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A Bishop, A Patron, and some Preachers: A Problem of Presentation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
Extract
The relations between bishops of the Church of England and lay patrons could be fraught and were certainly variable. Local circumstances and the general distribution of patronage within a given diocese combined with the personalities and concerns of the bishop and patrons involved to provide a distinctive environment for negotiation. It would be rash, therefore, to suggest that any case study of co-operation or conflict between a patron and a bishop could be typical. This said, such a case-study cannot but inform and stimulate because negotiation, amicable or otherwise, was essential for all parties wishing to exercise patronage. The co-operation between John Coke and Bishop Thomas Morton demonstrates not only the possibilities for concerted action in a given religious cause, but also the way in which the rules and regulations of the Church of England might be stretched and bent in that process. It indicates the importance for the Church of the web of connections which the bishops built up during their careers. It underlines the close interrelationship of the parochial ministry and the role of household chaplain in so many upper-gentry homes. It highlights the dependent relationship between the clerical client and his patron and the differing reactions of ministers to this situation.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 12: Life and Thought in the Northern Church , 1999 , pp. 421 - 434
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999
References
1 I have chosen this topic for my contribution to this volume for two reasons: firstly, it demonstrates Claire’s considerable influence upon my own work and, secondly, it presents a case in which Claire expressed especial interest.
2 See O’Day, Rosemary, The English Clergy. The Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession 1558-1642 (Leicester, 1979)Google Scholar, passim, for amplification of this point. See also Shells, W.J., ‘Some problems of government in a new diocese: the bishop and the Puritans in the diocese of Peterborough, 1560-1630’, in O’Day, R. and Heal, F., eds, Continuity and Change. Personnel and Administration of the Church in England, 1500-1642 (Leicester, 1976)Google Scholar for an excellent case-study. The English Clergy and Ian Green’s persuasive ‘Career prospects and clerical conformity in the early Stuart Church’, P&P, 90 (1981), pp. 71-115, add considerably to our knowledge of career opportunities nationally.
3 Coke was Secretary of State from 1625 until his dismissal in 1640.
4 Lichfield Joint Record Office [hereafter LJRO], B/V/I/32: Liber Cleri of the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, 20 Aug. 1616.
5 LJRO, B/V/I/66: Liber Cleri, 1638.
6 LJRO, B/V/I/64: Derby Archdeaconry, 1639.
7 For an introduction to the labyrinthine paths of patronage law see O’Day, Rosemary, ‘The law of patronage in the early modern Church of England’, JEH, 26 (1975), pp. 247–60.Google Scholar
8 Thomas Morton was Bishop of Chester, 1616-19; Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1619-32, and Bishop of Durham, 1632-d.1659.
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12 BL, Coke MSS, 5 Dec. 1639: letter of Bishop Thomas Morton to Sir John Coke.
13 Such confusion may have been common. A similar case, for instance, had concerned Walsall, Staffordshire, in 1567. George Clerkson, farmer of the rectory, claimed that he was patron of the vicarage during the term of his lease; the lay rector or improprietor, Thomas Wylbarne, esquire, contested this claim with a caveat. No one presented to the living as a result, and so it fell in lapse to the bishop in 1568. LJRO, B/V/I/13.
14 Coke MSS, 26 Jan. 1639/40: letter of Sir John Coke to his son, John.
15 Ibid.
16 J. E. B. Mayor, Materials for a Life of Thomas Morton, Cambridge Archaeological Society (1865), p. 36; Richard Lowe matriculated sizar at St John’s College, Cambridge, at Easter 1631; he took his BA in 1632/3 and his MA in 1639.
17 Coke MSS, 5 Dec. 1639: letter of Bishop Thomas Morton to Sir John Coke.
18 Mayor, Materials, p. 23; LJRO, B/A/4A/18.
19 Mayor, Materials, pp. 7-9; LJRO, B/A/4A/18.
20 Isaac Basire, The Dead Man’s Real Speech (London, 1673), pp. 49, 50.
21 LJRO, B/A/4A/18, 5 Jan. 1623/4.
22 LJRO, B/A/1/16: 10 Sept. 1625, William Jeffray, domestic chaplain, was collated to Gaia Major prebend.
23 CalSPD, Charles I, 9 Dec. 1627.
24 LJRO, B/A/4A/18: 21 Aug. 1626, Alexander Howe, domestic chaplain, collated to Oloughton prebend.
25 Mayor, Materiak, p. 29, 22 June 1621, letter of Bishop Thomas Morton to the Master of St John’s College, Cambridge; Fisher, G. W., Annals of Shrewsbury School (London, 1899), p. 38Google Scholar. Morton was a fellow of St John’s, Cambridge.
26 Baddiley, Richard, Life of Thomas Morton (York, 1669), pp. 78–81.Google Scholar
27 Collinson, Religion of Protestants, p. 82; Tyacke, Nicholas, ‘Turitanism, Arminianism and Counter-Revolution’, in Russell, Conrad, ed., The Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973). pp 132–3.Google Scholar
28 Collinson, Religion of Protestants, p. 89.
29 Morton, Thomas, A Defence of the Innocencie of the Three Ceremonies of the Church… (London, 1618)Google Scholar; see Richardson, R. C., Puritanism in North-West England (Manchester, 1972), pp. 17–26.Google Scholar
30 Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, p. 227.
31 Isaac Ambrose, The Compleat Workes… (London, 1674).
32 LJRO: B/A/1/16: 20 Jan. 1619/20; B/V/I/37: 1620; B/A/1/16: 7 Nov. 1620.
33 Bowyer was a kinsman of the patron of Biddulph, Staffordshire, and Pettipher was a relative of the patron of the living of Shotteswell, to which Morton presented him.
34 Unlike the Arminian bishops, Morton did not inquire of clergy whether they always wore the surplice or ever omitted the cross in baptism, asking instead simply whether the surplice was worn and the cross in baptism omitted. I thank Kenneth Fincham for this point.
35 Landor, W. N., Staffordshire Incumbents and Parochial Records, 1530-1680, Staffordshire Historical Collections, 41 (1915), p. 226.Google Scholar
36 PRO State Paper 16/436/22: ‘when hee, being suspended by me in Litchfield diocess, did threaten me to my face to bee even with me att Parliament’.
37 CalSPD, Charles I, 1638-9, p. 434.
38 Coke MSS, 25 Dec. 1639: letter of Richard Lowe to Sir John Coke.
39 Ibid., 2 Jan. 1639/40: letter of Sir John Coke to his son, John.
40 Coke MSS, 2 Jan. 1639/40: letter of Sir John Coke to his son, John.
41 LJRO, B/C/3/15: 16 March 1635/6: Office case v. Richard Jones, Vicar of Melbourne, Derbyshire.
42 Robert Wright was Bishop of Bristol, 1623-32, and Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1632-d.1643.
43 Coke MSS, 2 Jan. 1639/40: letter of Sir John Coke to his son, John.
44 Ibid., 26 Jan. 1639/40: letter of Sir John Coke to his son, John.
45 Ibid.
46 Coke MSS, 8 Aug. 1640: letter of Sir John Coke to Bishop Robert Wright of Coventry and Lichfield.
47 LJRO, B/V/1/64.
48 Calder, I., ‘A seventeenth-century attempt to purify the Anglican church’, AHR, 53 (1948), pp. 760–75Google Scholar; e.g., in 1618 the Earl of Devonshire conveyed ‘two ox gangs of land’ in Great Longsden to trustees for the benefit of the curate and encouraged the curate to perform his duties on a Sunday by stipulating that, in the event of the curate’s absence without providing a substitute, 5s. should be paid from the proceeds of the trust to the poor. LJRO, Lichfield Capitular Property, B27, 1618.
49 Seaver, Paul S., The Puritan Lectureships (Stanford, CA, 1970), pp. 66–7Google Scholar; John Jemmatt matriculated at University College, Oxford, as a ‘plebeian’ on 17 Nov. 1615, aged 18; he proceeded to a BA on 15 Oct. 1618 and an MA on 6 July 1621.
50 Coke MSS, 19 Sept. 1640: letter of John Jemmat to Sir John Coke.
51 Ibid.; Jemmat did not remain in Epping long either, in 1642 he became vicar of Eastmanstead Cheynies, Bucks, and from there he moved to become vicar of St Giles, Reading, in 1648/49.
52 Aylmer, G. E., The King’s Servants. The Civil Service of Charles I, 1625-1642 (London, 1961), pp. 110–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
53 This system is described in detail in O’Day, The English Clergy, pp. 105-12.
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55 I have shown how important indirect patronage was at this time: see esp. ‘The ecclesiastical patronage of the Lord Keeper, 1558-1642’, TRHS, ser. 5, 23 (1975), pp. 89-109; The English Clergy, esp. pp. 33-48; ‘Ecclesiastical patronage: who controlled the Church?’, pp. 152-5.