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Archbishop Laud's Campaign Against Puritanism at The Hague

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Keith L. Sprunger
Keith L. Sprunger
Affiliation:
Mr. Sprunger is professor of history in Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas
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Extract

The seventeenth-century Netherlands was the Puritan refuge. Its easy accessibility for radical English Puritans caused many a mishap in the plans of the bishops as they enforced conformity in England. When the going became too rough at home, nonconforming ministers could jump across to Holland, rather than obediently submit to discipline, and there carry on their defiant ways. Especially in the 1620s and 1630s, William Laud and others of the English hierarchy exerted themselves mightily to stamp out the Puritan outposts abroad; for Puritanism in exile provided a splendid habitation for all kinds of schemes.Initially going back into the sixteenth century, the Brownists were the main English religious settlers abroad, raising up their own churches and print shops in Amsterdam, Leiden and Middelburg; but in the several decades leading up to the English Civil Wars—in the great days of Archbishop Laud and Bishop Wren—mainstream, non-separating Puritans also were going over, providing strong leadership for most of the English churches in the Netherlands and serving as chaplains for the English regiments, even organizing themselves into an English Classis (1621–1635).

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 308 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1975

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References

1. On Puritanism in the Netherlands, see Stearns, Raymond P., Congregationalism in t he Dutch Netherlands (Chicago: The American Society of Church History, 1940)Google Scholar; Carter, Alice C., The English Reformed Church in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century, (Amsterdam: Scheltema & Holkema NV, 1964)Google Scholar; also Sprunger, Keith, Learned Doctor Willam Ames (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1972)Google Scholar. The author wishes to thank for their help the archivists of the Gemeente Archief of The Hague, the Rijksarchief, and the Archief of the Nedcrlandse Hervormde Kerk, The Hague, especially Dr. J. P. van Dooren, archivaris.

2. Heylen, Peter, Cyprianus Anglicus: or, the History of the Life and Death, of the Most Reverend and Renowned Prelate William Laud (London, 1668), p. 231Google Scholar. For Laud's program for the overseas churches, see Trevor-Roper, H. R., Archbishop Laud, 1573–1645, 2d ed., (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1963)Google Scholar, chapter 7.

3. Laud, William, Works, ed. Scott, W. and Bliss, J., 7 vols. (Oxford, 1847–1860), 7:12–14.Google Scholar

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5. State Papers 16, vol. 170, no. 8 (Public Record Office). The identification of Camphere is obscure. Other reports of about the same time note churches at Zwolle and 's-Hertogenbosch.

6. State Papers 84, vol. 146, fols. 65–67.

7. State Papers 16 vol. 247, no. 2; Iieylyn, , Cyprianus Anglicus, pp. 232–233Google Scholar. See also Trevor-Roper, , Laud, pp. 248–249Google Scholar, and McElroy, Katharine, “Laud and His Struggle for Influence from 1628 to 1640” (D. Phil. Thesis, Oxford, 1943), p. 250.Google Scholar

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10. Resolutiën van de Staten-Generaal 1576–1671, no. 3180, fol. 503v (Rijksarchief, The Hague).

11. Ibid., no. 3187, fol. 360v.

12. Ibid., no. 3192, fol. 365v.

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14. State Papers 84, vol, 152, fols. 112–114.

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16. The stipend was raised to 500 guilders in 1628. (Resoluties van de Staten van Holland en West-Friesland, no. 59, November 28, 1626; no. 61, August 17, 1628). The resolution of 1628 refers to “ponden,” that of 1626 to guilders.

17. Ames, William, A Fresh Svit against Human Ceremonies in Gods Worship (n.p., 1633), pt. 2, pp. 102–103Google Scholar. Ames repeatedly attacked these three ceremonies in a series of books, beginning with A Reply to Dr. Mortons Generall Defence of Three Nocent Ceremonies (1622).

18. Boswell Papers, Add. MSS. 6394, 1, fols. 250–251 (London: British Museum).

19. State Papers 16, vol. 90, no. 84 (January 14, 1628).

20. Brereton, William, Travels in Holland, The United Provinces, England, Scotland, and Ireland, ed. Hawkins, Edward, (Chetham Society) 1 (1844): 35Google Scholar; Mountague, William, The Delights of Holland (London, 1696), p. 51.Google Scholar

21. Throughout the seventeenth century, the English clergyman received a smaller stipend and allowance than the Dutch; see Archief Staten van Holland, no. 4410, fols. 15–16.

22. Green, Mary Anne Everett, Elizabeth Electross Palatine and Queen of Bohemia, rev. ed. (London, 1909), pp. 255–270.Google Scholar

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25. Davenport, John, Letters of John Davenport, Puritan Divine, ed. Calder, Isabel M. (New Haven: Yale, 1937), pp. 29–33Google Scholar. On Balmford, see Dictionary of National Biography and John and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses.

26. Add. MSS. 17,677, vol. 0, fol. 411v; Boswell Papers, 1: fol. 250.

27. Consistory Register of the English Reformed Church of The Hague, no. 67 (1627–1688), fol. 7v (Somerset House, London). Also at Somerset House is the register for 1677–1821, no. 68. Later records of the church are in the Public Record Office. The first register, no. 67, was published in a small edition by Wildeman, M. G., The Eldest Church Book of the English Congregation in The Hague (The Hague: De Wapenheraut, 1906).Google Scholar

28. Davenport, , Letters, pp. 32–33Google Scholar; Consistory Register, fol. 12v.

29. Brereton, , Travels, 1:28.Google Scholar

30. Nuttal, Geoffrey F., Visible Saints (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957), p. 9.Google Scholar

31. Boswell Papers, 1:fol. 112.

32. State Papers 16, vol. 310, no. 103.

33. Boswell Papers, 1:fol. 191.

34. Ibid., 1, 55.

35. Davenport, Letters, p. 55; Hanbury, Benjamin, Historical Memorials Relating to the Independents, or Congregationalists (London: The Congregational Union of England and Wales 1839–1844), 1:541.Google Scholar

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37. Carter, , English Reformed Church, pp. 80–81Google Scholar; Hanbury, , Memorials, 1:541.Google Scholar

38. Acta Classis The Hague, no. 2 (1607–1636), February 6, 1634; May 1, 1634 (Archief Ned. Hervormde Kerk, The Hague, 100 Java Straat).

39. Resoluties van de Staten van Holland, no. 78, fol. 152; see Acta Classis, no. 3, June 3, 1642.

40. “Stukken betreffende het proces tuuscheu de Classis van 's-Gravenhenge en den Engelschen Kerkeraad aldaar, 1716,” Archive of The Hague Classis, no. 83: Wildeman, , “Bijdragc tot de geschiedenis der Presbyteriaansche Kerkte's-Gravenhage,” De Navorscher 45 (1895): 156–184, 215–257Google Scholar. The issue of church sovereignty “occasioned a tedious lawsuit, wherein the English Consistory got the better,” Dentz, English Church at The Hague, p. 28.

41. Consistory Register, no. 68, March 30, 1697. Their controversy here was the Dutch kerkeraad, not the classis.

42. Carter, , English Reformed Church, pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

43. Amsterdam Consistory Register, February 1, 1633 (Gemeente Archief, Amsterdam).

44. Add. MSS. 17,677, vol. 0, fol. 411v.

45. Ibid.

46. State Papers 16, vol. 261, fol. 258v; Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Charles I, June 1637; Davenport, , Letters, pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

47. Acta Classis, no. 2, November 26, 1635; Boswell Papers, 1; fols. 223–24.

48. State Papers 84, vol. 152, fols. 93–94, 116.

49. Ibid., fols. 112–114.

50. Acta Classis, no. 3, May 4, 1637.

51. Acta der particuliere synoden van Zuid-Holland, 1621–1700, ed. W. P. C. Knuttel (The Hague: Rijks Geshiedkundige Publicatiëin 1908–1916), 2: 141–142 (1637, art. 43).Google Scholar

52. State Papers 84, vol. 152, fols.116–117.

53. Boswell Papers, 1:fols. 238 and 315; State Papers, 84, vol. 155, fol. 254.

54. Acta Classis, no. 3, February 2, 1639.

55. State Papers 16, vol. 441, no. 47.

56. Ibid., vol. 417, no. 96; vol. 418, no. 49.

57. Acta Classis, no. 3, February 2, 1639; Acta Kerkeraad, no. 102, March 28, 1639.

58. Green, , Elizabeth, p. 355.Google Scholar

59. State Papers 84, vol. 155, fol. 79v; State Papers 16, vol. 417, no. 96.

60. Parr, Richard, The Life of James Usher, with A Collection of Three Hundred Letters (London, 1686), pt. 2, pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

61. Boswell Papers, 1: fol. 291.

62. State Papers 84, vol. 154, fols. 17–19; Boswell Papers, 1: fol. 291.

63. State Papers 84, vol. 152, fol. 145.

64. Boswell Papers, 1: fol. 291.

65. State Papers 84, vol. 152, fol. 221.

66. Acta Classis, no. 3, June 26, 1645; Boswell Papers, 1: fols. 371, 373.

67. This was his second marriage. In 1630 he married Dorothy Bennet, Consistory Register, no. 67, fol. 8.

68. Acta Classis, no. 3, April 25, 1650.

69. Ibid., August 25 and November 7, 1650. The English Reformed Church at The Hague survived until 1822, when it was suppressed by royal decree. The present English Church at The Hague is, in fact, a Church of England and was established in 1844.