JAMES I AND GUNPOWDER TREASON DAY*

JAMES I AND GUNPOWDER TREASONDAY*

PH I L I P W I L L I AMSON A N D NATAL I E MEAR SUniversity of Durham

A B S T R A C T . The assumed source of the annual early modern English commemoration ofGunpowder treason day on November – and its modern legacy, ‘Guy Fawkes day’ or ‘Bonfirenight’ – has been an act of parliament in . This article reveals the existence of earlier orders,explains how these orders alter understandings of the origin and initial purposes of the anniversary,and provides edited transcriptions of their texts. The first order revises the accepted date for the earliestpublication of the special church services used for the occasion. The second order establishes that theanniversary thanksgiving was initiated not by parliament, but by King James I; it also shows that, ina striking innovation, he issued instructions for regular mid-week commemorations throughoutEngland and Wales, expecting the bishops to change the Church of England’s preaching practices.The annual thanksgivings were not just English, but ordered also in Scotland and observed inProtestant churches in Ireland. The motives for these religious thanksgivings are placed in aStuart dynastic context, with Scottish antecedents and a British scope, rather than in the English‘national’ setting assigned to the anniversary by English preachers and writers and by recent histor-ians. The parliamentary act is best explained as an outcome of tensions between the king and theHouse of Commons.

The aftermath of the discovery of the Gunpowder plot on November hasattracted much research and publication over a considerable period, yet someinterpretative issues remain unexamined. One aspect of this aftermath has aparticularly long history: the creation of an annual thanksgiving to commemor-ate the ‘deliverance’ of King James I, his queen and eldest son, the lords

* The research for this article is part of the Durham state prayers project, originally fundedby the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Philip Williamson also acknowledges assistancefrom the Leverhulme Trust. The authors are especially grateful to Kenneth Fincham for assist-ance with source materials, and for his comments on an earlier draft. Alasdair Raffe assistedwith Scottish sources, Chloe Phillips with images from Norfolk Record Office, and MarkNicholls with advice on records of the privy council. We also thank the journal’s reviewersfor helpful suggestions.

Department of History, University of Durham, North Bailey, Durham, DH EX [email protected] and [email protected]

The Historical Journal, , (), pp. – © The Author(s) . Published byCambridge University Press.doi:./SX

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spiritual and temporal, the House of Commons, and the chief judges fromattempted assassination by a group of disaffected Catholics. As originallyappointed, the anniversary was to be marked by attendance at church services,conducted with the use of a special form of prayer. This text for the annual ser-vices was reissued at least twelve times up to , and after the Restoration itwas revised and ordered to be appended to all editions of the Book ofCommon Prayer (BCP). From shortly after , the date of the ‘Papists’ con-spiracy’ was always listed as a ‘red-letter’ day of religious observance in the calen-dars of the BCP and in almanacs; more generally, it became known as‘Gunpowder treason day’. For centuries, November remained a focus forexpressions of anti-popery, reinforced by the memorialization on the samedate of the revolution of against a renewed Catholic threat from JamesII, creating a double anniversary. From , further customs gatheredaround the religious thanksgiving. Gunpowder treason day became an occasionfor special sermons, with leading preachers commonly connecting the discoveryof the plot with the great religious and political issues of their own times. It wasmarked by court, government, civic, university, military and naval ceremoniesand dinners, by gun salutes at garrisons, and by holidays in public offices andlaw courts. In its best-known manifestation, it was a day of popular festivitiescentred around bonfires, fireworks, and the burning of effigies of popes ordevils and, from the late eighteenth century, of Guy Fawkes. In some or all of

STC numbers are given for certain seventeenth-century publications in order to avoidambiguity. For modern studies of the November thanksgivings and celebrations, see particu-larly David Cressy, Bonfires & bells: national memory and the Protestant calendar in Elizabethan andStuart England (London, ; Stroud, ), chs. –; idem, ‘The fifth of November remem-bered’, in Roy Porter, ed., The myths of the English (Cambridge, ), pp. –; RonaldHutton, The rise and fall of merry England: the ritual year, – (Oxford, ), pp. –, , –, –; idem, Stations of the sun: a history of the ritual year in Britain (Oxford,), ch. ; James Sharpe, Remember, remember the fifth of November: Guy Fawkes and theGunpowder plot (London, ); Brenda Buchanan et al., Gunpowder plots (); and AnneJames, Poets, players and preachers: remembering the Gunpowder plot in seventeenth-century England(Toronto, ).

Prayers and thankesgiuing to be vsed by all the kings maiesties louing subiects, for the happy deliuer-ance of his maiestie, the queene, prince, and states of parliament, from the most traiterous and bloodyintended massacre by gunpowder, the of Nouember (n.d.; STC ). All the surviving rep-rints of this form to were issued as separate publications. Strictly, the form was never, as issometimes stated, part of or included in the prayer book. Although from the revised textwas printed and bound with the BCP, it was not contained within the text of the prayer book asauthorized by parliament in the Act of Uniformity. Instead, it was subsequently ‘annexed’ to theBCP by a royal warrant, together with the forms for the other royal anniversaries. Continuedpublication of all the anniversary forms with the BCP required the issue of a fresh warrantearly in each new reign.

The first known appearances are as ‘Papists cons.’ in : see The Book of Common Prayer(STC ), sig. Ar, and [Henry Alleyn], A double almanacke & prognostication…for this year…, sig. Ar.

In , the form of prayer annexed to the BCP was revised to include commemoration ofthe ‘happy arrival’ of William of Orange at Torbay on November ‘for the deliverance ofour church and nation’.

P H I L I P W I L L I A M S ON A N D N A T A L I E M E A R S



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these aspects, Gunpowder treason day was carried to the overseas colonies andoutposts. Even after the religious anniversary and use of the form of prayerwere revoked by parliament and royal warrant in , numerous Englishchurches still rang their bells on November, in some cases probably untilthe First World War. What became popularly known as ‘Bonfire night’ con-tinues, as the sole survivor of a practice of lighting bonfires that was oncecommon for all types of thanksgiving days.

All this, it has been assumed, began with an act of parliament introduced inJanuary . This Act for a publique thankesgiuing to almightie God, euery yeere onthe fift day of Nouember was certainly important. It made provision for ensuringthat the ‘great and infinite blessing’ from God that had led to discovery of theplot should ‘neuer be forgotten’ and would remain in ‘PerpetuallRemembrance’, in ‘all ages to come’. Each November, ministers in everyplace of worship were to say morning prayer in thanksgiving for the ‘mosthappy deliverance’, and ‘all and every person or persons’ in the kingdomwere to attend the service at their local church or chapel. Ministers were to‘give warning’ of this obligation during morning service on the previousSunday, and on November itself to remind their congregations of thepurpose of the thanksgiving by reading out the text of the act of parliamentafter the service or the sermon. These provisions were still nominally requiredin the s. Yet this act alone cannot have been sufficient to create the reli-gious thanksgivings. It did not mention the form of prayer used at the annualservices, giving no orders or authorization for its composition, printing, distribu-tion, and use; and it referred only to morning prayer, yet the form also provided

E.g. Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. –; Brendan McConville, ‘Pope’s day revisited,“popular” culture reconsidered’, Explorations in Early American Culture, (), pp. –;Kevin Q. Doyle, ‘“Rage and fury which only hell could inspire”: the rhetoric and the ritualof Gunpowder treason in early America’ (Ph.D. thesis, Brandeis University, ); Records ofFort St George: diary and consultation book of – (Madras, ), p. ; Sydney FreePress [New South Wales], Nov. ; Natal Witness, Nov. .

See H. T. Tilley and H. B. Walters, The church bells of Warwickshire (Birmingham, ),p. , and other volumes of the county ‘Church bells’ series.

E.g. Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. – (and n. ), ; Hutton,Merry England, pp. –; Sharpe, Remember, remember, pp. , , .

STC , and Jac. I, c. in Statutes of the realm ( vols., London, –), IV/,pp. –. The act was passed by the House of Lords on January , and receivedroyal assent on May: Journals of the House of Lords (London, – ) (LJ), II, pp. , –.

To assist ministers, the act appears in some cases to have been bound with (and after) theform of prayer (see and edns, STC , .), before becoming integral to itin most printings from to , placed between the title page and the text of the service:see e.g. STC . (). The act was not republished after , and the revised form of contained no reference to its terms; in consequence, reading the act during church ser-vices probably lapsed. But a new rubric added to the form from (for as yet unknownreasons) restated the statutory requirements to give notice of the anniversary and to readout the act of ‘the third year of King James the First’. This rubric was retained until ,though with, it appears, little and declining effect.

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texts for the litany and, as an option, for communion. Who was responsible forthis form of prayer, by what authority, and at what date?

The beginnings – and the initial purposes – of Gunpowder treason day arenot as obvious or straightforward as they have seemed. Earlier orders wereissued for thanksgivings, two months before the introduction of the parlia-mentary bill. These orders not only explain the origins of the form ofprayer, and what is, on closer inspection, a puzzling feature of its early edi-tions. They also reveal three further aspects of the religious commemorationof the Gunpowder treason. First, the anniversary thanksgiving was initiatednot by parliament but by King James, acting on his own authority togetherwith the archbishop of Canterbury. This accorded with long-established prac-tice: orders and forms of prayer for special worship were matters for the sov-ereign and bishops, not for parliament. The act of parliament repeated anexisting royal order, which the bishops had already distributed to everyparish, reinforced by their own instructions to the clergy. Second, Jamesunderstood the Gunpowder plot and the thanksgivings for its discovery in dif-ferent senses to the English ‘national’ providentialism ascribed to them bylater preachers and writers, and described by modern historians – as is alsoindicated by evidence that the thanksgiving was not appointed for andobserved in England alone. As Jenny Wormald especially has insisted, a fun-damental interpretative principle for understanding James I of England isthat he had been and remained James VI of Scotland. Third, in a remark-able innovation that has escaped historical notice, the king ordered furtherand much more frequent thanksgivings in all places of worship in Englandand Wales.

The two orders are transcribed as Documents A and B in the Appendix to thisarticle. The main part of what follows begins by describing the earliest thanks-givings after the discovery of the Gunpowder plot, and the context, locations,and character of the two orders. The chief features of the second order arethen considered, including comments on the extension of the thanksgivingsto Scotland and Ireland.

James VI and I liked anniversary thanksgivings. Two had already beenappointed, one for his survival of an alleged assassination ‘conspiracy’ by therd earl of Gowrie and his brother Alexander Ruthven (ordered for Scotlandin , and for England and Wales in ), and the other for the date ofhis English accession (for England andWales in ). For religious anniversar-ies to be ordered or encouraged by the sovereign was new – observance of

See National prayers: special worship since the Reformation, I: Special prayers, fasts and thanksgiv-ings in the British Isles, –, ed. Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and PhilipWilliamson with Lucy Bates (Boydell/Church of England Record Society, , Woodbridge,), pp. xciv–xcv, c, ciii.

See Jenny Wormald’s numerous articles and essays on the king, notably ‘James VI and I:two kings or one?’, History, (), pp. –.




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Elizabeth I’s accession day had been initiated by the bishops – and it was alsonew for any to be observed in both England and Scotland. Each of these anni-versaries was appointed at important and opportune political moments forJames. The overall argument is that the king’s orders for thanksgivings afterthe Gunpowder plot were further instances of his persistent assertion ofdivine sanction for his own authority and the Stuart dynasty, and as supportfor his favoured policies. In the sense that an anniversary thanksgiving hadalready been appointed, the act of parliament was superfluous. Its real signifi-cance lies elsewhere: as evidence of parliament’s assertiveness in matters thatwere causing tension between some of its members and the king, and in ensur-ing that observance of the anniversary would persist long after the king’s death.

I

Thanksgivings for deliverance from the Gunpowder plot began on the day of itsdiscovery, with further occasions for thanksgiving arranged during the rest ofthe month. On November itself, bonfires were lit and church bells rung inand around London, almost certainly prompted by a ‘precept’ from the lordmayor, who ordered the City’s aldermen to have bonfires made ‘this presentevening’ in the principal streets ‘whereto the Inhabitantes maye assemble them-selues in testimony of there exceding Joye and thanckes giuinge to allmightieGod for this great diliueraunce’. The following Sunday, November, wasobserved in London as a day of ‘solemn and general thanksgiving’, includinga special sermon delivered at Paul’s Cross by William Barlow, bishop ofRochester.

Natalie Mears and Philip Williamson, ‘The “holy days” of Queen Elizabeth I’, History, (), pp. –, which also notes (p. ) that an episcopal synod in – had orderedan anniversary commemoration of the Marian reconciliation with the papacy.

Undated entry in Journals of the Common Council of the Corporation of London,London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), COL/CC///, fo. r. Reginald Sharpe,London and the kingdom (London, vols., –), II, pp. –, dated this entry as November, presumably because it is located between copies of documents dated and November. But the entries and documents are not in strict date order, and further evidencesupports a dating of November. [Edmund Howes], An abridgement or summarie of the Englishchronicle, by…John Stowe,…continued…vnto this present yeare (London, ), pp. –, reportsa ‘proclamation’ concerning the treason on the afternoon of the th, resulting that night inas ‘many bonefires in and around London, as the streetes could permit’. The letters of JohnChamberlain, ed. Norman McClure ( vols., Philadelphia, PA, ), I, p. , describes‘great ringing and…great store of bonfires’ the same night. For bell ringing on this date, seealso churchwardens’ accounts, St John the Baptist, Walbrook, LMA, P/JNB/B//MS/, fo. r; The account book of St Bartholomew in the City of London, –,ed. Edwin Freshfield (London, ), p. ; and Walcott McKenzie, The history of the parishchurch of St Margaret’s Westminster (London, ), p. .

Hoby to Edmondes, Nov. , in [Thomas Birch], The court and times of James the first(London, vols., ), I, p. ; Edward Jupp, An historical account of the Worshipful Company ofCarpenters in the City of London (London, ), p. (where ‘fformes’ refers to purchase ofseats); and John Sherwell, A descriptive and historical account of the Guild of Saddlers of the City of




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This thanksgiving day in London was the earliest outcome of orders issuedby the bishops, which must have led to many further thanksgiving servicesthroughout England and Wales. Survival of orders for occasions of specialworship during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is uneven,

and in this case just one copy has been found. Dated November, it wassent by Richard Vaughan, bishop of London, to John Bill, archdeacon ofSt Albans, and is located in the records of the archdeaconry atHertfordshire Archives and Library Services. Versions of its text havealready been published, but as its full significance can now be understoodwith the assistance of further evidence – particularly that given in the secondorder considered here – a new transcription is printed in the Appendix asDocument A.

Vaughan’s order required the rapid distribution to all churches in the arch-deaconry of a ‘booke’ (a form) of prayer which had been ‘Comaunded to bevsed in everie parishe Churche through owte the whole Realme’ (DocumentA, lines , –). As this form was described as published by public authority(line ), and given the procedures followed for earlier appointments of specialworship and set out in the second order (Document B), Vaughan was evi-dently communicating to his diocesan clergy an order that the archbishop ofCanterbury, Richard Bancroft, had issued for all the bishops. Bancrofthimself had acted very quickly: just three days after discovery of the plot, aspecial form of prayer was ‘nowe sett forthe’ (lines –), that is to say, it hadalready been composed and was now being printed and made available toparish churches. The reading of the form of prayer was to begin as soon aspossible after its receipt; and as it was to be used ‘at all tymes of Commonprayer’ (lines –, ) – which would have included the ‘litany days’ ofWednesday and Friday, as well as Sunday – the thanksgivings were to continuefor some days or weeks. Purchases of the form during late are recorded

London (London, ), p. , for attendance of livery companies at St Paul’s; William Barlow,The sermon preached at Pavles Cross, the tenth day of Nouember being the Sunday after the discouerie of thislate horrible treason (London, ).

Episcopal registers vary considerably in character and content, and few of them recordorders for special prayers and services: see the documents and commentaries in Nationalprayers, I.

Records of the old archdeaconry of St Albans: a calendar of papers to , ed. H. R. WiltonHall (St Albans, ), p. (a summary, misdating the order as November), and Nationalprayers, I, pp. – (incorrectly ascribing the order to Richard Bancroft, rather than RichardVaughan).

National prayers, I, pp. xcv, cv, –, , , –, and for an earlier anniversarythanksgiving (marking the Gowrie conspiracy), Whitgift to Bancroft (then bishop ofLondon), July , in Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. David Wilkins ( vols.,London, ), IV, p. .

For rapid production of such forms and the methods of distribution, see Natalie Mears,‘Brought to book: purchases of special forms of prayer in English parishes, –’, inPete Langham, ed., Negotiating the Jacobean printed book (Farnham, ), pp. –; andNational prayers, I, pp. xcix–civ.




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in churchwardens’ accounts in various dioceses, and evidence exists forgeneral celebrations as well as religious thanksgivings in November andDecember, as far afield as Pembrokeshire and an English garrison in Flanders.

Religious thanksgivings for the discovery of the Gunpowder plot had, then,been held two months before the introduction of the thanksgiving bill in parlia-ment. But the larger importance of this first order is that it provides the originalpublication date for the form of prayer for Gunpowder treason day. Until thereprints issued from onwards, Prayers and thankesgiuing…for the happydeliuerance of…the of Nouember did not bear a publication date; but inthe belief that the anniversary was ordered by parliament, its first edition hasconventionally been given the date of . However, it can now be establishedthat this edition was the ‘booke of prayer and thanckes givinge’ (line )ordered on November for immediate use. This can be implied notjust from the similarity of title, but also from an unusual feature of the form.Unlike the forms of prayer published for other Elizabethan and Jacobean anni-versary thanksgivings, it contained no instruction for its annual use, either inthe title (as was usual) or in any rubric. This alone suggests that the authoritiesand the printers had repurposed an existing and undated form of prayer.

That this is exactly what they did is confirmed by the evidence of DocumentB, Bancroft’s order of November for the anniversary thanksgiving. Thisgave instructions (lines –) that for each November the clergy were touse the form of prayer and thanksgiving that was ‘alreadie printed’ – whichmust mean the form described in Vaughan’s order three weeks earlier – andthat the bishops were to ensure that every parish possessed a copy. Furthercorrespondence in the St Albans records provides an example of how this wasimplemented. Copies of the bishop’s letter containing Bancroft’s order weresent to each parish with the information that the bearer of the letter, the arch-deacon’s apparitor, could sell copies of the form (for four pence), evidently

E.g. St Dunstan-in-the-West (London), LMA, P/DUN/B//MS/, fo.r; Account book of St Bartholomew, London, ed. Freshfield, p. ; St Peter (St Albans),Hertfordshire Archives and Library Services, Hertford (HALS), D/P//, fo. r; EdwardPeacock, ‘Extracts from the churchwardens’ accounts of…Leverton, in the county ofLincoln’, Archaeologia, (), p. ; and Northill, Bedfordshire, in Cressy, Bonfires &bells, p. .

Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the manuscripts of…the marquess of Salisbury(HMC, Salisbury), XVII (London, ), pp. , .

For the accession days of Elizabeth and James, and for James’s escape from the Gowrieconspiracy.

See National prayers, I, p. . Bancroft also referred to the form of prayer for August (Gowrie day) as already printed:

this had been published in . Additional evidence for early publication of the form ofthanksgiving during late is that Barlow, Sermon preached at Pavles Cross, sig. Er, reportsits inclusion of a prayer of his own composition which he had recited at the end of hissermon on November. Although copies of the Sermon are dated , it was registeredfor publication on December : A transcript of the registers of the company of stationers ofLondon, –, ed. Edward Arber ( vols., London, –), III, p. .




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meaning that those which had not already obtained a copy after the first orderof November should do so now, or buy a second copy.

I I

These first thanksgivings, observed during November , may well have beenordered or encouraged by council members or the king, although no evidenceof a formal order has survived. According to the chronicler Edward Howes,early on November the council notified the lord mayor of London of the dis-covery of a ‘plot of treason’, and it may also have been responsible for the ‘proc-lamation’ which made ‘the manner of the treason…known vnto the people’that afternoon. James’s principal secretary of state, the earl of Salisbury,assisted Barlow with preparation of his sermon for the London thanksgivingon November. The king himself had experience, as James VI ofScotland, of widening appointments of thanksgivings after his earlier ‘deliver-ance’ from the Gowrie conspiracy: immediate thanksgivings in Edinburgh,then special thanksgiving days in all parishes, followed by annual thanksgivingsthroughout the kingdom.

James was certainly responsible for ordering further thanksgivings for the dis-covery of the Gunpowder plot. On November he asked the archbishop ofCanterbury to consider the matter and, evidently after a discussion betweenthem, on November Bancroft issued an order that expressed ‘his maiestiespleasure and commandement’ (Document B, lines –, –). This wassent as a letter to Bishop Vaughan, who, as dean of the province ofCanterbury, was responsible for communicating such matters to the bishopsof the province, while Bancroft himself undertook to notify the bishops ofYork province (lines –). It was this royal instruction, not the act of

James Rolfe (archdeacon’s official), to ministers and churchwardens of St Albans arch-deaconry, Dec. , HALS, archdeaconry of St Albans records (ASA), //, p. .Mears, ‘Brought to book’, pp. –, explains that distribution of forms of prayer dependedpartly on the ability and willingness of parishes to purchase copies. For those with availablefunds, having two copies allowed the parish clerk to lead the congregation in singing psalmsand in responses to prayers.

The privy council registers to were destroyed in a fire in (Acts of the privycouncil of England, – (London, ), pp. v–vi) and thanksgivings were not noted incontemporary abstracts, in British Library, Add. MSS . Nor do Bancroft’s and Vaughan’sepiscopal registers provide evidence.

[Howes], English chronicle, p. , and see n. above. Barlow, Sermon preached at Pavles Cross, sig. Ar. National prayers, I, p. ; Records of the parliaments of Scotland to , www.rps.ac.uk, /

/, and seeNational prayers since the Reformation, IV: Anniversary commemorations with appendicesand indices, –, ed. Philip Williamson, Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, and StephenTaylor (Boydell/Church of England Record Society, Woodbridge, forthcoming).

Lake to Salisbury, Nov. , Hatfield House Archives, Hertfordshire (HH), CP /.

For this ancient duty of the bishop of London (which is still current), see also Whitgift toBancroft, July , in Concilia Magnae, ed. Wilkins, IV, p. .



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parliament, that initiated the observance of Gunpowder treason day: it orderedthe anniversary thanksgiving services, and provided authorization for annualuse of the existing form of prayer. It also introduced into England and Walesa new type of thanksgiving, expressed in mid-week sermons and prayers.

Unusually, as many as four manuscript texts of Bancroft’s letter to Vaughanare known, all transcribed within letters which Vaughan sent out on

November. Two are the original letters, and two are copies of original letters.Strictly, these documents are not new archival discoveries: three have longbeen available for scholars, and two have appeared in print in some form.Rather, what is presented here is recognition and explanation of their historicalimportance, as none has attracted further comment. One of the original letterswas sent by Vaughan as an instruction to clergy in his own diocese. Like hisorder of November, the recipient was Archdeacon Bill at St Albans: it too sur-vives among the archdeaconry records, and it was summarized in the calendarof these records published in . The further letters were sent by Vaughanto other bishops. The text sent to John Jegon, bishop of Norwich, survives in twoversions. The original letter was gathered into a collection of documents kept byJegon’s secretary, Anthony Harison, which is now in Norfolk Record Office.

This text was transcribed in an edition of Harison’s collection published in, and it provides the preferred base text for a new (and more accurate)transcription of Bancroft’s order, given here as Document B. A copy of thisletter to Jegon is in the Tanner manuscripts, located since in theBodleian Library. The fourth text of Vaughan’s letter is a copy included in

HALS, ASA, //, pp. –; and Records of the old archdeaconry of St Albans, ed. WiltonHall, pp. –. After reciting the archbishop’s letter, Vaughan ordered that instructions besent to churches to ensure its ‘execution in every particular poynte’, the more so becausethe London diocese, as the nearest to the intended explosion, should set an example to themore remote dioceses.

‘Collectanea sive Registrum Vagum continenta fragmenta consuta tangentis episcopalenegotium tempore reverend in Christo patria, domini Johannis Jegon, Episcopi Norwicensis,collecta par Anthonium Harison, notorium publicum, clericum’, Norwich diocesan archives,Norfolk Record Office, DN/HAR , fos. r–r.

The Registrum vagum of Anthony Harison, ed. Thomas Barton ( vols., Norfolk RecordSociety, –, Norwich, –), II, pp. –. Barton (p. ) describes the ‘Registrum’ asconsisting largely of copies made by Harison, but Vaughan’s letter is evidently the originaldocument (even though Barton did not report it as being among the ‘one or two originalletters’ in the collection). This can be established by how the paper was folded, and by the pres-ence of four different hands: the text by a secretary, Vaughan’s signature, and, on the outside,not a single endorsement as Barton stated (p. ), but two elements: the address written byanother secretary, and Jegon’s record of receipt and his instructions (misdated as ‘ ofNovember’, i.e. December).

Tanner MSS /. This copy was probably obtained by Thomas Tanner during hisperiod as chancellor and archdeacon of Norwich, –. That it is a copy of the Registrumtext seems clear from its shared features (recorded in the notes for Document B), notably itsomission of a phrase that is included in all the other texts. The catalogue of the MSS describesVaughan’s letter as containing a ‘circular letter’ from Bancroft, without reference to the king’sinstructions: Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Bodleianae pars quarta codices viriadmodum reverendi Thomae Tanneri, ed. Alfred Hackman (Oxford, ), col. .




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the register of William Chaderton, bishop of Lincoln, now in LincolnshireArchives.

I I I

One striking feature of Bancroft’s letter is that James did not place theGunpowder plot within the widely accepted understanding of English historyand national identity. As historians have long observed, English preachers,writers, and print-makers trumpeted the discovery of the plot as yet furtherconfirmation of God’s special providential favour towards England, as revealedby numerous earlier deliverances, especially the destruction of the SpanishArmada. Gunpowder treason day quickly became integral to a calendar ofEnglish Protestant, anti-Catholic, and patriotic anniversaries. But this wasnot how James himself interpreted the plot and the purpose of the thanksgiv-ings. As a Scottish as well as an English king, he could hardly regard divinefavour as reserved for the English kingdom alone; for him, the deliverancewas personal and dynastic, and the thanksgivings had a Scottish antecedentand a British scope.

As Peter McCullough, Mary Morrissey, and Anne James have noted, Jameswent to considerable lengths to ensure that an earlier ‘deliverance’ which hehad experienced as king of Scotland should also be commemorated inEngland. Immediately after his accession to the English throne in , hecreated English versions of the anniversary thanksgivings that had beenappointed in Scotland during for his preservation from the Gowrie con-spiracy – special sermons at court, special services in all churches, a publicholiday from work, and encouragement of ‘lawful signs and demonstrationsof joy and gladness’. It seems evident that James intended to insert theGowrie episode into the existing account of English national deliverances,amplified by the introduction into England of an official holiday, whichexceeded the provisions that had existed for Queen Elizabeth’s accession day.

Chaderton episcopal register, Reg. , fos. v–r. Vaughan’s letters to bishops endeddifferently to the letter sent to Archdeacon Bill, in exhorting them to implement the king’sorder rapidly, and explaining why they should do so (see below).

See esp. Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. xii–xiii, –, , –, , –; AlexandraWalsham, Providence in early modern England (Oxford, ), pp. –, ; James, Poets,players, pp. –, , – and passim.

Peter McCullough, Sermons at court: politics and religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean preaching(Cambridge, ), pp. –; Mary Morrissey, ‘Presenting James VI and I to the public:preaching on political anniversaries at Paul’s Cross’, in Ralph Houlbrooke, ed., James VI andI (Aldershot, ), pp. , –, and idem, Politics and the Paul’s Cross sermons,– (Oxford, ), pp. –; James, Poets, players, pp. , , –, –, –.

Privy council to Whitgift, July , in Concilia Magnae, ed. Wilkins, IV, pp. –. Accession day had been described as a ‘holiday’ only in the sense of a ‘holy day’, meaning

a day for special church services, not a day without work, although the services were commonlyaccompanied by civic and popular festivities in the evenings: see Mears and Williamson, ‘The“holy days” of Queen Elizabeth’, pp. –.




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Yet this was not James’s main purpose, as his reactions to the Gunpowder plotmake clear: his references were to Stuart and Scottish, not Elizabethan orEnglish, deliverances. In his much publicized address when proroguing parlia-ment on November , he compared the plot with the Gowrie conspiracy,and even with a threat ‘while I was yet in my mothers belly’, meaning the mur-derous plot against Mary Queen of Scots’s secretary, David Rizzio. For James,God’s mercies on August and November were personal tohimself, as confirmed by a coincidence of the days of these events (both onthe th day of the month, and both on Tuesdays): the two deliverances hadbeen granted to ‘mee’; it ‘was the same deuill that…persecuted mee’, andthe ‘same God that…delivered mee’. The English parliament and realmwere the fortunate but secondary beneficiaries of God’s favour towards theirking. The personal point and the Scottish precursor were still more emphaticin the king’s instructions for the thanksgivings for November, as reportedand distributed in Bancroft’s letter. These begin with an extended restatementof James’s escape from the ‘trayterous plott’ of Gowrie and Ruthven (lines –), and his part in the discovery of the Gunpowder plot was presented as aclose parallel with this earlier deliverance (lines –). The English thanksgiv-ings ordered for the Gowrie anniversary were to be repeated almost exactly forwhat became Gunpowder treason day (lines –, –), with one exception:for unknown reasons, no new holiday was appointed.

There were further ways in which James’s interpretation of the Gunpowderplot differed from the common English understanding of the kingdom’sProtestant past. He did not share its comprehensive anti-Catholicism. Thiswas in part because he wanted to strengthen domestic political stability by sooth-ing religious divisions and to obtain international security by preserving therecent peace with Spain; both aims were integral to his grandiose ambition ofachieving a reunion of Christendom. But it also derived from his interpret-ation of the character of the threat. Although the Gunpowder plot was thework of a number of Catholics, the equivalence he drew was not with previousCatholic plots against Elizabeth nor with the Spanish Armada and otherattempted foreign Catholic interventions, but with a conspiracy undertakenin Scotland by two Presbyterians. For James, the double deliverances werefrom traitors, irrespective of religious distinctions. As has frequently beennoted, his proclamation for the apprehension of the conspirators two daysafter discovery of the plot and his speech to parliament on Novemberappealed for tolerance towards loyal Catholics, and denied involvement by

His maiesties speach in this last session of parliament (), reprinted in King James VI and I:political writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge, ), p. , and see James, Poets,players, p. .

Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake, ‘The ecclesiastical policy of King James I’, Journal ofBritish Studies, (), pp. –; W. B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the reunion ofChristendom (Cambridge, ).




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the Catholic kingdoms. While Bancroft’s order did describe the plot asseeking to overthrow the true worship of God and to make the kingdom aprey to foreigners, and warned against the continued ‘malice of theRomishe brood’ (lines –, ), it was presented as the work of only ‘cer-taine gentlemen Recusantes and popishe preistes’ (lines –), not of allor most Catholics.

For James, the benefits of his own deliverances extended to all his realms. Thecouncil order for the English thanksgivings for his escape from the Gowrie con-spiracy had justified them with the argument that by his succession to theEnglish throne, his English subjects had become ‘partakers of the same bles-sings, and of the benefit thereof proceeding equally with his subjects of theScottish nation’. Bancroft’s statement of the king’s wishes in November similarly presented God’s mercies during the Gunpowder plot as applyingto ‘this whole Iland of great Britayne’, and more widely to ‘this Iland with therest of his Maiesties dominions’ (lines , ). Gunpowder treason day wasnot an occasion for thanksgiving in England alone. According to an orderissued by the council of Scotland on Charles I’s instructions in , Jameshad given ‘ordour and directioun that the…fyft day of November sould besolemnelie keeped yeerlie thairafter throughout his kingdomes’. Theabsence of government records for Scotland and for Ireland creates problemswith strictly contemporary evidence: the Scottish privy council records for to have been lost, and most of the public archives of Irelandwere destroyed in . Nevertheless, it is clear that Scotland was expected toshare in thanksgiving for the king’s deliverance in England, just as Englandhad earlier been expected to join in thanksgiving for the king’s deliverancein Scotland. According to the recollections of John Spottiswoode, who hadbeen archbishop of Glasgow and a privy council member in , after newsof the Gunpowder plot reached Edinburgh the council immediately com-manded public thanksgivings in all Scottish churches, and thanksgivings are

Stuart royal proclamations, ed. James Larkin and Paul Hughes ( vols., Oxford, –), I,pp. –; King James: political writings, ed. Sommerville, pp. –; and see e.g. Mark Nicholls,Investigating Gunpowder plot (Manchester, ), pp. , –, ; Lori Anne Ferrell,Government by polemic: James I, the king’s preachers, and the rhetoric of conformity, –(Stanford, CA, ), pp. –; A. W. R. E. Okines, ‘Why was there so little government reac-tion to Gunpowder plot?’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, (), pp. –; Morrissey,Politics and the Paul’s Cross sermons, p. .

Privy council to Whitgift, July , in Concilia Magnae, ed. Wilkins, IV, p. . Order of Oct. , reciting a letter from Charles I, Oct. , in The register of the

privy council of Scotland, nd ser., ed. D. Masson and P. Hume Brown ( vols., Edinburgh, –), II, pp. –.

The register of the privy council of Scotland, st ser., ed. John H. Burton et al. ( vols.,Edinburgh, –), VI, p. iv.

John Spottiswoode, The history of the Church of Scotland, ed. Michael Russell and MarkNapier ( vols., Edinburgh, –), III, p. ; and see David Calderwood, The history of theKirk of Scotland [s], ed. Thomas Thomson and David Laing ( vols., Edinburgh, –), VI, p. .




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recorded in burghs during the next few days. Orders were evidently alsoissued for anniversary thanksgivings. These were observed in various townsduring the following years; in – a prayer for November (and for August) was included in a draft for a Scottish prayer book, and the anniversarywas (again with August) a point of reference in the long debates about James’sefforts to restore holy days in the Five Articles of Perth in . Followingreports that observance of the day had declined after James’s death, the aimof Charles’s order in was to revive and perpetuate the anniversary, andit was included (‘Powder-treason’) in the calendar of the Book of CommonPrayer that Charles tried to impose on the Church of Scotland in .

For Ireland, the evidence is less certain. In , the government in Londonrefused to approve an Irish parliamentary act for an annual thanksgiving similarto that of the English act of . This was later claimed to have expressedJames’s general desire not to ‘sour and alienate’ the kingdom’s RomanCatholic majority; avoiding an attempt to impose a statutory requirementfor all Irish churches, including Catholic churches, would have been consistentwith his broad tolerance towards peace-minded Catholics in Scotland andEngland. But it is likely that the thanksgiving was observed by the Protestant gov-ernment of Ireland and in at least some churches of the Church of Ireland,and that services were read from the English form of prayer. The anniversarywould have been evident in the calendar of English editions of the BCPwhich were commonly used in these churches, and it was included in the calen-dars of Dublin editions of the BCP published in and . So far,

Extracts from the records of the burgh of Edinburgh, –, ed. Marguerite Wood(Edinburgh, ), p. ( Nov. ); Joseph Irving, The history of Dumbartonshire(Dumbarton, ), p. ( Nov.); Ebenezer Henderson, Annals of Dunfermline (Glasgow,), p. ( Nov.); presbytery of Paisley minutes, Nov. , National Records ofScotland, CH///; Extracts from the council register of the burgh of Aberdeen, ed. JohnStuart ( vols., Aberdeen, –), II, pp. – ( Nov.).

E.g. Edinburgh records, –, ed. Wood, pp. , , (, , ); RobertPitcairn, Criminal trials in Scotland ( vols., Edinburgh, ), II, p. (Perth burgh council in, on the day being ‘perpetualie kepit heireftir’, as the king desired); The records of Elgin, ed.William Cramond ( vols., Aberdeen, –), II, pp. , , (, , ); andsee Margo Todd, The culture of Protestantism in early modern Scotland (New Haven, CT, ),pp. , .

‘A Scottish liturgy of the reign of James VI’, ed. Gordon Donaldson, in Miscellany of theScottish History Society, (Edinburgh, ), p. .

The life and death of…William Cowper, bishop of Galloway (), sigs. Cr–Dr; DavidLindsay, A true narration of all the passages of the proceedings in the general assembly…holden atPerth (London, ), pp. , –, , .

The booke of common prayer…for the use of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, []), sig. br. Journals of the House of Commons of Ireland ( vols., Dublin, –), I, pp. , ;

Thomas Carte, An history of the life of James, duke of Ormonde ( vols., London, –), I,p. ; and see James McConnel, ‘Remembering the gunpowder plot in Ireland, –’, Journal of British Studies, (), p. .

For the date of the ‘delivery’ from the gunpowder treason as a ceremonial day, seeCalendar of state papers relating to Ireland, – (London, ), p. .

STC , sig. Ar, and STC , sig. Ar.




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however, the first published evidence of religious observance is for .

Gunpowder treason day was certainly observed in Ireland and Scotland afterthe Restoration, as a revival of what had ostensibly been an established practicebefore the Civil Wars and the Interregnum. In Ireland, the form of prayer forthe day was annexed to the BCP in , and the observance continuedofficially until the same measures of abolition as those for England in .In the Scottish Kirk, all religious observances for royal anniversaries endedwith the re-establishment of Presbyterianism in , but for some time itremained as a secular government commemoration.

I V

The most remarkable aspect of James’s ‘commandement’ is the order that, inaddition to the annual thanksgivings, there should be prayers, thanksgivings,and sermons every Tuesday in English and Welsh cathedrals, parish churches,and collegiate chapels (lines –). Peter McCullough showed that Jamesappointed Tuesday sermons and prayers at his English court shortly after hisaccession in in thanksgiving for his escape from Gowrie and Ruthven;and he asked whether the king had also planned to extend these to the restof the kingdom, before concluding that ‘we may never know’. Bancroft’sletter shows that a wider introduction of Tuesday thanksgivings had indeedbeen James’s long-standing ambition – ‘his maiestie hath hitherto, and soestill is resolued’ (line ) – which discovery of the Gunpowder plot gave himthe opportunity to accomplish.

Tuesday thanksgivings were, like anniversaries for royal deliverances, innova-tions which James brought from Scotland. In the aftermath of the Gowrie con-spiracy in August , and even before the appointment of the Scottishanniversary thanksgiving, he had ordered that ‘everie Tuisday heerafter sallbe a day of ordinarie preaching, within everie burgh within the bounds of thesynods’. As an evangelical Calvinist, James gave particular emphasis to preach-ing, and mid-week sermons in towns had been strongly recommended in theChurch of Scotland’s First book of discipline () and became a widespreadpractice, on varying days of the week in different towns. In Scotland, theking’s order could often be easily implemented, by ministers and burgh

The vestry records of the parish of St John the evangelist, Dublin, –, ed. RaymondGillespie (Dublin, ), p. .

For details, see National prayers, IV. McCullough, Sermons at court, p. . Anthony Rudd’s comment on Tuesday thanksgivings

in June which prompted this question evidently referred to court sermons and possibly tothe king’s earlier orders for Scotland (see below), although he was conceivably aware of theking’s desires for England.

James’s order was issued with the concurrence of the commission of the general assemblyof the church: Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, VI, p. .




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councils substituting Tuesday for their existing preaching day. But inEngland, church services were conducted by set liturgies and the BCPalready prescribed services during the week, on the Wednesday and Fridaylitany days; and, as was evident in a sharp exchange between James andBancroft at the Hampton Court conference in January , some bishopswere wary of preaching without good regulation, because sermons were theprincipal means by which radical forms of puritanism were spread. IfJames had asked in for Tuesday thanksgivings to become a generalEnglish practice, presumably Whitgift and council members had persuadedhim that these would cause practical difficulties, and risked encouragingsermons critical of the established authorities – particularly as it was knownin England that some Scottish preachers and writers were sceptical of theking’s account of the Gowrie conspiracy. Consequently, only annual thanks-givings had been ordered, with the archbishops arranging the texts for thespecial services.

The discovery of the Gunpowder plot on another Tuesday made that day ofthe week still more special for James. He emphasized this coincidence of weekday in his speech to parliament on November, and explicitly selected aTuesday as a propitious day for the start of the next parliamentary session, inJanuary . As reported in Bancroft’s letter on November, James evi-dently considered that general preaching, prayer, and thanksgiving everyTuesday was now justified for three reasons. Another deliverance on the sameweekday marked out that day even more as one for special thanksgivings;midweek prayer and preaching would help to guard against further treasons(lines –); and both the extent of the thanksgiving due from the wholekingdom and the importance of defence against further subversion justifiedchanges in the church’s practices. Tuesday thanksgivings, even more than anew anniversary, had been the chief issue that James had wanted to raise withBancroft, and evidently the archbishop and other bishops were now con-vinced, setting aside – at least in the immediate aftermath of the plot – theirearlier doubts about sanctioning more frequent sermons. One difficulty wasthat any weekday sermons in towns were usually delivered when peoplegathered for market days, which were settled by charter or custom and could

William McMillan, The worship of the Scottish reformed church, – (Dunfermline,), pp. –; Todd, Culture of Protestantism, p. .

Roland Usher, The reconstruction of the English church ( vols., London, ), II, p. .Midweek sermons were delivered in London and other English town parishes through lay-funded lectureships, but in sometimes uneasy relationships with the ecclesiastical authorities:H. Gareth Owen, ‘Lecturers and lectureships in Tudor London’, Quarterly Review, (), pp. –.

For the difficulties of presentation, see Morrissey, ‘Presenting James’, pp. –; idem,Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, pp. –; James, Poets, players, pp. –.

King James: political writings, ed. Sommerville, p. . Lake to Salisbury, Nov. , HH, CP/ (also in HMC, Salisbury, XVII, p. ).




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not easily be changed. No solution was offered for this. Another problem wasthat in addition to Sundays, the days on which the clergy were most likely topreach were the litany days of Wednesday and (or) Friday, the observance ofwhich had been reaffirmed only the year before, in new church canons.

They could not be expected to preach an extra sermon as well, on anotherday of the week. On this, the king and the archbishop compromised by remov-ing an expectation of additional preaching: existing midweek sermons would betransferred to Tuesdays, though without changing the provision for reading thelitany on Wednesdays and Fridays (lines –, –).

This instruction for Tuesday sermons explains why the king’s order was issuedimmediately, rather than left until a date closer to the first anniversary inNovember . It was to be acted upon ‘forthwith’ (line ), and Vaughanin his covering letter to the bishops gave a further justification for ‘thespeedie putting’ of the order ‘in execucion in all pointes’:

it is our speciall dutie in regarde of our place and callinge to shewe our selues mostforward in this action of thankesgiving that by our example all the people of the landmay be incited to have a sensible feeleinge of the incomparable goodnes of allmightie god in soe miraculouse a deliuerance of the whole Realme from such afeare full calamitie.

One churchwarden was so impressed by the novelty of the midweek thanksgiv-ing that he failed to comment on the anniversary: ‘To ye Parriter for bringingnotice of prayers to be kept [on] Twesdaies.’ But the extent to which thispart of the order was implemented during the following years is unclear. Veryfew references to Tuesday observances have survived. Visitation articles issuedfor the archdeaconry of Norwich in expected the clergy every Tuesdayto provide a sermon and to read out the litany, suffrages, and prayers‘appointed by authority, for his Maiesties happie deliuerance’, in addition toproviding services on the Wednesday and Friday litany days. During thes, Archbishop Laud’s biographer, Peter Heylyn, stated that ‘most

Ibid. Sometimes even dates of special fast days were altered to avoid market days: for casesin , see National prayers, I, p. .

See canon in the church canons, given royal assent on Sept. , in The Anglicancanons, –, ed. Gerald Bray (Church of England Record Society, , Woodbridge,), pp. –.

Vaughan to Chaderton, Nov. , Chaderton episcopal register, Reg. , fo. r,and similarly to Jegon, Tanner MSS /, fo. r, and Registrum vagum, ed. Barton, II, p. .

Churchwardens’ accounts for St Peter, St Albans, Apr. –Apr. , HALS, D/P//, fo. r.

Articles to be enquired of within the archdeaconrie of Norwich, by the church-wardens (London,), sigs. Ar–Av. The archdeacon was Bishop Jegon’s brother, Thomas. The implication,which exceeded the instructions of the king and archbishop, was that the form of prayer issuedby the order of November (Document A) was to continue in regular use, with parts readout in an additional weekly service. However, while other printed archdeacons’ articles for thisperiod (e.g. for Nottingham, Colchester, Worcester) contained the standard enquiry about useof the litany on Wednesdays and Fridays, no mention was made of observances on Tuesdays.




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corporations, and many other market towns in all parts of the kingdom’ hadappointed Tuesday sermons, and the Oxford antiquary Anthony Woodrecorded them in much of the university, continuing until the s.

Comments in some Jacobean printed sermons may refer to such wider obser-vances, not just to the court sermons. But lack of further evidence – this fora large change in preaching practices, which might have been expected toattract much comment – suggests that Heylyn over-stated the number ofTuesday observances, and that their adoption was patchy and where introduceddid not last long. Certainly the readiness of the bishops in to promoteTuesday sermons appears to have waned in later years. While an increasingnumber of episcopal visitation articles asked whether parishes observed theanniversary thanksgivings or possessed the special forms of prayer for theseoccasions, none enquired about services or sermons on Tuesdays. It had prob-ably become obvious, even to the king, that these were simply too burdensomefor many clergy in the Church of England. Two years after Tuesday sermons hadfirst been ordered in Scotland, James persuaded the church’s general assemblyto remind ministers and burgh councils of the required observances; but hedoes not appear to have asked anything similar from the bishops in Englandand Wales.

V

James VI and I was an innovator in occasions of worship. In Scotland, ‘Gowrieday’ was entirely novel, as the first religious anniversary created throughout thekingdom for a royal event, and this for a church which had even discouragedobservance of the anniversary festivals in the Christian calendar. InEngland, three anniversaries as well as weekly thanksgivings were appointedwithin the first three years of James’s reign. Two were striking exercises of theroyal supremacy over the Church of England, by the privy council for Gowrieday and by the king for Gunpowder treason day and Tuesday sermons. Thethird, for James’s accession day, was not, as commonly assumed, an automatic

Peter Heylyn, Cyprianus anglicus (London, ), p. ; Anthony Wood, The history andantiquities of the University of Oxford [s], ed. John Gutch ( vols., Oxford, –), II,pp. –. Both were unaware of Bancroft’s order of November , and ascribed theTuesday sermons to the example of the court sermons for the Gowrie episode.

E.g. John Rawlinson, The Romish Juda, a sermon preached…the Fifth of Nouember (London, ), p. ; Lancelot Andrewes, , in McCullough, Sermons at court, p. .

The chief source for parish arrangements, the accounts of churchwardens, cannot help asthey do not record activities which were part of a minister’s normal duties. Kenneth Fincham’simpression from his examination of many diocesan act books is that references to Tuesdayobservances are at best scarce.

See Visitation articles and injunctions of the early Stuart church, ed. Kenneth Fincham ( vols.,London, –).

Act of Nov. , in Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, VI, pp. –. McMillan, Worship of the Scottish reformed church, pp. –.




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transfer of the thanksgiving for Queen Elizabeth’s accession. That anniversaryhad been created by the bishops to commemorate a specific accession, whichhad restored a Protestant monarchy and a Protestant church. Appointmentof annual thanksgivings for James’s accession, which had different connota-tions, was a deliberate act which may well have involved the king and council.

Why was James so keen to create and proliferate anniversaries? It appears thathe did genuinely believe that in and he had been saved by divineintervention. But this does not explain why he went beyond the earlier practicein both Scotland and England, of particular thanksgivings observed once or fora brief period shortly after the defeat of the plots or the end of other crises, andnot repeated in later years. James’s purpose in introducing ‘perpetual’ annualand weekly thanksgivings was to create regular and enduring reminders of a setof ideas, as part of his strategies for more effective rule. They presented the kingand his dynasty as extraordinary in the extent of God’s favour, and they pro-vided occasions for services and sermons to inculcate this belief among all hissubjects. While all early modern monarchs claimed divine sanction, Jameshad more reasons than most to emphasize the point. Both the Gowrie conspir-acy and the Gunpowder plot brought him close to assassination, more directlyso than any of the threats against Elizabeth: James had ample cause to orderreiterations of the religious duty of obedience to established authorities, andof divine as well as secular punishments for treason. In England, the thanksgiv-ings also publicized the blessings of a new stability that he brought to thekingdom, after the long uncertainties and anxieties about the royal successionduring Elizabeth’s reign. All forms of prayer for the English anniversariesappointed from to contained prayers not only for the new kingbut also for the new royal family, including the names of the heir to thethrone and other ‘royal progeny’, just as in similar prayers were addedto the BCP and ordered to be included in the bidding prayers before allsermons.

James was also adept at turning events into opportunities to promote his morepolitical aims. Each anniversary was appointed at moments when it was usefulfor the king to assert a special authority, indeed a divine right. The Gowriethanksgivings were ordered in Scotland at a critical time in his prolongedefforts to impose royal authority over the Church of Scotland. In England

The form of prayer for this occasion, first published in , was a substantial revision ofthe form that had been used for Elizabeth’s accession day. Lack of council registers for thisperiod and patchy records in episcopal registers make it impossible to establish who orderedthe composition and use of this new form.

Morrissey, ‘Presenting James’, pp. –; James, Poets, players, pp. –; and see Nationalprayers, I, especially the English precedents, following plots against Elizabeth from to ,pp. –, –, –, –, –.

See the edition of the BCP, STC , sig. Br, and canon in The Anglicancanons, –, ed. Bray, pp. –.

Alan MacDonald, The Jacobean Kirk, – (Aldershot, ), ch. .




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andWales, the anniversary was appointed during the delicate early months afteraccession to his new throne, with the first observance falling eleven days after hiscoronation. Thanksgivings and a public holiday in every community were animpressive and popular means of introducing his new subjects to a ruler from aforeign kingdom. Together with the appointment of thanksgivings for a newaccession day, it declared James’s claim to a place equal to that of Elizabethin the providential order, and might gather the good will to assist his noveland ambitious policies, of union of the English and Scottish kingdoms, peacewith Spain and the Catholic powers, reduction in domestic religious tensions,and reunion of Christendom.

It seems likely that the king’s orders for Gunpowder treason day and for Tuesdaythanksgivings had similarly opportunistic elements. Parliament had been sum-moned for November principally to consider the recommendations ofan Anglo-Scottish commission which had been appointed to consider the creationof a united Great Britain. James’s scheme had encountered considerable criticismin both England and Scotland, and it is possible that, as the Venetian ambassadorreported on October, the king came close to thinking that parliamentary discus-sion of the commission’s report might have to be postponed.Whether or not thiswas so, it probably seemed to James that discovery of the Gunpowder plot hadrallied general support for the government to such an extent that opposition tothe union scheme could now be overcome, that an immediate beginning ofTuesday thanksgivings would ease its progress, and that the anniversary thanksgiv-ings would help to underpin the consolidation of Great Britain. If so, James hadmiscalculated: his appeals for tolerance towards most of the Catholic communitycould not restrain the determination of MPs and peers to take new measuresagainst Catholics in general, as well as the actual and suspected conspirators.The preparation of further penalties for Catholics dominated the new parliamen-tary session once it began on January. Consideration of the union proposals hadto be postponed until a further session in November , by which time theimmediate benefits of the Gunpowder plot for James’s political authority had sub-sided, and the main scheme had eventually to be abandoned.

V I

Once it is understood that annual thanksgivings for the discovery of theGunpowder plot had been ordered by the king in November , the act of

For the nervousness of thesemonths and efforts to counteract it, see Judith Richards, ‘TheEnglish accession of James VI: “national” identity, gender and the personal monarchy ofEngland’, English Historical Review, (), pp. –.

Calendar of state papers Venetian, – (London, ), p. ; and see BruceGalloway, The union of England and Scotland, – (Edinburgh, ), esp. ch. andpp. –; and Jenny Wormald, ‘James VI, James I and the identity of Britain’, in BrendanBradshaw and John Morrill, eds., The British problem, c. – (Basingstoke, ),pp. –.

As is also suggested in James, Poets, players, pp. –, , .




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parliament in for the same purpose becomes a puzzle. Why was this actintroduced and passed? Was it not redundant? Although the earlier orders bythe king and archbishop were not published and may not yet have becomewidely known beyond the clergy and churchwardens, members of parliamentcannot have been unaware of them; Bancroft, Vaughan, and the twenty-threeother bishops present in the House of Lords could have enlightened thepeers and MPs. (It is not known why the act contained no reference to theTuesday prayers and sermons, nor why, as with the order of the king andBancroft, the example of a public holiday for Gowrie day was not followed.)

Personal interests may have had some part. Sir Edward Montagu, the MP whodrafted the parliamentary bill and introduced it in the House of Commons on January , had angered the king early in by taking a leading part inthe ‘Northamptonshire petition’ on behalf of ‘godly’ clergymen facing suspen-sion or deprivation for refusing to subscribe to the new church canons.Montagu might have wanted to consolidate his recent recovery of royalfavour. In a ‘learned and religious speech’ introducing the bill, he used thesame comparison of the discovery of the plot with God’s mercies towardsNoah that the king had made when addressing parliament on November.

But as the subject of the petition indicates, his motives were certainlybroader: he was a zealous puritan and anti-Catholic, as were many of his alliesand the bill’s keenest supporters in the Commons. Sir Francis Hastings, aveteran campaigner against Catholics as well as the organizer of theNorthamptonshire petition, for which he had entirely lost the king’s confi-dence, was particularly prominent. For these MPs, a parliamentary act foran anniversary thanksgiving would have seemed integral to their efforts toobtain firmer enforcement of existing legislation and the passage of new mea-sures against Catholic recusants, which they had wanted since James’s accessionbut which he had avoided, and which now, in the aftermath of a spectacularCatholic plot, they had the opportunity to obtain, and to do so in ostentatiousloyalty to the king. During the previous two days, several had been active in ini-tiating anti-Catholic bills or been appointed to a committee to consider both the‘better execution of penal statutes’ and ‘the preservation of the King’s Majesty’sperson’. In accordance with their aims, the act for the thanksgivings spread

LJ, II, pp. – (, Jan. ). Diana Newton, The making of the Jacobean regime: James VI and I and the government of England,

– (Woodbridge, ), ch. ; Esher S. Cope, The life of a public man: Edward, first baronMontagu of Boughton, – (Philadelphia, PA, ), pp. –.

Journals of the House of Commons (London, – ) (CJ), I, p. ; The parliamentary diary ofRobert Bowyer, –, ed. David Harris Willson (Minneapolis, MN, ), p. ; King James:political writings, ed. Sommerville, p. .

Ten of the twenty members of the committee to consider Montagu’s draft (listed in CJ, I,p. ) were obvious puritans: see their biographies in The history of parliament: the House ofCommons, –, ed. Andrew Thrush and John Ferris ( vols., Cambridge, ), III;and for Hastings, see also Newton, Making of the Jacobean regime, pp. –.

CJ, I, pp. –.




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the blame for the plot beyond the ‘certain’ recusants and priests in Bancroft’sletter to ‘many malignant and deuilish Papists, Jesuits and Seminary Priestes’.

The requirement that the act was to be read out during the annual serviceswould assert a stronger anti-Catholic presentation of the plot than the king’smilder and narrower interpretation. Yet notwithstanding these puritan initia-tives, the bill was not treated as ‘partisan’ or troublesome by other MPs: theyreceived it with ‘great applause’, and the speaker expedited its secondreading and referral to a committee. After all, the two houses of parliamenthad also been targets for the conspirators, and the act presented the plot asaimed as much against parliament as it was against the king and his family,more particularly because of its earlier anti-Catholic legislation – as the placewhere ‘sundry necessary and Religious Lawes for preseruation of the Churchand State were made, which [the plotters] falsly and slanderously terme,Cruel Lawes, enacted against them and their Religion’. A further outcomeof the act would be a firm public understanding that the thanksgiving serviceswere established (or endorsed) by parliament, rather than by (or just by) theking and the bishops. The introduction and passage of the act of parliamentare best regarded as an expression of disagreements over religious policies,and even about the appropriate authority in religious matters.

The king and his ministers evidently judged it best to accept the principle ofthe bill and to be accommodating towards its supporters, rather than risk irrita-tion by explaining that the king’s existing order made it unnecessary. Onceaccepted in this sense, they probably welcomed the effect of the bill, inmaking attendance at thanksgiving services a matter of statute law as well asroyal order and ecclesiastical injunction, and so enforceable in the secularcourts. The Commons committee that recommended support for the billincluded a privy councillor, John Herbert (the second secretary of state) andthe solicitor-general, Sir John Doderidge, with two further associates of theroyal court – and after a vote, the Commons resolved that Herbert ratherthan Montagu should lead the submission of the bill to the House of Lords,in effect making it an ‘official’ measure. But the bill did not pass withoutsome hitches: the committee sat for longer than expected, and on Januaryit reported that the text had been amended ‘not only in Circumstance, but inSubstance’, although why and how is not known. This may have been amatter of pruning Montagu’s unduly verbose draft. It might have related tosome proposed content for the church services or to their authorization,

Act for a publique thankesgiuing, p. . Hoby to Edwardes, Feb. , in [Birch], Court and times of James the first, I, p. ; CJ, I,

p. ; Parliamentary diary of Bowyer, ed. Willson, p. . Act for a publique thankesgiuing, pp. –. Parliamentary diary of Bowyer, ed. Willson, p. ; Cope, Life of a public man, p. . CJ, I, pp. , , ; Parliamentary diary of Bowyer, ed. Willson, pp. –, , ; Cope, Life of

a public man, pp. –. The bill was sent on January to the House of Lords, which gave itformal readings (without changes) on the th and th: LJ, II, pp. , , .




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which the council would have discouraged, as a matter which came within theroyal prerogative. Or it may have been concerned with statements about theking, which the council would have desired. The final text included extravagantpraise of James and his production of children as bringing stability to therealm, and it followed the official accounts of the plot in attributing its discov-ery to the king being inspired with ‘a divine spirit’.

The addition of the act of parliament to the order by James and Bancroft didhave one important effect: it helped to secure the persistence of Gunpowdertreason day. The thanksgivings on Gowrie day, no doubt assisted by the provi-sion of a holiday, were initially popular in England, judging by the rapid pur-chases of the form of prayer and the extent of annual bell-ringing recordedin churchwardens’ accounts. Yet even though this thanksgiving day was, likethat on November, ordered ‘for all posterity’ – as a perpetual observance –it ceased with James’s death in , in both England and Scotland. Onereason for the continuation of Gunpowder treason day is that unlike Gowrieday, it had been established by statute in England and Wales. Otherreasons, and further contrasts with Gowrie day, are that parliament and notjust the king were the intended victims, and especially that it was an anti-Catholic occasion, and so had wide, enduring, and renewable significance.The English parliament’s participation in ordering the observance gainedfurther relevance after , when war between Catholic and Protestantpowers broke out in continental Europe; during the early s, when theking’s son sought a marriage alliance with a Catholic princess; through thes, when Laudian leaders of the church were accused of popish tendencies,and once again after the Catholic rebellion in Ireland in . Gunpowdertreason day repeatedly acquired new momentum as an occasion for many toexpress criticism of royal policies, and for others to demonstrate loyalty to theking. It continued under the parliamentary, Commonwealth, andCromwellian regimes – as a day for special sermons, without use of the formof prayer – despite their disapproval of other anniversaries, even those in the

‘[T]he most great, learned and Religious King that euer raigned…, enriched with a mosthopefull and plentiful Progenie, proceeding out of his Royal loynes, promising continuance of[the kingdom’s] happiness and [its religious] profession to all posteritie’: Act for a publique than-kesgiuing, pp. –.

This is clear from the disappearance of the thanksgiving from English churchwardens’accounts and episcopal visitation enquiries, and from Scottish burgh and church records. Noorders for its discontinuance seem to have been issued; it was evidently regarded as personalto James, not as a celebration of the Stuart dynasty.

In Scotland, the Gowrie anniversary had been established by an act of parliament, butCharles I issued no Scottish order for its continuance; in contrast, although Gunpowdertreason day had not been ordered by the Scottish parliament, he did in order its continu-ance. The difference may have been a strong awareness of the English act at the court inLondon, connected with renewed efforts to achieve greater consistency between the Englishand Scottish churches.




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Christian calendar. As it also remained a royalist occasion, a full revival of thethanksgiving, with a revised form of prayer, was part of the Restoration settle-ment of the Church of England and the Church of Ireland, and it remainedavailable as an occasion for new expressions of anti-Catholic agitation duringthe Exclusion crisis, after the revolution, and as late as the ‘papal aggres-sion’ in .

APPENDIX

Editorial conventions: The transcriptions retain the spelling, capitalization, andpunctuation of the original text. Abbreviations have been expanded. ForDocument B, an interpolation derived from other copies is made. Further var-iations in these other texts (except for minor differences in spelling) are givenin footnotes. Line numbers have been added, in order to assist the discussion inthe main text of the article; <brackets> indicate material that is crossed out.

D O CUMENT A

Richard Vaughan, bishop of London, to John Bill, archdeacon of St Albans, November , Hertfordshire Archives and Library Services, ASA //,p. .

lines After my hartie Comendaciones. It hath pleased god to worke soe

mercifully for our moste gratious Soueraigne Kinge and the wholeState of Parliament in discoveringe the moste barbarous and trecherouspractize that ever was devised to have destroyed both our kinge and the

estates of this Realme assembled in parliament for the which we cannever shewe any sufficient dutifull thanckfulnes vnto our heavenlyFather but onely by prostratinge our selves in prayer & thanckesgivinge for this his blessed discoverie and preventinge of the same.There beinge Certayne prayers by publicke aucthoritie nowe sett

forthe to that end and Comaunded to be vsed in everie parisheChurche through owte the whole Realme at all tymes of Commonprayer. Theis are to requiere you that forth with you Cawse with allthe speede you Can the said booke of prayer and thanckes givingeto be sent to everie particuler Churche to be vsed by the minister

thereat with in your Jurisdiction at all tymes of Common prayer. Andthereof requiringe you not to fayle I bidd you farewell From myPallace at London this viiith of November

Your lovinge freind/ Ric: London:

For divergent interpretations of the anniversary yet shared commitment to its observancefrom to the s, see Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. –, –.




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DOCUMENT B

Richard Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, to Richard Vaughan, bishop ofLondon, November , as communicated in Vaughan to John Jegon,bishop of Norwich, November , in ‘Collectanea sive RegistrumVagum continenta fragmenta consuta tangentis episcopale egotium temporereverend in Christo patria, domini Johannis Jegon, Episcopi Norwicensis, col-lecta par Anthonium Harison, notorium publicum, clericum’, Norwich dio-cesan archives, Norfolk Record Office, DN/HAR , fos. r–r.

lines Salutem in Christo. It is not vnknowne vnto your Lordship what a

trayterous plott [for the murtheringe of his maiestie] was laide bythe Earle of Gowry and his brethren to haue byn put in executionvpon a tuesday the vth of August whilest his Maiestie was in Scotland

and howe miraculouslie (his highness beinge trayned craftilie to thesaid Earle his house throughlie prouided for such a mischiefe)

vpon the said tuisdaye it pleased Almightie God of his infinitemercie, not onelie to deliuer his sacred person from this danger but(as an argument of godes wrathe against all traytors) to caste bothe

the Earle and his Brethren that daye into the same Gulfe of destruction<s> which they had barbarouslie prepared against their Soueraigne./Alsoe I am well assured that your Lordship hath heard of the neuerbefore heard of villanie amongest the moste savage miscreantes that<the> euer the earth did beare contrived by certaine gentlemen

Recusantes and popishe preistes, to haue bynn putt in execution vponthe tuisdaye beinge the vth daye of this instante moneth of November,by gunpowder, which they had laid secretlie vnder the vpper house ofParliament, to haue blowne vpp at one blast the Kinge the Queenethe Prince the Lordes and the cheife gentlemen of England

Knightes & Burgesses of the lower house of Parliament, all appointedto waite that daye vponn his Maiestie in the said vpper house, andconsequentlie by that one vnspeakeable bloudie acte to haueoverthrowne the true worshipp of god in this kingdome, and to

This phrase is included in the letter to Archdeacon Bill in HALS (initially omitted, butadded, by the same hand, above the line), and in the copy in the Chaderton register. Thecopy in the Tanner MSS follows the Registrum text in not having the phrase.

Brackets also given in the Tanner copy (though beginning at ‘beinge’), but not in theHALS letter or Chaderton copy.

The copy in the Tanner MSS has ‘dyd beare’; the Chaderton copy omits ‘did’ and has‘bare’.

The Tanner copy omits ‘the’. The Tanner copy omits ‘the’. The Chaderton copy omits ‘bloudie’.




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haue made the whole land a praye to forreyners and strangers. And how the holie Ghost did soe illuminate his Maiesties hart and

vnderstandinge in the expoundinge of certaine darke speeches in aletter written to a noble man, as that, by his direction, the gunpowder,prepared as is aforesaid, was discovered vponn the said Tuisdayebetwixt the houres of one and two of the clocke in the morning

at what time alsoe a cheife traytor one Faulx, (that should haue settthe gunpowder on fyer) was taken, vponn whose examination someof the principall Traytors beinge discouered, God hath deliueredmanie of them togeither with their Complices and a bettors into hisMaiesties handes. In remembraunce of all which infinite mercies of

the Allmightie extended soe plentifullie both towardes his Church,the kinges Maiestie and this whole Iland of great Britayne, it is hismaiesties pleasure and commandement that as vponn the vth ofAugust euerie yeare (which is still to be continued) soe vpon the vth

of November there shalbe yearelie thanksgivinge to our heavenlie father the mightie God of our salvation for these most wonderfull

deliuerances and mercies aforesaid, and not that onelie, but in likemanner as his maiestie hath hitherto, and soe <th> still is resolued tosanctifie the remembraunce of such the Lordes most extraordinariebenefittes and mercies everie Tuisday with prayers & thanksgiving

in the publique congregacion: soe it is his highneses will & immutabledirection that all those Sermones, which hitherto vsuallie hauebyn accustomed to be preached in anie Cathedrall, Collegiate orparochiall Churches through out this Realme either vponn thewednesdayes Frydayes or other dayes in the weeke shall from hence

forwardes be preached vponn the tuisdayes, and that the preachersin such their sermons shall from tyme to tyme still move the peopleto prayse & magnifie the name of god for all his said most infinitemercies, blessinges graces and benefittes beseechinge him throughJesus Christ to continue the same not onelie towardes his maiestie

for his safetie, but for the preseruacion of the ghospell amongest vs,and good estate of this Iland with the rest of his Maiesties dominions,Considering that the inveterated malice of the Romishe brood is notyet asswaged, but that they are verie likelie still to persever in theirmischevous, wicked, desperate, most irreligious & traiterous enterprizes,

which wee both by prayer and all other good meanes are carefullie anddiligentlie as we are able to prevente:

Registrum vagum, ed. Barton, I, p. , misread ‘two’ as ‘sixe’. The Chaderton copy has the word ‘day’ written and crossed out here. The HALS text has ‘prayer’.




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Accordinglie therefore to this his maiesties direction, pleasureand commaundement, I doe require your Lordship forthwith to giveorder throughout your whole Diocess for the observacion of the

premisses not doubtinge of your diligence therein and likewiseadvertizinge you, that it is not his maiesties will, that the translatingeof the sermons aforesaid to the tuisdayes should preiudice or hinder theordinarie and publique service of god weeklie vponn the wednesdayesor fridayes but that the same should be diligentlie continued and

obserued accordinge to the orders of the Church and the lawes ofthe Realme in that behalfe prouided. There are two formes of prayeresand thanksgivinge to be vsed yearelie vponn the vth of August and thevth of November as is aforesaid that are alreadie printed and whichyour Lordship is to take order for that everie parishe maye haue one

of them.What I write to your Lordship herein I desire that accordingeto the dutie of your place <doe> you doe forthwith impart vnto the rest ofthe Bishopes of my Prouince as I my selfe will take the like order forthe aduertizinge in manner & forme aboue specified of the Bishops ofthe Prouince of Yorke. And soe with my hartie commendationes vnto

your good Lordship. I comitt you vnto the tuition of all AllmightieGod. At Lambehith the xxixth of November . Your Lordshipslouinge brother R: Cant:

A new paragraph begins here in this text and in the Tanner copy, but not in the HALSletter or Chaderton copy.

Registrum vagum, ed. Barton, I, p. , omitted ‘this’ in his transcription. The Chaderton text has ‘vnto’. The Chaderton text omits ‘the’. This word was initially omitted by the clerk, and then squeezed in. The HALS letter and Chaderton copy have ‘Lambeth’.




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JAMES I AND GUNPOWDER TREASON DAY*

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Transcript of JAMES I AND GUNPOWDER TREASON DAY*