UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Sir Thomas White's Dream: St. John's College, Oxford, The Merchant Taylors' Company, London, and the Reformation Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8jq2g82j Author Parsons, Katherine Amelia Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Sir Thomas White’s Dream: St. John’s College, Oxford, the Merchant Taylors’ Company, London, and the Reformation A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Katherine Amelia Parsons March 2016 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Thomas Cogswell, Chairperson Dr. Randolph Head Dr. Georg Michels Copyright by Katherine Amelia Parsons 2016 The Dissertation of Katherine Amelia Parsons is approved: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements Much like navigating religious reforms during the Tudor and Stuart periods, writing a dissertation is a rough and perilous business that requires the assistance of friends and allies. I have been blessed with both. This dissertation was inspired and guided by Thomas Cogswell, who suggested this topic when he cryptically advised me to look into Sir William Cordell. I have never looked back. Since then he has taught me the importance of telling history’s stories in a way that engages the reader, the horrors of using the passive voice, how to tease a narrative out of a seemingly dry manuscript, and the necessity of making writing a priority. For all of this and more, I am grateful. My other committee members have been equally encouraging and inspiring. Georg Michels encouraged me to stay in graduate school the first year of my Ph.D. program when I became overwhelmed and discouraged. His keen eye for consistency in narrative and argument has been instrumental in shaping how I think about historical writing. He also introduced me to the history of Imperial Russia, my favorite distraction from Early Modern England. I am forever indebted to him for the time and effort that he has spent encouraging me as a scholar. Randolph Head has also been a steady support, recommending helpful texts, polishing my ability to transcribe 16th century documents, and providing constructive criticism when needed. Through a series of seminars he iv introduced me to micro-histories of the Reformation, and it is my hope and desire that this dissertation becomes a meaningful contribution to that genre. Throughout my graduate studies I have been supported by a number of different institutions, and I owe a debt of gratitude to a plethora of people at all of them. In the UCR History Department Office, I am indebted to a number of women, past and present, namely Susan Komura, Deisy Escobedo, Rosie Mamaril, Connie Young, Christina Cuellar, Wendy Mello, and Iselda Salgado. Their assistance and efficiency has been invaluable to me. At the Tomás Rivera Library, Tracy Wandel has extended mercy to me when I was unable to return books until long after their due date. Her kindness saved me literally thousands of dollars in late fees and fines. The Inter-Library Loan Office was also courteous and professional. I remain in awe of their ability to find obscure dissertations and rolls of microfiche. I am also grateful to the History Department, the Graduate Division, and the Chancellor’s Office at UCR for their generous financial support. I was fortunate to be hired to a full time faculty position while working on my dissertation. I am deeply indebted to La Sierra University for their faith in my abilities and unfailing support. I am particularly grateful to the Provost’s Office for their financial support. The Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences assisted in research funding, as well as providing much needed time to research and write the dissertation. The student workers at La Sierra University also assisted a great deal with research. I am particularly indebted to v Nicqelle Godfrey, Laura Kosch, Winta Hailemariam, and Daniel Larios. Beyond financial support, I have benefited from the care of my colleagues. In particular, I would like to thank Jeff Dupée, Andrew Howe, and Lora Geriguis, who have been generous with their time and abilities, each of them read sections of the dissertation and I found their comments to be invaluable. Any faults in the text or its content are entirely my own. During my research trip to England I was assisted by a number of helpful librarians and archivists at the Guildhall Library, London and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. But I am particularly grateful to Michael Riordan at the St. John’s College Archive at the University of Oxford for assisting with manuscripts and answering questions. His companionship and patience made freezing winter days in a one-room archive in the basement of St. Giles’ House warm and productive. Stephen Freeth, Archivist of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, introduced me to the company records housed in the Guildhall Library and kindly provided me permission to photograph them for my own use. His compassion toward an American academic on a time constricted research trip will never be forgotten. I also benefited from lengthy conversations during my sojourn in England with a number of academics who sharpened my thinking and language on early modern history, particularly Nicholas Tyacke, Andrew Hegarty, Stephen Alford, Ian Archer, Simon Healy, Steve Gunn, Amy Blakeway, vi Helena Halcomb-Carr, and Joel Halcomb. Also, Lonnie Robinson and James McComish kindly forwarded their unpublished work to me. The support of friends and family has sustained me through this process. Notably, Melissa Zjaci, Joshua Parsons, Emina Parsons, Stephanie Scott, Angela Palmer, Alex Wiltsie, Deborah Higgens, Whitny Braun, Darla Koh, Tamsin James, Sasha Ross, Ken Crane, and Eric Vega have been there with tea, conversation, and a willingness to commiserate. A special thanks goes to Shawn Koh, who has been willing to share his wife’s attention with hundreds of dead Oxford fellows and London Merchants. His patience and love has been unstinting throughout this process. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Lyndon and Leslie Parsons. Their financial, moral, and emotional support has been endless. My father inspired me with a love of the Christian church and its history from an early age and has read every word of this dissertation. My mom has always been there with a hug and a much-needed meal when I was too focused on work to forage for food at the local market. She has also endured hearing large sections of writing read over the phone and provided valuable feedback. I never would have completed this without you both. Thank you. vii To Mom and Dad viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Sir Thomas White’s Dream: St. John’s College, Oxford, the Merchant Taylors’ Company, London and the Reformation by Katherine Amelia Parsons Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in History University of California, Riverside, March 2016 Dr. Thomas Cogswell, Chairperson This dissertation is a dual case study of two institutions, St. John’s College, Oxford and the Merchant Taylors’ Company, London. It considers how these two groups navigated the later Reformation in England, from the accession of Elizabeth I until the beginnings of the English Civil Wars. Although separate corporations, they were tied together by Sir Thomas White, a Merchant Taylor who founded St. John’s College, Oxford. He joined the two establishments in his will, granting the Merchant Taylors’ Company the right to elect up to forty-two of the College’s fifty fellows. This arrangement ultimately resulted in power struggles between the two groups, as each side attempted to press its own interests. These tensions were exacerbated by confessional differences between the two groups. Sir Thomas White originally founded St. John’s College as a training college for Catholic priests during the re-establishment of traditional religion during the reign of Mary Tudor. Following the establishment of the ix Elizabethan Protestant settlement, it became a haven for crypto-papists and conforming Catholics. St. John’s College remained a religiously conservative institution until the 1580’s, when it became a breeding ground for avant-garde conformity, and later the birth place of Laudianism. Conversely, godly Protestants from the 1570’s onward increasingly populated the leadership of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. Godly members of the London community governed the Company from the turn of the seventeenth century onwards, but more moderate Calvinists who supported the Jacobean and Carolinian courts tempered them. These religious differences led to friction between St. John’s College and the Merchant Taylors’ Company that exploded regularly at the elections of scholars held on St. Barnabas’ day each year. Previous historians have highlighted the financial context of these rows, but have largely ignored the religious and social foundations of tensions between the two groups. This dissertation seeks to rectify this oversight and contributes to the work of early modern English history, Reformation history, social history, and local history. My primary sources include correspondence, official registers, election ballots, state papers, college accounts, company