The Role of Women in the English Reformation illustrated by the Life and Friendships of Anne Locke

Patrick Collinson

doi:10.1017/S0424208400005271

The Role of Women in the English Reformation illustrated by the Life and Friendships of Anne Locke

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016

Patrick Collinson

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Patrick Collinson*: Affiliation:
King’s College, University of London

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The notable part played by women in the Reformation has rarely been given its due recognition in English historical studies. In recent years Professor Wallace Notestein has written with characteristic authority and grace on ‘The English Woman, 1580-1650,’ but one does not learn from this essay that the English women of this age had any religious propensities at all. And leaving aside the more prominent figures such as Queen Catherine Parr, Lady Jane Grey, and Catherine Brandon, duchess of Suffolk, women make but few appearances in most accounts of the English Reformation. This is no doubt only one symptom of the tendency of so many of our histories to dwell upon the officially inspired aspects of the Reformation to the neglect of the spontaneous and the local; to be concerned with the making of settlements and their enforcement rather than with the means by which Protestantism actually spread in families, towns, and other communities. And of course there are special factors which obscure the female contribution to history, the legal disabilities of the sex, which so often hide the married woman and allow us to catch glimpses only of the widow, a ‘person’ in law.

Type: Research Article
Information: Studies in Church History , Volume 2: Papers read at the second winter and summer meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society , 1965 , pp. 258 - 272

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0424208400005271 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1965

References

^{page 258 note 1} In Studies in Social History: A Tribute to G. M. Trevelyan, ed. J. H. Plumb, 1955,69-107.

^{page 259 note 1} Romier, Lucien, Le Royaume de Catherine de Medicis: La France à la Veille des Guerres de Religion, Paris 1922, 11, 234-40Google Scholar.

^{page 259 note 2} The Remains of Archbishop Grindal, ed. Nicholson, William, Parker Society 1843, 288-9Google Scholar; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, ed. Gairdner, J., Camden Society n.s., XXVIII (1880), 140 Google Scholar.

^{page 259 note 3} The Diary of John Manningham, 1602-3, ed. Bruce, John, Camden Society, xcix (1868), 101, 74-5Google Scholar.

^{page 259 note 4} Works, ed. J. Keble, revised R. W. Church and F. Paget, 1888, 1, 152-3.

^{page 260 note 1} Two letters from Cartwright to ‘Mrs D.B.’, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS 294, ff. 163-83; printed in part, Cartrprightiana, ed. Peel, Albert, Elizabethan Non conformist Texts, 1 (1951), 105-8Google Scholar.

^{page 260 note 2} Edward Dering to Lady Elizabeth Golding, n.d., printed in Certame godly and comfortable letters, in Dering’s Workes, 1597, Sigs. C7-8; Lady Golding is identified from a copy of the letter in Dering’s hand in the Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, MS Dering U 350, C1/1, f. 3.1 am indebted to the County Archivist of Kent, Dr Felix Hull, for permission to make several citations from the Dering Papers in his care.

^{page 260 note 3} Various dedicatory epistles in Wilcox’s published works; notes by Roger Morrice on a folio volume of Wilcox’s letters in MS no longer extant, Dr Williams’s Library, MS Morrice ‘A Chronological Account of Eminent Persons,’ 11, 617 (2), (4)Google Scholar.

^{page 261 note 1} W. B. Rye, England as Seen by Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and James the First, 1865, 72.

^{page 261 note 2} Edward Dering to Mrs Honeywood, 19 April n.y., Dering, op. cit. Sigs. C 2^v-3; Mrs Honeywood identified from MS Dering U 350, C1/1, f. 5.

^{page 261 note 3} D. M. Stenton, The English Woman in History, 1957, 136.

^{page 261 note 4} Vaughan, Stephen, FinancialAgent of Henry VIII. A Study of Financial Relations with the Low Countries, Louisiana State University Studies, Social Science Series, 111, Baton Rouge 1953 Google Scholar.

^{page 262 note 1} Ibid. 1-20; D.N.B. art. Vaughan.

^{page 262 note 2} Richardson, op. cit. 25-34; J. F. Mozley, William Tyndale, 1937, 207-10.

^{page 262 note 3} Richardson, op. cit. 21-2; Henry Brinklow’s Complaynt of Roderyck Mors, ed. Cowper, J. M., Early English Text Society, Extra Series XXII, 1874 Google Scholar; D.N.B. art. Brinklow.

^{page 262 note 4} Richardson, op. cit. 79,23; Abstracts of Inquisitions Post Mortem Relating to the City of London, 1, ed. Fry, George S., Index Library, 1896, 85-7Google Scholar; Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, P.C.C, wills, 5 Coode.

^{page 263 note 1} D.N.B. arts. Sir William Locke, Henry Locke (the younger), Michael Lok.

^{page 263 note 2} In 1590, when Anne Locke was married to Richard Prowse of Exeter and Caesar Master of Requests, Prowse tried to exploit the relationship to assist a Chancery suit concerning ajfio annuity which his wife claimed against ‘Mr Locke, her adversarle’; B.M. MS Lansdowne 163, f. 379.

^{page 263 note 3} See my Letters of Thomas Wood, Puritan, 1566-1577, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Special Supplement no. 5, November 1960, iv.

^{page 263 note 4} De Novo Orbe, or the Historie of the West Indies, 1612.

^{page 263 note 5} An example of his calligraphy is noted on p. 266 below.

^{page 263 note 6} Ecclesiastes, otherwise called The Preacher, 1597.

^{page 263 note 7} Printed in Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, Poems by Henry Lok, Gentleman, (1593-1597), ed. A. B. Grosart, 1871.

^{page 264 note 1} D.N.B. art. Cosworth.

^{page 264 note 2} I.e. poor.

^{page 264 note 3} Works of John Knox, ed. Laing, David, 111 (1854), 37980Google Scholar.

^{page 264 note 4} McCrie, Thomas, Life of John Knox, 3rd ed., Edinburgh 1814, I, 114 Google Scholar.

^{page 264 note 5} Perhaps the most discreet comment is that of Dr McCrie who represents Knox’s letter inviting her to Geneva as having been written to ‘Mr Locke.’

^{page 264 note 6} Originally published in Macmillan; Magazine, Sept. and Oct. 1875; reprinted in Familiar Studies of Men and Books, Tusitala ed. of the Works, XXVII, s.d., 202-44.

^{page 264 note 7} John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland, ed. William Croft Dickinson, 1, lxxxiii-lxxxv.

^{page 265 note 1} Laing, ed. cit. iv (1864), 237-9.

^{page 265 note 2} Ibid. 239-41.

^{page 265 note 3} Martin, Charles, Les Protestants Anglais Réfugiés à Genève au Temps de Calvin, 1555-1560, Geneva 1915, 64, 333, 338 Google Scholar.

^{page 265 note 4} Romier, op. cit. 11, 236.

^{page 265 note 5} Sermons of John Calvin upon the songe that Ezechias made after he had bene sicke and afflicted by the hand of God, conteyned in the 38 chapiter of Esay, London 1560, Sig. A 3.; A meditation, sig. Ai.

^{page 265 note 6} Press-mark 696.3.40.

^{page 266 note 1} Laing, ed. cit. vi (1864), 11-15.

^{page 266 note 2} Ibid. 83-5.

^{page 266 note 3} Ibid. 21-7, 30, 83-5, 100-1, 103-4, 107-9.

^{page 267 note 1} Ibid, 129-31.

^{page 267 note 2} Ibid. 140-1.

^{page 267 note 3} Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, P.C.C. wills, 39 Honey; made 28 January 1570/1 when he was ‘sicke and weake in bodie,’ proved 31 October 1571.

^{page 267 note 4} Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, MS Dering U 350, C1/2, ff. 28^v-29^r. The Dering Papers include two collections of Dering’s letters (U 350, C1/1,2), most of which occur among the Godly and comfortable letters (earliest extant edition in Dering’s Workes, 1597). The letter to Mrs Locke (which is undated) does not appear in the published collection.

^{page 268 note 1} Grindal, Remains, ed. cit. 347-8.

^{page 268 note 2} B.M. MS Additional 4736, f. 166^v.

^{page 269 note 1} Fuller, Thomas, The History of the Worthies of England, 1662,11, 85-6Google Scholar.

^{page 269 note 2} Dering’s correspondents appear as initials only in most of the Godly and comfortable letters, but are identified from tie copies in MSS Dering U 350, C1/1, 2 in the Kent Archives Office.

^{page 269 note 3} Dering, op. cit. Sig. C 5. The printed text has ‘Maister H.’; the correct reading is supplied from the Dering Papers.

^{page 269 note 4} Correspondence of Matthew Parker, ed. Bruce, John, Parker Society, 1853, 410 Google Scholar.

^{page 269 note 5} Inner Temple Library, MS Petyt 538/47, ff. 479-80.

^{page 269 note 6} Parker Correspondence, ed. cit. 434; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. J. R. Dasent, viii (1894), 133; Dering, op. cit. Sigs. A 4-5. For fuller details of Dering’s affairs in 1573 see my Friends of Dr Williams’s Library Annual Lecture (1963), A Mirror of Elizabethan Puritanism; the Life and Letters of‘Godly Master Dering.’

^{page 270 note 1} Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, 1485-1714, ed. Robert Steele, 1910, 1, no. 689; Dasent, ed. cit. viii, 140, 171.

^{page 270 note 2} Letters of Thomas Wood, ed. cit. 6-8; Cambridge University Library, MS Mm. 1.43, 441.

^{page 270 note 3} Dering, opt. Sig. A 4.

^{page 270 note 4} Ibid. Sigs. C 3-7; A. F. Scott Pearson, Thomas Cartwright and Elizabethan Puritanism, 1535-1603, 1925, 117.

^{page 270 note 5} J. C. Roberts, ‘The Parliamentary Representation of Devon and Dorset, 1559-1601,’ unpublished London M.A. thesis, 1958, unpaginated biographies; Hazel Matthews, ‘Personnel of the Parliament of 1584-1585,’ unpublished London M.A. thesis, 1948, 183-4; Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, P.C.C. wills, 83 Huddlestone, will of Richard Prowse, made 20 May 1607, proved 10 November 1607.

^{page 270 note 6} Peel, Albert, ‘A Sermon of Christopher Goodman’s in 1583,’ Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society of England, IX (1949), 90 Google Scholar.

^{page 271 note 1} Reprinted in Knox’s Works, ed. cit. iv, 85-114.

^{page 271 note 2} Ibid. iv, 92.

^{page 271 note 3} Ibid. vi, 7.

^{page 271 note 4} Ibid. iv, 92.

^{page 271 note 5} A Seconde Parte of a Register, ed. Albert Peel, 1915, 1, 284; B.M. MS Additional 4736, f. 166^v.

^{page 272 note 1} See my essay, ‘John Field and Elizabethan Puritanism,’ Elizabethan Government and Society: Essays Presented to Sir John Neale, ed. S. T. Bindoff, J. Hurstfield and C. H. Williams, 1961, 144-5.

^{page 272 note 2} Laing, ed. cit. iv, 92-3.

^{page 272 note 3} Of the markes, Sigs. A 2-5^v.

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The Role of Women in the English Reformation illustrated by the Life and Friendships of Anne Locke

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