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Charles ii's Commission for Ecclesiastical Promotions, 1681–1684: A Reconsideration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2015

GRANT TAPSELL
GRANT TAPSELL*
Affiliation:
Lady Margaret Hall, OxfordE-mail:grant.tapsell@lmh.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article dissents from the classic analysis of the ‘commission for ecclesiastical promotions’ (1681–4) offered by Robert Beddard in 1967. Rather than acting as a powerful ‘instrument of tory reaction’, in the hands of a ‘reversionary interest’ of lay and clerical ‘Yorkists’ dedicated to changing the political hue of the upper ranks of the clergy, in reality it functioned as ‘an instrument of personal rule’ for a king who had not surrendered his own interests to those of his heir presumptive. Its political impact is queried with evidence from the start of James's reign that emphasises the immediate sense of crisis felt by many bishops.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 735 - 754
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 Beddard, R. A., ‘The commission for ecclesiastical promotions, 1681–84: an instrument of Tory reaction’, HJ x (1967)Google Scholar, 17. Although what follows represents a critique of this article, in common with all other scholars in the field I am deeply indebted to Beddard's various fundamentally important works on Restoration Church and State.

2 Idem, ‘William Sancroft, as archbishop of Canterbury, 1677–1691', unpubl. DPhil diss. Oxford 1965 (unfortunately this thesis is not available for consultation in the Bodleian Library), and ‘Commission’, 40.

3 Hoyle, R. W., ‘The masters of requests and the small change of Jacobean patronage’, EHR cxxvi (2011), 544–81Google Scholar.

4 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 11–13. See also Green, Ian, The re-establishment of the Church of England, 1660–1663, Oxford 1978Google Scholar.

5 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 14.

6 Ibid. 40 (criticising Carpenter, Edward, The Protestant bishop, being the life of Henry Compton, 1632–1713, bishop of London, London 1956Google Scholar, 50).

7 Beddard, R. A., ‘The Restoration Church’, in Jones, J. R. (ed.), The restored monarchy, 1660–1688, Basingstoke 1979Google Scholar, 173.

8 To cite just two of the most significant monographs for successive generations of scholars see Bennett, G. V., The Tory crisis in Church and State, 1688–1730: the career of Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, Oxford 1975Google Scholar, 6, and Spurr, John, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689, New Haven–London 1991, 80–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 86–7. Bennett was Beddard's doctoral supervisor, and set out the gist of his student's forthcoming argument in an influential essay: ‘William iii and the bishops’, in Bennett, G. V. and Walsh, J. D. (eds), Essays in modern church history in memory of Norman Sykes, London 1966Google Scholar, 104–31 at pp. 105–7.

9 Most notably Hirschberg, D. R., ‘The government and church patronage in England, 1660–1760′, Journal of British Studies xx (1980–1)Google Scholar, 122–3, but also Miller, John, After the civil wars: English politics and government in the reign of Charles II, Harlow 2000Google Scholar, 292 n. 77, and Tapsell, Grant, ‘Laurence Hyde and the politics of religion in later Stuart England’, EHR cxxv (2010)Google Scholar, 1427–8.

10 Harris, Tim, ‘Tories and the rule of law in the reign of Charles ii’, Seventeenth Century viii (1993), 9–27Google Scholar, and Restoration: Charles II and his kingdoms, 1660–1685, London 2005Google Scholar, 419–22.

11 Halliday, Paul D., Dismembering the body politic: partisan politics in England's towns, 1650–1730, Cambridge 1998Google Scholar, ch. vi; de Krey, Gary S., London and the Restoration, 1659–1683, Cambridge 2005Google Scholar, ch. vii; Tapsell, Grant, The personal rule of Charles II, Woodbridge 2007Google Scholar, chs ii–iii and passim.

12 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 19. (See the relevant chronological volumes of the CSPD, via indexes s.v. ‘ecclesiastical preferments’.) For some of the processes and complexities of ecclesiastical patronage in post-Reformation England see O'Day, Rosemary, ‘Ecclesiastical patronage: who controlled the Church?’, in Heal, Felicity and O'Day, Rosemary (eds), Church and society in England: Henry VIII to James I, London 1977, 137–55Google Scholar, and Fincham, Kenneth, ‘William Laud and the exercise of Caroline ecclesiastical patronage’, this Journal li (2000), 69–93Google Scholar.

13 Jacobsen, G. A., William Blathwayt: a late seventeenth century English administrator, New Haven 1932Google Scholar; Kenyon, J. P., ‘The commission of ecclesiastical causes, 1686–1688: a reconsideration’, HJ xxxiv (1991)Google Scholar, 727–36 (based on a careful reading of the minute book kept by William Bridgeman: Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms Rawlinson D 365); Rose, Jacqueline, Godly kingship in Restoration England: the politics of the royal supremacy, 1660–1688, Cambridge 2011Google Scholar, 251–67.

14 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 31–4.

15 See, especially, Bodl. Lib., mss Tanner 36 (1681–2), 35 (1682–3), 34 (1683–4) and 32 (1684–5), and outlying documents in other Tanner volumes including mss 41, 46, 103, 129–31, 143–4, 150, 155, 158 and 282.

16 For the partisan political significance of the episcopate in the previous decade see Goldie, Mark, ‘Danby, the bishops and the Whigs’, in Harris, Tim, Seaward, Paul, and Goldie, Mark (eds), The politics of religion in Restoration England, Oxford 1990, 75–105Google Scholar.

17 All references to and quotations from Beddard in this paragraph and the next come from ‘Commission’, 14–17.

18 Anglesey's diary for the period shows his marked alienation from crown policy, and meetings with or sympathy for a number of Whig politicians, but it still remains striking that he did not lose the privy seal until August 1682: BL, ms Add. 18730, fos 85–111, with the loss of the privy seal at fo. 98: ‘The Lord be praised I am now delivered from Court snares.’

19 Andrew Coleby, ‘Henry Compton’, ODNB; Carpenter, Protestant bishop, 37–42, 45–6.

20 Carpenter, Protestant bishop, 45–6.

21 ms Tanner 40, fo. 171; Coleby, ‘Henry Compton’. Mews of Bath and Wells (described as a ‘Yorkist’ by the inhabitants of Bath: Andrew M. Coleby, ‘Peter Mews’, ODNB), Crewe of Durham (who was very close to James: Margot Johnson, ‘Nathaniel Crew’, ODNB), and Lloyd of Peterborough (of whom more at p. 750 below) would all have been more politically acceptable bishops on the commission than Compton, at least in the sense of promoting a ‘reversionary interest’.

22 Notably in Compton's case for the religious census of England in 1676: The Compton census of 1676: a critical edition, ed. Anne Whiteman with the assistance of Mary Clapinson (British Academy Records of Social and Economic History n.s. x, 1986), pp. xxiv–xxv.

23 Tapsell, ‘Laurence Hyde’, 1418, 1426–7; W. A. Speck, ‘Laurence Hyde’, ODNB.

24 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 38 n. 132. As Beddard also observes, Seymour withdrew from court in a sulk in Sept./Oct. 1682 after failing to be made lord privy seal in succession to Anglesey.

25 Cited in Beddard, ‘Commission’, 19.

26 Anne Duffin, ‘John Robartes’, ODNB.

27 Anthony Ettrick to ‘my lord’, n.d., ms Tanner 129, fo. 122. Although undated, the letter refers to Archdeacon Woodward: Robert Woodward became archdeacon of Wiltshire in 1681: Clergy of the Church of England Database, person ID 60953: http://www.theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/search/index.jsp, accessed 13 Aug. 2011.

28 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 18.

29 Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, ed. Andrew Browning, with a new preface and notes by Mary K. Geiter and W. A. Speck, London 1991, 212, 244, 258. For the difficult relations between Halifax and James at this time see also Foxcroft, H. C., The life and letters of Sir George Savile, bart., first marquis of Halifax, London 1898Google Scholar, i. 303, 351–3, 357–8, 375, 379, 399–407, 415–16. In striking contrast to the voluminous attention that Foxcroft devoted to foreign policy and court intrigue, Halifax's place on the commission is noted only in passing in an appendix (vol. i. 436–7).

30 For a fuller account of this rivalry see Grant Tapsell, ‘The life and career of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, c. 1681–c. 1686', unpubl. MPhil diss. Cambridge 1999, 38–42, and Foxcroft, Life and letters, i. 379–88.

31 Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 329, 342; Foxcroft, Life and letters, 420–36; Ronald Hutton, Charles II: king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Oxford 1989, 429–45; J. R. Jones, Charles II: royal politician, London 1987, ch. viii.

32 Beddard emphasises that the commissioners were all also members of ‘the inner sanctum, the committee of intelligence’, though he is scrupulous enough to note the significant fact that Sancroft and Compton only attended ‘occasionally’: ‘Commission’, 18 and n. 29.

33 Ibid. 24–5.

34 Speck, ‘Henry Hyde’, ODNB; Tapsell, ‘Laurence Hyde’, 1422–3, 1442–3, 1445.

35 Tapsell, Grant, ‘Pastors, preachers and politicians: the clergy of the later Stuart Church’, in Tapsell, Grant (ed.), The later Stuart Church, 1660–1714, Manchester 2012Google Scholar, 81–2.

36 Paul Hopkins, ‘Francis Turner’, ODNB; Tapsell, ‘Laurence Hyde’, 1425, 1427–8.

37 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 28.

38 Alan Marshall, ‘Sir Leoline Jenkins’, ODNB. For Jenkins's continued involvement in lobbying for ecclesiastical patronage see, for instance, CSPD, 1680–1, 509; CSPD, 1682, 57.

39 Hirschberg, ‘Government and church patronage’, 122. For Sancroft's known ‘veneration’ for Laud's memory see ms Tanner 38, fo. 116.

40 BL, ms Add. 4107, fo. 35v (Viscount Weymouth's diary); CSPD, 1680–1, 427 (newsletter to Roger Garstell of Newcastle); HMC, Seventh report, 496 (Verney manuscripts); The life and times of Anthony Wood., ed. Andrew Clark (Oxford Historical Society, 1892), ii. 549. Evelyn would later dwell on the activities of the 1686–8 commission: The diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer, Oxford 1955, iv. 519–20, 524, 590, 596, 599.

41 The entring book of Roger Morrice, gen. ed. Mark Goldie, Woodbridge 2007–9, ii. 286.

42 See the acute comments of Mark Goldie ibid. i, via index, s.v ‘hierarchists’.

43 Narcissus Luttrell, A brief historical relation of state affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, Oxford 1857, i. 126. Like Evelyn, Luttrell did frequently refer to the 1686–8 commission: at vol. i. 383, 384, 385, 390, 392, 402, 403, 405, 406, 407, 408, 410, 422, 423, 424, 427, 428, 429, 431, 450, 455, 456, 466, 469.

44 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 16.

45 For Womock advertising his merits before the commission's existence see ms Tanner 38, fos 14, 82; and during its existence, ms Tanner 36, fo. 88; ms 34, fos 121, 136; ms 32, fo. 110. Although Sancroft's replies were generally warm (for example, ms. Tanner 32, fo. 112) it is striking that Womock's ultimate reward was about as unappetising as the archbishop could have found: the bishopric of St David's. Womock's over-eagerness had prompted at least one angry archiepiscopal rebuke: ms Tanner 34, fo. 190.

46 Dr John Nalson to William Sancroft, Ely House, 14 July 1683, and Dr Laurence Womock to [Sancroft], 27 Aug. 1683, ms Tanner 34, fos 80, 121.

47 William Lloyd, bishop of St Asaph, to Sancroft, 28 Sept. 1683, ibid. fo. 163.

48 For instance, Pearson of Chester: ms Tanner 144, fos 34, 36. The exceptionally divisive ultra-Tory cleric, Thomas Pierce, also flattered the commission in print whilst currying favour during his bitter campaign against the bishop of Salisbury, Seth Ward: [Thomas Pierce], A vindication of the king's sovereign rights, London 1683 (Wing P 2208), 20; Rose, Godly kingship, 139–40; Jon Parkin, ‘Thomas Pierce’, ODNB.

49 For instance, ms Tanner 36, fo. 117 (Sir Leoline Jenkins); ms 35, fo. 13 (earl of Arundel); ms 34, fos 36 (earl of Lindsey), 63, 90 (earl of Danby; see also BL, ms Add. 28053, fo. 269), 100 (duke of Albemarle), 108v (duke of Beaufort).

50 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 24 n. 61, citing North's Examen; ms Tanner 158, fo. 42.

51 For some typical examples see ms Tanner 36, fos 70, 123, 199; ms 35, fo. 19; ms 34, fos 21, 24, 36, 63, 105, 163, 195, 268–9; ms 32, fos 60, 69, 85.

52 A point well made by Hirschberg, ‘Government and church patronage’, 122–3.

53 Lloyd to Sancroft, 3 Jan. 1682[/3], ms Tanner 35, fo. 159.

54 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 34.

55 For Thompson's convoluted tale, see ms Tanner 35, fos 45, 93, 126r–128v; ms 34, fos 81, 280r–v; ms 32, fos 7–8, 46. For the Bristol context see Jonathan Barry, ‘The politics of religion in Restoration Bristol’, in Harris, Seaward and Goldie, Politics of religion, 163–89.

56 Sancroft to William Gulston, bishop of Bristol, Lambeth House, 5 Apr. 1684, ms Tanner 32, fo. 16.

57 For the (uninformative) revocation of the commission see CSPD, May 1684–Feb. 1685, 155 (26 Sept. 1684).

58 Bodl. Lib., ms Carte 130, fo. 22v (extracts of privy council letters to Beaufort); Philip Madoxe to Robert Southwell, Whitehall, 29 Sept. 1684, Bodl. Lib., ms Eng. letters C 53, fo. 92. For a similar report see Correspondence of the family of Hatton,1601–1704, ed. Thompson, E. M. (Camden n.s. xxii–xxiii, 1878)Google Scholar, ii. 50.

59 Christopher Hatton to Lord Hatton, Guernsey, 3 Dec. 1684, Northamptonshire Records Office, FH4327.

60 See particularly Beddard, R. A., ‘Restoration Oxford and the remaking of the Protestant establishment’, and ‘Tory Oxford’, in Tyacke, Nicholas (ed.), Seventeenth-century Oxford, Oxford 1997, 803–906Google Scholar (via voluminous index entry) and, ‘Christ Church under John Fell’, Christ Church Annual Report (1976/7), 28–34.

61 Idem, ‘Commission’, 38.

62 John Fell to Sancroft, 12 Oct. 1684, ms Tanner 32, fo. 159r–v (largely cited at Beddard, ‘Commission’, 38). Fell's words form a postscript to a long, angry letter about the machinations of pluralists in Oxfordshire.

63 Vivienne Larminie, ‘John Fell’, ODNB.

64 Sancroft to Anthony Sparrow, Lambeth House, 18 June 1681 (draft), ms Tanner 36, fo. 52. For the complex local and central political machinations at play in this instance see also fos 39, 52v. The archbishop had evidently wished to appoint a local man who would actually reside and be active in the cathedral.

65 CSPD, 1682, 600.

66 ms Tanner 36, fos 128, 135, 137, 139, 149, 178 (all concerning filling the vacant bishopric of Derry), 158 (a deanery), 202, and CSPD, 1680–1, 651 (recommendations for various bishoprics).

67 Correspondence of the family of Hatton, ii. 50; Bodl. Lib., ms Carte 130, fo. 22v; Luttrell, A brief relation, i. 126.

68 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 40.

69 For Fell of Oxford's anxiety in 1685 about the Church of England's difficult strategic position under James see Grant Tapsell, ‘Introduction: the later Stuart Church in context’, in Tapsell, Later Stuart Church, 4.

70 John Dolben, archbishop of York, to Sancroft, 14 Feb. [1685], ms Tanner 32, fo. 222. Dolben hoped that something ‘to the advantage of our Com[m]on christianity’ could be accomplished in the next convocation – a rather desperate hope, bearing in mind the post-Restoration impotence of convocation: Norman Sykes, From Sheldon to Secker: aspects of English church history, 1660–1768, Cambridge 1959, 41–4.

71 Harris, Tim, Revolution: the great crisis of the British monarchy, 1685–1720, London 2006, 97–100Google Scholar; Sowerby, Scott, ‘Tories in the Whig corner: Daniel Fleming's journal of the 1685 parliament’, Parliamentary History xxiv (2005), 167–73Google Scholar, 196–200.

72 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 20 (emphasis is additionally placed on Dolben's closeness to two generations of the Hyde family), and also his ‘The character of a Restoration prelate: Dr John Dolben’, Notes & Queries ccxv (1970), 418–21.

73 See the fine ODNB entry by Andrew M. Coleby, who none the less incorrectly dates the beginnings of Dolben's disillusionment with James's regime only to the autumn of 1685.

74 Beddard, ‘Character of a Restoration prelate’, 420 and n. 21.

75 Gregory, Jeremy, Restoration, reformation and reform, 1660–1828: archbishops of Canterbury and their diocese, Oxford 2000Google Scholar, 276; Handley, Stuart, ‘William Lloyd’, ODNB. Lloyd was one of Sancroft's most frequent correspondents: Alfred Hackman (comp.), Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae pars quarta codices viri admodum reverendi Thomae Tanneri…, Oxford 1860Google Scholar, 1005–8.

76 For forensic discussion of this issue see Rose, Godly kingship, via index s.v. ‘praemunire’.

77 William Lloyd, bishop of Peterborough, to Sancroft, Acton, 2 May 1685, ms Tanner 31, fo. 52.

78 Coleby, ‘Henry Compton’. Compton would, of course, go on to be suspended at James's behest, and then to be one of those who invited William of Orange to invade England: Grant Tapsell, ‘Immortal seven (act. 1688)’ [group entry online], ODNB: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/95260, accessed 2 Aug 2013.

79 ms Tanner 32, fo. 214: ‘To the King. Febr. 7th 1684[/5]’. For the context, see Harris, Revolution, 41–3.

80 For Turner's implication that the Protestant succession was safe in the form of the king's daughters, Mary and Anne, see his unprinted sermon on the ‘Thanksgiving Day for the Victory over the Duke of Monmouth's Rebells 1685': Bodl. Lib., ms Rawlinson E 8, fo. 141.

81 Hirschberg, ‘Government and church patronage’, 123.

82 Chandaman, C. D., The English public revenue, 1660–1688, Oxford 1975Google Scholar, 247, 251–2; Tapsell, ‘Life and career of Laurence Hyde’, 19–27.

83 Beddard, ‘Commission’, 14.

84 Tapsell, Personal rule, esp. pp. 9–13.

85 Brown, Mark N. (ed.), The works of George Savile marquis of Halifax, Oxford 1989Google Scholar, ii. 494.

86 Hutton, Charles II, ch. xvi.

87 Tapsell, Personal rule, 191.

88 Keay, Anna, The magnificent monarch: Charles II and the ceremonies of power, London 2008Google Scholar, 203–4; Thurley, Simon, ‘A country seat fit for a king: Charles ii, Greenwich and Winchester’, in Cruickshanks, Evelyn (ed.), The Stuart courts, Stroud 2000Google Scholar, 226–35.

89 Weiser, Brian, Charles II and the politics of access, Woodbridge 2003Google Scholar, 52.

90 Hutton, Charles II, 441–2; Foxcroft, Life and letters, i. 423 and n. 7.

91 See, for instance, Charles's recommendation to the commissioners in support of John Nalson: ms Tanner 103, fo. 247.

92 Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 232.

93 Kenyon, ‘Commission of ecclesiastical causes’, 727–36; Rose, Godly kingship, 251–67.