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STEPHEN TAYLOR the Clergy at the Courts of George I and George II

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STEPHEN TAYLOR The Clergy at the Courts of George I and George II in MICHAEL SCHAICH (ed.), Monarchy and Religion: The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 129–151 ISBN: 978 0 19 921472 3 The following PDF is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence. Anyone may freely read, download, distribute, and make the work available to the public in printed or electronic form provided that appropriate credit is given. However, no commercial use is allowed and the work may not be altered or transformed, or serve as the basis for a derivative work. The publication rights for this volume have formally reverted from Oxford University Press to the German Historical Institute London. All reasonable effort has been made to contact any further copyright holders in this volume. Any objections to this material being published online under open access should be addressed to the German Historical Institute London. DOI: 5 The Clergy at the Courts of George I and George II STEPHEN TAYLOR In the years between the Reformation and the revolution of 1688 the court lay at the very heart of English religious life. Court bishops played an important role as royal councillors in matters concerning both church and commonwealth. 1 Royal chaplaincies were sought after, both as important steps on the road of prefer- ment and as positions from which to influence religious policy.2 Printed court sermons were a prominent literary genre, providing not least an important forum for debate about the nature and character of the English Reformation. 3 Moreover, for much of the seventeenth century the physical space of the court witnessed the playing out of the struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism, as the chapels of the Stuart queens and then of James II (1685-8) himself provided an alternative focus to the services of the Chapel Royal. At no time was this conflict more visible than following the refurbishment in 1682-4 of Catherine of Braganza's chapel, which provided a magnificent baroque setting for Catholic ritual at the heart of St James's Palace, over- shadowing the rather less impressive Chapel Royal at Whitehall and confirming for many Englishmen their fears about the advance ofpopery.4 I am grateful to Jennifer Farooq, Ken Fincham, Joanna Innes, Michael Schaich, Hannah Smith, and Andrew Thompson for their advice and comments on earlier versions ofthis essay. 1 See e.g. Kenneth Fmcham, Prelat,e as Pastor: The Episcopat,e efJames I (Oxford, 1990). 2 Nicholas W. S. Cranfield, 'Chaplains in Ordinary at the Early Stuart Court: The Purple Road', in Claire Cross (ed.), PatTonage and Recruitrrumt in the &r!J, Stuart Church (York, 1996), 120-47; Kenneth Fincham, 'William Laud and the Exercise of Caroline Ecclesiastical Patronage', Journal ef E:cclesiastical History, 51 (2000), 6g--g3, at 71--2. 3 Peter E. McCullough, Semwns at CourL· Politus and Religi,Jn in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge, 1998); Lori Anne Ferrell, Government by Polemic: James I, the K"mg's Preachers, and the Rhetoric efCoriform~, 16og-1625 (Stanford, Cali£, 1998). ~ H. M. Colvin,J. Mordaunt Crook, Kerry Downes, and John Newman, The History ef STEPHEN TAYLOR In this context it is possible to argue that the revolution of 1688 represented a triumph for the Church of England. The court was now firmly in its hands. One of the cornerstones of the revolution settlement was the clause in the Bill of Rights (1689) excluding all Catholics, and anyone married to a Catholic, from the succession to the English throne.5 From this time Catholic chapels and Catholic chaplains would no longer play any part in English court life. 6 It is therefore striking that, as will be seen in this essay, in the seventy years after the revolution the court became much less significant as a forum for religious debate and also less important in the careers of the church's leaders. I By the early eighteenth century the clerical establishment of the royal household was fairly well defined. The annual parliamen- tary sessions that had become an established feature of political life after 1688 brought most of the bishops to London each year. 7 A few stayed away from the court-William Wake, for example, commented on his unfamiliarity with it when he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1715.8 But for five or six months of the year it was probably more crowded with bishops than it had been a century earlier. However, only three of their number were regarded by contemporaries as 'Court Prelates'.9 These were the holders of long-established offices-Dean of the the King's Works, v. 1660-1782 (London, 1976), 244-54; D.J. P. Baldwin, 'The Politico- Religious Usage of the Queen's Chapel, 1623-1688' (M.Litt. dissertation, University of Durham, 1999). 5 Andrew Browning (ed.), English Historical Docu111£nts, viii. 1660-1714 (London, 1953), 127-8. 6 With the exception of Somerset House, which was established as the residence of Catherine of Braganza, the queen dowager, in 1685, and where a Catholic chapel remained, under the terms of her marriage treaty, until her death in 1707. In 17IO Queen Anne gave Bishop John Robinson lodgings in the palace, 'with leave to convert the popish chapel there for the use of the Church of England'. Colvin et al., History ef the King's Works, 257, 258 n. 5. 7 Between the revolution and 1717, Convocation also brought the bishops of the Southern Province to London, though its sittings coincided with those of parliament. 8 Norman Sykes, 'Archbishop Wake and the Whig Party: A Study in Incompatibility of Temperament', Cambridge Historical Journal, 8 (1945), 93-112, at 97. 9 The phrase is a contemporary one. See British Library, London (henceforth BL), Lansdowne MS 1018, fo. 7: R. Reynolds to W. Kennett, 24 Sept. 1723. The Archbishop of Canterbury was not regarded as a court bishop. The Clergy at the Courts of George I and II r3r Chapel, Lord Almoner, and Clerk of the Closet-which required their attendance there. The post of Lord Almoner was arguably the most influential, giving easy access to the king himself, but it was also the most onerous, requiring the preach- ing of eight or nine sermons a year. 10 In reality, court office of itself brought little influence over religious policy. Both Richard Willis, Bishop of Winchester and Clerk of the Closet from 1723 to 1734, and Lancelot Blackburne, Bishop of Exeter and Lord Almoner from 1723 to 1743, were marginalized politically, while the dominance of Edmund Gibson as 'Church Minister' 11 from 1723 to 1736 owed little to his position as Dean of the Chapel and everything to his close relationship with the king's ministers, Robert Walpole and Charles, Viscount Townshend. Next in importance were the forty-eight Chaplains in Ordinary, whose prime duty was to preach before the king, four of them serving each month.12 These posts were unpaid and were generally filled by rising or aspiring clergymen. In contrast to the early seventeenth century, however, almost no Chaplains Extraordinary were appointed during the reigns of the first two Georges. 13 It had become an established principle that chaplains would resign on their promotion to bishoprics-indeed, for the first ten years of George Il's reign (1727-60) they also commonly resigned on promotion to deaneries. 14 In addition, between 1727 and her death in 1737, Queen Caroline had her own Clerk of the Closet, a post conferring a status similar to that of royal chap- lain, while not much inferior were the deputies appointed by the 10 St Andrews University Library, MS 5180: E. Gibson to Lord Carteret, 4 Sept. 1723. 11 St Andrews University Library, MS 5203: E. Gibson to Roben Walpole [Dec. 1727/Jan. 1728]. 12 The appointments of royal chaplains for the reigns of George I and George II are recorded in the Lord Chamberlain's books: The National Archives, Kew (hencefonh TNA), LC 3/63-66. For the years between the Restoration and the end of Anne's reign, it is more difficult to construct a definitive list of chaplains, as each Lord Chamberlain appears to have kept a list of chaplains at the beginning of his period of office which was subsequently annotated with changes. I am very grateful to Sir John Sainty for drawing my attention to this source and providing me with a draft list of royal chaplains between 1715 and 176o. 13 Only one Chaplain Extraordinary was appointed during the reigns of George I and George II:John D'Oyley on 13Jan. 1731. By contrast, a list of 1641 reveals that there were 107 Chaplains Extraordinary. TNA LC 3/64, p. 218; Cranfield, 'Chaplains in Ordinary', 127. 14 An order to this effect was issued on the accession of George II in 1727. David Baldwin, The Chapel Rl!)lal Ancient and Modern (London, 1990), 266. 132 STEPHEN TAYLOR Lord Almoner and Clerk of the Closet. Below them existed a kind of court clerical proletariat, so described because there is no evidence that any of them were promoted to royal chaplaincies or to any of the valuable preferments in the gift of the crown: the Sub-Dean of the Chapel Royal, eight Priests in Ordinary (four of whom were in residence at any one time), a 'Confessor, or Household Chaplain' at the main royal residence, household chaplains at Kensington and Hampton Court, and two 'Reading-Chaplains' at Whitehall. 15 These were the people who actually performed the routine of morning and evening prayer in the various chapels of the royal palaces.
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