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The Household of Archbishop Parker and the Influencing of Public Opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Vivienne Sanders
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Extract

Tudor governments were characterised by their concern that Tudor power and policies should be advertised in pomp and pageantry and in the printed and spoken word. A great deal of work has been done by modern historians on this subject. One of the most exhaustively researched aspects of Elizabeth's reign has been the pomp and pageantry surrounding the queen herself; the products of the Elizabethan printing presses and pulpits have also been dealt with, although not as systematically. There has been little attempt to follow up Conyers Read's introductory article on William Cecil as one of the government members responsible for propaganda. The present study proposes to consider from this perspective the career ofan eminent Elizabethan ecclesiastic and statesman, Elizabeth's first archbishop of Canterbury.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , October 1983 , pp. 534 - 547
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

I am extremely grateful to Professor Patrick Collinson of the University of Kent for his suggestion that this article should be written, and for the advice and criticism of the first draft given by Professor Collinson and Dr Marion O'Connor, also of the University of Kent.

1 Strong, R. C., ‘Elizabethan pageantry as propaganda’, unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis 1962Google Scholar; idem, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford 1963Google Scholar; idem, The Cult of Elizabeth, London 1977Google Scholar; Maclure, Millar, The Paul's Cross Sermons 1534–1642, Toronto 1958Google Scholar; Booty, J. E., John Jewel as Apologist of the Church of England, London 1963Google Scholar; Haller, W., Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation, London 1963Google Scholar; Collinson, P., The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, London 1967Google Scholar; Read, C., ‘William Cecil and Elizabethan public relations’, in Bindoff, S. T., Hurstfield, J. and Williams, C. H. (eds.), Elizabethan Government and Society, London 1961, 21–55Google Scholar.

2 For a detailed discussion of the three archbishops and the moulding of public opinion, see Sanders, V. C., ‘Elizabethan archbishops of Canterbury and public opinion’, unpublished University of Wales M.A. thesis 1979Google Scholar.

3 Cambridge Sermons by E. C. Hoskyns, ed. Smyth, C., London 1938, 204–17Google Scholar. Hoskyns, a theologian, appears to have been the first to grasp the propagandist significance of Parker's collections. I am grateful to Dr Harry Porter of Cambridge for the reference. Hoskyns was echoed by Wright, C. E., ‘The dispersal of the monastic libraries and the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon studies: Matthew Parker and his circle: a preliminary study’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, i (1949–1953), 208–37Google Scholar, at pp. 226–7. See also McKisack, M., Medieval History in the Tudor Age, Oxford 1971, 39Google Scholar.

4 Strype, J., Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, Oxford 1821, i. 31–2Google Scholar; Correspondence of Matthew Parker, ed.Bruce, J. and Perowne, T. T. ( Parker Society, Cambridge 1853), p. ixGoogle Scholar, Archbishop Cranmer to Parker, 8 January 1550.

5 Parker Correspondence, 10–14; below, p. 537.

6 ‘A Letter from Bishop Bale to Archbishop Parker’, ed. Luard, H. R., Cambridge Antiquarian Society Communications, iii (1853), 157–73Google Scholar; Parker Correspondence, 39–40.

7 The anonymous The life of the 70. Archbishop of Canterbury, no place, no date, passim.

8 ‘T. Josselyn’ wrote thanking Parker for his ‘gracious goodness’ to his son, John, 21 November 1560; Corpus Christi College Cambridge, MS 114, article 244.

9 McKisack, Medieval History, 45–8.

10 Parker Correspondence, p. xiii.

11 Strype, Parker, ii. 436–7; Acworth to Burghley, 25 October 1573, printed in Horton-Smith, L. G. H., George Acworth, privately printed, 1953, 31Google Scholar.

12 Life of the 70. Archbishop, sigs. Cijr, Evr; McKisack, Medieval History, 47.

13 Collinson, P., A Mirror of Elizabethan Puritanism: the life and Utters of Godly Master Dering' (Friends of Dr Williams's Library, 17th lecture), London 1964, 14Google Scholar.

14 A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, ed. James, M. R., 3 vols., Cambridge 1912Google Scholar, passim.

15 Life of the 70. Archbishop, sig. Cr–v.

16 Parker Correspondence, 106–7, 8–9, 186–7, 191–2, 195–6.

17 Ibid., 327–8; McKisack, Medieval History, 28.

18 Richard Davies and William Salesbury to Parker, 19 March 1565, printed in Lloyd, D. Myrddin, ‘William Salesbury, Richard Davies and Archbishop Parker’, Journal of the National Library of Wales, ii (1941), 7–16, at pp. 7–10Google Scholar.

19 Parker to Burghley, 25 December 1572, Parker Correspondence, 413–15; John Foxe, Acts & Monuments, London 1576, pp. *iijv, 423, 533, 542, 556, 635, 1147, 1239–41, 1614.

20 A Defence of priests' marriages, London, no date, passim; Parker Correspondence, ix. John Ponet's authorship of at least part of this work is generally acknowledged by historians.

21 Mattkaei Paris, ed. M. Parker, London 1571. Parker's other chronicle productions included the Flores Historiarum and Historia Brevis of Matthew of Westminster, and Gildae.

22 A Testimony of Antiquity, ed. M. Parker, London, no date, sigs. g+ ijr–g* ijr, Ajv–Aijr, Qjv.

23 The Gospels of the Jour Evangelists, ed. M. Parker, London 1571, sigs. Aijrv, 9ijr–v.

24 M. Parker, De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae, Lambeth 1574, passim; Life of the 70. Archbishop, sigs. Cvr–Cvjv, Eviv.

25 Parker to Cecil, 9 May 1573, Parker Correspondence, 424–6.

28 Life of the 70. Archbishop, sigs. Cv–Cyjv, Eiijv.

27 Adams, Eleanor, Old English Scholarship in England 1566–1800, New Haven 1917, 26–7Google Scholar; Bromwich, J., ‘The first book printed in Anglo-Saxon types’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, iii (1962), 265–91Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr O'Connor for these references.

28 Parker Correspondence, 409–15, 418–20.

29 Brook, V. J. K., A Life of Archbishop Parker, Oxford 1962, 319Google Scholar; Parker Correspondence, 214–17.

30 Parker Correspondence, xiii.

31 Neville, Alexander, Norfolk's Furies, or a View of Ket's Camp, translated by , R. W., London 1615Google Scholar, sigs. A2r–v, Br –v, C3v– D3v, D3v, 13r.

32 Booty, John Jewel, 50, passim.

33 A brief examination, anonymous, London 1566, sigs. *2V–*3V; Parker Correspondence 234, 281; for a summary of the controversial works of 1566 see Primus, J. H., The Vestments Controversy, Amsterdam 1960, ch. viGoogle Scholar.

34 Parker to Cecil, 5 June 1566, Parker Correspondence, 283–4.

35 An answer for the time, to the Examination, no author, place or date.

36 Strype, Parker, ii. 253–4, iii. 207–8; Strype, Annals of the Reformation, Oxford 1820–40Google Scholar, II.i.275. For a more detailed study of Whitgift's work as propaganda, see Sanders, ‘Elizabethan archbishops of Canterbury and public opinion', ch. VIII.

37 Parker Correspondence, 474–7.

38 Ibid., 325–6.

39 Ibid., ix. 7–9, 10–14, 50–2.

40 Ibid., 260–1; below, n. 45.

41 See Collinson, ‘Godly Master Bering’, 16–17.

42 Parker Correspondence, 290–2.

43 Collinson, op.cit., 12, 14, 18, 21–3.

44 A part of a register, no author, place or date, 356; A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London: 1554–1640, ed. Arber, E., London 1875, i. 205Google Scholar.

45 Maclure, The Paul's Cross Sermons, 200–9.

46 The Second Part of a Register: Being a Calendar of Manuscripts under that title intended for publication by the Puritans about 1593, ed. Peel, A., Cambridge 1915, i. 79–82Google Scholar.

47 For Catholic answers to the Cross sermons of Parker's great friend and ally, John Jewel, see the bibliography in Southern, A. C., Elizabethan Recusant Prose, London 1950Google Scholar.

48 Parker Correspondence, 277–9.

49 Ibid., 203–4.

50 Collinson, P., ‘The puritan classical movement in the reign of Elizabeth I', unpublished London Ph.D. thesis 1957, 13–14Google Scholar.

51 Parker to Nicholas Bacon, 1 March 1559, Parker Correspondence, 57–63.

52 Ibid., 207–8.

53 Sandys, William, ‘Copy of the inventory of Archbishop Parker's goods at the time of his death’, Archaeologia, xxx (1844), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Life of the 70. Archbishop, sigs. Ayjr–Aviijr. I am indebted to Professor Collinson and Dr O'Connor for drawing my attention to the work being done by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust on Parker's palace, led by Mr Tim Tatton-Brown, which has demonstrated the great size of the hall.

55 Strype, Parker, i. 347–8.

56 Life of the 70. Archbishop, sigs. Aviijv-Biijr.

57 See Strong, ‘Elizabeth pageantry as propaganda’, ch. 2, especially pp. 46–7, 71–2.

58 Camden, William, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, London 1688, 195Google Scholar.

59 Life of the 70. Archbishop, sig. Cvjv.

60 Parker Correspondence, passim.

61 Parker to Burghley, 25 Dec. 1572. Parker Correspondence, 413–15.

62 Ibid., 43–5, 106–7, 186–7; Lloyd, ‘Salesbury, Davies and Parker’, 7–8.

63 Sir William Petre to Parker, 14 July 1560. Parker Correspondence, 118–19.

64 Parker to Cecil, 4 July [1569], ibid., 327–8. For another instance of Parker thus drafting letters for the queen and seeming to gain her assent to his policies, see Primus, Vestments Controversy, ch. vi.

65 Parker to Cecil, 5 June 1566. ibid., 283–4.

66 For evidence of the interest of the queen and Cecil in the contents of sermons, see Sanders, ‘Elizabethan archbishops of Canterbury and public opinion’, ch. 1.

67 Queen Elizabeth to Parker, 14 May 1564. Parker Correspondence, 212.

68 Parker to Grindal, 17 March 1575, ibid., 474–7.