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The Defence of Episcopacy on the Eve of Civil War: Jeremy Taylor and the Rutland Petition of 1641

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2017

RICHARD CUST
RICHARD CUST*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT; E-mail: r.p.cust@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

The discovery that Jeremy Taylor, the ‘Anglican’ divine, wrote much of the text of the Rutland Petition in Defence of Episcopacy in November 1641, and included many of the arguments that appeared in his ‘Of the sacred order and offices of episcopacy’, published in 1642, throws fresh light on the political and ecclesiastical implications of royalist petitioning. These petitions have sometimes been viewed as expressions of support for ‘prayer book Protestantism’. But, in line with other recent work, this article argues that they drew support from a very broad spectrum of religious opinion, which ranged from moderate Puritan supporters of further reform to avant-garde conformists. Each had their own agenda; but they could be mobilised behind the petitions because of the widespread fear of radical sectarian challenges to the established Church in late 1641.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 59 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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4 According to Judith Maltby, ten out of twenty- seven extant petitions can be dated to this period: Prayer book and people in Elizabethan and early Stuart England, Cambridge 1998, 238–47. To this number can probably be added the undated petition from Bedfordshire that she ascribes to January 1641: Maltby, Judith (ed.), ‘Petitions for episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer on the eve of the civil war, 1641–1642’, in Taylor, S. (ed.), From Cranmer to Davidson: a Church of England miscellany (Church of England Record Society, 1999), 152–3Google Scholar. Maltby ascribes it to January 1640/1, following the dating of the editors of the Calendar of state papers domestic. Their dating is based on an entry in the Commons’ Journal for 16 January referring to the presentation of a petition from the ‘knights, esquires and gentlemen of the countie of Bedford’; however, the petition in defence of episcopacy and the prayer book states that it is from ‘the nobility, knights, gentrie, ministers, freeholders and inhabitants of the county of Bedford’, and given the similarity of the arguments that the Bedfordshire petition uses to the petition from neighbouring Huntingdonshire, presented to the House of Lords on 8 December 1641 – and indeed other shires which were petitioning about both episcopacy and the prayer book at this time such as Gloucestershire, Somerset and Worcestershire – it seems far more likely that it should be dated to late 1641: Maltby, Prayer book and people, 238; TNA, SP 16/476/110; Maltby ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 122–7, 158–9, 161–3. The petition presented on 16 January 1640/1 probably relates to the contested by-election in Bedfordshire involving Sir Lewis Dives who is noted as having exhibited another petition at the same time. Both were referred to a committee appointed to consider the election: Journals of the House of Commons, ii. 68; Keeler, M. F., The Long Parliament, Philadelphia 1954, 33 Google Scholar. A further petition from Lincolnshire, for which we do not have an extant text, is also known to have been circulating late in 1641: SCLA, DR 98/1652/14; Fletcher, Outbreak of the civil war, 289.

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9 Idem, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 127–32 (Rutland). For those acknowledging the need for parliamentary reform see pp. 126 (Somerset), 150 (Cornwall), 148–9 (Herefordshire), 153 (London), 162 (Gloucs). See also Prayer book and people, 108–13.

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12 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 127.

13 Ibid. 128.

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16 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 128.

17 SCLA, DR 98/1652/14, 15, 16, 17.

18 ms Egerton 2986, fo. 253; SCLA, DR 98/1652/14, 16.

19 Heath was a relative newcomer to the county, settling there in 1631 after his marriage to a local heiress, Lucy Croke. In July 1639, aged twenty-six, he was appointed to the Rutland commission of the peace, at the behest of Mr Justice Berkeley who at the time was riding the midland assize circuit alongside his father. Edward's papers suggest that by early 1640 he was an active presence on the bench, organising, amongst other things, early subscription to the Protestation in May and June 1641: Kopperman, P. E., Sir Robert Heath, 1575–1649: window on an age, London 1989, 62–71, 281Google Scholar; ms Egerton 2986, fos 84, 85, 133–9. Heath's papers are divided between four collections: ms Egerton 2986; SCLA, DR 98/1652; NCRO, NPL; and Sir Robert Heath papers, 1614–69, University of Illinois Rare Books and Manuscript Library.

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23 SCLA, DR 98/1652/15, 14.

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27 Anthony Milton, ‘Edward Martin, d.1662’, ODNB; John Fielding, ‘Conformists, Puritans and the church courts: the diocese of Peterborough, 1603–1642’, unpubl. PhD diss. Birmingham 1989, 118–20. These innovations are documented in the churchwardens’ accounts for Uppingham: LLRO, DE 1784/17.

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34 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 129; Taylor, Sacred order and offices, 12–15, 164–9; Stranks, Jeremy Taylor, 56–7.

35 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 464–5, 470–5.

36 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 129; Taylor, Sacred order and offices, 12–15, 23–4, 27, 164–6; Stranks, Jeremy Taylor, 57. In ‘considerations’ no. 9 the petition also picked up on the stance of St Jerome who was generally cited in support of the contention that bishops were of the same order as presbyters, the difference between them merely being one of degree: ‘Wee consider that Saint Hierome (pretended as the main enemy against Episcopacie) yet sayes, that bishops were constituted as an antidote and deletory to disprove the issues of schisme and that by Apostles who best knew the remedies’: Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 130. The conclusion to be drawn about the distinctions between bishops and presbyters was implicit here rather than explicit; but Taylor's view that, in fact, Jerome supported the idea of separate orders was spelt out more clearly in Sacred order and offices, 51–2, 119–20; Stranks, Jeremy Taylor, 58.

37 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 129. The reference to confirmation as the sole preserve of bishops and to Paul's catechism was also picked up in Sacred order and offices, 28, 31–2, 35.

38 See the petitions cited at n. 9 above.

39 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 461–6, 485–91.

40 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 129, 131.

41 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 491–2, and Taylor, Sacred order and offices, 192–7.

42 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 130–1. For Taylor's views on the interdependence of episcopacy and monarchy see Sacred order and offices, ‘epistle dedicatory’ to Sir Christopher Hatton.

43 Maltby, ‘Petitions for episcopacy’, 130–2. For these fears see also pp. 117 (Cheshire), 125 (Huntingdonshire), 137 (Kent), 153 (Bedfordshire).

44 SCLA, DR 98/1652/16, 15.

45 Ibid. 98/1652/17.

46 Ibid. 98/1652/16.

47 Ibid. 98/1652/14.

48 ms Egerton 2986, fos 256–7.

49 Ibid. fo. 255.

50 A schedule with the heading ‘Tigh com Rutl.’ Tigh was the adjacent parish to Cottesmore: SCLA, DR 98/1652/14.

51 A collection of sundry petitions presented to the king's majestie as also to the two most honourable houses, now assembled in parliament, London 1642 (Thomason Tracts, E.150 [28]), 15–20 Google Scholar.

52 Fletcher, Outbreak of the civil war, 284. John Coke informed his father from the Commons in November 1641 that ‘All art is used to keepe petitions for Episcopacy from being presented to the House, such being prepared in many places’: HMC, The manuscripts of the Earl Cowper, K. G., preserved at Melourne Hall, Derbyshire, London 1888, ii. 295 Google Scholar. Robert Sutton succeeded in presenting a petition from Nottinghamshire to the Commons on 15 December, but this was laid aside and not read: Russell, Fall of the British monarchies, 437 and n.

53 Maltby, Prayer book and people, appendix 1, at pp. 238–47.

54 S. L. Sadler, ‘Baptist Noel, 3rd Viscount Campden, bapt.1611, d.1682’, ODNB; Cust, Charles I and the aristocracy, appendix 2; Keeler, The Long Parliament, 294–5.

55 Fletcher, Outbreak of the civil war, chs iii, ix; Lake, ‘Puritans, popularity and petitions’, 259–89; Cust and Lake, Gentry culture; Morrill, J. S., ‘The religious context of the English Civil War’, in Morrill, John, The nature of the English revolution, Harlow 1993, 45–68 Google Scholar; Russell, Fall of the British monarchies, 370–2, 402–6, 437; Eales, J. E., Puritans and Roundheads, Cambridge 1990, chs v, viGoogle Scholar; Walter, ‘Prayer books, profanations and petitions’, 677–701.

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58 A copie of the petition presented to the king's majestie by… the county of Rutland… (1642) (Thomason Tracts, 190.g.13 [363]).

59 See the works cited at n. 5 above.

60 Lake, ‘Puritans, popularity and petitions’, 259–89; Cust and Lake, Gentry culture, chs v–vi; Walter, ‘Prayer books, profanations and petitions’, 677–701; Braddick, Michael, ‘Prayer Book and protestation: anti-popery, anti-Puritanism and the outbreak of the English civil war’, in Prior, Charles and Burgess, Glenn (eds), England's wars of religion revisited, Farnham 2011, 125–46Google Scholar.

61 Lake, ‘Puritans, popularity and petitions’, 274–5. Sharp practice was also apparent elsewhere with complaints that signatories were being presented with anodyne accounts of what was in the petitions and that strong-arm tactics were used to intimidate individuals into signing: Maltby, Prayer book and people, 95–8; Fletcher, Outbreak of the civil war, 289–90; Cressy, David, England on edge: crisis and revolution, 1640–1642, Oxford 2006, 274–5Google Scholar.

62 Lake, ‘Puritans, popularity and petitions’, 277–82.

63 Cust and Lake, Gentry culture, chs v–vi.

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65 Ibid. 700; Braddick, ‘Prayer Book and protestation’, 134–6.

66 Cust and Lake, Gentry culture, chs v–vi.

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73 On Hausted and Hatton's support for his views see Lake, Peter and Stephens, Isaac, Scandal and religious identity in early Stuart England: a Northamptonshire maid's tragedy, Woodbridge 2015, 85–96 Google Scholar; Robert Weaver, ‘Sir Christopher Hatton: religion, antiquarianism and allegiance in pre-civil war England’, unpubl. ma diss. Birmingham 2015; and Wainwright, Jonathan, Musical patronage in seventeenth century England: Christopher, first Baron Hatton (1605–1670), Aldershot 1997, 6–16 Google Scholar.

74 NCRO, ms Finch Hatton 2609; Sir Christopher Hatton's book of seals, ed. Lloyd, L. C. and Stenton, D. M., Oxford 1950, pp. xlvii–xlix, liii, 32, 36Google Scholar. I am grateful to Robert Weaver for these references and for many discussions about Hatton.

75 Milton, ‘Anglicanism and royalism’, 62–5, 74, 76.