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Catholic, Anglican or Puritan? Edward Sackville, Fourth Earl of Dorset and the Ambiguities of Religion in Early Stuart England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

David L. Smith
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Extract

The religion of Edward Sackville, fourth earl of Dorset, foxed his contemporaries, and he has proved an equally slippery customer for those modern historians who wish to see unbridgeable confessional gulfs opening up in the 1620s and 1630s. A detailed study of him reveals ambiguities of position that confused his contemporaries and confound modern categorisation. Those who knew Dorset differed dramatically in their perception of his religion. To one French ambassador, Tillières, he was ‘un puritain’; while to William Middleton, Lord Fielding's chaplain, he appeared ‘strong for Precisians’. By contrast, another French ambassador, Fontenay, believed that Dorset ‘n’est pas trop ennemy de nostre religion' and the papal agent Carlo Rossetti thought him ‘assai fautori nell’ intrinseco dei Cattolicci’. In 1641 Sir Walter Erle even opposed the re-enfranchisement of Seaford on the grounds that ‘the lord of the town [i.e. Dorset] [was] a papist'. Dorset was called everything from a puritan to a papist—and other things besides. In dedicating his ‘account of religion by reason’ to Dorset, Sir John Suckling wrote that the tract—which was widely condemned as Socinian—‘had like to make me an atheist at Court and your lordship no very good Christian’. Whereas Professor Hexter addressed ‘the problem of the Presbyterian-Independents’, contemporary images of Dorset present the even more bizarre spectacle of a puritan-papist-pagan. Where, that is, they mention his religion at all. For time and again we find that descriptions focus mainly on Dorset's courtly and chivalric qualities. Clarendon portrayed Dorset as ‘a man of an obliging nature, much honour, of great generosity, and of most entire fidelity to the Crown’; but made no mention of his religious attitudes. When authors dedicated their writings to Dorset they consistently highlighted these same secular traits: Sir Richard Baker praised his ‘publicke vertues’, Edward May his ‘noble nature’; and even John Bastwick called him simply ‘illustrissimus’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 2 , December 1992 , pp. 105 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1992

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References

1 Dorset became a Privy Councillor in 1626 and Lord Chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria in 1628. During the Civil War he was a moderate Royalist. For a full-length study, see Smith, David L., ‘The Political Career of Edward Sackville, fourth Earl of Dorset (1590–1652)’ (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar. For detailed analyses of the successive stages of his career, see also idem ‘The fourth Earl of Dorset and the politics of the 1620s’, Historical Research, LXV (1992), 37—53Google Scholar; idem ‘The fourth Earl of Dorset and the Personal Rule of Charles I’, J[oumal] [of] B[rithh] S[tudies], XXX (1991), 257—87; idem ‘”The more posed and wise advice”: the fourth Earl of Dorset and the English Civil Wars’, H[istorical] J[ournal], XXXIV (1991), 797–829.

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22 E[ast] S[ussex] R[ecord] O[ffice], Add. MS 5729/15 (indenture of 27 May 1628).

23 See, for example, E.S.R.O., G 23/4 (indenture of 1 June 1618); B.L., Add. Charter 9290 (indenture of 15 July 1629).

24 K.A.O., Sackville MS, U 269/L4 (papers relating to the destruction of Dorset House, 1666).

25 P.R.O., S.P. 16/183/58 (depositions concerning the smashing of a stained-glass window in St Edmund's Church, Salisbury, Jan. 1630/1), fo. 112v.

26 The most reliable text of Dorset's speech at Sherfield's trial is that in Bod[leian] Lib[rary], MS Tanner 299 (Archbishop Sancroft's transcripts), fos. 116V–117V, from which the following quotations are taken.

27 Sherfield's activities in Salisbury are analysed in Slack, P., ‘Poverty and Politics in Salisbury, 1597–1666’, in Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500–1700, ed. Clark, P. and Slack, P. (1972), 164–203, esp. 183–7, 191Google Scholar.

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30 B. L., Egerton MS 784 (William Whiteway's diary), fo. 94r.

31 The warrant for Prynne's arrest, dated 1 Feb. 1632/3, was signed by eight Privy Councillors, including Dorset, : C[ommons] J[oumal], II, 124Google Scholar. Prynne later claimed that Dorset ‘was the chiefe meanes of helping [him] into prison’: Hampshire Record Office, Jervoise of Herriard Park MS, 44 M69/XXXIX/88: Prynne to Henry Sherfield, 12 Oct. 1633. I owe this last reference to John Adamson.

32 The fullest and most reliable text of Dorset's speech at Prynne's first trial is that in Bod. Lib., MS Tanner 299, fos. 130V–131r, from which the following quotations are taken.

33 This time, the final sentence was marginally less severe than Dorset advocated: Prynne was fined £5,000, pilloried, and had his ears cropped. See House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 20 Aug. 1644 (petition of William Prynne).

34 The lecturer was John Brinsley the younger, a prolific writer whose works are listed in Wing, B 4705–4737. The main documents relating to this episode are printed in Swinden, H., The History and Antiquities of Great Yarmouth (Norwich, 1772), 826–56Google Scholar. The bailiffs' letter to Dorset is found at 847–8. See also Palmer, C. J., The History of Great Yarmouth (2 vols, 1854–1856), II, 158–64Google Scholar; and Cust, R., ‘Anti-Puritanism and Urban Politics: Charles I and Great Yarmouth’, H. J., XXXV, 1–26Google Scholar.

35 Bod. Lib., MS Tanner 134 (diocese of Norwich papers), fo. 189r: the dean and chapter of Norwich to Dorset, [?] Dec. 1631.

36 Ibid., fo. 184r: the dean and chapter of Norwich to the bishop of Norwich, [?] 1632.

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51 These certificates are found in P.R.O., E 331. The information about Dorset's presentations derived from them is laid out in Smith, ‘Dorset’, Appendix 2.

52 Guildhall Library, MS 9531/15 (register of the bishops of London). I owe this reference to Kenneth Fincham.

53 See above, 114.

54 Fletcher, , Sussex, 81Google Scholar.

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56 B. L., Add. MS 15671 (procs of Cttee for Plundered Ministers), fo. 216r. In 1657, Blundell received a payment from First Fruits: Shaw, W. A., A History of the English Church during the Civil Wars and under the Commonwealth (2 vols, 1900), II, 579Google Scholar. This suggests that his beliefs were again deemed acceptable under the Protectorate.

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66 ‘Puritan’ is of course a highly complex term, covering a variety of different beliefs. Nevertheless, it remains useful as a general label for those people who disliked the traces of Catholicism in the late Tudor and early Stuart Church (such as bishops, vestments, and the Prayer Book), and who felt that the English Reformation was still incomplete. I use it in this sense throughout the present essay.

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69 B. L., Trumbull Add. MS 31 (misc. Trumbull papers), unfol.

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78 B.L., Harl. MS 383 (letter book of Sir Simonds D'Ewes), fo. 185r: James Dee to Edmund Calamy, 25 Sept. 1640. I owe this reference to Peter Salt.

79 K.A.O., UCP: Dorset to the countess of Middlesex, [?] Aug. 1642.

80 Observations upon Religio Medici, occasionally written by Sir Kenelm Digby (1643), 2–3 (B. L., E 1113/4).

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89 P.R.O., PROB 11 (Prerogative Court of Canterbury, copies of probated wills), 161/61; Fletcher, , Sussex, 63Google Scholar.

90 Smith, ‘Dorset and the politics of the 1620s’.

91 Fincham, K. and Lake, P., ‘The Ecclesiastical Policy of King James I’, J.B.S., XXIV (1985), 169–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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93 For this, see esp. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists; Foster, ‘Church Policies’ and Davies, J., The Caroline Captivity of the Church (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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95 See esp. the correspondence quoted in ibid., 809–12, 816–18.

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