereof, according to the order appointed by God; the safest and surest way to establish the thrones of kings to themselves and their posterity. And we acknowledging with all thankfulnes to God that he hath touched your royall hart with a true love unto his sanctuarie and raysed you up as another Josiah even to pull down all the high places and to breake in peeces all the strange altars that remaine yet in Israell (for we must acknowledg as the truth that many of us and of the people have not yet prepared our harts to the God of our fathers) ar moved in those respects (most noble king) as remembrancers of the Lord to crie with our hart and voice for the effecting herof.
For criticism of an earlier draft, I am indebted to Drs Jeremy Goring, Peter Lake and Nicholas Tyacke.
1 Hatfield MSS 103 fo. 64, partly transcribed in Historical Manuscripts Commission (hereafter cited as HMC), Salisbury MSS, xv. 390.
2 Curtis, M. H., ‘Hampton Court Conference and its aftermath’, History, xlvi (1961), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shriver, F., ‘Hampton Court Re-visited: James 1 and the puritans’, this Journal, xxxiii (1982), 48–71Google Scholar; Babbage, S. B., Puritanism and Richard Bancroft, London 1962, 74–219Google Scholar, 233–58.
3 N. R. N. Tyacke, ‘Arminianism in England in religion and politics, 1604–40’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, dissertation, 1968), 19–31; Munden, R. C., ‘James 1 and “the growth of mutual mistrust”: king, commons and reform, 1603–1604’ in Sharpe, K. (ed.), Faction and Parliament, Oxford 1978, 57, 66–8; and the writings cited in n. 2Google Scholar.
4 Quintrell, B. W., ‘The royal hunt and the puritans 1604–1605’, this Journal, xxxi (1980), 41–58Google Scholar; David Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae..., iv. London 1737. 413–14.
5 Lambeth Palace Library (hereafter cited as LPL), Bancroft’s Register, fo. 181 v.
6 Harington, Sir John, Nugae Antiquae, i. London 1779, 90–1Google Scholar; Heal, F., Of Prelates and Princes, Cambridge 1980, 227–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Cambridge University Library, Ely Diocesan Records (hereafter cited as EDR), B/2/18, fos. 60r, 61r; B/2/23, fos. 2, 10v, 20v, 34, 39, 43V, 48r; C 5/8/5a.
8 EDR, D/2/23, fos. 132r, 159r; D/2/25, fos. 2r, 37V; D/2/26, fos. 2v, 72r.
9 Usher, R. G., The Reconstruction 0/ the English Church, ii. London 1910, 34–40Google Scholar; EDR, B/2/20,21. Usher’s exuberant account of Bancroft’s administrative reconstruction in Ely diocese should be treated with caution. Bancroft visited Ely diocese in 1608, not in 1605 as Usher assumed, and thus cannot be the author of minor policy changes in Ely consistory in 1604–5. Usher exaggerated the inefficiency of the local administration before 1604, while the increased volume of presentments he noted for 1606–7 was only a short-term phenomenon.
10 Babbage, Bancroft, 45, 53, 65, 246–7.
11 EDR, D/2/24, fos. 55r to 56r. Heton’s warning was ultimately ignored in two of the three cases: see D/2/29, fos. 7, 8v-9r.
12 Hembry, P., The Bishops of Bath and Wells 1540–1640, London 1967, 182–206Google Scholar.
13 Strype, John, The Life and Acts of the most Reverend Father in God John Whitgift, London 1718, 510–11Google Scholar; Somerset Record Office (hereafter cited as SRO), D/D/Ca 101, 102, 104, 120.
14 SRO, D/D/Ca 138, fo. 233V; 140 pp. 3, 66; 141, fos. 192, 219r, 228r; 146, fos. 46V, 83r, 100v, 113V, 114r, 144V. Babbage, Bancroft, 216–17, states that Philip Martyn and Thomas Jones were deprived in 1606 and 1609 for nonconformity. Both were removed for scandalous conduct: D/D/Ca 146, fos. 256V-7; 149, 155, 156A, 158, fo. 324r; Proceedings in Parliament 1610, i. ed. E. R. Foster, London 1966, 134–5.
15 SRO, D/D/Ca 101, fo. 42; 104 fo. 2 2r.
16 LPL, Fairhurst MSS 2004, fo. 90. Earlier that same month (August 1608), Mountagu informed Robert Cecil that there were ‘not above 2 or 3 unconformable ministers’ in the diocese: Public Record Office (hereafter cited as PRO), SP 14/35/58.
17 See above, 209.
18 SRO, D/D/Ca 133, 134, 140, 142, 149–51, 160, 162, 204, 206, 219, 220.
19 SRO, D/D/Ca 140, 142 passim.
20 SRO, D/D/Ca 143; D/D/Vc 60.
21 SRO, D/D/Ca 140, p. 354.
22 SRO, D/D/Ca 140, pp. 5, 6, 22, 26, 34, 38, 41, 126, 353; 142, pp. 16, 24–5, 86.
23 SRO, D/D/Ca 150, pp. 15, 224; 160, 162, 204, 220.
24 SRO, D/D/Ca 149, 150, 151.
25 SRO, D/D/Ca 150, p. 192.
26 Babbage, Bancroft, 245–53.
27 Babbage, Bancroft, 57, 191–3; Manning, R. B., Religion and Society in Elizabethan Sussex, Leicester 1969, 207–10Google Scholar.
28 Manning, Sussex, 209n; PRO, Prob 11/109/3.
29 British Library (hereafter cited as BL), Add. MSS 28571, fo. 177; PRO, SP 14/3/83.
30 Manning, Sussex, 205–7; West Sussex Record Office (hereafter cited as WSRO), Ep. 11/11/1, fos. 95r, 102r.
31 Articles ministred by the Reverend Father in God Thomas, by the grace of God Bishoppe of Chichester…at the visitation begun there the 14 of September 1586, London [1586]; Articles ministred by the Reverend Father in God Anthony, by the grace of God Bishop of Chichester…at the visitation begun there the 6 of September 1600, London 1600. The principal difference between the two sets is that Watson inserted into Bickley’s enquiries three questions on popish recusants: sig. Aiiv.
32 Manning, Sussex, 205.
33 WSRO, Ep. II/10/1, fo. 3 4v; 11/ n /1, fo. 126v.
34 BL, Add. MSS 28571, fo. 179; PRO, SP 14/3/83; HMC, 3rd Report, appendix, 52; Manning, Sussex, 208–9. Watson examined the petitioners in early November: Hatfield MSS 101, fos. 160–1; The Borthwick Institute of Historical Research (hereafter cited as Borth.), Precedent Book, ii. 9, 14–15, 45.
35 Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 368; BL, Harleian MS 280, fo. 158r; Bodleian Library, MS Lincoln Coll.(e) Lat. 124, fo. 192V. I am grateful to Dr David Palliser for the last reference. The two lists differ slightly and London has marginally the highest proportion of preachers to parishes in the second.
36 WSRO, Ep. I/19/3–6, 8; I/18/22; I/18/27A; 11/11/1–2; Ecclesiastical Returns for 81 Parishes in East Sussex 1603, ed. W. C. Renshaw (Sussex Record Society, iv. 1905), 5–17. The figure of 115 preachers is almost certainly an over-estimate, in the face of some doubtful evidence. At this time, Sussex puritans were calculating that there were 100 non-preachers in a diocese of 300 parishes, which implies a proportion of preachers to parishes of 66% rather than the 85% submitted by Watson, HMC, Salisbury MSS, xv. 390. Two further points suggest that Watson may have doctored his statistics. First, his scheme to improve the learning of the lesser clergy in September 1603 would have been superfluous had 85% of the clergy indeed been licensed preachers, since a premise of Jacobean schemes of clerical training was that preaching ministers were an elite who should not need further official tuition. Thus Bishop Lake of Bath and Wells (1616–26) supervised examinations for over a hundred ministers in three visitations, of whom only 12 were licensed preachers: SRO, D/D/Vc 78, 80, 82. Moreover, concern about the shortage of preachers in Chichester resurfaced in 1605, when a survey was undertaken to recruit preaching ministers, for which see below 47, 221. The evidence does admit an alternative explanation, however. For Gloucester, the chance survival of the return made by Bishop Goldsborough to Whitgift shows that the archbishop amalgamated the figures for licensed and unlicensed preachers and then claimed, quite falsely, that the statistics omitted unlicensed preachers. A similar manipulation of the Chichester figures is theoretically possible. BL, Harl. MS 280, fo. 161r; Harl. Chart G Roll 25.
37 E. J. I. Allen, ‘The state of the church in the diocese of Peterborough 1601–1642’ (unpublished Oxford B. Litt dissertation, 1972), 31–4.
38 The State of the Church in the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I, ed. C. W. Foster (Lincoln Record Society, xxiii 1926), lvii; I. Cassidy, ‘The episcopate of William Cotton, bishop of Exeter 1598–1621’ (unpublished Oxford B. Litt dissertation, 1963), 82; Babbage, Bancroft, 48.
39 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/11, fos. 10v, 26v, 30V; HMC, Salisbury MSS, xv. 262–3.
40 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/9, fo. 22r; 1/17/10, fos. 121r, 203r, 214r.
41 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/7, fos. 26r, 182r, 199v; 1/17/8, fos. 42r, 73r, 91v, 134r, 189V, 190v; 1/17/10, fo. 79r; 1/17/11, fos. 10V, 32r.
42 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/11, fos. 71v, 80v, 83V.
43 Stuart Royal Proclamations, i, eds. Larkin, J. F. and Hughes, P. L., Oxford 1973, 87–90Google Scholar.
44 WSRO, Ep. 1/15/1, Box 127 (1604 folder), passim.
45 Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 408–10.
46 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/11, fos. 113v-114r.
47 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/11, fo. 123V; 1/15/1, Box 127 (1605 folder), passim.
48 WSRO, Ep. 1/15/1, Box 127 (1604 folder), fo. 11.
49 WSRO, Ep. 1/1/8, fo. 56r. From a copy of the sentence of deprivation it appears that Watson was acting in his own capacity as ordinary in depriving these ten clergy, rather than as the delegated authority of the Ecclesiastical Commission. Borth., Precedent Book, ii. 120–2. See also S. Jack, ‘New light on the deprivation of puritan ministers in Sussex after the Hampton Court Conference’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, cxix (1981), 227. This corrects Manning’s inference that the deprivations were judicial punishment for participation in the petitioning campaign of 1603: Sussex, 210–11, 215. Watson’s motives for associating the Ecclesiastical Commission with the deprivations are discussed below.
50 Babbage, Bancroft, 147–232; Lake, P. G., Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, Cambridge 1982, 243–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manning, Sussex, 216; WSRO, Ep. 1/17/12, fo. 182r.
51 Usher, Reconstruction, i. 406–7, 415–16, ii. 362–5.
52 Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 408–10; Usher, Reconstruction, i. 419–20.
53 LPL, Bancroft’s Register, fo. 204; BL, Add. MSS 39349, fo. 97r.
54 Monro, C., Acta Cancellariac, London 1847, 59–60Google Scholar; and the most valuable evidence discovered by Sybil Jack from PRO, E 112/127/166, 170–1, 173 and presented in ‘New light on the deprivation of puritan ministers’.
55 LPL, Bancroft’s Register, fo. 202. The inhibition was sent out on 9 March and suspended on 17 April 1605.
56 Jack, ‘New light on the deprivation of puritan ministers’.
57 Ibid.
58 PRO, E 112/127/166, 173.
59 Usher, Reconstruction, ii. 135–6; Monro, Acta Cancellariae, 59–60.
60 WSRO, Ep. II/11/1 fo. 126V. That a similar scheme was begun in Chichester archdeaconry may be adduced from the archidiaconal survey of preachers carried out in 1605, which mentions several ministers already receiving instruction, Ep. 1/18/2 7A.
61 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/11, fos. 143V-216V; 11/9/10, fos. 2V-24r.
62 WSRO, Ep. 11/11/1, fos. 141V, 146r, 152r; 11/9/10, fos. 7–9r, 16v, 17r.
63 WSRO, Ep. 1/18/27A, STC/E fos. 87r, 92r. On internal evidence, these returns were compiled between August 1605 and March 1606.
64 WSRO, Ep. 1/20/7, fo. 40; 1/18/27, fos. 15r. 24v; Par. 460/1/1/1, fo. 26v.
65 WSRO, Ep. 1/1/8, fos. 46r-50v.
66 For a detailed analysis of Andrewes’s episcopate, 1605–26, see my forthcoming Ph.D thesis, ‘Pastoral roles of the Jacobean episcopate in Canterbury province’.
67 In twenty-one years Andrewes attended only one visitation - that of Chichester in 1609 - and never sat in a formal session of his consistory. The fine print of the ‘Orders’ presupposed a detailed understanding of Chichester diocesan administration, knowledge which could not have been available to Andrewes, who arrived in the diocese for the first time only nine weeks before the ‘Orders’ were issued. The fact that the only copy of the ‘Orders’ is in the hand of the registrar and not that of Andrewes’s secretary William Greene is surely of significance. Drury’s complete control over diocesan affairs may be adduced from the sole surviving copy of Andrewes’s visitation articles for 1606, which is annotated in Drury’s hand in preparation for the bishop’s second visitation of 1609: Jesus College Cambridge, Articles to be enquired of within the Diocesse of Chichester, in the first General Visitation of… Lancelot, Bishop of Chichester, London 1606, passim.
68 WSRO, Ep. 1/20/7, fos. 40, 46–8.
69 SRO, D/D/Vc 78, 80, 82.
70 HMC, Salisbury MSS, xv. 390.
71 WSRO, Ep. 1/20/7, fos. 40, 44; 1/17/11, fos. 33V, 118r, 140V, 142V, 146r, 149r, 151r, 169r, 170V, 171v; 1/17/12, fos. 19r, 26r, 30V, 56r, 65r, 99r, 122r, 127r., 164r, 195V, 242r.
72 Typical of a wide corpus of literature is Richard Bernard, Two Twinnes, London 1613, 1–29.
73 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/12, fos. 42v, 51v, 112r, 171r.
74 Manning, Sussex, 151–65, 238–71; Fletcher, A., A County Community in Peace and War: Sussex 1600–1660, London 1975, 94–104Google Scholar.
75 The Badges of Christianity or A Treatise of the Sacraments, London 1606, 219Google Scholar. Attersoll was vicar of Isfield.
76 A comparison of the period March 1604 to March 1605 with March 1607 to March 1608 shows that the numbers presented for not receiving the Eucharist roughly doubled in both archdeaconries, WSRO, Ep. 1/17/11, fos. 38r to 126r; 1/17/12, fos. 57V to 168v; 11/9/9, fos. 212V to 65r; 11/9/11, fos. 50V to 126V.
77 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/12, fo. 200v; 11/9/11, fos. 106r, 113V, 143V, 160r, 171r, 180v.
78 WSRO, Ep. 1/20/7, fo. 43.
79 Babbage, Bancroft, 192; WSRO, Ep. 1/17/12, fo. 182r.
80 WSRO, Ep. 1/17/10, fos. 165r, 195V, 232r, 234v; 1/17/13, fos. 4V, 29r, 50r, 88r, 114r; 1/17/12, fos. 161r, 227r-228r; 1/15/3/16, fo. 45; 1/17/13, fos. 159V, 163r.
81 Babbage, Bancroft, 200–3, implies that three ministers were deprived by Andrewes for nonconformity. In fact, Ringe was deprived for drunkenness, Packe for simony and non-residence; for Robinson, there is no clear evidence either way. A fourth minister, Simpson of Findon was also deprived, probably for insufficiency. WSRO, Ep. 1/15/1 Box 128 (1609 folder), fo. 17; 1/18/26, fo. 17V; 1/20/6, fo. 13; BL, Stowe MSS 424, 161V to 2r; PRO, CP 40/1811/2651. Taken in conjunction with the evidence presented above in footnote 14, it is probable that Babbage’s figure of 80–90 ministers deprived for nonconformity under Bancroft is a slight over-estimate. See too Quintrell, “The Royal Hunt1, 56, n. 41. Further research in other diocesan archives will clarify this point.
82 Articles to be enquired of..., sig. B3V.
83 Babbage, Bancroft, 57, 191–3.
84 Usher, Reconstruction, ii. 20–49. As an encomium to Bancroft’s administrative achievement, Usher claimed that the volume of archiepiscopal and episcopal court books between 1604 and 1610 actually outweighed those for the previous fifty years. Even the most cursory inspection shows this not to be the case.
