CHAPTER XXIV.

ABBOT'S PRIMACY CALVINISM: THE REACTION AGAINST IT.

1611-1625.

§ 1. Abbot's appointment to the Primacy. § 2. His character. § 3. Poverty of the clergy. § 4. Burning of Bartholomew Legate at Smithfield. § 5. Burning of Edward Wightman at Lichfield. § 6. Puritanism recovers influence. § 7. Abbot's influence checked. § 8. Lowness of principle among the bishops of the day. § 9. Parliament attacks Bishops Harsnet and Neill. § 10. A Benevolence from the clergy. § 11. Mr. Peacham's case. § 12. The case of Commendams and the king's prerogative. § 13. Case of Mr. Edward Sympson. § 14. Case of John Selden-his retractation. § 15. Case of Mr. Trask. § 16. Book of Sports for Sundays. § 17. King sends deputies to Dort. § 18. The Spanish Match influences religious policy. § 19. Rise of Williams to be Lord Keeper and Bishop of Lincoln. § 20. His seeking for further preferment. § 21. Recommends Dr. Laud for a bishopric. § 22. Accidental homicide by the archbishop. § 23. Indulgence to Romanists. § 24. King endeavours to restrain preachers. § 25. Uneasiness in the country at the indulgence to Romanists. § 26. Abbot's letter. § 27. The English Church service in Spain. § 28. The first Romanist bishop in England. § 29. The Parliament of 1624. § 30. Attack on Richard Montagu. § 31. King James dies-his influence on the Church.

§ 1. Ar the death of Bancroft it was the general expectation that Andrewes would be nominated as Primate. He was by far the most distinguished divine of the Church of England at that period. In depth of learning, devotion of life, and oratorical power, he exIceeded all his fellows. He had shown his skill on the admired topic of controversy in his treatises against Bellarmine. He was a great favourite with the king, who had promoted him to the See of Chichester (1605), and that of Ely (1609). When, therefore, the bishops met and agreed to recommend Andrewes to the king as the fittest person for the primacy, they were doubtless under the impression that they were only giving the strength of their approval to that which the king had already decided upon in his own judgment. Unfortunately, however, there were other influences at work. The Earl of Dunbar was a favourite with the king, and had done his work in Scotland effectively by bribing (as is generally supposed) the General Assembly at Glasgow to favour episcopacy. The Earl of Dunbar had as his chaplain, friend, and adviser, Dr. George Abbot, Master of University College, Oxford. Abbot was also well known to the king. He had been three

times vice-chancellor at Oxford, and in his capacity of head of the University had waited on the king at Woodstock. It was to Abbot that the king addressed his letter when he found fault with the proceedings of the Canterbury Convocation. But Abbot had also another special recommendation. He had written a preface to a book, which was supposed to demonstrate the reality of the conspiracy of the Gowries, and in this preface he had described King James as "zealous as David, learned as Solomon, religious as Josias, careful of spreading the truth as Constantine, just as Moses, undefiled as Jehosaphat or Hezekias, clement as Theodosius.”1 After this Lord Dunbar had but little trouble in obtaining for him the highest post in the English Church. He had been made Bishop of Lichfield (1609), Bishop of London (1610), and while the bishops were deliberating upon Andrewes, the king had already given him the promise of the primacy.

§ 2. A more unfortunate appointment could scarcely have been made. Abbot and his brother, the Master of Balliol, had long been the great upholders of Calvinism and Puritanism at Oxford. He was a man of a narrow mind and a morose temper. He had never had any experience of clerical work. His learning was not deep. His opinions were chiefly formed from the writings of the foreign reformers, and he did not apprehend the great position of the Church of England. Having been employed all his Oxford days in squabbling with Laud 2 and Arminianism, he carried the same partisan views to the highest position in the Church. Honest, sincere, and bold as he showed himself on several occasions, he yet was a most unfortunate Primate for the English Church.

§ 3. What the clergy especially needed at this time in their ecclesiastical head, was a large-hearted sympathy for their extreme poverty and degraded social position. In this Abbot was altogether wanting. His predecessor Bancroft had brought a bill into Parliament, which, if it had been carried, would have done much to relieve the wants of the clergy.3 His successor Laud was able to give a considerable help to the poor vicars. But Abbot does not appear to have concerned himself about the matter. He was

1 Wrangham's Life of Abbot, note.

2 William Laud, fellow, and afterwards president, of St. John's, was the leader in Oxford of what may be called the "Church party." To him the two Abbots were bitterly hostile, but Laud's influence soon became, in spite of them, predominant in Oxford.

3 It was proposed by this bill to give power to take tithes in kind, to make abbey lands which had been exempted liable to tithe, to make all parks and warrens altered from tillage within the last sixty years, all parks disparked, all lands of parishes depopulated, liable; to renew the tithes of lambs' wool and wood; to allow the demise of lands to the Church, notwithstanding any statute of mortmain.

Archbf Abbot

content to acquiesce in the suffering condition of the clergy, which indeed at this time was very grievous. "They had," says Bishop Hacket, scarce enough to feed them and keep them warm." The country parson, as sketched by George Herbert, was not to expect anything better than the rank of apprentice for his children. Though bid not to be "too submissive to the gentry," he was to make up his mind to submit to "the general ignominy cast on the profession." "The clergy," says another writer," are brought into contempt and low esteem. They are accounted by many as the dross and refuse of the nation." In their poverty they eagerly sought the position of chaplains in great houses, and here they were often very vilely treated. "It is well," says a clever writer of the clergy in this position, "that they may have a little better wages than the cook and butler, as also that there may be a groom in the house besides the chaplain (for sometimes to the ten pounds a year they crowd the looking after a couple of geldings).”1

§ 4. The Primate, instead of leading the king to do something to improve the suffering state of the clergy, preferred to encourage him in his theological antipathies, of the strength of which a melancholy proof was soon given. The year 1612 saw the fires of Smithfield again lighted, to the scandal of the Church and nation. It was near forty years since there had been an execution simply for heresy. The numerous capital punishments inflicted in Elizabeth's time, unjustifiable as many of them were, were inflicted for treason, in part at least, if not entirely. But here there was no pretence of treason. Bartholomew Legate, an Essex man, was one who in reading the Scriptures had thought himself justified in assigning a meaning to them, in an overweening confidence in his own understanding and judgment. More than this, he had been rash enough to make his views known, and to try to influence others. He was informed against, and cited to appear by the Bishop of London. The king, fond of theological argument, endeavoured to convince him of his errors. Legate proved skilful of fence, and determined in his resistance. The king is said to have spurned him with his foot, and to have abandoned him to the court. On March 3 (1612), in the Consistory Court of St. Paul's, before a great assemblage, Legate was condemned of heresy, and handed over to the secular arm. On March 11 the king directed his letters to the Lord Chancellor under the Privy Seal, to issue the writ de hæretico comburendo, and to direct it to the sheriffs of London, and on March 18 Bartholomew Legate was burned in Smithfield. The archbishop had been zealous in forwarding the

1 Hacket's Life of Williams, i. 19; Herbert's Country Parson; Chamberlayne, Anglia Notitia, i. 269; Causes of Contempt of the Clergy, p. 17.

matter. He had been in consultation with the Lord Chancellor as to taking the opinions of the judges, and as to carefully selecting for consultation those judges who were likely to give a favourable answer. "His Highness did not much desire the Lord Coke should be called hereunto, lest by his singularity in opinion he should give stay in the business."1 Certain convenient judges had been selected, and had declared that the law would not tolerate this great abomination.

§ 5. Nor was this all. Another heretic had appeared in the diocese of Lichfield, in the person of Edward Wightman of Burtonon-Trent. This poor man was condemned in the Consistory Court of Lichfield, and being handed over to the executioner by the same process, was burned at Lichfield, April 11 (1612). The horror and amazement which took possession of people at these fearful proceedings were extreme. "The novelty and hideousness of the punishment" created a general indignation. The king was cowed. Henceforth he "politicly preferred that heretics, though condemned, should silently and privately waste themselves away in prison." 2 The king appears to have been incapable of pity. The man that could write the fearful disquisitions to be found in the Treatise on Demonology, and whose favourite amusement was to see wild beasts baited in the Tower, was savage at heart, though constitutionally timid in action.

§ 6. Under Abbot's influence Puritanism, checked and repressed by Bancroft, soon began again to raise its head. Everywhere the Puritans showed themselves, and they began now to affect a marked demeanour, language, and dress, so as to bring upon them the satire of the comedians of the day.3 The Prince of Wales was thought to favour their cause. The Princess Elizabeth had been given in marriage to a Protestant prince.

§ 7. But the Primate's influence soon suffered a check, and the cause of its diminution was the thing most creditable to him in the whole of his career. A disgraceful divorce suit was being eagerly promoted by the king to gratify his favourite, Lord Rochester, and a commission of bishops was called upon to pronounce a sentence in defiance alike of the laws of God and man. The archbishop resolutely refused to yield, and from that time his influence with the king was greatly impaired. Some of the other bishops disgraced themselves by pronouncing the sentence.

§ 8. An unhappy lowness of principle and a too eager grasping for promotion seem to have distinguished the bishops at this time.

1 Letters of Abbot to L. C. Egerton.-Egerton Papers (Camden Soc.) 2 Fuller, Ch. Hist. x. iv. 13, 14.

See Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Alchemist, Fox, etc.

Dr. G. Carleton, writing to his brother, says that he is ashamed to tell the manner in which bishoprics are got.1 A Bishop of Llandaff writes to Sir F. Lake, openly offering him a price for a church preferment.2 Dr. Cary is reported as ready to pay well for a deanery.3 Field, Bishop of Llandaff, writes to the favourite of the day in a contemptibly whining tone, "My Lord, I am grown an old man, and am like old household stuff, apt to be broke on removing. I desire it, therefore, but once for all, be it Ely or Bath and Wells; and I will spend the remainder of my days in writing a history of your good deeds." 4 Another divine, from whose works better things would be expected, writes also in this abject strain. "I lie in a corner," writes Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, "as a clod of clay attending what kind of vessel it shall please you to make of your lordship's humblest, thankfullest, and devotedest servant." 5

§ 9. All these things did not tend to raise the clergy in the opinion of the nation, and when a new Parliament met (April 5, 1614) the indignation naturally excited by the union of absolutist principles with a self-seeking and negligent life, fell upon the bishops. Harsnet, Bishop of Chichester, preaching before the Court, had tried to prove that the words "Render unto Cæsar" implied giving back that which was Cæsar's already by right; and Neill, Bishop of Lincoln, the most successful time-server of his day,6 ventured to argue in the House of Lords in favour of "impositions," to appoint which he declared was the undoubted privilege of the imperial crown. The Commons complained, and the bishop protested "on his salvation" and "with many tears" that he meant nothing disrespectful to them. Further proceedings were, however, contemplated against both of these prelates, and it was probably in a great measure to screen them, that this Parliament was rashly dissolved by the king without passing a single act.

§ 10. To meet the king's necessities it was determined to raise a subscription or benevolence from the clergy. The archbishop writes to the Bishop of Norwich that the bishops had all resolved to grant to the king the best piece of plate they had, and some of them who had no valuable piece of plate were to make up the deficiency by filling a smaller one with gold pieces, so that it make a present of reasonable value.” The Convocation had not lasted long enough to grant subsidies, so the bishops were called 1 State Papers of James I., lxxxviii. 136.

66

2 Ib. xxvii. 6.

3 Narrative of Archbishop Abbot.-Cobbett's State Trials, vol. ii. Cabala, p. 65. See also another scandalous letter in the Fortescue Papers. 5 Fortescue Papers (C. S.), p. 157.

He was successively Bishop of Rochester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Durham, Winchester, and Archbishop of York.