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Anglican Attitudes: Some Recent Writings on English Religious History, from the Reformation to the Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Nicholas Tyacke
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Extract

It remains a commonplace that what historians write bears some relation to their own time and particular angle of vision. Less often remarked, however, is the tendency for historical interpretations to acquire lives of their own, at least partly independent of the original circumstances that produced them, and to enter as it were the intellectual bloodstream of subsequent generations. A good illustration of this latter proposition is afforded by the history of the English Church. For, since at least the seventeenth century, the very radicalism of the Reformation has proved a continuing source of embarrassment to a section of Church of England opinion; rather than frankly admit their own dissent from the views of many of the Tudor founding fathers, they have regularly sought to rewrite the past in the light of the present. This conservative vision has come to be expressed in terms of a so-called via media, which is deemed to have characterized the English or “Anglican” way of religious reform.

Until quite recently, the historiography was heavily influenced by these same Anglican insiders, other historians being prepared largely to take on trust their claims—especially as regards theological change. Moreover, willingness to follow what is in effect a party line has now received powerful reinforcement from certain revisionist historians, who discern a congruence between the alleged moderation of Anglicanism and their own commitment to a consensual model of English politics in the decades before the Civil War. The old idea of the English Church as epitomizing a mean between the extremes of protestantism and catholicism is once more being pressed into service.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 2: Revisionisms , April 1996 , pp. 139 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1996

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References

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2 Bernard, G. W., “The Church of England, c.1529–c.1642,” History 75 (1990): 183–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bernard, like his colleague Kevin Sharpe, would appear to be attracted by an “Anglican” version of religious events primarily because of its innately revisionist thrust: see below, pp. 162–66.

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20 Tyacke, N., “Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-revolution,” in The Origins of the English Civil War, ed. Russell, C. (London, 1973), pp. 119–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My italics.

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29 White, chap. 7; Lake, P., Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 4; Lake, P., “Lancelot Andrewes, John Buckeridge and Avant-Garde Conformity at the Court of James I,” in The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, ed. Peck, L. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 113–33Google Scholar.

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31 White, pp. 157–59, 169. White also refers to Robert Abbot indulging in “polemic” for “the benefit of undergraduates,” although his “students” would in reality have been pursuing a postgraduate course in theology: ibid., p. 157.

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37 Lambert (n. 13 above), pp. 42–50.

38 Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin, MS Z4.2.10, fols. 151v–52.

39 The Works of … Joseph Hall, 10 vols., ed. Wynter, P. (Oxford, 1863), 1:xliii–xliv, 9:489–516Google Scholar; Burton, H., Truth's Triumph over Trent (London, 1629), pp. 341–43Google Scholar. On internal evidence, this book was written when James I was still alive: ibid., pp. 314–15.

40 Montagu, R., Appello Caesarem (London, 1625), pp. 21–22, 28–30, 56–59, 64–65, 73–74Google Scholar; The Works of James Arminius (n. 18 above), 1:603Google Scholar; Schaff (n. 5 above), 3:548–49; see above, pp. 151–52.

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43 White, p. 254; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 48–49, 81, 224, 227Google Scholar; Tyacke, N., “Arminianism and the Theology of the Restoration Church,” in Britain and the Netherlands, vol. 11, ed. Groenveld, S. and Wintle, M. (Zutphen, 1994)Google Scholar.

44 White, p. 270; Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, p. 121Google Scholar; Twisse, W., A Discovery of D. Jackson's Vanitie (Amsterdam, 1631)Google Scholar; Rutherford, S., Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Divina Gratia (Amsterdam, 1636), pp. 351–55Google Scholar.

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49 Davies, pp. 117–18; White, pp. 251–52, 299–300. As with White, Davies never makes clear what he means by “single” predestination.

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51 Davies, pp. 18–19, 317; Laurence, T., A Sermon preached before the King's Majesty at Whitehall (London, 1637), p. 25Google Scholar.

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54 Davies, pp. 223–25; Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge, D1/41/1/2, Citations 1635; Victoria County History, Wiltshire 8 (1965): 248Google Scholar; Ponting, C. E., “Edington Church,” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 25 (1891): 224Google Scholar; Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1635–6, p. 378.

55 Berkshire Record Office, Reading, D/A2/c.77, Ada (Berkshire Archdeaconry), 1635–6, fols. 81v–82, D/A2/c.78, Acta (Berkshire Archdeaconry), 1636–7, fol. 255v. The rector of Newbury was the famous Calvinist William Twisse—future prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly. Davies does not discuss this case, although it features anonymously and repeatedly in his footnotes as evidence of “enforcement”: Davies, p. 224, nn. 76, 80.

56 Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge, D2/4/1/16, Acta (Salisbury Archdeaconry), 1636–41, fols. 32, 65v, 113v, D3/4/7, Acta (Wiltshire Archdeaconry), 1632–42, fol. 56v. It was in March 1638, not December 1637 (Davies, p. 225), that the churchwardens of Fifield were ordered to move and rail their communion table “as in other churches the same is done”: D3/4/7, fol. 56v. I have discussed elsewhere the Aldbourne, Wiltshire, case of May 1637: Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists, pp. 210–12Google Scholar.

57 Davies, pp. 218, 227–29, and chap. 6 generally; Hertfordshire Record Office, Hertford, ASA7/31, Acta (St. Albans Archdeaconry), 1636–38, fols. 36v–37, my italics. Although Davies misinterprets this document in a diocesan context, strictly speaking it illustrates the local impact of metropolitical instructions.

58 Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Canterbury, Z.4.6, Acta (Canterbury Consistory), 1636–40, fol. 127, my italics. There are similar references at fols. 127v and 150. All are ignored by Davies.

59 Laud, , Works (n. 41 above), 4:121, 225, 6:59–60Google Scholar. Instead, Davies relies on an obscure reference during Laud's trial to the “indifferency” of how communion tables should be placed: Davies, p. 231, n. 119; see below, p. 164.

60 Davies, p. 208, n. 16, p. 211, nn. 23, 27–28, p. 213, n. 35; Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, SP16/499/42.

61 Tyacke, , Anti-Calvinists (n. 11 above), pp. 199, 209Google Scholar.

62 Davies (n. 46 above), p. 218. It should be pointed out here that the earliest surviving version of the so-called metropolitical order dates from June 1635 and was issued for Gloucester diocese. This says nothing about where communicants should receive, which Davies claims was an essential component. Gloucestershire Record Office, Gloucester, GDR189, fols. 8v–9. I owe this reference to Kenneth Fincham.

63 Davies, pp. 215–16; Laud, , Works, 4:203, 210, 247Google Scholar.

64 Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Conn., 1992), p. 275Google Scholar, n. 1.

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66 Sharpe, pp. 293–94, 296–97, 300; see above, p. 154.

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74 Sharpe, pp. 292, 729–30, 757.

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