SIR ROBERT HARLEY, K.B., (1579-1656) AND THE 'CHARACTER' OF A PURITAN

EALES

IN February 1621 Thomas Shepherd caused a furore in the House of Commons hy attacking the bill Mbr the Punishment of divers Abuses on the Sabaoth-day' at its second reading. It was, he said 'very inconvenient and indiscreete' and 'it savours of the spirrit of a Puritan', and he called Walter Earle, who had preferred the bill, a 'perturbator of the Peace \^ The Commons were so scandalized that Shepherd was ordered to withdraw from the debating chamber, and his angry outburst and high words were widely reported, both in parliamentary diaries"^ and by men who were not members of the Parliament. In a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador in the Hague, his correspondent John Chamberlain noted ' yesterday one Shepheard, a lawier, was throwne out of the house and disabled for euer beeing there, for a speach the day before against a bill concerning the sabaoth, wherin girding and glauncing at the , and seeking to make them ridiculous, him self grew foolish and profane'. In a draft letter to Sir Horace Vere, who was commanding the English volunteer force in the Palatinate, the gentleman. Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Bryan, recorded that 'one Shepharde, a lawyer that was of the lower house, made an Intemp[er]at speech ag[ain]st a bill, \v[hi]ch was to restraine the profanatio[n] of the sabboth, & Inveyed w[i]th some bitter[ncs]s ag[ain]st puritanes sayinge that there were many snares to catch poore pa[pists], but not so much as a mouse trap to catch a puritane. Whereupon the house put hym out, & because I think the p[ar]liament will not proceede to define a Puritane, I take the bouldness to present y[ou]r Lo[rdshi]p w[i]th his Caracter, w[hi]ch bill if it should pass the lower house, the upper would never lett it come to the hassard of receauing Royall assent. '•* Sir Robert's interest in this incident is underscored by his own uncompromising stance on strict observance of the Sabbath. He supported the Sabbath Bill that was introduced in the 1628 Parliament and nearly three decades later the congregation at his funeral was told how Sir Robert, in his capacity as a magistrate, would 'vindicate the Sabbath from contempt. Prophannesse durst not appear upon the face of it, by this means the Congregations were frequented on the Lords dayes, and many thousand soules, prevented from their sinfull sports, sate under the droppings of the word."* Although he was clearly concerned to see the passage of the Sabbath Bill in 1621, Harley was also alarmed by Shepherd's invective against puritans and as an 134 Fig. I. Sir Robert Harley. Engraving by George Vertue, after the miniature by P. Oliver. By courtesy of the Trustees of the Brtttsh Museum accompaniment to his letter to Vere, he also drafted some rough notes in which he set out his own definition of a puritan.^ Harley was obviously well aware that many of his contemporaries would have regarded him as a puritan and his notes constitute a defensive summary of some of his own religious attitudes. His sympathetic use of the term is in itself highly revealing, for in general it was a word that carried connotations of stigma and abuse; contemporary usage was at times so imprecise that some historians have seen fit to outlaw its use as a meaningful analytical tool altogether. As Patrick CoUinson has perceptively observed, for the historian ' there is Httle point in constructing elaborate statements defining what, in ontological terms, Puritanism was and what it was not, when it was not a thing definable in itself, but only one half of a stressful relationship'.^ Sir Robert Harley's description, or as he himself termed it 'Character', of a puritan presents us with an incomparable insight into the dynamics of that relationship at a point in time when, it might be argued, the tensions between puritanism and the Church establishment had reached a peaceful watershed, marking a lull between the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean drive against non-conformity and the anti-Calvinist backlash engineered by the Arminians from the mid- onwards. Nicholas Tyacke has observed that 'Calvinist doctrine provided a common and ameliorating bond that was only to be destroyed by the rise of ', and as a result the 'non-conformist element in the former Calvinist partnership was driven into an unprecedented radicalism'. In this context it is notable that Harley made no mention

135 in his notes of the doctrine of predestination, which was central to the puritan view of the elect, those chosen by God for salvation, as a beleaguered minority assailed on all sides by the efforts of the Devil and the reprobate to tempt them to sin. When he wrote his description, however, differing interpretations of the doctrine of predestination remained primarily an issue of clerical debate. It was not until the publication in 1624 of Richard Montagu's A Gagg for the New Gospel? No. A New Gaggfor an Old Goose, that the Arminian attempt to equate predestinarian beliefs with puritanism reached a wider lay audience and aroused the wrath of a vociferous band of M.P.s in the Parliament of that year.' Sir Robert Harley's pen-portrait of 1621 displays instead the characteristic puritan stress on a scrupulous conscience, combined with a reliance on scriptural guidance in religious matters, which formed the basis of the non-conformist argument against a wide range of ceremonial and symbolic practices. Sir Robert's description of a puritan is thus highly personalized, although he was clearly following the literary genre of the Theophrastan ' Character', which had only recently been popularized in English with the publication in 1608 of 's Characters of Vertues and Vices.^ The subsequent appearance in 1614 of a collection of'many witty Characters' written by Sir Thomas Overbury and 'other learned Gentlemen his friends', which entered its tenth impression in 1618, marked the beginning of a vogue for satirical characterizations that was to retain its popularity throughout the seventeenth century.^ In using the tightly argued framework of the 'Character', which was conventionally a few hundred words in length, in order to display the positive nature of puritanism, Harley was inverting a literary form which was increasingly associated with irony and sarcasm. Yet Harley's own 'Character' does not attempt to refute popular anti-puritan stereotypes, such as the puritan's supposed hypocrisy (and in particular the sexual hypocrisy), which playwrights such as Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Freeman exploited to such comic effect and which formed the background to numerous ballads and other anonymous works, both of verse and prose, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.^** The Overburian collection, which was undoubtedly known to Harley, contained the character of a puritan, whose 'greatest care is to contemne obedience, his last care to serve God handsomely and cleanely'. This picture of the puritan as an opponent of order in the Church was commonplace and increasingly spilt over into the political sphere, where puritans were commonly branded as enemies of peaceful government and even of specific policies of the Crown.'^ These were accusations that Harley did take pains to reject, but there remains an unresolved tension in his description. On the one hand he presents a picture of an individual who is obedient, 'willing to obey all law com[m]ands', who 'Honors & obeyes' his superiors and 'esteemes' the civil magistrate, and, on the other, reveals a strong undercurrent of dissent, revolving specifically around the rejection of the use of the sign of the cross in baptism. ^^ These ambiguities should perhaps cause no surprise, since these notes are very clearly a first draft. In writing to Vere, Sir Robert was addressing a close friend, whose religious views were very near to his own and who would have appreciated the need to tone down the more radical aspects of the characterization, lest it fall into the wrong hands. It is accordingly a remarkable 136 document - a self-conscious, approving description of a puritan by a leading godly gentleman. In his draft Sir Robert dwelt partly on traditional matters of puritan discontent, which were not in themselves overly controversial, such as the problems of non-preaching and non-resident clergy, as well as addressing more contentious issues. The role of the preacher as the channel for the word of God was of central importance to the godly and in her commonplace book Lady Brilliana Harley noted that 'the markes of the true Chruch [sic] is the pure preaching of the word of God'; while to Harley the 'Dumbe Minister' was like 'a drie nurse, not able to feede god's childre[n]'.^"^ Puritan pressure for a trained preaching ministry did make an impact at the highest levels and at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 King James himself had promised to 'plant preachers'. Recent research on the Jacobean episcopate has revealed many of the Bishops to have been frequent preachers, yet despite such official sanction for preaching some places remained poorly served in the years before the Civil War. Harley's home county, Herefordshire, was one of the areas which Christopher Hill has depicted as 'the dark corners of the land' in this respect. An official report drawn up for the King in 1603 shows that there were 313 parishes in the , which covered the whole of Herefordshire, southern and part of Worcestershire, but within the diocese there were only eighty-one licensed preachers. In 1615 Bishop Bennet of Hereford introduced what Fincham describes as 'an extensive scheme of vocational training' for the diocesan clergy. ^^ Yet, a quarter of a century later the local puritans still regarded the lack of preachers as an acute problem and in 1641 a survey drawn up for the by Stanley Gower, the Harleys' rector at Brampton Bryan, alleged that in the whole county of Herefordshire 'there are in some hundreds one, in some none, in all but 20 constant and conscionable preachers, & yet it is to be feared that there are more in this county than are to be found in all the 13 shires of , upon which it bordereth'. The issue of non-residency was similarly one on which puritans and the Church hierarchy could agree, but where again the godly felt that little was being done by the authorities to alleviate the problems involved. In his 'Character' Harley de- nounced the non-resident clergyman as a 'profane wretch' and Gower's survey of 1641 indicates that roughly ten per cent of the parishes in Herefordshire were without a resident incumbent. ^^ Sir Robert's concern to see a resident, preaching clergy is reflected in his choice of ministers for his home parish of Brampton Bryan. The living was held by Thomas Pierson, a scholar from Emmanuel College, from 1612 until his death in 1633, when he was replaced by Stanley Gower, a former chaplain to Archbishop Ussher of Armagh. Both men were non-conformists, who altered the prayer book service to their own liking, refused to wear the surplice and omitted using the sign of the cross in baptism. These were all practices of clerical non-conformity which can be traced back to the earliest days of the English Reformation, and which were based on the argument that modes of worship not explicitly warranted by scripture were the invention of Man and were to be resisted as superstitious.^^ Sir Robert's characterization of a puritan clearly endorsed a model of the evangelical, 137 non-conformist minister, which conformed to the type of cleric which he consistently chose tor his home living of Brampton, but it also goes much further in its criticism of the established Church. The first of the two passages from the Bible cited at the head ot the 'Character' (2 Chronicles 34: 3), describes King Josiah's 'purge' of Judah and Jerusalem, when 'the kerved images and molte[n] images' were removed 'from the hie places, and the groues'. The marginal gloss in the Geneva Bible, the version which Harley would almost certainly have used, adds that 'at twentie yere olde' Josiah 'abolished idolatrie and restored ye true religion'. Opposition to religious images stemmed not only from their obvious connection with Roman Catholicism, but was also predicated upon a deep-rooted revulsion for their powerful appeal to the senses. Their visual attraction enslaved the intellect and the spirit, and subordinated the human mind to the animalistic bodily responses of the eye. The denunciation of images and the fear ot image-worship thus tapped a rich seam of aversion to the sensual impact of icons, whilst also defining and clarifying both the falsity and the corruption of the Catholic taith.^* Harley's oblique reference in the 'Character' to the need to further true religion by rooting out idolatry was accompanied by a strikingly direct attack on the Church hierarchy, which similarly emphasized his belief that the English Church still stood in need of major reforms in ibzi. When Sir Robert drafted his 'Character' of a puritan he was in his early forties and had already built a reputation as a patron of godliness and godly ministers. In 1619 the newly appointed Bishop of Hereford, Francis Godwin, had written to him, commending him for his 'respect unto schollers & good zeale to religio[n]'. Amongst his godly contacts in the ministry Harley could number , the lecturer at St Anne's, Blackfriars, of Rotherhithe and James Ussher, the future Archbishop of Armagh, who was a protege of Lady Vere. By the start of the Long Parliament in No\ ember 1640 his fame as a promoter of godliness stretched throughout the and the Welsh border counties, from Lancashire and Cheshire, to the four English marcher counties of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucester- shire, and into Wales itself ^^ The Harley family did not, however, have a strong tradition of protestant belief Sir Robert's grandfather, John Harley, had stubbornly refused to give up his Catholic beliefs, dying excommunicate in 1582. Sir Robert's father, Thomas, was no Catholic, but the lack of religious sympathy between father and son is reflected in Sir Robert's later claim to Bishop Bennet that he had been bred 'vulgo difficilts\^^ The major godly individuals in Sir Robert's early life were most probably his mother, Margaret Corbet of Moreton Corbet in Shropshire, and his tutor at Oriel College, Cadwallader Owen. Margaret Corbet came from a family where the practices of the reformed religion were openly encouraged under the guidance of the non-conformist minister William Axton, but Margaret's influence on her son was cut short by her early death and it was not until 1597, at the age of seventeen, that Harley was exposed to wider godly influences at University. After two years at Harley went on to study at the Middle Temple, where he remained until at least February 1603, in which month he married for the first time. His 138 wife Ann, daughter of Charles Barrett of Belhouse, , was a granddaughter of Sir Walter Mildmay, the founder of the famed puritan seminary Emmanuel College, . This marriage did not last long, as ten months later Ann died in childbirth. Less is known about the religious inclinations of Sir Robert's second wife, Mary Newport of High Ercall in Shropshire, who died in 1622, but in 1623 Sir Robert married Brilliana Conway, whose religious beliefs are extremely well documented.^*' The marriage was promoted by Lady Mary Vere, Brilliana's maternal aunt, the wife of Sir Horace, who was herself renowned for her godliness and her contacts with a wide circle of puritan ministers including John Dod, Vicar of Fawsley, and William Ames, an exile in the Netherlands."^^ Brilliana's father. Secretary Conway, possessed powerful court connections through his association with the Duke of Buckingham and in the 1620s was increasingly associated with the innermost counsels of King James and later of King Charles. His position at Court undoubtedly helped to raise Harley's status in his home county, which had also benefited greatly from the acquisition of the dowries from his three marriages. There were also more personal reasons for Sir Robert's decision to marry Brilliana, above all a deep rehgious sympathy between the couple.^"^ Lady Brilliana recorded her own religious beliefs in her commonplace book, dating from 1622, and in a remarkable series of almost four hundred letters written between the time of her marriage in 1623 and her death in 1643. Approximately half of these letters were addressed to her eldest son, Edward, and were published by the Camden Society in 1854. The majority of the rest were addressed to Sir Robert Harley and, although some of these were calendared by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, they have never been published in full. These sources reveal a striking afl[inity between Lady Brilliana's religious views and those of her husband."^^ The evidence for Sir Robert's religious outlook is rather different from the personal documents that we have for Lady Brilliana. None of the letters he sent to Lady Brilliana during the course of their marriage survive, although he clearly wrote to her on numerous occasions, and there is no commonplace book. A number of draft letters are preserved, such as the one addressed to Sir Horace Vere, described above, and a series to Sir Edward Herbert, later Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in which Harley defended his predestinarian beliefs.^* His parliamentary speeches provide much information about his public religious concerns, but his private religious thoughts are most clearly revealed in his 'Character' of a puritan. As has been noted, Harley's use of the word puritan to describe his own beliefs is unusual, for as Owen Felltham observed in 1628, ' I find many that are called Puritans; yet few or none that will own the name'.'" One of the few contemporary examples of the positive use of the word is to be found in the anonymous poem The Interpreter, published in 1622, in which the author provides his audience with the characters of a puritan, a protestant and a papist and is at pains to point out that the use of these terms had changed and now they 'haue other senses then they had before'. The puritan is characterized as 'the sound protestant', who is loyal to the King, endorses a militantly protestant foreign policy against the forces of Spain and the Pope, and 139 speaks his mind in Parliament, where he stands firm for 'the lawes and truth'. The protestant is denoted as a formalist, who 'makes within his heart God of the King', who thinks the Elector Palatine was misled in his intervention in Bohemia, who swims with the stream 'and wisely shunnes every extreame', who is 'an indifferent man, that with all faiths, or none, hold quarter' and is 'no true subject, but a Slaue'. Finally, the papist IS shown in his true colours as a traitor, an agent of foreign powers, who would 'murther the King' and is 'Spayne's subiect and a Romish slaue'.^^ The puritan is thus portrayed as the patriotic citizen, who displays a clearly defined set of anti-Catholic values, which are the counterpart of his stand against corruption in the State. The poem deals in stereotypes, but its insistence that there had been a shift in the definition of a puritan is worth noting. The reign of King James had seen a withdrawal from the later Ehzabethan policy of aid, albeit very limited aid, to continental Protestant communities. Those who continued to advocate such a policy were increasingly stigmatized as puritans by the supporters of rapprochement with Spain and, by the last months of his reign, the link between puritanism and opposition to royal policies was sufficiently commonplace for John Davenport, the curate at St Lawrence Jewry, to reject the imputation of puritanism in a letter to Secretary Conway, 'if by puritanically aflfected, he meant one, that secretly encourageth men in opposition to the present Government'.'"^ A slightly later parallel to Sir Robert Harley's acceptance of the term puritan is to be found in the writings of Thomas Scott, M.P. for Canterbury in 1624 and 1628. Commenting on a manuscript drawn up in the late 1620s, Richard Cust has noted that Scott's 'readiness to use the term "puritan" to describe his own viewpoint is one of the more striking features of the treatise, and already suggests the extent to which Scott viewed the broader political perspective in terms of division and polarisation'.^^ Similar!), Sir Robert Harley's puritanism led him to a polarized view of national and international politics, and in the early his adherence to Parliament in the struggle against the Crown would be manifested primarily in terms of his religious opposition to the Stuart regime. The Harlcys were the only major gentry family in Herefordshire to give their whole- hearted support to the parliamentarian cause, and they were also the only leading family in the county who were puritans. In this respect it is instructive to compare Sir Robert with another member of the Herefordshire county elite. Viscount Scudamore of Holme Lacy, who was a moderate royalist during the First Civil War of 1642-6. Before the meeting of the Long Parliament Harley and Scudamore frequently acted together in their capacities as Justices and Deputy Lieutenants in Herefordshire and they both sat as M.P.s for the county in the Parliament of 1624. The two men were also linked on a more personal level, as their families were related through intermarriage into the Croft family, and in 1623 Scudamore acted as a trustee to the marriage settlement of Sir Robert and Brilliana Conway.^^ Yet the contacts between Harley and Scudamore centred largely on official matters, most probably because of the huge gulf between their religious attitudes. In the 1630s 140 Scudamore was responsible for the refurbishment of the parish church of Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, where stained glass, a railed altar and a rood screen were erected. This was a part of what Collinson has termed the 'extreme revision of religious aesthetics which we connect with the anti-Calvinist reaction of Arminianism'. The decorations at Abbey Dore found their counterparts in the rood screens and other carved work introduced by John Cosin at Brancepeth, Sedgefield and Durham Cathedral, and in the lavish imagery with which he decked out the chapel at Peterhouse, Cambridge.^"^ The religious differences which are discernible between Harley and Scudamore also affected their relative usefulness to the Crown in the later 1620s and 1630s, when Court favour was increasingly extended to the Arminians and their sympathisers. Sir Robert was clearly isolated from the Court after the death of his patron and father-in-law. Viscount Conway, in 1631, and in 1635 he finally lost his position as Master of the Mint without compensation. His lack of religious sympathy with the Court was clearly a major factor in his loss of office, and although he continued to act as a J.P. and as a Deputy Lieutenant in the county, it was not until 1643 that he regained his post at the Mint by order of Parhament.^^ Scudamore on the other hand was a friend of and was closely involved in the projects fostered by the ' new counsels', which characterized the reign of Charles I and which were endorsed in the political sermons of clerics such as Matthew Wren, Roger Manwaring, Isaac Bargrave and Robert Sibthorpe. Scudamore acted as a commissioner for the Forced Loan of 1627, and although Harley was also named to the commission for Herefordshire he seems to have avoided taking an active role in the collection of the Loan, perhaps as a means of expressing his discontent with a non- Parliamentary form of taxation, which aroused principled resistance and resulted in the imprisonment of defaulters in other counties. As Master of the Mint Harley was also exempt from payment of the Loan, since this formed one of the perquisites of his office, and this may have helped him to keep a low profile over the Loan. Scudamore's private papers show that in the early 1630s he threw his energies into raising money in Herefordshire for the repair of St Paul's cathedral, a pet project of Laud's, and he also acted as a commissioner for the composition for knighthood. He was obviously seen as a sound ally by the Crown and its advisors and in 1634 was appointed ambassador to France. Once in Paris, Scudamore refused to attend the church services held by the Huguenots, although previous ambassadors had done so. According to Clarendon, he 'furnished his own chapel in his house with such ornaments (as candles upon the communion table and the like) as gave great offence and umbrage to those of the Reformation, who had not seen the like: besides that he was careful to publish upon all occasions by himself, and by those who had the nearest relation to him, that the Church of looked not on the Huguenots as part of their communion. ''^^ In contrast. Sir Robert regarded the plight of the Huguenots as part of the international struggle between the true Protestant Church and its foe. His empathy with the Reformed Churches abroad is further reflected in his energetic efforts to collect money in Herefordshire for the voluntary contribution for the King and Queen of

141 Bohemia m 1620 and by his belief, expressed in his letter to Sir Horace Vere, that the war to recover the Palatinate was essentially a religious conflict, a view which was specifically discouraged by the Crown. Through his friendship with the Veres, Sir Robert was associated with a radical pro-Palatine network of laity and clergy, who advocated an activist pro-war policy on religious grounds. Central to this group were the four Cambridge educated divines William Gouge, Thomas Gataker, Richard Sibbes and Thomas Taylor, all of whom were known to Harley, and who used their sermons and writings to endorse a religious war.^^ These views were shared by the Harleys, who prayed at Brampton in 1624 for 'the good estate of God's church euerywhere. The Defeatinge of ye plotts of all ye enimies of it, The distressed churches of Bohemia, France, ye pallatinate, low countries. In ye k| ing's I Dominions'. Sir Robert kept dated lists of the subjects of the prayers held on this and similar occasions of private prayer, five of which survive, dated between December 1624 and January 1634. The Harleys invariably started by praying for the international Protestant community and for the Churches of Great Britain, and petitioned God 'to rid popery out of the land'. They would also offer thanks for 'the public delivery of the land as in '88' and from 'the powder plot'. Harley had been a Member of Parliament in 1605 when the Gunpowder Plot had been discovered and he was also old enough to remember the Armada scare.^"^ Harley's vision of international politics as the arena in which the tensions between true and false religion were played out was constant until the end of his life, and three days before he died he 'Prayed for the Ruine of Antichrist, for the Churches of God beyond Sea, naming Savoy, Switzerland, Germany'. A month earlier 'Upon the Fifth of November, though very weak, and under great pains, yet he blessed God, for the Great mercy of that Day to the Church, and the Nation, and to himself, who was of the Parliament, when the Powder Plot was intended'. His staunch anti-Catholicism is also reflected in many of his speeches to Parliament in 1624, which reveal that his support for an interventionist policy of war against Spain, in order to recover the Palatinate, was dictated entirely by his religious convictions. In 1624 Harley was thus drawn into the pro-war grouping in Parliament led by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham and he also demanded that steps should be taken against Catholics in England, who were traditionally regarded as a potential source of aid to foreign invaders.^'' At this time royal policy towards the Catholics swayed between relaxation of the penal laws in order to facilitate plans for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to a foreign Catholic princess, and an opposite policy of ordering that the laws be enforced in order to appease public opinion in England. The arrival of Queen and her entourage in the Summer of 1625 sparked off a wave of anti-Catholic debate in the Parliament of that year. In 1626 Harley told the Commons that he believed that there had been 'a growth of popery' in the kingdom; and he would make exactly the same claim at the start of the Long Parliament, when a belief that the King was in the grip of a 'popish' plot was one of the unifying forces of the Parliamentarian party.^^ In the mid-i62os Sir Robert's fears of the evils of Catholicism were reinforced by his 142 antagonism towards the Arminians, who were widely regarded as the agents of Rome, intent on subverting traditional English liberties and introducing foreign, tyrannical rule. During the parliamentary sessions of 1626, 1628 and 1629 Harley joined in the Commons' attempts to censure the writings of Arminian apologists and complained that they would 'introduce popery', citing specifically the writings of Montagu, Thomas Jackson, Cosin, Sibthorpe and Manwaring.'^^ At the start of the 1629 session he specifically insisted that 'our religion' was based not only on the Thirty-nine Articles, but also on the subsequent Lambeth Articles of 1595, the Articles of the Irish Church of 1615 and the Declaration of the Synod of Dort, all of which supported the Calvinist position on predestination much more clearly than the Thirty-nine Articles, but which had been explicitly rejected by the Arminian party at the York House Conference of 1626, with the argument that they had never been legally established in England.^^ The cleft in the Church revealed by the debates on Arminianism in the Parliaments of 1624-9 was heightened in the 1630s by the Crown's continued promotion of Arminian clergy, including Bishops Lindsell and Wren, who were successively, and briefly, appointed to the see of Hereford in 1634. The growing divisions inside the Church were also emphasised in the 1630s by the enforced dissolution of the Feoffees for Impropriations in 1633 ^nd by official moves against individuals who criticised the Church and State. The Feoffees had joined together in 1626 in order to buy up impropriated tithes as funding for lectureships of their own choosing. Harley wholeheartedly endorsed their plans to create adequate stipends for preaching clergy of a certain stamp and in 1633, when the Feoffees were under investigation in the Exchequer court for being an illegal corporation, the Harleys' prayers extended to 'the case for the feoffees'.^^ More pointedly. Sir Robert also gave public support to a number of critics of the Stuart regime in the 1630s. As Master of the Mint he had free access to the Tower of , where the Mint was situated, and in 1633 used this freedom to visit William Prynne, who had recently been imprisoned for his authorship of Histriomastix: The Players Scourge or Actors Tragedy, a diatribe of over 1,000 pages in length aimed at the theatre, in which the Queen's performances in court masques came under oblique fire.*** Harley also publicly encouraged two ministers who were under investigation by the Court of High Commission. He openly accompanied John Stoughton, the lecturer at St Mary's Aldermanbury, when he was summoned to appear at the High Commission Court in Lambeth, and he visited John Workman, a Gloucester lecturer, in the Gatehouse Prison, after he was charged before the High Commission with preaching against dancing and images, and in favour of the election of ministers by the congregation.'^^ Sir Robert's religious views also engaged his sympathy for the Calvinist Scots during the Bishops' War of the late 1630s and he received news about the conflict from various sources, even possessing a Covenanter manifesto, which the English authorities had tried to suppress. This particular document accused the English Arminian churchmen of subverting religion and government in England

143 'encroachcmg & usurpcing upon his Ma[ies]t[y']s prerogative tyranizeing ov[er] the conscietices, goods & estates of p[er]sons of all qualities w[i]thin that kingdome'.^''

It is clear from Lady Brilliana's letters that Harley carried out his official duties in relation to the war, meeting, for example, with his fellow Deputy Lieutenants to choose men from the trained bands to be ready to serve against the Scots. This did not mean that he endorsed the Crown^s policy against the Scots, for war with a Calvinist nation ran counter to the foreign policies he supported throughout the 1620s, when he had advocated aid for the continental Calvinist states. Furthermore, Lady Brilliana was aware that writing about controversial issues was potentially dangerous, and although her letters bear a guarded disapproval of the war, they contain little mention of the Harleys' attitudes towards other major constitutional issues in the later 1630s, such as the collection of Ship Money.^'^ In 1640 Sir Robert was returned for Herefordshire in both the Short and the Long Parliaments, where he was energetically concerned with committees set up to reform the accumulated grievances ofthe '' in both religious and secular affairs. They included the select committee of twenty-four, set up on 10 November to report on the state ofthe kingdom, the committee which considered the powers of and the High Commission and the committee which considered the state of the King's army."*^ In the Long Parliament Harley was also closely associated with a series of public moves intended to reform the established Church and in particular the Church hierarchy. Harley's reservations about episcopacy can be dated as early as 1621, for his 'Character' of a puritan contains strong criticism ofthe notion of a 'Lord' Bishop and also demands 'discipline' according to 'god's worde', a very clear appeal for a system in which powers to exclude the unworthy from church services were vested in the minister and congregation. The Presbyterian movement, which had been influential during the later years of Elizabeth, had largely been dispersed and driven underground by the end of her reign. Yet its principles persisted, particularly amongst the clergy, and in the 1620s and 1630s Harley closely followed the fortunes of a wide circle of clerics, who criticized or resisted the authority of the Bishops, including John Dod, Julines Herring and John Cotton.*^ Amongst Harley's papers there is also a manuscript copy ofthe confession of faith which formed the preamble to the will of Humphrey Fenn, one of the most prominent of the survivors of the Elizabethan Presbyterian movement, who was twice suspended from his ministry by the High Commission in 1584 and 1590, and who died in 1634. His confession was printed in 1641 and may have been circulating amongst the godly in manuscript after his death. In it he confirmed his belief that 'the Pastors, Doctors, ruling Elders, and Deacons w[hi]ch is restored by the reformed Churches, is to bee held Apostolicall, vniversal & vnchangable, and that the Churches of Englande doe sinne againste their heade and onlie Monarche, in their violent opposition therevnto, for the vphoulding of an ambitious, pompous, worldlie praelacie'. Fenn also condemned 'all the ceremonies in question with vs' as 'vnlawfull, either for that they bee touching 144 signes, which in god's worshipp hee onlie may institute, or for that they were originallie superstitious'. He concluded 'yet doe I not thinke it lawfuU for these corruptions to seperate from the com[m]union of the Churche of Englande, if therein a Christian may enioy true doctrine with the Sacraments from a minister able to teache the truth, and when a worshipp[er] of God is not forced by a personall act to approve of these corruptions'.'*^ The question of whether it was legitimate for the godly to be members of the unreformed was an issue which divided puritans such as the Harleys from the more extreme position of the separatists, who took active measures to cut themselves off from the reprobate in gathered churches. In the mid to late 1630s Stanley Gower was asked by a local separatist not to read part of the prayer book service, not to use the sign of the cross in baptism and to exclude 'ignorant people' from the sacrament, 'till they get knowledge, and knowne drunkards & swearers, till they prove Godliness in sobriety (as I believe tis your desiere to doe it long agoe if you might)'. The anonymous writer beseeched Gower 'to doe what you can for us, that wee be not driven to leave o[u]r Native countrey and friends and w[hi]ch is more the stage of Europe, where we are all to [ ?] o[u]r partes in the destruction of the great whore whose kingdome cannot downe among us while wee submit to their B[isho]ps'. The author of this plea clearly assumed that there was a great deal of common ground between his own position and that of Gower and the Harleys, and noted that' I know your heart would reioyce in these courses as much as ours'. Indeed Gower did adapt the prayer book service to his own liking and omitted the sign of the cross. The Harleys also held private days of prayer, fasting and what they termed 'humiliation', when they invited local puritans to worship with them to the exclusion of the ungodly. Yet there was still a great gulf between such gestures of extreme puritan piety and full separation. The anonymous author noted 'submission to the English B[isho]ps in any thing, wee cannot yeeld to, neither in o[u]r selves, nor w[i]thout protesting, in others, espec[ially] o[u]r oflficers, nor can wee owne their excom[m]uni[ca]tion, but reject it as spurious and Antichristian'.^' In the late 1630s it is clear that the Harleys held views very similar to those of Humphrey Fenn and did not take the extreme measure of separating totally from the English Church. As Collinson has pointed out the line between separation and non- separation is very fine, and many individuals crossed the line and some crossed back again. The Harleys, however, saw a clear distinction between their own attitudes and those of the separatists. In late 1640 and early 1641 Sir Robert and his circle of puritan correspondents would undoubtedly have accepted a Church polity which included Bishops with greatly reduced powers. It is obvious from his papers relating to the early months of the Long Parliament that ideas and plans were thrown up piecemeal, as the possibility of removing Bishops from the English Church became an attainable reality for the first time and there was great doubt about how far such reforms could successfully be taken.'** The debates on episcopacy in the Long Parliament were thus subject to delays and prevarications, for this was an issue which was highly divisive both inside Parliament and in the Counties. As early as January 1641 there is evidence that opinions

145 in Herefordshire were sharply divided over the issue of the reform of Church government. The circulation of an anti-episcopal petition had to be abandoned by Sir Robert's puritan associates in the county in the spring of 1641 for lack of general support, and it was not until May 1641 that the 'root and branch' bill calling for the abolition of the Church hierarchy received its first reading in the House of Commons."^^ According to the parliamentary diaries of John More and Sir Simonds D'Ewes, it was Harley who called for the debate on the 'root and branch' bill to continue in committee ot the whole House on 11 June 1641. D'Ewes notes that the decision to press ahead with the commitment of the bill after its second reading was taken at a private meeting the night before attended by Harley, , , and others, including the divine, Stephen Marshall. Yet the bill had little chance of success at this point while the Bishops still wielded their votes in Parliament. In pressing for the debate on episcopacy to go ahead Harley and his colleagues were perhaps doing no more than making a public gesture of commitment to this measure to reassure the godly outside Parliament that they were taking decisive action against the corruptions of the Church hierarchy. The 'root and branch' bill in fact rested in committee and nothing more was done about it after the Summer recess in 1641. In February 1642 King Charles accepted the bill excluding the Bishops from the upper house, but it was not until that November that the Commons appointed a committee to draw up new anti-episcopal legislation. Sir Robert was once again associated with these policies and carried both the Bishops' Exclusion Bill of 1642 and the 1643 bill to abolish episcopacy to the , a sure sign of his approval for these measures and of his prominence in their drafting. The King, however, never gave his formal consent to the second of these bills and it was not until October 1646 that Parliament finally took unilateral action to abolish the Church hierarchy.^** This delay shows that the attack on the Church hierarchy was not universally popular and the same was true of the puritan attempt in the Long Parliament to outlaw religious icons. For Harley the destruction of images was a necessary reformation, which had not yet been fully undertaken in the English Church. In the Parhament of 1626 he had seconded Ignatius Jordan's censure of the redecoration of Cheapside Cross, arguing that 'we should not countenance idolatry' and that the cross should be painted in one colour with 'no show of words'. In 1628 Harley moved that the practice of idolatry should be added to the list of the ills of the kingdom itemized in the Remonstrance which Parliament presented to the King, and in 1639 he personally destroyed a painting depicting the 'great God of heauen [and] earth', which had been found hidden in a stable on the Harley estate of Buckton. Such episodes of iconoclasm were relatively rare in the 1630S. The most famous example is that of Henry Sherfield, who smashed a window depicting God in the parish church of St Edmund's, Salisbury. This was a highly public act and Sherfield was subsequently fined ,£500 by Star Chamber.^^ Harley's act of iconoclasm was essentially private, and we know about it only because it was recorded by his eldest daughter, Brilliana, in her letters to her brother Edward at Oxford. Harley's godly reputation was, of course, well known to contemporaries, and in January 1641 he was named as a member of the committee set up to draft a measure for 146 abolishing superstition and idolatry. Although the resulting bill reached a second reading it proceeded no further, but its objectives were encapsulated in the Commons' order of September 1641, which directed the churchwardens of every parish to take down any altar rails and to move the communion table from the east end of the church during divine service. This practice conformed to the Elizabethan injunctions of 1559, but contravened the Laudian drive in the 1630s to rail the altar at the east end of the church. The order demanded that all images and crucifixes were to be removed from churches and also called for the omission of bowing in church, due observance of the Lord's day and the abolition of sports and dancing on Sunday, when there should be an afternoon sermon. These were all measures which Sir Robert had supported in Parliaments in the 1620s or at the start of the Long Parliament, and he was himself a member of the committee responsible for drawing up the order. ^'^ During the Summer recess of Parliament in 1641 Harley returned to Brampton and mounted a public offensive against images and crosses in parish churches in the north of Herefordshire, where Harley family influence was traditionally at its strongest. When a godly individual such as Harley in Herefordshire or John Hutchinson in Nottinghamshire led the way then this order might be obeyed, but elsewhere it was doubtless ignored. From the early weeks of 1642 onwards Royalists were arguing that the House of Commons had no legal authority to act without the Lords and the King, and such objections may also have contributed to a muted response to the ecclesiastical order of 1641.'' In April 1643 the Commons renewed their attack by setting up a nine-member committee for the destruction of monuments of superstition and idolatry, which was chaired by Sir Robert Harley and included Sir Gilbert Gerard, John Gurdon, , Miles Corbet, and John White, the chairman for the committee for scandalous ministers. Under Sir Robert's chairmanship the committee was responsible for the removal of stained glass and other images from Abbey, the adjacent church of St Margaret's and the royal chapels at Whitehall, Greenwich and Hampton Court. The committee also drew up two ordinances, the first of which was passed in August 1643 and the second in May 1644. Together these measures constituted a comprehensive attack on the church furnishings reintroduced by the Arminians and on the shibboleth of the surplice. The public response was apparently limited and in August 1645 the House of Commons directed the committee to see that the ordinances were being executed.""* Although Harley advocated religious policies which were both extreme and potentially divisive at local level, nevertheless he was clearly influential inside the House of Commons, where his fellow M.P.s regarded him as an important member of reform committees. From December 1643 he took Pym's place on the Westminster Committee of Divines, which had been called to advise Parliament on matters of Church refoj-m. Harley took a prominent part in securing the passage of the subsequent ordinance, which removed the Book of Common Prayer and established the Directory of Worship in its place in 1645, and he was later active in supervising orders for the publication and

147 dispersal of the Directory, which was intended to replace the familiar prayer book service, but was probably not widely used in the localities.'^^ Harley was also prominent amongst those M.P.s who endorsed the alliance with the Scots against the King on both religious and political grounds. He took the Solemn Vow and Covenant when it was first offered to members of Parliament in September 1643, and during the early stages of the First Civil War he was drawn towards a Church system modelled upon Scottish , albeit with more lay participation. The military alliance with the Scots was also tactically important to those who wanted to defeat Charles in the field, so that his support for the Scots was firmly based on political reality as well as religious sympathy. In the mid-i64os Harley's identification with the Scots increasingly drew him into an association with the political presbyterians in the Commons led by Denzil Holies. This connection led ultimately to Sir Robert's exclusion from the Commons and his subsequent brief imprisonment following Pride's Purge in December 1648, when he was in his seventieth year. The Purge marked the end of his political career; he and his sons refused to take the Engagement, the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth, and they were not allowed to return to their family estates in Herefordshire.^^ Sir Robert remained at Westminster until 1652 and then took up residence in , where he spent his final years in declining health, finally confined to his chamber suffering from 'Stone and Piiisie\ which caused him 'sharpest Pains and Torments'. He died aged seventy-six on 6 December 1656 and was buried at Brampton Bryan four days later. At the start of the Long Parliament Harley had clearly been intent on removing what he saw as Arminian innovations from the Church, as well as reforming the Church along principles which pre-dated the rise of Arminianism. Although his actions were encouraged and applauded by his puritan contacts in Herefordshire and elsewhere, nevertheless, he was pursuing a vision of a reformed Church which would not find favour amongst the wider population. Harley's extreme religious zeal formed the central theme of his funeral sermon, preached by Thomas Froysell, a local Shropshire cleric who had known Sir Robert since before the Civil Wars and who concluded that 'if other Saints are Candles^ he was a Torch; if others are Starves., he was a Star of greater Magnitude.... Famous (I think) throughout the Land, one where, or other, for his Graces: To my knowledge Eminent Ministers did most Eminently Prize him; Sir Robert Harley was a sweet name upon their lips'.'" We should not forget that this was a eulogy delivered to a congregation consisting of Sir Robert's children, his tenants and servants, those who knew him well. Yet Froysell was not merely following a set of conventional topoi culled from the vast puritan literature of funeral sermons and godly lives. Everything that we know about his life endorses Froysell's final view of Sir Robert Harley as an exceptionally godly individual, whose puritanism cannot be interpreted solely as a reaction to the spread of Arminianism in the English Church. This conclusion is reinforced by Sir Robert's 'Character' of 1621, which clearly reveals the puritan side of Collinson's 'stressful relationship' between puritans and their critics. Collinson has observed that puritanism 'in respect of 148 various issues including the sabbath, was only the mirror image of anti-puritanism and to a considerable extent its invention: a stigma, with great power to distract and distort the historical memory'.^^ In his 'Character' Harley acknowledged the dominant infiuence of anti-puritan rhetoric and argued that the puritan was 'most unlike his descriptio[n], w[hi]ch I haue seene in print' and concluded that 'the world speakes ill of hym & misname hym because they know hym not'. Harley thus sought to represent puritanism as a coherent set of positive values, which created an individual who was morally pure and would withstand corruption in both the secular and the religious sphere. For Harley the puritan is the man of conscience who acts when others only talk, who 'desiers to practise what others profess'. He is bound by the word of God, which makes him 'the best Instructor of a prince & the best Councellor to a king'. His concept of true religion leads him to reject the notion that 'thinges Indifferent', such as the signing with the cross in baptism, can bind the conscience. Harley's puritan is incorruptible; if faced with two courses of action, both of which are sinful, he will not weigh their relative merits, but instead choose neither. The puritan wants a professional and effective ministry, with greater powers of discipline over the congregation, but he will not separate from the Church 'because that's wanting' and he opposes the hierarchy implicit in the name 'Lord Bishop'. Harley's 'Character' provides us therefore with a quite exceptional insight into the nature of puritanism. It was written by a man who plainly accepted that his contemporaries would have recognised him as a puritan,'^^ and who tried to use his powers as a J.P. and as a Member of Parliament to impose his own view of godliness on the broader population. For Harley the Presbyterianism of the later Elizabethan years continued to represent a pathway to the ideal Church polity, but the possibility of full reformation seemed unlikely and he and his puritan circle sought to achieve purity within the Church by excluding the ungodly from fasts and other religious occasions, whilst rejecting the extreme of full separation. The 'Character' was written at a time when the conflict between the Church authorities and their puritan critics had seemingly diminished, but for Harley, and doubtless for most of his puritan contacts, the tensions between puritans and anti- puritans were clearly a live issue even before the impact of Arminianism threw those tensions into high relief from the mid-i62os onwards. Harley's 'Character' of a puritan was not merely the creation of anti-puritan polemic. It strongly suggests that behind the rhetoric and the satire on both sides, there existed a particular strain of godly piety, practice and action which contemporaries would have recognised, and which can usefully be labelled by historians as puritan.

149 APPENDIX

SIR ROBERT HARLEY'S 'CHARACTER' OF A PURITAN^** 2: chro[nicles]: 34: 3 I; chro[nicles]: 28: 9^* A P[uritan] Is he that desiers to practise what others profess. Is one that dares eet do nothinge in the wor[ship] of god or course of his life but whatt gods worde warra[n]ts hym &: dares not leave undone what anythinge that that worde co[mman]ds hym. His sinns are more then other mens because he sees the[m] & greater because he feels them. He is the best Instructor of a prince & the best Councellor to a king, the one he will teach fyrst to know god that he may in time be the worthye[r] to beare his greate name. The other he will euer p[er]swade that god's worde, the p[er]fect rule of good governme[nt], is best for hym, on whome he hath sett his owne name, fer his name \v[hi]ch makes hym Hono[u]red feared but his worde makes hym wise. He Honors & obeyes his sup[er]iors as children should theyr parents in the Lorde, not for fearc but fo[r] science*^"" sake & as the civill Magistrate beres the name of god so he csteemcs hym next to god ordine ef autoritate. To thinges Indifferent he thinkes hym self not borne a bondeman & wonders why He is stilled a man of disorder when he is so willinge to obey all law com[m]ands. You shall never p[er]swade hym that god hath made any way fro[m] the least evill to the greatest good by w[hi]ch he in w[hi]ch he would haue us walke & though it be taken for a paradoxe, yet he knows it to be a Truth, that of 2 evills if of sinn neyther mtist be chosen the least is not to be chosen. Indeede He thinkes a L[ord] B[ishop] is a fallacy a hene diuisis ad male coniuncla Bfishop]: 5. Joinc discretio[n] w[i]th his zeale, he is a man w[i]thout co[m]pare & most unlike his dcscriptio[n] w[hi]ch I haue seene in print.*'"'* He thinks a non resident is worse than a dfte nurse. He thinks the ei¥iU Magistrate as be beres tbe name ef god se to be sext te hym (i)dint' H autoritate 3. He thinkes my Lo[rd's] & that his Lo[rd's] chaplaine in house hath an ill service of it then tbe curatt He lives fef bis fleek at home, wben seeinge he must answer to god for all the Delapidatio[n]s that the Devil makes in his absence at his parish church. He sayes a Dumbe Minister is a drie nurse, efte not able to feede gods childre[n], a man not sent fro[m] by God for He geues tbem his Messengers not enly the tongue b«t of the learned neyther can he be the witness of his truth when he ca[n]ott speake it. He thinkes sayes knows eze[kial] wilbe found a true prophet & so sayes a non-resident is a profane wretch, w[hi]ch in steede of beinge the Lofrd's] shepharde, be takes his sheepe to bargaine & thinkes if he sbew bring god the skin[n]es he is not further to be charged, iett eze[kial] say wbat be wiW. 64 4. He hartely desiers discipline in the church according to god's worde, but wiU [not] 150 Fig. 2. Sir Robert Harley's 'Character' of a puritan. Loan 29/27, part i leose the wordc, because wanting. He will not loose true Lo[ve] for want of good money. 2. He thinkes the Aycriall sigfte signe ef the makinge of the cross made betw[een] bctweene the Holly Sacr[a]m[en]t of Bapt[ism] & the humble Thanks thanksgeven ef of the co[n]gregatio[n] is like the placing of the Apocrypha betweene the old & new Testam[en]ts, w[hi]ch being a streame w[i]thout a fountaine is unworthy to be joined \v[i]th the livinge water of Ufe^ for he professeth hymsclf utterly Igno[rant] ef the time wheft thftt Aycriall sigfte made en the forehead wilbe op[er]ative te produce the effects ef A bould profossio[n] ef Christ crucified. I. For he professeth hymself utterly Ignora[n]t when that Ayeriall signe made on the toreheade wilbe op[er]ative to produce the promised effects in the life of a bould profcssio[n] of Christ crucified & manfull defence of that feyth holly fayth. The knows world speakes ill of hym & misname hym because they know hym not, but he little cares for the barkinge of the Doggs alse without when he is suer to be welcome to the M[aste]r of the house.

Earlier versions of this paper were read to the Tudor volumes of Sir Robert Harley's papers in Loan and Early Stuart Seminars at the Institute of 29 (volumes 202, 172-7) is extremely erratic. Historical Research. London University, and at These volumes are, however, arranged in Trinity College, Cambridge. I am grateful to the chronological sequence and in general the date of members of these seminars for their helpful com- an individual document is a surer guide to its ments and questions on these occasions. location. I would like to thank Christopher Harlcy for 4 Robert C. Johnson, Maija Jansson Cole, Mary permission to quote trom documents in his pos- Frear Keeler and William B. Bidwell (eds.), session and Patrick Collinson, Richard Cust, and Commons Debates 1628 (New Haven, 1977-83), Conrad Russell for their advice and comments. I am vol. ii, p. 374; Thomas Froysell, The Beloved especially grateful to Richard Eales and to Peter Disciple (London, 1658), p. 106. Lake tor reading and discussing various drafts of 5 Loan 29/27, part i, holograph 'Character' of a this paper. Puritan by Sir Robert Harley, endorsed 'P*. An 1 Kenneth L.Parker, The English Sahhath: A edited version of this document is printed below, Si tidy of Doctrine and Discipline from the see Appendix, pp. 150-2, and fig. 2. Reformatton to the Civil War (Cambridge, 1988), 6 See for example R. T. Kendal, Calvin and pp. 170-1. English Calvinism to i64g (Oxford, 1979), pp. 2 Wallace Notestein, Frances Helen Reif and 5-6; Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Prot- Hartle) Simpson (eds.). Commons Debates., 1621 estant England: Religious and Cultural Change in (New Haven, 1935), vol. ii, pp. 82, 84, 95-6, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 104; vol. iv, pp. 52-3, 62-5, 75, 76; vol. V, pp. 1988), p. 143; see also P. Collinson, 'A Com- 11-12, 255, 257, 467-8, 472, 499-503* 513; vol. ment: Concerning the Name Puritan',_7oHrKd/(?/ \'i, PP- 352, 361-2, 376-7, 450. Ecclesiastical History, xxxi (1980), and idem, 3 London, Public Record Office [P.R.O.j, State English Ptiritanism, Historical Association, Gen- Papers [SP]i4/ii9/i03; BL, Loan 29/202, f. eral Series, 106 (London, 1983). Professor 47V, Harley to Sir Horace Vere, [17?] February Collinson's article ' The Puritan Character: 1620/1. In quoting from manuscript sources the Polemics and Polarities in Early 17th Century original spelling has been retained and punc- English Culture' in The Character of a Puritan, tuation has been added when necessary. Expan- Papers read at a Clark Library Seminar, 2$ April sions of contracted words are indicated in the ig8j (Los Angeles, forthcoming), is also relevant text by the use of square brackets. Readers to this theme. should note that the foliation of the bound 7 NicholasTyacke, 'Puritanism, Arminianism and

152 Counter-Revolution' in Conrad Russell (ed.). of God to the physical nourishment provided to The Origins of the (London, the newborn by milk, echoing the sentiments of I 1983), P- 121; for the centrality of predestinarian Peter 2: 2, which carries the following exhor- beliefs see Kendal, op. cit., who makes the tation - 'as new borne babes desire the syncere important distinction between 'credal pre- milke ofthe worde, that ye maye growe thereby'. destinarians', who accepted this doctrine on an The simile of the dry nurse was, however, intellectual level, and 'experimental pre- doubly apposite at this time, for in the 1620s the destinarians', who sought to achieve the practical press was pouring forth numerous domestic manifestation of this doctrine within the compass handbooks which advised mothers to suckle their of their own experience; see also Nicholas own children, rather than employ a wet nurse. Tyacke, Anti-Cahimsts: the Rise of English Puritan preachers in particular emphasised tbe Armtniamsm., c. i^go-1640, (Oxford, 1987) and belief that mothers could hand on their own P. G. Lake, 'Calvinism and the English Church, traits to their children in this way, see Laurence 1570-1635', Past and Present, cxiv (1987). Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 8 For the history ofthe Theophrastan 'Character' 1500-1800 (London, 1977), pp. 428-^. as a literary form see Benjamin Boyce, The 14 Kenneth Fincham, 'Prelacy and Politics: Arch- Theophrastan Character in England to 1642 bishop Abbot's Defence of Protestant Ortho- (Cambridge, Mass., 1947) and more recently J. doxy', Historical Research, lxi (1988), pp. 39, 42; W. Smeed, The Theophrastan ^Character^: the Christopher Hill, Change and Continuity in History of a Literary Genre (Oxford, 1985). Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1974), 9 For the history of the Overburian collection see pp. 3-47; BL, Harl. MS. 280, f. i6iv; for the W. J. Paylor (ed.). The Overburian Characters to Jacobean episcopate in general see Kenneth which is Added a Wife By Sir Thomas Overbury, Fincham, Prelate as Pastor: the Episcopate of (Oxford, 1936). King James I (Oxford, forthcoming). 10 William P. Holden, Anti-Puritan Satire, 15 Oxford, Corpus Christi, MS. 206, fF. ir-9r. 1^^2-1642 (New Haven, 1954). 16 Harl. MS. 7517, ff. 3r-42r; P.R.O., 11 The fourth impression of Overbury's collection SP16/381/92; Collinson, Puritan Movement, pp. contained the character of a puritan and the 71-83; Richardson, op. cit., pp. 26-28; Horton character of a precisian was added later; see Davies, The Worship of English Puritans., Thomas Overbury, A Wife. Now the Widdow of (London, 1948), pp. 67-9, 263-7. Sir Tho: Overburye beinge a most exquisite and singular Poem ofthe choise of a Wife. Wherevnto 17 The Bible and Holy Scriptvres Conteyned in the are added many witty characters, and conceited Olde and Newe Testament (Geneva, 1560); Newes, written by himselfe and other learned Patrick Collinson, From Iconoclasm to Incono- Gentlemen his friends., 4th imp. (London, 1614); phobia : fhe Cultural Impact ofthe Second English Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre- Reformation, Stenton Lecture 1985, (Reading Revolutionary England (London, 1964), pp. University, 1986); Conrad Russell, 'They 13-29. Would Not Go Away', London Review of Books., 12 For the arguments against the sign ofthe cross xi, no. 7 (30 March 1989), pp. 26-7; Peter Lake, and other contentious issues such as the use of 'Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice' in the surplice see Patrick Collinson, The Eliza- Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds.). Conflict in bethan Puritan Movement (London, 1967), pp. Early Stuart England (London, 1989); see also 66-79, 2^d ^- C- Richardson, Puritanism in Margaret Aston, England''s Iconoclasts: Laws North-West England: a Regional Study of the Against Images, (Oxford, 1988). Diocese of Chester to 1642 (Manchester, 1972), 18 Loan 29/202, f. i74r. Bishop Godwin to Harley, PP- 23-40. 5 Feb. 1618/19; f. i34r, William Gouge to 13 Nottingham, University Library, Portland Harley, 24 June 1613; ff. 49r, 5or, Thomas Papers, London Collection, Commonplace Book Gataker to Harley, 22 and 25 June 1621; f. 5ir of Lady Brilliana Harley (1622), f. r62v; Harley's James Ussher to Harley, 9 July 1621; Harley's comparison ofthe non-preaching minister with a reputation as a godly magistrate is discussed dry nurse was based on the commonplace extensively in Jacqueline Eales, Ptirilans and likening ofthe spiritual nourishment ofthe word : The Harleys of Brampton Bryan

153 and the Outbreak of the English Civil War clearely unfolded (Sine loco, 1622). Thomas Scott, (Cambridge, forthcoming). the dissenting minister, has been suggested as 19 Loan 29/202, f. 37r, Sir James Croft to Thomas the author of this work and its sentiments Harley, 9 Apr. 1582; Loan 29/i23/39b, Harley certainly correspond to Scott's other known to Bishop Bennet, 25 Jan. 1613/4. writings, see Dictionary of National Biography, 20 Full biographical details of Sir Robert Harley's vol. li (London, 1897), pp. 68-70, and P. G. early life and his three marriages are given in Lake, 'Constitutional Consensus and Puritan Jacqueline Kales, Puritans and Roundheads, ch. 2. Opposition in the 1620s: Thomas Scott and the 21 Lady Verc's correspondence is to be found in Spanish Match', The Historical Journal, xxv BL, Add. MS. 4275, ff. 8r-i97r passim; I am (1982). grateful to Robyn Priestley for allowing me to 27 S. L. Adams, 'The Protestant Cause: Rehgious make use of her transcripts of these documents. Alliance with Western European Calvinist Com- 22 In 1624 Sir Robert Harley was elected as Knight munities as a Political Issue in England, 1585- of the Shire for Hereford for the first time, thus 1629' (Oxford University D.Phil. Thesis, 1973); breaking the monopoly which had been exer- P.R,O., SP14/173/42, Davenport specifically cised over the county seats by the Crofts, the includes the government of the King and of the Scudamores and the Coningsbys since 1571; see ecclesiastical powers in this statement. I am W. R. Williams, 77;f Parliamentary History of grateful to Robyn Priestley for drawing this ihe County of Hereford (Brecknock, 1896), pp. reference to my attention and for allowing me to 41-5- use her transcript of this document. 23 Nottingham U.L., Portland Papers, London 28 Richard Cust, The Forced Loan and English C^ol lection, C-ommonplace Book of Lady Politics, 1626-1628 (Oxford, 1987), p. 177. Brilliana Harley, 1622; T. T. Lewis (ed.), Lff/^rs 29 For Scudamore's relationship with the Harleys of the Lady Brilltana Harley, Camden Society, see Jacqueline Levy, 'Perceptions and Beliefs: Series i, vol. Iviii (1854); Royal Commission on the Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Origins Historical Manuscripts [H.M.C.], Report on the and Outbreak ofthe First Civil War', (London .Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, University Ph,D. Thesis, 1983), pp. 95, 112, K'.G., preserved at Welbeck Abbey [Portland] 241-52 passim, 287-8, 297-9; Brampton Bryan, (London, 1892-1931), vol. iii, pp. i-j-wq passinv. Harley Papers, Bundle 83, Marriage Settlement, 19 July 1623. Scudamore's role in local and Loan 2i)l-j2 contains unpublished letters from national politics will be assessed in Ian Lady Brilliana to her husband. For the history of Atherton's dissertation on 'The Career of John, the Harley family archives, see Clyve Jones, ist Viscount Scudamore, 1601-1671' (Thesis in 'The Harley Family and the Harley Papers', pp. progress for the degree of Ph,D., Cambridge). 123-33 above. Lady Brilliana's religious beliefs were undoubtedly influenced by her mother, 30 N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Hereford- Dorothy Tracy, the sister of Lady Vere, The shire (Harmondsworth, 1963), pp. 46, 61-2; Tracys came from Toddington, , Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England, p. 120; N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: and their Protestant connections were firmly County Durham (Harmondsworth, 1953), pp. rooted in the earliest days of the English 32-3, 61-2, 108, 207-8; Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, Reformation, see John Foxc, Actes and Monu- p. 194. ments of I hese latter and perillous dayes, touching 31 For the history of Harley's Mastership of the /nailers of the Church (London, 1563), pp, Mint see Gerald Aylmer, The King's Servants: 510-11; S. Clarke, The Ltves of Stindry Eminent the Civil service of Charles /, 1625-1642 (London, Persons in this Later Age (London, 1683), pt. ii, pp. 144-9. i974)> PP- 372-9- 1,2 Cust, Forced Loan, pp. 62-7 and passim; for 24 Harley's letter to Vere is described in n. 3, Scudamore's role in the Forced Loan, see above; sec also Loan 29/119, draft letters from P.R.O., SP16/54/2, 16/73/17, and also Scuda- Harley to Sir Edward Herbert, 12 Jan. 1617/18, more's private papers in the P.R.O., Chancery 6 Apr. 1618 and 26 Mar. 1619. Masters Exhibits, Duchess of Norfolk's Deeds, 25 (Quoted in Holden, op. cit., p. 78. C115/I26/6508; for the repair of St Paul's, see 26 Anon., The Interpreter Wherein three principall P.R,O., C115/I28, and for the composition for termes of Slate much mistaken by the vulgar are

154 knighthood fines in Herefordshire, see 36 Yale Center for Parliamentary History C115/M23; Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The [Y.C.P.H.], transcript of the diary of Edward History ofthe Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Nicholas (P.R.O., SP14/166), 26 Feb. 1624; Begun in the Year 1641, ed. W. Dunn Macray Y.C.P.H., transcript ofthe diary of Sir William (Oxford, 1888), vol. ii, pp. 418-19. Spring (Harvard University, Houghton Library 33 For Harley's activities as a collector of the loan MS. Eng. 980), I Mar. 1624, 2 Apr. 1624; for the King and Qiaeen of Bohemia between Y.C.P,H., transcript of the diary of Bulstrode June and November 1620, see Loan 29/202, ff. Whitelocke (Cambridge University Library 3r-46v passim and Loan 29/123/36, lists of [C.U.L,], Dd. 12/20-22), 27 Feb. 1626; Wallace contributions and letter from Baron Dohna to Notestein (cd.). The Journal of Sir Simonds 'the county of Hereford', 4 June 1620; in his D''Ewes from the Beginning ofthe Long Parliament draft letter to Vere, Harley declared 'y[ou]r to the Opening ofthe Trial ofthe Earl of Sir afford Enimie is God's allso'. Loan 29/202, f. 47r, (New Haven, 1923), p. 91. Harley to Vere, [17.^] February 1620/1; for the 37 Y.C.P,H., transcript of the diary of Bulstrode pro-Palatine network, see Adams, 'The Prot- Whitelocke (C.U.L., Dd. 12/20-22), 17 Apr. estant Cause', pp. 316-17; for Harley's connec- 1626; Loan 29/202, f 238r-v, list of prayers, 30 tions with the pro-Palatine divines, see above n. Mar. 1627; Conrad Russell, Parliaments and 18 and Levy, 'Perceptions and Beliefs', pp. English Politics, 1621-162^ (Oxford, 1979), pp- 67-8, 74- 29-32, 377; Johnson, Cole, Keeler and Bidwell 34 Loan 29/52/93, list of prayers headed 'Matter of (eds.), op. cit., vol. ii, p. 86. Request to God', 17 Dec. 1624; a similar list, 30 38 Wallace Notestein and Frances Helen Relf (eds.). Mar. 1627, is to be found in Loan 29/202, f. Commons Debates for i62g (Minneapolis, 1921), 238r-v, and lists dated 22 Feb. 1632/3, 12 Apr. p. 116; Adams, 'The Protestant Cause', p. 22. 1633 and 24 Jan. 1633/4 ^^e to be found in Loan 39 I. M. Calder, Activities ofthe Puritan Faction of 29/27, part I. the Church of England, 1625-16JJ (London, 35 Froysell, op. cit., p. 117. Harley's relationship 1957); Johnson, Cole, Keeler and Bidwell (eds.), with Conway led him to protect Buckingham op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 557, 586; Loan 29/27, part i, from attack in the Parliaments of 1626 and 1628, lists of prayers, 22 Feb, 1632/3 and 24 Jan. but his support for the Duke was not uncritical 1633/4- and amongst Sir Robert's papers there is a 40 BL, M874/13 (Microfilm of the MSS. of the holograph copy of a verse probably from 1628 Marquess of Bath at Longleat, Coventry MSS., aimed against the Duke, BL Loan 29/27, part i: f 2O9r-v), Cases in Star Chamber 1616-1637; I Rex & Grex have both one Sound am grateful to Frances Condick for this ref- But Dux doth Rex & Grex Confounde erence. If Crux had but of Dux its fill 41 Loan 29/122/5, 'the State of S[i]r Robert Then Rex of Grex mought have his will Harley's case concerninge his Office of M[aste]r 3 subsidies to 5 would turne & Worker of his Ma[jes]t[yJ's Monies and his And Grex would laugh who now do mourne present Condic[i]on'; P.R.O., SP16/280/65, O Rex thy Grex do much complaine 16/261, ff. 2o6v, 207r. See also J. C. White- That Dux beres Crux & Crux not Dux againe. brook, 'Dr John Stoughton the Elder', Con- gregational Historical Society Transactions, vi This poem may have been widely circulated at (i9i3-r5) and J. N. Langston, 'John Workman, the time and there is another manuscript copy in Puritan Lecturer in Gloucester', and BL, Sloane MS. 826; see Frederick W. Fairholt, Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Transac- Poems and Songs Relating to George Villiers, Duke tions, Ixvi (1945). Sir Robert Harley had of Buckingham, and His Assassination by John involved the parishioners of Brampton in the Felton, August 23 1628., Percy Society, vol. xc choice of Stanley Gower as their rector in 1634, (London, 1850), p. 34; I am grateful to Richard but there was no suggestion that he had handed Cust for this reference. For Harley's role in the over his right of presentment. An anonymous 1624 Parliament and his ambivalent support for document amongst his papers addressed to the Duke see Levy, 'Perceptions and Beliefs', Gower describes this process-'wee will owne PP- 54-75 passim. you as o[u]r Minister, not quatenus sent by the

155 Prelate of this Diocese, but quatenus consented could countenance a system with Bishops with unto as o|u]r Minister and consenting to be o[u]r reduced powers is reinforced by the obviously Minister; thus Mr Dod told me, was he cleerely cordial relationships that he had with individual called to Fawsley, where now he o[u]r worthy Bishops before the meeting of the Long Par- Knight, as the chiefe member of the Con- liament including Ussher, and Bishop Bennet of grcga[tijon chose you, the parish consenting Hereford. In 1638 Harley sided with Bishop unto him'. Harley thus retained a good deal of Coke of Hereford in a local land dispute and in social control, whilst giving the semblance of a 1642, when Coke was imprisoned in the Tower, democratic process in the choice of minister; see he approached Harley for help and com- Loan 29/119, 'To Mr Gower fro[m] some plimented him on his 'noble disposition, and tendingc to Sep[ar]ation'. goodnes, which I have ever knowen and by good 42 Loan 29/46/30, 'An Informat[i]on to all good experience found in you', see H.M.C. Twelfth Christians w[i]thin the kingdome of England'; Report, Appendix, part ii (1888), p. 173; Lewis this manuscript is endorsed in Harley's hand (ed.), op. cit., p. 36; Loan 29/173, f. 224r, Bishop 'Informatiojn] fro[m] Scotland 4th Feb[ruary] Coke to Harley, 27 Feb. 1641/2. 1639'- 49 Loan 29/120, James Kyrle to Harley, undated; 43 Lewis (ed.), op. cit., pp. 49, 51, 57-9, 72, 73, 75. Lewis (ed.), op. cit., pp. iii, 113. The Hereford- 44 See for example Commons Journals, vol. ii, pp. shire petition does not appear to have been 20, 25, 34, 44, 52, 57, 85, 154, 179, 216. presented to Parliament; for the history of the 45 For Dod, see Loan 29/72, Lady Brilliana to Sir 'root and branch' bill, see A. J. Fletcher, 'Con- Robert Harley, 25 Mar. 1625/6 and Loan cern for Renewal in the Root and Branch 29/119, Dod to Harley, 4 Dec. 1639; see also Debates of 1641' in D. Baker (ed.). Renaissance Loan 29/27, part 1, list of prayers, 22 Feb. and Renewal in Christian History, Studies in 1632/3, in which the Harleys prayed for 'the Church History, vol. xiv (Oxford, 1977). Ministers of the worde & sacraments', naming 50 Harl. MS. 478, f. 647r; Harl. MS. 163, f 691V; Herring and Cotton amongst others. Herring William A. Shaw, A History of the English and Cotton were both undoubtedly supporters of Church During the Civil Wars and under the Presbyterianism: Herring took up the post of Commonwealth, 1640-1660 (London, 1900), vol. i, pastor to the English church in Amsterdam in pp. 77-121; Commons Journals, vol. ii, pp. 414, 1637 and Cotton emigrated to New England in 415, 938; C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait (eds.). Acts 1633; see , A Generali Martyro- and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, logw (London, 1651), pp. 462-72 and John (London, 1911), vol. i, pp. 879-83. Norton, Abel Being Dead Yet Speaketh; or, the 51 Y.C.P.H., transcript ofthe diary of Sir Richard Life £5" Death of that Deservedly Famous Man of Grosvenor (Trinity College, Dublin, MS. God, Mr John Cotton (London, 1658); I am E5/i7)> 9 M^y 1626; I am grateful to Conrad grateful to Peter Lake for drawing the relevance Russel] for drawing this reference to my at- of these contacts to my attention, tention ; Johnson, Cole, Keeler and Bidwell 46 Loan 2()l\q2, f 75r-v; for Fenn, see Collinson, (eds.), op. dt., vol. iv, pp. 338, 342; Loan Elizabethan Puritan Movement, passim. 29/172, ff. 2O7r, 2i3r, Brilliana Harley to 47 Loan 29/119, endorsed in Harley's hand with Edward Harley, 14 Jan. and 8 Feb. 1638/9; for the words 'To Mr Gower fro[m] some tendinge Sherfield see P.R.O., SP16/211/20, 21, to Sep[ar]ation'. The Harleys were in contact SP16/232/25, 43, 56, SP16/233/88, 89, and with a group of separatists in the late 1630s, who , 'Religious Protest and Urban Auth- included Walter Cradock and Richard Symonds, ority: the Case of Henry Sherfield, Iconoclast, and this document is most probably from one of 1633', in D. Baker (ed.). Schism, Heresy and these two ministers, or someone associated with Religious Protest, Studies in Church History, vol. them; see Levy, 'Perceptions and Beliefs', pp. ix (Cambridge, 1972). 170-1. 52 Commons Journals, vol. ii, pp. 72, 79, 278-9, 280, 48 Patrick Collinson, Godly People: Essays on 287; Notestein (ed.), op. cit., p. 46; Harl. MS. English and Puritanism (London, 163, f 747V. For the change in the altar policy, 1983), PP- 527-50; Levy, 'Perceptions and see C. Russell, The Crisis of Parliaments (Oxford, Beliefs', pp. 170-1. The suggestion that Harley 1971), pp. 216,

156 53 At Wigmore and , where Harley words or phrases this is indicated in the text. I was himself the patron, he pulled down crosses am grateful to Peter Lake and Richard Cust for and broke stained glass windows, but at Aymstry their help with the transcription of tbis docu- the minister, Mr Lake, and the parishioners, ment. 'withstood' Harley's efforts (San Marino, 61 The Geneva Bible version of this verse runs as Huntington Library, Ellesmere MS. 7350); J. follows 'And thou Salomon my sone, knowe Sutherland (ed.), Lucy Hutchtnson: Memoirs of thou the God of thy father, and serue him with the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (London, 1973), p. a perfit hearte, and with a willing minde: for the 54. For the constitutional arguments of the Lord searcheth all hearts, and vnderstandeth all Royalists see, for example. Loan 29/173, ff. the imaginacions of thoghtes: if thou seke him, 239r-24or, Herefordshire J.P.s to the Knights of he wil be founde of thee, but if thou forsake him, the Shire, 28 Apr. 1642. he will cast thee of for euer', The Bible and Holy 54 Commons Journals, vol. iii, p. 57; Loan 29/175, Scriptvres (Geneva, 1560). ff. i07r-i35r, receipts ofthe committee, 19 Apr. 62 Science in this context could possibly stand for 1644-26 Jan. 1645/6; Firth and Rait (eds.), op. conscience. The word 'science' was commonly cit., vol. i, pp. 265-6, 425-6; Commons Journals, used to denote knowledge and was sometimes vol. iv, p. 246. coupled and contrasted with conscience, indi- 55 Commons Journals, vol. iii, pp. 705, 722; vol. iv, cating the division between theoretical knowl- pp. 9, II; J- Morrill, 'The Church in England' edge and moral conviction, see O.E.D., 2nd ed. in J. Morrill (ed.). Reactions to the English Civil I am grateful to Richard Cust for drawing this War, i642-i64g (London, 1982), p. 93. point to my attention. 56 Sir Robert's career in the Long Parliament and 63 Harley annotated part of his text with the his subsequent retirement are described more numbers r to 5 in non-numerical sequence, fully in Eales, Puritans and Roundheads, ch. 8, which suggests that he was intending to redraft passim. the 'Character' by rearranging the passages so 57 Froysell, op. cit., pp. 114-15, 98-g. numbered. 58 Patrick Colhnson, 'Fundamental Objections', 64 I have suggested that Harley intended to add the Times Literary Supplement, no. 4,481 (17-23 word 'not' here, otherwise he seems to indicate Feb. 1989), p. 156. that a puritan would separate from the Church 59 In 1636 Harley referred to himself jocularly as a and thus 'lose the word' of God, because ofthe puritan in two letters to his brother-in-law, the lack of 'discipline', a sentiment which is not 2nd Viscount Conway; see P.R.O., SP16/320/13 borne out by his own actions. Furthermore, the and 16/334/41. final part of the sentence, although difficult to 60 In editing Harley's 'Character' of a puritan I read, appears to say that one should not lose true have retained original spelling and have added love for want of a good dowry and thus reinforces punctuation where necessary. Expansions of the sentiment that a puritan would not reject the contracted words are indicated by the use of established Church, although it was imperfect. square brackets. Where Harley crossed out

157