Godly Rule POLITICS AND RELIGION, 1603-1660

By the same author

MARGINAL PRY NNE

Godly Rule POLITICS AND RELIGION, 1603-60

William M. Lamont

Palgrave Macmillan

© William M. Lamont 1969

First published 1969 by MACMILLAN AND CO LTD

Little Essex Street London wc2 and also at Bombay Calcutta and Madras

Macmillan South Africa (Publishers) Pty Ltd 10hannesburg

The Macmillan Company of Australia Pty Ltd Melbourne

The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd Toronto St Martin's Press Inc New York Gill and Macmillian Ltd Dublin

Library of Congress catalog card no. 69-20439

To my Father and Mother

ISBN 978-0-333-10078-3 ISBN 978-1-349-15334-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15334-3

Contents

Acknowledgements 6

A Note on Terminology 7

The Protagonists 10

Introduction 13

1 Godly Rule 17

2 Godly Prince 28

3 Godly Bishop 56

4 Godly People 78

5 Godly Parliament 106

6 Godless Rule 136

7 Ends and Means 163

Select Bibliography 187

Index 195

Acknowledgements

When one reads examination scripts of candidates specialising in English history of the seventeenth century, whether they are sixth-formers, College of Education students, or University stu­dents,one swifdy enters a twilight world where King James I is for ever haranguing his rebellious subjects about royal absolutism, where Archbishop Laud is for ever prostrating himself before the throne, where Erastianism is cynicism and millenarianism is fanaticism. Mr Philip Whitting first encouraged me to believe that there was a place for a modest litde essay on the political and religious controversies of the time which threw into question some of these bland assumptions. Godly Rule is the result; al­though he cannot be held responsible for any failure to achieve these aims. I wish to acknowledge help from the following libraries: Doctor Williams's Library; the British Museum; the Public Record Office; the House of Lords Record Office. The Editors of History T oelay have an enviable reputation for en­couraging young writers, and some of the points made in my third and fourth chapters were first developed in that journal (volumes 14 and 16 respectively). My sister heroically wresded with my handwriting and typed the entire draft.

University of Sussex September 1968

W.M.L.

A Note on Terminology

The Apocalypse is the revelation of the future which was granted to St John in the Isle of Patmos. Millenarianism (often used inter­changeably with chiliasm) is the term used to describe the belief in the imminence of that period of a thousand years, described in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelation, when a messianic kingdom is established on earth.

One valuable insight which we have gained from recent re­search into seventeenth-century thought has been the recognition that the term 'millenarianism' has been given too limited an interpretation. It has been too often in the past used exclusively of those activists who themselves set out to establish that mes­sianic kingdom. Among millenarians they were certainly a minority. Strictly speaking, there could be two developments of millenarianism: pre-millennial and post-millennial belief. The first assumed that the Second Coming of Christ would precede the millennium; the second, that the millennium would come first and that the Second Coming would occur at the end of this process. Most of the English writers of the seventeenth century that are described in this book are pre-millennia!. But within the ranks of those holding pre-millennial beliefs further divisions are possible: between those who emphasise the spiritual nature of the Resurrection, those who emphasise the literal nature of the Resurrection but are hazy about details of the future kingdom, and those who emphasise the literal nature of the Resurrection and are precise about the characteristics of the future kingdom. The political activists were to be found in the third category, but do not even there represent a majority view. L. F. Solt has shown ('The Fifth Monarchy Men: Politics and the Millennium', Church

8 A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

History, 30, 1961) that only a minority of Fifth Monarchy Men followed Venner in feeling an obligation to translate their vision of the future into concrete revolutionary activity now.

Winstanley, Milton and Hobbes are three writers who can be looked at afresh in the light of this insight. Winthrop Hudson (,Economic and Social Thought of Gerrard Winstanley', 10urnal of Modern History, 18, 1946) has argued persuasively the view that Winstanley's Digger programme owed more to the Book of Revelation than to Karl Marx. Michael Fixler - in a book which was consulted too late for use in this study, Milton and the King­dom of God (London, 1964) - has argued that Milton's mil­lenarianism survived even his distaste for Fifth Monarchy politi­cal activity, and that Paradise Regained is his rebuke to the Saints - unlike Job - who would not wait for the Kingdom of Christ to come. Hobbes - with his hearty contempt for allegorical readings of the Book of Revelation - seems a paradoxical figure to be included here but John Pocock (who has allowed me to see the typescript of an essay on Hobbes which is about to be pub­lished) has argued brilliantly for the view that Books III and IV of Leviathan are prophetic books within the mainstream of post­millennial belief.

These are revisions that have been made possible by a much more generous reading of the term 'millenarianism' than was common in the past. This study borrows that insight to offer a reinterpretation of political and religious controversies in the first half of the seventeenth century. But - compared to these revisions - its aims are much lower. It does not pretend to be a systematic analysis of millenarian thought in the seventeenth century. There may well be a place for such a study and, if it does come to be written, it will need to bring a comparable rigour and detail to that which has been applied to Winstanley, Milton and Hobbes.

Now that we are coming to realise how widely eschatological preconceptions pervaded English intellectual life in the seven­teenth century, there is need to reappraise the traditional con­troversies of the period before and after the Civil War. This is what I have attempted to do in this study and I have used terms

A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY 9

such as Apocalypse, millenarianism and chiliasm in a non-purist sense; in the sense in which, in fact, Sylvia Thrupp used them in her introduction to a comparative study on millenarian move­ments (Millennial Dreams in ActiotJ, The Hague, 1962) as apply­ing 'figuratively to any conception of a perfect age to come, or of a perfect land to be made accessible'.

That is why - both in the title and throughout the text - I have used such a deliberately vague term as 'Godly Rule' to describe that vision of the future society. If older historians applied the term 'millenarianism' to too narrow a grouping, I may well be accused of erring in the opposite direction: of in­terpreting it too widely. This risk I have taken in the belief that the time has come for at least an interim judgement on the way that our traditional version of political and religious controversies may come to be modified by the recognition of the grip that eschatology had on the minds of Englishmen in the early seven­teenth century.

5 March 1969 W.M.L.

The Protagonists

For a 'Godly Rule'

WILLIAM PRYNNE (1600-69): Puritan pamphleteer; barrister, Lincoln's Inn; ears mutilated twice (1634 and 1637) for his attacks on Laudian bishops; Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London and M.P. for Bath after the Restoration.

For a 'Godly Prince'

JOHN FOXE (1516-87): Marian exile; author of Acts and Monu­ments, popularly known as The Book of Martyrs.

JOHN JEWEL (1522-71): Marian exile; bishop of Salisbury; author of Defence of the Apology.

JOHN REYNOLDS (1549-1607): leading Puritan at the Hampton Court Conference; president of Corpus Christi College, Ox­ford.

JOHN WILLIAMS (1582-1650): bishop of Lincoln and arch­bishop of York; Laud's greatest enemy within the ranks of the Church of England.

JAMES USHER (1581-1656): archbishop of Armagh; drafted a scheme of modified episcopacy in 1641 which was acceptable to some Puritans.

For a 'Godly Bishop'

RICHARD BANCROFT (1544-1610): archbishop of Canterbury and author of the first plea for episcopacy by divine right.

THE PROTAGONISTS 11

THOMAS BILSON (1547-1616): bishop of Winchester; popular with Parliamentary apologists in the English Civil War.

GEORGE CARLETON (1559-1628): bishop of Chichester; repre­sented the Church of England (on the Calvinist side) at the Synod of Dort, 1618-19.

GEORGE DOWNAME (d. 1634): bishop of Derry; anti-Arminian. WILLIAM BARLOW (d. 1613): bishop of Lincoln; drew up the

repon of the Hampton Coun Conference. WILLIAM LAUD (1573-1645): archbishop of Canterbury; be­

headed for treason by the Long Parliament. PETER HEYLYN (1600-62): Laud's first biographer; Cyprianus

Anglicus was his attempt at rehabilitating his master's reputa­tion.

JOSEPH HALL (1574-1656): bishop of Exeter and Norwich; once identified with Calvinist opponents of Laud but made hand­some redress with his defence of episcopacy by divine right in 1640.

RICHARD MOUNTAGUE (1577-1641): bishop of Chichester; the leading Arminian apologist on doctrinal matters.

JOHN CoSIN (1594-1672): bishop of Durham; friend of Laud and Mountague.

For a 'Godly People'

THOMAS BRIGHTMAN (1562-1607): Bedfordshire rector; most influential millenarian writer.

JOHN BASTWICK (1593-1654): physician and fellow-victim with Prynne in 1637; a committed Presbyterian.

HENRY BURTON (1578-1648): minister and fellow-victim with Prynne in 1637; a committed Independent.

STEPHEN MARSHALL (1594-1655): the most powerful of the London 'root and branch' ministers; co-author of the pamphlets against Joseph Hall under the title of Smectymnuus (Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew New­comen, William Spurstowe).

THOMAS CASE (1598-1682): another influential London 'root and branch' minister; chaplain to Charles II at his Restoration

12 THE PROTAGONISTS

but subsequently ejected from his living under the Oarendon Code.

CoRNELIUS BURGES (1589-1665): a 'root and branch' minister who opposed the imposition of the Covenant in 1643.

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-91): Puritan chaplain in Roundhead Army; attempted reconciliation between Anglicans and Puri­tans in the Interregnum and immediately after the Restoration; victimised in the reigns of Charles IT and James IT.

EDWARD DERING (1598-1644): M.P. for Kent in the Long Par­liament; moved the first reading of the Root and Branch Bill but made a spectacular recantation a month later.

MATTHEW HOPKINS (d. 1647): the notorious witch-finder; made journeys for discovery of witches in eastern counties and Hunt­ingdonshire, 1644-7; hanged as a sorcerer.

For a 'Godly Parliament'

THOMAS CoLEMAN (1598-1647): Lincolnshire rector and mem­ber of the Westminster Assembly; the leading Erastian pamphleteer.

For a 'Godless Rule'

ROGER WILLIAMS (1604-83): New England divine and pioneer of religious freedom.

GEORGE Fox (1624-91): founder of the Quakers and author of 1ournal.

JOHN SELDEN (1584-1654): jurist and antiquarian; an uncom­fortable member of the Assembly of Divines; notorious for his anti-clericalism.

GILBERT SHELDON (1598-1677): archbishop of Canterbury; not an intimate friend of Laud but a key member of the 'Laudian' group who captured the ecclesiastical government after the Restoration.

JOHN TILLOTSON (1630-94): archbishop of Canterbury and apologist for the Latitudinarian case that prevailed near the end of the seventeenth century in England.