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The Reformation and Elizabeth Bowes: a Study of a Sixteenth-century Northern Gentlewoman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Christine M. Newman
Christine M. Newman*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

More than twenty years ago, in the Introduction to his influential article which focused upon the life of Anne Locke, Patrick Collinson bemoaned the lack of recognition given to the role of women in the English Reformation. Happily, over the last few years this situation has been somewhat rectified, as modern scholarship has increasingly emphasized the degree of feminine participation in the spiritual upheavals of the period. The problem, however, remains that there is little evidence of personal feminine testimony, especially for the immediate post-Reformation period. The example of Elizabeth Bowes is, unfortunately, a case in point. Mrs Bowes, the wife of a prominent Durham gentleman, is well known to historians as a devoted follower and later the mother-in-law of the Scottish reformer, John Knox. Particularly during the early 1550s, Elizabeth maintained a regular correspondence with Knox. Of this, some thirty of Knox’s letters have been preserved, mainly in the form of a transcript copied from the originals in 1603. These letters, indeed, provide the main source of evidence for the life of the reformer during this period. Yet it is also apparent, from the tone of Knox’s replies, that much of the correspondence was devoted to the discussion and analysis of Mrs Bowes’s religious anxieties and aspirations, as she struggled to come to terms with her conversion to the Protestant Faith.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 27: Women in the Church , 1990 , pp. 325 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

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References

1 P. Collinson, The role of women in the English Reformation, illustrated by the life and friendships of Anne Locke’ SCH, 2 (1965), p. 258.

2 See particularly the following: Warnicke, R. M., Women of the English Renaissance and Reformation (London, 1983)Google Scholar; R. L. Greaves, The role of women in early English Nonconformity’, ChH, 52 (1983), pp. 299-311; Rowlands, M. B., ‘Recusant women, 1560-1640’, in Women in English Society 1500-1800, ed., Prior, M. (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

3 The exception, perhaps, being that of Rose Hickman, the sister-in-law of Anne Locke. M. Dowling and J. Shakespeare, ‘Religion and politics in mid-Tudor England through the eyes of an English Protestant woman: the Recollections of Rose Hickman’, BIHR, 55 (1982), pp. 94-102.

4 The bulk of the Knox-Bowes correspondence (twenty-eight letters) is printed in The Works of John Knox, ed. D. Laing, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1846-64), 3, pp. 333–402.

5 Collinson, P., The Birthpangs of Protestant England (London, 1988), p. 77 Google Scholar.

6 Durham County Record Office, D/St/D13/I/I p.203;D/BO/F17; Surtees, R., The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham, 4 vols (London, 1816-40), p. 107 Google Scholar; LP, 3 (1), no 1451.

7 LP 21 (1), no 1279; Ridley, J., John Knox (Oxford, 1968), p. 85 Google Scholar.

8 The precise daring of die Knox-Bowes correspondence is the subject of some confusion. The dates used in this article are those suggested in Ridley, Knox, appendix IV, pp. 538-43. For a more recent discussion of the chronology, see A. D. Frankforter, ‘Elizabeth Bowes and John Knox: a woman and Reformation theology’, ChH, 56 (1987), pp. 334-5.

9 Lord Eustace Percy, John Knox (London, 1937), pp. 142-3; Ridley, Knox, pp. 131-2.

10 Whitaker, T. D., History of Richmondshire, 2 vols (London, 1823), 1, pp. 115’17 Google Scholar.

11 LP, 20(1), no 218 (54); Ibid., 21 (1), no 302. CPR, 1550-3, pp. 354, 392, 395; CPR, 1553, p. 411; The Literary Remains of King Edward VI, ed. J. G. Nichols, 2 vols (London, 1857), 2, p. 413.

12 APC, 1550-2, p. 363; CPR, 1550-3, p. 305;’Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary’ ed. J. G. Nichols, PCS (1850), p. 100; Literary Remains, 1, p. clxix; 2, pp. 376-7.

13 For the latest discussion of Northumberland’s religious policy see J. Guy, Tudor England, (Oxford, 1988), pp. 219-25.

14 Dowling, M., Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (London, 1986), p. 235 Google Scholar.

15 Knox, Works, 3, p. 372; Frankforter, ‘Elizabeth Bowes and John Knox’, p. 337.

16 Knox, Works, 6, p. 514.

17 Houlbrooke, R. A., The English Family 1450-1700 (London, 1984), p. 112;Google Scholar Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England, p. 75.

18 Knox, Works, 3, p. 349.

19 Ibid., 6, p. 514.

20 Macek, E., ‘The Emergence of a feminine spiriruality in The Book of Martyrs’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 19 (1988), p. 69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Ridley, Knox, pp. 101-2.

22 Knox, Works, 3, p. 370.

23 Ibid., 3, p. 361.

24 Ibid., 3, pp. 392-3.

25 Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England, pp. 75-6; Delumeau, J., Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire (London, 1977), p. 44 Google Scholar.

26 Knox, Works, 3, p. 392.

27 Macek, ‘Feminine spirituality’, pp. 72,75. Delumeau, Catholicism, p. 44.

28 The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers as related by Themselves, ed. J. Morris, 3 vols (London, 1882-7), 1, p. 220; 3, p. 394; Palmes, W., The Life of Mrs Dorothy Lawson (London, 1855), pp. 24, 51 Google Scholar.

29 The Book of Margery Kempe, trans. B. A. Windeatt (Harmondsworth, 1985).

30 Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestam England, p. 75.

31 Collinson ‘The role of women in the English Reformation’, p. 267; R. H. Bainton, Women of the Reformation, in France and England (Boston, 1973), p. 264.

32 ‘Wills and Inventories in the Archdeaconry of Richmond’, ed.J. Raine, SS, (1835), PP. 116-20.

33 Knox, Works, 3, p. 379; Ridley, Knox, pp. 140-3.

34 Sir Robert and Richard Bowes quickly came to terms with the Marian regime. Sir Robert had been appointed as a Commissioner to treat with the Scots by 14 October 1553, and both brothers were in the Commissions of the Peace for the northern counties by February 1554. APC, 1552-4, p. 357; CPR, 1553-4, p. 22.

35 Knox, Works, 3, p. 376.

36 Ibid., 3, p. 378.

37 Ridley, Knox, pp. 224-5.

38 Knox, Works, p. 334.

39 Ridley, Knox, pp. 384,462.

40 Ibid., p. 138; Knox, Works, 6, p. 514.

41 CPR, 1560-3, pp. 170, 445; Marcombe, D., ‘The Local Community and the Rebellion of 1569’, The Last Principality (Nottingham, 1987), p. 121 Google Scholar.

42 Sharp, C., The 1569 Rebellion (Durham, 1975), p. 380 Google Scholar.