6 - ‘Near Popery and yet no Popery’

Summary

A grave divine, preaching before the university, at St Mary's, had this passage in his sermon, that, as at the Olympian Games, HE was counted the conqueror who could drive his chariot wheels nearest the mark, yet so as not to hinder his running, or stick thereon … so he who in his sermons could preach near popery, and yet no popery, ‘there was your man’.

The ‘current doctrine of the Church of England’

Late on the night of Monday 23 February 1629, Matthew Wren, now the Vice-Chancellor, received an unwelcome letter from the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Commons had a sense of high purpose and the letter was a little peremptory:

… I am commanded by the House of Commons assembled in Parliament, to pray and require you to send forthwith to unto them, true information of the names of all such persons within your University of Cambridge as since the 13th of Queen Elizabeth, have written or published any points of doctrine contrary to the Articles of Religion established in that year, or contrary to the true and generally received sense of those Articles, or the current doctrine of the Church of England… and withal to certify what Acts, Determinations, Censures, Recantations, Subscriptions or other proceedings, have been thereupon had or made, together with true copies of the same, wherein have observed the commands of the House and nothing doubting of your care and endeavour for the spedy and effectual satisfaction of the House therein I rest.

Wren must have wondered what all this was about. The letter could be interpreted as an opening shot in a campaign against the university. In truth, the Commons’ real concerns lay elsewhere. In 1625 an attempt had been made to launch proceedings against Richard Montagu, but Parliament had been promptly prorogued. Other business had then proved even more compelling and the matter had been left unresolved. In 1628, however, Montagu had been made Bishop of Chichester and that was something that the Commons could not ignore. For some time men like Ward, Davenant and Prynne had been arguing that there was altogether too much freedom about theological debate and that old protestant certainties no longer looked so certain.