CLERGY Jps in ENGLAND and WALES, 1590–1640

The Historical Journal, 47, 2 (2004), pp. 233–259 f 2004 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X04003693 Printed in the United Kingdom

CLERGY JPs IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 1590 –1640

CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL Christ Church, Oxford

ABSTRACT. In the 1621 parliament members of the House of Commons clashed with the king over the issue of clergy as JPs: there were suggestions that no clergyman should sit as a JP, or that only bishops and deans should be appointed. Why were there complaints at that time, and were they justiﬁed? Was the nomination of clergy as justices an element in ‘the rise of clericalism’? This analysis of clergy JPs between 1590 and 1640 shows that they had been increasing slowly in number from 1590, and more rapidly towards 1617 under Lord Chancellor Ellesmere. But the major expansion in their ranks came under his successors Francis Bacon 1617 to 1621, and especially Bishop John Williams 1621 to 1625. However, there was no systematic central policy behind appointments, and local interests and the normal processes of patronage were important. Perhaps precedence among the justices and the exercise of secular authority by clerical JPs were sometimes troublesome issues. But, despite continuing complaints from MPs, the proportion of clergy to lay JPs was always small – at its highest in 1626, with 7.6 per cent. Thereafter Lord Keeper Thomas Coventry allowed the clerical presence to decline, both absolutely and proportionately. If there was a ‘rise of the clergy’ after 1625, clergy JPs were not part of it.

On 25 April 1621 the House of Commons appointed a committee to consider a reform of the commissions of the peace, with a suggestion ‘that no clergyman should be a justice’. The main concern of Sir Dudley Digges, who had raised the reform issue, was the overall size and composition of the benches – ‘divers very unworthy persons have been put in, and divers of the best desert left out’. But some members seized on the issue of clerical justices. Sir William Stroud claimed ‘divers spiritual men put in against their wills’, and asked ‘that, this distracting them from their studies, they may be spared from that service’. Sir Edward Peyton argued that a bishop should not be involved in condemning a man, and therefore should not be a justice. Sir William Spenser mentioned the position of diocesan chancellors who were JPs: they sat in secular and ecclesiastical courts, ‘and so striketh with both hands’. The committee was to consider these points: ‘that there might be not so many clergymen, thereby causing distraction from their callings’, and ‘that bishops’ chancellors might be left out, who thereby take occasion to strike with both swords’.1 James I was furious. He apparently thought that the Commons proposed to proceed with a bill for the removal of all clergy from commissions of the

1 Commons debates, 1621, II, p. 319, IV, p. 254; Commons journals, I, p. 590. 233

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 234 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL peace – which he interpreted as an attack on his prerogative and on the dignity of the clergy. James sent a warning to the House on 1 May, ‘to be very careful what they did in this, for if they neglect the clergy it would be a scandal to religion’. He explained that ‘he means not that every parson or vicar should be a justice, but doctors of divinity and some other of the graver sort’. ‘He intends that no mean curates etc. shall be put in, but all bishops and some worthy doctors of divinity.’ Digges and the others were now on the defensive, insisting that they had intended a petition not a bill, and a reduction not an exclusion of clergy: ‘for divines, they allow bishops and deans, but they thought that such as have parochial cures might be spared from that trouble’. The king should be told that in County Durham there were thirteen ‘ministers or officers under them’ on the bench, and only twelve laymen. There was a clear difference of opinion: MPs thought that only ecclesiastical dignitaries should be JPs, and the king wanted to have some senior parish clergy. Secretary Calvert reported that James would consider the composition of commissions, but ‘For bishops and some grave doctors of divinity, doubteth not that the king will think fitting.’2 This clash may look like a short step along the high road to civil war. Aggressive MPs were seeking to limit the crown’s freedom of action, and the king leapt to defend his prerogative. There was suspicion on both sides: suspicion that the crown was stuffing toady clergymen on to local benches, and suspicion that MPs wanted to control the composition of commissions and do down the church. And perhaps there was anger that the parish clergy were getting above them- selves. The issue was not a new one, and in the parliament of 1614 it had come up in a debate over clerical pluralism and non-residence. Sir John Sammes complained about the vicar of a busy port, ‘justice of the peace and quorum, which keeps him from the church upon sabbath days’. He proposed that ‘no spiritual man with cure of souls under the degree of a bishop or dean of a cathedral church may be a justice [of the] peace’ – the position adopted by Digges in 1621. Sir Henry Anderson, MP for Newcastle, protested that he ‘lives in a country where the churchmen [are] the governors’ – the Durham problem again. And Sir George More ‘would have no clergyman of the peace’.3 At the end of July 1621 the crown office in chancery produced a liber pacis, ‘for the Commons House of Parliament’ – presumably to inform discussion of the peace commissions when the House reassembled. This liber (a county by county list of JPs) does not survive, but it can be reconstructed.4 Clergy then held

2 Commons debates, 1621, VI, p. 396, III, pp. 111–2, IV, pp. 283–4, II, p. 334, V, p. 125; Commons journals, I, p. 599. 3 Proceedings in parliament, 1614 (House of Commons), ed. Maija Jansson (Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 216, 217, 221. 4 Public Record Oﬃce (PRO), C231/4, fo. 127v. The lost book is reconstructed from PRO, C193/ 13/1 (a liber pacis of November 1621, subtracting those clergy whose appointment to commissions between July and November are recorded in the doquet book PRO, C231/4. Here and hereafter, the terms ‘clergy’ and ‘clergymen’ refer to priests of all ranks, including bishops; the term ‘ministers’ is used for priests other than bishops.

I The clerical presence on commissions had been changing. The bishops now held far fewer places than they had done, and there had been a big expansion among the ‘other ranks’. In 1590, 95 places had been held by clergy, 78 of them by bishops (and 13 of these by Bishop Hughes of St Asaph).6 The number of places held by other clergy then drifted slowly up: 17 in 1590, 19 in 1596, 29 in 1604, and 43 in 1608 – by the addition of more deans and appointments in Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Durham, Kent, Middlesex, and the Isle of Ely, where there were particular clerical interests. But then the number of episcopal appointees fell, and the ministers became more numerous – from holding 43 places in 1608 to 49 in 1613, 67 in 1618, and 80 in 1620. Between 1608 and 1613 Lord Chancellor Ellesmere nominated ministers to 17 places – 7 held by deans, 5 by archdeacons, 4 by doctors of divinity, and 1 in Caernarvonshire by Arthur Williams, clerk. When Sir John Sammes and the others raised the issue in 1614, they were

5 Andrew Foster, ‘The clerical estate revitalised’, in Kenneth Fincham, ed., The early Stuart church, 1603–1642 (Basingstoke, 1993), pp. 148–50, 156–8, to which we are indebted. The subject of clergy JPs has been often commented on but little studied. The appointment of clergy JPs in particular counties has been noticed by T. G. Barnes, Somerset, 1625–1640 (London, 1961), pp. 45–6; A. D. Wall, ‘The Wiltshire commission of the peace, 1590–1620’ (MA thesis, Melbourne, 1966), pp. 137–45; C. M. Fraser and K. Emsley, ‘The clerical justices of the peace in the North-East, 1626–1640’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th ser., 2 (1974), pp. 189–99; Anthony Fletcher, A county community in peace in peace and war: Sussex, 1600–1660 (London, 1975), pp. 131, 355. 6 Hereafter, references to the composition or membership of commissions of the peace at particular dates are usually drawn from the libri pacis and patent roll commissions cited in the note on the sources for Table 1, and are not separately footnoted. Where a liber or patent roll commission not used for Table 1 is referred to, it is footnoted. The 1620 ﬁgure given in this paragraph is from PRO, C66/2234. The frequent turnover of lay justices can render these lists misleading, but clergy were very rarely dismissed and the listings are more reliable for them: see the reference in n. 14 below.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 236 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL responding to something new, albeit very limited – and among the Durham justices there were then 6 clergy and the diocesan chancellor. In his last four years as chancellor, 1613–17, Ellesmere made another 17 appointments, including 6 places held by deans and 6 by archdeacons. Between 1608 and his death in March 1617, he had nominated ministers to commissions at a rate of roughly 4 per year – compared with a rate of 2 per year in the last eight years of Elizabeth’s reign.7 The numbers were higher, but not significantly so, and justices were recruited from the same categories as before – deans, archdeacons, and a few doctors of divinity. But a much bigger expansion in the ranks of non- episcopal clergy justices came after Ellesmere’s death, and the appointment of Francis Bacon as lord keeper. In his first six months as keeper in 1617, Bacon appointed ministers to 8 places: in just over four years in office, he nominated them to 48 places on county benches, at an annual rate three times that of Ellesmere. Of the first 40 ministers promoted to county benches by Bacon, 7 were deans, 3 were archdeacons, 1 was warden of Winchester – but the rest were of lesser rank. There were 29 doctors and 4 bachelors of divinity, and 1 doctor of laws – and of the 6 without higher degrees at their promotion, 3 became doctors later. The doctors included Bacon’s prote´ge´ John Williams, placed on five commissions between 1618 and 1620.8 In terms of rank, Bacon had appointed the kind of men for whom James spoke up in 1621 – but at least 22 of them held parish benefices, and 10 were only parish clergy, just the men to whom MPs objected. Why were these individuals selected for the bench? Eleven were probably chaplains in ordinary to the king, and at least one more a chaplain extraordinary.9 Some were well connected: John Gordon, dean of Salisbury, was related to James himself; Paul Godwin was son of the bishop of Hereford; Edward Wickham came from a major Winchester clerical dynasty; John Boys, dean of Canterbury, was linked to the lord lieutenant of Kent; and the rector of Stockport, Richard Murray, was the brother of an earl. But there were others with equal claims who were not promoted. Perhaps there was some attempt to spread clerical justices across the counties. Bacon’s first 40 men were placed in 21 English counties and 5 Welsh – but some were added to commissions which already had a significant clerical presence: 5 more to Durham, 4 to Hampshire, 3 to Oxfordshire, and 2 each to Cambridgeshire and Kent. In 1613 there had been ministers on the

7 Ellesmere’s appointments in these years are calculated from the liber of 1608, the patent rolls of 1613 and 1618, and the doquet book beginning in April 1615 (PRO, C231/4), compared with the doquet book for 1595–1603 (PRO, C231/1). The doquet books for 1603–15 are lost. 8 PRO, C231/4, fos. 37v–125v, with Williams’s appointments at fos. 65v (Northamptonshire, 1618), 90v (Flintshire, 1619), 92v (Wiltshire, 1619), 112 (Middlesex, and the liberty of Westminster, 1620). Biographical details here and hereafter are from Dictionary of national biography; A. G. Matthews, Walker revised (Oxford, 1988 edn); J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714 (Oxford, 1891–2); J.A. and J. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 1 (Cambridge, 1922–7); and Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1541–1857, ed. J. M. Horn (London, 1969–). 9 Chaplains in ordinary in 1621 are listed by N. W. S. Cranﬁeld, ‘Chaplains in ordinary at the early Stuart court: the purple road’, in Claire Cross, ed., Patronage and recruitment in the Tudor and Early Stuart Church (York, 1996), p. 142.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 237 bench in 24 counties and divisions: by 1620 they sat in 39 counties and divisions. Only 6 out of 56 districts had no clergyman at all on its commission of the peace.10 When MPs protested in 1621 they were objecting to a new phenomenon. And, from their point of view, things were about to get a lot worse. Perhaps James’s stout defence of clergy JPs on 1 May 1621 now encouraged ambitious ministers and their patrons to seek nomination. Furthermore, on 10 July 1621, John Williams, dean of Westminster, was appointed lord keeper to replace the dis- graced Bacon, and soon Williams was bishop of Lincoln. Appointments to commissions were now in the hands of a clergyman who had already been on 5 commissions himself – and he went much further than Bacon had done. In less than four and a half years, Williams was to appoint ministers to 70 places on county benches. By the beginning of 1626, soon after Williams’s fall, clergymen held 188 places on commissions of the peace, twice as many as in 1590 and 90 more than in 1604. And 121 of the places were held by ministers rather than bishops – four times as many as in 1604. Significantly, this increase in the clerical presence took place while the non-official lay component was being reduced, from 2,106 knights, lawyers, and gentlemen in 1621 to 1,726 in 1625.11 Williams’s nominations followed the pattern set by Bacon, and recently endorsed by James. Of the first 40 ministers promoted by Williams, 4 were deans (including John Donne, dean of St Paul’s, placed in Bedfordshire and Kent) and 4 were archdeacons: now virtually every dean was a JP. 31 of the 40 were doctors of divinity, 2 were bachelors, and 2 of the remaining 7 took higher degrees later. Only 9 were mere parish clergy, and all but 2 of them had doctorates. 9 were chaplains in ordinary to the king, at least 2 were chaplains extraordinary, and 1 was a son of James’s former tutor and brother to the royal librarian. 4 would become bishops. But in Williams’s time clerical connections may have been more important than secular patrons. The nominees included a half-brother of Bishop Neile and the husband of Neile’s niece; Bishop Laud’s half-brother; Bishop Godwin’s son; Bishop Parry’s brother-in-law; and a clutch of men linked to Williams himself – a former chaplain, the husband of a niece, two canons of Lincoln, and four canons of Westminster. These appointments may have been a centrally orchestrated attempt to stuff more ministers on to the county benches – royal chaplains, episcopal relations, anyone who looked reliable. Perhaps the lord keeper tried to fill the gaps left by his predecessors: ministers were spread more evenly, and by the end of his tenure only Rutland, Cardigan, and Flint did not have any clergymen on the bench. But local pressures may have been just as important as central direction. The restoration of Bishop Bayly to the commissions for Anglesey, Caernarvon, Denbigh, and Merioneth in 1622 seems to have been achieved through lobbying by the Wynn family ‘with much ado’, rather than on the lord keeper’s own

10 PRO, C66/2234 (1620 patent roll). 11 PRO, C231/4, fos. 127–93; British Library (BL), Harleian MS 1622 (liber pacis, early 1626). 1625 laity from Thomas Rymer, Foedera (20 vols., London, 1704–36), XVIII, pp. 566–625.

II After Lord Keeper Williams’s rush of nominations, it was expected that the issue of clerical justices would again be raised at the Oxford parliamentary session of 1625. Humphrey Sydenham prepared a sermon for the parliament in defence of clergy taking on ‘civil authority’.15 The question surfaced once more after the dismissal of Williams in October 1625. In March 1626 the Commons discussed a bill ‘that certain clergymen should not be justices of peace under the degree of a

12 Calendar of Wynn Papers, 1515–1690 (London, 1926), no. 1043. Bayly was appointed to these commissions in 1617, and there are no doquets for his removal or his restoration, but his name was inserted among the many alterations to the 1621 liber: PRO, C193/13/1, fos. 109, 113v, 114v, 120. 13 PRO, C231/4, fos. 129, 134v, 152v; Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California, MS HA 5471. 14 Alison Wall, ‘‘‘The greatest disgrace’’: the making and unmaking of JPs in Elizabethan and Jacobean England’, English Historical Review, 119 (2004). 15 Humphrey Sydenham, Moses and Aaron, or the aﬃnitie of civill and ecclesiasticke power (London, 1626), p. 10.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 239 bishop’. Sir Dudley Digges reported that the 1621 committee on JPs had proposed that no clergy with parish cures should be justices, ‘but the bishops and deans should be’. Thomas Whatman thought it was a question of status, and that ministers were not up to it: he claimed that one JP, a doctor of divinity, had been censured in Star Chamber ‘for taking that office upon him, not having, £20 a year in temporality’. But John Selden wanted to exclude all clergy, asserting the principle raised by Sir Edward Peyton in 1621: ‘That no clergyman, without incurring the penalty of being irregular, could have his hands in matter of blood.’ The bill passed the Commons, but failed in the Lords.16 In 1628 the Commons considered a bill ‘for disabling clergymen to be justices of the peace or quorum’: one proposal exempted bishops, cathedral deans, and university vice-chancellors, but a tighter version would have permitted only bishops and the dean of Westminster. Again, the bill failed in the Lords.17 Although the Commons’ attempts to legislate came to nothing, official policy on clerical justices appears to have shifted. Bishop Williams had been an en- thusiastic appointer of clergymen to county benches: his successor as lord keeper, Sir Thomas Coventry, was not. Williams had promoted 70 ministers, roughly 16 a year; but in a similar period Coventry promoted only 20, a little over 4 per year. Over his whole tenure of office, from 1625 until 1640, Coventry nominated only 76 ministers, roughly 5 per year. The number of places held by clergy fell steadily: 178 early in 1626, 171 in 1629, 146 in 1632, and 137 in 1634 – and among ministers the decline was more dramatic: 117 in 1626, 108 in 1629, 95 in 1632, 78 in 1634 – back to the figure in Bacon’s time. There were purges of lay justices early in Coventry’s tenure, so total numbers fell, but the only cleric specifically sacked at this time was Evan Vaughan from Radnor in September 1626.18 Between 1625 and October 1626 the number of places held by knights, lawyers, and gentlemen fell from 1,726 to 1,465 – and the number of clergy remained steady, so for a time the clerical proportion increased. But then both the number and the proportion fell. Clergymen were rarely sacked from the commissions, but when they died or moved many were not replaced and numbers dwindled. In 1626 only one county had no clerical JP: by 1640 there were thirteen, and twelve more had only one cleric – usually the bishop. There were three clerics on the Essex bench in 1621, two appointed by Bacon and one by Williams: Dr Whiting died in 1624, Dr Whiniffe went off to be dean of Gloucester, and Dr Willard disappears after 1629 – leaving no clergy on the commission through the 1630s. Dorset had five clerical justices early in 1626, four of whom had been appointed under Williams. Then Dr Godwin was dropped from the commission after 1626, the dean of Salisbury became bishop of Rochester in 1629, Dr Whetcombe died in 1635, and Archdeacon Wood was

16 Proceedings in parliament, 1626, II, pp. 217, 248, IV,p.88;Commons Journals, I, pp. 832, 836, 839, 841. 17 Proceedings in parliament, 1628, II, p. 512, III, pp. 430, 433, V, p. 531. 18 PRO, C231/4, fos. 193–265 (with Vaughan’s dismissal at fo. 209), C231/5, pp. 9–364; BL, Harleian MS 1622 (liber pacis early 1626).

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 240 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL dropped after 1636 (though Godwin and Wood continued as JPs in Somerset). Dr Davenant was added in 1635, but for some reason he had lost his place by 1636. In 1640 there was no clergyman on the Dorset bench. Hertfordshire had four clergy JPs early in 1626 – Bishop Williams and three of his appointees. Dr Aylmer died in that year, Dr Mountford died in 1633, and in 1637 Bishop Williams was removed from all the commissions where he was placed.19 Only Dr Newell retained his place in 1640. The bench in Montgomery included five clergy in early 1626: Dr Davies had lost his place by October (though he continued in Merioneth), Bishop Bayley and Dr Daniel Price died in 1631, Dr Fulke Price died in 1632, and Edward Homes disappears after 1632. None was replaced, and from 1634 there was no cleric on the county bench. It is not clear whether Lord Keeper Coventry was responding to Commons’ complaints in 1626 and 1628, nor whether he or Charles I or the privy council was responsible for any change in policy. It is even possible that there were fewer clerical candidates for the bench, or that lay patrons were less supportive of them. But the shift was rapid, and it looks as if there had been a deliberate decision. On the face of it, Coventry promoted exactly the same sort of men as Bacon and Williams had done. His first forty appointees from the ministry included eleven deans, an archdeacon, and the Master of St Cross, Winchester. Twenty- nine were DDs and two were doctors of law; two were BDs, and three more proceeded to doctorates later. But the new justices seem to have been drawn from a narrower circle. Twelve were chaplains in ordinary when they were appointed, another became a chaplain later, and at least five were chaplains extraordinary. Two had been chaplains to the duke of Buckingham, one to the earl of Dorset, and one to Sir Henry Wotton as ambassador in Venice. Two had been chaplains to Archbishop Abbot, one to Neile, and one to Laud. Two were sons of knights, one of an esquire; one was son-in-law of a bishop, another a nephew – and there were men who had been patronized by Pembroke, Lord Grey, Sir William Saville, and the Finches.20 This perhaps suggests more central direction, more court influence, and less local initiative – while Coventry placed men in a smaller range of counties. It is worth dividing Coventry’s period of office into two: 1625–33, while Abbott was archbishop; and 1633–9, while Laud was. The differences were not major, but they were there. Although the number of places held by ministers had fallen to 78 by 1634, they then increased a little, to 85 in 1636, and 93 in 1640. Coventry appointed to an average of 3.7 places per year in Abbott’s time, but to 7.4in

19 Williams was dismissed from Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire by special warrant in July 1637 (PRO, C231/5, pp. 256, 257), and deleted from eleven commissions in the later alterations to the 1634 liber pacis (PRO, C193/13/2, fos. 3, 5v, 31v, 33, 37, 38, 39v, 41v, 47v, 74v, 87v); BL Harleian MS 1622 (early 1626). 20 PRO, C231/4, fo. 279v, C231/5, pp. 9–218; John Dowle, The true friend, or a bill of exchange

(London, 1630), sig. A2 ; Thomas Hurst, The descent of authoritie (London, 1637), sig. A3 ; Thomas Jackson, An help to the best bargaine (London, 1624), sigs. A2,A4. Royal chaplains are from Cranﬁeld, ‘Chaplains in ordinary’, p. 142 (for 1621); PRO, LC5/132, LC5/134, LC3/1, fo. 38v.

III We have so far examined the politics of appointing clerical justices, and we shall next consider the broader dynamics and scale of the problem. In 1604 the clergy had held 85 places on the 56 county and division commissions of England and Wales – 56 held by bishops and 29 by ministers. In 1621 the clergy had 132 places, 46 held by bishops and 86 by ministers. By October 1626, the bishops had 61 places and ministers 117 – and by 1636 bishops held 57 places and ministers 85. Few MPs had objected to the appointment of bishops, and their placings did not change very much, so the contentious issue was the increased nomination of ministers: places held by them had multiplied by four times between 1604 and October 1626. But the ministers remained a tiny fraction of the total number of county justices – 4 per cent of the ‘non-oﬃcial’ members in 1621, 7.6 per cent in 1626, and 5.4 per cent in 1636. Even at the high point of the clerical presence, ministers were few – holding 117 places in 1626, as against 1,465 held by knights, gentlemen, and lawyers. As far as lay justices were concerned, it was the number of clergy on their own county bench that mattered (so we have usually counted places rather than individuals) – but the number of actual clerical JPs was even lower, since many (and especially bishops) were appointed for several counties. In early 1626, 24 bishops between them held 67 places; 13 deans held 23 places; and 62 doctors held 73 places: in all there were just 121 clergymen on county commissions, including 97 ministers. By 1636 the numbers were lower still: 25 bishops and 72 ministers, totalling fewer than a hundred. A defender of clerical justices in 1641 had his ﬁgures about right: ‘there is not one hundred of the clergy employed throughout our whole kingdom, there being not above three or four justices of peace in a whole shire’.22

21 PRO, SP16/442, fo. 279v, C231/5, p. 371. By this point Coventry was dead and Finch was lord keeper. 22 BL, Harleian MS 1622 (early 1626 liber); Episcopal inheritance, or a reply to the humble examination of a printed abstract (Oxford, 1641), p. 27.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 242 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL The counties were, however, not the whole story, and we should also consider the commissions for towns and liberties. This is a more difficult task, since there are few doquets for the appointment of new justices there in the doquet books, the only liberty covered in the libri pacis is Westminster from 1621, and the commissions were recorded irregularly in the crown office entry books. In 1603–4, clergy occupied 12 places on the commissions for the four northern liberties: by 1629 this had risen to 22, before falling to 15 in 1635 – and local laymen usually took about 70 places. The first commission for Westminster was issued in 1618, when 6 clergy were appointed, together with 17 knights, 12 gentlemen, and a large crop of nobles, judges, and officials: the number of clergy was again 6 in October 1626, and it fell to 4 in 1634, but they were always a small proportion. There was always a significant clerical presence on the commissions for the two university cities, rising from 10 in 1603 to 20 in 1620–2, before falling to 13 in 1636–7. It was very rare, however, for clergy to be appointed JPs in other towns – though there were a few more while Williams was lord keeper. The vicar was appointed for Saffron Walden in 1615, the bishops of Lichfield and Bangor were put on the Lichfield city commission in 1622, and Dr Thomas Beard (author of The Theatre of God’s Judgements) was named for Huntingdon in 1625.23 Almost everywhere, then, the proportion of clergy on commissions was low – but there were pressure points. After Williams had appointed 8 more doctors of divinity and William Juxon DCL to the Oxford commission in February 1622, the city had 15 clerical JPs to 12 local laymen.24 Cambridge (with no cathedral) never had more than 6 clergy on its commission, and usually 10 local laymen. The liberty of St Peter’s, York, had 8 clergy JPs in 1625, and only 6 local laymen. There were complaints about County Durham in the Commons in 1614 and 1621: there were 4 clerical justices in 1604, 7 in 1613, and 9 in 1621 – but there were 13 local knights and 11 gentlemen in 1621, and Dudley Digges had got his figures wrong. It seems that those who complained about clerical justices in the Commons usually came from, or represented, counties with a significant clerical presence on the bench. Digges sat for Tewkesbury, but his estates were in Kent – where there were 6 clerical justices in 1613 and 7 in 1625 (though only 4 in 1621, when he first raised the issue). Sir Edward Peyton sat for Cambridgeshire, with 5 clergy on the 1621 commission. Sir William Spenser, who protested against diocesan chancellors as justices, sat for Northamptonshire, where the aggressive Sir John Lambe was a JP and chancellor of Peterborough. Thomas Whatman was MP for Portsmouth in 1626, when there were 6 clergy on the Hampshire bench. With a few exceptions, however, the ratio of clergy to laymen on each commission cannot have been a serious grievance. However, the rate of increase in the clerical presence may have been ominous. The complaints of 1614 came as Ellesmere was appointing a few more ministers,

23 Figures from PRO, C181/1–5 (the ﬁrst Westminster commission, in 1618, is in the crown oﬃce entry book with the other liberties, C181/2, fos. 331–2; from 1621 the commissions are given in the libri), C231/4, fos. 2, 189. 24 PRO, C231/4, fos. 134v, 135v, C181/3, fos. 43v–4.

IV It may not have been the number of new clerical justices that caused offence, so much as their character. In the counties, and especially among their fellow- justices, ministers may have seemed like episcopal – even royal – spies. Though lay justices were often dismissed from the bench, the clergy were safe. When William Whiteway noted in his diary the removal of 9 laymen from the Dorset commission in January 1626, he added ‘Dr Godwin, Dr Wood and Dr Whetcombe not put out’ – and drew a box around their names for emphasis. It might have been the men in favour, the trusties, the clerical high flyers, who were appointed justices – but apparently not. Of the 26 bishops in 1630, only 5 had been county JPs before they became bishops, and only 6 of the bishops of 1640. Nomination as a justice was not necessary to the careers of promising clergymen, nor was there any determination to appoint those coming men who might do as they were told. As we have seen, many justices were royal chaplains: roughly a quarter of the ministers made JPs by Bacon, Williams, and Coventry were chaplains in ordinary. But there was no systematic policy of appointing all, or even most, royal chaplains to county commissions – though the number of chaplain- justices increased as more doctors of divinity became JPs. Among the 26 chaplains in a 1604 list, only 6 were JPs and they all qualified by other means – 5 deans, and the vice-chancellor of Cambridge. Of the 48 chaplains serving in 1621, 6 were already county JPs and 10 more were made justices by Bishop Williams. In all, 25 of the 48 were or became justices – though 5 of them were nominated on becoming deans. The 48 chaplains of 1635 included 18 current JPs and 6 future ones: 7 of the 24 became justices as they were promoted to deaneries.26 So it seems that half of royal chaplains were not made JPs – and several more were

25 Episcopal inheritance, p. 18. 26 BL, Egerton MS 784, fo. 55 (the distinguishing box around the names is not shown in the printed edition, William Whiteway of Dorchester: his diary 1618 to 1635 (Dorset Record Society, 1991)); Cranﬁeld, ‘Chaplains in ordinary’, pp. 138, 142; PRO, LC5/134, fo. 5.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 244 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL justices because they were deans, not because they were chaplains. Doubtless, the personal preferences and ambitions of chaplains varied. Dr Daniel Price was appointed a JP in Montgomery and in Shropshire in July 1620, in Cornwall in 1622, and in Hereford in 1624: he got a place everywhere he held a benefice. The same is true of Dr Hamlet Marshall, who moved on to the bench as he acquired a post in a county – Hampshire in 1620, Lindsey in 1633, and Durham in 1635.27 These were probably individual efforts, since not every royal chaplain, nor every minister who mattered, became a justice – much less a justice in more than one county. Although a high proportion of clerical magistrates below the rank of dean were doctors of divinity, there was no systematic policy of appointing as many doctors as possible. In 1603 there had been at least 192 DDs among 4,830 preachers in England and Wales,28 and 8 of them were JPs: in 1626, when there were certainly many more doctors, they held only 73 places on commissions of the peace. By then, no more than a quarter and probably less than a fifth of DDs were justices. So there was a much larger pool of doctors from whom JPs could have been drawn – and a small number of non-doctors were chosen over doctors. Again, this may suggest that patronage links, personal ambitions, and local circumstances were significant in the selection of justices, rather than any deliberate policy of building up a clerical presence. There was no attempt to foist as many royal chaplains or doctors of divinity as possible on the counties – and local pressures seem to have been at least as important as national ones. Local needs seem to have counted too, and the incumbents of large or popu- lous parishes were often selected – though there may be a circular argument here, as the men prominent enough to gain plum posts were prominent enough to become justices. In the case of the vicar of Halifax, a place on the West Riding commission virtually went with the job: Dr Favour was followed on to the bench in 1624 by his successor Dr Robert Clay, Clay was followed by Henry Ramsden BD in 1635, and Ramsden in turn was followed in 1638 by Dr Richard Marsh – though Marsh was also a chaplain in ordinary.29 New justices in the 1630s included the rectors of Brancepeth, Cheadle, Croydon, Houghton-le- Spring, Lambeth, Morpeth, Newport, Sedgefield and All Saints Hastings. Perhaps some of these men were made JPs because their parishes needed a resident magistrate. It is difficult to assess whether theological issues played a part in the selection of clerical justices – partly because few of them published, and partly because some changed their views and practice over time. The JPs appointed by Bacon included the Calvinists John Williams, George Meriton, and Daniel Price, and the later ceremonialists Francis Burgoyne, Samuel Collins, and Richard Hunt. Williams himself nominated the Calvinists Robert Kercher and Daniel Price

27 PRO, C231/4, fos. 108, 111r–v, 144v, 160v, C231/5, pp. 112, 171. 28 R. G. Usher, The reconstruction of the English church (2 vols., New York, 1910), I, p. 241. 29 PRO, C193/13/1, fo. 33, C231/4, fo. 164, C231/5, pp. 176, 311, LC5/134, pp. 54, 87.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 245 (again), the later Laudians William Pierce and John Pocklington – as well as the more complex John Donne and Samuel Fell. Coventry placed the Arminians Samuel Brooke, John Cosin, Augustine Lindsell, Christopher Potter, and Francis White, as well as the ceremonialists Thomas Grey and William Fuller – but he also named the Calvinists Thomas Goad in 1628, and Daniel Featley in 1636, when Laud was archbishop. Which is not to say that religion was not an issue. Dr John Favour, vicar of Halifax, was one of very few ministers ever to be dismissed from the bench, in June 1623 – almost certainly because of nonconformity. And in 1640 Dr Burton proposed as a JP for Sussex Dr Dow – author of A discourse of the sabbath and the Lord’s day (1636) and Innovations unjustly charged upon the present church and state (1637). Burton evidently hoped that Dow would be a useful ally against ‘the puritan faction’ among the lay justices of the county, and suggested that Lord Keeper Finch should conduct a purge.30

V When MPs protested against clerical JPs in 1614 and the 1620s, the ostensible issue was cure of souls – concern that the duties of magistracy might distract ministers from study, preaching, and the conduct of services. Obviously, acting as a JP added to a minister’s burdens. When John Favour published Antiquitie triumphing over noveltie in 1619, he confessed that publication had been delayed by ‘preaching every sabbath day, lecturing every day in the week, exercising justice in the commonwealth, practising of physic and chirurgery’ – but Favour was an unusually busy man, and was a JP in the four liberties of Cawood, Ripon, Southwell, and York, as well as the West Riding. Nevertheless, he fitted every- thing in, and even finished the book. The author of the 1641 defence of clerical jurisdiction thought the whole distraction argument was spurious – ‘Neither will it hinder the study of divinity or care of preaching the gospel if some fit men be employed sometimes in the government of the public, for the well-ordering of the public and preserving of peace and justice will more advance the gospel, and abundantly countervail some intermission of preaching.’31 Nevertheless, some clergymen were busy justices. In County Durham, the clergy were amongst the most assiduous attenders at quarter sessions. In 1620–1, Birkhead, Blakiston, and Ewbank were present at seven out of eight sessions, and Burgoyne, Craddock, and Morecroft at six: only five laymen matched their record. In Somerset between 1618 and 1625, the Epiphany session at Wells was usually attended by the bishop and two other clergy, and this was again true between 1634 and 1638. Paul Godwin and Gerard Wood did lots of the routine out-of-sessions work – bastardy orders, settlement questions, rating disputes – and sometimes the bishop too dealt with these trivia. The Lindsey

30 PRO, C231/4, fo. 153, SP16/442, fos. 279r–v. 31 John Favour, Antiquitie triumphing over noveltie (1619), epistle dedicatory to Archbishop Matthew; PRO, C181/2, fos. 311v, 336–7, C181/3, fos. 50–1, C193/13/1, fo. 33; Episcopal inheritance, p. 19.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 246 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL records are patchy, but it seems that Dr Lincoln and Archdeacon Eland were conscientious justices and Dean Topham was not. In Wiltshire, the clergy took a less active role: Thomas Jeay and John Still were regular attenders, but only Still was busy out of sessions. In Hampshire in the 1620s, the dean, Dr Kercher, and Dr Marshall were frequently present at quarter sessions, and Kercher and Marshall were especially active at other times. There were sometimes four ministers at a sessions, and at the summer sessions of 1629 there were three clergymen to six laymen. But perhaps the enthusiasm of the clergy justices worked against their order, and gave an impression of clerical assertiveness.32 By 1641, it seems, the worry was less the provision of pastoral care and more the power of the clerical estate. Clergy justices were only part of the problem, for in the 1630s bishops had sat as judges in Star Chamber, and the High Commission had been especially repressive against critics of the bishops. When Bishop Williams was lord keeper, and when Bishop Juxon was lord treasurer, their names appeared high on the commissions for every county. Churchmen had their fingers everywhere, especially in Durham, Cambridgeshire, Ely, Kent, Oxfordshire, and the liberties. Dr John Baber was a JP in both Gloucester and Somerset between 1625 and 1632, Dr Hugh Lloyd in both Northamptonshire and Worcestershire between 1624 and 1629, and Dr John Tichbourne in Surrey and Sussex between 1625 and 1629 (and then, it seems, in Sussex in 1632 and Surrey in 1634). Dr Hamlet Marshall, chaplain in ordinary, was on the commission for Hampshire 1620–32, for Lindsey 1633–40, and for Durham 1635–40. But such judicial pluralism was rare, except in adjacent jurisdictions (Cambridgeshire, Cambridge, and Ely; Northumberland and Durham; the Yorkshire ridings), and among some bishops and deans. There was also suspicion of ecclesiastical lawyers on commissions of the peace, since, though almost always laymen, they were thought to form part of the clerical interest. In numerical terms, they were a tiny problem, with a maximum of twenty of them JPs at any one time – and there was no increase in their presence. Eighteen of them were JPs in 1608, nineteen in 1625, thirteen in 1632, and fourteen in 1636. Most of them – twelve in 1608, thirteen in 1625, all fourteen in 1636 – were diocesan chancellors, commissaries, or archdeacon’s officials. Some of them were major figures: Sir Henry Marten (chancellor of London, dean of the Arches, and official of Berkshire) was on the Berkshire commission at least between 1608 and 1640. Sir John Lambe (chancellor of Peterborough, official of Leicester, and Marten’s successor as dean of the Arches in 1633) was a justice for Northampton and Leicester from 1616. Clement Corbett (master of Trinity Hall, chancellor of Chichester and Norwich) was on the Sussex commission from 1615

32 Fraser and Emsley, ‘Clerical justices’, p. 198; Somerset Record Office, Q/SO2; Quarter sessions records for the county of Somerset, I, James 1, 1607–25, II, Charles 1, 1625–39 (Somerset Record Society, 23 and 24, 1907–8); Lincolnshire Archives, MSS LQS A/1/1 to A/1/4, A/1/7 to A/1/10; Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, MSS A1/150/4 to A1/150/7; Hampshire Record Office, MSS Q1/1, Q1/2, Q3/2.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 247 until 1632, and Norfolk’s from 1619 to 1636. His successor at Trinity Hall, Sir Thomas Eden (official of Sudbury and chancellor of Ely) was a JP for Suffolk from 1619 and for Ely from 1623.33 In only a few dioceses were chancellors fairly automatically made JPs – Chichester, Durham (where the chancellor was usually a cleric anyway), Lichfield, Lincoln, Peterborough, Salisbury, and Worcester. Whether they were useful justices or clerical stooges depended on the prejudices of the observer. And given the frequency of clashes between bishops and chancellors, the lawyers were hardly reliable allies of their masters – as John Williams himself could testify.34 Nevertheless, nomination to the commission gave the clergy a new status. County gentlemen had to struggle to gain and retain their places on the bench,35 and no doubt it seemed that the clergy were keeping some of them out. When there was so much jostling among the gentry for positions among the quorum, there may have been resentment of churchmen in this select group. Bishops and deans were always on the quorum, and some lower clergy were from their first appointment: Dr John Charlett went straight on to the Worcestershire quorum in 1625, as did Dr William Lucy in Hampshire in 1626. But other ministers had to work their way up, and others never made the leap. Dr Andrew Bing, archdeacon of Norwich, was appointed to the Norfolk commission in 1625, but not to the quorum – though he had reached it by 1632. Dr William Smith spent five years among the lower ranks in Worcestershire, before moving to the quorum in 1639, and Dr Humphrey Henchman made the Wiltshire quorum in 1640, after two years on the commission. Dr Samuel Fell was on the Berkshire bench from 1624 until at least 1636, and was never promoted to the quorum – though he got into the Oxfordshire quorum in 1639 when he became dean of Christ Church. And the ambitious and aggressive Dr Robert Sibthorpe languished outside the North- amptonshire quorum from 1625 until he was removed by order of the House of Lords in March 1641 – though in February 1636 a new commission had to be issued for the county because his name had been ‘miswritten’ in the last one.36 In October 1626, 66 places held on commissions by clergy below the rank of dean were on the quorum, and 32 were not; in 1636 there were 44 such places on the quorum, and 24 not. The proportions were much the same. It seems that ministers were neither more nor less likely than gentlemen to be of the quorum. However, there may have been a deliberate limitation on the number of quorum places held by ministers in jurisdictions where the clerical presence was unusually strong. Of five DDs on the Cambridgeshire commission in 1626, only Samuel

33 Brian Levack, The civil lawyers (Oxford, 1973), pp. 220, 227, 246, 252. 34 As bishop of Lincoln, Williams had long-running conﬂicts with his chancellor, Dr John Farmery ( JP in Lindsey and Kesteven), and with his commissary for the archdeaconry of Leicester, Sir John Lambe ( JP in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire). 35 Wall, ‘‘‘The greatest disgrace’’: the making and unmaking of JPs in Elizabethan and Jacobean England’. 36 PRO, C231/4, fos. 168, 175, 188v, 192v, 199v, C231/5, pp. 125, 193, 279, 321, 371, 434. Sibthorpe’s right to sit had presumably been queried.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 248 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL Collins, regius professor of divinity, was of the quorum, and the same was true in 1636. There were six DDs on the Oxfordshire commission for 1626, but only Thomas James, university librarian and rector of St Aldate’s, was of the quorum (and John Prideaux, regius professor of divinity, was not): by 1636 the three survivors from 1626 had still not been promoted, and the only doctor on the quorum (besides the vice-chancellor ex officio), was Brian Duppa, dean of Christ Church. In Durham in 1626, Francis Burgoyne BD, archdeacon of North- umberland, and Ferdinand Morecroft MA were of the quorum, but Gabriel Clarke, archdeacon of Durham, and Marmaduke Blaxston MA were not – though all were canons of the cathedral, and Morecroft and Blaxton had both been on the commission since at least 1613. In 1636, two archdeacons, two DDs, and the long-serving Morecroft were of the quorum, but two MAs were not. It seems clear that clergy were not privileged in selections for the quorum, and a doctorate was no guarantee of promotion. In 1621 James I had defended the appointment of ministers by saying they would be doctors of divinity and not ‘mean curates etc.’ – and certainly the vast majority of the ministers who were JPs held doctorates (80 per cent of them in 1626). But, paradoxically, their very qualifications posed a problem – one of precedence. When the parchment commissions were read out at quarter sessions, the doctors and the deans were listed after the knights and before the esquires and gentlemen – and when the justices took their places, the doctors sat above the esquires. It is true that knights were more numerous than they had been under Elizabeth, but there were still many gentlemen who ranked below the doctors. On the Devon commission of October 1626, Dr Thomas Clifford and the archdeacon of Totnes ranked below 22 knights, but above 22 gentlemen. On the Somerset commission, Dr Barlow, dean of Wells, Dr Wood, Dr Godwin, and Dr Baber were placed after 11 knights, but before 24 gentlemen. On the Oxfordshire bench there were only 6 mere gentlemen, but they ranked below the vice-chancellor, 6 doctors of divinity, and Dr Barker, lay chancellor of the diocese. In Denbigh Dr Lloyd followed 6 knights and preceded 19 gentlemen – though they outranked John Bayly, son of a bishop, who did not get his DD until 1630. These distinctions mattered. When Robert Warren, rector of Long Melford, was appointed to the Suffolk commission in September 1625, he was placed at the bottom of the list of justices. But in 1632 he gained his Cambridge doctorate, and a new commission was issued for the county to recognize his new status. He leap- frogged over a score of gentlemen, to join Dr Grant, Dr Goad, and the diocesan chancellor after the knights. In 1630 Dr Robert Jenison, lecturer at All Saints, Newcastle, wrote to his old Cambridge tutor to enquire what place, whether by university statute or by heraldry, if by occasion (more than search) you have heard, a doctor of divinity hath, not so much with respect to other degrees of learning, in law or physic, as to the laity, as suppose to a justice of the peace (out of his proper place), and whether their wives (by custom at least) take not place answerably. I ask not this with any intent to make other use of it than, as occasion serves, to stop their mouths that are ready too far to debase our calling and degree.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 249 Jenison was not a JP, nor likely to be, but he knew that lay justices asserted their rank, and thought that the clergy should claim their right.37 When MPs criticized clerical justices, they sometimes cited individual examples – a prosperous vicar who neglected Sunday services when busy as a magistrate, a doctor of divinity too poor to qualify as a JP. Perhaps some of the distaste was generalized from specific cases: perhaps some clerical JPs tried to throw their weight around, and discredited their kind. In May 1614 Dr William Tooker, a Wiltshire JP, abused the mayor of Salisbury in the market place, in front of several gentlemen – and later tried to have him arrested as he went in procession with the aldermen (or so the mayor claimed). Although Tooker spent most of his time in Wiltshire, he was dean of Lichfield and a royal chaplain: he probably cleared himself in Star Chamber.38 A more significant dispute arose in Northamptonshire in 1618, when Dr John Williams (the very man) clashed with fellow-justices over interpretation of the king’s Book of Sports, only three weeks after his appointment to the commission. On 18 July Sir Edward Montagu and Sir Thomas Brooke issued a warrant to the constable of Grafton Underwood to prevent ale-selling and fiddling at the parish’s festival. But after the morning service on Sunday the 19th, Williams took the warrant from the constable and ordered that the festivities should go ahead – ‘Am not I justice of the peace and justice of the quorum, doctor and parson of the town? Therefore never a precise justice of them all shall have anything to do in my town without me.’ He allegedly told visitors, ‘You honest men that are come to the town, you shall use your pastimes and your sports, for I will have no such precise doings in this town.’39 When Montagu heard of this, he had witnesses examined by Brooke and another justice – but Williams conducted his own enquiry, and wrote to Montagu blaming ‘this tumultuous and schismatical constable’ for causing trouble. Montagu asked Williams to join him and Brooke in examining the constable, but the invitation was refused. Both Montagu and Williams now lobbied at court, and Montagu protested to various judges against Williams’s conduct towards other JPs: ‘For if there be this affronting of one justice against another, judge you what the sequel will prove.’ Montagu’s brother (who was chief justice of King’s Bench) was horrified by news of ‘the miscarriage of the new justice of peace. It was very insolent, if the information is true, … neither is such boldness to be borne with for one justice to expose others in such a fashion.’ When, later in the year, the Northamptonshire clergy complained about their assessment towards the

37 PRO, C231/4, fo. 192v, C231/5, p. 83; Bodleian Library, Oxford, Tanner MS 71, fo. 30. Perhaps the complaints against clerical justices in County Durham were inﬂuenced by the fact that there the dean ranked above the knights, and the other clergy ranked above the esquires and gentlemen. The Durham sessions were normally presided over by the dean, unless the bishop was present: the custos presided only if the two senior clerics were absent. Fraser and Emsley, ‘Clerical justices’, pp. 193, 198. 38 PRO, STAC 8/39/13, Alexander Alford v. William Tooker et al.; William Tooker, Of the fabrique of the church, and church-men’s livings (London, 1604), title page; Wall, ‘Wiltshire commission of the peace’, pp. 139–41. 39 PRO, C231/4, fo. 65v; HMC Buccleuch (3 vols., London, 1899–1926), III, pp. 207–8.

VI Three years later, Williams was lord keeper – and soon presiding over the biggest expansion of the clerical presence in the period. It was Bacon and Williams who put the clergy into their new places: in nine years, they appointed ministers to 118 places on county commissions, and the number of places occupied at a time rose from about 50 to about 120. As we have seen, the clerical presence declined after Williams was sacked in October 1625, and recovered only a little from 1635. Under Bacon and Williams, ministers were appointed to commissions at an average annual rate of 13: between 1633 and 1640 while Laud was archbishop, the annual rate was only 7. The number of places held by local lay JPs increased again slightly after Coventry’s early purges, from 1,465 in October 1626 to 1,541 in 1636, but the number held by ministers fell from 117 to 85. By 1640, the bishops held only 40 places on county commissions – half the number of 1590 and 1608. The clergymen-justices were not a product of Laudian clericalism – and in Laud’s period of influence their significance declined. It was, sometimes, the Calvinist clergy who wanted to be justices rather than the Arminians. Lewis Bayly, bishop of Bangor and author of a classic of godly piety, was a JP for five Welsh counties, and the city of Lichfield. As bishop of

40 Ibid., pp. 94–5, 208–9, 210, 253–4. 41 Ibid., pp. 95, 207–8, 210. Other aspects of this conﬂict are discussed in John Fielding, ‘Arminianism in the localities: Peterborough diocese, 1603–1642’, in Fincham, ed., Early Stuart church, pp. 101–2.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 251 Lichfield, Thomas Morton was on the commissions for Derbyshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire: his successor (the ambitious careerist Robert Wright) was only on those for Shropshire and Staffordshire. Toby Matthew, archbishop of York, was placed on the benches of Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, the three ridings of Yorkshire, and the four York liberties – as was the Arminian (but not very Laudian) Archbishop Harsnett. Surprisingly, their ambitious and highly political Arminian successor Richard Neile was a justice only for the ridings, the liberties, and Nottinghamshire, plus Westminster – and he was not put on the Yorkshire commissions until two years after he became archbishop.42 Bishops Vaughan, Ravis, and King of London were on the Essex, Hertfordshire, and Middlesex commissions: George Moun- taigne was only on Middlesex, and Laud (while bishop of London) was on none.43 The Calvinist arch-pluralist was John Williams himself. As lord keeper, of course, he was on every commission – but even after his removal he had places for four counties and three divisions of his diocese of Lincoln, for North- amptonshire (where he had been a rector), for Hertfordshire, and for Westminster (where he was dean). As his predecessor at Lincoln, Bishop Neile had had slots in only two counties and one division in the diocese, and in Middlesex and Westminster. In sharp contrast to the (presumably) self-promoting Calvinists, Lancelot Andrewes was shy indeed: he had been a JP for Middlesex as dean of Westminster, and as bishop he was on the Ely commission – but as bishop of Winchester he was not placed on the Hampshire and Surrey commissions, as his predecessor and successor were. Perhaps his subtle mind was on higher things. Nor did Arminian or Laudian bishops show more interest than Calvinists did in having ministers appointed to county commissions within their dioceses – with the possible exception of Richard Neile, and even he failed (if he tried) to make an impact on Yorkshire. Under Archbishop Abbott the number of ministers on the Kent commission increased from 3 (two deans and an archdeacon) to 6, before falling to 3 or 4 under Laud. In Lichfield diocese the number of places on the four county commissions occupied by ministers rose from 3 in 1620 to 5 in 1626, while Morton was bishop, and fell to 2 in 1636, under Wright. We do not know what role bishops played in the nomination of clergy justices, and in any case it may be unfair to blame 1630s Laudians for failing to advance clergy to the bench, when Coventry was apparently reluctant to appoint them: Calvinists had little more success then. In the diocese of Salisbury, the number of places on the Berkshire and Wiltshire commissions held by clergy increased from 4 in 1613 to 10 in 1626,

42 Archbishops Neile and Laud were both appointed to the three Yorkshire commissions on 10 March 1634, and Neile was on the Nottinghamshire bench by the time of the July 1634 liber: PRO, C231/5, p. 127. 43 Laud was on the Oxford city commission in 1617 and 1620 when dean of Gloucester (PRO, C181/2, fo. 292, C181/3, fo. 2v), but not on the Gloucestershire commission. As bishop of St David’s, he was, as was usual, appointed to the commissions for Brecon, Carmarthen, and Pembroke, on 28 February 1622 (PRO, C231/4, fo. 136). As archbishop, he was on the Kent, Middlesex, and Westminster benches, and the three Yorkshire commissions.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 252 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL under the textbook Calvinists Robert Abbott and John Davenant – and fell to 6 in 1634, while Davenant was still bishop. At a casual glance it seems that more Laudians were being appointed in the last years of Charles’s personal rule – Eleazer Duncon and Edward Martin in 1639; Peter Heylyn and Christopher Dow in 1640. But of 24 men appointed in 1638–40, only half were among Walker’s ‘sufferers’ of the 1640s, and only 5 were obvious Laudians. And it is telling that Heylyn, a highly political Laudian and a royal chaplain since 1630, did not make the bench until 1640.44 There is no evidence of rampant Laudians cramming their clergy on to county benches. The truth is far more complicated. It is complicated partly because we know so little about the processes of appointment. Dr Robinson was nominated to the Leicestershire bench in 1623 as soon as Huntingdon commended him to Williams; Dr Dow was named for Sussex in 1640 immediately he was recommended to Laud’s chaplain by Dr Burton. The lines of communication are clear, but not the decision-making. In 1635 Dr Edward Kellet, ‘a crazy, old, retired man, who never saw you but once, and that long since’, dedicated Miscellanies of divinity to Archbishop Laud – and on 26 June he was appointed to the Somerset commission: was this a coincidence, or is there a connection? Kellett was certainly a tryer: he had offered to dedicate A returne from Angier to Laud in 1628, and had been rebuffed. In 1641 he dedicated The three-fold Supper of Christ to Lord Keeper Finch – perhaps he was aiming for the quorum.45 The men who really mattered in appointments of JPs were surely the king, the lord keeper, and privy councillors. The council certainly took an interest in the composition of commissions, and libri pacis were often produced for the council’s use – at least eleven between 1621 and 1639.46 But it is difficult to track the influence of individual councillors or the body as a whole, and in any case it was the keeper who made the final decisions: James declared in Star Chamber in 1616 that ‘the chancellor, under me, makes justices and puts them out’. It is possible to assess the impact of the king and the keeper. James I came to the throne in March 1603, while Egerton was keeper, and appointments policy did not change: later, there was a slight increase in the number of ministers. James certainly spoke out in support of churchmen in 1616, and demanded that they be shown respect.47 However, the king’s vague comment did not alter Ellesmere’s practice, and he nominated just three ministers in his last six months – though his health was poor, and perhaps the crown office had no lead from the top. It was four months

44 PRO, C231/5, pp. 279–405; Matthews, Walker revised, passim; PRO, LC5/132, fo. 86v. The other Laudian was Dr Christopher Wren, dean of Windsor since 1634, appointed to Berkshire in 1638. The 24 look like the usual run of appointees: 4 deans, 3 archdeacons, 6 chaplains in ordinary and a chaplain extraordinary, 5 men who were already justices elsewhere. 45 Edward Kellett, Miscellanies of divinity (Cambridge, 1635), epistle dedicatory; PRO, C231/5, p. 171; Bodleian Library, Oxford, Tanner MS 72, fo. 292; Kellett, Tricoenium Christi in nocte proditionis suae

(London, 1641), sig. A3. Kellett had been a Somerset incumbent since 1608, DD since 1621, and a canon of Exeter since 1630, but reached the bench only in 1635. 46 PRO, C231/4, fos. 129v, 158, 195, 238, C231/5, pp. 28, 73, 103, 138, 216, 241. 47 The political works of James I, ed. C. H. McIlwain (New York, 1965), pp. 330–1, 344, 339.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 CLERGY JPS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 253 after Ellesmere’s death that things changed decisively: in July 1617 Lord Keeper Bacon named six ministers to county benches and two to Oxford city,48 and he continued to make frequent appointments thereafter. There was no immediate shift when John Williams took up office in July 1621, though at the end of the month he had a liber pacis made for himself. In his first months he nominated only a few ministers – then he put three of them on county benches in November, and nine on the Oxford city commission in February 1622. Thereafter, Williams nominated ministers at a much higher rate than ever before. We cannot tell if this was Williams’s own idea, his response to James’s statement to the Commons on 1 May 1621, or obedience to an order from the king. Significantly, however, the appointment of ministers to benches continued through the seven months between the death of James in March 1625 and the dismissal of Williams, when ten were named – only Walter Balcanquhall a dean.49 A new king did not, as yet, mean a new policy. Then, on 30 October 1625, came Lord Keeper Coventry, and the heyday of clergy-JPs was over. Whether Coventry himself brought a new programme, or whether the king wished to undo what Williams had done, or whether they both took note of Commons protests, we do not know. But the timing of shifts in appointments policy suggests that the influence of keepers was crucial.

VII In 1640 the Root and Branch petitioners complained of a clericalist conspiracy to advance the power of the churchmen at the expense of the laity, and the House of Commons once again turned against clerical JPs. The clergy had grown too big for their boots, and had to be cut down to size. The most sophisticated discussion of the place of the clergy in the early Stuart polity has indeed seen the appointment of clerical justices as one element in the rise of clericalism, ‘the clerical estate revitalised’ with the backing of the crown.50 No doubt some contemporaries saw a concerted and sustained eﬀort to increase clerical power, but the reality was much more complex. It was suggested in 1621 that ‘divers spiritual men’ had been made JPs against their own wishes, and a Yorkshire minister argued in 1631 that his fellow-clergy should not be justices or councillors. The (limited) clerical invasion of the benches took place between 1617 and 1625, and after 1626 the clergy’s presence declined, both absolutely and relatively.51 Total numbers were

48 PRO, C231/4, fos. 44–7. The 8 were 1 dean, 1 archdeacon, 5 DDs and 1 BD. 49 PRO, C231/4, fos. 127v, 130–1v, 134v, 135v, 185–93. 50 J. P. Kenyon, The Stuart constitution (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 171–5; Foster, ‘Clerical estate revitalised’, passim. 51 Commons journals, I, p. 590; Foster, ‘Clerical estate revitalised’, pp. 148–9, 158. Foster correctly saw that the expansion in clerical numbers began in 1617, but thought that there was a relative increase in the 1630s when Coventry held down the numbers of gentry. It is true that Coventry’s purges of gentry increased the proportion of ministers from 6.7 per cent in 1625 to 7.6 per cent in October 1626, while their number actually fell, but by 1636 the number of gentry JPs had risen slightly and the proportion of ministers had fallen to 5.4 per cent.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 28 Sep 2021 at 13:01:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 254 CHRISTOPHER HAIGH AND ALISON WALL always low, and only in a few places was the clerical contingent at all significant. Although the first signals may have come from the centre, clergy were nominated by the same processes of patronage and lobbying as were lay justices. Appoint- ments were haphazard rather than systematic, and personal preferences were evident. Some clerics wanted to be justices, and some clearly did not. Some, like Williams himself, were eager for the status; some, like Robert Kercher, did a serious job of work. The crown did not impose its chaplains and its trusties on the counties, but responded to local needs. And eventually it was the crown – or at least the lord keeper – that blocked the advance of the clergy JPs, while Laud did very little to revive their fortunes. This is not to deny there was a ‘rise of clericalism’ – but to suggest that it was as much (or more) a matter of perception as of reality. The clergy were certainly going up in the world, becoming educated and gentrified: almost all of them were now graduates, more of them were the sons of gentlemen, and many rectors were prosperous. They wanted respect, and complained when they did not get it. Their appointment as justices reflected their improving social status rather than any striving for power.52 Out of eight or nine thousand parish clergy, only about fifty were JPs in 1636: if they sought authority, they had failed to get it. The clerical justices were rather like the papists: a major threat when seen from Westminster, but quite bearable when a few of them were met in the counties. The papists were a problem at the national level only in the context of the challenge of inter- national popery. The clergy JPs were a problem at the national level only in the context of prelatical power – bishops on the privy council, and dishing out punishments in Star Chamber and High Commission. Perhaps in the 1620s the objection really was about distraction from pastoral tasks; in the 1630s, though, the objection was certainly political – to clerical authority. Ironically, when the Commons returned to the attack in 1640 the clerical presence on benches had fallen by more than a quarter, to its lowest level for twenty years. There may have been a rise of the clergy – but there was a rise and decline of the clergy JPs.

52 Christopher Haigh, ‘Clericalism and anticlericalism, 1580–1640’, in Nigel Aston and Matthew Cragoe, eds., Anticlericalism in Britain, c. 1500–1914 (Stroud, 2000), pp. 18–41.

Table 1 Clergy JPs https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

https://www.cambridge.org/core 1590 1596 1604 1608 1613 1618 1621 1625 1626 1629 1632 1634 1636 1640

Including bishops Bedfordshire 1 1 1 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 Berkshire 3 1 1 2 2 3 3 5 6 5 6 5 5 3 Buckinghamshire 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 JP CLERGY Cambridgeshire 1 5 4 5 6 4 5 6 6 6 5 6 6 6 Cheshire 2 1 1 1 2 2 5 7 7 7 7 6 5 6 Cornwall 1 1 1 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 . University of Athens Cumbria 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 4 2 2 1 1 1 S . NEGADADWALES AND ENGLAND IN https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 Derbyshire 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 2 Devonshire 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 3 2 4 4 3 3 4 Dorset 1 1 1 1 2 4 5 3 3 3 2 Durham 1 3 4 6 7 9 9 9 7 7 9 8 9 10

, on E. Riding 3 3 3 2 2 1 3 3 2 2 2 2 1

28 Sep2021 at13:01:16 W. Riding 3 3 2 2 3 1 2 2 2 1 2 3 2 N. Riding 2 3 2 4 4 2 2 2 3 3 1 2 2 1 Ely 225 54345552335 Essex 1 3 3 1 2 3 2 2 1 Gloucestershire 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 1 3 Herefordshire 3 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 1 1 Hertfordshire 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 , subjectto theCambridgeCore termsof Huntingdonshire 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 Kent 2 2 3 5 6 4 4 7 8 8 6 6 7 7 Leicestershire 1 1 1 1 3 4 4 4 4 4 2 Kesteven 2 1 1 3 3 2 2 3 3 2 2 3 2 Lindsey 2 1 2 2 2 3 2 3 4 4 2 4 4 2 255 Holland 1 1 1 2 2 3 2 2 1 Middlesex 2 1 3 5 5 5 4 5 6 6 6 4 6 4 use, available at Downloaded from 256 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

https://www.cambridge.org/core Table 1 (Cont.) 1590 1596 1604 1608 1613 1618 1621 1625 1626 1629 1632 1634 1636 1640

Monmouthshire 2 2 1 1 2 2 4 4 4 3 4 3 2 1

Northamptonshire 1 1 1 1 1 3 2 4 6 6 3 3 4 3 WALL ALISON AND HAIGH CHRISTOPHER Norfolk 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 1 2 2 2 3 Northumberland 3 3 2 2 3 3 5 5 5 3 3 4 5 4 Nottinghamshire 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

. Oxfordshire 3 1 1 4 5 5 7 8 8 9 9 6 6 4 University of Athens Rutland 1 1 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 Shropshire 2 1 3 3 2 3 5 5 3 5 2 1 1 Somerset 1 1 1 1 3 3 6 5 6 5 4 5 5 Hampshire 1 1 1 1 1 4 4 5 6 6 6 5 6 7 Staﬀordshire 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 , on Suﬀolk 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 3 28 Sep2021 at13:01:16 Surrey 2 3 2 4 2 2 1 2 2 4 3 3 6 6 Sussex 1 1 1 1 2 4 3 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 Warwickshire 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 Westmorland 3 3 2 3 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 Worcestershire 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 5 4 4 5 Wiltshire 2 3 2 4 3 3 4 2 1 1 1 4

, subjectto theCambridgeCore termsof Sub-total 73 66 68 90 94 101 113 147 158 153 132 124 131 115 Anglesey 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 3 3 3 2 3 3 3 Brecon 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Cardigan 2 1 Carmarthan 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 Caernarvon 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 2 1 2 2 Denbigh 2 2 4 2 2 3 1 4 3 4 3 2 2 4 Flintshire 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 use, available at Downloaded from

Glamorgan 2 1 1 2 1 2 3 1 1 2 1 1 2 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Merioneth 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 4 1 1 1 1 https://www.cambridge.org/core Montgomery 2 1 1 2 2 4 5 5 4 4 2 1 Pembrokeshire 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Radnor 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 Subtotal 22 18 17 18 18 21 19 23 20 20 14 13 11 16 Westminster 5 6 6 6 4 5 1 JP CLERGY Total (excl. Westminster) 95 84 85 108 112 122 132 170 178 171 146 137 142 133 Total (inc. Westminster) 137 176 184 152 141 147 134 .

University of Athens Excluding bishops S

. Bedfordshire 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 NEGADADWALES AND ENGLAND IN https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 Berkshire 3 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 Buckinghamshire 1 1 1 1 1 1 Cambridgeshire 1 5 4 5 6 4 5 6 6 6 5 6 6 6 Cheshire 1 1 4 6 6 6 6 4 4 5 , on Cornwall 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 28 Sep2021 at13:01:16 Cumbria 12 1 Derbyshire 11 1122 Devonshire 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 2 2 3 Dorset 1 2 3 4 2 2 2 1 Durham 1 1 3 5 6 8 8 8 6 6 8 7 8 9 E. Riding 2 2 1 1 , subjectto theCambridgeCore termsof W. Riding 1 1 1 1 1 1 N. Riding 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 Ely 2 2 4 4 3 2 3 4 4 4 2 2 2 4 Essex 1 1 1 3 2 2 1 Gloucestershire 1 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 Herefordshire 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 257 Hertfordshire 1 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 use, available at Downloaded from 258 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

https://www.cambridge.org/core Table 1 (Cont.) 1590 1596 1604 1608 1613 1618 1621 1625 1626 1629 1632 1634 1636 1640

Huntingdonshire 1 1 1

Kent 2 3 4 2 2 5 6 6 5 3 4 4 WALL ALISON AND HAIGH CHRISTOPHER Leicestershire 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 Kesteven 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 Lindsey 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 2 3 3 2

. Holland 1112111 University of Athens Middlesex 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 4 4 4 1 3 2 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 Monmouthshire 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 Northamptonshire 2 1 3 4 4 2 2 2 3 Norfolk 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 Northumberland 1 1 3 3 3 2 3 3 4 3 , on Nottinghamshire 28 Sep2021 at13:01:16 Oxfordshire 3 1 1 3 4 4 5 6 7 7 7 5 5 4 Rutland Shropshire 1 2 3 2 Somerset 2 2 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 Hampshire 4 3 5 6 6 5 5 5 6 Staﬀordshire 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 , subjectto theCambridgeCore termsof Suﬀolk 1 1 2 2 3 3 2 3 2 Surrey 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 3 Sussex 1 1 1 3 2 3 3 3 2 2 3 3 Warwickshire Westmorland Worcestershire 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 2 3 Wiltshire 1 2 1 3 3 2 3 1 3 15 16 25 37 44 60 76 105 108 100 87 73 81 84 use, available at Downloaded from

Anglesey 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

https://www.cambridge.org/core Brecon Cardigan Carmarthan 1111 Caernarvon 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 Denbigh 1 1 2 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 1 2 Flintshire 1 JP CLERGY Glamorgan 1 1 1 2 1 Merioneth 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Montgomery 1 1 1 2 3 4 3 3 2 1 .

University of Athens Pembrokeshire 1 S . NEGADADWALES AND ENGLAND IN https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X04003693 Radnor 1 1 1 1 1 Subtotal 2 3 4 6 5 8 9 14 9 8 8 5 4 9 Westminster 3 4 4 4 3 1 2 Total (excl. Westminster) 17 19 29 43 49 67 86 119 117 108 95 78 85 93

, on Total (inc. Westminster) 89 123 121 112 98 79 87 93 28 Sep2021 at13:01:16 Sources: Based on the following patent rolls (PR) in the PRO, C66 series, and libri pacis (LP ). For 1590: 7 Apr., LP, BL Egerton MS 3788. Early 1596: LP,PRO, SP13/F/11. 1604: LP, BL Additional MS 38139, fos. 108–79. 1608: 20 May and amendments, LP, PRO, SP14/33. 1613: PR (11 James I), PRO, C66/1988. 1618: PR, PRO, C66/2174. 1621: Nov., LP, PRO, C193/13/1. 1625 (1 Charles I): PR, printed in Rymer, Foedera, XVIII, pp. 566–625 (the Somerset list matches an original commission dated 1 April 1625, Somerset Record Oﬃce Q/JC/26). 1626: late Oct., LP, PRO, E163/18/2. 1629: PR, PRO, C66/2527. 1632: Feb., LP, PRO, SP16/ 212. 1634: LP, PRO, C193/13/2 ( July, corrected to mid-1635, some counties to 1638). 1636: LP, PRO, SP16/405. 1640: PR, PRO, C66/2858 (gives Finch as lord keeper, which he was from Jan. to Dec. 1640; alterations to commissions made up to May were included). Counties are listed in the same order as in the sources, , subjectto theCambridgeCore termsof based on their Latin names, with Yorkshire and Lincolnshire each in three divisions. Lancashire is absent because its JPs were appointed by the chancellor of the Duchy, and were not included on the crown oﬃce lists. Five clerics were appointed there, all in 1615–16. See D. J. Wilkinson, ‘The commission of the peacein Lancashire, 1603–1642’, in J. I. Kermode and C. B. Phillips, eds., Seventeenth-century Lancashire: essays presented to J. J. Bagley, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 132 (1983), pp. 41–66. Westminster was listed in the libri and patent rolls from 1621 and is given in the tables, but since it was a liberty it is excluded from totals for county commissions given in the text. 259

CLERGY Jps in ENGLAND and WALES, 1590&#8211;1640

CLERGY Jps in ENGLAND and WALES, 1590–1640