The Power of Scripture: Political Biblicism in the Early Stuart Monarchy between Representation and Subversion 9781800733213

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The Power of Scripture

Studies in British and Imperial History Published for the German Historical Institute, London Editor: Christina von Hodenberg, Director of the German Historical Institute, London Volume 8 The Power of Scripture Political Biblicism in the Early Stuart Monarchy between Representation and Subversion Andreas Pečar Volume 7 Subjects, Citizens, and Others Administering Ethnic Heterogeneity in the British and Habsburg Empires, 1867–1918 Benno Gammerl Volume 6 Unearthing the Past to Forge the Future Colin Mackenzie, the Early Colonial State, and the Comprehensive Survey of India Tobias Wolffhardt Volume 5 Between Empire and Continent British Foreign Policy before the First World War Andreas Rose Volume 4 Crown, Church and Constitution Popular Conservatism in England, 1815–1867 Jörg Neuheiser Volume 3 The Forgotten Majority German Merchants in London, Naturalization, and Global Trade, 1660–1815 Margrit Schulte Beerbühl Volume 2 Sacral Kingship between Disenchantment and Re-enchantment The French and English Monarchies, 1587–1688 Ronald G. Asch Volume 1 The Rise of Market Society in England, 1066–1800 Christiane Eisenberg

THE POWER OF SCRIPTURE Political Biblicism in the Early Stuart Monarchy between Representation and Subversion

? Andreas Pečar Translated by Jozef van der Voort and Jennifer Walcoff Neuheiser

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2022 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2022 Andreas Pečar All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2021042028 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-80073-320-6 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-321-3 ebook

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

vi

Introduction

1

Chapter 1. England and the Struggle against the Antichrist

22

Chapter 2. James VI as Supreme Exegete in Scotland

70

Chapter 3. Apologists for Crown Authority: The Divine Right of Kings

106

Chapter 4. The Gap between Lex Dei and Royal Authority

155

Conclusion

215

Bibliography

223

Index

257

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is the abbreviated translation of a study that was originally published ten years ago in German. Unfortunately, the chapters on the history of the Reformation and on political biblicism in Scotland have not been included in the English version of the text. The translation was made possible by an award from the Geisteswissenschaften International funding programme of the Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels. I would like to thank Anke Simon from the Börsenverein for her patience during this book’s long journey into print. In addition, I am extremely grateful to the editors of Studies in British and Imperial History – especially Andreas Gestrich, Christina von Hodenberg and Michael Schaich – and to Berghahn Books for including this translation in their series and for their unwavering commitment to its publication. My thanks also go to Jenn Neuheiser and Jozef van der Voort, who have translated this volume with the utmost diligence and care. This book was inspired by my year in the UK as a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and in particular by my host at Queen Mary University of London, Professor Kevin Sharpe. Professor Sharpe sadly passed away before his time in 2011, and this work is dedicated to his memory. Andreas Pečar Halle, 19 February 2021

INTRODUCTION

? Words are deeds. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar Symbolic power is the power to make things with words. —Pierre Bourdieu, ‘Social Space and Symbolic Power’ Political struggle … is inseparably theoretical and practical, over the power of preserving or transforming the social world by preserving or transforming the categories of perception of that world. —Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power

Topic and Research Question In 1659, the Protestant theologian Richard Baxter outlined his ideal of society in a political treatise entitled A Holy Commonwealth.1 Baxter evidently believed that with the death of Oliver Cromwell, the time had finally come to put his political dreams down on paper so that they could become reality. In his search for an ideal model for the organisation of society, he turned his gaze back to the distant past before the Fall of Man: ‘When God immediately Ruled, and man obeyed, all went right’.2 Baxter referred to a state built around this principle as a theocracy. In his tract, Baxter demanded nothing less than that England itself should take on the form of a theocracy – a transformation that would result in a state where God ruled as king and all inhabitants were God’s subjects.3 The political objectives of the state would be completely congruent with the will of God, and there would

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be no differences between the affairs of the church and those of the state. As such, the worldly ruler would merely be God’s officer: ‘This is a Theocraty [sic], when Princes govern from God, by God, and for God in all things’.4 According to Baxter, the rule of God as king is achievable in practice by establishing the lex dei as the highest law of the land. This law, he maintains, is implanted in all men at birth and spelled out in the Holy Scriptures. In Baxter’s vision, the norms valid in the church are indistinguishable from those of society, with church and state merging into an inseparable whole. Moreover, membership of both the spiritual and the worldly community rests on a single rite of entry – that of baptism. Through this sacrament, as Baxter explains, each individual believer strengthens the bond between God and humanity that has endured since the time of Abraham. Baxter explicitly chooses not to separate the covenant of grace from the covenant of law, but conflates the two. The covenant is thus understood as conditional, in that salvation is dependent on adherence to God’s law. Any violation would equate to high treason against God’s sovereign rule, with consequences for the common weal. A Holy Commonwealth represents an almost textbook attempt to use the Bible to make sense of politics. Baxter’s ideal form of rule is the extreme case, in which a society subjects itself exclusively to God’s norms as revealed in the Scriptures, and rejects the validity of all divergent norms. Baxter was also one of the first to refer to this political goal using the term ‘theocracy’.5 Yet this aspiration to establish a society subject exclusively to the rule of God was already inherent in the writings of the Old Testament, and it was regularly placed on the political agenda by radical Protestant clergymen in the wake of the Reformation, especially in England and Scotland. While such pleas for the establishment of a theocracy were admittedly the exception rather than the rule in the British public sphere during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, arguments drawing on the Bible were commonplace in political discourse. This book will focus on references to biblical maxims and exempla in political debate, as well as the justification of political statements and positions using passages from the Bible. The term commonly used to describe this practice is ‘biblicism’, which should be understood in a neutral way – that is, without any of the pejorative undertones associated with the term by modern theologians when referring to uncritical, literal readings of the Bible during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.6 In the seventeenth century, biblicism was by no means a problematic way of looking at the world; rather, it was commonly adopted as an interpretive approach beyond the disciplinary boundaries of theology, and it represented one of a number of codes with which people could ascribe meaning to and explain themselves and their environment.7 The Bible clearly served as a source of narratives and patterns that lent themselves to describing and assessing social and political relationships.

Introduction | 3

The political realm was by no means exempt from this code. Politics and religion were not clearly differentiated spheres, but were mutually dependent and therefore closely interwoven.8 In the early modern era, political rule without religious legitimation was unthinkable; yet this interdependence came with consequences. Any political rule that rested on a religious foundation was expected constantly to defend and protect the principles of the religion in question. Bible texts were also used to define how a ruler should behave as the protector of the religion, how the rule of the king stood in relation to the rule of God, what subjects owed to their worldly overlords and what they could demand in return. Political authority, according to the commonly accepted credo, had to align with the words of the Bible, and political decisions needed to be made in accordance with the provisions and maxims of the Scriptures. Based on these principles, there was a constant reciprocal relationship between politics and the Bible in both theory and practice. For the purposes of this book, politics should be understood along the lines of Willibald Steinmetz’s definition as a sequence of ‘communicative events’, in which ‘a variety of actors participate through speaking, writing, listening, acting symbolically, and even occasionally acting with violence’.9 The terms ‘political communication’ and ‘politics’ also cover speech acts that make ‘reference to collective units of action’ and therefore touch upon ‘rules of coexistence, power relations, or the limits of what can be said and done’.10 We should also add that, as a rule, political communication and political action ‘aim at the establishment and implementation of generally binding regulations and judgements within and between groups of people’.11 The arguments and societal blueprints produced in this way obtain plausibility by citing recognised authorities, which in turn gives them a chance of being accepted. In order to understand a given society, therefore, it is essential to look at the specific arguments raised and the reservoirs of tradition drawn upon in political debate. By focusing on these aspects of political communication, my study thus falls under the purview of the cultural history of politics.12 Although the authority of the Bible in the early modern period was generally uncontroversial, the validity and applicability of biblical norms as a standard for political rule in particular instances, and the specific interpretation of individual passages of the Bible, were highly contested within political discourse. The controversies over these questions saw theological and political arguments merge into an indissoluble amalgam.13 The following chapters are dedicated to tracing these conflicts by looking at political debates in the run-up to the English Civil War. In doing so, they focus on three key aspects of the topic. The Authority of the Speaker: It was by no means only clergymen who used the language of biblicism in their arguments. This book will show that monarchs themselves, along with numerous other political actors, brought the rhetoric of the Bible into the realm of politics. This can be seen in the fact that biblicist

4 | The Power of Scripture

arguments appear not only in sermons and theological tracts, but also in specula principum (‘mirrors for princes’), political treatises, political speeches before parliament and so on. This book will explain the political functions we can assign to each of these different speech acts; however, the very fact that the language of biblicism was used by many different actors on the political stage attests to its political relevance. At the same time, it is necessary to differentiate between two different types of speakers. Firstly, there were people whose speech acts attained importance by virtue of the office they held and the authority ascribed to them. For these individuals, we need to discuss why they drew on the language of biblicism, rather than any other languages. Secondly, biblicism also allowed actors without any kind of official, institutionalised authority to become well known as speakers, insofar as they were able to clearly present themselves as witnesses of God’s truth and successors to the prophets, and insofar as this imagined role was accepted by audiences.14 Between the Reformation and the Civil War, there were a few instances of self-proclaimed prophets playing a significant role on the political stage, and these occasions are worthy of close examination. Arguments and Models of Social Order: Alongside the question of who used the rhetoric of the Bible in the realm of politics, there is also the question of what they said. This book will focus exclusively on statements that deal explicitly with fundamental questions related to political rule, that defend or criticise individual political decisions using biblicist arguments, or that comment on the legitimacy, and therefore the stability, of the king’s rule. As such, my study will only discuss theology and ecclesiastical politics in cases where debates emerging from these fields take on a general political dynamic and touch at least indirectly upon the king’s status as a ruler. Needless to say, it is often tricky to set boundaries here, as there is no clear distinction between politics and religion. The analysis of biblicist rhetoric in political contexts looks at what was said in the political language of biblicism, but also at what could not be said. The majority of biblicist speech acts discuss the relationship between conditions in England and God’s law as revealed in the Bible – or, more specifically, in the Deuteronomistic History of the Old Testament. Likewise, biblicism played an important role whenever the political governance of the land came up for debate – that is, when the origins of sovereign rule and the monarchy, as well as the rights and duties of both the king and his subjects, were called into question. In studying these debates, it is also important to consider the varying epistemological significance of biblicist arguments. The spectrum of biblicist reasoning ranges from the didactic use of biblical exempla to legitimise contemporary arguments to the adoption of individual, Bible-based interpretive patterns and narratives, or even the Old Testament itself, as a timeless legal code. Consequences: The more binding a biblical argument was considered to be, the more political weight it carried. If the monarch’s policies were seen in political

Introduction | 5

contexts as contrary to the lex dei revealed in the Bible, it would spell the erosion of the king’s authority and political legitimacy in the long term. This book will therefore show the major lines of argument put forward by advocates of the king in a bid to fend off such ideas. From the early 1620s onward, however, biblicist criticism consistently dogged the politics of James I and Charles I, and ultimately contributed to the collapse of the Stuart monarchy in England. Consequently, there is no better era in the history of England for discussing the political relevance of biblicism than the years of the Civil War, from 1642 to 1651. This book thus begins with the question of whether, and in what ways, biblicist rhetoric contributed to the development and intensification of a dangerous crisis for the Stuart monarchy in the years leading up to the outbreak of war. I intend to clarify which Bible-based arguments and concepts of political order shaped the contours of political debate as matters escalated after 1640, and also to examine the relative importance of biblicist arguments in comparison to those that drew on other traditions. After doing the above, I will bring the historical backdrop into focus by examining the phenomenon of biblical rhetoric in detail from the beginning of King James I/VI’s reign. We will see that, for the most part, the biblicist political expectations surrounding the king and Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil War were not fundamentally new interpretations; rather, most of these interpretive patterns were already well established and ripe for use in political clashes. Finally, I will draw conclusions regarding the inherent potential of biblicism in various contexts as a means of stabilising or criticising political rule.

Historiography For Edmund Ludlow – member of the Long Parliament, high-ranking officer in the parliamentary army and staunch supporter of the execution of Charles I – the Restoration of Charles II to the English throne meant that the time had come to head into exile by Lake Geneva.15 From his new home in Switzerland, Ludlow looked back at the events of the Civil War in his text A Voyce from the Watch Tower and justified how Parliament had dealt with King Charles I in the following words: … though Charles Steward was not the Anti-Christ spoken of by the Apostle, yet was he one of the kinges that gave his power to the Beast. Yea, albeit in appearance the nation had cast off that yoake, yet did he assume to himselfe the headship of the church, and in effect (as farr as he could) obstruct the propagation of the gospell, no other doctrine being willingly permitted to be taught within his dominions but such as suited with and supported his corrupt interest of tyranny and domination; which being witnessed against by the spirit of the Lord, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelations.16

6 | The Power of Scripture

According to Ludlow’s reasoning, Charles I had to die because he jeopardised the salvation of the English people. He had fornicated with the Whore of Babylon, prevented the spread of the pure gospel and corrupted the church. In Ludlow’s view, the execution of the king was thus necessary in order to return to the true faith. He saw Parliament’s success and its victories in battle – all guided by Divine Providence – as proof that it had done nothing more than carry out the will of God.17 Ludlow regarded the Stuart monarchy and the events of the Civil War from a perspective rooted in the Bible and salvation history. For him, the Antichrist was omnipresent, especially within the Royalist camp. When Ludlow’s text was posthumously published under the title Memoirs in 1698/99, all these biblical allusions and his eschatological perspective were largely removed.18 The Nonconformist Ludlow, who had spent his life in anticipation of Judgement Day, was turned into a republican-minded politician and author aligned with Roman values, and thus a predecessor of the Radical Whigs, among whom his memoirs enjoyed great popularity in the eighteenth century.19 I have included this example at the beginning of my study because it clearly shows how interest in biblicist argumentation and awareness of its crucial importance in political discourse before and during the Civil War increasingly waned after the conflict had abated. To make Ludlow’s text seem relevant towards the end of the seventeenth century, it was apparently deemed necessary to package his memoirs in the language of republicanism and to rid them of their biblicist interpretive patterns. As long as the events of the Civil War and the Stuart monarchy remained an integral part of England’s national self-image as the mother of liberty, the general focus lay on the supposedly modern traits of the rebellious Parliamentarians, rather than their millenarianism or their predilection for Old Testament models. The Civil War enjoyed a prominent place in the Whig interpretation of history as the victory of an unyielding Parliament that defended the rights and freedoms of the English people against the increasingly despotic Stuart monarchy.20 Along these lines, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 confirmed the outcome of this initial ‘revolution’, and definitively turned England into a universally admired model for all freedom-loving people and nations. In this portrayal of the struggle for freedom by the people (represented by Parliament), there was no room for the biblicist rhetoric wielded by contemporaries, as their use of such language might have cast a shadow over their images as modern pioneers of parliamentary rights and liberties. Even so, religion enjoyed a prominent place within the Whig interpretation of history. The fact that Parliament had preserved Protestantism in England, alongside the freedom of the English people, formed part of the grand narrative. In other words, freedom and Protestantism were two sides of the same coin. Samuel Rawson Gardiner coined the term ‘Puritan revolution’ to describe just this aspect.21 Those whom Gardiner referred to as Puritans, however, were not

Introduction | 7

religious fanatics or subversive social revolutionaries, but prototypes of the consummate Englishman best embodied by Oliver Cromwell himself.22 In this sense, the Puritan revolution was a struggle for political and religious freedoms.23 Moreover, Gardiner saw religion as subordinate to the constitutional goal of limiting the monarch’s right to rule. For him, religion was a means by which to legitimise and mobilise support, but not a cause of the conflict.24 Interestingly, Marxist historians had little trouble coupling this narrative to their own interpretations, which were rooted in social history.25 By suggesting that the seventeenth century marked the advent of the new bourgeoisie’s rise to power, they did not fundamentally contradict the way history was painted in the Whig interpretation; they merely brought a few new colours onto the canvas.26 Christopher Hill offers a unique take on this approach when he identifies Puritanism as the ideology of the new bourgeoisie striving to gain power.27 As such, he shows more interest than earlier historians in the specific forms of this ideology, with the result that several of his books examine the biblicist political arguments of the time.28 All the same, it is telling that he devotes far more attention to the biblicist arguments of the Puritans than to any of their adversaries, be they Conformist theologians or the advocates of the divine right of kings.29 Moreover, Hill generally removes biblical arguments from their specific contexts in order to weave them together into a coherent overall picture of a consistent class-based ideology and world view.30 In the process, however, the rhetorical content of the arguments is lost. The political scientist Michael Walzer also focuses on the Puritans in his work on the ‘revolution of the saints’, published in 1965.31 According to Walzer, the English Revolution can only be explained through the ideology of the Puritan clergy and the potency of their sermons.32 The Puritans embodied an intellectual avant-garde, akin to the Bolsheviks.33 They stood for the complete transformation and renewal of society, as manifested in its ideal form by Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army.34 Walzer explicitly rejects the Marxist assertion that the ‘ideology’ of Puritanism is fully attributable to changes in the traditional social structure.35 All the same, he champions an approach that is no less tied to modernisation theory – one that assigns the Puritans a decisive role in the modernisation of England and the individualisation of society.36 Walzer’s focus is really on the modern world rather than on the English Civil War, which may explain why he acknowledges the significance of Puritan rhetoric in the abstract, but does not embark on a detailed interpretation and contextualisation of individual sermons.37 Furthermore, Walzer’s interpretation is largely based on older positions that are mostly considered outdated today. For example, he still upholds the now stereotypical distinction between conservative Lutherans and revolutionary Calvinists.38 Walzer also understands Calvinism to be an expression of a republican ethos, following Hans Baron, whom he cites explicitly.39 Yet he

8 | The Power of Scripture

overlooks the fact that James I and many of his supporters among the clergy were themselves staunch Calvinists. Moreover, he uses the terms ‘Calvinist’ and ‘Puritan’ interchangeably, treating them as distinct from ‘Anglican’.40 The word ‘Puritan’, however, was used polemically as a means of othering Nonconformists, and for this reason alone it is a poor choice to describe specific groups within the Anglican Church.41 In Walzer’s interpretation, the Puritans’ revolutionary character is therefore merely a consequence of his arbitrary definitions and conceptual assumptions, rather than a valid conclusion reached by means of empirical analysis. Few advocates of the grand narrative of the triumph of freedom over tyranny give religion and the Puritans as prominent a role as Walzer and Hill. All the same, the central pillars of the Whig interpretation of history exerted a decisive influence on how the political rhetoric of the time was interpreted. For a long time, there was a broad common consensus among historians that England was a special case in the early modern period. While absolutist monarchies prevailed throughout most of mainland Europe in the seventeenth century, the opposite was true in England, where Parliament asserted and consolidated itself in the face of attacks by the Crown. Parliament was thus the guarantor of English civil liberties. Historians attributed this role not only to the Long Parliament in its conflict with Charles I, but to virtually every other Parliament during the Stuart period too. At the same time, a fundamental antagonism was assumed to exist between the Crown and Parliament. If Parliament embodied freedom, then both James I and Charles I stood for the ambition of bringing absolutism to England. This interpretation implied that the Civil War was a virtually inevitable consequence of otherwise irreconcilable divisions in Stuart England.42 It also suggested that the constitutional conflict between Crown and Parliament was underpinned socially by the irreconcilable opposition between court and country. The Marxist interpretation then added another layer to these divisions: that of the class conflict between the new gentry and the old peerage. Stuart England increasingly took on the appearance of an unusually contentious and crisis-prone society, with no chance of survival.43 This version of English history in the early Stuart period, however, no longer holds good.44 Geoffrey Elton questioned the teleological inevitability of the Civil War as early as 1966, and a collection of sources entitled The Stuart Constitution was published in the same year, whose editor, J.P. Kenyon, likewise denied that the events of the era were unavoidable. Nor did he attribute the periodic crises of authority under James I and Charles I to fundamental conflicts, instead ascribing them to specific problems in English statehood and in particular the Crown’s notorious financial deficit.45 A fundamental rejection of the idea of the Civil War’s inevitability thus emerged in the 1970s, especially with the works of Conrad Russell, Mark Kishlansky and Kevin Sharpe, whose arguments are grouped together under the name ‘revisionism’. Together, they

Introduction | 9

show that the various parliaments cannot in any way be seen as key forums of opposition to the king. The Parliamentarians were not revolutionaries, but were tied to a conservative world view and more interested in local concerns than in systematically shaping politics.46 Above all, revisionism has done away with the notion that England was defined by ideological antagonisms in the years prior to 1640.47 Its proponents emphasise the consensus over fundamental social and political questions in place of general political differences – or at least, like Sharpe, they take issue with the idea that the conflicts within Parliament or between Parliament and the Crown are attributable to ideological factors. Admittedly, as Glenn Burgess has rightly noted, the revisionists are not particularly interested in the history of political ideas.48 Nonetheless, the notion of a unifying consensus among all actors is now widely accepted by historians. This is especially thanks to John Pocock’s work The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law, published in 1987, in which Pocock emphasises that the ancient constitution and common law represented a binding set of values for all actors, and that they were the main sources used to legitimise political statements in political debates. As a result, not only did Pocock strip the Parliamentarians of their revolutionary garb, but proponents of monarchical rule also ceased to be seen as apologists for absolutism. As Burgess argues, it was obvious even to advocates of the Crown that the king could not rule arbitrarily, and that he was bound by the law.49 Yet this interpretation did more than simply remove ideological conflicts from the period leading up to the Civil War. By stressing the language of common law, it also lost sight of the use of other languages within political debate. England was not only compared with the ideal of the ancient constitution, but also with ancient Israel through the language of biblicism (among others). For Pocock and Burgess, biblical maxims and examples were at most used in political discourse to embellish the framework of values provided by the ancient constitution, and were by no means a distinct form of political rhetoric. Yet in fact, closer examination of rhetoric based on biblical models would have made it more difficult to identify an ideological consensus in England prior to 1640. Another field within the history of political ideas consists of studies related to civic humanism and republican ideas in England.50 Here, Quentin Skinner links the outbreak of the English Civil War with the idea of republicanism, and more specifically the adoption of ideas from classical antiquity, in an especially significant way. According to Skinner, the Long Parliament turned to classically republican notions of liberty at a moment when it saw itself facing a political emergency and staked a claim to absolute sovereignty.51 He maintains that these ideas only fully established themselves in English political thought over the course of the Civil War and during the rule of Oliver Cromwell.52 Yet prominent advocates of civic humanism and republicanism can also be found in the Elizabethan and early Stuart eras.53 For authors such as Burgess and Pocock,

10 | The Power of Scripture

civic humanism formed, in a sense, the ideological foundation of the doctrine of the ancient constitution, and was therefore an extra glue for the ideological consensus among the English upper class, whereas Skinner’s interpretation of classically derived ideas of liberty more strongly emphasises their potentially revolutionary character. What these two camps have in common, however, is that they both marginalise notions of political order in which religion played a dominant role.54 It is presumably no coincidence that Johann Sommerville, the main critic of this view of an English society underpinned by ideological consensus, also tends to attach greater significance to biblical arguments. According to Sommerville, from the enthronement of James I onwards, England was characterised by a conflict between multiple mutually exclusive world views. England, as elsewhere in Europe, was subject to two competing ideologies, with absolute monarchy pitted against a parliament that demanded a greater role. By asserting that this ideological conflict was an important factor in the outbreak of the English Civil War, Sommerville finds himself following in the footsteps of Gardiner.55 At the same time, however, he argues that the political language of the ancient constitution is only one language among many, and that of these, the language of the divine right of kings is the most important. According to Sommerville, references to biblical exempla within the theory of the divine right of kings were sometimes crucial – especially, for example, in Patriarchalist arguments that looked to the model of Adam as the basis for political rule. The problem with Sommerville’s depiction of political theory in the early Stuart period, however, lies in exactly this simplistic correlation between political arguments and sources. Whereas Christopher Hill primarily focuses on Puritan biblical arguments, Sommerville mostly sees the Scriptures being cited by supporters of absolute monarchy. Depending on one’s perspective, the Bible provided arguments for Parliamentarians or for supporters of the king. Yet a closer look at biblicist rhetoric in political debate will show that neither of these positions adds up. Biblicism, to echo Pocock, was a political language, not a political programme. Without doubt, revisionism has made a decisive contribution to our understanding of the early Stuart period. Yet the very success of this new interpretation of the history of the Stuart era makes the gap that still exists all the more obvious, as we are further than ever from being able to answer the question of what caused the English Civil War.56 Moreover, the term revisionism covers an array of incompatible interpretations that overlap solely in their criticism of the grand narrative of the Puritan Revolution. Even among revisionists, one can find authors who almost entirely strip the Civil War of ideological causes, as well as others who argue the opposite and see religion as the ultimate catalyst behind the outbreak of conflict.57

Introduction | 11

Nicholas Tyacke, in particular, has sought to develop a kind of new grand narrative that bridges what may only be an apparent contradiction between the notion of a prevailing consensus in England and the obvious conflicts that emerged after 1642. He does this by shifting focus from the Puritans to the Arminians within the English church. The Puritans, he argues, had always shared the basic consensus of the Church of England – namely, the belief in predestination – so it makes no sense to speak of a struggle within the church between Anglicans and Puritans. By contrast, the Arminians, with their teachings of grace, had broken with this consensus, thereby provoking ever-growing tensions in church and society.58 Conrad Russell, in particular, backs Tyacke’s thesis, claiming that it helps explain why a Civil War was possible in England in the first place. However, this interpretation has not gone unchallenged.59 Firstly, there is a problem of nomenclature. Tyacke identifies Archbishop Laud and others as Arminians without proving that these clergymen did indeed follow Arminius’s theology of free will in their dogma.60 That contemporaries referred to numerous bishops in the Church of England as Arminians does not, in itself, justify the use of this term as an analytical category.61 Given the fact that the words ‘Arminian’ or ‘Puritan’ were always used as polemical, othering labels, and not as a means of self-description, it seems sensible to avoid using this term for analytical purposes wherever possible.62 Furthermore, Tyacke concentrates too heavily on dogmatic differences among the English clergy. Yet an examination of the debates over church politics under James I and Charles I reveals that other controversies were much more prominent than the question of predestination – namely, those related to the governance of the church and the role of the episcopacy on the one hand, and to the liturgy during church services on the other.63 John Morrill takes a different approach, underscoring the central importance of religion to the question of what caused the Civil War, and demonstrating why the Civil War was above all a religious war.64 He asks what could have induced MPs to choose one of the two camps – that is, king or Parliament – in 1642. He concludes that attitudes towards the governance of the Church of England were the decisive factor in choosing one side or the other; controversies over the king’s tax privileges or the extent of his prerogatives were less important.65 Yet Morrill’s and Conrad Russell’s emphasis on the religious character of the Civil War serves another purpose too. Because both authors insist that there was broad consensus over constitutional issues among the country’s political elite, they need an ‘external’ factor beyond the realm of politics – namely, religion – to explain the outbreak of the Civil War.66 Both historians are thus highly receptive to Tyacke’s Arminian Revolution hypothesis. It is telling, however, that this type of approach leaves the political rhetoric of the time unexamined. Focusing on biblicist speech acts within the political sphere, as I propose to do in this

12 | The Power of Scripture

study, makes it far less easy to clearly separate politics from religion in line with Morrill’s and Russell’s approaches. In sum, it is safe to say that the analysis of biblical rhetoric in the political discourse of the Stuart monarchy has only profited marginally from the plethora and variety of existing interpretive approaches to the history of the English Civil War. Even those studies that accord religion a significant role in the outbreak of the Civil War only seldom look at what biblical images were deployed to describe these conflicts, what biblical maxims and exempla were used to develop political arguments, and what effects this had on the perception and description of political options. Kevin Sharpe’s plea for a broader understanding of the term ‘religion’ to encompass not only aspects of dogma and ecclesiastical matters, such as conflicts over liturgy and church governance, but also religious rhetoric in political contexts, has largely fallen on deaf ears.67 Although the Bible was often cited as a source of authority and legitimacy in the political controversies of the Stuart period, its use in the generation of political arguments has not yet been systematically analysed. The many recent studies on the English Bible have mainly concentrated on the different English translations and their varying political connotations.68 For the most part, they ignore the role of biblicist arguments in political debate. Even scholarship on Protestant book and reading culture pushes the political controversies of the Stuart period into the background.69 In fact, political biblicism has thus far only been the subject of individual case studies – although the growth in such studies over the last few years is perhaps a sign of increased interest in the topic.70 Only one aspect of biblicism has been of relative interest to historians so far – namely, the political manner of reading the Apocalypse that emerged in Protestant England. At the end of the 1970s, there was a short-lived boom in research on a specific English exegetical tradition attached to the Book of Revelation. The identification of the Pope – along with groups and protagonists allegedly close to him – with the Antichrist was particularly prevalent in England, and has therefore attracted some scholarly attention. However, this strict focus on the Apocalypse has its drawbacks, as it assumes, virtually a priori, that any political concept based on John the Divine’s prophecy of the end of the world was necessarily a radical one. Yet we can only make this kind of assertion after explicit comparison with other statements framed in the language of biblicism. Thus far, however, no one has attempted to situate these apocalyptic interpretive models within the context of biblicist rhetoric in general. Furthermore, studies that do look at the role of the Book of Revelation in political rhetoric tend to exhibit a certain bias. Their analysis is almost always limited to texts written by authors critical of the king, and therefore automatically associates the Apocalypse with a critique of monarchical rule. I aim to show, however, that the Book of Revelation, like all other biblical texts, could be interpreted to argue both for and against the king.71 What is true of biblicism in general is also true of texts

Introduction | 13

that draw on the Apocalypse: they are part of a political language, not a political programme.

Biblicism as a Political Language My study is intended as a contribution to research into ‘cultivated semantics’ in the early modern period.72 The term refers to the collective body of knowledge available to a given society for the purposes of identifying and interpreting current problems. This collective knowledge comprises the sum of all individual speech acts recorded in texts, other media or even in rituals in order to make them available as a whole to society and therefore permanently retrievable. Perceptions and interpretations are thus stored, and simultaneously categorised, standardised and generalised.73 What finds its way into this collective body of knowledge, and what is forgotten, can only be determined in retrospect by identifying which topics were repeatedly broached in social communication and thereby kept up to date, and which were not. ‘Cultivated semantics’ is a kind of collective term for the different, even mutually contradictory discourses or ‘meaning generators’ with which a society describes itself and attributes significance to its own activity.74 This study sets out to show that biblicism in seventeenth-century England was a meaningful discourse that was used for societal self-description, and which was continually revised and updated. The discourses – or political languages, as I will call them from now on in this book – in which a society communicates current problems and conflicts are key to understanding its political culture. Societies construct themselves in specific ways through their self-descriptions and, at the same time, these constructions shape the individual society’s perception of the world.75 Any description of political order that essentially draws its inventory of norms and models from the Bible will mould identities in its own particular way and develop its own concept of time; indeed, it will ultimately propagate a continuity between the times described in the Old and New Testaments and that of the contemporary era. The following chapters will focus on texts that measure and debate the legitimacy of the monarchy and the church against standards drawn from the Bible. Formally speaking, there is no unified corpus: some of the texts are sermons that were subsequently published; others are political and theological treatises. Historiographical texts, Bible commentaries and specula principum have also been included in the analysis. What unites all these heterogeneous texts is simply the fact that they use the Bible as a source of authority in presenting political arguments. Their reference to the same common authority allows us to classify these texts as belonging to the same political discourse, and to treat them as various expressions of a shared, collective ‘political language’.

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The methodological concept of political language draws on the Cambridge School of political thought, and was developed in particular by John Pocock and Quentin Skinner.76 This took place over a period of at least thirty years, during which various aspects of the model were outlined in empirical analyses of the ancient constitution or early modern republicanism, for example, as well as in countless other theoretical works on the subject. I do not intend to trace the genesis of this methodological concept; rather, I will attempt to systematically present aspects of the theory that are pertinent to my analysis of biblicism, and to draw out their consequences for my empirical study. Following Skinner, I understand texts and linguistic expressions in a broader sense to be speech acts with specific intentions. In that sense, my goal in interpreting these texts is to trace the intention behind them.77 It is much easier to reveal an author’s intention (to adopt the term used by Skinner) if the spectrum of possible speech acts available to them for presenting their argument can be reconstructed, in order to determine which speech act and statement actually appear in the author’s text.78 Skinner and Pocock rightly agree that the author’s intention cannot be adequately determined solely by reading the text; rather, a double context analysis is necessary.79 Firstly, in order to determine the author’s specific intention, the texts must be situated within the ideological or linguistic contexts of their time – that is, they must be evaluated against other texts. It is this comparison and the search for commonalities and differences that make it possible to separate specific elements from common conventions of political discourse. In this context, what Skinner calls ‘conventions’ are entirely congruent with Pocock’s concept of political language. As Tully points out, Skinner understands conventions to be ‘relevant linguistic commonplaces uniting a number of texts: shared vocabulary, principles, assumptions, criteria for testing knowledge-claims, problems, conceptual distinctions and so on’.80 Secondly, it is essential to situate both the text and its content within the political context of the time. This involves treating political theory as a political act, and although I acknowledge that there is a difference between theory and practice, I do not see it as a cast-iron distinction. The text is embedded within the political controversies of its time, though one must always gauge whether or not the author’s intention extends beyond the sphere of discourse into that of political praxis. Discourse and praxis are thus assumed to be mutually contingent: the political context is an essential prerequisite for both the generation of a speech act and the manner of its production, and the resulting ideologies are in turn a ‘material factor’ for political praxis, which cannot remain immune to their effects. When applied to discourse on the legitimacy of political action, this means that ‘the limits of the stretchability of the available ideologies sets [sic] the limits to legitimate action’.81 It must be noted, however, that Pocock and Skinner both show much less interest in situating texts within their political context than in

Introduction | 15

analysing the linguistic context of political statements.82 Identifying protagonists’ positions within the patterns of political decision-making and reconstructing power constellations and social or class stratifications do not rank among these authors’ preferred topics. This is surprising, since it is hardly possible to determine the motives and intentions behind an author’s linguistic statements without considering the social and political realms in which that author is active, and in which they position their statements. Pocock emphasises that political speech acts – for which he repeatedly uses the structuralist term parole – must align themselves with the available political languages, which he equates with the term langue.83 These political languages, in turn, determine the possibilities and limits of what can be said: ‘For anything to be said or written or printed, there must be a language to say it in; the language determines what can be said in it, but is capable of being modified by what is said in it’.84 Pocock argues that this does not result in statements becoming homogenised, since contradictory positions can easily be expressed in the same political language, but that it generates a shared canon of authorities, as well as a certain amount of shared terminology for the topics under debate.85 Moreover, in order to make statements about the significance and effect of a speech act, one must also consider how it is received. If a text first appears publicly in printed form, the reader is not subject to any authority insisting that they interpret it in a certain way.86 Pocock characterises the process of reading as follows: ‘any and all of the speech acts the text has been performing can be reperformed by the reader in ways nonidentical with those in which the author intended and performed them’.87 Although authors try to steer the interpretation of texts in many different ways – such as by adding notes and footnotes to the text, or by suggesting an interpretation in the preface – there is no guarantee that their efforts will be successful.88 However, historians face a substantial source problem when they try to establish the ways in which particular texts were received by contemporary readers. The only thing that historians possibly have to go on is the ongoing development of the discourse. Speech acts often prompt responses; in other words, the reading of political texts leads to the writing of counterarguments. In this way, the experience of reading feeds into further speech acts. The publication of a text can lead to the appearance of more and more texts, which refer to one another and compete to become the dominant interpretation within a political language. It is this ‘continuum of discourse’ that most clearly attests to the existence of a political language.89 For the language of biblicism in particular, the ‘continuum of discourse’ can often be traced in sequences of texts – that is, in statements and responses that generate further texts in their wake. In scholarship on discourses, the category of political language has a function similar to that of the term ‘structure’ in the interpretation of human action. Political languages establish a structure for political speech acts; they have both an enabling and

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a limiting function. A given spectrum of political statements is possible within a particular political language, but the use of that language will also preclude certain other statements. The similarity of the category of political language to that of structure means that political language is sometimes equated with terms such as ‘mentality’ or ‘habitus’.90 However, this misunderstands the different methodological concepts behind these terms.91 A habitus is acquired through socialisation and becomes virtually ingrained, so that it decisively shapes people’s perceptions and world views, as well as their behaviours and lifestyles. Unlike theories whereby the actor is steered towards or excluded from certain modes of behaviour by virtue of their role, habitus becomes a permanent aspect of the individual once their socialisation is complete, and can neither be exchanged nor adapted at will to new social demands.92 Political languages, on the other hand, are much closer to the category of roles than to the concept of habitus. For every speech act, the author has a selection of different languages at their disposal, as long as they know their rules and do not reject any political language out of principle – for example, on ideological grounds. Moreover, different languages can be incorporated into the same text, which is a relatively common way of constructing an argument in political discourse.93 Therefore, any sort of congruence between habitus and a given political language forms the exception rather than the rule. This is always likely to be the case when only one of the possible languages appears to be legitimate, and all others are rejected in principle for reasons tied to habitual or ideological dispositions. For example, in political discourse, a Presbyterian has almost no choice but to express themselves exclusively in the language of biblicism, since all other sources of authority are subordinate to the Bible, if not outright illegitimate. The fruitfulness of the concept of political language has been impressively demonstrated in numerous studies.94 Yet while the purpose of this kind of intellectual history is to draft a ‘linguistic map of the early modern era’, there are still blank spots on the chart of politically influential languages.95 Although the languages of the ancient constitution, civic humanism and republicanism have been intensively discussed, biblicism still huddles in the shadows of the Cambridge School of political thought. However, I believe this book will show that biblicism – that is, the use of the Bible as a primary source of authority when discussing political rule – can also be seen as a political language that has played a significant role in political discourse, especially in the Stuart monarchy in the years leading up to the Civil War. One reason why this topic is largely ignored by the pioneers of the Cambridge School in particular may lie in the fact that even Pocock and Skinner cannot resist the temptation to trace the origins of modernity back to the early modern era. Both Pocock’s Machiavellian Moment and Skinner’s Foundations of Modern

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Political Thought ultimately pursue the same goal, albeit in completely different ways: whereas Skinner tries to locate the origin of modern political thought in the work of premodern authors, Pocock looks to the tradition of premodern languages.96 It is easy to see how tracing a link between premodern and modern political ideas might be more challenging when looking at biblicism rather than republicanism – leaving aside the question of whether the latter endeavour overlooks the differences between Machiavelli’s discussion of republics and the debate surrounding the US Constitution in order to highlight the postulated similarities between them.97 From this perspective, it is probably an advantage that there is little danger of hastily labelling speakers and authors who use biblicist arguments as founding fathers and pioneers of modernity. Rather than any perceived relevance to the present, the fact that these authors’ manner of constructing meaning seems strange and alien to us today is what ensures that our reconstructions of their motives and intentions do not devolve into mere reflections of modern ideas. Skinner’s goal of tracing the intentions of authors by analysing their linguistic and social contexts is doubtless easier to achieve if no deliberate attempt is made to link the past with the present.

Notes 1. All dates are given according to the Julian calendar that was valid at the time in Protestant England. However, the mos Anglicanus custom of taking the feast of the Annunciation on 25 March as the first day of the year, which remained common practice until the mideighteenth century, has been adapted to the continental European practice of marking the beginning of the year on 1 January. 2. Baxter, A Holy Commonwealth, 200. 3. Ibid., 210. 4. Ibid., 216. 5. Other examples of the use of this term can be found in Cotton, A Discourse about Civil Government and Rogers, Diapoliteia. See also Gebhardt, ‘Alle Macht den Heiligen’. 6. See Karpp, ‘Biblizismus’. 7. Taylor, Sources of the Self, 27; Reckwitz, ‘Politik der Moderne’. 8. See the general observations made in Taubes, ‘Theologie und politische Theorie’. 9. Steinmetz, Das Sagbare und das Machbare, 26. 10. Steinmetz, ‘Neue Wege’, 15, fn. 20. 11. Patzelt, Einführung in die Politikwissenschaft, 23. 12. See Mergel, ‘Überlegungen’; Frevert, ‘Neue Politikgeschichte’; Landwehr, ‘Diskurs – Macht – Wissen’; Stollberg-Rilinger, Was heißt Kulturgeschichte des Politischen?; SchornSchütte, Historische Politikforschung. For critical objections to the new cultural turn in scholarship on the history of politics, see Rödder, ‘Klios neue Kleider’ and Nicklas, ‘Macht – Politik – Diskurs’. 13. Schorn-Schütte and Tode, Debatten, 9.

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14. For some initial thoughts on ‘Biblical Parrhesia and Reformation Frankness’, see Colclough, Freedom of Speech, –93. 15. On Ludlow, see Firth, ‘Ludlow [Ludlowe]’. 16. Ludlow, A Voyce from the Watch Tower Part Five, 144. 17. Ibid., 144. On this perspective, see also Worden, ‘Providence and Politics’ and Davis, ‘Living with the Living God’. 18. Ludlow, Memoirs. 19. See the introduction by Blair Worden in Ludlow, A Voyce from the Watch Tower Part Five, 5–13. On the question of John Toland’s role as the potential publisher of the memoirs at the end of the seventeenth century, see ibid., 17–39. 20. The term originates from Butterfield, Whig Interpretation. This book also contains an early critique of the teleological understanding of history; see Elton, ‘Herbert Butterfield’. 21. See Gardiner, First Two Stuarts. 22. See Gardiner, Oliver Cromwell; also Howell, ‘Images of Oliver Cromwell’, 28–29. This interpretation was also suggested by John Milton; see Milton, ‘Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda’, 215 and 222. 23. John Pocock also sees a synthesis of political and religious motives: ‘To the men of 1628 the reaffirmation of Magna Carta and the struggle against Antichrist at home and abroad were to be much the same’. Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 345. The rather surprising interpretation that the English Civil War was fought in order to establish religious tolerance was also advanced by apologists for Cromwell’s Protectorate; see Richardson, Apology for the Present Government, 4: ‘for now wee enjoy freedome from persecution in matters of Religion, which is the greatest outward blessing wee can enjoy; this alone is worth all the blood and treasure that hath been spent.’ See also the major work by Wilbur Kitchener Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, in which he dates the origin of religious tolerance back to early in the sixteenth century. A new assessment of this phenomenon can be found in Walsham, Charitable Hatred. 24. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents, xi: ‘No such conflict could be successfully waged without reliance on spiritual forces’, and xxiii: ‘Taken by itself, the dissatisfaction of thoughtful and religious men would not have produced a Revolution.’ See also Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, vol. 1, 9. 25. By way of example, see Christopher Hill’s introduction to Gardiner’s History of the Great Civil War, in which he supports Gardiner’s interpretation over those of revisionists on a number of points: Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, vol. 1, xxv–xxxi. 26. Tawney, ‘Rise of the Gentry’; Hill, English Revolution. For opposition to the notion of the emergence of a new ‘class’ of gentry, see in particular Stone and Fawtier Stone, An Open Elite? 27. Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, 3–31 and ‘A Bourgeois Revolution?’ 28. Hill, English Bible; Intellectual Origins; World Turned Upside Down; Antichrist. 29. This is also noted by Peter Lake in Lake, ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and Nicholas Tyacke’, 2: ‘Hill’s was a narrative in which all sorts of progressive forces … were associated, in one way or another, with puritanism’. 30. For a similar approach, see Baskerville, Not Peace but a Sword. 31. Walzer, Revolution of the Saints. 32. Ibid., 114–47; see also Walzer, ‘Puritanism as a Revolutionary Ideology’. Interestingly, Thomas Hobbes reaches a similar conclusion in his book Behemoth; I will discuss this further in my conclusion.

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33. Walzer, Revolution of the Saints, 121: ‘The Puritan ministers provide, perhaps, the first example of “advanced intellectuals in a traditional society”’; Walzer also refers to Karl Marx, Karl Mannheim and their assessment of the role of intellectuals in revolutions (ibid., 126, fn. 31). At one point in his interpretation of the role of the Puritans in the English Civil War, Walzer draws an explicit parallel to the Leninist concept of the intellectual avant-garde (ibid., 310, fn. 14 and 313–16). 34. Ibid., 13 and 265–66. 35. Ibid., 309. 36. Ibid., 312–13. 37. A similar critique can be found in Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 6 and 234, fn. 114. 38. Walzer, Revolution of the Saints, 23–27. Although this stereotype is considered outdated, it nonetheless persists stubbornly in historical studies; see e.g. Benert, ‘Lutheran Resistance Theory’; Benert, ‘Inferior Magistrates’; von Friedeburg, Widerstandsrecht, 47–50; Schorn-Schütte, ‘Politische Kommunikation’. 39. Baron, ‘Calvinist Republicanism’. 40. This misleading use of terminology can also be found in Seaver, Puritan Lectureships. 41. See Collinson, ‘Comment’ and Puritan Character. See also Haigh, ‘Character of an Antipuritan’ and, most recently, Lake, ‘Anti-Puritanism’, 85 on the term ‘Puritan’ as an element of polemic rhetoric: ‘Puritanism studied … through the lens provided by anti-puritanism, tells us a good deal more about the people doing the constructing and the labelling … than it does about the persons being labelled.’ Numerous examples of the arbitrary use of the term ‘Puritan’ among contemporaries can be found in Cressy, England on Edge, 141–46. 42. Mitchell, Rise of the Revolutionary Party (referring to the Puritans). 43. See e.g. Stone, Causes. Stone considers the whole of English history from 1529 onward to be a prequel to the ‘Revolution’. 44. This remains a valid assessment despite the fact that rehashed versions of the old theories still crop up today; see e.g. Hexter, Parliament and Liberty and Prall, Puritan Revolution. 45. Elton, ‘High Road’; Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 7, 175ff. 46. Russell, ‘Parliamentary History’; Russell, Parliaments and English Politics; Kishlansky, ‘Emergence’; Sharpe, Faction and Parliament. 47. On revisionism, see Asch, ‘Triumph des Revisionismus’; Burgess, ‘Review: Revisionism’; Hellmuth, ‘Die englische Revolution’. 48. Burgess, Politics of the Ancient Constitution, 110–11. 49. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 17–62. 50. See Richard Tuck’s foundational work, Philosophy and Government, 1572–1651. 51. Skinner, ‘Classical Liberty’. 52. Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism. 53. Peltonen, Classical Humanism; see also Colcough, Freedom of Speech. 54. I have already noted that although Pocock acknowledges the significance of Michael Walzer’s ‘revolution of the saints’ as a cause of the Civil War, he still comes to the conclusion, as the advocates of the concept of the Puritan Revolution did before him, that ‘to the men of 1628 the reaffirmation of Magna Carta and the struggle against Antichrist at home and abroad were to be much the same’. He goes on to add: ‘We can easily see that God’s Englishman might have to choose between acting as Englishman, as traditional political being, and as saint; but it is not certain that to see this is to see to the bottom of the problem’ (Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 345).

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55. See Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 1–5. 56. As John Morrill remarks: ‘they succeeded in explaining why a civil war did not take place in seventeenth-century England’ (see Morrill, Nature, 188 and Revolt in the Provinces, x). 57. Unorthodox approaches like that of Adamson, who interprets the Civil War as a ‘baronial revolt’ and thereby strips it of almost all its ideological causes, have been positively received, at least within scholarly circles; see Adamson, ‘Baronial Context’. Adamson has since published an overview of the Civil War, The Noble Revolt, that follows the same interpretive tack. The clearest riposte to this approach can be found in Kishlansky, ‘Saye No More’. 58. Tyacke, ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and Counter-Revolution’; ‘Debate’; and AntiCalvinists. See also Lake, ‘Puritanism, Arminianism and Nicholas Tyacke’. 59. See e.g. Davies, Caroline Captivity. 60. White, ‘Rise of Arminianism’; Davies, Caroline Captivity, 95. For Tyacke, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes is a kind of founding father for all English Arminians; see Tyacke, ‘Lancelot Andrewes’ and ‘Archbishop Laud’, 212–14. However, Andrewes himself always energetically denied being an Arminian. 61. White, Predestination and ‘Via Media’; Sharpe, Personal Rule, Chapter 6 and Remapping, 349; and Davies, Caroline Captivity, 122. 62. See Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 5 ff. See also Fincham and Lake, ‘Ecclesiastical Policy’, 193. The fact that the terms ‘Arminian’ and ‘Puritan’ were especially used for othering purposes does not prevent Fincham and Lake from using both terms as analytical categories in their otherwise excellent contribution. For an early example of the pejorative nature of the term ‘Puritan’, see Parker, Discourse Concerning Puritans, 45–47; for a convincing demonstration of the ambiguity of the term ‘Puritan’ in early literature, see also Holmes, New World, 23: ‘As said a Parliamentman in Parliament, the word Puritan in the mouth of an Arminian, signifies an Orthodoxe divine; in the mouth of a drunkard signifies a sober man; and in the mouth of a Papist signifies a Protestant.’ One could also make a similar assessment of the different uses of the term ‘Arminian’. 63. See primarily White, Predestination. For the reign of James I, see especially Prior, Defining the Jacobean Church and Lake, ‘Laudian Style’, 163. See also the example of Joseph Mede in Jue, Heaven upon Earth, 28–29. In his most recent publication, however, Tyacke tries to link his concept of Arminianism to the debates on changes to ceremonies; see Fincham and Tyacke, Altars Restored. 64. Morrill, Nature, 33–44; as a direct counterargument, see Burgess, ‘English Civil War’. 65. Morrill, Nature, 40–43. See also Morrill, ‘Attack’ and ‘Coming of War’. 66. Russell, Causes. 67. Sharpe, Remapping, 12. 68. Examples include: Katz, God´s Last Words; Daniell, Bible in English; MacKenzie, Battle for the Bible; Nicolson, Power and Glory. There have also been countless studies looking primarily at questions of biblical hermeneutics; for some examples see Hessayon and Keene, Scripture and Scholarship; Jenkins and Preston, Biblical Scholarship. 69. Green, The Christian’s ABC and Print and Protestantism. 70. Sharpe, ‘Reading Revelations’; Fischlin, ‘To Eate the Flesh of Kings’; Bradshaw, ‘David or Josiah?’; Collinson, ‘Biblical Rhetoric’; Metzger, ‘David, der Musterkönig’. 71. See Asch, ‘Revelation of the Revelation’. 72. This term comes from Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, vol. 1, 9–71 (especially 19). 73. Ibid., 18.

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74. Bohn and Willems, Sinngeneratoren, 9. 75. Luhmann, Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 866. 76. Pocock, ‘Languages and their Implications’ and ‘Concept of a Language’; Tully, Meaning and Context; Richter, ‘Rekonstruktion’; Hellmuth and von Ehrenstein, ‘Intellectual History’; Ottow, ‘Cambridge School’; Schorn-Schütte, ‘Kommunikation über Herrschaft’. 77. I have borrowed this concept from Austin, How to Do Things with Words. The issue centres on the ‘illocutionary act’ – the question of what the author does or what intention they have when they speak. See also Skinner, ‘Social Meaning’, 83–84. 78. Pocock, ‘State of the Art’, 4. 79. Ottow, ‘Cambridge School’, 35–37. 80. Tully, Meaning and Context, 9. See also Skinner, ‘Conventions’. 81. Tully, Meaning and Context, 23. 82. See the critique offered by Hampsher-Monk, ‘Review Article: Political Languages’, 109, and Goldie, ‘Obligations’, 733; see also the overview in Hellmuth and von Ehrenstein, ‘Intellectual History’, 165. For plausible alternative views, see Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics and Collins, Allegiance. 83. Pocock, ‘State of the Art’, 5 ff. Pocock also introduces parallel terminology to the field, such as vocabularies, rhetorics and discourses; see Pocock, ‘Concept of a Language’, 21. In my opinion, however, this plurality of terms leads to confusion. I will therefore only use the term ‘political language’, since this is most closely associated with my proposed theoretical concept. 84. Pocock, ‘Concept of a Language’, 20. 85. Pocock, ‘State of the Art’, 8–10. 86. See Fish, Is there a Text in this Class?, 305; see also Sharpe and Zwicker, Reading, Society and Politics, 2. 87. Pocock, ‘State of the Art’, 20. 88. Kevin Sharpe in particular draws attention to this aspect; see Sharpe and Zwicker, Reading, Society and Politics, 5–8 and Sharpe, ‘Reading Revelations’, 122–25. 89. Pocock, ‘State of the Art’, 28. 90. See e.g. Skinner, Foundations, vol. 1, xi, in which the terms ‘mentalités’ and ‘political thinking’ are treated as synonyms. 91. Pocock emphasises that these two terms are in no way identical; see Pocock, ‘State of the Art’, 18 and ‘Concept of a Language’, 22. 92. Bourdieu, Logic of Practice, 52–65. 93. Pocock, ‘Concept of a Language’, 30–31. Pocock emphasises that political languages must also be learned, although unlike habitus, the learning process does not necessarily shape the speaker’s identity. The number of different political languages learned by an author thus depends on their respective level of education. The following chapters will provide numerous examples of individuals who mastered more than one such language. 94. See e.g. the Ideas in Context series from Cambridge University Press, which now has over one hundred volumes. 95. I have borrowed the phrase ‘linguistic map’ from the German ‘sprachliche “Landkarte”’ in Hellmuth and von Ehrenstein, ‘Intellectual History’, 159. 96. Skinner, Foundations, vol. 1, ix: ‘I hope to indicate something of the process by which the modern concept of the State came to be formed’. See also Hellmuth and von Ehrenstein, ‘Intellectual History’, 167. 97. See in particular Wolfgang Mager’s repeated critical objections: Mager, ‘Republik’ and ‘Genossenschaft’.

Chapter 1

ENGLAND AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE ANTICHRIST

? Political biblicism played a significant role in England when it came to justifying the Civil War or adjuring subjects to remain obedient to their king. This will be illustrated by looking at three debates: a discussion surrounding three strident critics of ecclesiastical policy in the Church of England; the use of biblicist rhetoric in the Fast Sermons before the Long Parliament; and the controversy surrounding Henry Parker and his justification of Parliament’s decision to declare a state of political emergency, which provided a basis for disregarding fundamental constitutional principles. Although this selection does not provide a full picture of the genesis of the Civil War in England, these three debates can be used to illustrate the role that political biblicism played in discussions of the monarchy in England, as well as the specific ways in which biblicist arguments shaped contemporary perceptions and interpretations of events and therefore contributed to political clashes between king and Parliament, which culminated in armed conflict.

Witnesses of the Apocalypse: Burton, Bastwick and Prynne The truly decisive step towards civil war was taken in 1642, when a militia was formed under Parliament’s sole command. This marked the moment when a parliamentary decision completely broke with the established political order and not only clearly usurped royal prerogatives, but also explicitly rejected the king’s right of veto. However, Parliament had Charles I on the back foot politically long before it took this step. As of early November 1640, with the convocation of the Long Parliament and the king’s promise not to dismiss it without the consent of its

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members, royal control over politics in England had largely evaporated.1 This became clear shortly afterwards in a series of decisions that were taken with one goal – namely, to bring a definitive end to the era of the Personal Rule of Charles I.2 In his opening speech on 7 November, John Pym, one of the king’s sharpest critics in the Commons, announced what he saw as Parliament’s mission: to extricate the king from his treacherous advisers, who aspired to nothing less than the complete collapse of religion and the constitution in England.3 No sooner had these words left Pym’s lips than two of the king’s most politically influential advisers from the time of his Personal Rule – the Earl of Strafford, Thomas Wentworth and the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud – found themselves respectively in custody and under house arrest, both facing an impeachment trial before Parliament and the accusation of high treason.4 While the prison doors were closing on prominent decision-makers of the recent past, they were being flung open for three others who had been imprisoned since 1637. The return of the clergyman Henry Burton, the commonlaw judge William Prynne and the doctor John Bastwick to London from the Channel Islands was celebrated like a military victory.5 Opponents of Charles I’s church politics saw this turn of events as the release of martyrs from Laud’s ‘Babylonian captivity’ – a view that was shared by at least the majority of MPs in the lower house. John de la March saw in Henry Burton one of the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation, who, after giving their testimonies, will be killed by the Beast of the Apocalypse, only to be resurrected after three and a half days (Rev. 11:7–13).6 He also interpreted Burton’s return as a sign of the fall of Babylon and the vengeance visited on its servants (Rev. 18:1–3).7 In his diary, Robert Woodford, Steward of Northampton, likewise compared the return of these three spiritual leaders with the end of the Babylonian captivity.8 For his part, Burton also took advantage of the recent turn of events to write himself into the text of the Apocalypse, drawing a parallel between his recent hardships and the prophecy in the Book of Revelation regarding the fate of the two witnesses (Rev. 11).9 He saw the three and a half days during which the bodies of the witnesses were to lie uncovered on the street after being killed by the Beast of the Apocalypse as a metaphor for the three and a half years in prison that he and his fellow inmates had endured.10 This interpretation put Burton in the role of a direct witness and servant of God, and an instrument in God’s plan for salvation. He claimed for himself an enduring role as a ‘watchman of Israel’ and a successor to the prophets of the Old Testament.11 This self-understanding is also apparent from a declaration Burton made before the Privy Council, who passed verdict over him and his writings in the Star Chamber in 1637: ‘Yea, my Lords, knowe assuredly, that Christ himselfe, my great Lord & Master, hath called me forth to be a publique witnesse of this great Cause, who will certainly mainteyne both it and me against all the Adversaries of God and of the King.’12

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This may have been a bold statement to make during the trial; indeed, William Laud’s chaplain, Peter Heylyn, openly mocked Burton’s claim to be God’s direct messenger on earth.13 Yet the condemned men’s consistent self-styling on the scaffold as resolute martyrs, as well as their release and triumphant return to London, lent Burton’s description of himself as God’s prophet a measure of credibility.14 By claiming to be God’s messenger, Burton effectively placed himself above the established hierarchy of the Church, in which bishops controlled both the form and content of theological speech acts and also sat as judges in the Court of High Commission when conflicts arose.15 Burton elevated the law of God (‘this great Cause’) to the highest legal norm and saw himself as appointed by God to ensure that it was upheld. In his declaration to the members of the Privy Council, Burton explicitly denied that episcopal rule had any direct divine legitimacy; rather, he argued that the bishops had discredited themselves, in that their actions and their church politics had violated God’s norm. As such, he argued, they did not constitute a lawful judicial authority endowed with legitimate rights of jurisdiction within the Church, but were ‘Adversaries of God’, and also, given the high status they had obtained for themselves in the country, ‘Adversaries of the King’.16 The release of Burton and his colleagues and his self-appointed role as the prophet of the Apocalypse lent authority to his utterances and gave Burton a vital function within God’s plan for salvation, while the existing Church establishment had forfeited its political authority to interpret Scripture.17 The three former prisoners’ critique of the forms of the Church of England was no less relevant after their release in 1640, which itself can also be interpreted as a sign that Parliament shared their views. Likewise, their depiction as righteous and resolute martyrs of the true faith drew new attention to the statements that had led to their imprisonment in the first place, and also lent them legitimacy.18 As a result, their criticisms – for which they had been found guilty of high treason, had their ears cut off in public and been sentenced to life imprisonment just three years before – now became part of the political programme for at least some MPs.19 Their goal was to remove all elements of popery from the Church of England, which had been infiltrated by the ‘papist party’ and corrupt members of the English clergy in an attempt to bring it back under the yoke of the Catholic Church.20 All three prisoners shared this goal of eradicating popery from the Church of England.21 Furthermore, some of the writings for which they were convicted also contained notions of political order that were later used as a blueprint by the Long Parliament. This is especially true of the published version of a sermon given by Henry Burton on 5 November 1636 – the anniversary of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot – which carried the programmatic title For God, and the King. It was this text in particular that prompted the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, to bring Burton, Bastwick and Prynne to trial before the Star

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Chamber – that is, the Privy Council – which functioned as the highest court of the land, rather than before the High Commission, which was merely the episcopal court.22 Burton’s sermon contained two major elements. Like many other texts penned by him and his colleagues, it was an indictment of abuses in the Church and the causes thereof – namely, the bishops. Yet it also contained fundamental statements regarding the relationship between obedience to God and obedience to the king. Burton begins with an emphatic profession of loyalty to God and the king, though he makes it clear that obedience to the king is subordinate to obedience to God. To this end, he also interprets two classic passages from the New Testament relating to the commandment of obedience – namely, 1 Peter 2:13 and Romans 13. The obligation to obey worldly authorities, he maintains, follows naturally from the obligation to obey God, because the former are divinely bestowed.23 This coupling of secular and transcendental authority allows Burton to argue that secular rule is conditional and derivative, and that the king is ‘God’s Minister’. The ideal model for kingly rule is thus the rule of God, because the king governs on earth in His name. Yet God demands no greater obedience from the faithful than adherence to His law. Since this principle must also apply to the monarchy, Burton comes to the logical conclusion that the laws of the land also apply to the king himself. He also points out that in the coronation oath – the ‘Solemne and sacred Covenant with all his people’ – the king affirms his promise to be the protector of all the people of England and to rule in accordance with the laws of the land.24 In Burton’s view, the role of the king is that of a shepherd, whose duty is to keep his flock on God’s path and to protect it from wolves.25 Should he fail, the congruence between obedience to God and to the king would fall apart, and the king’s subjects would be forced to give precedence to God.26 This conclusion is a commonplace in the abstract world of political theory, and Laud’s supporter Peter Heylyn does not contradict it in his rebuttal to Burton (although he does challenge the conclusions that Burton draws from this assertion, which I will discuss in more detail later on).27 In other words, Burton’s reasoning only takes on a subversive dimension when he applies it to the contemporary situation in England. Burton’s argument against the profanation of the Sabbath serves as a particularly good example of this. The Sabbath commandment – the obligation to rest on the seventh day and worship the Lord – is, for Burton, part of God’s law. In other words, it forms part of the moralia: the eternal divine norms that apply not only to Jews, but to all people as part of the natural law.28 Burton interprets all attempts to limit the scope of the strict form of the Sabbath commandment to the Jews, or to partly repeal it through new regulations such as the Book of Sports, as a violation of God’s rule and therefore an act of disobedience and rebellion against God:

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Now as the King will not take it well, if any medle with his Prerogative, and arrogate that to himselfe, which is the Kings right: So is God justly offended, when men presume to assume unto themselves a power, which is proper and peculiar to God alone. If any will take upon him to coyne money by counterfeiting the Kings stampe, and Name, his act is treason: How then shall they escape, that presume to coyne or stampe for currant, what time they please for Gods solemne worship? Now the Sabbath day is of the Lords owne making and stamping, and therefore stiled Lords day, his image and superscription is upon it, which let no wight presume to counterfeite.29

Profanation of the Sabbath is just one example among many used by Burton to show that the king has failed in his role as a devoted shepherd. The core of his accusation is that the innovations introduced under Charles I were encroachments on divine rule. Burton thus implicitly accuses Charles of being not God’s earthly representative, but a usurper who had appropriated powers that belonged to the Lord alone. He applies this particularly to all attempts to change the established religion of the country: Neither God in his Law, nor the Law of the Land, doe allow the King a power to alter the State of Religion, or to oppresse and Suppresse the faithfull Ministers of the Gospell, against both Law and Conscience. For Kings are the Ministers of God for the good of his people.30

Burton saw the changes to the Church of England under the reign of Charles I as transgressions, running contrary to the law of God and that of the land. For the most part, this critique was not directed explicitly at the king, but at the leading representatives of the clergy – namely, the bishops – and their church politics. Burton refers to Charles I as a shepherd, for example, while describing the bishops as wolves endangering the flock.31 Yet Burton’s dictum that the English were ‘vassals and slaves to the Prelates’ rather than ‘free subjects of the King’ was no less disrespectful to Charles than to the bishops he was attacking.32 The catalogue of their sins included profanation of the Sabbath, the adornment of altars with crucifixes, the erection of chancel screens, kneeling during the Eucharist, the dismissal of worthy preachers, the prohibition of preaching outside of Mass and the ban on sermons relating to the doctrines of predestination and grace.33 In other words, Burton effectively lists every complaint put forward by reformers in the Church of England, especially under the leadership of Archbishop Laud.34 He also sees evidence of papist idolatry in Laud’s church policy, which violated God’s law and called for protest on the part of all true believers, and he demonises Laud and his followers in apocalyptic language: … they are those froggs, uncleane spirits out of the mouth of the Dragon, and Beast, and false Prophet, whose croking cryeth downe the voyce of Gods Ministers, and

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which doe corrupt the pure streames of the waters of life by their filthinesse. In a word, these are the limbs of the Beast, even of Antichrist, taking his very courses to beare and beat downe the hearing of the Word of God, whereby men might be saved.35

In this passage, Burton quotes the Book of Revelation, albeit without citing chapter and verse. In the relevant passage (Rev. 16:13), the unclean spirits are tasked with trying to win over the kings of the world to side with the Devil before the last battle. We then come to the central point of Burton’s treatise, as he uses his own fate as a test to determine whether Charles I was ready to side with the true believers and show due fear of the Lord, or whether he would follow his bishops, whom Burton saw as following in the tradition of Haman from the Book of Esther – the prime example of an evil adviser.36 Knowing that he is to be tried for his writings before the Star Chamber, Burton addresses Charles I directly in his treatise and appeals to the king to come to his own decision on the case, concluding: All which I humbly commit to Your Maiesties Royal Patronage, as Who next under God, are most interessed in the Cause. Now the Lord Iesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, so unite and combine your heart unto Himselfe, that You being guided by His Spirit of Wisedome and Understanding, of Councell and Strength, and of the feare of the Lord, You may doe Valiantly, and prosper, in stopping the course of all Innovators and Back-sliders into Popery, that so with and under Christs Kingdome, Yours may be established in Righteousnesse to You and your Royall Posteritie, until time shall be no more.37

Charles is thus given the choice of either proving his fear of God by absolving Burton of all charges and breaking completely with his previous church politics, or (more likely) of convicting Burton and once again condoning the tyranny of the clergy in England. Elsewhere in his text, Burton also suggests that European kings will inevitably reverse their religious policies as part of God’s plan for salvation. He bases this argument on chapter seventeen of the Book of Revelation, which prophesies that the kings, having fornicated with the Whore of Babylon, will ultimately turn on her and bring about her downfall.38 Yet despite Burton’s exhortation to Charles I to take on a preordained role in the history of salvation, the fact remains that For God, and the King was a highly subversive text, even though it neither discusses the right to resist the king nor questions the institution of the monarchy itself. Burton’s consistent subordination of royal power to divine rule, along with his enumeration of the principles underpinning the latter, was enough to constitute a denunciation of Charles I’s government as tyrannical without explicitly accusing the king of tyranny. The very notion of automatic obedience to the king was de facto a call for disobedience, because the precondition for this duty of obedience – namely, loyalty to God’s law – was no longer upheld in England: ‘If the Emperour

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commaund one thing, and God another: what thinkest thou? The greater power is God. Pardon O Emperour: thou threatenest a prison, He hell’.39 At the behest of Archbishop Laud, Peter Heylyn wrote A Briefe and Moderate Answer to Burton’s tract, in which he sought to comprehensively repudiate Burton’s arguments.40 Given that aim, it is remarkable that he does not dispute Burton’s fundamental premise: that monarchical rule must not contravene the rule of God. Indeed, he sets out from a similar position to Burton, stressing that royal authority is granted solely by God and rooted in natural law.41 Unlike Burton, however, he concludes that man-made laws cannot place limitations on the king’s rule, and in this way he dismisses Burton’s reminder of the king’s oath and his subjection to the laws of the land.42 Yet the king’s obligation to obey divine law remains uncontested throughout Heylyn’s text.43 For the most part, Heylyn concentrates on demonstrating that Charles I had always adhered to divine law. He does not dispute Burton’s assertion that, under the law of God, the king may neither change the country’s religion nor persecute virtuous clergy; however, he does deny that the king was guilty of these offences, and that Burton and his religious friends should be allowed to call themselves ‘faithfull ministers of the Gospell’. In other words (as Heylyn argues with reference to Rom. 13:4, which Burton himself cites), if the king were to call Burton to account, he would be enforcing God’s law, not breaking it.44 The confrontation between Heylyn and Burton was therefore not a clash between different understandings of political order, but a struggle over the interpretation of shared principles. Their dispute was not about the need for congruence between royal and divine rule, but rather over who, and by what authority, had the right to call upon God to justify their political demands – to declare whether or not such congruence existed, for example. Ultimately, the whole conflict revolved around the question of who had the right to harness theocratic arguments. Whereas Burton and his colleagues claimed this authority for themselves, Heylyn centred it on the person of the king. Historians of political theory in the early Stuart period tend to focus on other issues when looking at the conflict between Burton and Heylyn. This is particularly true of the fundamental controversy between Glenn Burgess and Johann Sommerville – based in part on Heylyn’s tract – over whether or not absolutist positions were advocated in Stuart England. Burgess stresses that Heylyn by no means exempts the king from the laws of the land, arguing that those laws are themselves a product the will of the king, while Sommerville reads Heylyn’s tract as a plea for unconditional obedience to the king, but not to the laws of the land.45 Yet this fixation on the issue of absolutism means that both authors lose sight of the specific context in which Heylyn made his argument. Burton’s tract is mentioned only briefly by Sommerville and not at all by Burgess, even though Heylyn’s rhetorical strategy only becomes clear when the two treatises are directly compared. Burton looks in particular at the

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relationship between God and the king, and only briefly discusses whether the latter is subject to the law of the land, whereas Heylyn gives the latter question far more weight in his rebuttal and pays scant attention to the relationship between royal rule and divine rule. In other words, it was only possible for Burgess and Sommerville to debate Heylyn’s position on the significance of the country’s positive laws because Heylyn’s response to Burton’s treatise shifted the entire focus of the debate. The question of why Heylyn’s treatise devotes more attention to the rule of the king over his people than to the relationship between God and the king is much more significant than that of how far Heylyn advocates exempting the monarchy from the laws of the land. Evidently, the theocratic argument held pitfalls for Heylyn, who would have had to concede too many limitations on the absolute power of the king to be able to effectively refute Burton’s position. Only the argument that God alone established the monarchy – that of kingship jure divino – plays a larger role in Heylyn’s reasoning. Here, however, he limits the active role of God to the moment when the monarchy was established, thus consigning it to the past. The notion of God as a permanently active supreme authority was hard to reconcile with that of an absolute monarchy, whereas it offered an effective means of criticising the king with reference to widely shared fundamental principles. It also lent urgency to such criticism; after all, the king, in his role as God’s earthly representative, needed to keep the potentially wrathful and punitive deity in a favourable mood and not anger him with disobedience.46 Yet Heylyn was much more interested in demonstrating the people’s duty of obedience than in discussing that of the king towards God.

The Fast Sermons before Parliament (1640–1642) The warning that the wrath of God would descend upon England if there were no return to the ideal of a fully reformed church was repeated, in various forms, in sermons – more so than in any other genre. In general, we can assume that sermons had a decisive influence on public opinion because they drew directly on the authority of the Bible to establish norms for the present.47 In cases where sermons also found their way into print, they tended to address audiences throughout the country, and not just in the local parish. If contemporary accounts are to be believed, the sermons preached from England’s pulpits played a prominent role in the advent of civil war, and we see blame attached to clergymen on both sides of the conflict. Charles Herle accused the king’s court chaplains of establishing the idea of a divinely ordained monarchy and thus furthering the cause of tyranny in England, while Thomas Hobbes charged preachers with affecting to be direct messengers from God and thereby usurping the authority of the king.48

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Of particular political relevance were sermons preached directly to contemporary political actors, whether at the king’s court or before Parliament. Over the course of the first session of the Long Parliament, a tradition was established that lasted until Pride’s Purge – namely, the regular preaching of Fast Sermons to the assembled lower house. Over the course of several years, preachers used these sermons to reflect on political developments, address current events and issue warnings or demands. At first, the sermons were given at irregular intervals on fast days, which were proclaimed in Parliament on an ad hoc basis. From the summer of 1641 onwards, however, fast days were regularised and the sermons were preached on a monthly basis.49 By virtue of their genre, these sermons dressed the issue at hand in the robes of scriptural interpretation, so that biblical exegesis and political commentary became symbiotic. Furthermore, because the Fast Sermons form a series, they offer a valuable test case in our search for the characteristic traits of biblicism as a political language. Aside from the specific contextual statements made in each individual case, do the sermons share any common features that we could categorise as belonging to a political language? And can this political language – insofar as it is present – be assigned any kind of political relevance in relation to the incipient Civil War? In other words, did biblicism provide arguments that justified Parliament’s breaches of the law and political custom? And were the notions of political order expressed in those arguments prefigured by the language of biblicism?50 Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, was under no illusions about the political influence of the preachers to the lower house. In his monumental History of the Rebellion, which offers a Royalist view of the Civil War, he focuses on two ministers in particular – Cornelius Burges and Stephen Marshall – and attributes enormous political influence to their sermons before Parliament, going so far as to accuse them of bringing down the English monarchy.51 Generally speaking, the invitation to preach in St Margaret’s Church offered an opportunity to direct demands and requests at the assembled MPs of the House of Commons, which is doubtless one of the main reasons why Clarendon ascribes such importance to these sermons. Most of the sermons were subsequently approved for publication by the Commons.52 This not only disseminated them to a wider public audience, but also signalled that the lower house – or at least some of its more influential members – had adopted the views and political language of the preachers. Although the demands made in these sermons did not necessarily result in immediate parliamentary resolutions, by granting imprimatur, Parliament nonetheless certified their political legitimacy.53 This alignment between the pulpit and the Commons is unsurprising, especially given that MPs reserved the right to choose who delivered the sermons. Many clergymen served as mouthpieces for influential MPs. Stephen Marshall,

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Cornelius Burges and Edmund Calamy, for example, were not only three of the most influential preachers to the Long Parliament, but were also all clients of Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick (one of the most influential figures in Parliament), and allies of John Pym, one of the king’s fiercest opponents in the Commons.54 Another clergyman, Samuel Fairclough, owed his opportunity to preach before Parliament to his long-time patron Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, to whom he also dedicated the printed version of his sermon.55 These are only a few examples of the broader phenomenon known as ‘tuning the pulpits’.56 This web of personal relationships between MPs and the clergymen addressing the House of Commons suggests that Clarendon’s assessment of the influence of radical preachers in Parliament needs modification. It is not always clear whether the preachers instructed Parliament as to its duty, or whether the content of their sermons was in fact dictated by MPs.57 However, even if these preachers were primarily mouthpieces for certain groups in Parliament, it is still worth examining what language they chose to use in that role and how they communicated their political demands through their sermons. I intend to explore this aspect in more detail. In any case, it is clear that not only the preachers themselves, but also many MPs had a strong interest in these regular sermons and saw them as an important means of communication. Both Royalists, such as Clarendon, and their opponents, like Pym, clearly considered these sermons to be at least as influential as their own speeches in the lower house, if not more so. This influence was due in large part to the language of biblicism, which preachers could use with far greater legitimacy and thus persuasive power than MPs. The impact of these sermons was amplified by their rapid publication at the express request of a parliamentary commission, making them available to a wider public. Given that parliamentary speeches were not usually printed even during the Long Parliament (although they were documented in many more publications from 1640 onwards), these sermons were the most easily accessible and regularly available source of political commentary at the time – and they were delivered almost exclusively in the political language of biblicism.58 We can already see the notions of political order expressed in these sermons in the very first example of their kind. Delivered before the Long Parliament on 17 November 1640, the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth I’s ascent to the throne, Cornelius Burges’s sermon to the Commons set the tone for the many Fast Sermons that would be delivered over the coming months and years. Burges’s sermon contains numerous basic patterns that continually reappeared in later sermons, and can thus be read as a kind of blueprint or script for most of the sermons preached to Parliament in the years that followed.59 His task, he explains, is ‘to seek what the Lord would command us to deliver in his Name, at such a time, to such an Honourable and [l]awfull Assembly’.60 The reference to Psalm 82, which is noted in the margins of the printed version

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of this sermon, offers a first hint at what Burgess sees as the will of God. In this Psalm, God commands the kings to come before him and asks them how long they intend to espouse the cause of injustice and godlessness. Because of their misguidedness and wrongdoings, the kings are held responsible for their own fates: ‘I have said, Ye are gods: and all of you are children of the most High: But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the Princes’. Burges does not go into any further detail on the role of the king in his sermon. Rather, he addresses his speech directly to the Commons and tries to win MPs over to his cause: that England should once again undergo a purifying reformation, like that carried out by Elizabeth I, and enter into a covenant with God.61 For the motto of his sermon, Burges chooses Jeremiah 50:5, which prophesies the fall of Babylon and the release of the Israelites from captivity, leaving little doubt that he considered contemporary England to be in the same position as the exiled people of Israel. His interpretation of the words of Jeremiah offers a prophecy of England’s future: ‘This Northern Army should be the confusion of Babylon, the confusion of Babylon should prove the restoring of the Church (vers. 3). And the restoring of the Church should produce a Covenant with God’.62 Charles I was forced to call the Long Parliament because the Scottish rebels – or Covenanters – refused to negotiate peace with him directly, and insisted on talking to Parliament instead. Their troops occupied the north of England as security. When Jeremiah refers to the destruction of Babylon at the hands of a ‘northern army’, he means the Medes and the Persians. For Burges, however, this passage serves as an analogy for current political events in England, with reference to the Scottish army holding the north of England.63 We can extend this analogy and equate the English people to the Israelites, but then we are left with the question of what Babylon stands for. Burges provides an answer with the help of several Bible passages. Babylon represents disobedience to God, abuses in the Church (such as idolatry) and apostasy – which Burges associates with ‘Popery’, ‘Arminianisme’ and ‘Socinianisme’.64 In order to escape Babylon, a radical change of course was needed. Burges speaks of this as ‘restoring the church’ – a process that would entail the elimination of all forms of idolatry – and he offers the example of King Asa, who deposed his own mother in his efforts to root out idolatry.65 He also mentions the divine laws set out in the Book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 13:6–9), which go still further, commanding that even idolaters in one’s immediate family be put to death, including one’s children, parents or spouse.66 All this was necessary in order to enter into a new and lasting covenant with God, as Burges emphatically demands of the assembled MPs, adding that this national covenant would be binding for the whole country, wives included.67 The covenant, Burges maintains, was necessary to ensure God’s protection and salvation for England.68

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These biblical exempla allow Burges to indirectly raise an extremely controversial subject and couple it with sweeping demands without having to go into specifics, such as the fact that Charles I’s French wife, Henrietta Maria, was a Catholic. This was the last thing the king intended to negotiate with Parliament; yet Burges makes it a matter of national interest and puts it on Parliament’s political agenda. The example of King Asa signals the course of action needed to restore complete obedience to God and achieve salvation – so it inevitably follows that as long as Henrietta Maria remained a Catholic, she could not be accepted as Queen of England. In order to answer Burges’s call and enter into a new covenant with God, Parliament would have to present the king with an ultimatum: he should either persuade his wife to convert, or divorce her. This conclusion, however, was left for the audience to draw, and was not articulated by Burges himself. Just a year later, after the political situation intensified in the wake of the Irish Rebellion in the autumn of 1641, the House of Commons appeared to take up Burges’s call to action. Parliament turned to the matter of the queen’s household; John Pym demanded that all of the queen’s servants, including the Catholic clergy, should take the oath of allegiance; and shortly after that, rumours even began to circulate that the queen would be impeached.69 In early 1642, seeking to protect herself from political events in England, Henrietta Maria fled to the Continent. The threats to the queen were not only related to the struggle against idolatry propagated by Burges and his allies, but were also a reaction to the recently exposed Army Plot. In any case, by now there was a serious danger that the House of Commons, in its self-declared war on idolatry, would no longer spare even members of the royal family. Burges’s call for a return and renewed commitment to God and His laws acquires genuine urgency through his references to the Apocalypse, the deliverance of the true church and the fall of Babylon, as he directly links the prophet Jeremiah’s account of the latter to the final destruction of Babylon in the Book of Revelation.70 Given this choice between salvation and damnation, Burges argues that even the otherwise secular Parliament needed to ensure England was on the side of salvation – a position that England had assuredly occupied in years gone by, as demonstrated by the miraculous victory over the Spanish Armada and the failure of the Gunpowder Plot.71 In Burges’s view, England’s regression into the arms of Babylon demanded that Parliament reverse course and reaffirm the covenant with God.72 He stresses that Parliament should not restrict itself merely to defending its own rights and liberties, claiming that the real key to England’s salvation was its commitment to the covenant with God.73 This was Burges’s state-of-the-nation address, so to speak. In England, there was less of a tradition surrounding the demand for a national covenant with God than in Scotland.74 The Reformation in England came about through the normal passage of laws by the Crown-in-Parliament,

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and not through a noble revolt against the monarchy, as in Scotland. Nor would it have occurred to Elizabeth I to style herself as the initiator of a national covenant, as James VI did as King of Scotland in 1581. As such, when Burges recommended such a covenant to Parliament as the only way to avert disaster, it was likely that he not only had the covenants of the Old Testament in mind, but also the example of Scotland.75 This would have been somewhat controversial, since it was the Scottish National Covenant that had provoked Charles I to take up arms against Scotland in the first place, and his subsequent defeat in the so-called Bishops’ Wars was what had forced him to call a new Parliament following the Treaty of Ripon.76 The Scottish rebels had refused to negotiate peace with Charles and insisted on dealing with Parliament, thereby irreparably damaging the authority of the king.77 With good reason, the Scots saw the supporters of Parliament as potential allies in their religious and political aims. The Scottish rebels were convinced that Scotland would only cease to be threatened by its militarily stronger southern neighbour if the Church of England were subjected to fundamental religious and ecclesiastical reforms, such as the overthrow of the bishops and the abolition of controversial ceremonies.78 Whereas the 1637 rebellion in Scotland had arisen from Scottish objections to the imposition of Church of England traditions through the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer, the success of the Covenanters now led to demands for the reverse – namely, the reformation of the Church of England along Scottish lines. Over the course of the Civil War, it quickly became clear that the English and Scottish clergy were working with very different conceptions of religious politics, despite their shared objections to the official, Laudian Church of England.79 In the early years of the Long Parliament, however, we can safely say that the interests of the Scottish Covenanters and the English Parliamentarians were mostly aligned. Likewise, in his sermon before Parliament, Burges – like his many successors in the pulpit of St Margaret’s – sought to instil his audience with a notion of church politics based on the Scottish model.80 From the very first sermon onward, preachers of the Fast Sermons aimed to bind MPs to the ideal of a theocracy and make it their highest priority.81 These preachers did so using a common motif: most of the sermons are based on an analogy between the fate awaiting England and that of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament.82 This was done partly to extol England’s role as God’s chosen nation, which was already a well-established conviction within Protestant England.83 The victory over the Spanish Armada and the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot were regularly cited as evidence of God’s willingness to miraculously intervene on behalf of England. Like Israel, however, England’s status as the chosen nation was not only a mark of distinction, but also meant that it had a special obligation to follow the law of God. As such, parallels were continually drawn between the state of affairs in England and God’s response to

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both the good and bad conduct of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament, with a view to making persuasive predictions or recommendations for appropriate courses of action. In his first sermon before Parliament, for example, Stephen Marshall refers to the fate of Israel in order to make clear the disastrous consequences of England’s betrayal of God’s law.84 References to Israel serve the same function in nearly all the Fast Sermons – namely, to impress the need for reform upon the audience.85 The preachers outline the return to God in a series of steps, the first being to identify abuses in the Church, which were described, in Old Testament terms, as idolatry and disobedience to God’s law. This identification needed to be followed by the complete eradication of all forms of idolatry, because only this would demonstrate the obedience owed to God. Finally, a universal covenant would offer the sole guarantee of unconditional loyalty to God. This general script underpinned almost every Fast Sermon preached before Parliament. In all the sermons, the ‘true religion’ was presented as the highest possible value. Other social values and duties were only valid if they did not stand in opposition to the true faith. In and of itself, this premise was fairly unremarkable, and would likely have been accepted by most people at the time, even outside the British Isles. The explosive nature of the assertion lay in the gulf between what most of the preachers and the majority of the House of Commons understood by the ‘true religion’, and the form taken by the Church since the English Reformation. Consequently, these repeated exhortations from the pulpit did not reinforce the societal status quo, but were a call to Parliament to adopt at times sweeping measures. The sermons underscored the urgent need for reform with reference to the collective divine retribution that would otherwise befall the nation, with speakers citing either the punishments visited upon Israel and Judah in their moments of disobedience, or the coming fall of the Whore of Babylon, who needed to be kept at bay at all costs.86 None of the sermons fail to mention the many and grievous transgressions within the Church of England, and we find endless references to the ‘corruption’ of the true religion and the clergy in England, together with idolatry, superstition and allegiance with Babylon. Yet the texts are far less clear on the exact nature of these transgressions, or who was responsible for them. Specific accusations are made regarding the profanation of the Sabbath, the practice of kneeling for Communion, altars with crucifixes, the sentencing of righteous ministers and the lack of differentiation from the Catholic Church.87 Doctrinal issues are brought up more rarely, however, and mostly take the form of blanket attacks against ‘Arminians’ and others.88 The preachers often point to Church leaders as the originators of all these transgressions, but they never name names; Burton, for example, calls them the ‘faction of Egypt’.89 From the very beginning, the MPs of the Long Parliament made the reformation of the Church one of their top political priorities. This was a new develop-

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ment in England, where church matters had hitherto been the prerogative of the king (as the Supreme Head of the Church) and his appointed bishops, while Parliament was tasked with passing laws to implement decisions relating solely to fundamental religious issues. But everything changed with the convocation of the Long Parliament, which took over numerous tasks that had previously fallen to the king and the bishops – including the release of prisoners who had been sentenced to imprisonment by the Court of High Commission or the Star Chamber. Parliament also asserted its right to prosecute clergymen it held responsible for church reforms – among them numerous bishops. Moreover, within weeks, the Long Parliament revoked legislation passed by the bishops, such as the canons of 1640, which were intended to reinforce Laud’s regime in the Church.90 Many of the ministers who appeared in the pulpit of St Margaret’s had been summoned before ecclesiastical courts under Laud’s policies and banned from preaching, or even worse. Yet Parliament now granted them a privileged speaking role.91 This reversal was also made visible in St Margaret’s Church itself. After Burges’s sermon, the altar rail was ripped out and the altar on the east wall was replaced by a communion table situated in the middle of the choir.92 Churches throughout England were ‘cleansed’ of supposedly Catholic remnants – which often included not only the newly installed altar rails and altars, but also the Book of Common Prayer and the surplice, the vestment worn by the clergy. There were also numerous reports of assaults on individual parish clergymen.93 The rhetoric of rooting out idolatry evidently fell on fertile ground; yet the goals of unity, order and peace that had defined church politics since Elizabeth I also fell victim to the reformist fervour. The hunt for recurring motifs and commonalities across the Fast Sermons risks either overlooking or underestimating the specific context of each sermon. To what extent were they situational speech acts through which the preachers and their patrons in Parliament sought to influence individual political decisions? How were biblical exempla used rhetorically to prompt a specific, unambiguous interpretation without having to refer directly to current events? We can discuss these questions with reference to two case studies: Samuel Fairclough’s The Troublers Troubled and Thomas Wilson’s David’s Zeale for Zion.94 These two sermons fall outside the regular sequence of Fast Sermons, having been arranged at short notice by the House of Commons and preached before MPs on 4 April 1641. Trevor-Roper reads Fairclough’s sermon as a plea, commissioned by John Pym, for the execution of Thomas Wentworth (which was later carried out by Parliament); however, he does not provide a detailed examination of Thomas Wilson’s sermon on the same day. The particular circumstances of these two sermons do suggest a link to Wentworth’s impeachment: they were preached just two days after John Pym and Francis Russell, the Earl of Bedford, learned of the Army Plot, which was a plan to rescue Wentworth from the Tower by force

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of arms.95 J.F. Wilson, on the other hand, sees both sermons as unrelated to the contemporary political situation and interprets them as typical examples of the Puritan rhetoric used before Parliament.96 In order to determine whether these two sermons were situational speech acts that clearly advocated the execution of Thomas Wentworth, we will need to analyse the biblical examples cited in them. The name ‘Wentworth’ appears in neither text, so any associations with Wentworth’s trial were left to the audience. As such, we need to identify the rhetorical means Fairclough used to make his reference to Wentworth’s case obvious, assuming that was his intention. As the subject of his sermon, Fairclough chose the figure of Achan (Josh. 7), who acted against divine decree after the destruction of Jericho by stealing items from the city. As a result, the Israelites were punished by God with defeat at the hands of the Canaanites, and only the collective stoning of the evildoer Achan restored God’s favour. Trevor-Roper sees no reason to doubt that Achan stood for Thomas Wentworth, and at first glance, there is evidence to suggest that Fairclough’s sermon was a direct call to Parliament for Wentworth’s execution.97 First, Fairclough appeals to Parliament as the competent authority and argues that the relevant passage from the Book of Joshua outlines everything needed to prosecute wrongdoers.98 He then stresses that as soon as Achan’s crime was revealed, he had to be punished immediately in order to avert further ‘infection’ of society.99 It is this call for urgency in carrying out the sentence, along with the date of the sermon, that makes it likely that Achan is a cipher for Thomas Wentworth. The sermon can thus be read as a plea to Parliament – which was later answered – to issue a death sentence through an act of attainder, based on a simple majority in both houses, rather than through a proper impeachment trial.100 On the other hand, Trevor-Roper ignores any points that cast doubt on this simple equivalence between Achan and Wentworth, even though there are quite a few of them. For example, Fairclough makes little attempt to charge Achan with the same offences as those levelled at Wentworth in his impeachment trial. Wentworth was accused of high treason, which John Pym presented in his speech as on three counts: treason against God, because Wentworth had undertaken to subject England to the tyranny of the Pope and the Catholic Church; against the king; and against the commonwealth, because he had tried to turn the king against Parliament and the people, thereby casting doubt on their relationship of mutual loyalty and protection.101 Yet there is no mention of high treason in Fairclough’s sermon; he speaks only of treason against God. In Fairclough’s account, Achan’s true offence arose more from the items he stole than from the act of theft itself. Fairclough interprets his theft of a Babylonian coat from Jericho as apostasy from the true faith and the introduction of idolatry, and clearly equates the latter with the Anglican liturgy, which he felt was still too close to Catholic ritual.102

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Fairclough’s accusations point in the same direction as Pym’s charges of treason against God, but Fairclough sees a number of ‘Achans’ at work in England: Jesuits; bishops and other clergymen who did not fulfil their residence obligations; perjurers; Sabbath-breakers; and so on.103 Similarly, Henry Burton referred to Jesuits and Arminians as present-day Achans in an appeal to Parliament back in 1628.104 An anonymous pamphlet circulating in London at the time of Wentworth’s trial also shows that the figure of Achan was used as an exemplum and a model of wrongdoing with reference not only to Thomas Wentworth, but to other traitors, including the imprisoned Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud.105 As such, Fairclough doubtless had Laud and his followers in mind while drafting his accusations against sections of the clergy, so it follows that he intended the figure of Achan to stand for the Lord Bishops rather than Wentworth. The question is: does Wentworth feature at all in Fairclough’s sermon? Fairclough’s conclusion was that the only way to change course and regain the grace of God was to eliminate all evildoers.106 Yet this was not – or at least, not exclusively – a plea for the execution of Thomas Wentworth. Rather, Fairclough’s category of latter-day Achans must have been far broader, although he omits to mention precisely whom it included. In any case, his use of another biblical exemplum hints at different objectives that were far more radical than any suggested in Trevor-Roper’s interpretation. In other words, the key to understanding Fairclough’s sermon lies not only in the example of Achan, but also in his reference to the story of Mordecai and Haman at the court of the Persian King Ahasuerus. In the Book of Esther, Ahasuerus appoints Haman to the highest position at the Persian court. In order to eliminate his competition – namely, Mordecai – Haman convinces the king to issue an edict to murder all Jews in the kingdom. However, the king’s Jewish wife, Esther, manages to change Ahasuerus’ mind and Mordecai and the Jews are saved, while Haman and his like-minded followers are massacred instead. Fairclough’s interpretation of this story with reference to the situation in England contains both explicit and implicit elements. At no point does he openly state whom the figure of Haman stands for; however, it would have been clear to the audience that he represents none other than Thomas Wentworth. In the language of biblicism, Haman was a classic example of a king’s favourite – much like the Roman Sejanus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, in the language of civic humanism.107 Ever since the two Bishops’ Wars with Scotland – if not earlier – Wentworth had been viewed by MPs as a favourite of Charles I and a political enemy.108 As such, the mere mention of Haman would have prompted clear associations in the minds of the audience – far more so than in the case of Achan.109 If Haman stood for Wentworth in Fairclough’s sermon, this would have presented an opportunity to argue for Wentworth’s execution – which was the whole reason for Fairclough’s address to Parliament, according to Trevor-Roper.

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Yet no such case is made. Instead, Fairclough asks rhetorically whether Mordecai was satisfied with the hanging of Haman, before immediately answering his own question by pointing out that punishment was meted out not only to the personal followers of Haman, but also to all the ‘Churches enemies’.110 For Fairclough, Wentworth’s execution was evidently a fait accompli. As such, the sermon was not a plea for his execution, but a warning to the assembled MPs that justice would not be served merely with the death of the king’s favourite. Other heads would also have to roll. To summarise Fairclough’s sermon in biblicist terms: not only Haman had to be called to account, but every Achan in England too. In accordance with the conventions of his genre, he provides no further detail regarding the identity of those in need of punishment; however, if he really was thinking in biblical terms, the bloodbath would have been enormous: chapter nine of the Book of Esther mentions seventy-five thousand deaths. Trevor-Roper may be correct in his assumption that Fairclough’s sermon is directly related to the events of the Wentworth case, even if his interpretation of the text is off the mark. Yet J.F. Wilson also makes the valid point that Fairclough’s text is a typical example of a sermon held before Parliament. It is certainly true that there was no need for new rhetoric or arguments to comment on the events surrounding the Wentworth trial. The basic template for the Fast Sermons – as set out in Burges’s sermon – offered all the necessary elements for attacking declared enemies of the faith, and these could be deployed at any time. Stephen Marshall’s sermon on 17 November 1640 not only refers to the ‘wicked Haman’ and to Achan, but applies these figures to those in England who had led the king astray from his people and incited the nation to turn its back on God.111 Coming a mere six days after the arrest of Wentworth and Laud, the connection would have been obvious to listeners. Marshall’s words themselves sound like an echo of Pym’s speech to Parliament on 7 November, in which he accused the ‘papists party’ of sowing discord between the king and his subjects and undermining religion in England. They also appear again in Pym’s indictment on 25 November, in which he makes the same charges against Wentworth as those he previously levelled at the papists. All Fairclough needed to do was repeat the interpretation; there was no need for him to adapt the script to fit the political reality. One key element that recurs in most of the Fast Sermons, and which already featured in Burges’s template, is the emphasis on the unconditional, radical nature of the struggle against God’s enemies. The second Parliamentary sermon related to the Wentworth case – that given by Thomas Wilson in St Margaret’s on 4 April 1641 – is no exception, as it stresses the need for unconditional zeal in the fight for God’s cause.112 Wilson recommends King David as a model to MPs – a ruler who promised to ‘destroy all the wicked of the land’ (Ps. 101:8) – and adds that not even kings are exempt from this punishment if they trespass against God’s law (Ezra 6:12).113 In Wilson’s view, the history of salvation and the

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coming of Judgement Day made it necessary to punish all disobedience to God, irrespective of the perpetrator. Only the pure would be welcomed into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:27) – a fact that called for a complete and uncompromising reformation.114 Any indecision or fickleness would lead to the fate of Laodicea: damnation at the hands of God (Rev. 3:14–22).115 Wilson’s reasoning forms the basis for his appeal to Parliament: ‘Surely Reformation will be, for the present should be, put it not off for after times to doe it, doe your utmost that no Canaanite may be left, no leaven uncast out or cursed, no superstitions be left to posterity, but the word of God as an heritage for ever’.116 As with Fairclough’s sermon, it was left to the audience to decide whom the Canaanites were supposed to represent – though given the national mood, we can assume that Parliament’s prisoners Wentworth and Laud were among Wilson’s targets, along with their respective followers. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that Wilson’s sermon was solely concerned with the issue of Wentworth’s execution. Rather, the leitmotifs of his text resemble those of other sermons preached before the Long Parliament that used Old Testament exempla to stress the need for unconditional obedience to God’s law, and subsequently to demand the abolition of numerous elements of Anglican tradition, which the preachers presented as idolatrous abuses. Well over half the sermons given before 1644 clearly follow this model; yet a significant minority of them draw on a different biblical scriptural tradition – namely, that of apocalyptic literature, especially the Book of Revelation.117 Did this in turn give rise to new statements regarding concepts of political order, and did these sermons make different demands of MPs? During the period up to 1644, the commonalities between the two groups of sermons are more significant than their differences. For example, one of the elements linking the two groups was the figure of ‘Babylon’ as a symbol of apostasy and overweening claims to power – a combination that the ministers always associated with the papacy in Rome. This equivalence applied equally to the Babylon of the Old Testament, which brought down the Kingdom of Judah and drove the Jewish people into captivity, and to the Whore of Babylon – the enemy of Christ – who features especially in the Book of Revelation. In his sermon, Burges typologically linked the old and the new Babylon, and other ministers imitated him.118 This common equivalence between Babylon and Rome also meant that the sermons proposed identical rules of conduct. Dealings with Babylon were to be avoided in order to remain free of the taint of its apostasy and idolatry, which might otherwise result in spiritual harm. Moreover, Babylon mostly cropped up in discussions of the danger facing England, as well as in allegations that the Church had come too close to Babylon (in that it sanctioned papist traditions). As a result, the sermons demanded reform and the eradication of all elements of the Roman Church. Nearly all the sermons based on the Book of Revelation refer

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to the voice from heaven (Rev. 18:4) that urges the people to leave Babylon in order to avoid partaking of her sins.119 This need for reform was often further demonstrated with reference to another biblicist trope – namely, the comparison between England and Laodicea, one of the seven churches in Asia Minor to whom John the Divine writes at the beginning of the Book of Revelation. Laodicea’s lukewarm, indecisive attitude means that it does not share in the grace of God – a characterisation that was repeatedly projected onto the Church of England after the appearance of Thomas Brightman’s treatise Revelation of the Revelation, which depicted it as wavering between the true Protestant Church and the Catholic Church, instead of clearly modelling its doctrine, organisation and external appearance on that of Europe’s Reformed Churches.120 Incidentally, Edmund Calamy presents an Old Testament equivalent to Laodicea in his sermon Gods Free Mercy to England, where he compares the Church of England to those Jews who did not to return to Jerusalem after being released from their exile in Babylon.121 The message of all these references to the Book of Revelation was the need for decisive reform in the Church in England, which was generally the same conclusion reached in the sermons that drew on the Old Testament. The consequences England would face for want of reform were also largely similar: ministers working in the Old Testament tradition prophesied severe punishment for England at the hand of God, at times even foreseeing the destruction of the commonwealth, while those preaching from an eschatological perspective suggested that the English would be barred from New Jerusalem. Interestingly, the associations between obedience to God and salvation, and between disobedience and judgement, nearly always take on a collective dimension in the sermons.122 The divine punishment for the abuses in the Church threatens to fall not only on those directly responsible for them – namely, the bishops, along with the secular authorities that support them – but also on the English people as a whole. In other words, individual salvation depended on collective reformation.123 In this chapter, I have emphasised that the sermons to Parliament based on the Book of Revelation advocated largely the same political aims as those drawing on the Old Testament, in order to counter the common assumption that the apocalyptic sermons were more radical.124 This one-sided emphasis on just one of the two traditions leads Paul Christianson in particular to conclude that the apocalyptic sermons made especially radical demands on Parliament and thus contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. Christianson bases his argument primarily on the sermons preached by Thomas Goodwin and Joseph Caryl on 27 April 1642; however, these are entirely typical examples of the arguments put forward from the pulpit of St Margaret’s, and in no way depart from Burges’s interpretive model.125 When Goodwin preached that the Reformation in England was incomplete, deplored the numerous abuses in the Church and demanded the completion of the Reformation, it is unlikely that he took the assembled MPs by

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surprise. The call to arms that Christianson identifies in this sermon was no more audible than in previous sermons preached from the same pulpit.126 The same goes for Caryl’s sermon on The Workes of Ephesus Explained, which, contrary to Christianson’s interpretation, contains no explicit call for civil war – although it does urge Parliament to punish all ‘mixing innovators’ and ‘false teachers’ within the Church.127 That said, the eschatological sermons clearly advanced specific arguments in appraisal of the contemporary political situation. Many of the preachers directly linked political events in England to salvation history by interpreting them as the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation and claiming that they formed part of the conflict with the Beast of the Apocalypse, although the decisive blow – the destruction of Babylon – was still to come.128 When Henry Burton styled himself as one of the witnesses of the Revelation in light of his recent punishment, he was also making a statement about the imminent Apocalypse in England, as the resurrection of the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation is immediately followed by the seventh trumpet heralding the reign of Christ and the coming judgement against Babylon.129 William Sedgwick, in his sermon Zions Deliverance, is likewise certain that the final battle with the Antichrist and Christ’s reign on earth are both imminent, although he cannot be sure when they will come to pass.130 The two preconditions for the dawn of the millennium, Sedgwick claims, are the conversion of the Jews and the expulsion of the Antichrist from the Temple.131 The apocalyptic sermons derived two certain truths from the Book of Revelation – namely, the fall of Babylon and the subsequent advent of the New Jerusalem. From the pulpit of St Margaret’s at least, Babylon was consistently equated with Rome, the seat of the Pope. In the eyes of numerous ministers, however, some corrections still needed to be made before England could await the fall of Babylon with joyful anticipation, and there was no doubt that the imminent beginning of the end of the world underscored the urgent need for reform. England needed to make sure it avoided sharing in Babylon’s fate; yet the sermons were less clear on whether and how England should actively assist in Babylon’s destruction. William Bridge, for example, advocates an active role in his sermon dedicated entirely to Babylons Downfall. According to Bridge, every Englishman needed to play a part in the destruction of Babylon. In particular, he saw it as the role of the secular authorities to pay back the cruelty of the agents of Babylon in kind: ‘An Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, burning for burning, eare for eare, liberty for liberty, and blood for blood’.132 Bridge’s reference to ears instead of the hands and feet mentioned in the Bible (Exod. 21:24) can be understood as a clear nod to the punishment of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne, who had their ears publicly cut off for high treason in 1637. It also reveals that Bridge located the agents of Babylon not in faraway Rome, but in Canterbury and London. In his sermon,

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Bridge openly demands the violent punishment and abolition of Charles I’s ecclesiastical establishment – an indispensable step in the about-face that was needed to guarantee salvation.133 The question of who would be numbered among the instruments of God in the final battle with the Antichrist had a special political significance: was it the king himself, the king and the people together or solely the people? Revelation 17 speaks of the ten-horned Beast of the Apocalypse, symbolising the ten kings who fornicate with the Whore of Babylon, but then break away and kill her. This passage inspired more than one minister to draw parallels with the contemporary situation in England. In Henry Burton’s view, the Book of Revelation more or less tasked the Crown-in-Parliament with striking the mortal blow against the whore of Babylon in the interest of salvation, and he emphasised that the king could not assume this role by himself: ‘because the Kings alone shall not make Babylon desolate, but their Kingdomes, to wit, their people taken together’.134 Nathanael Homes likewise sees Parliament as called upon to take up arms against Babylon, maintaining that the king is only the head of Parliament and cannot rule in his own right.135 Going even further, Thomas Goodwin in A Glimpse of Sions Glory sees the king as surplus to requirements, arguing that since Christ always revealed himself to the common people, who are represented by Parliament, then it falls to the common people to take up the fight against the Antichrist and bring about the rule of Christ on earth.136 These interpretations of the passage in the Book of Revelation concerning the ten-horned beast and the ten kings offer a paradigmatic example of how preachers gradually abandoned the idea of the king as ultimate authority and increasingly saw his power as resting in Parliament instead. Yet ministers did not address the topic openly, and their sermons make no direct attacks on the king. Instead, they levelled their accusations at the Church authorities, which affected Charles I indirectly because he appointed the bishops and did nothing to impede their ecclesiastical policies. But even this kind of critique was not made directly; rather, it was expressed using biblical examples. The lack of direct attacks on Charles I, however, did not leave his status as king undiminished, and the sermons reveal the erosion of his authority. As well as marginalising the king’s role in preparing for the coming of the millennium, some of the sermons also tend to replace the king with Parliament in their interpretations of classic Bible passages on kingship. A particularly significant example can be found in William Sedgwick’s sermon of 29 June 1642, not long after Parliament had called the king’s authority into question by establishing its own militia and issuing the so-called Nineteen Propositions – a catalogue of demands that completely removed the royal prerogative and subjected the king’s executive powers to full parliamentary oversight.137 Sedgwick presented the assembled MPs with several exempla from the Old Testament in order to

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encourage them to follow in the footsteps of good biblical kings, but also to warn them against the transgressions of sinful monarchs. For example, King Saul appears as a cautionary tale of disobedience to God, since he failed to carry out God’s command to eradicate the Amalekites and spared their king, Agag, while David’s vow to destroy the wicked of the land in Psalm 101 is presented as a model worthy of imitation. In both cases, Sedgwick sees Parliament, not Charles I, as the successor to the kings of the Old Testament. This may admittedly have been due in part to the sermon being preached before the House of Commons. Nonetheless, certain passages characterising monarchical rule are unmistakably directed at Parliament and provide good and bad examples for its future political decisions. Further evidence for the increasing importance placed on Parliament can be found in Sedgwick’s declaration that ‘Governours are stiled Gods in Scripture’, since Psalm 82 – with its declaration that ‘Ye are gods: and all of you are children of the most High’ – was often used in reference to kingship.138 Likewise, when Stephen Marshall appealed to Parliament to take on the role of ‘nursing fathers’, he applied another classic biblicist characterisation of kingship to Parliament.139 The extent to which preachers to Parliament, and even MPs themselves, had strayed from traditional understandings of royal legitimacy by the summer of 1642 can be seen in Thomas Cheshire’s sermon, which was given on the same day as Sedgwick’s, but preached to the House of Lords. While Sedgwick’s Zions Deliverance depicts the struggle between Parliament and the king as inevitable and necessary, Cheshire sought to convince the Lords to remain loyal to Charles I. Cheshire’s sermon is unique in that it adopts neither the script set out by Cornelius Burges nor the alarmist call for a collective change of course, and this probably explains why it was not approved for publication by Parliament.140 As such, it offers a good test case for what MPs did not want to hear – or, more importantly, to publish.141 Cheshire consistently uses the vocabulary of kingship to describe Adam and Eve’s fall from paradise. God appears as the ‘king of kings’, while the eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge is painted as an affront to divine prerogative, so that God punishes the act as one of high treason by banishing the couple from Eden. In Cheshire’s view, England faced a similar fate, and he metaphorically presents the reign of Charles I as paradise on earth while equating any challenges to the king’s authority with original sin.142 This interpretation of contemporary events coincided fully with the Royalist point of view, as can be seen in numerous treatises published in Oxford from 1643 onwards in support of the king’s cause.143 Among the Fast Sermons held before Parliament, this is the sole example of a preacher cautioning MPs against disobedience to worldly authorities. England was still a monarchy in the summer of 1642, but the language of kingship went largely unheard before Parliament. This observation, however, should not lead us to conclude that the Fast Sermons directly called upon MPs to abandon their obedience to Charles I. Nor

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did the sermons contain any formal analysis of the scope and limits of kingship, let alone any discussion of the right to resist. Moreover, no major insights can be gleaned from attempts to establish whether the sermons borrow material from texts written by advocates of the right to resist.144 This may explain why the Fast Sermons have rarely been studied by scholars focusing on the political events of the time.145 The sermons erode monarchical authority by means of different mechanisms to those used in juridical discourse, in that they do not discuss who should have the right to oppose the king’s will, and under what conditions. Instead, they focus on what should be done to restore the obedience owed to God. At first glance, this notion appears somewhat banal; after all, obedience to God was freely and universally acknowledged to be the highest of all virtues. A plea in favour of disobedience to God and his laws would have been unthinkable, and even the enemies of Parliament – in particular William Laud and other leading clergymen in the Church of England – claimed to be loyal to God in word and deed. All the same, this demand for the restoration of obedience to God was the rhetorical weapon used to gradually strip the king of legitimacy, irrespective of the debates surrounding the right to resist. The binary distinction between obedience and disobedience to God was dangerous to Charles I and his personal authority because the Fast Sermons cast the king, his family and the members of his court not as the defenders of loyalty to God, but as evidence that England had turned its back on the Lord. Consequently, the appeal to Parliament for reform was almost inevitably linked with a call to reject the king, although this connection was seldom articulated openly. To the extent that the sermons mention the political conflict – or rather, the descent into civil war from the beginning of 1642 onwards – they entirely strip it of constitutional elements.146 In his sermon of 29 June 1642, William Sedgwick does not speak of a possible struggle between the followers of the king and those of Parliament; instead, he makes the following distinction: ‘If Heaven and Earth should make warre, there would be no corner of the world so safe, as on Gods, and the Churches side’.147 The unspoken message here is that in such a conflict between heaven and hell, the question of the royal prerogative and the respective competencies of king and Parliament would cease to be relevant. Sedgwick also argues that accusations of revolt and rebellion should not deter MPs from their work, pointing out that during the Reformation in England and Scotland, a band of righteous defenders of the word of God were initially confronted with similar accusations of conspiracy and revolt and still emerged victorious in the end: ‘by rare, invisible, and unexpected providences, beyond what we were able to aske or thinke, they have stood, and prospered’.148 Sedgwick does not consider whether the accusations of rebellion are justified, but impresses upon MPs that this question would no longer matter in the event of victory, and that victory or defeat would depend on divine providence. A few weeks

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earlier, on 27 April, Thomas Goodwin also pleaded in favour of trusting in God, arguing that if Parliament took the necessary measures to reform the church, He would fulfil his promise of salvation and support England in its struggle with the rebellious Irish – both through men acting on His behalf and through ‘coincident acts of Providence’.149 In the impending battle between salvation and damnation (portrayed so vividly in both of the sermons discussed above), God Himself takes on the role of ruler. Sedgwick, for example, speaks of the coming of the millennium, when ‘Christ will take his Church by the hand, and publickely owne his people’, while his metaphorical references to the Church as ‘the Kings wife’ and ‘the Kings palace and court’ underscore Christ’s status as a worldly ruler especially clearly.150 Sedgwick not only suggests that this moment is no longer far away, but also notes that it will bring an end to all secular authorities.151 Meanwhile, Goodwin suggests that the direct rule of God over the earth will become a reality before the coming of the millennium, as Christ – ‘King Jesus, the Conquerer’ – will assume his crown in advance of the final battle with Babylon.152 Goodwin emphasises God’s dual role as ‘King of Nations’ and ‘King of Saints’, giving rise to ‘Christs supremacie acknowledged both in matters Civill and Ecclesiasticall’.153 With this formulation, Goodwin describes the reign of Christ in exactly the same words as those used to characterise the rule of the English monarch from at least 1559 onwards, when Elizabeth I issued her Act of Supremacy.154 Since Goodwin also believes the decisive battle with the Whore of Babylon to be imminent, the question remains as to when and how Christ would replace Charles I as ruler of England. Goodwin offers only an indirect answer, in that he congratulates the Commons on their recent decision to reverse the ‘innovations’ in the Church, and urges its speedy implementation with the words: ‘Go to establish it; you will establish a Kingdome by it’.155 What other kingdom could Goodwin mean here if not the kingdom of Christ, brought about via Parliament’s steadfast reformation of the Church of England? In this eschatological scheme, there was plainly no role left for Charles I. As in the case of the Scottish National Covenant or Burton’s treatise For God, and the King, ongoing loyalty to the king depended on his willingness to abandon his religious policies and submit to the dictates of reformers in the Scottish and English Churches. The binary distinction between obedience to God and to the king would only cease to pose a danger to Charles I if he gave in to the reformers’ demands, which would effectively mean abandoning the ecclesiastical agenda he had pursued for the previous fifteen years. His refusal to take this step inevitably led to the conclusion that religious reform and English salvation would need to be brought about against the will of the king, if necessary. The precise manner in which this return to God would take place was also a politically explosive topic. Obedience to God was not something to be carefully and deliberately balanced against other loyalties, but was a special commitment

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that made all other ties seem meaningless. Several of the Fast Sermons presented MPs with two biblical models. The first was David, who claimed to have grown estranged from his family after being consumed with zeal for God (Ps. 69:8–9).156 The second was Phinehas, who won God’s favour by unhesitatingly slaying Zimri and his Midianite wife Cozbi with a javelin for taking part in foreign idolatrous sacrifices, thereby saving Israel from plague through his zeal (Num. 25:6–15).157 What these examples share, and what makes them worthy of emulation in the eyes of at least some of the preachers, is the way both protagonists act on God’s behalf without a moment’s hesitation.158 The message running throughout most of the sermons preached in St Margaret’s is that for the sake of one’s own salvation, no compromises could be made when God’s word and law were at stake, and the preachers were particularly uninhibited when it came to the question of how to deal with the enemies of the Lord. In 1641, William Bridge emphasised that the present Parliament was an instrument made for the slaughter of numerous ‘Philistines’, while Thomas Wilson explained to MPs what they could learn from David: ‘a zeale that layeth aside all partiall affection, or respect of persons, great or small, King or people, kinsman or countrey-man, it will doe right to all, without doing a friend a pleasure, or a foe a spite’.159 Wilson’s assertion that zeal for God’s law should pay no regard to differences in status was a politically volatile one, in light of two main points: first, that it was Charles I and his close followers who had broken God’s law; and second, that the punishment for that crime in the Old Testament was death by stoning (Deut. 13:6–10). Wilson underscores his demand for the death penalty by citing the example of King Asa (2 Chr. 15:16), who revoked his mother Maachah’s queenly title when she committed idolatry. Burges recommended this example as a model in his first sermon before the Long Parliament, but Wilson considers Asa’s actions to be inadequate and contrary to divine law because he spared his mother’s life.160 In Wilson’s view, Parliament should not follow the example of Asa, but rather heed Darius’s decree to protect the newly rebuilt temple of the Jews (Ezra 6:12): ‘destroy all kings and people that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at Ierusalem’.161 Wilson wisely does not state whether this dictum applies to Charles I. Nonetheless, it is interesting that on a number of occasions, he explicitly deprives the king of any kind of special treatment when loyalty to the word of God is at stake. For Wilson, the rule of God, which was permanently manifest in God’s law, left the King of England with no say – at least when it came to ecclesiastical policy. In light of the examples presented above, it is hard to agree with J.F. Wilson’s assessment that the tone of the sermons became more radical after news of the Irish rebellion reached England in November 1641 – although there was certainly an increase in the number of sermons using radical language, and more warlike metaphors appeared from 1642 onwards too.162 Edmund Calamy, for example, saw the increased frequency of the Fast Sermons, which were now held

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before Parliament on a monthly basis, as a sign of mobilisation and war within the Church of England, while Simeon Ashe described the sermons as ‘Guns and instruments of Warre’.163 In particular, the preachers sought to make it impossible for Parliament to reach any kind of compromise with the enemies of God, instead of exacting merciless punishment upon them. Their fury was directed not only at Ireland, but also at all those who could be thought of as a fifth column within the Church – a group consisting of the proponents of a hierarchical episcopal church, led by William Laud, as well as those suspected of secret sympathies with the rebellious Irish, including Charles I himself.164 Many of the Fast Sermons constitute principled attacks on arguments advocating compromise or mediation with these enemies. In no sermon does this play a greater role than in Stephen Marshall’s Meroz Cursed, given on 23 February 1642.165 This was Marshall’s masterpiece, as he himself saw it, and he did all he could to ensure it reached as wide an audience as possible. He preached the sermon around sixty times in various places across the country, and multiple editions were also printed.166 In other words, Marshall harnessed the full power of the written and spoken word to bring England closer to civil war. Marshall drew his biblical models from the period of conquest in which Israel went to war with the different peoples of Canaan. In the Song of Deborah, the city of Meroz is cursed for not coming to the aid of the Lord (Judg. 5:23). Marshall generalises this, turning it into the standard by which he measures political actions in general. As a role model, he presents the figure of Jael, who treacherously kills the Canaanite general Sisera in the service of the Lord (Judg. 4:17–22). Marshall also cites God’s curse on the proud kingdom of Moab as a generic solution: ‘Cursed be he that doeth the worke of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth backe his sword from blood’ (Jer. 48:10). For Marshall, it was not an option to remain neutral in the conflicts surrounding the Church.167 When it came to keeping the upper hand in the fight against Babylon, it was not only permissible, but even necessary, to resort to actions that would normally be considered barbaric.168 169 Marshall sums up this attitude with the words: ‘Salus ecclesiae suprema lex’. With this adaptation of Cicero’s dictum Salus populi suprema lex esto, Marshall explicitly relativises the limits of existing laws and traditions insofar as they stand in the way of his avowed goal of completing the reformation of the Church and taking up arms against the Catholic rebels in Ireland.170 His message to MPs was that the salvation of the Church was the highest law, and that England needed rescuing from the grasp of the Whore of Babylon in order to ensure its salvation and spare it from God’s wrath. Parliament was thus called upon to do its duty and come to the aid of God, while the biblical exempla provided plenty of advice on how to deal with those who opposed this goal.

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But to whom was this bloodthirsty admonition addressed? Above all, it was presumably a threat to undecided MPs who were reluctant to take the pivotal step: that of building an army under Parliament’s command to go to war with both the rebellious Irish, and, if necessary, the troops and followers of the king. Deliberations over this militia had been in full swing ever since the Commons passed the Militia Ordinance on 31 January 1642, which represented an initial move in this direction.171 Less than two weeks after Marshall’s sermon, on 5 March, Parliament finally took the crucial decision, making a civil war between parliamentary forces and the royal camp inevitable. Yet in the sermons before the House of Commons, this civil war – understood as the conflict between Jerusalem and Babylon – had long been a reality. In J.F. Wilson’s words: ‘As far as the Pulpit in St. Margaret’s was concerned, civil war had already begun’.172 The interpretation I have advanced rests on the assumption that the Fast Sermons functioned as political speech acts designed to influence Parliament’s decision-making. By contrast, Glenn Burgess interprets these sermons as purely spiritual appeals – as admonishments against vices and sins – and in this way attempts to blunt even Stephen Marshall’s Meroz Cursed. Though he concedes that Marshall deploys bloodthirsty rhetoric and propagates a holy war, Burgess argues that this referred not to the struggle between king and Parliament, but the war between good and evil that was waged by every faithful Christian.173 Certainly, Burgess’s interpretation is supported by the English tradition of spiritual admonitory literature, whose authors speak of battling the Devil with Christian faith and resolve – although not with violence and bloodshed.174 Yet the Fast Sermons fall only partly into this tradition. In order to reach his conclusion, Burgess ignores all references to the historical context of these sermons: their audience, the selection of preachers by influential MPs and the timing of the individual sermons, which, in the case of Meroz Cursed, was shortly before the crucial vote on the Militia Ordinance that would tip the balance between war and peace. When all these factors are taken into consideration, the Fast Sermons I have examined here can only be read as political speech acts, even if they belong to the genre of the sermon and their political message is cloaked in the language of biblicism.175

The Counterargument: The Henry Parker Controversy as the Beginning of the End of the Monarchy? The biblicism deployed in the wake of the Bastwick, Burton and Prynne affair by advocates of sweeping church reform rested on a political theology in which the rule of God increasingly became a rhetorical tool for criticising the monarchy – at least in its present form under Charles I, if not in principle. Yet biblicism was not the only available rhetorical means of subjecting the king to a higher power.

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According to Quentin Skinner, religious tensions were not the most important ideological causes of the Civil War; rather, the trigger lay in the political reception of ancient political philosophy, with its republican elements.176 Skinner takes Henry Parker as his key witness, citing in particular his work Observations upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses. This text is remarkable in several respects and was highly relevant politically due to the context in which it was written. It appeared in the summer of 1642, at a time when the controversial aspects of the royal prerogative and the power of the episcopate were already a thing of the past, as Skinner rightly observes. Ship money had been declared illegal, the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission had been dissolved and leading royal ministers had already been executed, like Thomas Wentworth, or were anxiously awaiting trial, like William Laud.177 Yet Parliament’s quest for power had by no means been satisfied, and it increasingly asserted its authority over core aspects of the king’s executive powers, such as the selection of royal ministers, or control over the militia raised to suppress the rebellious Irish Catholics. Whatever its reasons for taking the decisive step, Parliament finally crossed the Rubicon by establishing a militia under its sole command in early 1642 and blatantly disregarding the king’s veto.178 These measures were not made any easier to legitimise by Charles I’s Answer to the XIX Propositions, in which he rejected Parliament’s demands and offered a description of the English monarchy that largely coincided with Parliament’s own understanding of the state.179 The text presents England’s constitution as a mixed constitution, in which laws only came into being through the joint action of the king, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, each of which had ‘free Votes and particular Privileges’. It goes on to argue that the demand for a parliamentary militia and the rejection of the royal veto would sound the death knell for this mixed constitution, since this would leave two of the governing parties subject to the rule of the third: the House of Commons.180 The king then adds that the royal veto and the executive powers embodied in his person could not be undermined without bringing about the total collapse of the monarchy.181 The king’s reply to Parliament’s demands was initially met with a long silence. Instead of an official statement from Parliament, a response to the king’s position came in the form of a treatise called Observations upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses, which was published anonymously but written by Henry Parker. There is little doubt that Parker served as Parliament’s unofficial spokesman in this text.182 Parker’s task was to generate legitimacy for the demands Parliament had made since the beginning of 1642, which could no longer be justified using the classic inventory of parliamentary rights and freedoms established under common law. Quentin Skinner argues that ancient political philosophy, with its republican elements, was one of the most important ideological causes of the English Civil

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War, and he cites Parker as his key witness – with good reason. As a result, we must discuss Parker’s arguments in detail before we turn our attention to Skinner’s theory. The guiding principle underpinning Parker’s argument is Cicero’s dictum salus populi suprema lex esto. According to Parker, this is the basic principle of all legislation and, in cases of doubt, should be placed above mere adherence to formal rules. Having established this premise, Parker then turns to the specific case at hand: that of Parliament ignoring the king’s veto. He concedes that, as a rule, laws must be passed by mutual agreement between the king and the Parliament; however, in the exceptional case of an extreme danger to the commonwealth, Parker sees Parliament – the embodiment of the people – as responsible for acting in self-defence to protect the people of England. If the king were to use his veto to deny this right to self-defence, he would be relegating a free people to a band of slaves subject to his will alone.183 Parker was probably tasked with drafting an answer to the king’s response to the Nineteen Propositions because he had already made a name for himself as an energetic advocate of the sovereignty of the people, and therefore the supremacy of Parliament.184 Looking at his earlier works, we can also see which sources Parker primarily drew on for his arguments and which lines of arguments he considered illegitimate in political debate. He typically uses the language of civic humanism to lend authority to his positions, while rejecting as unconvincing political arguments based primarily on common law or on biblical texts. In his eyes, Parliament’s decision-making freedom should be limited neither by legal precedent, nor by exempla from the Bible, should it be forced by extreme circumstances to make decisions running counter to these sources of authority.185 Parker’s legal training at Lincoln’s Inn, the oldest of the four traditional Inns of Court in London, did not mould him into a champion of common law; nor did his involvement in church politics prompt him to adopt, or even engage with, the prevalent language of biblicism in his early polemic pamphlets.186 Indeed, we cannot describe him as a biblicist author at all, and his disquisition on the word ‘Puritan’ leaves no doubt as to his critical stance vis-à-vis political biblicism. Parker clearly equates the political language of biblicism with the notion of kingship jure divino, claiming that this form of political theology was devised by court chaplains who sought to undermine the importance of the law of the land in order to position themselves as judges with the power to determine what was lawful and unlawful.187 In doing so, Parker continues, they painted the Old Testament and the ancient Kingdom of Israel in a false light in order to gain the king’s favour and achieve their objectives. Parker does not try to develop his own interpretation of the Kingdom of Israel; rather, his fundamental argument against the doctrine of the divine right of kings rests on criticism of the use of the Bible as a basis for political arguments in general. According to Parker, no general rules of kingship can be derived from Scripture, as the Bible offers only a vast number of exempla, which provide no clear answers to fundamental questions regarding

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the monarchy as an institution, such as whether kings should inherit their realms or be elected to their titles instead, or whether the rule of primogeniture should apply or if women should be included in the line of succession. Despite his objections in principle to Bible-based political arguments, Parker was unable to avoid dealing with two prominent Bible passages that formed part of the standard repertoire of texts dealing with the topic of kingship: namely, the ‘king’s law’ (1 Sam. 8) and Paul’s commandment of obedience to worldly authorities (Rom. 13). Parker does not refer to these passages directly in his writings, but tends to address them in a roundabout way. Yet his interpretations of both passages contradict the principle of the divine right of kings. In the case of the Jewish people asking Samuel to appoint a king over them, Parker points out that the Israelites had in mind the rulers of neighbouring peoples – in other words, tyrants – and notes that their request met with God’s displeasure. Likewise, he argues that Romans 13 does not demand obedience to the king alone, but applies equally to all worldly authorities, meaning that Parliament could also call upon this passage to legitimise its authority.188 Parker also points out that Paul’s Epistle to the Romans commands earthly powers to rule in the interest of the common good, so this passage could only be used by the king and his supporters to argue for sufficient freedom to achieve this goal. As Parker explains, however, the extent of the king’s freedom in this regard was defined not by natural law, but by the law of the land.189 Parker revives these arguments in his Observations, in which he once again focuses on Romans 13 and 1 Samuel 8.190 Generally, Parker adopts a two-pronged rhetorical strategy when it comes to dealing with Royalist biblicism: on the one hand, he seeks to delegitimise the entire practice of using biblical exempla in political discourse, and on the other, he presents detailed evidence that the proponents of the divine right of kings incorrectly interpret the biblical exempla they cite. Yet it is telling that Parker was not content solely to attack the use of the Bible as a source of political legitimacy on general grounds. Evidently, it was not enough merely to cast doubt on biblicism as a matter of principle; rather, he seems to have felt it necessary to dismantle each exemplum in turn in order to make his own counterarguments convincing. Parker’s rejection of biblicism as a political language went hand in hand with his notion that the people, not God, were the main source of political legitimation. In his Observations, for example, he rejects the idea that 1 Samuel 8 also applies to England, since kings were no longer anointed by God directly (as they were in the Kingdom of Israel), but by the people. Parker implies that the parallel passage in the Old Testament on kingship in Israel (Deut. 17), in which kings are obligated to strictly obey the law of God, is eternally valid, since he cites it in support of his own argument.191 Yet the ideal of theocratic rule was far from what Parker had in mind, as we can see in his ironic adaptation of a biblical formulation that was otherwise commonly used to legitimise monarchies jure divino. Kings, Parker suggests, would be well advised to couple their own

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well-being with that of the ‘generality, by which they are Kings, to which they are gods, from which their very Diadems receive honour and sanctity, to which their very Royall Order imparts life, and breath, and necessary substance’.192 Parker takes up classic biblicist passages justifying kingship, only to redirect them so that the people become the decisive source of legitimacy. He transforms one locus classicus of kingship, ‘By me kings reign’ (Prov. 8:15), into ‘by which they are Kings’; in the first version, God is the source of kingship, but in the second, it is the people. Similarly, Parker changes the meaning of the short phrase from Psalm 82 so often cited by proponents of the divine right of kings (‘Ye are gods’) by relativising it: ‘to which they are gods’. These rhetorical tricks effectively strip the king’s rule of divine legitimacy. The king remains a powerful political player, although his authority is drawn from the sovereignty of the people, represented by Parliament; yet Parker completely eliminates God as a political force – a rather peculiar irony in his doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parker was certainly an important advocate of the English Parliament in the confrontations that dragged the country into war. Yet Skinner’s assessment that classical republican currents were the driving force behind the Civil War remains questionable. Parker’s secularism is anything but representative of his time, as Skinner implicitly assumes it to be by citing Parker as the main source for his argument and completely ignoring the Fast Sermons. Although Parker was a spokesman for Parliament in the controversy surrounding the Nineteen Propositions, the same could also be said of the preachers in the pulpit of St Margaret’s. Evidently, Parliament had more than one political language at its disposal, and could use them to express its demands in specific ways. We can therefore safely assume that in the conflict over the king’s veto, John Pym and his comrades deliberately opted for Parker’s salus populi-based reasoning in place of biblicist arguments. But what were the advantages of the language of civic humanism? Both languages interpret the world in a Manichaean way, making black-and-white distinctions in their descriptions and assessments of contemporary events. In the case of biblicism, the dominant distinction was between obedience to God and idolatry, while civic humanism distinguished primarily between freedom and slavery. Parker sees the royal veto as a means for the king to arbitrarily ignore the will of the people as manifested in Parliament, thereby subjecting Parliament to the will of the king and turning the free people into slaves. In this way, he applies the binary distinction between freedom and slavery to the controversy over the king’s veto in order to lend maximum moral support to its opponents. In Parker’s view, this was not merely a question of constitutional law or a political decision about Parliament’s assembly of a militia; rather, the continued existence of the English people as a free nation was at stake. Henry Parker, along with the advocates of the parliamentary army, resorted to extreme arguments to justify their political measures.

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For contemporaries, it was crystal clear that Parker’s notion of a monarchy subject to salus populi alone called the very foundations of the political system into question by suggesting that a kind of absolutist Parliament should take the place of the king.193 Naturally enough, this provoked enormous controversy, and the focus of the debate quickly shifted from the specific issue of the royal veto to the question of the legitimacy of monarchy in principle. Parker’s treatise provoked immediate responses from several defenders of the monarchy, which began to circulate in the autumn of 1642. These counterarguments make particular use of the two political languages whose authority Parker had explicitly rejected – namely, common law and biblicism – and can be divided into two different categories. First, we have ad locum polemics that contradicted Parker’s arguments point by point, and which are free of biblicist rhetoric.194 These authors reject the Parliamentary sovereignty advocated by Parker and instead emphasise the decisive role of the Crown-in-Parliament, drawing their arguments from the English legal tradition. In other words, England’s common law served as the lifeline of the monarchy. The second category comprises several authors who attempted to turn Parker’s rejection of the use of biblicist rhetoric in political discourse against him. Their arguments focused not on the English legal tradition, but rather on the law of God, which applied to England as much as it did to the people of Israel. William Ball, for example, counters Parker’s assertion that sovereignty originally lay in the hands of the people with the claim that all earthly authority stems ultimately from God.195 Ball bases his counterargument on the same two passages cited by Parker – namely, Romans 13 and 1 Samuel 8 – and maintains that the people only have the authority to determine who has the right to rule when they are in a position freely to determine the kind of government they want, as was the case for the Jews during the era of the judges before Saul was chosen as king. According to Ball’s logic, if a monarchy existed, it meant that God himself had bestowed power upon the monarch, and so no one could question the king’s rule – not even Parliament.196 Henry Ferne, then an archdeacon and one of Charles I’s court chaplains, sang from much the same hymn sheet as Ball. His text, The Resolving of Conscience, was paradigmatic for the Royalist camp and itself prompted numerous responses from parliamentary supporters.197 Ferne’s treatise was printed in three cities simultaneously and a second edition appeared in Oxford in early 1643, showing that it met with wide approval in Royalist circles – though its reception among MPs was naturally far less enthusiastic. Due to both its content and its wide circulation, the House of Commons denounced the text as seditious within the same year and ordered the arrest of its author.198 At first glance, Ferne’s reply to the Observations seems to confirm Parker’s assessment that the language of biblicism was primarily used to craft arguments in favour of the divine right of kings.199 The contents of Ferne’s tract, which had

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so enraged the Commons, were anything but new; rather, he essentially reiterates the basic positions and arguments behind the theory of the divine right of kings in an attempt to deny Parliament’s right to oppose Charles I. These arguments were well established in political thought in England – although not always accepted – and were often trotted out in endless variations, especially by court chaplains in their countless sermons.200 Ferne’s arguments were also completely in line with the opening paragraphs describing kingship in the canons of 1640 – or in other words, with the official doctrine of the institutional Church and the king.201 The only novelty in Ferne’s treatise was the privileged role he gave himself as a speaker. He presents the question of whether Parliament should be allowed to establish a militia against the will of the king, and thus to take up arms in defence against the king’s troops if necessary, as not primarily a political or legal problem, but a matter of salvation. In his view, the only binding rules for salvation come from the Bible, as well as from reason, allowing him to assign a particularly important role in this debate to theologians.202 In keeping with his attempt to transfer the political conflict into the realm of theology and spiritual welfare, Ferne urgently warns his readers against committing sacrilege by opposing the king. To lend this warning further support, Ferne cites specific passages from the Bible, all of which belong to the classic repertoire of the discourse on kingship and the divine right of kings. He begins with a reference to Romans 13, claiming that all secular authorities are appointed by God and must therefore be obeyed (‘Whosoever … resisteth … shall receive to themselves damnation’) and arguing that because these maxims are universally valid, they must also apply to Parliament’s resistance to the king.203 The parallel passage cited by Ferne (1 Pet. 2:13–14) is likewise used to underscore the inviolability of the king. At the same time, Ferne reads Peter’s words ‘as supreme’ as implying that the king alone is the highest earthly power, while Parliament’s status is at best dependent on the monarch’s.204 Moreover, Ferne emphasises several times that both passages are eternally valid and not bound to any specific time or context.205 All in all, it is striking how staunchly Ferne opposes Parker’s line of argument. For Ferne, there was no doubt that kings are sent by God; yet he argues that the means by which God appointed them had changed. In this respect, Ferne takes up Parker’s argument that the right of kingship in the Old Testament no longer applied because the kings of Israel were chosen by God, whereas the kings of England were crowned by the people. Although Ferne concedes that Moses, the judges, Saul, David and subsequent kings of Israel were chosen directly by God, unlike the monarchs of England, he argues that God now influenced the selection of the king by determining the path of succession through His providence, whether by means of election, inheritance or conquest.206 As such, God remains the decisive source of legitimacy for kingship. Ferne also emphasises that the Crown of England was passed on by hereditary succession alone, and that

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the people therefore played no role in the selection. In addition to his biblicist interpretation, Ferne lends further weight to his argument by pointing out that England’s ruler had changed through conquest several times, thereby effectively negating any role that the people might once have played in choosing their monarch.207 This brief foray into the realm of history, however, is the exception rather than the rule for Ferne, who generally seeks to denounce any sources of argument beyond the Bible as illegitimate. In particular, he claims that Cicero’s salus populi suprema lex esto was a maxim of Roman origin that had already been used by Popes to claim the right to depose kings. Despite their many differences, both Henry Parker and Henry Ferne resorted to the same rhetorical strategy in one respect. Both authors were interested in far more than merely fighting their respective political corners and arguing for or against Parliament’s right to form its own militia; instead, they both sought to stipulate the political language in which the battle should be fought. For Henry Parker, this was the language of civic humanism, with salus populi as the highest political standard by which to measure the king, while Henry Ferne used the 208 language of biblicism to place divine law centre stage. Based on Parker’s and Ferne’s treatises, we might conclude that there was a clear correlation between political positions and the language used to express them. We could equally assume that the author’s profession largely determined which political language he chose to present his agenda, and that biblicism was the political language of choice for theologians. However, both these assumptions quickly prove to be unreliable and simplistic when we take two other contributors to the debate into account. The first of these is Parker’s opponent Dudley Diggs, a lawyer and Royalist author.209 Diggs enjoys a certain prominence in accounts of the political controversies at the time of the Civil War as one of the ‘intellectual forerunners’ of Thomas Hobbes, and as we might expect, he places special emphasis on the role of the monarch as the protector of the people.210 He also reveals himself to be a harsh critic of the idealised natural condition of free men, and interprets the social contract as an irreversible covenant that transfers all authority from the people to the monarch – bringing him close to the scheme put forward by Hobbes in his Leviathan.211 Moreover, in an attempt to dismantle Parker’s argument item by item, Diggs employs the same rhetorical sources as his opponent, with the result that his treatise also deals exhaustively with the principles of ancient political philosophy put forth by Parker – although his interpretation of these works differs considerably, of course. Diggs’s principle defence of the authority of the king is directly tied to God’s will. He is adamant that the monarchy is the most legitimate of all forms of government because it was founded by God, while all other kinds of government are man-made.212 Although he acknowledges that monarchy did not arise directly from the patriarchal authority exercised by Adam himself and his successors, he

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argues that it is the closest form of government to patriarchy, and is therefore legitimised by the creation – or in other words, by God and by nature.213 In Diggs’s view, Paul’s dictum in Romans 13 that people must be obedient to authority in order to ensure salvation does not lend legitimacy to all worldly authorities and magistrates in equal measure; rather, in a monarchy, it applies only to the king.214 Diggs was no theologian, but he nonetheless defends the monarchy on the basis of biblical statements regarding kingship and governance. As a lawyer, Diggs found biblical texts to be the best source of legitimacy for the monarchy, but the opposite was true of Charles Herle, an English Presbyterian with close ties to Henry Parker. Although Herle was a theologian, he cloaks his arguments entirely in categories of constitutional law, and his 215 treatise is a rebuttal of Henry Ferne’s response to Henry Parker’s Observations. In particular, Herle attacks Ferne’s use of Scripture, as well as his interpretation of biblical exempla.216 Like Parker, he also pillories the corruption of the Bible by advocates of the divine right of kings, and regards the use of the Bible in general in political discourse as disreputable.217 To Herle, not even Romans 13 offered a fitting example for the issues up for debate in England. On the one hand, he argues, Paul was addressing the Roman church in the early imperial era – a context that could no longer be compared to the political circumstances in England. On the other, he maintains that the commandment of obedience in Romans 13 did not refer exclusively to the king, but to all worldly authorities in equal measure. As such, Parliament could use Romans 13 to command loyalty as much as the king himself.218 Yet other theologians who shared Parker’s political leanings had no problem with using the same language of biblicism to refute Ferne’s arguments. Jeremiah Burroughs, for example, individually lists all the biblical exempla cited by Ferne and offers his own interpretations of them – which obviously run counter to Ferne’s, but are just as unoriginal.219 Burroughs only offers us something new at the very end of his treatise, where he stops merely refuting Ferne’s biblical exegesis and instead justifies Parliament’s mobilisation against the king by embedding it in salvation history. His opening is fairly unremarkable: peace, he argues, is only worth striving for if it means peace among the faithful, not peace with the powers of darkness.220 Yet Burroughs believed that the end times were at hand and that the decisive battle with the Antichrist was already under way, and in his view, it fell to the people to fight it.221 Drawing on Revelation 18:2–9, he presents the king as an obstacle to God’s command to destroy the Antichrist because he had fornicated with the Whore of Babylon, and therefore lamented her downfall and destruction instead of taking part in God’s plan.222 In Burroughs’s interpretation, the duty of the parliamentary troops was not to defend the constitutional rights of Parliament on the battlefield, but to defeat the Antichrist in the name of God. Although Burroughs also considers salus populi to be a primary principle, he sees the true goal of this battle not as the preservation

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of freedom and the prevention of slavery, but as the salvation of the combatants and the destruction of the Devil and his advocates. And since the kings – among them Charles I – had kept company with the Whore of Babylon, they and their supporters counted as advocates of the Devil, and therefore as enemies. In this respect, Burroughs echoes the script that had been presented to Parliament every month in the Fast Sermons. Yet the sermons never explicitly addressed their political context, whereas Burroughs builds the coming of salvation and the final annihilation of the Antichrist into his argument on the limits of kingship, thereby empowering Parliament to assume a leading political role. Burroughs thus shares the implicit message underpinning many of the Fast Sermons, but presents it openly as an inevitable political consequence of his argument. This new strain of anti-monarchist agitation had much to do with its context. Burroughs wrote his treatise after the start of the conflict, so he sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of armed rebellion against the king. This goal was also shared by John Goodwin in his treatise Anti-Cavalierisme. In Goodwin’s words, Parliament was at war with the ‘Legion of Devils’, as he called the king’s troops.223 He emphasises more than once that it was lawful and necessary for Parliament to take up arms, and that this was even demanded by divine law.224 At first, Goodwin reiterates classic arguments for the right of resistance in order to justify the war against Charles I, writing that the monarchy was an institution created not by God, but by mankind, so that kings could only rule within the limits of the law. As such, the lesser magistrates – Parliament, in the case of England – functioned as a supervisory authority over the king. Goodwin then goes on to claim that the commandment of obedience in Romans 13 applied to the magistrates in the same way as it did to the king.225 By citing the examples of Elias against Ahab and David against Saul, Goodwin also taps into tried-andtested rhetorical strategies in support of the right of resistance.226 Yet Goodwin also uses the coming of the end times to justify the conflict, arguing that the Antichrist had already appeared and his destruction was imminent. It fell to the common people to bring this about, against the will and the orders of their king, who had consorted with the Whore of Babylon and now sought to hinder her fall.227 Goodwin concedes that in Revelation 17:16–17, it is the ten kings who set about destroying Babylon; however, he does not see this passage as referring to the kings themselves, but rather their kingdoms as a whole – or in other words, the people living within them.228 In this way, Goodwin puts forth an argument that he had already deployed in his 1641 Fast Sermon A Glimpse of Sions Glory – only this time, he uses it specifically to justify the war with King Charles. The biblicist arguments advanced in the debates surrounding the monarch’s right to rule and the people’s right to resist had all become rather commonplace by this time. The closest thing to innovation came in the form of the political interpretation of the Book of Revelation, which argued that it was the people

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who were to lead the fight against the forces of the Antichrist, not their kings.229 This interpretation obviously sought to strip the monarchy of its legitimacy in salvation-historical terms and to bestow it on Parliament instead, and it had serious consequences for the king’s status. It is therefore unsurprising that the supporters of Crown authority branded this reading of the Book of Revelation an abuse of the Scriptures and insisted that the prophecy of the fall of Babylon exclusively tasks the kings with the destruction of the Beast of the Apocalypse, as Diggs (for example) emphatically argues. Diggs also dismisses the idea that the apocalyptic argument carried any political relevance. Since the fall of Babylon is entirely in the hands of God, he argues, there is no need for any human action, and so it could not be used to justify opposition to the king.230 The controversy that arose when Henry Parker based his ideas of legitimacy on ancient political philosophy in his Observations grew into a broad and polemical battle of ideas within just a year – one that was fought using all the available political languages in equal measure. Quentin Skinner provides an exemplary analysis of the elements of ancient political philosophy and Roman law that featured in these so-called pamphlet wars. Yet Parliament’s decision to condemn Henry Ferne’s rebuttal of Parker’s thesis, with its predominantly biblicist arguments, shows that MPs also paid close attention to political theses that at least purported to be based on Scripture. Furthermore, when we consider how many arguments in this clash drew on alternative sources of authority, it becomes hard to agree with Skinner’s argument that Parliament primarily justified its conflict with the king as a struggle to prevent the enslavement of the people.231 When Parliament felt obliged to deny the king’s veto, despite it being well established in the English constitutional tradition, the distinction between a free English nation and a disenfranchised herd of slaves became a lifeline that could be used to justify Parliament’s decision to exceed the traditional bounds of its authority. In the ensuing general debate over the legitimacy of the monarch, however, the slavery argument was just one among many. Furthermore, it was not only supporters of the king who used Scripture to defend the notion of a divinely ordained monarchy; rather, the battle against the Antichrist was also used by advocates of the Parliamentary cause as an argument to generate support.

Notes 1. In this assessment, I follow Cressy, ‘Revolutionary England’ and England on Edge, 8–10. The same was even more true of the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, which had already been eroded over the course of 1640 (ibid., 110–29 and 149–66). 2. See Schröder, Revolutionen Englands, 49. 3. Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 189–91. Conrad Russell shows, with reference to other speeches at the opening of Parliament, that not all MPs shared John Pym’s suspicion that

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4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

the court and the bishops had a masterplan to reform religion in England. See Russell, Fall, 218–21. Wentworth was arrested on 11 November 1640 and locked in the Tower, while William Laud was placed in custody under Usher; see Russell, Fall, 211. On Wentworth’s role, see Asch, ‘Thomas Wentworth’. On Laud, see Sharpe, Personal Rule, 284–92. See also Orr, Treason, Chapters 3 (Wentworth) and 4 (Laud). See e.g. the description by Robert Woodford, quoted in Russell, Fall, 222; Burton, Narration of the Life, 29–43; Hyde, History of the Rebellion, vol. 1, 264, 268–69. Alexander Leighton, John Lilburne and Peter Smart were also released after long imprisonment. De la March, Complaint of the False Prophets Mariners, fol. A1r–A2v. Ibid., 49. ‘Oh blessed be the Lord for this day; for this day those holy living martyrs Mr Burton and Mr Prynne came to town, and the Lord’s providence brought me out … to see them; my heart rejoiceth in the Lord for this day, it is even like the return of the Captivity from Babylon’; Diary of Robert Woodford, New College Oxford MS 9502, as cited in Bellany, ‘Libels in Action’, 115–16. For more on this source, see Fielding, ‘Opposition’, 778. See also Russell, Fall, 222 and Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 181–82. The same comparison is also made by Henry Burton himself; see Burton, Sounding, fol. A4r. Burton was by no means the only one to think of himself as one of the two witnesses of the Revelation at this time. Others, however, enjoyed less success with this selfrepresentation. In 1636, two weavers from Cockney, Richard Farnham and John Bull, were sentenced to imprisonment by the Court of High Commission for making the same claim for themselves; see Hessayon, ‘Bull, John’; Walter, ‘Farnham, Richard’; and Walsham, Providence, 205. See also the tracts by Thomas Heywood that first called the fate of these two ‘witnesses’ to public attention: Heywood, True Discourse and Curb for Sectaries; also anon., False Prophets Discovered. Burton, Sounding, 69–70. For examples of Burton’s self-aggrandisement, see Burton, Replie to a Relation, 16; Apology of an Appeale, 19; For God, and the King, fol. A4r–v (‘watchman of Israel’). Burton, Apology of an Appeale, 28. A trial before the Court of High Commission was initially planned (CSPD Charles I, vol. 11 (1636–37), 198), but Laud himself arranged a trial before ‘a higher court’ – i.e. the Star Chamber. See Laud, Works, vol. 5, 338. Heylyn, Briefe and Moderate Answer, preface, fol. C2r: ‘Bold men, that durst lay hands upon a Prophet of such an extraordinary calling, who if his power had besen according to his spirit, would have commanded fire from heaven, to have burnt them all, or sent them further off with a noli me tangere’. On the appearance of the three convicted men on the scaffold, see Sharpe, Personal Rule, 762. See also Bastwick’s assertion that ‘Satan cast me into prison’ in Bastwick, Letany, 1, as well as Bellany, ‘Libels in Action’, 110–16. In 1640, the bishops still sought to maintain this control function with the so-called Et Cetera Oath, which required both clergymen and secular officials to formally acknowledge the legitimacy of the established church hierarchy and liturgy; see Cardwell, Synodalia, vol. 1, 402–4. Burton, Baiting, 60; Leighton, Appeal to the Parliament, 5. See Lamont, ‘Prynne, Burton’ and Marginal Prynne; Hughes, ‘Henry Burton’. See Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 138: ‘These outspoken, irrepressible men made increasingly radical attacks first upon the Arminians and then upon the bishops.

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19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Contemporaries recognized the apocalyptic framework and the force of their arguments. Persecution not only promoted their propaganda, it drove them from defence of the Church of England to call for demolition of its governing structure’. This anti-episcopal stance was popularised in all kinds of media; see Pierce, ‘Anti-Episcopacy’, 809–48. See Gardiner, Documents Relating to the Proceedings, 70–76 [State Papers, Domestic, ccclxii, 92] on Prynne’s sentencing; and 86–90 [State Papers, Domestic, ccclxii, 42] on his painful public punishment. Since he was a repeat offender, Prynne also had the letters ‘S.L.’ for ‘Seditious Libellour’ branded on his forehead. In a poem, however, Burton claimed these letters stood for ‘Stigmata Laudis’; see Bastwick, Briefe Relation, 23. For further discussion of the trial, see also Forster, Notes from the Caroline Underground, 47–57. John Pym refers to the ‘papists’ party’ in his opening speech; see Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 190. Meanwhile, Burton pillories individual elements of popery: the ceremonies in the English Church, especially the reforms introduced under Charles I and William Laud; the relativisation of the Bible to the liturgy; the moves towards reconciliation with Rome as a sign of convergence with the Antichrist; and the emphasis on a hierarchical episcopal church with the Court of High Commission as its instrument of repression. See Burton, Sounding, 18–25, 54–55 and 58–59. Burton remains silent on the doctrine of justification, on predestination and on free will; yet it is unlikely that Pym had these matters in mind when he railed against the ‘corrupt part of the clergy’, as Russell argues; see Russell, Fall, 216–17. Burton, Apology of an Appeale, 21. See Laud, Works, vol. 5, 338. Burton, For God, and the King, 36–37. Ibid., 41–42. Ibid., 43. Ibid., 76: ‘all our obedience to Kings and Princes, and other Superiors, must be regulated by our obedience to God’. Heylyn, Briefe and Moderate Answer, 27–30. Burton, Briefe Answer, 6 and 18. Ibid., 12. Burton argues in particular against White, Treatise of the Sabbath-Day. Burton, For God, and the King, 72–73. See Heylyn, Briefe and Moderate Answer, 42–43. Burton, For God, and the King, 129. On multiple occasions in his Briefe Answer (pages 3, 36 and 45), Burton cites James I/VI and his Basilikon Doron as a source of authority for a critical stance toward the Bishops. Burton, For God, and the King, 16–20, 33, 51. See also Prynne, Newes from Ipswich, fol. 2r, and Bastwick, Letany, 11 (in the latter, William Laud is called ‘William, the Dragon’ in an allusion to Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation). Burton, For God, and the King, 11–12. Prynne refers to the episcopacy as ‘Luciferian Lord Bishops’ and ‘Archagents for the Divell, and Pope of Rome’; Prynne, Newes from Ipswich, fol. 2v. Burton, For God, and the King, 46. Ibid., preface, fol. A4v. Ibid., 84. Ibid., 79.

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40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

See Laud, Works, vol. 4, 85–86; Heylyn, Briefe and Moderate Answer, preface, fol. D1r. Heylyn, Briefe and Moderate Answer, 36. Ibid., 38–40. Ibid., 27–30. Ibid., 37. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 103–4; Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 240–44. This perspective is set out especially clearly in Burton, Divine Tragedie, 4–25. Burton lists examples of the bad ends of individual ‘Sabbath-Breakers’ over the previous two years – i.e. since the publication of the Book of Sports in 1633 – whose fates he attributes to God’s hand and therefore considers to be examples of divine justice (ibid., 30). Burton sees this as the fulfilment of the prophecy in Deut. 28, which promises divine punishment for any breaches of the Ten Commandments (ibid., 26). See Ferrell, Government by Polemic, 10–19; Seaver, Puritan Lectureships, Chapters 1 and 2; Ferrell and McCullough, ‘Revising the Study’. Herle, Fuller Answer to a Treatise, 6; Hobbes, English Works, vol. 6, 190 ff. For an overview of all the Fast Sermons, see Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 237–54 (Appendix I). On the tradition of collectively proclaimed fast days in England, see Durston, ‘Better Humiliation’; Cox, ‘Story’. See Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 16. Hyde, History of the Rebellion, vol. 4, 34: ‘the archbishop of Canterbury had never so great an influence upon the counsels at Court as Dr. Burgess and Mr. Marshall had then upon the Houses of Parliament’. A list of the printed Fast Sermons is likewise given by Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 255–74 (Appendix II). If authorised publications of sermons were, in a sense, the official medium for this debate, then pamphlets and broadside ballads were their subversive counterparts; see Nünning, ‘World Turned Upside Down’; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 856, 860, 875. Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’; Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 17. Greaves, ‘Barnardiston, Sir Nathaniel’; Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’, 93; Fairclough, Troublers Troubled, fol. A3r–A4r. The idea of ‘tuning the pulpit’ was said to have been coined Elizabeth I (see Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus, fol. YIr), who was a master of the tactic; see Hunt, ‘Tuning the Pulpits’. While Wilson tends to suggest the former, Trevor-Roper advocates the latter; see Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 166–67 and 146, where he describes the Fast Sermons as an ‘engine of influence’, and Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’, 88–89, 93–95. On the publication history of the sermons, see Cromartie, ‘Printing’, 23–44. Liu, ‘Burges, Cornelius’: ‘he had set the basic tone of puritan preaching throughout the years of the English revolution’. Yet most of the individual rhetorical components of the sermon had already been used earlier, as I will show. Burges and Marshall, Two Sermons, fol. A2r. Ibid., 66. Ibid., 6. Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 39. Burges and Marshall, Two Sermons, 3–4. Ibid., 11, with reference to 2 Chr. 14–15 and 1 Kings 15:11.

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66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

88. 89.

90.

Ibid., 12, with reference to Deut. 13:6–9. Ibid., 28, with reference to Prov. 2:17. Ibid., 30–35. Russell, Fall, 420, 447, 458–59. Burges and Marshall, Two Sermons, 36–37. Ibid., 40. Ibid., 45 and 54. Ibid., 45. See Vallance, Revolutionary England, 6–48 (Chapter 1: ‘The Origins of the Idea of a National Covenant in England’). This is explicitly set out in Burton, Sounding, 40–41. Russell, Fall, 162–63. Ibid., 163. The Scottish emissaries gathered in London greeted any sign of a transformation in church politics in England with joy. See e.g. the letter Robert Baillie sent to his wife on 12 December 1640, in which he wrote of his confidence that the English episcopal church and its hated ceremonies would soon come to an end; Baillie, Letters, vol. 1, 278. Dixhoorn, ‘Unity and Diversity’; Paul, Assembly; Bradley, ‘Failure of Accommodation’. Parker, Discourse Concerning Puritans, 39. Identical sermons were preached in numerous parishes throughout the country; see Sheils, ‘Provincial Preaching’; Eales, ‘Provincial Preaching’. See Holmes, New World, fol. A2r, where MPs are addressed as the ‘Worthies of Israel’. Numerous examples can be found in Wilson, Pulpit, Chapter VI, especially 168–69; see also Haller, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Asch, ‘An Elect Nation?’. Marshall, A Sermon, 30–41. See also Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 186–87 and 199–200. The same was also true of the motif appearing around this time of an illness that had befallen England and needed to be cured; see Cressy, England on Edge, 30–36. Certain authors also gathered evidence that God’s punishment was already upon England, such as the return of the plague; see the extensive evidence provided on this point in Cressy, England on Edge, 60–67. On profanation of the Sabbath: Marshall, A Sermon, 32 and Reformation and Desolation, 33; Case, Two Sermons, 12 and 17; Holmes, New World, 44; Burroughs, Sions Joy, 26–27. On kneeling: Marshall, A Sermon, 35; Case, Two Sermons, 12; Holmes, New World, 30; Burroughs, Sions Joy, 26–27; Burton, Englands Bondage, 15–17 [incorrectly labelled 20–23]. On crucifixes: Case, Two Sermons, 17; Burton, Sounding, 25. On sentencing: Ashe, Best Refuge, 59–60. On similarities with the Catholic Church: Burton, Sounding, 58–59. Holmes, New World, 44; Calamy, Gods Free Mercy, 20; Caryl, Workes of Ephesus, 51. Holmes, New World, 30; Sedgwick, Scripture; Ashe, Best Refuge, 31 and 61; Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion, 4; Burroughs, Sions Joy, 40–41; Goodwin, Glimpse, 2–3; Burton, Sounding, 18–19 and 54; Caryl, Workes of Ephesus, 51 and 55–56. Quotation from Burton, Englands Bondage, 13 [incorrectly labelled 3]. For a detailed discussion, see Morrill, Nature, 45–90; Fincham and Tyacke, Altars Restored, 172–75 and 274–75. On the canons of 1640, see Chapter 4 of this book.

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91. See Cressy, England on Edge, 168–72. Stephen Marshall, Cornelius Burges and Henry Burton were all summoned, to name only three of the most famous preachers in St Margaret’s. 92. House of Commons, Journal, vol. 2, 24, 32–33, 37, 40. 93. Fincham and Tyacke, Altars Restored, 274–83; Cressy, England on Edge, 199–209; Walter, ‘Popular Iconoclasm’, 261–90. 94. See Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’, 93; Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 44–46; Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 186–87. 95. Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’, 93; see also Russell, Fall, 292–99. 96. Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 44–46. 97. Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’, 94; see also Hill, English Bible, 82. Fairclough, Troublers Troubled, 24: ‘that those that have authority under God, doe totally abolish and extirpate all the cursed things whereby it was disturbed’. 98. Ibid., 1–2. 99. Ibid., 47–49. 100. Rushworth, Tryall of Thomas, Earl of Strafford, 658–59; Russell, Fall, 287–302. The same fate later befell William Laud, who was sentenced to death on 4 January 1645 by means of an act of attainder rather than through an impeachment trial. The sentence was carried out six days later; for a detailed account of the trial against Laud, see Milton, ‘Laud, William’, 666–68. 101. See Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 191–93. 102. Fairclough, Troublers Troubled, 10 f.; Christianson makes the rather generalised argument that Fairclough equated Achan with the ‘Arminians’; see Christianson, Reformers, 186. 103. Fairclough, Troublers Troubled, 11. 104. Burton, Israels Fast, 32; see also Burton, Baiting, 44. On the continued use of the figure of Achan in political speeches, see Worden, ‘Oliver Cromwell’. 105. Taylor, Mercuries Message Defended, 2; Achan is used in a similar way in Bridge, Babylons Downfall, 19, and as a general synonym for sinfulness in Calamy, Englands LookingGlasse, fol. A3r. 106. Fairclough, Troublers Troubled, 50. 107. This is best expressed in Ben Jonson’s 1603 tragedy Sejanus His Fall; see also Baumann, ‘Tragödien’. 108. Asch, ‘Thomas Wentworth’. 109. Of course, Thomas Wentworth was not permanently and unequivocally associated with Haman; after all, the latter features in the sermons as an example of a godless man of influence even after Wentworth’s execution; see e.g. Calamy, Gods Free Mercy, 5 (in which Haman stands for Laud and his followers) and Ashe, Best Refuge, 30 (where he represents the Lord Bishops). 110. Fairclough, Troublers Troubled, 27; cf. Esther 9:16. 111. Marshall, A Sermon, 17–18. 112. Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion. The motto of this sermon was Ps. 69:9: ‘For the zeale of thine house hath eaten me up’. 113. Ibid., 29–30. 114. Ibid., 6. 115. Ibid., 16. Wilson evidently sees this prophecy as having already been fulfilled, as he emphasises that the city was completely destroyed by an earthquake. 116. Ibid., 44.

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117. Christopher Hill has collected data on this point: of the 240 Fast Sermons that were printed between 1640 and 1653, 181 were based on passages from the Old Testament and only 59 on the New Testament. Of the latter, twelve came from the Book of Revelation. In the run-up to 1645, 123 sermons were based on the Old Testament and only 26 on the New Testament, giving a ratio of almost 5:1. See Hill, English Bible, 83. 118. Burges and Marshall, Two Sermons, 36–37. 119. Caryl, Workes of Ephesus, 39. 120. Brightman, Revelation of the Revelation, 137 and 165; see Asch, ‘Revelation of the Revelation’, 324–26. As a motif in the sermons, Laodicea is a cipher for England’s state of salvation; see e.g. Calamy, Gods Free Mercy, 48; Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion, 16–17; Burton, Sounding, 28; Goodwin, Zerubbabels Encouragement, 16; Caryl, Workes of Ephesus, 47. The parallel is made especially forcefully in Holmes, New World, 20: ‘the mixture are smokey distinctions, popish evasions, carnall pretences, pharisaicall conclusions, human rules and traditions, fleshly formes of worship, seeming pretences of flattering devotions, by all which to blinde the eyes and puddle the streames of the Scriptures’. 121. Calamy, Gods Free Mercy, 47. 122. That said, Sedgwick diverges from this somewhat; see Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 31. 123. Caryl, Workes of Ephesus, 39 f. 124. See Christianson, ‘From Expectation to Militance’, 227; Capp, ‘Political Dimension’, 109. 125. This might explain why Hugh Trevor-Roper mentions neither sermon in his essay on the Fast Sermons. 126. Christianson, ‘From Expectation to Militance’, 239–40. 127. Caryl, Workes of Ephesus, 54–56. Although Caryl’s sermon was based on the Book of Revelation (2:2–3), the demands he made of Parliament largely drew on exempla from the historical books of the Old Testament. 128. Goodwin, Glimpse, 2–3. 129. Burton, Sounding, 62–70. 130. Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 23. 131. Ibid., 22. References to the incomplete conversion of the Jews appear in Holmes, New World, 12 and Gillespie, ‘A Sermon’, 772–74. In order to begin removing this final obstacle to the advent of the millennium, Parliament invited John Amos Comenius, John Dury and Samuel Hartlib to London during the winter of 1641/42 to make detailed plans for an academy dedicated to researching rabbinic literature, rebuilding Solomon’s Temple and publishing the Mishnah; see Greengrass et al., Samuel Hartlib; Trever-Roper, Religion, 237–93. In the 1640s and 1650s, the Congregationalists who had emigrated to North America believed that Native Americans were one of the lost tribes of Israel and eagerly set about converting them; for an excellent discussion, see Metzger, ‘Heiden, Juden oder Teufel?’ 132. Bridge, Babylons Downfall, 10. 133. Ibid., 23. 134. Burton, Sounding, 92. 135. Holmes, New World, 38: ‘I can see you are the promised people, you the Parliament and Parliaments of his Maiesties three kingdomes to be leaders and examples to the Christian world to pull downe that of Antichrist that is yet standing’. 136. See Goodwin, Glimpse, 4–8; especially 8: ‘First, that though the Kingdome of Christ may be darkned for a while, yet certainly Christ will reigne in his Church gloriously,

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137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142.

143. 144.

145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151.

152. 153. 154. 155.

156.

at which the Saints will sing Hallelujah. Secondly, that the beginning of this glorious Reigne of Christ, the Multitude of the People shall bee the furtherers of it, and take speciall notice of it’. Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 222–26. For a discussion of these events, see Russell, Fall, Chapter 13. Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 52. This common interpretation of Psalm 82 can be found in the first Fast Sermon by Cornelius Burges. Marshall, Reformation and Desolation, 7. Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 183, fn. 12. Cheshire, A Sermon. The copy in the British Library has a handwritten note on the title page below the line ‘printed by the author’ that reads ‘because none other would’. Ibid., 22: ‘the voice of God walking in this our Garden of England a long time, the voice of peace, and the voice of the Gospell of Christ’. Cheshire also emphasises the long peace in England while Europe was engulfed in the tumultuous Thirty Years’ War. For the analogy with original sin, see ibid., 24–25. On Oxford as the seat of the Royalist press, see Raymond, Pamphlets, 152. An attempt of this kind appears in Russell, Fall, 461, where Russell sees the fact that Edmund Calamy places David Pareus in line with St Augustine, St Ambrose and Martin Luther in his sermon Englands Looking-Glasse as a clear statement in favour of the right to resist. Yet he seems to overlook the fact that the content of the rest of the sermon argues for the right of resistance far more forcefully than the mere reference to Pareus as a prophet. See e.g. von Friedeburg, Widerstandsrecht, 118–30, which makes no reference to the Fast Sermons. Hill, English Bible, 94: ‘no one who has read the Fast Sermons of the 1640s can suppose that the niceties of constitutional theory were uppermost in MPs’ minds. The question was rather Marshall’s, whether Christ or Antichrist shall be lord or king?’ Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 11. Ibid., 26. Goodwin, Zerubbabels Encouragement, 42–44. Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 16–18 (prophecy based on Isa. 62 as well as Rev. 19:7). See also Calamy, Englands Looking-Glasse, 3–4, which speaks of God’s prerogative over all kingdoms and the ‘supremacy of Gods power’. Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 20–21. Sedgwick draws on 1 Cor. 15:24, which speaks of Christ delivering up his kingdom to God his Father ‘when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power’. It is worth noting Sedgwick’s addition to this quotation: ‘i.e. all his enemies, be they of rule, the highest degree; of authority, the middle or second degree; or of power, the lowest and meanest; all must be subject to Christ’. A similar assertion can be found in Goodwin, Glimpse, 8. Goodwin, Zerubbabels Encouragement, 37; the quotation draws on Rev. 6:2. Ibid., 32–33. Similar wording was used by Samuel Rutherford; see Coffey, Politics, 232–33. See Elton, Tudor Constitution, 372–77. Goodwin, Zerubbabels Encouragement, 41. With these words, Goodwin was presumably referring to the Commons’ resolutions concerning ‘ecclesiastical innovations’ of 1 September 1641. See House of Commons, Journal, vol. 2, 279; also reprinted in Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 236–37. Symonds, A Sermon, fol. D2v; Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion.

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157. Holmes, New World, 41; Marshall, Reformation and Desolation, 44; Sedgwick, Zions Deliverance, 23–25. Sedgwick sees the members of the Long Parliament as at least indirectly occupying the role of Phinehas. 158. Von Friedeburg sees the figure of Phinehas as a sort of biblical example of a radical right to resist; see von Friedeburg, Widerstandsrecht, 13–14. The Fast Sermons make it clear that David could also be invoked in the same way. 159. Bridge, Babylons Downfall, 22; Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion, 30. 160. Burges and Marshall, Two Sermons, 11. 161. Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion, 30. 162. Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, Chapter 4; Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 227–41. 163. Calamy, Gods Free Mercy, fol. A3r; Ashe, Best Refuge, fol. A3v. 164. John Pym expressed his suspicions on this score in the Commons on 24 February 1642, which were vehemently rebuffed by Charles I; see House of Commons, Journal, vol. 2, 453–54. For further details of the accusation and its impact, see Hyde, History of the Rebellion, vol. 4, 31; Hibbard, Charles I; Clifton, ‘Fear of Popery’. 165. Marshall, Meroz Cursed. 166. Trevor-Roper, ‘Fast Sermons’, 99. A 1645 reprint is documented in the English Short Title Catalogue. 167. Marshall, Meroz Cursed, 22–24. 168. Ibid., 11–12 (with reference to Psalm 137:8–9): ‘Yet if this worke be to revenge Gods Church against Babylon, he is a blessed man that takes and dashes the little ones against the stones’. 169. Ibid., 18. 170. Ibid., 46: ‘many great things are yet to bee done; much rubbish to be removed; many obstructions to bee cleared, many enimies to be overthrown. Ireland is to be relieved, Religion to bee established …’. 171. The Militia Ordinance can be found in House of Commons, Journal, vol. 2, 406. The king’s final rejection came on 28 February 1642; ibid., vol. 2, 459–60. For more details on the debate, see Hyde, History of the Rebellion, vol. 4, 95–99. 172. Wilson, Pulpit in Parliament, 64. 173. Burgess, ‘English Civil War’, 190–92. Glenn Burgess has also recently published an exemplary interpretation of Perkins’s 1596 work A Discourse of Conscience – the prototype of the ‘moral Puritan’ – in which he demonstrates that Puritans were by no means apolitical, and that they attached certain conditions to their obedience to the (secular) king; see Burgess, British Political Thought, 124–27. 174. See Downame, Christian Warfare; Gouge, Whole-Armour of God. 175. Michael McGiffert likewise sees both a spiritual-moral and a political discourse in Puritan sermons; however, this leads him to put Puritans into two different camps, those of the ‘moral’ and the ‘political Puritan’; McGiffert, ‘God’s Controversy’, 1159. To me, it makes more sense to distinguish between two modes of expression that could easily be adopted by the same people in different contexts. 176. Skinner, ‘Classical Liberty’, 14. 177. Ibid., 17–18. 178. The increasing restrictions on the royal prerogative probably stemmed from Parliament’s defensive motivations and its distrust of the king and his use of the powers granted to him, along with its resulting policy of what Hans-Christoph Schröder calls Sicherheitsradikalismus (‘the radicalism of safety’). See Schröder, Revolutionen Englands, 51–57.

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179. Charles I, ‘XIX. Propositions’. For the best interpretation to date, see Mendle, Dangerous Positions. 180. Charles I, ‘XIX. Propositions’, 164. 181. Ibid., 155. 182. Mendle, Henry Parker, 1–31. 183. Parker, Observations, 37–38, 41, 46–47, and 56; see also Skinner, ‘Classical Liberty’, 18–23 and von Friedeburg, Widerstandsrecht, 124–26. 184. It is not possible to definitively identify the authors of every anonymously published tract. According to George Thomason, Parker was the author of both The Case of Shipmony and A Discourse Concerning Puritans. See British Museum, Catalogue, vol. 1, 2 and 7. 185. Parker, Discourse Concerning Puritans, 52. 186. Parker, Altar Dispute and Discourse Concerning Puritans. 187. Ibid., 50. 188. This is put especially pithily in Parker’s answer to one of the countless rebuttals to his work; see Parker, The Observator Defended, 7: ‘St. Paul in the 13. of the Romanes, tells us not what power is the highest, but that that power which is the highest ought to be obeyed’. 189. Parker, Discourse Concerning Puritans, 51. 190. Parker, Observations, 1. 191. Ibid., 19. 192. Parker, Discourse Concerning Puritans, 53. 193. Mendle, Henry Parker, 48. 194. Burney, An Answer; Anon., Animadversions. 195. Ball, Caveat, 2. 196. Ibid., 3–4, 5, 10–11 and 14. 197. Ferne, Resolving of Conscience, 2. 198. Quintrell, ‘Ferne, Henry’. Parliament’s action against Ferne does not make sense under Burgess’s interpretation (see Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 177–79 and 22–23). Burgess considers Parker’s arguments to be deeply rooted in common law, while arguing that Ferne was not an advocate of unrestricted royal power, but that he saw the king’s rule as limited by law. Yet Burgess does not advance any explanation for why the conflict escalated as it did. 199. Ferne explicitly mentions Parker’s tract only once as an example of a defence of the people’s right to resist the king; see Ferne, Resolving of Conscience, 15. 200. There are numerous examples of such sermons from each county; see Cressy, England on Edge, 409–10. 201. Cardwell, Synodalia, vol. 1, 389–92. See also Chapter 4 of this book. 202. Ferne, Resolving of Conscience, epistle, fol. A1v: ‘certainly it belongs to the Divine to consider whether it be against Gods Law, and accordingly to instruct his people’. 203. Ibid., 5. 204. Ibid., 10. 205. Ibid., 5, 11 and 15. 206. Ibid., 17–18. 207. Ibid., 19. 208. See Mendle, Henry Parker, 101. 209. Not to be confused with his father, the famous common law judge Sir Dudley Digges; see Stoker, ‘Digges, Dudley’. For more on Digges, see also Sanderson, But the People’s Creatures, 73–85.

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210. Goldie, ‘Absolutismus’; Tuck, ‘Power and Authority’, 43. 211. Diggs, An Answer, 2–5. See also Diggs, Unlawfulnesse, 63: ‘nemo habet, quod dedit’. Yet Diggs also makes it clear that his understanding of the social contract is based on reason, and by no means a commentary on the lawfulness or otherwise of Parliament’s actions under the constitution; see Diggs, An Answer, 2. 212. Diggs, An Answer, 4: ‘to look back to the Originall of Governments, we might finde that God was the immediate donor of Regall power, whereas other formes referre to him, onely as confirming the peoples Act’. 213. Ibid., 5. 214. Ibid., 1 and 45. 215. Herle, An Answer, 2: ‘the laws of the Land, and not Divinity were the proper judge in this controversie’. He adds, ‘divinitie gives onely generall rules of obedience to all lawfull authority tels us not where that authority is, as in its adaequat subject’ (3). See also Mendle, Henry Parker, 98. 216. Herle, Fuller Answer to the Moderatour, 21: ‘but we make no use of them [i.e. biblical exempla to justify rebellion against the king’s rule], need them not, and therefore need not answer the Doctors refutation of them’. 217. Ibid., 6–7. 218. Ibid., 21. The same is true of Herle’s reading of Ps. 82:6 (‘Ye are gods …’). 219. Burroughs, Briefe Answer. 220. Ibid., 13. 221. Ibid., 14: ‘There is a necessitie that in these times peoples Consciences should be further satisfied in their liberties in this case then formerly, because the time is (we hope) at hand for the pulling down of Antichrist, and we find by Scripture this work at first will be by the people’. 222. Ibid. By way of contrast, see the rebuttal in Diggs, Unlawfulnesse, 110–11, where Diggs insists that the kings themselves are tasked with destroying the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 17:16–18). Because the fall of Babylon is inevitable, he maintains, it would be wrong to take an active approach and thereby burden oneself with sin. 223. Goodwin, Anti-Cavalierisme, 2. 224. Ibid., 3–6. 225. Ibid., 7–10. 226. Ibid., 11–16. 227. Ibid., 31–32. 228. Ibid., 32–33. 229. This interpretation had already been put forward by Thomas Scott, albeit without any direct reference to the political consequences that would ensue; see Chapter 4. 230. Diggs, Unlawfulnesse, 110–11, with explicit reference to Goodwin’s and Burroughs’s interpretation. 231. Skinner, ‘Classical Liberty’, 28.

Chapter 2

JAMES VI AS SUPREME EXEGETE IN SCOTLAND

? James VI was no friend of the Presbyterians, who had increasingly set the political course of the Church of Scotland since the 1580s. As king, he saw himself not as an ordinary Christian, but as head of the Church – and likely as an ally of the episcopal hierarchy too. Yet even he was forced to admit that it was fruitless to try to impose his will in the face of resistance from the Church of Scotland, having utterly failed in his initial attempt to do so with the ‘Black Acts’ of 1584. Public protests by prominent ministers, combined with James’s inability to push the Acts through, made it obvious just how far the reality of the Kirk had diverged from his expectations, and the dissonance grew even more marked over the following decade. The general weakness of the king’s authority prompted his most important political advisor, John Maitland of Thirlestane, to suggest that the Presbyterians be co-opted as a sort of partner to the Crown in order to win support for the king in his conflict with the feuding Scottish clans.1 James went along with his adviser’s recommendation, leading more or less to the adoption of a Presbyterian ecclesiastical polity in Scotland by the end of the century and leaving the king further from a dominant role in the Kirk than ever before.2 Although James largely refrained from direct interference in the ecclesiastical administration during the decade following the obvious failure of the Black Acts, he found an alternative outlet for his ambitions in the form of a series of six tracts he wrote between 1584 and 1599, five of which were published in print. These writings were by no means a mark of the king’s contemplative withdrawal into the realm of scholarship, but served a decidedly political purpose. And it was no coincidence that the majority of these texts centred on the exegesis of the Bible. James was not the first monarch to put pen to paper and cultivate a public persona as an author. In England, for example, authorship seems to have been a fixed element of monarchical self-fashioning. Henry VIII penned not only numerous treatises, but also love poetry, while Elizabeth I published translations

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and prayers in both Latin and English.3 In Scotland, by contrast, there was no such tradition.4 Nonetheless, James turned royal authorship into a personal trademark, treating it as the most important component of his public image. This can be seen in the large number of texts that he authored, along with the fact that he worked in numerous genres over the course of his reign and also published most of his writings, some of them in multiple editions.5 In most cases, James’s public persona as an author was intimately linked to his interpretation of Scripture. He was primarily interested not in assuming the role of an ‘intellectual’, but in presenting himself to the public as a theologian and prophet.6 Yet this is only gradually coming to the attention of historical scholarship.7 Although there are several editions of James’s writings that focus primarily on his political treatises, the political content of his putatively theological tracts has been largely overlooked, meaning that these texts are frequently disregarded.8 We see this too in more recent biographies of James VI and I, which neglect to so much as mention his exegetical work.9 Scholars have failed to consider that these texts were at least as significant as the king’s political treatises, as not only do they represent a specific mode of political communication, but they are also a means for us to understand James’s selfrepresentation and his idea of kingship.

The King’s Early Exegetical Writings At the beginning of his reign in Scotland, James authored two texts within just a few years that were both devoted to interpreting the Book of Revelation – probably the most demanding biblical text in exegetical terms. If his goal was to prove his competence as a theologian and thereby justify his claim to be head of the Church, there is probably no other book in the Bible that would have better suited his purpose. It was a commonplace among contemporary theologians that this was a text in special need of elucidation, and the Geneva Bible makes this need clear in a visual way: while in every other book the explanatory notes are restricted to the margins of the page, the ratio between Scripture and commentary in the Book of Revelation is reversed, so that the interpretation of the Apocalypse takes up more space than the text of the book itself. The large edition of the collected works of James VI and I published in 1616 begins with the Paraphrase upon the Revelation of the Apostle S. Iohn, followed directly by another discussion of the Apocalypse called A Fruitfull Meditation Containing a Plaine and Easie Exposition, or Laying Open of the VII., VIII., IX. and X. Verses of the 20. Chapter of the Revelation, in Forme and Maner of a Sermon. James probably wrote the Paraphrase before 1587, but the manuscript did not appear in print until the 1616 edition of his collected works.10 The Meditation, on the other hand, had already been printed in Edinburgh in 1588, translated into several

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languages and subsequently republished in new editions.11 James also returned to the Book of Revelation in 1609 in a published letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Written in the context of the conflict over the Oath of Allegiance owed to the king by all English Catholics, the Premonition to all Most Mightie Monarches, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendom was James’s attempt to transcend confessional boundaries and appeal for solidarity among rulers against the Pope’s claims to worldly authority.12 The Paraphrase and the Meditation must be interpreted on two different levels. First, we need to consider the public aspect of the king’s authorship, in which both the chosen genre and the way it is adapted play a role. Second, we must also examine the theological and political statements in each text, considering both what James hoped to achieve with his interpretations of the Book of Revelation, and whom he had in mind as his audience.

A Paraphrase upon the Revelation Two versions of the Paraphrase have been preserved. The British Library holds an undated manuscript of the entire text in James VI’s own hand that was probably one of the king’s personal copies, given the number of revisions and corrections in it and the obvious lack of care with which it has been treated.13 The text also survives in the 1616 edition of James’s collected works, where the editor, James Montagu, states that the text was written before James’s twentieth birthday, so earlier than 1586.14 The most striking difference between the two is that the manuscript is written in Scots, while the printed version is in English; beyond that, however, they are largely identical in terms of wording and structure. The Paraphrase stands out by virtue of its composition: it belongs to the genre of Bible commentary, or at least plays with its conventions, and yet the text itself seeks to obscure the scholarly, theological nature of the genre as far as possible. This probably also explains why the piece has been so overlooked by historians. Paul Christianson, for example, sees it primarily as a retelling of the Revelation, while others read it mainly as an unoriginal piece of juvenilia.15 However, these interpretations ignore both the true nature of the Paraphrase and the historical context in which it was designed to wield political influence. The first part of the text consists of a complete translation of the Book of Revelation. This may well have been produced by James himself, as there was no other extant Scots translation at this time. Even the Bassandyne Bible (printed in Scotland in 1579) was merely a reprint of the folio edition of the 1561 Geneva Bible, and was therefore in English.16 It is hard to say for certain whether James used an English translation as a model, but there is no obvious overlap between his version and the translations in the Geneva Bible, the Bishop’s Bible or the Great Bible. It is therefore just as likely that he used a Latin model, such as Theodore Beza’s Latin edition of the New Testament.

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The translation is accompanied by two kinds of textual commentary. First, the structure of James’s ‘paraphrase’ mirrors the twenty-two chapters found in the Book of Revelation itself, and each of the chapters is headed by a brief ‘argument’ that offers a markedly political interpretation of the content of the chapter (although in the manuscript version, these arguments are bundled together in a preface). Second, additional comments on the biblical text are worked into the translation itself without being flagged as such in either the manuscript or the printed version. It is not initially clear to the reader that these passages actually constitute a commentary; instead, they are seamlessly blended into the text as a sort of continuation of Scripture. In addition to this blurring of boundaries between textual levels, James also merges the narrative voices within the Paraphrase: in his introduction, he briefly notes that he has made John the Divine the narrator of the entire text, including the commentary, and that he has not distinguished between John’s voice and his own.17 As such, when James writes ‘that voice which I heard, spake to me from heaven’ (Rev. 10:8), it is impossible for the reader to know whether these are John’s words or part of James’s commentary, and thus whether divine inspiration has been bestowed upon the Apostle or the exegete.18 Similarly, the prophetic words of one of the three angels announcing that ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great citie’ (Rev. 14:8) are followed in the Paraphrase by an inserted exegetical comment: … for it is to be noted, that as there is no distinction of times in the presence of God, but all things are present unto him, so he and his Angels calleth oftentimes that thing done, that is shortly and certainly to be done thereafter … That Monarchie, I say then, shall shortly be destroyed, and that justly, because she hath abused a great part of the earth … to embrace her errours and idolatries or spirituall whoredome …19

It is difficult to discern here whether the fall of Babylon – which James repeatedly equates to the papacy in his inserted commentary – is prophesied by James or by John. Daniel Fischlin has pointed out the contradictions arising from the speaking role that James assigns to John the Divine.20 Although James clearly states his intention to speak in the voice of John – ‘usurping, in a display of exegetical sovereignty, the role of prophetic interlocutor’, as Fischlin puts it – he talks elsewhere about ‘my Paraphrase’, thereby foregrounding his own position as the author.21 By muddying the waters in this way, James doubtless sought to lend additional weight to his own exegesis. The ‘arguments’ that preface the individual chapters, on the other hand, are clearly identifiable as commentary. Here, James puts forth his politico-historical interpretation of the Revelation much more openly than in the notes he inserts into the body of the text. For example, he summarises the events of Revelation 9 as follows:

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In the fift Trumpet, the heresies cause a great blindnesse and ignorance, whereof commeth the Ecclesiasticall Papisticall orders, signified by the grashoppers breeding out of the smoake, and their power and qualities: Their King and head the Pope and his style: In the next Trumpet the beginning of his decay, signified by the loosing of the foure Angels at Euphrates: The remedy he useth for the same by hounding out the Jesuits, signified by the horse in the Vision: Their qualities signified by their breastplates: The Popes and Turkes his gathering to destroy the Church, signified by a great armie of horse: The Pope is the plague for breaking of the first Table, and the Turke for breaking of the second.22

In this commentary, the biblical text is interpreted as referring to the contemporary political situation. Friends and foes are clearly defined: the plague of locusts is unleashed by the Pope as the originator of countless heresies; the impending fall of the papacy is delayed by the Jesuits; and the true Church is threatened both spiritually by the Pope and physically by the Ottoman Empire. The commentary inserted into the biblical text itself, on the other hand, is far more ambiguous, referring to neither the Pope, nor the Jesuits, nor the Ottomans by name. Instead, James uses typically Protestant dysphemisms within the text, referring to the Pope as a ‘hereticall Monarch’ and a cause of ‘idolatry’, for example. Similarly, the personification of the ‘Turke’ James mentions in the argument is referred to in the text only as ‘that other Monarch, who onely persecutes the body’.23 These two different kinds of commentary allow James to make political statements through both direct assertion and subtle implication. An example of the results of this technique can be seen in his exegesis of the seven vials of wrath in Revelation 16. In this chapter, James identifies both the Pope and the Presbyterians with the Antichrist, which was rather an incendiary position to take in the contemporary Scottish context. James’s ‘argument’ equates the Pope with the Antichrist quite clearly, stating that with the sixth vial, ‘[the Pope’s] forces decay, which he perceiving, houndeth out the Jesuits, to gather all his forces to destroy the faithfull, with whom God fights to his destruction’.24 But the commentary inserted into the text itself offers a different interpretation of the emptying of the sixth vial. The Bible speaks of three froglike unclean spirits emerging from the mouths of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, which James initially identifies as ‘bred of an old, filthy, and corrupted false doctrine, which for a long space have blinded the world’.25 Every Protestant would immediately have understood that James was describing the Catholic Church, so the in-text commentary corresponds with the predictions of the ‘argument’. Yet James makes it clear that the frogs also represent a further aberration within the Church: … as also for that they goe craftily about to undermine and condemne all Ecclesiasticall orders preceding them, as unperfect and unprofitable, because their kingdome is darkenesse; But howsoever they thus craftily insinuate themselves in the favours of

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the people, surely their doctrine is nothing else, but the very same filthy puddle of uncleane and wicked heresies and impieties …26

The ‘argument’ offers no clues as to whom the kingdom of darkness is meant to represent, but James was unlikely to have had the Catholic Church in mind here. Many charges may have been laid at the Catholics’ door during the contemporary confessional conflict, but one could not accuse them of being critical of ecclesiastical order. Rather, this argument seems to apply to the Presbyterians and their understanding of the church. James’s reference to ‘the favours of the people’ seems to underscore this interpretation, given that in his later writings, he characterises the Scottish Presbyterians as advocates of government by the people, reproaching them in his Basilikon Doron for their ‘populare Sermons’ and accusing them of wanting to elevate themselves to the status of ‘Tribuni plebis’.27 If this interpretation holds true, then the Paraphrase lumps Catholics and Presbyterians together, condemns both doctrines as heretical and identifies their respective preachers as false prophets and incarnations of the Antichrist.28 This position is not without irony, given that the Presbyterians themselves saw the Antichrist at work in the Church of Scotland wherever the traditional configuration of the Kirk departed from their reformist ideas, as with the existence of Scottish bishops.29 On the other hand, equating the Pope with the Puritans was a commonplace among English conformists in the seventeenth century, since both parties were accused of undermining the foundation of the monarchy in similar ways.30 The polemical treatise in defence of the Black Acts written in the king’s name by Patrick Adamson likewise compares the doctrine of the Presbyterians with that of the Roman Curia, claiming that both wrongly questioned the king’s legitimate rights as a ruler (although the latter dispute featured no accusations of affinity with the Antichrist). This was a serious accusation; yet it is softened somewhat in the Paraphrase by not being made explicitly. Whereas James clearly and constantly pillories the Catholic Church, his attack on the Presbyterians is only implied. The king leaves us in no doubt as to whom he saw as the greatest threat to the Christian faith – namely, the Pope, with his claims to supremacy.31 Despite the formal innovation of James’s Paraphrase, it is entirely conventional in its politico-theological outlook. The king’s interpretation does not stray from standard Protestant readings of the Book of Revelation, which were well established, especially in sixteenth-century polemical literature.32 This is especially true of his historical reading of the text and his equation of the Pope with the Antichrist. Both these elements had already been aggressively deployed by Martin Luther, although he in turn drew upon an older interpretive tradition that dated back to Savonarola, the Franciscans and Joachim of Fiore.33 The historical approach to the Book of Revelation in particular had been a commonplace in Protestant

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England ever since John Bale’s full exegesis in The Image of Both Churches, and it also found its way into the footnotes of the Geneva Bible, whose exegesis scarcely differs from James’s commentary.34 It seems unlikely that James would have been unaware of these prior interpretations.35 Although his introduction asserts that he only consulted the Bible itself and no other authorities, this is probably just part of his self-fashioning.36 At best, the hidden barbs aimed at the Presbyterians point to a genuinely independent position on James’s part, but this aspect carries little weight when set against the overall interpretation presented by the text. In order to understand the aims and purpose of the Paraphrase, therefore, it is crucial to look at its intended audience; yet the evidence available on this front is rather scant. The following analysis is based on three aspects of the text: first, its confessional character; second, its ingenious and innovative style; and third, its private circulation. The historical exegesis of the Apocalypse (which James puts forth as his own personal interpretation in the Paraphrase) rigorously distinguishes between the followers of Christ, for whom the gates of the New Jerusalem will stand open, and the allies of the Antichrist, whose destruction is prophesied in the Book of Revelation. When James declares the Pope to be the personification of the enemy of Christ, thereby adopting a Protestant truism, he also clearly places himself in the Protestant camp. But to whom is this affirmation addressed? Or in other words: who would have doubted James’s commitment to Protestantism? Feathers were increasingly ruffled both within Scotland and beyond by James’s relationship with Esmé Stewart, Seigneur d’Aubigny and later Earl of Lennox, who embarked on a meteoric courtly career soon after his arrival in Scotland in 1579 and quickly became the young king’s favourite. By the end of 1580, Lennox, together with James Stewart (later Earl of Arran), had already managed to overthrow and imprison the former regent, the Earl of Morton, whom they later had hanged as an accomplice to the murder of Lord Darnley, James VI’s father. The Earl of Lennox then replaced Morton as the power behind young King James’s throne. Lennox had been brought up Catholic in France, and the Scottish clergy soon spread rumours that he was an agent of the Duke of Guise who sought to persuade James to ally with Spain and France.37 Over the following years, rumours of this kind did more than merely mobilise resistance among the Presbyterian preachers who railed against Lennox from their pulpits. In England, Queen Elizabeth herself was alarmed at the prospect of an alliance between Scotland and England’s Catholic arch-enemies, and this could have had serious consequences for James’s already precarious grip on power.38 Given these heightened tensions, Lennox and James made at least two attempts to defuse the situation. First, Lennox made it known that he had already converted to Protestantism in July 1580, and second, James and his court made a profession of faith that has gone down in history as the King’s Confession, otherwise known as the Negative Confession.39 The first of these

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names came about because James was the first to sign the document, while the label Negative Confession refers to the contents of the document, which was first and foremost a radical rejection of the Catholic Church. With the words, ‘… we detest and refuse the usurped authoritie of that Romane Antichrist upon the scriptures of God, upon the kyrk, the civill magistrate, and consciences of men’, the Confession embarks on a lengthy philippic that condemns each individual article of the Catholic faith in turn.40 This measure was surely intended as a way to alleviate Presbyterian mistrust of James and his inner circle, but it met with limited success. In my view, the Paraphrase should also be counted as part of James’s trustbuilding campaign. Like the Negative Confession, it clearly equates the Pope with the Antichrist and thereby seeks to robustly demonstrate James’s Protestant leanings. Yet doubts over James’s reliability and confessional constancy did not disappear in the years that followed, and so neither did his need to present himself as firmly in the Protestant camp. As such, the Paraphrase and the Negative Confession appear to me to be identical in function: they served to stress the king’s own Protestantism and to remove any doubts as to his political course in matters of religion. While the Confession was made publicly, however, the Paraphrase initially circulated in manuscript form. This raises the question of whether both texts were addressed to the same audience, or whether James had specific readers in mind for the latter text. Fischlin’s suggestion that James wrote the Paraphrase in order to win over the radical Presbyterians within his own government is not entirely convincing.41 After all, if James’s intention was to appease the Presbyterians, why did he insert critical comments into the text describing them as unclean spirits in the Church? Besides, an exegetical text was hardly a suitable means for a reigning king to communicate with his own ministers. If the Paraphrase was supposed to convince readers of James’s steadfast Protestantism, it raises the question of who was so politically important to him as to be worth the trouble of drafting such an elaborate exegetical text. Furthermore, what readership would approve not only of James’s equation of the Pope with the Antichrist, but also of his critical asides against the Presbyterians in his own ranks? There was one key person who shared both these antipathies: Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth was crucially important not only to James’s position as King of Scotland, but above all to his hopes of inheriting the English throne. As such, her goodwill was worth any amount of trouble. There is at least one strong piece of evidence that James sent Elizabeth a copy of his Paraphrase: in a letter to James of January 1586, she expressly thanks him for sending her a scholarly paraphrase that surpassed the quality of the original text.42 This was certainly an unusual compliment for a biblical commentary, and the date of the letter also coincides with Montagu’s claim that the text was completed by the beginning of 1586. Moreover, the letter was sent during a

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period of negotiations over an alliance between Scotland and England that, from James’s perspective, would not only bring subsidy payments, but also secure his succession to the English throne. Although the latter hope went unfulfilled, the treaty was nonetheless signed in July 1586.43 The correspondence between the two monarchs reveals that even as the negotiations for an alliance were ongoing, James had to work hard to dispel doubts over his own credibility. Elizabeth had always suspected James of double-dealing, seeking not only to ingratiate himself with England, but also to maintain good relations with the Catholic powers. This prompted her to issue an unambiguous warning to the Scottish king: I … hope that you wyl remember, that who seaketh two stringes to one bowe, the may shute strong, but never strait; and if you suppose that princes causes be vailed so couvertly that no intelligence may bewraye them, deceave not yourselfe; we old foxes can find shiftes to save ourselves by others malice, and come by knowledge of greattest secreat, spetiallye if it touche our freholde.44

Elizabeth’s distrust stemmed partly from the fact that influential Catholics, such as the Earl of Arran, could still be found within James’s inner political circle.45 In his letters, therefore, James sought to remove the queen’s doubts, pledging the ‘continuance of that promesit course in religion and league’.46 Emphasising his Protestant identity was not the worst strategy James could have adopted in his efforts to reassure Elizabeth that he was a loyal ally; however, he needed to choose a communication method that would not give the impression of subservience. James’s correspondence with Elizabeth was not an appropriate place to make a statement as clear as the King’s Confession, so to quell the queen’s worries in an elegant, courtly way without broaching the topic directly, James had fewer better options than to send her an exegesis of the Book of Revelation in which he branded the Pope as the Antichrist and tasked the reigning monarchs of Europe with the destruction of the papacy. At first, therefore, the Paraphrase was mainly a diplomatic tool, written with a particular reader in mind and not originally intended for a broader audience, which explains why it was not printed. Indeed, James VI’s strategy of manoeuvring between the rival powers of England and Spain in order to position Scotland as an attractive political partner for both sides was not just a figment of Elizabeth’s imagination, so it would hardly have been prudent for him to publish the Paraphrase at this time.

Ane Fruitfull Meditation Shortly after finishing the Paraphrase, James once again took up his pen and returned to the Book of Revelation. His Fruitfull Meditation approaches the

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text in much the same way as the Paraphrase, but focuses solely on the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelation, which tells of the final assault and ultimate destruction of the enemies of God, Gog and Magog.47 Despite this difference, however, there are some obvious correlations between the two texts. In both cases, James stresses that he has drafted his exegesis independently, drawing only on other passages of the Bible,48 and he compares the Pope to the Antichrist as a means of underscoring his Protestant identity. Yet in the Meditation, James links this interpretation even more directly to the contemporary political situation than in the Paraphrase. The matter James sought to address through his reading of the Apocalypse was the military threat to England – and to Scotland, as he insinuates – presented by the Spanish Armada. At the very beginning of this short text, James makes it clear that no part of the Bible is better suited to interpreting the contemporary political situation than the Book of Revelation.49 He compares the Spanish threat to the final assault of the enemies of God as described in Revelation 20:7–10, and equates Gog and Magog with both the Ottoman Empire and the papacy – in his own words, ‘the open enemy’ and ‘the covered enemy’.50 James also lends weight to his identification of the Pope as the Antichrist by referring to the political situation in Europe: And hath he [i.e. the Pope] not of late dayes, seeing his kingdome going to decay, sent out the Jesuites, his last and most pernicious vermin, to stirre up the Princes of the earth his slaves … And are not the armies presently assembled, yea upon the very point of their execution in France against the Saints there? In Flanders for the like; and in Germanie, by whom already the Bishop of Collein is displaced? And what is prepared and come forward against this Ile?51

In both the Paraphrase and the King’s Confession, James deploys primarily theological arguments to identify the Pope as the Antichrist; however, an additional element appears in the Meditation – namely, the position that the Pope’s claim to plenitudo potestatis sought to usurp not only divine authority, but also that of earthly rulers.52 For James, the Pope’s effective enslavement of worldly, Catholic monarchs by arrogating their sovereignty to himself with the help of the Jesuits (for example) was proof that he should be identified with the Antichrist and the Beast of the Apocalypse. Rather than basing his critique of the papacy primarily on theological differences, James shifts his focus onto the Pope’s assault on secular authority.53 At the same time, this interpretation elevates the inviolability of monarchical rule into an aspect of salvation history – an increasingly central element of James’s political interpretation of the Bible. As with the Paraphrase, we find precedents for these arguments in prominent Protestant texts. For instance, in his Acts and Monuments (a bestseller in England), John Foxe attacks the papacy with the words, ‘[W]hat kings have been deposed,

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and emperors stripped from their imperial seat? and all because they would not stoop and bend to the image of the beast, that is, to the majesty and title of Rome’.54 Especially after the excommunication of Elizabeth I by Pius V in 1570, there was a broad consensus within the Elizabethan Church that the Pope represented the Antichrist due to his attempts to undermine the royal right to rule, which demonstrated his thirst for power.55 James thus explicitly adopted a specifically English point of view in his Meditation. This was doubtless in line with his own personal convictions, but it also formed part of a deliberate rhetorical strategy. That strategy becomes all the more obvious when we consider the key difference between the Meditation and the Paraphrase – namely, the fact that the Meditation was published in 1588, shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This is particularly significant because the anti-Spanish and anti-papal rhetoric James deploys in this treatise departs from his political strategy prior to England’s victory.56 As I have mentioned previously, James’s foreign policy largely consisted of trying to persuade both camps that he was on their side – or at least that he was not their enemy. Although he never came out as an ally of Spain, he was also sparing in his public declarations of support for England. In this way, he no doubt sought to drive up the price that he could demand from England for an alliance.57 Yet this strategy only made sense as long as it was unclear which of the two great powers would emerge triumphant, and the rules of the game changed after the defeat of the Armada. Since there was no longer any reason for Elizabeth I to meet James’s demands, she began to give him the cold shoulder. James thus found himself in the awkward position of needing to show that he had sworn loyalty to the Protestant alliance all along so that he could potentially profit from the glory of the victorious queen. Like the Paraphrase, the Meditation was meant to assure readers of James’s commitment to Protestantism; however, the changed political circumstances made it advisable for James to make this confession publicly rather than through his courtly and diplomatic correspondence with Elizabeth. Moreover, the sooner the text was published after the Spanish defeat, the better it would serve its intended purpose. Ultimately, from James’s perspective, the text was just as much an attempt to shape his public image as to improve his personal credibility in England. As such, it sought to erase the memory of his previous diplomatic manoeuvring as far as possible. We find a similar adaptation to changing political circumstances in James’s epic poem Lepanto. The manuscript version of this poem, which had been circulating among James’s private circles since 1585, paints a glowing picture of the hero John of Austria, who defeated the Ottoman navy and thereby did a great service to all of Christendom. In the two printed editions from 1591 and 1603, however, James adds a preface in which he denies identifying

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personally with his protagonist and expressly reassures his readers that it had never been his intention to praise ‘a forraine Papist bastard’.58 James’s strategy in the Meditation is to try to create the retrospective illusion of an alliance against Spain, despite having avoided any such commitment. He does this in two ways: first, by linking Scotland’s fate to that of England. Since only England was at war with Spain, it faced the danger of invasion alone, at least to begin with; yet James describes ‘our estate’ as being ‘threefold besieged’ – spiritually, ‘by the heresies of the Antichrist’, but also physically, as a fellow member of the persecuted church, and specifically ‘by this present armie’.59 His plea to the reader to trust in God and defend the true faith against its enemies is thus a retrospective assertion of his own military resolve.60 Second, in an attempt to lend his message even more credibility, James hints that his Meditation was actually written before the defeat of the Armada and the settlement of the conflict. Although he does not mention Spain directly, he asks the rhetorical question, ‘quhat is preparit and cum fordwart against this Ile?’ – as if the Spanish fleet was still en route to England’s coast and had not already been destroyed.61 His reference to ‘yis present armie’ also achieves the same effect. It is hard to tell whether this rhetoric was successful in improving James’s public image over the short term, though Elizabeth was unlikely to have been impressed by it. James’s intentions, on the other hand, seem perfectly clear: his writings were supposed to cast him in a favourable light and banish the memory of his diplomatic hedging. Over the long term, James’s interpretations of the Book of Revelation had an impact in England that could hardly have been intentional on his part. Although the martial tone of the Meditation was originally designed to conceal James’s entirely unheroic foreign policy, it awakened political expectations among certain readers that would come back to haunt him after his succession to the English throne. James was yet to learn the full price of his attempts to manage his public persona.

Political Writings ahead of the English Succession The True Lawe of Free Monarchies (1598) The year 1598 saw James VI argue for the first time in favour of the divine right of kings, although the text in which he did so – The True Lawe of Free Monarchies – was initially published anonymously, with a preface signed cryptically with the word ‘Philopatris’ (‘Friend of the Fatherland’). Nevertheless, an interested reader would have had plenty of clues to the text’s true author. First, the printer was Robert Waldegrave, the king’s printer, and an anonymous polemic pamphlet could hardly have issued from the royal press without the king having at least

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read it and given his blessing.62 Another clue came when the text was reprinted in 1603 in celebration of James’s succession to the English throne, along with numerous other pieces that were reissued in order to bring the English closer to their foreign king by acquainting them with his work. The reprint did not name James as the author and the preface was still signed ‘Philopatris’, but a woodcut of the royal arms of Scotland now graced the title page, and one of the two reprints – the one not issued by the royal printer Waldegrave – even featured the letters ‘IR’ for ‘Iames Rex’.63 Other tracts from this period also name James as the author of The True Lawe of Free Monarchies.64 As such, the text’s true authorship was obvious long before it was included in the extensive collection of James’s works published in 1616. James’s treatise is scarcely less controversial in modern scholarship than it was at the time of its publication, for three reasons in particular. First, there is debate over whether the idea of kingship James presents in the text can be read as an argument in favour of the divine right of kings – a philosophy that had specific connotations and deviated from generally held notions about God’s grace.65 Second, there is disagreement over whether this snapshot of James’s views is truly indicative of his long-term political convictions and especially his understanding of his rights and duties as king, which did not change substantially over the course of his reign in both Scotland and England.66 And finally, there is discussion regarding the context of the treatise, and especially the question of what specific issue James was responding to. Was the text prompted by events in Scotland, or by the matter of the English succession? In order to determine how far The True Lawe can be read as advocating the divine right of kings, it is essential to examine both the biblical texts James cites and the manner in which he interprets them.67 However, most scholars have hitherto merely noted that James’s argument is largely based on the Bible – in particular, on the passage in 1 Samuel 8 in which Saul is named the first King of Israel. As a result, inadequate attention has been given to James’s exegesis. This aspect will therefore form the focus of my analysis. James begins his treatise with the assertion that the monarchy is the perfect form of government and also the one most pleasing to God, drawing on three sources to legitimise his argument: the Bible, which he uses to show that monarchy is a paradigm of divine perfection; the fundamental laws of the land; and natural law. James uses all three of these sources of authority to articulate his position on the ‘mutuall duetie, and alleageance betwixt a free and absolute Monarche, and his people’.68 The duties of kingship, James argues, were defined in the first instance by God, so that the monarch rules in His stead as a kind of divine representative on earth. In his abbreviated recapitulation of Psalm 82, James emphasises the divine legitimacy of kings by quoting Scripture: ‘Kings are called Gods by the propheticall King David, because they sit upon God his Throne in the earth’.69

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From this, he derives the following royal duties: kings must uphold justice within their kingdoms, protect the good and punish the evil, pass effective laws and ensure they are obeyed, safeguard domestic peace and pass judgement in the case of conflicts. Meanwhile, the coronation oath – the most important of all the fundamental laws of the land in outlining the duties of the king – likewise obliges the monarch to defend the established religion of the land, to recognise the privileges and freedoms of the estates and to always govern in the interests of the country. And finally, natural law places the king in the role of father to his subjects, obliging him to ensure their well-being just as a father takes care of his children. James needs only two pages to lay out the duties of the king, and there is nothing in this list that would not have been commonplace in contemporary discussions of kingship.70 Yet James’s treatise departs from convention when he turns to the duties of his subjects, to which he devotes the rest of his treatise. By and large, James relies on the Bible to help outline these duties – especially that of unconditional obedience. The cornerstone of his argument is the prophet Samuel’s address to the people of Israel, in which Samuel reveals ‘the manner of the King’ (1 Sam. 8:11). James sees this passage as critically important and quotes it in full in his text.71 In doing so, James constructs his argument around one of the most important passages of the Bible to the debate over the rights and duties of the king. We can summarise it as follows: the people of Israel beg the ageing prophet and judge Samuel to appoint a king over them in the same manner as the surrounding nations, since Samuel is old and his sons are unworthy of the office of judge. God instructs Samuel to grant their wish, given that it is directed not against Samuel, but against God himself: ‘they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them’ (1 Sam. 8:7). Yet because the people of Israel’s desire for a king is the latest example in a long tradition of disobedience to God, Samuel is commanded to meet the Israelites’ demands, but also to enumerate the rights that would be claimed by the new king. Samuel therefore gives a speech describing the enslavement of the people of Israel and painting a picture of a ruler who is interested not in the common good, but solely in his own advantage (1 Sam. 8:10–18). Nevertheless, the people continue to demand a king, and so Samuel anoints Saul and installs him in office as the first king of Israel. This passage can be read in two different ways: either as a harsh critique of the institution of monarchy, since it presents kingship as tantamount to defection from the rule of God and the enslavement of the people; or (more selectively) as a lecture from God on the rights of kings, conveyed through the prophet Samuel. Both readings were already well established by the time James published his argument in favour of the divine right of kings, and he adopts the selective interpretation of Samuel’s speech as an exposition on a ‘free monarchy’.72 That said, James was likely aware that the alternative interpretation of 1 Samuel 8 also formed part of a prominent tradition. Among others, George

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Buchanan had already stressed in his De jure regni apud Scotos that Samuel does not list the legitimate rights of a king, but outlines the actions of a tyrant. Buchanan argues that the rights of kingship are instead set out in the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, in which kings are obligated to follow the law of God.73 Even before the advent of Scottish humanism, this reading was endorsed by prominent figures from St Thomas Aquinas to Erasmus and Melanchthon.74 Some of the writings of the French Monarchomachs likewise interpret Samuel’s speech as a description of tyranny rather than a list of the rights of kingship.75 It was against this tradition that James made his argument, albeit without mentioning his opponents by name. Instead, James repeatedly stresses the unambiguity of 1 Samuel 8 in order to lend his own arguments the necessary weight: ‘… it is plaine, and evident, that this speech of Samuel to the people, was to prepare their hearts before the hand to the due obedience of that King, which God was to give unto them; … thereby preparing them to patience, not to resist to Gods ordinance’.76 He also seeks to reinforce the authority of the passage by emphasising that it was inspired by the Holy Spirit, ‘since the whole Scripture is dited by that inspiration, as Paul saith’.77 Yet James also feels compelled to explicitly reject the alternative critical reading of Samuel’s speech, arguing that Samuel did not seek to communicate God’s disapproval of the institution of monarchy, and that the speech cannot be understood as a warning about King Saul’s future misdeeds either. This does not exactly lend credence to his claims regarding the unambiguity of the passage. James’s thoughts on the rights of the Scottish king are the product of his interpretation of both Samuel’s speech and other passages of Scripture, but he derives the following specific positions directly from 1 Samuel 8. First, only God himself can dethrone kings, ‘since he [God] that hath the only power to make him, hath the onely power to unmake him’.78 In other words, subjects can only be released from their oath of obedience if God himself strikes down the monarchy.79 Second, the people owe their monarch obedience in all matters.80 If monarchy degenerates into tyranny, this is merely God’s way of punishing the sins of the people, and even rebellion against a tyrant is equivalent to rebellion against God.81 James thus reads 1 Samuel 8 as a social contract in which the people expressly agree to the conditions of kingship listed by Samuel, which are worse than any possible tyranny.82 In so doing, they permanently renounced all claims to their own rights and privileges.83 For James, this social contract was still in force in every European monarchy and impossible to revoke, since Samuel clearly warned the people of Israel that God would pay no heed to their complaints about the burden of monarchical rule.84 James also draws upon other biblical passages and analogies in order to substantiate his most pressing claim – namely, that there was no right to rebel against the king. He begins by observing that ‘we never reade, that ever the

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Prophets perswaded the people to rebell against the Prince, how wicked souever he was’.85 Yet in his efforts to back up this assertion, he sometimes draws on examples cited by proponents of the right to resist. For example, James’s creative reading of the overthrow of Saul by the prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 15) turns the episode to the advantage of the king; after all, he notes, Samuel pitied Saul for his downfall.86 Likewise, James points out that David refused to take up arms against Saul in response to his persecutions (1 Sam. 24) because Saul had been anointed by the Lord, and that even in the face of the acknowledged tyranny of Ahab, the prophet Elias (Elijah) merely fled into the wilderness at God’s command (1 Kings 17) instead of resisting the king or calling for rebellion.87 James thus deploys Samuel, David and Elijah as Old Testament allies in his attack on ‘modern prophets’ and his rejection of the notion of any kind of right to resist.88 This argument is directed at Presbyterians and Catholics in equal measure, since James sees seditious clerics at work in both Scotland and England. In his efforts to prove the necessity of submission to authority, James likewise cites the example of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 27), who imposed on the people of Israel God’s command that they should submit to the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule without opposition, as well as Romans 13, a passage commonly used to support the institution of monarchy. According to his argument, if God (speaking through Jeremiah and Paul) commanded the people to obey two such unequivocal tyrants as Nebuchadnezzar and Nero, the subjects of Christian kings could hardly claim the right to resist their rulers.89 Yet in order to capitalise on his reading of 1 Samuel 8, James needs to show his readers the connection between the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the monarchies of his day. He does so in two ways: first, by (rather cautiously) positing that the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel and its concomitant rights of kingship set the standard for all Christian monarchies, because it came about through direct divine intercession; and second, by arguing more assertively at the end of his tract for a direct link between the monarchies of the Old Testament and those of the early modern era: ‘the leneall succession of crowns being begun amoung the people of God, and happily continued in divers christian common-wealths’.90 Yet James’s rhetorical skills are unable to quite transform the Old Testament – which is unquestionably highly critical of kingship for the most part – into a repertoire of sources supporting the monarchy. The example of Jehu (2 Kings 9), who was directly commanded by God to rise up against the reigning king of Israel and exterminate his entire line for their faithlessness and idolatry, is summarily dismissed by James as one of the ‘extraordinarie examples’ that were not intended to serve as models: … if extraordinarie examples of the Scripture shall bee drawne in daily practise; murther under traist as in persons of Ahud, and Jael; theft, as in persons of the

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Israelites comming out of Egypt; lying to their parents to the hurt of their brother, as in persons of Jacob, shall all be counted as lawfull and allowable vertues, as rebellion against Princes.91

The contradictions in which the king gets entangled as he uses the Bible to support his political theology become particularly apparent in his classification of these ‘extraordinarie examples’. James’s manner of distinguishing between them and passages (such as 1 Sam. 8) that provide the guiding principles for the body politic and have a claim to eternal validity is revealing of the overall nature of his exegesis. James argues that adopting the ‘extraordinarie examples’ as a model would cause the social order to break down, which turns the relationship he proposes between the Bible and kingship on its head, since he claims that the only Bible passages applicable to the organisation of society are those that already correspond to society’s accepted notions of order. In other words, Scripture does not serve as a template for human coexistence; rather, James’s argument turns existing social rules and norms into a hermeneutic filter through which to interpret the Bible. James’s appeal to the unambiguity of the Bible is thus ultimately mired in contradiction. And given the lack of contemporary consensus over such critical societal questions as the nature of political rule, we can hardly be surprised at the correlation between the profusion of civic ideals and the heterogeneity of biblical exegesis. Thanks to this flexible reading of Scripture, James is able to synchronise different political languages with relative ease. His selective use of biblical exempla allows him to reason that the Bible says the same things about the rights of the monarch as both natural law and the fundamental laws of Scotland – though any other conclusion would have been surprising, given his exegetical approach.92 James thus achieves an excellent result for himself, at least on a rhetorical level. He presents the three different political languages – those of the Bible, the ancient constitution of Scotland and natural law – as being entirely in harmony, and in all three he is able to draw the same conclusions regarding kingship: that the king’s authority was derived from hereditary succession, that he had the right to pass laws and that only God could call him to account for transgressions against the law. But how far can The True Lawe of Free Monarchies can be read as a declaration of James’s belief in the divine right of kings? To answer this, we need to consider the specific function of James’s reading of the Book of Samuel, and in particular, the relationship between Samuel’s speech on kingship and the potential limits of royal authority – a topic that James also addresses in his treatise. The True Lawe discusses two different social contracts. James notes that the coronation of the king and its accompanying oath of office establishes a social contract between the king and his subjects, which assigns certain duties to both sides; in other words, the oath of coronation forms part of the fundamental laws

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of the land. Yet James also reads 1 Samuel 8 as a social contract – albeit not one between the king and his subjects, but between God and the people, making it an element of divine law.93 And since the different Christian kingdoms of Europe are the successors of the Jewish monarchy, as James maintains they are, this contract is still in force. Consequently, in all free monarchies, there are two valid social contracts in effect simultaneously: one forming part of the kingdom’s fundamental laws and the other an element of divine right. James’s reading of 1 Samuel 8 in the context of these two coexisting social contracts leads to the conclusion that the king is exempt from all duties or obligations. As such, any agreement to particular obligations vis-à-vis the king’s subjects (through the oath of coronation, for example) would be a show of mercy on the part of the Crown, but would not be legally binding: ‘… a good king will frame all his actions to be according to the Law; yet is hee not bound thereto but of his good will’.94 This effectively nullifies the coronation oath as a social contract. James thus turns a legal obligation into a declaration of intent that is unenforceable in law.95 This political conclusion suggests why James chose 1 Samuel 8 as the sole biblical basis for his concept of a monarchy that is exempt from all human checks and balances. The events described in this passage allow James to interpret monarchical rule as the outcome of an enduring contract in which the people agreed to subject themselves to a future king. This then allows James to relativise the political significance of any secular contracts between the king and the people, thereby dismissing an important argument in favour of the right to resist or depose any monarch who violates these agreements. In James’s interpretation, the unlimited authority granted by the divine right of kings is akin to that attained by virtue of conquest. In particular, the notion of divine right allows James to make his kingship independent of popular consent, thereby undermining any criticism or resistance towards him. The king is not beholden to the laws of the land, nor to any contracts entered into either by him or his forebears, nor to any form of consensus whatsoever – be it with the nobles, the estates or the representatives of the Church. The king owes his authority solely to God, who directly interceded to establish the institution of monarchy and the principles of hereditary succession, with Saul as the first king. With this argument, and by leveraging the divine right of kings, James reveals the subtitle of his treatise to be mere empty words, since his text has nothing to do with ‘The Reciprock and mutuall duetie betwixt a free king and his naturall subjects’.96 That said, we should note that on the level of day-to-day governance, Scotland exhibited fewer of the attributes of the ‘free monarchy’ described here than almost any other country. Indeed, the experience of ruling Scotland may have been what moulded James into an advocate of the divine right of kings in the first place.97 What might have moved James to go public with his commitment to the theory of the divine right of kings in 1598? What was the political context of

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this text? Many existing studies of James’s treatise on the rights of free monarchs are more interested in examining its arguments than in anchoring the text in its historical context. Johann Sommerville, for example, sees it as a statement of principle in favour of the divine right of kings that gives an insight into the king’s general political views, while Jenny Wormald situates the text solely in the Scottish context and rejects the notion that it was in any way relevant to James’s rule in England.98 Yet both assessments entirely ignore a question that is critical to all interpretations of the text: why did James specifically choose to publish his treatise on the divine right of kings in 1598? James himself merely notes in general terms in his introduction that he wishes to warn the people against following the siren call of theories that legitimise resistance against royal authority, and he declines to name his opponents in the debate. This makes it all the more important to consider the historical context in which he wrote his treatise. Buchanan’s De jure regni apud Scotos is often cited as the impetus behind The True Lawe of Free Monarchies, which is frequently read as an attempt by the king to refute his former teacher’s political theory. It is certainly true that James’s views on the political theology of kingship can be read as an alternative to the position of George Buchanan, who sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of the deposition of Mary Stuart and was generally in favour of the people’s right to resist.99 Yet this view also leaves certain questions unanswered. Why would James have waited nineteen years to respond to Buchanan’s text?100 Surely he would have been more interested in removing Buchanan’s ideas from the collective memory as quietly as possible, since copies of De jure regni had already been publicly burned in 1584 and possession of the volume had been declared illegal under the Black Acts.101 Admittedly, Buchanan’s writings were clearly still very much on James’s mind in the late 1590s: in his ‘mirror for princes’ treatise Basilikon Doron, he expressly warns his son Henry against Buchanan’s books and impresses upon him to severely punish anyone who possesses them.102 But this does not explain the origin of James’s text on the rights of free kings, especially since Basilikon Doron may not originally have been intended for a broader public – unlike the anonymous True Lawe of Free Monarchies. Peter Lake has recently pointed out another much more likely reason for the appearance of James’s pamphlet.103 In 1595, a treatise published in Antwerp entitled A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland entered into general circulation.104 Its authorship has not been conclusively settled, but it is likely that the man hiding behind the fictitious pseudonym R. Doleman was Robert Parsons, an English Jesuit living in exile.105 Parsons brings together two points in his treatise. First, he questions the principle of hereditary monarchy and emphasises that all authority is delegated by the people, who also have the right to change their minds – whether by deposing a reigning monarch or by appointing a different ruler to the heir stipulated under the rules of hereditary succession.

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And second, Parsons applies these ideas to the question of who should succeed Elizabeth I to the throne of England. In particular, he seeks to thwart James’s claim and build a case in favour of the Spanish Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. James was indignant when learned of this new publication in December 1595.106 The question of the English succession was still far from settled, and so he felt a need to win support for his claim.107 As early as January 1596, Scottish ministers began to take aim at Parsons’s treatise in their sermons, and in 1597, James even appealed to the Scottish parliament for support in defending his claim against the accusations made in A Conference.108 A search was also launched for eloquent champions of James as the rightful successor to Elizabeth I – ideally Englishmen willing to speak out for James’s cause.109 One suitable candidate was Peter Wentworth, who at that time was residing in a prison cell in the Tower of London.110 Wentworth had already come out as an advocate of James’s claim and had intended to raise the point in Parliament in 1593, but his imprisonment prevented him.111 His Pithie Exortation to her Maiestie for Establishing her Successor to the Crowne, in which he calls upon Elizabeth to immediately declare her successor, was likely written shortly after the execution of Mary Stuart, though it initially remained in manuscript form. In 1598, just over two years after the appearance of Parsons’s Conference, two refutations written by Peter Wentworth were published: the aforementioned Pithie Exhortation and his Discourse Concerning the Person of the Trew and Lawful Successor to the Realms of England and Ireland. These texts were published posthumously, Wentworth having died in prison in 1597. Wentworth’s endorsement of James’s claim was probably linked to his expectation that James would give greater freedom to reformers in the Church – of whom Wentworth was one – than they had enjoyed under Elizabeth I. This illusion had been fostered by James’s willingness to compromise with the Presbyterians on matters of ecclesiastical policy in the late 1580s and early 1590s, by parliamentary decrees such as the Golden Acts of 1592, and by the increasingly Presbyterian outlook of the Kirk.112 Wentworth was able to write these treatises from his cell due to the liberal conditions of his imprisonment, which also made it possible for his manuscript to be smuggled out and brought to Scotland, where it was published by the royal printer Robert Waldegrave in 1598 without naming either the printer or the place of publication on the title page.113 This was done to maintain the fiction that Englishmen were working independently to support James’s claim to the throne, and to conceal the campaign being waged north of the border to advance the cause of the Scottish monarch. These efforts make it clear that James took Robert Parsons’s attack on his claim to the English throne very seriously. In his texts, Wentworth unambiguously rejects Parsons’s arguments in favour of other pretenders to the throne, and he also calls upon Elizabeth to resolve the succession problem during her lifetime – to James’s benefit, of course. In addition

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to examples from antiquity and the history of England, he also cites biblical exempla to argue that Elizabeth should follow the example of King David, who named his son Solomon as his heir before he died and thereby prevented conflict among the various potential successors to his throne. In Wentworth’s view, Elizabeth needed to use this episode as a guide to her own actions if she wanted to rule in accordance with God’s will.114 Another author who took up James’s cause was the respected judge Thomas Craig, who wrote De jure successionis regni Angliae, libri duo in 1602.115 This text circulated in manuscript form, and was only published a hundred years later in English translation.116 At a more fundamental level than Wentworth, Craig seeks to justify the principle of a hereditary monarchy and the divine right of kings using arguments based in divine and natural law. He also attempts to refute Parsons’s arguments one by one and therefore draws on the same examples and authorities cited by his target – especially English common law and historical precedents (although he does so in order to reject the validity of these sources).117 For Craig, the monarchy is the oldest and best form of government, and he appeals to Scripture to support his argument. He sees Nimrod as the founder of the Assyrian monarchy and Moses, Joshua and the line of judges who governed the people of Israel as prototype kings and proof of God’s preference for monarchy. Craig also argues that God unambiguously expressed his disapproval of aristocracy by destroying Korah and his followers when they infringed upon Moses’s sovereignty with their demand that he share his authority (Num. 16:1–40).118 That said, Craig mentions the enthronement of Saul as king of Israel only in passing. Craig’s exegesis of 1 Samuel 8 differs from James’s line of argument in interesting ways, since Craig agrees with Parsons that Samuel’s speech is not a recitation of the rights of kingship, adding that ‘no man, that I know of, ever made any other use of that Argument’.119 Nor is he aware of anyone arguing that kings are above the law or their own consciences; indeed, for Craig, it is beyond question that kings need to govern with the welfare of their people in mind. Yet even so, he argues, kings who trespass against the law can be called to account by nobody but God. After all, David had to justify his murder of Uriah only to God, as the penitential Psalm 51 makes clear. Going a step further, Craig claims that there is no justification under divine law for the right to resist worldly monarchs, since God alone is the judge of kings. If a king reigns in a barbarous and unlawful way, Craig maintains, the people must bear it as divine punishment for their sins, much like a plague.120 Nor could the coronation oath be used to call the monarch to account for any wrongdoing, in Craig’s view. The king swears his oath not to the people, but to God alone: ‘the King swears to God, and the People swear by God to the King’.121 In a secular sense, therefore, coronations have no legal force because kings attain to their office by virtue of hereditary succession even before they are crowned. As such, there is no contract between the king and the people that

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could be breached, nor any juridical instance that stands above the king and could force him to appear in a court of law. In Craig’s understanding, monarchs are subject to God alone.122 Craig thus reaches the same political conclusions as James, but without basing his reasoning on 1 Samuel 8. Instead, he assigns the passage a more important role in his arguments based on natural law, arguing that the desire of the people of Israel for a monarchy shows that this form of government is part of human nature; after all, the people of Israel did not call for a republic.123 He then goes on to reject the natural equality of mankind proclaimed by Parsons as merely a chimera, arguing instead that families are a sort of monarchy in miniature, that each family is headed by a paterfamilias (like Abraham) and that kings exercise authority over their subjects just as a father governs his children. Craig then dismisses the idea of popular sovereignty by laconically observing that no father was ever elected by his children.124 Craig sees the principle of hereditary monarchy as anchored in divine law, giving the example of Abraham swearing loyalty not only to Abimelech, but also to his son and his son’s son (Gen. 21:22–24). He also points out that God’s promises to Isaac and Jacob were always directed at their descendants too; that the biblical titles of king and high priest were hereditary offices; that when the people of Israel made their first attempt to establish a monarchy with their petition to the judge Gideon, they offered to bestow the title on his successors too; and that God himself awarded the throne not only to David, but also to all of his descendants (Ps. 89).125 When demonstrating the consequences of disregarding the principle of hereditary monarchy, Craig likewise has a wide array of Old Testament exempla to choose from. He thus gives the example of Gideon’s death, when not one of the judge’s seventy legitimate sons was appointed as his successor; instead, the ‘bastard’ Abimelech usurped the throne and had all seventy sons murdered. Since this usurpation took place with the consent of the Shechemites, Craig sees it as a product of the principle of elective monarchy and reflects on Abimelech’s ultimate demise with the indignant commentary, ‘Such are the Fruits of Election!’126 Similarly, in Craig’s view, the Kingdom of Judah fares somewhat better than the Kingdom of Israel to its north thanks to its strict adherence to the principal of legitimate hereditary succession.127 According to Craig, the principle of primogeniture came into being in the Old Testament era and was further strengthened in the New Testament.128 If we place James VI’s The True Lawe alongside Craig’s and Wentworth’s counterblasts to Parsons’s treatise, we see that it exhibits certain unique characteristics. Wentworth primarily defends the Scottish king’s specific claim to inherit the English throne, while Craig seeks in particular to justify the principle of hereditary monarchy using biblicist arguments. James’s text, by contrast, is a general attack on Parsons’s statements regarding kingship; yet as

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with George Buchanan, the king declines to mention Parsons by name. This was an implicit quarrel. And because of the striking similarities between Buchanan’s and Parsons’s arguments, it is all but impossible to judge which of the two James was arguing against. Even so, these two authors provide the necessary context to explain why James relied on the Bible in such an unusual way when outlining his concept of the inviolability of the monarchy. Parsons and Buchanan share the same political language: they build their political arguments on the basis of both natural law and numerous historical examples ranging from antiquity to the present day. This rhetorical strategy left little room for the Bible as a source of authority; rather, Aristotle and Cicero were their most important touchpoints. Likewise, the authors’ religious affiliations – Buchanan was a Scottish Protestant, whereas Parsons was a Jesuit – scarcely figure in their texts.129 It is especially conspicuous that Parsons’s polemic never mentions the Pope or his purported right of excommunication when discussing the deposition of kings. Only in the later Latin edition of his text did Parsons add a chapter examining the role of the Pope in overthrowing monarchs.130 Likewise, the way in which both Parsons and Buchanan deal with 1 Samuel 8 and Saul’s installation as the first king of the Israelites clearly reveals how much they distanced themselves from the Bible as a source of political templates. Parsons concedes that monarchy was the typical form of government in most ancient cultures, which is why the people of Israel begged the prophet Samuel to establish a monarchy. Yet he also notes that numerous other states, such as the Greek poleis in Sparta, Athens and Corinth, favoured other forms of government after suffering under kings who abused their authority.131 This leads him to conclude that kings are appointed by the people, and can also be overthrown by them. Parsons accords no privileged status to biblical examples; he simply counts them among his other historical examples. Buchanan, by contrast, directly references 1 Samuel 8; yet he reads this passage not as a list of the rights of kingship, but as a warning to the people of Israel against tyranny.132 He also stresses the unsuitability of Old Testament exempla for use in contemporary political debates. The examples of kingship in Israel, he argues, have no bearing on Scotland, since the kings of Scotland are not appointed directly by God, but by the Scottish people. In Buchanan’s view, the Bible describes only specific historical situations that cannot be applied to modern-day monarchies. He also stresses that just as many exempla in the Old Testament serve to legitimise tyrannicide as speak against it.133 Each exemplum, he claims, is proof of singularibus Dei mandatis, and none of them possess universal validity. As such, political decisions should not be based on biblical or historical precedent, but on the principles of natural law. So in the debate over whether the people have the right to punish kings who pervert the law, the answer is not to find a positive example in Scripture, but to check whether the Bible expressly denies the people’s right to resist.134

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The affinity between Buchanan and Parsons is further revealed by their other remarks regarding the limits of monarchical rule. Both authors see the monarchy as elective in structure, with the king acting on behalf of the people.135 They both also view the coronation oath as a social contract that ties royal authority to a clear set of conditions, and argue that it is legitimate to overthrow kings who break their oaths.136 This interpretation of the monarchy dictates parts of the structure of James’s treatise; yet even so, the king’s biblicist theory on the origins of the monarchy is original in certain respects. James parrots his supporters when he rejects Parsons’s and Buchanan’s view that the king is appointed by the people, but he also makes the unique argument that there was a direct relationship between the monarchy of the Old Testament and that of Scotland as part of the ‘leneall succession of crowns’.137 In his view, the installation of Saul as king was not merely a historic event, but also the legal foundation for the monarchy as an institution. This argument is not made by any of the other authors involved in the debate against Parsons. Nor did anyone else interpret Samuel’s speech so clearly as an eternally valid list of royal privileges as James himself – though he also impresses upon the reader that kings have a responsibility not to take advantage of those privileges, but to show mercy to their subjects by forgoing their use.

Basilikon Doron In The True Lawe, James cites the establishment of the monarchy in Ancient Israel to present his own royal authority as independent of any spiritual or secular institutions. Likewise, the royal privileges he derives from the Bible also absolve the king from having to answer to the people or their representatives in the event that he fails to meet his obligations. This position was initially a direct response to a treatise that argued that royal authority was derived exclusively from the people, questioned James VI’s claim to the English throne and in effect sought to thwart his chief political goal. The extent to which James’s arguments in The True Lawe actually reflect his fundamental convictions, however, remains a matter of debate. In Basilikon Doron – a ‘mirror for princes’ first published in 1599 – James maintains the concept of kingship he presented in The True Lawe, but shifts the emphasis of his argument. Addressing the text to his heir apparent, Henry, James places much greater emphasis on the obligations of kingship than on the rights associated with the office. James was covering well-trodden ground here, given that mirrors for princes were a popular form of political education among many rulers of the day. What remains unclear, however, is the immediate political event that may have prompted the publication of this text in 1599, given that Prince Henry was just four years old when his father set pen to paper in 1598.

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The text’s path to publication was rather gradual and tentative.138 Only seven copies were initially printed in 1599, which James shared with his family and a few trusted members of his court.139 Even so, the text triggered a heated debate: Andrew Melville immediately drafted an eighteen-point critique, which John Dykes put on the agenda of the Synod of Fife in 1599, and the assembled clergymen condemned the king’s ‘Anglo-pisco-papisticall Conclusionnes’ as ‘treasonable, seditious, and wicked’.140 Unsurprisingly, James was unimpressed by the Synod’s examination and denunciation of his text, and Dykes fled into exile to avoid the king’s arrest warrant. Despite criticism from the Scottish Presbyterians, however, Basilikon Doron was a runaway success. One of the copies printed in 1599 made its way to London, where the Stationers’ Company copyrighted it and printed several editions straight away; by the start of the plague epidemic of 1603, it had sold more than thirteen thousand copies.141 In the same year, James himself decided to have the tract reprinted in Edinburgh, along with an extensive preface in which he responded to criticism of the text and addressed the variety of printed editions in circulation. The book’s success in England was undoubtedly linked to the news of Elizabeth I’s death, as many Englishmen bought it in the hope of learning more about their new foreign king. Consequently, as Jenny Wormald rightly notes, the book took on the character of a coronation gift in England and was directly associated with James’s ascension to the English throne.142 As such, the text was not published again in England until 1616, when it appeared in a collected edition of the king’s works compiled by James Montagu. Despite this reception history, Basilikon Doron nonetheless originally emerged from the Scottish context – though the fact that the first print run of seven copies was published in English, not Scots, suggests that the text was probably intended for an English readership further down the line.143 Moreover, we can see from the text itself that the situation in Scotland had altered since James wrote his two commentaries on the Book of Revelation. The policy of appeasement that the king had pursued with the Presbyterians in the late 1580s and early 1590s on the advice of his chancellor John Maitland was now well and truly over. Much like in The True Lawe, James’s remarks on church politics emphasise the prerogative rights of the monarchy, and whereas his early exegetical texts contained only veiled criticism of the Presbyterian understanding of the Church, Basilikon Doron pulls no punches in its attacks on the ‘Puritanes, verie pestes in the Church and Common-weale, whom no deserts can oblige, neither oathes nor promises binde, breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies … and making their owne imaginations (without any warrant of the word) the square of their conscience’.144 Admittedly, in the preface James added later in an attempt to dispel critical objections to his treatise, he tries to explain that his harsh words against the ‘Puritans’ should be understood as directed solely at the Baptists.145 Yet this is unconvincing, given that James refers to the Baptists explicitly by name

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when warning Henry against possible heresies, and he distinguishes between Baptists and Puritans in several other places as well.146 James clearly reveals his own understanding of the Church in Basilikon Doron – one that was diametrically opposed to that of the Presbyterians and in some respects perfectly aligned with the goals of the Black Acts, from which he had had to temporarily distance himself for political reasons. He describes the reasons why the Presbyterians were able to gain a foothold in the Kirk and explains the threat they pose to the monarchy. And he also argues that the Reformation in Scotland was not triggered by the king, as it was in England, Denmark or certain territories of the Holy Roman Empire, but was ‘extraordinarily wrought by God, wherin many things were inordinately done by a popular tumult and rebellion’.147 Despite James’s acknowledgement that this rebellious Reformation was God’s work, he adds that it led many protagonists within the Church so far astray during the regency of Mary of Guise, the reign of Mary Stuart and the early rule of James himself that they increasingly came to view democracy as a political ideal and see themselves in the role of a tribuni plebis.148 Having adopted this unwarranted position, they then spread the message that all kings were necessarily enemies of the liberty of the Church.149 Yet James argues that these assertions have no scriptural basis and should therefore be rejected, and points out that if this attitude took root in the Church and control passed into the hands of the Presbyterians, it would inevitably spell the end of monarchy. Therefore, James argues, moderate, well-educated clergymen should be appointed as bishops and given adequate financial means to strengthen both their position as leaders within the Church and their political status as one of the three traditional estates with the right to sit in Parliament.150 It is interesting that James does not back up these assertions with any references to the Bible. Even his accusation against the ‘Puritans’ (a term that could only have been understood as a synonym for ‘Presbyterians’ in the Scottish context) that their understanding of the Church has no basis in the Bible is a sweeping statement. More than that: it fails to address the specific arguments of the Presbyterians, who did indeed turn to Scripture to legitimise their demands, as I have shown elsewhere. This lack of detailed engagement with the biblical basis of the Presbyterian approach to church governance may be explained by the genre in which James was working, however. After all, Basilikon Doron is primarily an instruction manual addressed to James’s heir, not a theological polemic directed against the Presbyterians. Yet this makes it all the more remarkable that the text refers so frequently to Scripture when discussing the origins of the monarchy, along with the rights and above all the duties of the king. It is also striking that James clearly accords the Bible a privileged status in the canon of works that he advises his heir to read. James’s further recommendation that Henry acquaint himself with the laws of the land and the history of the European

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states – especially that of Scotland – is discussed only briefly in a rather summary fashion.151 As such, at least the first two books of Basilikon Doron, which deal with the duties of both Christians and monarchs, need to be understood as a kind of guidebook on how kings should read and interpret the Bible. Yet overall, the text rests on general Protestant articles of faith rather than on James’s own personal reflections. At the beginning of Basilikon Doron, James speaks to the general significance of the Bible, maintaining that since the monarchy owes its existence to the grace of God alone, it is necessary for kings to understand the duties that arise from this – ‘both as a Christian, and as a King’.152 The only way to learn these duties, he continues, is to study the Bible; yet care is needed, since in order to decipher the exact meaning of the Word of God, it is crucial to neither add nor omit anything when interpreting biblical passages. James stresses that this applies equally to monarchs everywhere, citing the so-called law of the king in Deuteronomy 17, which stipulates that kings should fear the Lord. In James’s view, kings need ‘to reade and to meditate in the Law of God’.153 James then turns to the principles of interpreting the Bible, emphasising the same Protestant axiom that he discusses in the prefaces to his exegetical writings on the Book of Revelation – namely, that the Bible is its own best interpreter. He advises his son to avoid ‘obscure places’ and to focus on ‘plaine places’ that contain all truths relevant to the faith, cautioning that it is important to understand these not only as a Christian, but as a king too, in order to be able to distinguish them from adiaphora.154 Although James warns Henry not to impinge upon fundamental religious truths, he reminds him that he will have complete authority over the adiaphora: ‘for all other things not contained in the Scripture, spare not to use or alter them, as the necessitie of the time shall require’.155 James also urges his heir to keep this distinction in mind when dealing with the Church. As ‘heraulds of the most high God’, clergymen should be obeyed to the extent that they admonish the king to defend the faith on the basis of the Bible. If they issue demands that are not derived from Scripture, however, the king should not hesitate to put them in their place.156 James’s argument here is in keeping with the Presbyterian notion that spiritual matters fall beyond the scope of secular authorities – though his view on the question of what was spiritual and what fell under the category of adiaphora clearly differs from that of Andrew Melville, for example, as amply shown by the endemic conflicts between the king and the Church. This need to block any illegitimate demands from the clergy was apparently so important to James that he issues this warning in two different places in Basilikon Doron – both in the first book, which deals with the duties of a Christian, and in the second on the duties of the king.157 The passages of the Bible that James recommends to his son as particularly instructive also reveal the political dimension of his concept of religion, as Basilikon Doron emphasises the duties of the monarch far more than his ruling

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privileges. James advises his heir to engage most intensively with the historical books of the Old Testament, and especially the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, ‘for there shall yee see your selfe, as in a myrrour, in the catalogue either of the good or the evill kings’.158 He does not go into detail about the fates that befell the ‘evill kings’ in these books of the Bible, but he makes it clear enough to Henry that kings who flout their obligations will face the wrath of God. James’s reference to examples from the Old Testament can also be understood to imply that God would not wait until Judgement Day to punish cruel monarchs, but that He could topple them from their thrones at any time and in any way He saw fit. Interestingly, however, James alludes to the threat of violent overthrow not by citing biblical examples, but by turning to ancient Greek and Roman authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Isocrates and Cicero. In doing so, he switches to the language of civic humanism, taking up the topos of the tyrant that dominated the discussion of governance in ancient philosophy, especially in debates around autocratic government. Following Cicero, James asserts that good kings die in peace, certain to be celebrated by posterity.159 Yet he also shares Isocrates’ view that a tyrant … armeth in end his owne Subjects to become his burreaux [executioners]: and although that rebellion be ever unlawfull on their part, yet it is the world so wearied of him, that his fall is little meaned by the rest of his Subiects, and but smiled at by his neighbours … it oft falleth out, that the committers not onely escape unpunished, but farther, the fact will remaine as allowed by the Law in divers ages thereafter.160

Here, Prince Henry is given a stark warning of the risk of encountering resistance from his subjects should he become a tyrant and reign for his own benefit instead of in the interests of the commonwealth.161 Yet this warning also confronts James with the problem of the right to resist, and he takes a telling approach to this perennially sensitive topic. On the one hand, he sends his subjects the message that resistance to the monarch is always illegal and therefore unjustified; yet on the other, he impresses upon his heir that refusing to acknowledge the right to resist will not make him any safer. Violent rebellion may lack all legal legitimacy, but it can still appear justified if the king’s subjects and neighbours see him as a tyrant rather than a benevolent ruler, and may even be interpreted in retrospect as evidence that the people really do have a right to resist under certain circumstances. It is possible that James was thinking here of Buchanan’s account of the history of Scotland, in which the Scottish humanist sought to demonstrate the people’s right to rebel against lawbreaking monarchs by citing precedents from Scotland’s past. Buchanan argues that the fate of Mary Stuart was not an isolated incident, but merely the most recent application of the people’s right to depose their ruler – a right granted by virtue of history and the ancient constitution.162

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Because James’s book was initially addressed to his son rather than his subjects, his goal is not to completely reject the right to resist; rather, he seeks to remind the heir apparent to the Scottish throne of his duty to always be a good and lawful king – a common trope in the mirror for princes genre. Yet it is worth asking why James illustrates the inherent dangers of unrestrained government using the political maxims of ancient philosophers rather than biblical exempla. What made the deposed rulers of the Old Testament different from those described by classical orators? The answer is that biblical exempla present God as the main protagonist – if not acting directly, then at least working through people whom He chose to implement His will. By contrast, God is absent from ancient Greek and Roman literature, where the driving force behind the overthrow of tyranny is the people. By citing this purely secular framework, James is able to condemn the popular right of resistance on principle, even against tyrants. This is not an argument he could have pursued had he chosen examples from the Old Testament, where the agent of change is not the people, but God, and any human actors involved are merely instruments of the divine will. As such, the sometimes barbarous punishments inflicted on tyrannical monarchs in the Bible are always justified, and thus beyond all criticism.

Notes 1. Lee, Government by Pen, 20–21 and John Maitland, 82–86. 2. In June 1590, for example, James reassured the General Assembly that the Scottish Church in its Presbyterian form was ‘the sincerest kirk of the world’ and added that the liturgy of the English Church differed little from that of the ‘Papists’, to lengthy acclaim from the assembled ministers; see Calderwood, True History, 286–87; Mason, ‘George Buchanan’, 131–32; Lee, John Maitland, 120–54 and 248–50. 3. Elizabeth I, Precationes; Day and Day, Christian Prayers. See also Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy, 324–31. 4. Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 38–39. 5. Fischlin and Fortier, Royal Subjects; Sharpe, ‘The King’s Writ’, ‘Private Conscience’ and ‘Sacralization and Demystification’; and Rickard, Authorship. On practices of selfrepresentation in this period in general, see Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning. 6. Pečar, ‘Der König’. 7. Scholarship in English literature is a little further along in this respect. See Rickard, Authorship and ‘Word of God’; and Sharpe, ‘The King’s Writ’. 8. See for instance James I, Political Writings. The same also applies to James I, Political Works and Selected Writings. 9. E.g. Croft, King James. A notable exception is Asch, Jakob I., Chapter 6. 10. James I, Workes, 1–72. 11. On the individual editions, see James I, Political Works, ciii. An English edition of the text was first published in Edinburgh in 1588 and reprinted in 1603 in London in honour of James’s accession to the English throne. A French edition was printed in La

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12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

Rochelle in 1589. The text was also published in Latin in Basel (1596) and in Jena and Halle (both 1603). James I, Workes, 287–346. BL Royal MS 18 B. 14. James I, Workes, fol. D3v. Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 96; Asch, Jakob I., 119. See Wright, ‘Commoun Buke’. James I, Workes, 2: ‘I have made JOHN to be the Speaker in all this Paraphrase, and not that I am so presumptuously foolish, as to have meant thereby, that my Paraphrase is the onely trew and certaine exposition of this Epistle, rejecting all others: For although through speaking in his person, I am onely bounded and limitted to use one, and not divers interpretations, of every severall place …’ Ibid., 32. See Sharpe, ‘Reading Revelations’, 130. Ibid., 45. Emphasis my own. Fischlin has clearly documented the individual contradictions in the text, and I largely follow his interpretation here; see Fischlin, ‘To Eate the Flesh of Kings’, esp. 398–401. Ibid., 399; James I, Workes, 2. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 49. Ibid., 52. Ibid., 52. Ibid., 160. Unsurprisingly, in the Geneva Bible, all the frogs come from the same source: ‘That is, a strong nomber of this great devil ye Popes ambassadours which are ever crying and croking like frogs and come out of Antichrists mouth, because they shulde speak nothing but lies and use all maner of craftie deceit to mainteine their riche Euphrates against the true Christians’; see the Geneva Bible, commentary on Rev. 16:13. On this view of the bishops, see the Geneva Bible’s note on the locusts in the Book of Revelation: ‘Locustes are false teachers, heretikes, and worldlie subtil Prelates, with Monkes, Freres, Cardinals, Patriarkes, Archebishops, Bishops, Doctors, Baychelers & masters which forsake Christ to mainteine false doctrine’. Cited in the Geneva Bible, commentary on Rev. 9:3. See Chapter 4. James I, Workes, 5: ‘Poperie is the greatest temptation since Christes first comming, or that shal be unto his last’. See Backus, Reformation Readings and ‘Church Fathers’; and Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition. In her analysis of sixteenth-century French Bible commentaries, however, Irena Backus has also noted that exegeses of the Apocalypse vary significantly by genre. Whereas Protestant polemics and Catholic sermons dealing with the Book of Revelation often connected the Antichrist to the contemporary world and their respective opponents, this was not done to the same degree in scholarly Bible commentaries. Even during the era of interconfessional disputes, theologians on all sides tended to follow the interpretive tradition established by Ticonius; see Backus, ‘Calvinist and Catholic Commentaries’, esp. 19–20. Backus, Reformation Readings, xi–xx. On medieval influences, see McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality and Hill, Antichrist, 7–8.

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34. On the question of possible models for James’s Paraphrase, see Pečar, King James VI. 35. James’s library contained both works that favoured a historical reading of the Book of Revelation and texts that interpreted it in a strictly ahistorical and moral way, such as Bullinger’s Hundred Sermons (1557), the Magdeburg Centuries and Carion’s Chronicle; see Warner‚ ‘Library of King James VI’. 36. See Fischlin, ‘To Eate the Flesh of Kings’, 401. 37. See Marshall, ‘Stuart [Stewart], Esmé’, esp. 147 and Stewart, Cradle King, 51–71. 38. See MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth, 408–11 and Lee, ‘Fall of the Regent Morton’. On 6 January 1581, Elizabeth’s special envoy, Thomas Randolph, was dispatched to warn James to be careful of Lennox, and especially to be cautious of any attempt to reintroduce Catholicism in Scotland: ‘And for that no trouble can happen in that realm especially tending to the alteration of religion, but that it is meant also should reach to us, we cannot – besides the care we have of his well doing – but for our own surety seek by all the means we may to prevent the same’. See CSP Scot., vol. 5 (1574–81), 651; also reprinted in Dickinson, Donaldson and Milne, Source Book, vol. 3, 434–36, at 434. 39. On Lennox’s conversion, see Marshall, ‘Stuart [Stewart], Esmé’, 147. 40. Dickinson, Donaldson and Milne, Source Book, vol. 3, 32–35, quotation 33. 41. Fischlin, ‘To Eate the Flesh of Kings’, 406–7. 42. ‘I do both admire and reioise to see your wise paraphrase, wiche far excedeth ther texte’, Bruce, Letters, 26–28, quotation 27. 43. Rymer, Foedera, vol. 15, 803–7; also partly reprinted in Dickinson, Donaldson and Milne, Source Book, vol. 3, 441–43. See Goodare, ‘English Subsidy’; and Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon, 64–65. 44. Bruce, Letters, 16–17 (June or July 1585). 45. See Read, Mr. Secretary Walsingham, 246–48. 46. Bruce, Letters, 16 (19 July 1585). 47. James I, Ane Fruitfull Meditatioun. 48. James I, Workes, 80. 49. Ibid., 73. 50. Ibid., 79. 51. Ibid., 78. 52. Ibid., 77, with reference to Rev. 13. 53. See Asch, ‘Revelation of the Revelation’. 54. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. 4, 106. 55. See Jewel, ‘A View’, ‘An Apology’, 75–77 and ‘A Defence’, vol. 4, 627–29 and 671–73. 56. See also Rickard, ‘Word of God’, 140–41. 57. MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth, 425–26; Donaldson, Scotland. 185. See also Mackie, ‘Scotland’, 16–18 and Doran, ‘Revenge’, esp. 603–4. Peter C. Herman also reads James’s Lepanto, written in 1585, as a contribution to his foreign policy; see Herman‚ ‘Best of Poets’, esp. 80–81. On the reception of James’s epic in the Netherlands as a Protestant narrative against the Spaniards, see Stilma, ‘Battle of Lepanto’. 58. James I, Poeticall Exercises and Lepanto, fol. A2r. For more on Lepanto, see also Rickard, Authorship, 61–67. 59. James I, Ane Fruitfull Meditatioun, fol. B3v and Workes, 80. 60. James I, Ane Fruitfull Meditatioun, fol. B4r and Workes, 80. 61. James I, Ane Fruitfull Meditatioun, fol. B2v and Workes, 78. 62. Van Eerde, ‘Robert Waldegrave’; Jackson, ‘Robert Waldegrave’.

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63. In the edition printed in Edinburgh, the letter ‘C’ appears before the ‘Philopatris’. James Craigie surmises that the ‘C’ could be an abbreviation for ‘Caledonius’, the Latin name for Scotland. This would also explain why the ‘C’ does not appear in either of the 1603 editions, given that James, as the new English king, would have intended them for English readers; see Craigie’s notes in James I, Minor Prose Works, 193 and 203. On the woodcut of the Royal Arms of Scotland, see ibid., 198–99. 64. E.g. Gentili, Regales Disputationes Tres, 18–19. 65. The first historian of the divine right of kings read James’s treaty in this way, arguing that it contained ‘the doctrine of Divine Right complete in every detail’; see Figgis, Divine Right, 138. See also Johann Sommerville’s note in James I, Political Writings, xvii, as well as Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 46: ‘There is no doubt whatsoever that the True Law of Free Monarchies was an unequivocal defence of the theory of the divine right of kings.’ By contrast, John W. Allen viewed the belief that kings reign through divine right as an uncontested commonplace (Allen, English Political Thought, 97–99) and could not find any specific theory on the foundations of kingship in James’s treatise (Allen, History of Political Thought, 255). Conrad Russell likewise sees The True Lawe purely as the expression of a universal conviction that earthly rule must stem from divine origins, although he does not examine James’s argument in detail; see Russell, ‘Divine Rights’, 103–4. 66. As always, the fault line runs between advocates of the term ‘absolutism’ to describe James’s understanding of kingship on the one side, and so-called ‘revisionists’ on the other. An argument for the continuity of James’s fundamental political ideas can be found in Sommerville, ‘James I and the Divine Right of Kings’, 64 and ‘James VI and I and John Selden’, 313; see also Asch, Jakob I., 122. By contrast, Paul Christianson emphasises the discontinuities in James’s views before and after his ascension to the throne of England; see Christianson, ‘Royal and Parliamentary Voices’, 72. 67. See Pečar, ‘Suche nach den Ursprüngen’, 295–314. 68. James I, Workes, 194. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid., 194–95. 71. Ibid., 196. 72. This passage is interpreted in a similar way by Jean Calvin: ‘Certainly these things could not be done legally by kings, whom the law trained most admirably to all kinds of restraint [Deut. 17:16–18]; but it was called justice in regard to the people, because they were bound to obey, and could not lawfully resist’; Calvin, Institutes, vol. 2, 672 (parentheses my own). The ambiguity of 1 Sam. 8 is a result of the passage having gone through multiple phases of writing and editing, so that it was shaped by different political contexts with different attitudes towards monarchy. For an overview on the scholarship of the Old Testament, see Müller, Königtum und Gottesherrschaft, 119–47. 73. Buchanan, Dialogue, 108. 74. See Metzger, ‘David und Saul’. 75. Beza, De jure magistratuum and Brutus, Vindiciae contra tyrannos. See also Beza, Brutus and Hotman, Calvinistische Monarchomachen, 23–25 (Beza) and 157–59 (Brutus). 76. James I, Workes, 197. 77. Ibid., 196. 78. Ibid., 197. 79. Ibid., 208: ‘… God must first give sentence upon the King that breaketh, before the people can thinke themselves freed of their oath.’

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80. Ibid., 197: ‘And will ye consider the very wordes of the text in order, as they are set downe, it shall plainely declare the obedience that the people owe to their King in all respects.’ 81. Ibid., 206–7. 82. Ibid., 199: ‘… they can claime to no greater libertie on their part, nor the people of God might have done, and no greater tyranny was ever executed by any Prince or tyrant, whom they can obiect, nor was here fore-warned to the people of God …’ 83. Ibid., 198. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid., 199. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid., 199–200. 88. Ibid., 199: ‘And I Thinke no man will doubt but Samuel, David, and Elias, had as great power to perswade the people, if they had liked to have employed their credite to uproares & rebellions against these wicked kings, as any of our seditious preachers in these daies of whatsoever religion, either in this countrey or in France, had, that busied themselves most to stir up rebellion under cloake of religion.’ 89. Ibid., 200: ‘… what shameless presumption is it to any Christian people now adayes to claime to that unlawfull libertie [i.e. the right of resistance], which God refused to his owne peculiar and chosen people?’ 90. Ibid., 199, 209. 91. Ibid., 200. Ehud was one of the judges and murdered Eglon, king of the Moabites, thereby freeing Israel from his rule (Judg. 3:12–30), and Jael killed the general Sisera after his army was defeated by Deborah (Judg. 4:17–22). 92. Ibid., 194. 93. James’s reading of 1 Sam. 8 as a still-binding social contract is a creative contribution that has been consistently overlooked by all those who see The True Lawe as a conventional expression of broad political consensus in both Scotland and England, based on James’s concession regarding the coronation oath. See Burgess, British Political Thought, 142–47. 94. James I, Workes, 203. 95. To treat these two social contracts as unrelated and ignore the logical consequences of the connection between them is to overlook the politically explosive nature of James’s argument. In this light, James merely argues in favour of both the divine right of kings and the limits placed on royal power by the coronation oath and the law. It is telling that Burgess neglects to even mention James’s interpretation of 1 Sam. 8; see Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 40–43. 96. This is why Mark Kishlansky is wrong to call the treatise a ‘classic statement of contractualism’ based on its subtitle; see Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed, 37. 97. A similar assessment is found in Asch, Jakob I., 38, in contrast to Lynch, Scotland, 236–44. See also Cramsie, ‘Philosophy’, 45–46 for a rather overblown version. 98. Sommerville, ‘James VI and I and John Selden’; Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 45. 99. For a divergent viewpoint, see James I, Minor Prose Works, 194, where James Craigie’s list of the supposedly limited overlaps between these two texts is highly incomplete. He fails to address James’s or Buchanan’s engagement with 1 Sam. 8, for example. 100. James Craigie has already raised this point; see James I, Minor Prose Works, 193–94. Sommerville and Wormald both fail to go into detail; see Wormald‚ ‘’Tis True’, 251 (in which she argues that James’s treatise was a refutation of both Buchanan’s text

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101. 102. 103. 104.

105. 106.

107. 108. 109.

110. 111. 112.

113. 114. 115.

116.

and Melville’s views of the Church). The same is also true of William Patterson; see Patterson, King James VI and I, 23. As suggested by Craigie in James I, Minor Prose Works, 194. James I, Workes, 176. Lake, ‘The King’; a similar contextualisation is made by Figgis, Divine Right, 137; Allen, History of Political Thought, 251; Wilson, King James VI and I, 149; Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon, 82–83; and Holmes, ‘Authorship’, 426–28. The text was not initially brought into circulation, even after two thousand copies were printed, due to an apparent lack of consensus within the Jesuit order as to whether it was opportune to voice a pro-Spanish opinion on the matter of the English succession in this way. Those in favour of publication eventually won the day, and so the text reached the public about a year after it was initially printed; see Holmes, ‘Authorship’, 421–22. In 1603, however, the decision to publish exposed the Jesuits to direct criticism from the Pope, who apparently did not see the Scottish king as part of the Protestant camp and therefore disapproved of attacks against him; see Doran, ‘James VI and the English Succession’, 41. For a detailed discussion of the text’s authorship, including the names of other possible authors, see Holmes, ‘Authorship’, 415–20. Thomas Craig also pointed to Robert Parsons as the true author; see Craig, Right of Succession, 142. On the great political significance to James of the succession question in the years following 1595, see Doran, ‘James VI and the English Succession’, 25–42 and Mayer, Struggle. Scottish historians tend to downplay the importance of the English succession to the politics of James VI; see Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon, 65 and Brown, ‘Scottish Politics’, 36–37. On the succession question, see Nenner, Right to be King, 13. CSP Scot., vol. 13 (1597–1603), 100, 116 and 126; Lake, ‘The King’, 247. See Doran, ‘Three Late-Elizabethan Succession Tracts’, 100–17. Authors who supported James’s claim included Alexander Dickson, Thomas Craig, Peter Wentworth, John Colville and an author writing under the pseudonym Irenicus Philodikaios. However, the tract by Scotsman Thomas Craig lamented the silence of the English on the question of the succession; see Craig, Right of Succession, 1–2. On Peter Wentworth, see Neale, ‘Peter Wentworth’. Dean, ‘Wentworth, Peter’. See also Neale, Elizabeth I, 251–66. Tyacke, ‘Puritan Politicians’, 36. The same hope was raised immediately after the death of Elizabeth I in the Millenary Petition of 1603, in which the reformers presented James with a list of proposals for a complete reformation of the English church; see Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 117–19. Neale, ‘Peter Wentworth’, 200–2. On the network of contacts that James maintained with certain leading figures in Elizabeth’s inner circle – including the famous, or perhaps infamous, Earl of Sussex – see Tyacke, ‘Puritan Politicians’. Wentworth, Pithie Exhortation, 14–15. For more on Craig and his patrons at the Scottish royal court and in leading aristocratic circles, see Cairns, ‘Craig, Thomas’. Craig’s posthumous fame was considerable: in the preface to the translation he is presented as the Scottish Justinian. For more on the date of composition, see Craig, Right of Succession, fol. D1r. Barbed remarks directed at the deist and republican Toland in the preface to the translation hint at the later political context that the text was intended to influence.

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117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134.

135. 136. 137.

138. 139. 140. 141.

There may also have been a link to the issue of Queen Anne’s succession to the throne after William III. Craig, Right of Succession, 194. Parsons pointed to Richard II and Edward II as precedents, but in Craig’s view, these were not instances of lawful deposition, but unjustifiable usurpations. Ibid., 7–10; however, Craig also uses the era of the judges to demonstrate the disorderly nature of government in Israel without a king (6–7). Ibid., 186. Ibid., 186–99. Ibid., 200. Ibid., 193 and 200–3. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 14–15. Ibid., 97–101. Ibid., 100. Ibid., 103–4. Ibid., 102, with reference to Jehoshaphat’s heir (2 Chr. 21:3). Lake, ‘The King’, 250–52. Holmes, ‘Authorship’, 423. [Parsons], Conference, 16. Buchanan, Dialogue, 108. Ibid., 116. Ibid., 124: ‘So if anyone asks me for an example from the book of Holy Scripture where the punishment of evil kings is approved, I shall ask him in turn where it is censured’. Buchanan is generally sceptical about the value of precedents, whether of biblical or historical provenance. He therefore uses them primarily in a rhetorical way to illustrate principles that he derives from natural law. That said, he does use historical exempla to underpin his arguments in his history of Scotland. As such, the question of whether Buchanan can be linked to the tradition of the ancient constitution remains unanswered; see Burgess, Politics of the Ancient Constitution, 15–18. Buchanan, Dialogue, 94 and 96. [Parsons], Conference, 76–81. To counter Buchanan, he argues that Scotland had been conquered from Ireland by the legendary King Fergus I, meaning that the estates, the parliament and the laws of the land all came into being as a result of royal decisions. In James’s view, the king’s subjects were all originally his personal vassals; see James I, Workes, 201–2. James makes the same argument for England (202): ‘For when the Bastard of Normandie came into England, and made himselfe king, was it not by force, and with a mighty army?’ See Rickard, Authorship, 113–20. These were James’s wife and son, his son’s tutor, Lord John Hamilton and the three Catholic earls of Huntly, Erroll and Angus; see James I, Poems, vol. 1, 13 and vol. 2, 7–8. See Spottiswoode, History, vol. 3, 80. It was Sir James Sempill, a member of James’s court who had been entrusted with a transcript of Basilikon Doron, who passed the text on to clergy in the Kirk. Quotation from Melville, Autobiography, 144. On the reception of the text, see Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 51. The success story continued throughout the rest of Europe with more than thirty translations; see Craigie’s discussion in James I, Poems, vol. 2, 153–78 and 188–90, as well as Rypins, ‘Printing’.

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142. ‘The English seem … to have treated it as the equivalent of a coronation mug’; Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 52. 143. Wormald, ‘James VI and I’. James himself stresses the Scottish context in his 1603 preface in order to head off criticism from England: ‘… I onely teach my Son, out of my owne experience, what forme of government is fittest for this kingdome: and … I will speake nothing of the state of England, as a matter wherein I never had experience’; James I, Workes, 147. 144. James I, Workes, 160–61. Nonetheless, critics of the episcopacy could also identify with parts of James’s text: ‘The naturall sickenesse that hath ever troubled, and beene the decay of all the Churches … hath beene Pride, Ambition, and Avarice’ (159). This line was frequently quoted during the English Civil War by anti-episcopalians, who sought to claim James as one of their own; see Parker, Discourse Concerning Puritans, 15–17. 145. James I, Workes, 143. 146. Ibid., 153. It is especially significant that James stresses the monarch’s supremacy over the Church and rejects the idea that royal authority was limited to secular affairs: ‘For a King is not mere laicus, as both the Papists and Anabaptists would have him, to the which error also the Puritanes incline over farre’ (ibid., 182). 147. Ibid., 160. 148. Ibid. 149. Ibid. 150. Ibid., 161. 151. Ibid., 175–76. James also uses this recommendation primarily as an opportunity to condemn Buchanan and Knox, along with their works on recent Scottish history; ibid., 176. 152. Ibid., 149. 153. Ibid. 154. Ibid., 151. 155. Ibid., 154. 156. Ibid.: ‘… if passing that bounds, they urge you to embrace any of their fantasies in the place of Gods word, or would colour their particulars with a pretended zeale, acknowledge them for no other then vaine men, exceeding the bounds of their calling; and according to your office, gravely and with authoritie redact them in order againe.’ 157. Ibid., 175. 158. Ibid., 151. 159. Ibid., 156 (with reference to Cicero, De Republica, VI). 160. Ibid., 156. 161. Ibid., 155–56. 162. James makes his feelings about this kind of historical narrative perfectly clear, pointing out that both Knox’s and Buchanan’s accounts of the history of Scotland and its Church had been banned, ‘… and if any of these infamous libels remaine until your dayes, use the Law upon the keepers thereof’; James I, Workes, 176.

Chapter 3

APOLOGISTS FOR CROWN AUTHORITY The Divine Right of Kings

? Scholarship on the Divine Right of Kings The debate among historians over the divine right of kings has been fought between two camps since its inception at the start of the twentieth century. For John Neville Figgis, the theory of divine right was equivalent to a royal bid for absolute power, representing a claim that royal authority was derived from and accountable to God alone, and not to any societal institutions.1 For John W. Allen, by contrast, the divine right of kings was a universal commonplace rather than a deliberate political strategy for expanding the powers of the monarch, and the purported divine origins of royal authority did not exempt kings from following the laws of the land or acknowledging the estates’ rights to political participation. In fact, Allen even saw the theory of divine right as compatible with the right to resist.2 Among today’s historians too, we find proponents of both these perspectives. For example, Johann Sommerville insists that the contemporary emphasis on the divine origins of the monarchy was part of a political programme that ultimately sought to free the king from external interference or checks on his power. He argues that the divine right of kings was synonymous with absolutism and thus a source of political conflict, given that the idea of absolute monarchy had at least as many opponents in England as it did supporters.3 Meanwhile, Francis Oakley and Conrad Russell – taking sides with Allen – firmly deny that the concept of divine right was linked to a strategy aimed at strengthening royal authority and accordingly emphasise the existence of broad societal consensus on this issue.4 So while Sommerville interprets statements stressing the divine nature of the monarchy as declarations of absolute royal

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authority, other historians see the divine right of kings as nothing more than an extension to the idea of God’s grace – one that held no further implications for the scope of monarchical rule. Glenn Burgess, however, makes an interesting attempt to bring both sides together.5 While he fiercely disputes the idea that endorsements of divine right can be understood as arguments in favour of absolute monarchy, he also sees such endorsements as linked to certain specific ideas of kingship that – far from being contested – were widely accepted in England. Burgess sees a broad consensus for the idea of divine right based on three core points: first, that the king owes his office directly to God, not to the people; second, that the king cannot be called to account by anyone, and certainly not overthrown; and third, that everyone must obey the king. He also argues that the perpetuation of these principles in political discourse stemmed primarily from a need to establish a boundary against the divergent doctrines of both the Presbyterians and Catholic proponents of the right of resistance, and that they were not used to attack Parliament or the guaranteed liberties and privileges of the English people. In Burgess’s view, divine right did not release the king from his obligation to obey the laws of the land or authorise him to raise taxes or duties without the approval of Parliament, thus infringing upon the liberties and the property rights of the people. He also points out that the Crown only resorted to such measures in a handful of exceptional situations during the Stuart era, and that their advocates were fiercely opposed by Parliament. For Burgess, these exceptions prove the rule, in that almost none of the proponents of divine right sought to extend royal power beyond the limits of the law.6 Rather, their arguments took the form either of theological discourses on the divine foundations of secular rule, or of discussions of matters settled by law – and Burgess argues that there was no overlap between these spheres. This is undoubtedly an accurate description of everyday politics in England under the Tudor and Stuart monarchies. Burgess also rightly stresses that it was not in the monarchs’ interests to transform divine right theory into a political programme to bring about absolutism in practice, since the Crown’s strategy was still focused on preventing the political divisions and conflicts that would result from such a move. After the death of Elizabeth I, the monarchy felt obligated to operate according to a principle that Burgess sums up with the words: ‘It was wicked to resist an English monarch; fortunately, it was also unnecessary’.7 Nonetheless, Burgess – like Russell – overstates the role of political consensus because he fails to distinguish adequately between political strategy and formal legal right. Questions about the nature of monarchy are raised not when all is well, but at times of crisis, which present a choice: if the king is beholden to the laws of the land, and if resisting him is generally unjustified, what happens when the king himself breaks the law? If royal transgressions remained free of political consequences, to what extent was the monarchy bound by the law at all? Leaving

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violations unpunished would reduce the legal obligations of the Crown to little more than an appeal to the king to govern justly. For a long time, it was part of the English monarchy’s shrewd governing strategy to rule in such a way that political protagonists never stopped to consider the consequences of the king breaking the law. Nevertheless, this question is key to understanding the potential political consequences of a monarchy founded on the principle of divine right. Neither Burgess nor Russell provide any answers; yet there was no consensus among England’s political elite that the political institutions of the land were powerless to resist in the event that the king broke the law. Furthermore, Burgess correctly points out that the advocates of divine right did not usually refer to the law in their writings; rather, they made their arguments in the language of biblicism. Therefore, in order to adequately assess the political implications of their remarks, we must examine the biblical exempla they used and how they interpreted them politically. Yet this use of the Bible is entirely overlooked by Burgess, as well as by most other commentators on the divine right of kings. The following analysis therefore examines not only the various arguments advanced by divine right theorists with respect to the monarchy and its limits, but also the biblicist foundations of their writings and the specific biblical maxims and exempla they cited. This requires a new approach to the political positioning and consequences of the doctrine of the divine right of kings. The discourse of divine right played a prominent role in a number of contexts: in the fundamental clash over hereditary monarchy; in the conflict with the Roman Curia over whether or not the Pope had authority over European kings; in the debate about the status of the king and the bishops he appointed; and finally, in defending the king from charges that his rule trespassed against the lex dei, thereby putting the welfare of the people at risk. The authors involved in these debates passed judgement on the origins, scope and limits of the monarchy not on the basis of laws, but with recourse to divine norms. Under these terms, it was not when the king breached the laws of the land, but when he acted contrary to God’s norms, that a political crisis would ensue. The opponents of divine right did not, as a rule, seek to bind the king to the laws of the land, but saw the lex dei as the guiding principle of the monarchy and viewed ecclesiastical policy in England as a series of transgressions against these norms – irrespective of whether the transgressive innovations in question were introduced by Catholics, Presbyterians or avowed Protestants. Ultimately, their criticism presented a stark choice between obeying God or the king (though this was not always explicitly framed as such). However, we must also examine how authors who supported divine right defined the relationship between kingship and the rule of God. As we will see, the participants in the debate came up with very different answers to this question.

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The Debate over the Hereditary Monarchy Burgess’s claim that there was broad political consensus in England over the divine right of kings starts to show cracks when we look back to the reign of Elizabeth I. If the two core principles of divine right theory were that the monarchy owed its existence directly to God, not the people, and that it was illegal to resist the Crown, we cannot argue that the concept was universally accepted in England from the Reformation onwards. In fact, during Elizabeth I’s reign, prominent clergymen argued that royal authority derived from the will of the people and that resistance to the monarch was acceptable in certain situations where the ruler infringed on the fundamental rights of their subjects.8 In the eighth book of his Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the theologian Richard Hooker sets out a doctrine of kingship founded on the transfer of authority from the people to the king, which leads him to conclude that kings must always respect the law of the land as placing a limit on their powers.9 William Cecil judged Hooker’s political world view to pose a serious threat to the legitimacy of the monarchy, which is why he banned the book from publication; tellingly, it only seems to have appeared on the market in 1648.10 Yet Hooker was by no means alone in arguing – from scholastic tradition – that royal power originally lay in the hands of the people.11 Matthew Sutcliffe, who later served as court chaplain to James I, likewise saw the transfer of authority from the people to the king as marking the birth of the monarchy.12 Thomas Bilson was also treading on thin ice in his simultaneous attempt to legitimise the Dutch revolt against the Spanish king and to reject the Catholic doctrine of the right to resist that was popular among followers of the House of Guise during the French Wars of Religion.13 In his 1585 treatise The True Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion, he firmly rejects the Pope’s right to depose any monarch; yet he also maintains that kings and queens could lose their thrones if they violated the fundamental laws of the land.14 Bilson clearly sees the transgressions of ruling monarchs as grounds for legitimate resistance in cases where authority has been delegated to the ruler in question by the people – which excludes classic hereditary monarchies like those in England or Scotland.15 This distinction allows him to justify the Dutch Revolt without approving any equivalent rebellion in England. In his view, the existence of a hereditary monarchy cuts against the right to resist. In other words, the legal basis for that right can be found only in the political constitution and the letter of the law, and the lex dei offers no justification for rebellion against crowned heads of state, as Bilson emphasises in answer to Christopher Goodman. Looking back, he also argues that resistance to Mary I was unjustified.16 Despite these caveats, Bilson’s treatise was a prominent subject of discussion at the beginning of the English Civil War and the author – contrary to the tenor of his writings – became a valued authority cited by supporters of the rebellion against Charles I.17

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Although Bilson’s arguments are explained by the specific contemporary political need to support the hard-pressed rebels in Holland, his reasoning nonetheless shows that justifications for resistance to the Crown were not unheard of in England, and that they could be drawn upon as the political situation demanded. For example, Elizabeth I’s long-delayed decision to sign Mary Stuart’s death warrant went against the principle of the sanctity of crowned heads; yet it also seemed a matter of necessity in the political context of 1587–88. At that time, the idea that the origins of the monarchy lay in the hands of the people was far more widespread than the principle of the right of resistance. That this view was not necessarily anti-monarchist is amply demonstrated by the authors cited above, neither of whom made names for themselves as principled critics of the Crown. Yet it did stand in opposition to the fundamental principles of divine right, whose advocates increasingly called into question the notion that royal authority was derived from the people as they gained ground in public political discussion – a trend that coincided with the debate over the hereditary monarchy which had been running in England and France since the 1580s, and which persisted until soon after James I’s accession to the English throne. In his treatise The True Lawe of Free Monarchy, James opted to derive the power of the monarchy entirely from 1 Sam. 8 and to interpret the people of Israel’s plea to be ruled over by a king as a social contract in which the people permanently delegated their own sovereignty to the newly appointed King Saul and his successors. We can gauge the originality of James’s response to the idea that the monarchy was largely dependent on the will of the people by comparing it to other writings in defence of hereditary monarchy.18 We can also see that the debate over the roots of royal authority was not restricted to Scotland following the appearance of Buchanan’s treatise De jure regni apud Scotos in 1579, but also extended to England and the Continent. Adam Blackwood, for example, was the first to draft a counterblast to Buchanan in an attempt to refute the latter’s ideas regarding the people’s right to resist. Blackwood was Scottish by birth, but was living as a Catholic in France, where his Apologia pro regibus was printed by royal privilege in 1581 and reissued in 1588.19 This was followed by Pierre de Belloy’s Apologie Catholique in 1585, which also appeared in English translation in the same year.20 De Belloy was a Catholic, but he nonetheless opposed the Catholic League of France and defended the hereditary claim of Henry of Navarre even after the latter’s excommunication by the Pope. Robert Parsons expressly attacked de Belloy’s Apologie Catholique in A Conference about the Next Succession, which raises the interesting possibility of overlaps between de Belloy’s arguments and James’s. And finally, Hadrian Saravia’s De Imperandi authoritate et Christiana obedientia was published in England in 1593, and is perhaps the staunchest Bible-based defence of hereditary monarchy ever written. The following comparison between James’s True Lawe and the treatises listed above is intended not so much to trace

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possible influences as to examine the range of the authors’ arguments, all of which were made with the same political goal – namely, to legitimise the concept of hereditary monarchy and make it as watertight as possible. For the most part, Blackwood and de Belloy share the same arguments – perhaps due to their shared profession and background. Both were practising civil lawyers in France, and both wrote against the backdrop of the Catholic League’s attempts to call dynastic succession into question by seeking to prevent non-Catholics from acceding to the French throne.21 Nonetheless, Blackwood places far greater emphasis on events in Scotland than de Belloy. Not only does Blackwood explicitly address Buchanan’s treatise on the prerogatives of the Scottish monarchs, he also dedicates his book to the dethroned Mary Stuart and her son, James VI.22 Comparing these two works to The True Lawe reveals undeniable overlaps.23 Blackwood, for example, distinguishes between true monarchies and mixed constitutions in which the people can claim certain rights of political participation, with the Roman Principate, Venice and the Holy Roman Empire serving as examples of the latter.24 He clearly counts Scotland as a pure monarchy, since royal rule there originally came about through conquest and its associated rights had been passed down undiminished through inheritance ever since.25 In this respect, Blackwood’s views of the Scottish monarchy are similar to those of King James. Since Blackwood’s treatise is a direct response to Buchanan’s, he unsurprisingly draws on the same authorities as Buchanan in order to argue against him.26 As such, his interpretation is based largely on classical texts and historical exempla.27 Only from chapter 14 onwards does he occasionally cite some of the Fathers of the Church, and only in chapter 26 does he briefly address the possible biblical origins of the monarchy. Here, he stresses that the Israelites never personally selected their rulers; whether prophets, judges or kings, these were always appointed by God: ‘called exceptionally by divine will’.28 Therefore, Blackwood concludes, the people played no part in the establishment of the monarchy. Blackwood then turns his attention to Buchanan’s relativising remarks on the significance of 1 Samuel 8, drawing on Thomas Aquinas and Jean Gerson to insist that Samuel’s speech on kingship was not a description of despotism, but a catalogue of the rights of kings.29 Yet this argument goes against the grain of Thomas Aquinas’s interpretation, since the medieval scholar saw Samuel’s words as an ironic attempt to warn the Israelites against tyranny.30 Blackwood also disputes the idea that resistance to monarchs can be legitimised with reference to the Bible by pointing to David’s refusal to raise his hand against Saul, the anointed of the Lord (1 Sam. 24) – a locus classicus that James I also cites in The True Lawe.31 In this reading of the passage, kings remain sacrosanct even if they abuse their office. Like James in his later text, Blackwood seeks to downplay the significance of Jehu, the destroyer of the house of Ahab, through

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creative reference to salvation history and the New Testament. In Blackwood’s unconventional reading, the example of Jesus renders that of Jehu obsolete.32 By citing the New Testament in this way, he is able to dismiss exempla drawn from the Old Testament. Although Blackwood’s text refers to some of the same Bible passages that James draws on in The True Lawe, the different importance each author attaches to particular authorities is unmistakable. Whereas Blackwood introduces biblicist reasoning only briefly alongside other forms of argument to which he lends greater weight, James puts far more emphasis on the Bible as a source of legitimacy for the monarchy, and the central importance he attaches to 1 Samuel 8 distinguishes his argument from Blackwood’s. It is true that Blackwood attempts to refute Buchanan’s exegesis of this passage with the help of Catholic theological authorities, but that is as far as he goes. Blackwood argues that the origins of monarchy lie not with Saul, but with Nimrod (Gen. 10:9), and sees the latter’s rule as coming about through divine authority, not usurpation, and therefore as legitimised by God.33 Like Blackwood, Pierre de Belloy insists on the principle of hereditary succession established in Salic law and stresses that it is sanctioned by God. He also bases his arguments primarily on historical exempla rather than Scripture, and completely ignores 1 Samuel 8.34 De Belloy’s text was a contribution to the French debate and not a riposte to Buchanan, so there was no need for him to discuss the specific points raised by the latter. Nonetheless, de Belloy draws on the Bible when explaining the origins of the monarchy – not with reference to Saul or Nimrod, but by citing another biblical justification for the inviolability of the king: the principle of patriarchy.35 He argues that the crucial reference point is not the installation of Saul as the first king, but the patriarchal authority sanctioned by God, which he sees as the ultimate source of primogeniture. In de Belloy’s view, the king has the same power over his people as a father over his family. What Pierre de Belloy presents as a side note to his argument, Hadrian Saravia places centre stage in his. Saravia was not a lawyer like de Belloy and Blackwood, but a theologian from Artois who fled to Protestant England for religious reasons and became a denizen in 1568. After a stint as professor of theology at Leiden University from 1584 to 1587, he returned to England for good when he was accused of political intrigue in Holland.36 He then dedicated himself to the service of the Crown, both by combating Presbyterian reform efforts within the Church and by staunchly defending hereditary monarchy, as in his treatise De imperandi authoritate. Saravia’s comments on the sanctity of kings and their absolute authority draw on several different traditions, and his introduction clearly sets out the positions he intends to refute in his treatise. He rejects the notion that the people have greater sovereign authority than the king, and calls into question the authority

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of the political languages used to express this idea. For instance, he argues that critics of the monarchy base their arguments on ‘philosophical and human reason, not Christian reason or heavenly philosophy’, as well as on Greek and Roman history.37 This, he further claims, puts them in league with the enemy, given that the Pope and his advocates used the same arguments to advance their doctrine that it was legal to overthrow kings.38 For Saravia, by contrast, the most important source of authority is the ‘Christian message’, which proclaims the necessity of obedience.39 In line with the logic of polemic literature, Saravia addresses the same authorities cited by his opponents and seeks to disprove their interpretations one by one. As such, parts of his argument are based on history or the principles of Roman law, as when he notes that the will of the sovereign is law.40 Above all, however, Saravia draws on Scripture. Even the title page of his book clearly indicates the basis of his comments on the Christian message of obedience, since it quotes Paul’s dictum from Romans 13 that all power is ordained by God. Yet his biblical interpretation of natural law – the ‘Philosophia celestis’ – plays a far more important role. Saravia derives not only the institution of the monarchy, but also the principle of hereditary succession from the period immediately after the flood in the Book of Genesis: For we know from Genesis that supreme power began at the same time as humanity itself, when immediately after the Deluge God bestowed the ius gladii, or right of the sword, upon the renewers of the human race in order to avenge patricide. And soon afterwards the penalty of servitude under the insulted father was established. It must therefore be understood that all the rest of the law of nations forms part of a whole, and that the first government arose from nature together with humanity. And because people are born as subjects of their parents, so princes must be accepted and not elected. Those who look carefully at the course of salvation history will soon discover that the first progenitors of humanity were also the first kings.41

In other words, God called patriarchal and political authority into being at the same time, so that the patriarchs were also the first kings on earth. As such, the institution of monarchy was established by natural law and by God, and Noah was not only the forefather of humanity, but also king of the whole world.42 In this way, Saravia dispels the notion that the people are free by virtue of natural law, arguing that children come into the world as subjects because they are born under paternal authority – an authority that stems from God and is not delegated by children to their fathers, just as royal authority is not delegated to the king by the people.43 Since Saravia equates monarchy with patriarchy and seeks to anchor it in natural law, the crowning of Saul is insignificant to his argument, as he can present Moses as the prototype of a modern monarch rather than the problematic figure of Saul.44 Saravia primarily uses the example of Saul’s enthronement and inglorious end as

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evidence that the people of Israel never had the right either to appoint their kings or depose them, and that these matters lay entirely in God’s hands.45 Likewise, Saravia tells us that hereditary succession was established at the time of Noah, who divided his realm unequally among his three sons, with the largest share going to his firstborn: ‘and so he received the prerogative of honour by right of birth’.46 For Saravia, this demonstrates that the principle of primogeniture has its roots in natural law.47 Furthermore, he considers it sacrosanct, though he allows room for deviation in the line of succession. For example, he notes that David named Solomon as his successor during his lifetime even though the latter was not his firstborn son, and he likewise cites the Nerva–Antonine dynasty of Roman emperors who appointed their heirs by adoption as further proof of the king’s right to designate his own successor.48 Yet he also acknowledges direct divine intervention as a possible engine of change that could affect not only the line of hereditary succession (as with Nimrod’s usurpation of power), but also the institution of monarchy itself, replacing it with aristocratic or democratic forms of government. For Saravia, natural law and divine providence are the only legitimate sources of earthly rule.49 Saravia’s argument in favour of the latter gave him a useful tool both to explain the variety of forms of government in Europe and to justify them – even those not based on the principle of hereditary succession. Yet his argument is a double-edged sword for the monarchy, in that it allows usurpation, conquest and even revolution to been seen as acts of divine will as long as they give rise to permanent new regimes. Comparing these tracts by Blackwood, de Belloy and Saravia with James I’s The True Lawe reveals interesting differences, especially with regard to the authors’ recourse to biblicism. First, James and Saravia hold up the Bible as an important authority for legitimising royal power, while the two lawyers, Blackwood and de Belloy, build their defence of hereditary monarchy around Roman law, as well as on French legal scholars’ discussions of the monarchy since the late Middle Ages.50 Yet the lawyers did not reject the political language of biblicism outright; rather, they used it selectively and tried to find agreement between biblicist arguments and those that drew on other sources of authority. Second, the authors assign varying weights to the authority of the Old Testament. All four of them are equally active in citing Old Testament exempla in order to pinpoint the origins of kingship, but Blackwood also undermines his examples concerning resistance to the kings of Israel and Judah by citing the example of Jesus – claiming that because He did not act to defend himself, and because we should all follow His example, the original right to resist tyrants was forfeit and no longer valid. Similarly, James I judges the actions of Jehu to be an extraordinary example and argues against it setting a precedent (though he does not mention the New Testament at all). And finally, the authors place the origins of monarchy at different points in history. Only James links the inception of the

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institution to Saul’s enthronement as king of Israel. Blackwood, in contrast, sees Nimrod as the first king, while de Belloy and Saravia count Adam and Noah respectively as the fountainheads of monarchical rule on earth. When we compare James I’s The True Lawe of Free Monarchies with works by advocates of hereditary monarchy who came before him, we can see that James’s tract did not merely reiterate well-trodden arguments. He wrote with the same objectives in mind – to prove that monarchy came from God alone and to reject the role of the people as a watchdog over royal authority – but added a new twist, turning away from natural law and the supposedly iron-clad division of humanity into rulers and subjects that dated back to the creation. Although James saw himself as the father of his subjects and considered patriarchal authority to be part of natural law, he traced the origins of kingship not to the creation, but to the Israelites’ plea to Samuel to install a king over them and grant him full and irrevocable sovereignty. For James, monarchy was based not so much on natural law as on the particular lex dei proclaimed by the prophet Samuel in relation to royal rights. In James’s rather creative reading, the people willingly and irreversibly gave up their sovereign rights when they expressed their desire for a king. Early on, then, the theory of the divine right of kings showed greater consistency in terms of its basic political position than in the arguments used to justify it, and the subsequent progress of the debate shows that this did not change much over the following decades. As a means of legitimising royal authority, biblicism was of course particularly important in justifying divine right; yet authors continued to trace the origins of the monarchy to either the patriarchs, with reference to natural law, or to the historical introduction of monarchical rule in ancient Israel.51 James I was evidently unperturbed by the diversity of arguments supporting divine right, however. Even after the publication of The True Lawe, texts affirming his claim to the English throne continued to appear, some of which still traced the institution of monarchy back to patriarchy. One such example is The Palinod of John Colvill.52 John Colville was doubtless one of the ambivalent defenders of James’s right of succession, having served for many years as the mouthpiece for several of the king’s Scottish enemies. He associated himself with the Ruthven Raiders and enjoyed the patronage of Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell. Throughout this time, he was a sharp critic of the king, bluntly calling into question James’s claims to both the Scottish and English thrones with the rather unflattering assertion that he was a bastard. In The Palinod, however, Colville retracted his earlier attacks on the king, making the text an apology of sorts.53 As such, it was published in 1600 by the royal printer Robert Charteris in Edinburgh, with a second edition following in 1604. Colville’s treatise reads like a summary of Saravia’s most important arguments. Like Saravia, he roots the monarchy in natural law through the story of

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the creation, marking a shift from Colville’s own earlier position that kingship could not be derived from natural law because the state of nature featured neither social hierarchies nor property rights. In The Palinod, by contrast, he points to Adam as the first ruler and owner of the earth.54 He also argues that the right of primogeniture – the basis of James’s claim to the English throne – is an inherent feature of divine law, and that any deviations from this principle (as in the case of Jacob, Solomon and others) were exceptional instances of divine intervention that by no means called the law of primogeniture into question.55 This strategy of marshalling divine providence to support arguments based on natural law had already been given considerable weight by Saravia. Colville concludes – advantageously for James’s claim – that the principle of ius sanguinis anchored in divine law takes precedence over positive law in England, meaning that neither the will of Parliament nor common law provisions against England being ruled by a foreigner could jeopardise James’s right of succession.56 Colville’s treatise is important to the discussion surrounding the legitimacy of James’s accession to the English throne because he defends the Scottish king’s claim using the language of biblicism. Peter Wentworth sought to do so by means of historical arguments, by contrast, while James himself was content simply to argue that monarchs were subject only to God. Colville’s writings resonated only in England and Scotland, however. Another, far more influential defence of Crown authority was William Barclay’s voluminous De regno et regali potestate, published in Paris in 1600.57 The widespread and lasting resonance of Barclay’s treatise can be seen in the fact that both Johannes Althusius and John Locke took the trouble to explicitly attack his ideas. Barclay, like his compatriot Adam Blackwood, was a Scottish Catholic, and was appointed professor of Roman law in Pont-à-Mousson, a newly founded university in Lorraine, in 1578.58 As such, he focused mainly on events in France, as indicated by his book’s dedication to Henry IV. However, he shared the objectives of his predecessors Blackwood and de Belloy in that he sought to firmly anchor the monarchy in the principle of hereditary succession and thereby dismiss any possible right to resist. Barclay’s treatise also resembles those of Blackwood and de Belloy in its greater reliance on Roman law, or rather the French legal scholarly tradition, than on Scripture – though he does go to the trouble of weaving key biblical passages on kingship in ancient Israel into his argument against the right of resistance. He also attempts to link pro-monarchy arguments based on natural law with those citing historical precedents, following James I in interpreting Samuel’s address to the people of Israel as a description of the sovereign rights of the king rather than as a warning against tyranny: ‘the rights of kingship were proclaimed to the Jewish people by God through the prophet’.59 He also points out that nowhere in 1 Samuel 8 is there any indication that God bestowed authority on a tyrant.60 Instead, he argues, Saul should be seen as a lawful, divinely appointed king who

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remained in office even after being rebuked for disobedience to God by the prophet and divine mouthpiece Samuel. In Barclay’s view, this exemplum shows that the people must submit to monarchy even if the king rules in a disgraceful and unjust manner.61 Barclay brings natural law into play as a justification for the monarchy in order to argue against Buchanan’s (among others) contention that Samuel’s speech outlined the consequences of tyranny, not the legitimate rights of a king. For Buchanan, the Israelites’ desire to be ruled by a king like all their neighbours offered proof that the monarchy subsequently established was tyrannical, given that the kingdoms surrounding Israel were, without exception, ruled by despots. Yet Barclay disagrees, claiming that these purported despots were no less than free kings – that is, legitimate rulers under natural law who were subject to no legal restrictions.62 As long as kings attain power by legitimate means, he argues, it is fundamentally misplaced to denounce them as tyrants.63 In a sense, then, Barclay sees the monarchy as legitimised by God in two ways: on the one hand through natural law, and on the other by the subsequent establishment of the monarchy in Israel. Barclay was writing in support of the French King Henry IV, in a bid to defend his regime against religiously motivated attacks from both his former Calvinist allies and his radical Catholic opponents. Yet his arguments for the divine right of kings also opened important doors for him in England. In 1603, Barclay gave up his teaching post in Pont-à-Mousson and moved to England, where James I had promised him a significant preferment if he converted to Protestantism and joined the Church of England. In the end, Barclay chose to return to France rather than switch confessions, but he nevertheless remained a staunch supporter of James in the conflict over the foundations of the monarchy and its resulting political effects. English authors were in the minority in the debate over James’s claim to the English throne and the origins and scope of monarchical rule. The primary discussion of the nature of monarchy played out mainly in France, where it was bound up in the ongoing confessional conflict and Henry IV’s accession to the throne. This all changed, however, after James I became king of England. From then on, James made a conscious effort to bring authors like William Barclay into his personal service, and a number of English civil lawyers began to follow the lead of their colleagues in France by seeking to free the monarchy from the influence of the people and propagate the theory of divine right. In so doing, these authors helped assign an additional layer of meaning to James’s newly acquired style: ‘his sacred majestie’ rather than ‘soverane lord’.64 Sir John Hayward was the first to jump to the defence of the new king. Hayward had James to thank for his release from the Tower of London, where he had been held prisoner since 1600 as an alleged conspirator in the unsuccessful rebellion led by the Earl of Essex (he had been accused of providing historical

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legitimation for the revolt in his treatise about the deposition of Richard II, which he had dedicated to Essex).65 Yet under James’s rule, Hayward proved a loyal supporter of the monarchy. His treatise An Answer to the First Part of a Certaine Conference Concerning Succession – a rebuttal of Parsons’s Conference about the Next Succession – was dedicated to James, who granted it a printing privilege just fourteen days after Elizabeth I’s death. In his text, Hayward not only defends James’s claim to the throne of England, but also advocates the idea of a divinely ordained monarchy in which the people could neither choose the king nor exert any control over him. Hayward bases his attack on Parsons as much on legal considerations as on biblicist arguments, calling not only upon Roman and canon law, but also legal practices in many different nations, in order to defend the principle of hereditary succession.66 Yet the playing field shifts slightly when Hayward depicts the monarchy as a natural and divinely ordained form of government. To do so, he reiterates the familiar argument, based on natural law, that obedience to both one’s parents and one’s ruler had been an established principle since the creation.67 Patriarchal authority may not strictly be equivalent to political authority, but in Hayward’s view, it nonetheless embodies the principle of sovereignty as established by natural law and by God.68 Hayward’s distinction between paternal and state authority forces him to rule out Adam as the first king. Instead, he points to Nimrod as the first man to exert authority over several families, and thus as the first ruler who can be considered a king. Yet Nimrod’s authority was not delegated to him by the people, Hayward argues; rather, he took it for himself, through his own power.69 With Nimrod as his starting point, Hayward goes on to draft a historical genealogy of royal authority, writing that Nimrod founded the Assyrian monarchy, which then gave way to the Medes, who were defeated in turn by the Persians. These then ruled until Alexander led the Greeks to power, who ultimately ceded it to the Romans. Throughout this time, Hayward notes, kings were never under any obligations to the people; nor were they subject to any laws whatsoever, with the exception of the provisions of natural law.70 Given that Hayward denies the people any kind of constitutive role in the monarchy, it is unsurprising that he also deprives them of the right to resist. He reproaches Parsons for trumpeting that right based solely on historical examples and trots out counterarguments drawn from the Bible, including numerous passages from the Old Testament, Romans 13, and 1 Peter 2:13. For Hayward, St Peter’s and St Paul’s parallel appeals for obedience to authority carry most weight when presented in their historical context, since they suggest that even the commands of obvious tyrants such as Caligula, Nero and Nebuchadnezzar had to be obeyed.71 By extension, there could be no right of resistance against Christian kings. Moreover, when discussing the coronation oath, Hayward stresses (like James before him) that kings are accountable only to God, not the people.72

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Two years later, in 1605, the Italian-born Protestant Alberico Gentili, who had been appointed Regius Professor of Roman Law at the University of Oxford in 1587, published his Regales disputationes tres.73 For Brian Levack, Gentili’s text is ‘the most absolutistic piece of writing that appeared in England in the early seventeenth century’.74 Glenn Burgess likewise sees it as the clearest example of ‘civil-law absolutism’, but also makes every effort to present Gentili as a marginal figure with negligible influence.75 Gentili’s work may not have become a classic of legal scholarship in England, but it was prominent enough that Althusius felt the need to dispute a number of Gentili’s arguments in his Politica.76 As such, Gentili’s words carried some weight in the pan-European debate on the legal foundations of monarchical rule. And even during the Civil War, one anonymous Parliamentary supporter found it necessary to take issue with Gentili on the matter of royal prerogatives.77 It is difficult to see why Gentili’s treatise should represent a stronger commitment to ‘absolutism’ than the writings of other like-minded scholars. Althusius, for example, claims with some justification that Gentili’s arguments were primarily a reiteration of Barclay’s.78 For instance, Gentili characterises monarchical rule by repeating Barclay’s core statements on the rule of the princeps in Roman law.79 Like Barclay, he also primarily cites legal arguments to support his position, and his references to classic Old Testament passages supporting the idea of the monarchy as established by God are not exactly original either. On the other hand, he follows James I’s interpretation of 1 Samuel 8 more closely than most other authors on divine right. Like James, Gentili interprets Samuel’s address to the people of Israel as an enumeration of the sovereign rights of the king in a free monarchy, as already established in the nations surrounding Israel.80 By doing so, he is able to place royal authority on a higher footing than patriarchal authority, instead of viewing patriarchy as its source.81 Gentili does not accept that Samuel’s speech is a description of tyranny, or that the true laws of kingship are listed only in Deuteronomy 17:14–20; rather, he argues that the latter passage was intended for the instruction of kings, whereas Samuel’s speech was intended to enlighten the people.82 He adds that even when monarchs committed extreme transgressions against the code of conduct set down in the so-called ‘law of the king’ (Deut. 17), as in the case of Rehoboam and Ahab, that ‘law’ was never used to justify resistance. For Gentili, this demonstrates that Deuteronomy 17 placed no limits on the king’s power that could be enforced by the people.83 Gentili’s third ‘disputation’ against the right of resistance likewise contains few surprises. This is true of both his argument that it is better to suffer tyranny than anarchy and his claim that even tyrants are divinely appointed, such that their oppression must be endured in order to avoid rebelling against God.84 Another classic exemplum cited by Gentili is David’s decision not to oppose the tyranny of King Saul, choosing instead to flee in order to escape confrontation.85

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According to Glenn Burgess, political debate in the early Stuart era was generally held in three different political languages: common law, Roman law and theology.86 This categorisation has a certain logic to it, but also means that we run the risk of assigning a given speech act to one of these three languages based purely on the professional qualifications of its author, without stopping to examine the specific arguments or traditions that author draws upon. In Burgess’s schema, divine right forms part of the theological discourse on kingship; however, the works I discuss above by Blackwood, Gentili and others – all scholars of Roman law, or ‘civilians’ – show that it is not enough to categorise political arguments based solely on the background of the person making them, as to do so would conceal the traces of biblicism that appear in all of these ostensibly legal texts. With this in mind, it is particularly interesting to consider which of these authors’ arguments are backed up with reference to the Bible, and which are not. For example, biblicist arguments played a lesser role in the crucial matter of whether the king stood above the law of the land or was subject to it. The discussion over this question revolved primarily around the interpretation of classical legal principles from the Corpus Iuris Civilis – in particular, the motto attributed to Ulpian that the will of the prince was law, and the principle of ‘Princeps legibus solutus est’ – ‘the ruler is not bound by the laws’ – which was revived by Jean Bodin.87 The interpretive traditions of both these legal principles, which date back to the High Middle Ages, also played a significant role.88 Yet there was no consensus among scholars of Roman law in France or England over how far these two legal principles supported the idea that the king was not subject to the positive laws of the land. In general, though, participants in this debate had no need for biblicist arguments. However, Roman law scholars were evidently prepared to swap their legal principles for biblical maxims and exempla when it came to two key aims: first, to set out the origins of monarchy and its direct derivation from God, and second, to dismiss the right of resistance. Yet this selective switching between sources of authority has largely been ignored in the debate over ‘civil law absolutism’, with only Brian Levack providing an interesting explanation for the phenomenon.89 He points out that in Roman law, the origins of imperial autocracy – which was, in a sense, the prototype of monarchical rule – lay in the lex regia, through which the Roman people delegated sovereignty to the emperor: ‘the populace commits to him and into him its own entire authority and power, doing this by the lex regia which is passed anent his authority’.90 This origin story was very inconvenient for defenders of the monarchy around 1600 in both France and England. Although lex regia does leave room to argue that the people forfeited their rights once and for all and were therefore entirely subject to the authority of the king, one must also acknowledge the implication that sovereignty originally lay in the hands of the people.91 As such, Levack argues, the king’s lawyers feared

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that this argument would be grist to the mill for writers who saw the people’s original delegation of political sovereignty as justifying their right to restrict or resist royal power, or who sought to call into question the principle of hereditary selection and interpret all monarchies as elective. For our purposes, however, we do not need to answer the question of whether the defenders of hereditary monarchy really feared that references to the lex regia would play into the hands of advocates of the sovereignty of the people. Although scholars had used this legal code to draw conclusions about both the rights and obligations of rulers since the late Middle Ages, opponents of hereditary monarchy seldom cited the lex regia in justification of the people’s right to choose their rulers, preferring instead to rely on natural law and the principle of universal equality that flows from it.92 By deploying arguments based on natural law, advocates of the people as irremovable participants in political rule drew on the most fundamental resource available to them in any of the various legal languages.93 The norms of natural law were considered universally and eternally valid and were traced back to the creation, which meant that they could only be countered on the same epistemological level. As such, a monarchist reading of the lex regia would inevitably fall short of the required standard, given that this code was bound to a specific cultural and historical context and therefore did not trump the natural state of legal equality established by God. Natural law came before any man-made legal codes and was intrinsically superior, while human laws – and the lex regia was no exception – had to conform to the norms established by God. The advocates of hereditary monarchy therefore met this challenge by raising their arguments about the origins of royal power to the same epistemological level. This is true of all authors who equated the monarchy with patriarchal authority and thus cited the creation as an argument not to justify the natural equality of all people, but to point to Adam and Eve and the expulsion from paradise as the beginning of rule and obedience. However, when these authors then traced the origins of monarchy to ancient Israel – irrespective of whether they saw Nimrod, Moses or Saul as the first king – they could no longer call upon natural law in their bid to prove that royal power was not delegated by the people. Instead, they turned to the historia sacra and its revelation of divine will in order to demonstrate God’s direct intervention in establishing the monarchy in Israel. Biblical exempla also played an important role in undermining the idea of the people’s right to resist the king. Common examples included St Paul’s and St Peter’s injunctions to obey authority (Rom. 13 and 1 Pet. 2:13), as well as the example of David, who spared King Saul and declared that he would not harm the anointed of the Lord. That said, the example of Jehu, who slaughtered the house of Ahab at God’s command in order to eradicate idolatry, was downgraded as a paradigm for political debate in various ways.

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In arguments against the right of resistance too, biblicism served as a way to link political statements with universal, divinely ordained principles and thus render them irrefutable. The epistemological value of Scripture therefore exceeded that of historical exempla drawn from the historia sacra and the lives of the Apostles, and for authors who supported divine right, it provided stronger evidence that the duty of obedience was part of divine law, which was just as eternally valid as natural law. In short, the civilians drew on biblical arguments in both their accounts of the origins of the monarchy and their refutations of the right of resistance because the Bible was the only source of authority that could effectively counter their opponents’ arguments from natural law. By naturalising and sacralising the monarchy, they hoped to elevate it above the swamp of political conflict and undermine the arguments deployed by critical voices who sought to present the monarchy as a product of the will of the people and thereby assign the latter a role in limiting the powers of the Crown. Biblicism was also brought to bear on debates that were mostly fought in other political languages because it could generate arguments that were unavailable to the language of Roman law (to take one example). As such, biblicism was not confined to the speech acts of theologians; nor can it be seen as synonymous with theology. Whether biblicist speech acts made by theologians in the political sphere should automatically be understood as theological discourse is also open to question. The canons approved by the Convocations of Canterbury and York in 1604 and 1606, for example, represent less a theological statement than the adoption of a clear political position by the Church.94 The clergy gathered at the Convocations attempted to justify hereditary monarchy by means of the Bible and to explicitly condemn alternative readings. This specific political interpretation of Scripture may have been given the appearance of binding dogma by dint of being formally proclaimed by the Anglican Convocations; yet the canons of 1606 are nonetheless a political statement founded on biblicism and sanctioned by the authority of the Church. Yet paradoxically, it was James I himself who refused to approve the canons of 1606, thereby relegating them to little more than wastepaper from a legal point of view. As a result, the Convocations’ extensive rulings on monarchical authority and its biblical foundations disappeared from public attention and only came to light again at the beginning of the reign of William III, when they were published under the title Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book.95 In James’s view, the participants in the Convocations misunderstood why he had summoned them. The king wanted to know how far he could support the Dutch in their revolt against Spain, even though they were rebelling against an originally legitimate monarch; yet instead of answering this specific question, James tells us, the clergymen debated the monarchy in general and discussed matters that ‘all kings reserve among the “arcana imperii” [secrets of state]’.96 What especially irritated

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James was that the Convocations saw even usurpers as blessed with divine legitimacy, provided that they could cling to power for long enough.97 Although the canons did not meet with the king’s approval and the Convocations therefore produced no binding decisions, this was still a significant undertaking on the part of the leaders of the Church. Their decrees were no less than an attempt to establish an official interpretation of the Bible regarding the status of the monarchy. Yet surprisingly, the biblicism recorded in Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book has been largely ignored until now.98 Ultimately, the bishops pursued the same goal as the civilians – namely, to deny that the people played any part in the establishment of the monarchy, and to reject the idea of a right of resistance against the king. To do this, they were forced to choose one of the two existing interpretations of the origins and legitimacy of the monarchy and trace its beginnings either to natural law or to God’s establishment of royal rule in Israel. The bishops opted to argue from natural law and largely followed the strategy introduced by Hadrian Saravia.99 In the style of a catalogue of supposedly false interpretations of Scripture, the canons declare a number of points to be formally binding: that there has never been natural equality between men because hierarchy and subordination have existed since the earliest days (canon 2); that power and authority come directly from God and are not delegated by the people (canon 2); that Noah was granted power and authority by God and passed it on to his sons through hereditary succession (canon 6); and that it is beyond the power of Noah’s successors to alter the political system established by God (canon 8). These propositions anchor the hereditary monarchy in natural law and reject the idea that the people played a role in its establishment, granting them zero authority to place limits on the exercise of royal power. The canons go on to argue that this state of nature persisted in Israel even under the reign of the divinely appointed prophets, judges and kings – all of whom were appointed by God alone, and not by the people of Israel (canons 11, 13, 15 and 17). The leaderless period after the death of Joshua, by contrast, was a time of disorder and therefore not a political state worthy of emulation (canon 13). However, the Convocations’ decision to legitimise the monarchy through natural law prevents them from seeing the installation of Saul as first king as a founding event in the history of the monarchy. As such, Saul appears as only one of the many leaders mentioned in the canons, which include prophets, judges and other kings. Likewise, Samuel’s speech on the nature of kingship (1 Sam. 8) and David’s refusal to harm the anointed of the Lord are mentioned only briefly. In other words, the Convocations’ decision to deploy arguments from natural law and their concomitant declaration that monarchy is the only natural form of government that has existed since the creation diminish the discursive value of the biblical exempla drawn from the historia sacra.

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When we examine the canons addressing the right of resistance, we find that the Convocations saw some biblical exempla more as a challenge to be overcome than as a valid source of legitimacy. Canon 16, for example, offers a principled rejection of the idea that the Old Testament could be used to justify disobedience to either fathers or monarchs, while canons 18 and 21 stress that the Church cannot claim a privileged speaking role against the king, and that both the high priests of ancient Israel and the Christian Church have always been subject to royal authority. Furthermore, five of the canons explicitly dismiss a number of biblical exempla that were frequently cited as precedents for legitimising disobedience to earthly authorities. Canon 11 asserts that the Exodus from Egypt was only lawful because it had been commanded directly by God and was therefore unsuitable as an example of rebellion against a tyrant. Likewise, canon 22 states that although the high priest Azariah was right to oppose King Uzziah (2 Chr. 26), and Uriah was wrong to obey King Ahaz’s command to erect a copy of the altar of Damascus in the temple (2 Kings 16), this did not give anyone the right to depose their king, even if he was guilty of idolatry. Nor did the actions of the high priest Jehoiada (2 Kings 11–12) justify the idea that the clergy had any authority over the king (canon 23). Meanwhile, canon 25 stipulates that the figures of Samuel, Elizeus (Elisha) and Jehu, who all rose up against reigning kings, were expressly chosen and commanded to do so by God, and therefore cannot serve as precedents for the right to resist unless rebellion against modern-day kings can also be proved – ‘with sufficient and special authority’ – to have been commanded by God himself.100 And finally, canon 27 maintains that neither the examples of Ahud (Ehud; Judg. 3) nor Adonijah (1 Kings 1–2) offer any grounds for tyrannicide.101 It was not enough, however, for the canons to strip individual biblical passages of their political relevance and to assert that only natural law applied, since this did nothing to resolve the issue that the Convocations’ understanding of hereditary monarchy as derived from natural law was not congruent with numerous points in biblical tradition, or with certain key historical events. For example: why was Solomon the legitimate king of Israel and Judah when Adonijah, as David’s firstborn son, should have inherited the throne through primogeniture – a principle supposedly anchored in natural law (1 Kings 1)? And how could the rule of William the Conqueror and his successors in England be squared with the principle of hereditary monarchy, given that he assumed power by conquest? The bishops could hardly deny the relevance of these examples or concede that they were instances of illegitimate usurpation. That meant that the argument from natural law needed to be bolstered by an additional line of reasoning that could explain and justify deviations from the basic legal principle. Hadrian Saravia turned to divine providence to resolve the dilemma, arguing that God alone has the right and the means to overrule His own law in certain situations. And the Convocations likewise used the notion of providence to

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legitimise historical deviations from the principle of hereditary monarchy set out in natural law – an interpretive strategy that resulted in canon 28 and incurred the wrath of the king.102 Essentially, the text attests to the legal situation: neither rebellions nor conquest were legitimate means of gaining power, and the fact that God used these means to intervene in earthly matters, either to correct or to punish, did not diminish their wickedness. Yet the bishops also needed to reconcile legal principles with realities, which led them to declare that even rulers who assumed power by rebellion or conquest were blessed with sovereign authority by God once their regimes were fully established.103 Glenn Burgess notes that although James disapproved of the canons of 1606, they were not received critically by the wider public.104 In Burgess’s view, this was because they largely agreed with the ideological consensus in England over the legitimacy of the monarchy in theory and practice. It was generally accepted that the king owed his authority directly to God and that the people had no right to resist him, so the canons were in line with the majority view.105 Moreover, Burgess points out that the canons only addressed the legitimacy of the monarchy on a very basic level and did not discuss taxation or legislation rights, leaving the primary interests of both Parliament and common law judges untouched. As a result, he reasons, these important participants in the political debate had no reason to publicly object. Burgess contrasts this with Parliament’s response to the publication of John Cowell’s legal dictionary The Interpreter (to take one example), which very clearly addressed the extent of the king’s prerogative rights in a way that appeared to cast doubt on Parliament’s right of participation.106 It is certainly true that the likelihood of Parliament conducting critical debates over political speech acts was always higher when MPs felt their rights of political participation were in danger, which is why The Interpreter proved so divisive in 1610. In that respect, Burgess is on the right track. Yet we cannot take the lack of critical reception to the canons of 1606 as proof that they were uncontroversial. For one thing, they received little attention, since the king’s refusal to sign off on them meant they never came into force or saw publication, and so most secular MPs and peers would not have known much about their actual contents.107 For another, the Convocations’ assertions regarding the legitimacy of the monarchy may be compatible with the core position that kingship is divine in origin and that resistance is impermissible, but the same cannot be said for their detailed readings of the Bible and their insistence on the natural inequality of men. Unfortunately, however, these points are missing from Burgess’s account. When we compare the canons of 1606 with those of the year 1640, we can see a clear distinction between controversial statements on patriarchy and indisputable statements concerning the divine right of kings. Indeed, the concise pronouncements of the Convocations of 1640 on the question of royal authority provide a clearer expression of the consensus over the divine origins of the monarchy than do the detailed statements set out in Bishop Overall’s Convocation

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Book. Although the canons of 1640 were certainly controversial, criticism in England was directed not at the Convocations’ statements on the monarchy, but at their numerous decrees in support of the ceremonies and the status of bishops in the Church.108 By contrast, their assertions regarding Crown authority were uncontroversial in England even on the eve of the Long Parliament: ‘The most high and sacred order of kings is of divine right, being the ordinance of God himself, founded in the prime laws of nature, and clearly established by express texts both of the Old and New Testaments’.109 The above quotation specifically points to the Bible as an authority on and source of royal power; and yet the canons of 1640 refrain from close readings of Scripture. They derive monarchical authority from both natural law and general biblical statements in order to suggest congruence between patriarchal authority and royal power, but they also assert that the latter was only established in the historia sacra with the anointment of Saul as king of Israel and other historical events. These competing origin stories are therefore dialectically linked in such a way that their contradictions appear to be resolved. In other words, it seems that the Bible offered a broader and more acceptable means of legitimising the monarchy when cited as a quasi-abstract authority than through close reading of individual passages.

The Sacralisation of the Monarchy The Controversy over the Oath of Allegiance On 9 November 1605, James I gave a speech before both Houses of Parliament outlining his interpretation of the attempt on his life that had been exposed just four days earlier, and which subsequently went down in history as the Gunpowder Plot.110 The king did not neglect the opportunity to present himself as an instrument of divine providence, since God had saved him from destruction along with the country’s political and spiritual elite.111 In the written record of his address, James stresses the theological nature of his speech, thereby assuming a role before Parliament that he had already repeatedly claimed for himself in Scotland – that of theologian-in-chief of the monarchy.112 Drawing on the Psalms, he first discusses the divine origins of the monarchy and the role of the king as God’s direct representative on earth.113 He then emphasises the dangers resulting from this status to which he was exposed more than most, pointing to the many attempts on his life that had begun even before he was born. In James’s eyes, the sheer number of failed attempts to assassinate him served as proof that he was chosen by God, since God had always miraculously saved him from harm.114 His speech further condemns all attacks on the king not only as high

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treason, but also as sacrilege, and he argues that the cause of this latest outrage is religious delusion – in particular, the principle propagated by the Pope and his followers ‘that it was lawfull, or rather meritorious … to murther Princes or people for quarrel of Religion.’115 This was an idea that James undertook to resist with all the means at his disposal. The first measure he took was the oath of allegiance, which was proclaimed law by Parliament in 1606.116 From then on, all Catholics – or rather, anyone who did not regularly attend church services on Sundays – had to swear that James I was the lawful king of England and that the Pope could neither depose him nor release the king’s subjects from their duty to obey him, even in the event of his excommunication. They also had to denounce as ‘impious’ and ‘hereticall’ the idea that monarchs excommunicated by the Pope could be deposed or assassinated.117 At the same time, James also sought to disseminate his concept of the sanctity of the monarchy across Europe through both his own writings and those of his ministers and other authors from his court. From the outset, these texts discussed not only the legality of his new oath, but also a specific understanding of kingship drawn primarily from the Old Testament. The Pope’s response to the oath of allegiance almost certainly set the tone for the ensuing controversy. Paul V warned English Catholics not to take the oath as it contradicted Catholic dogma on a number of counts.118 Instead, he urged them to model their behaviour on the holy martyrs and trust that God would reward them for their steadfastness. Cardinal Bellarmine likewise encouraged Catholics to refuse the oath in a letter to George Blackwell, the Catholic Archpriest of England, in which he argued that it called papal primacy into question. In effect, these official communications from Rome forced English Catholics to choose between loyalty to the king and allegiance to their spiritual leader. This was the context in which James I launched a public debate over whether his oath violated Christian precepts, or whether those who refused to take it were at fault. His treatise Triplici Nodo, Triplex Cuneus, or an Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance, published anonymously in February 1608, is an attempt to justify the lawfulness of the oath of allegiance by means of a principled defence of the divinely established monarchy that draws primarily on biblical arguments.119 James’s argument distils the political content of the New Testament to Romans 13:1, which he sees as a permanently binding norm with no limits or exceptions: ‘Subjects are bound to obey their Princes for conscience sake, whether they were good or wicked Princes’.120 James presents this rule not as a matter of secular law, but as an article of faith, so that failure to uphold it would jeopardise one’s salvation and any attempt to relativise it would constitute heresy – a stance that is also reflected in the wording of the oath of allegiance itself. James also draws on the Church Fathers and on ecclesiastical history in his efforts to paint the oath of allegiance as a natural product of religious orthodoxy.121

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For James, the Old Testament was a source of normative examples of the obedience that God commanded subjects to show their worldly rulers. These include the Israelites’ pledge of loyalty to Joshua (Josh. 1:17), Jeremiah’s call for allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 27:12), Moses and Aaron’s entreaty to the Pharaoh for leave to depart (Exod. 5:1) and the permission granted by Cyrus to the people of Israel to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple there (Ezra 1: 2–3).122 It is no coincidence that of the four biblical gestures of loyalty and submission cited by James, three were directed at rulers who are seen as heretical and cruel tyrants in Christian teaching. Despite their despotism, their subjects were still bound to obedience. Furthermore, by pointing to Joshua as the personification of a king of Israel, James brings the prophetic leaders of the Old Testament into the biblical tradition of monarchical rule. The historical books of the Bible likewise offer James a means of demonstrating the existence of royal supremacy over the Church since the inception of the monarchy in ancient Israel. In James’s view, the king is custos utriusque tabulae – keeper of both tablets of the law – and there is no biblical justification for papal primacy.123 With this interpretation, James revived the dispute between imperium and sacerdotium that dated back to the Middle Ages. He saw the monarchy as a form of government established by God himself, and the king as a divine representative whose authority also extended to ecclesiastical officials. James likewise dismissed the Pope’s claim to be God’s representative on earth and, by extension, rejected all his purported sovereign rights. For James, the Pope’s claim to plenitudo potestatis was evidence of an arrogated supremacy that was derived neither from Scripture nor from early church traditions, and was effectively a usurpation of royal authority.124 It was not long before Catholic scholars took up the gauntlet James had thrown down. In the same year, Robert Parsons responded with his Judgment of a Catholicke English-Man, while Responsio Matthaei Torti – probably written by none other than Robert Bellarmine – also rejected James’s defence of the oath of allegiance.125 In his counterblast, Parsons denies the legitimacy of the oath of allegiance on the basis that it impermissibly mixes the issue of secular loyalty with matters of faith that in no way obliged subjects to show unconditional obedience to their king.126 Indeed, he argues, this is the key to understanding Romans 13: it is true that secular authority must be obeyed for the sake of salvation, but only if such obedience does not itself incur the risk of damnation. This reading of Romans 13, which is also found in the writings of David Pareus, George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford, attaches certain conditions to the duty of obedience.127 Parsons goes on to argue that the Old Testament examples cited by James only address obedience in secular matters. Yet when Nebuchadnezzar commanded his subjects to worship a golden image, the loyalty of the Jews reached breaking point – just as it did when the Seleucids ordered them to break God’s laws and eat pork, with the Maccabean Revolt following as a rightful

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result.128 Additionally, Parsons supports the position that royal power was not directly bestowed by God but established by the people, whereas the Church was founded at the express command of Jesus Christ.129 In the wake of these Catholic objections, the conflict over who was God’s true representative on earth escalated. James published another text in defence of his position entitled A Praemonition to All Christian Monarches, which was addressed to every European ruler, but in particular the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Here, James not only revealed himself to be the author of the Apologie, but also reaffirmed its political theology of a divinely ordained monarchy and accused the Pope of usurping royal rights in his quest for power.130 James sought to win sympathisers and allies from among his fellow European monarchs, some of whom may have felt a similar threat to their regimes. The Praemonition adds a new dimension to James’s attack on papal claims to power: by means of an exegesis of the Book of Revelation in particular, he seeks to prove that the Pope is no less than the Antichrist himself.131 This reading of the Apocalypse draws on James’s earlier exegetical writings, but goes beyond them in establishing a direct link between the fundamental Protestant view of the Pope as Antichrist, and James’s belief that the monarchy was established directly by God.132 For James, the fact that the Pope claimed the right to excommunicate monarchs, thereby releasing subjects from their oath of political loyalty, was the key piece of evidence for equating him with the Antichrist. In Revelation 17:18, the Whore of Babylon is characterised as ‘that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth’ – a passage that in James’s view not only describes the Pope, but also proves the illegitimacy and heresy of his claims to power.133 Likewise, James saw the arguments in favour of the right to resist put forth by Catholic polemic theologians, along with their claim that the institution of the monarchy came from the people and not directly from God, as proof that the Pope had propagated a false doctrine in order to increase his own power.134 Indeed, in the Book of Revelation, the kings wronged by the Whore of Babylon ultimately aid in her destruction, thereby securing salvation. Although the monarchs James addresses in his letter had long obeyed the Pope’s wishes and promoted Roman Catholic idolatry within their kingdoms, James tells them that God will show them the light in due course: … wee shall in the time appointed by God, having thus fought with the Lambe, but being overcome by him, that is, converted by his Word; wee shall then (I say) hate the Whore, and make her desolate, and make her naked, by discovering her hypocrisie and false pretence of zeale; and shall eate her flash, and burne her with fire.135

In James’s view, this sacred duty to destroy the Antichrist applied equally to all kings, irrespective of their confession, and made the monarchy not only a divinely ordained institution, but also an essential instrument of divine salvation.

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James’s contributions to the public debate over the oath of allegiance sought to claim God as a political argument in favour of the monarchy. He felt his own position to be jeopardised by others using religion and the transcendental authority of God as a pretext to escape the yoke of obedience to the king, which explains why he primarily took aim at the political theology of papal supremacy and the Pope’s self-appointed role in policing the orthodoxy of the European monarchs. At the same time, the Pope’s self-appointed role as vicarius Christi competed with James’s emphasis on kings being called directly by God to rule on earth on His behalf. Both sides tried to contest the other’s divine mandate: for Catholic polemic theologians, the monarchy was a purely human institution and kings were ultimately appointed by the people, while James saw the doctrine of papal primacy and the Pope’s role as overseer of the monarchy as a usurpation of secular powers. These opposing views were voiced frequently in the years that followed, as James secured the support of numerous clergymen for the views he presented in his own writings. In 1608, he commissioned Lancelot Andrewes to write a tract outlining the legitimacy of the oath and the divine origins of the monarchy, and many other theologians followed in his footsteps, including some of the king’s court chaplains.136 In 1609, James further bolstered these efforts by founding King James’s College in Chelsea and appointing his Calvinist court chaplain Matthew Sutcliffe as provost; above all else, its fellows were to devote themselves to disputing with Catholic theologians.137 Several English Catholics wrote treatises avowing the legality of the king’s oath, in opposition to the papal view.138 And finally, James also received support from foreign scholars and theologians, including William Barclay, Isaac Casaubon and Pierre du Moulin.139 Johann Sommerville has already provided a detailed account of the course of the debate over the oath of allegiance, which I will not repeat here.140 He also rightly points out the importance of this controversy as a paradigm for political thought in England, as the arguments deployed by both sides regarding the character of the monarchy are reflected in the conflicts between Royalists and the supporters of the Long Parliament during the Civil War.141 Yet despite the multiplicity of voices participating in the debate, not many new arguments were brought to bear on it.142 After all, James I had already set the tone with his Triplici Nodo and Praemonition, and all other advocates of divine right drew on the same biblical arguments to defend their positions and to ward off papal influence over the monarchy. Much like James’s, their arguments centred on three key sources. First, Romans 13 defined the unconditional duty of subjects to obey their king, irrespective of how pious he was.143 Second, the historical books of the Old Testament documented both the divine origins of the monarchy and the king’s role as God’s representative on earth. They also provided numerous exempla that attested to royal authority, including over the clergy, and assigned a priestlike role to the king – although the long-established argument from patriarchy, which

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derived the political power of the monarchy from that of a father over his family, initially played a lesser role in the debate over the oath of allegiance.144 And third, the authors rejected the doctrine of papal primacy by contesting the Catholic reading of Matthew 16:18 that Peter was designated sole leader of the Church. Beyond these points, some authors also equated the Pope with the Antichrist in order to emphasise that his claims to power over the Church and reigning kings alike were incompatible with Christian doctrine.145 By contrast, the Catholic opposition showed a somewhat greater shift in position over the course of the debate – at least in terms of how they constructed their arguments.146 Although the first reactions to the oath of allegiance – the two papal briefs and Cardinal Bellarmine’s letter to Archpriest Blackwell – largely presented biblicist arguments, this changed over the course of the controversy. In particular, the Jesuit Martin Becanus took it upon himself to write a detailed rebuttal of the Bible reading put forth by Protestant advocates of divine right, addressing each of their arguments in turn according to the rules of polemic theology. In his writings, Becanus disputes the right of James and all other Christian monarchs to position themselves as successors to the kings of the Old Testament, arguing that the latter wielded authority over their priests not as kings, but as prophets: ‘simul prophetae aut Pontifices’.147 This was a privilege they had lost, however; after the coming of Christ, the idea that kings enjoyed any priestlike status became equivalent to usurping the Church’s authority. After all, it was Peter whom Jesus instructed to ‘feed my sheep’ (John 21:15–17), not any king.148 In this light, the royal supremacy claimed by Henry VIII was an innovation and a usurpation of what were originally clerical privileges.149 Becanus also takes great pains to prove that the priesthood of the Old Testament – a forerunner to the Pope – was instituted directly by God, while monarchy owed its existence solely to the people. He points out that Aaron was chosen by God himself, whereas it was the elders of Israel, as the representatives of the people, who pleaded with Samuel to institute a monarchy, leading to the anointment of Saul as the first king (1 Sam. 8).150 What was more, Aaron took office more than four hundred years before Saul, so the origins of priesthood predated those of the monarchy. Becanus further notes that every priest mentioned in the Old Testament was anointed, which was not the case for every king.151 Taken together, these points lead Becanus to conclude that kings were subordinate to high priests in the Old Testament.152 This reading comes with implications for the question of whether the Pope had the right to depose ruling kings. Here too, Becanus voices support for the Pope based on the actions of the Old Testament high priests – although he is scraping the barrel somewhat when he cites the right of priests to declare lepers unclean in Leviticus 13:2–44 as evidence of the Pope’s right of deposition.153 Another example offered by Becanus is the overthrow of Queen Athaliah

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through the efforts of the priest Jehoiada (2 Kings 11).154 He further argues that the people themselves have the right to depose their king, pointing to the history of Israel’s monarchy in which tyrants and idolaters alike were toppled.155 Becanus’s writings clearly demonstrate that no confession could claim a monopoly over the political language of biblicism. Although his arguments were entirely in line with the political doctrine propagated by the Curia (especially the Jesuits) and were essentially a reiteration of Robert Bellarmine’s views, Becanus was original in that he based his arguments almost exclusively on Scripture, thereby contradicting the charge frequently levelled by James I and others that the doctrines of papal primacy and the right of deposition had no foundation in the Bible.156 Moreover, his arguments against royal authority over the Church were based on the same biblical exempla and exegesis deployed by the Scottish Presbyterians Andrew and James Melville, who were also vocal critics of royal supremacy. As it dragged on, the long debate over the legitimacy of the monarchy, the right of resistance and the Pope’s potestas indirecta to depose reigning monarchs became increasingly pan-European in scope.157 It was particularly intense in France, where defending the monarchy against religiously motivated attacks had become a pressing political objective after the murders of two successive kings by Catholic assassins. For advocates of the Crown, the sacralisation of the person of the king seemed a suitable means of accomplishing this goal. Therefore, at the meeting of the Estates-General in 1614, the Third Estate tried to reinforce the authority of the monarchy by introducing an oath of allegiance to the still underage Louis XIII that would underline the unconditional loyalty due to the king and weaken any rights of deposition claimed by the Pope. James I’s oath of allegiance undoubtedly served as a model for this; yet the attempt failed due to the objections of the French clergy, with Cardinal Jacques Davy du Perron’s speech to the Third Estate likely playing a decisive role. His speech was printed soon afterwards, representing yet another public attack by a prominent Catholic clergyman on the sanctity of kings and also offering evidence of the weakness of the French throne during the regency of Maria de’ Medici.158 Du Perron’s words offered James I a new reason to take up his pen and call publicly for interconfessional solidarity among the crowned heads of Europe in the face of papal claims to secular power. In this new text, which was initially published in French, James reiterates the arguments he developed during the debate over his oath of allegiance in order to demonstrate the independence and inviolability of reigning monarchs.159 In James’s view, kings were left in a very vulnerable position if they could only be secure of their status as long as the Pope did not declare them heretics and demand their overthrow.160 Even du Perron’s concession that kings could not be deposed solely at the whim of the Pope, but that the consent of the people was required too, offered James scant comfort; on the contrary, it became all the more

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important for him to defend kings from overthrow not just by the Pope, but also by their subjects.161 Compared to James’s earlier writings on the legitimacy of monarchical rule, this treatise focuses less on biblical sources than on long forays into ecclesiastical history. In it, James seeks to prove that papal claims to secular authority – especially the right of deposition – are new and were not present in the papacy’s response to Julian the Apostate (for example).162 Bible passages are only cited in order to argue against du Perron’s own readings of Scripture; for example, in response to the latter’s argument that the prophet Samuel deposed King Saul for disobeying God’s commands (1 Sam. 15), James argues that Saul actually remained king until his death, and points to the fact that David twice refused to imprison or kill Saul because he had been anointed by the Lord. In James’s view, Saul’s rejection by God was equivalent to excommunication, but did not result in the loss of his throne.163 James takes a similar approach to the other prime biblical examples used in the debate over the right of resistance, pointing out that although the prophet Elias (Elijah) foretold the fall of King Ahab because of the ruler’s idolatry, he did not strip him of his throne (1 Kings 21). Likewise, the high priest Azariah tried to stop King Uzziah from entering the inner sanctum of the Temple to perform ritual acts that were reserved for consecrated priests; yet despite his transgression, Uzziah was not deposed, but punished by God with leprosy, leading him to withdraw from human society without losing his crown (2 Chr. 26).164 By contrast, James argues, the actions of the high priest Mattathias against the hellenistic King Antiochus do not offer a valid example because the Maccabean Revolt was an illegitimate conspiracy and uprising by the people of Israel. And finally, to emphasise that all subjects are obligated to unconditionally obey the Crown, James cites the classic example of Romans 13, which he interprets as an eternally valid divine law that brooks no exceptions.165

The Debate in England The speech acts concerning the divine right of kings that I have examined so far were linked to James’s succession as heir to the English throne and the legitimacy of the hereditary monarchy in general – a particularly pressing topic in France, where the Wars of Religion were raging – and were also part of the debate over the oath of allegiance, which likewise found resonance in France. Defences of hereditary monarchy and the sanctity of kings were thus largely directed outwards and embedded in the context of a pan-European debate; yet appeals were addressed to the English public too. Under James I, sermons were a favourite tool for shaping the image of the monarchy, and – when published – were perhaps the most influential means of propagating political messages among the public.166

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Of the three political occasions for annual commemorative sermons on the monarchy and the rule of James I, two were associated with attempts to assassinate the king: sermons of remembrance were given each year in honour of James’s accession to the throne, the failure of the Gowrie Conspiracy (1600) and the Gunpowder Plot (1605).167 All three occasions offered an opportunity to demonstrate the close ties between James (along with the monarchy in general) and God, and to substantiate these by means of biblicist arguments. William Barlow’s sermon preached from St Paul’s Cross on 10 November 1605, just five days after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, was one of the earliest such responses to the affair and thus provided several paradigmatic building blocks for the many sermons that followed. One of these was the idea of James I’s special divine favour, which the king himself had alluded to the day before in his speech to Parliament.168 Another was the reference to the sanctity of the king as the anointed of the Lord. Barlow’s sermon revolves around Psalm 18, David’s psalm of gratitude for his deliverance and his victory, which (in the King James Version of the Bible) ends with the words: ‘Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name. Great deliverance giveth he to his king: and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.’ As Barlow clearly emphasises, anointment raises kings from the purely secular sphere and grants them sacred qualities.169 This partaking in the holiness of the Lord underscores the divine quality of royal rule and turns all acts of resistance into attacks on the order established and sanctioned by God. Just as advocates of divine right in the constitutional debate over the monarchy never tired of stressing that the monarchy had been founded by God, a number of theologians likewise made a point of emphasising the sanctity of the king. Above all, however, many of the sermons held on the anniversary of the attempted assassination of King James were directed at both Catholic and radical Protestant critics of the monarchy, as Lori Anne Ferrell has rightly pointed out.170 Indeed, as occasions for annual days of remembrance, the failed Gowrie Conspiracy in Scotland and the Gunpowder Plot ensured a measure of equality in the accusations made against both Protestant and Catholic critics of the monarchy. In his sermon on the Gunpowder Plot, Barlow accuses John Knox and George Buchanan of committing sacrilege by attacking the anointed of the Lord, and he also includes the proponents of further Church reforms in his critique.171 By doing so, Barlow brands as sacrilegious not only attempts on the king’s life and endorsements of the right to resist, but also, in effect, all criticism of the existing Church regime. In a series of annual sermons held before the king and his court on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot from 1606 until 1618, the Bishop of Ely, Lancelot Andrewes, sought to protect the king from attacks on his rule by reference to the word of God.172 In his 1609 sermon, he reminds his audience of the

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example of the Samaritans who refused shelter to Jesus and his disciples on their way to Jerusalem. Two of the disciples suggested threatening the Samaritans with destruction by heavenly fire, but Jesus dismissed the idea with the words, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Sonne of man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them’ (Luke 9:55–56).173 Andrewes interprets this passage as rejecting all violence in the name of religion. He holds up Jesus’s answer as a model for all Christians, thereby not only denouncing the intentions of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot as unchristian, but also condemning all doctrines that proclaim violent struggle against infidels and heretics. In this way, he endorses a policy of interconfessional reconciliation for the Church of England – which, as Ferrell has argued, amounts to excluding committed Calvinists, for whom the struggle against the Antichrist was an essential element of obedience to the lex dei – and also undermines the religious arguments used to legitimise the right to resist reigning monarchs.174 The assassination of Henry IV of France on 14 May 1610 offered another reminder of the vulnerability of kings, and prompted Andrewes to emphasise once again the special sanctity of crowned heads in his sermon on 5 August commemorating the anniversary of the Gowrie Conspiracy.175 The sermon was published soon afterwards by the king’s printer, and thus essentially reflects James I’s own views. In it, Andrewes touches on a Bible passage that was essential to the idea of a sacral monarchy: ‘Touch not mine anointed’ (1 Chr. 16:22). This divine injunction was directed at the rulers of the peoples of Canaan during the time of Abraham and Jacob to ensure that they did no harm to the leaders of the Israelites, who were wandering the land. Andrewes reads this command as a provision of natural law and therefore as a divine ordinance that established the inviolability of all kings for all time.176 He reaches this conclusion by placing the kings in the tradition of the patriarchs and viewing Abraham and his successors as ‘princes in their generation’.177 These figures unite ‘fatherhood and government’, with kings later taking their place.178 With this argument, Andrewes presents patriarchal power as the origin of the monarchy and therefore sees monarchical power as a facet of natural law – much like the injunction not to touch the anointed of the Lord. This recourse to natural law offers Andrewes several possible arguments with which to shield the monarchy from external interference. The fact that God designated the biblical patriarchs as the anointed of the Lord shows that this status was not dependent on the formal ritual of anointment; rather, it stemmed from their leadership role.179 From this premise, Andrewes reaches the politically desirable conclusion that the men who conduct the ceremony of anointment cannot claim the right to determine who should be anointed.180 Andrewes sees all kings equally as anointed of the Lord, regardless of their confession. In his eyes, this is not a matter of personal character or distinction, but a quality inherent to the office of kingship that extends to all those who hold

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it: ‘sacred is the office, whereunto they designed, sacred the power wherewith they indued, sacred the persons whereto it applied.’181 And by virtue of the special nature of this office, Andrewes also grants all kings – regardless of their confession – an affinity with Jesus, who is the only figure described in the Bible as the Lord’s anointed beside the kings.182 This, he argues, applies even to tyrants such as Cyrus the Great and the first Jewish king, Saul.183 Andrewes draws the line only at rulers who usurped the throne rather than assuming power through legitimate means. Nimrod, for example, should not be seen as a king and the anointed of the Lord, but as an unlawful despot.184 This limit likely stemmed from the memory of James I’s objections to the canons of 1606 and their understanding of monarchy as a product of providence, whereby the legitimacy of a given monarch was based on their de facto status as ruler – a position Andrewes does not adopt here. According to Andrewes, any ruler whose legitimacy is beyond doubt possesses the status ‘anointed of the Lord’ irrevocably and forever. Even if a king proves to be a tyrant, the sanctity of his status remains unchanged, and Andrewes sees any restrictions on it as an attack on the monarchy and the hierarchical order established by God: … if he will not heare a Masse, no Catholicke, no Anointed. If after hee is anointed, hee grow defective, (to speake their owne language) proove a Tyrant, fall to favour Heretickes, his anointing may be wiped off, or scraped off, and then you may write a booke De iusta abdicatione, make a holy league, touch him, or blow him up as ye list. This [opinion] hath cost Christendome deare: It is a dangerous sore, a Noli me tangere; take heed of it, touch it not.185

For Andrewes, any attempt to attach conditions to the legitimacy of a reigning king was an offence against the divine commandment not to harm the anointed of the Lord, and the same applied to disparaging speech acts and treatises that encroached on the court and on the majesty of the king.186 Eleven years later, Andrewes also cautioned the court of James I not to endanger the mystique of the monarchy with critical remarks about his foreign policy by reminding them once again of the king’s sanctity.187 The mystical quality of kingship was the subject not only of many sermons, but also of several speeches James I made to Parliament. In his address to both Houses on 21 March 1610 in particular, he tried to bring his ideas about divine right into harmony with the role of a King-in-Parliament, as rooted in common law.188 This was doubtless prompted by the Bishop of Chichester, Samuel Harsnett, who had revealed his own understanding of the divine right of kings in a sermon on 11 March. Harsnett argued that because kings were appointed by God, they had the right to raise taxes as they saw fit, without necessarily having to gain the consent of Parliament.189 This sermon, preached in the Chapel Royal before the king himself, did not exactly foster a spirit of compro-

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mise among MPs; rather, it raised doubts among many members about James’s willingness to adhere to English common law and the established constitutional order. Publications such as James Cowell’s Interpreter, which depicted the king as ‘supra legem’ – that is, above the law of the land – further inflamed these doubts, even though James had expressly refused permission for Cowell’s publication.190 In his speech to Parliament, the king explains his understanding of the sacred quality of monarchy in great detail, stressing the role of kings as ‘God’s Lieutenants upon earth’ who reign from God’s throne. In other words, their authority is comparable to that of God: ‘they exercise a manner or resemblance of Divine power upon earth’.191 James goes on to set out his understanding of this godlike power in detail: ‘they make and unmake their subjects: they have power of raising, and casting downe: of life, and of death: Judges over all their subjects and in all causes, and yet accomptable to none but God onely.’192 The list is reminiscent of Samuel’s speech on the consequences of monarchy, and one doubts that it met with the approbation of everyone in James’s audience. On the other hand, James mitigates this description of kingship by distinguishing between monarchical power in the abstract and the actual powers of a monarch ruling in an established kingdom with a constitutional tradition that reflects the fundamental laws of the land.193 In the latter, he notes, the king chooses to adhere to the laws of the land – partly because he is the guarantor of these laws, and partly because he explicitly swore to follow them in his coronation oath.194 Any king who violates this oath is a tyrant whom God will not leave unpunished. Yet James grants neither his subjects nor Parliament any leverage if they find themselves living under tyranny: all they can do is hope for better times and for divine deliverance.195 Despite offering MPs his personal reassurance that he would always obey the laws of England, James also admonishes them: ‘That as to dispute what God may doe, is Blasphemie … So it is sedition in Subjects, to dispute what a King may do in the height of his power: But just Kings wil ever be willing to declare what they wil do, if they wil not incurre the curse of God.’196 In a similarly ambiguous way, James affirms Parliament’s right to debate the grievances of his subjects and present their cases to him, but adds that MPs should not seek to interfere in the business of government or to instruct the king: ‘I must not be taught my Office’.197 Was James able to dispel the doubts of the assembled MPs, or did his speech merely fan the flames? The response from his audience was positive: they accepted James’s speech as a clear commitment to the established governing practice of the Crown-in-Parliament and to common law as a guide for political action. Members of subsequent Parliaments went on to cite James’s speech with approval – especially its distinction between a king who ruled by the law of the land and a tyrant who trespassed against it.198 Indeed, John Locke adopts the same distinction between these two forms of rule in his Two Treatises of Government, albeit without explicitly referring to James’s speech.199

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Such is the evidence for how James’s speech was understood – or rather, how it was used by many MPs and authors to bolster their own political positions by citing the king’s authority. Yet historians still disagree over the true intentions and political positions behind the king’s words. Was his speech merely a reconciliatory gesture to avoid endangering the proceedings in Parliament, as Johann Sommerville supposes?200 Did it, as Paul Christianson has suggested, represent a kind of political reinvention on the part of the king – a public departure from the notion of a free monarchy as presented in The True Lawe and a clear signal of his acceptance that monarchy in England was limited by the law of the land?201 Or was the speech an ‘appeal to consensus’ which revealed that king and Parliament shared the same view of the divine right of kings and the same commitment to the binding power of common law over royal government, as Glenn Burgess argues?202 Of these three interpretations, Christianson’s is the least convincing. Comparing James’s 1610 speech with The True Lawe of Free Monarchies reveals no fundamental differences, but plenty of commonalities. Both texts affirm the notion that the monarchy was established by God alone and reject any possibility of either placing limits on the king’s power or holding him accountable for his actions after the fact. They both also point to God as the only judicial authority with the power to act against the king should he trespass against his coronation oath. In these respects, James’s speech to Parliament simply reiterated the arguments in his earlier treatise. We should also ask what the significance was of James’s commitment to respect the laws of England. In my view, it is essential to examine the exact words that James used, which reveal his rhetorical dexterity, but also raise doubts as to whether he really did share his audience’s opinion regarding the extent of royal power over England, as Burgess has argued. James did not tell Parliament that kings were bound by the law, but that they needed to be willing ‘to bound themselves within the limits of their Lawes’ in order to avoid ruling as tyrants.203 This is a declaration of intent, not a legal obligation. The real content of James’s message – despite his lip service to the English constitutional tradition – was that Parliament had to trust the king, but could make no demands of him. James was not trying to pull the wool over Parliament’s eyes, and his manner of government gives no indication that he ever sought to undermine the established order of the Crown-in-Parliament. All the same, it remains highly debatable whether MPs were satisfied with the idea that their political participation was entirely at the mercy of the king’s goodwill, instead of being based on clear, enforceable rights whose violation would call the legitimacy of the king into question.204 If Parliament favoured the latter view, we can hardly read James’s speech as attesting to consensus between MPs and the king. Instead, we must see it as an impressive piece of rhetorical sleight of hand, in which James presented himself

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publicly as agreeing with Parliament on the English constitutional order without relinquishing his private opinion that the rights of kings were anchored in both natural and divine law.

James’s Exegetical Texts Revisited James’s speech on divine right and the king’s status as anointed of the Lord was staged in such a way as to emphasise the connection between James’s reign and the realm of the divine. However, almost no other element of James’s efforts to mould his public image had such a lasting impact as his decision to commission a new English translation of the Bible at the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604. The proposal for a new translation was put forward at the conference by John Rainolds, one of the few Puritans in attendance. The bishops were reluctant, but James heartily embraced the suggestion and linked it to a key concern of his own, in that he saw it as an opportunity to replace the Geneva Bible as the most widely read Bible in English. James disliked the Geneva Bible, declaring the interpretive footnotes and the political views on kingship expressed therein to be ‘very partiall, untrue, seditious’ and containing ‘daungerous, and trayterous conceipts’.205 Presumably, the king hoped a new translation would express the idea of divine right in a way that found resonance with the public. James pressed on with this new project despite the initial delaying tactics of his bishops.206 Six groups of scholars were tasked with comparing existing Bible translations with the original texts and producing an improved version where necessary.207 In this way, the existing plethora of English Bible translations would be replaced by a single translation commissioned and authorised by the king. Further, instead of voluminous footnotes offering a variety of possible interpretations, the new translation would convey a single, conclusive message.208 The goal was not to replace the footnotes of the Geneva Bible and their criticisms of the king with new interpretations that supported the monarchy, but to illustrate the clarity of the Bible by omitting all explanatory footnotes. Nonetheless, the king’s divine mandate was communicated to the public in various ways on the translation’s publication in 1611.209 The very title points to James as initiator of the project, while the dedication to the king and the translators’ foreword to the reader also contain numerous references to James’s particular role as king, defender of the true faith and God’s foremost servant on earth. In their dedication to the king, the translators emphasise that he is directly appointed by God and refer to him as a ‘sanctified person’.210 They also mention his role as the ‘nourcing Father’ of the Church – a role that James fulfilled in exemplary fashion by writing numerous scholarly treatises on religion

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and commissioning the new translation of the Bible.211 For the translators, he is ‘principall moover and Author of the Worke’.212 Like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I before him, James sought to use the Bible to bolster his regime. Like his predecessors, he fashioned himself as introducing his subjects to the benefits of Scripture and divine truth, and England therefore owed him gratitude for ‘the opening and clearing of the word of God’, as the translators wrote in their foreword.213 Yet James also did all he could to ensure that his translation replaced previous versions. The King James Bible was the only translation printed at the king’s behest and also the only one available in prestigious folio format after 1611. Although the Geneva Bible remained popular until the Civil War and appeared in several new editions published by the king’s own printer, only the Authorised Version combined both royal and divine authority. The King James Bible also reveals to us how its creators wanted readers to conceive of the relationship between the word of God and that of the king. For example, in order to justify why the Bible was the word of God both in English translation and in its original Greek and Hebrew texts, the translators used the analogy of James’s speech to Parliament, which remained the words of the king even in its various translations.214 And while the paratext of the King James Bible was printed in roman type, the Scriptures themselves were printed in blackletter – the same typeface used for royal proclamations.215 In other words, the word of God had the same ‘look’ as that of the king. Five years later, in 1616, a collected edition was published of James I’s works, edited by the Dean of the Chapel Royal, James Montagu. It brought together the many works the king had written since the beginning of his reign in Scotland and made them available to the public once more in one prestigious volume. This was something altogether new: no monarch prior to James I had ever published a collection of their own works during their lifetime.216 The very format of the publication lent the texts an air of classicism and lasting authority, and aimed to depict the king as a fount of eternal values and truths. In formal terms, the book was designed to resemble the King James Bible as closely as possible: both books appeared in folio format, both had very similar pictures on their title pages, and both were published by the king’s printer, Robert Barker.217 These choices were part of a deliberate strategy to present James’s works as equivalent in status to Scripture and the king himself as a successor to the authors of the Bible. Further, it is no accident that the first text in the volume, A Paraphrase upon the Revelation of Apostle St. John, builds directly on the last chapter of the New Testament, making it, in a sense, a continuation of the word of God. In his introduction, James Montagu expands on the authorial links between the king and God, maintaining that because James’s works were composed over a long period and prompted by many different events, they were akin to the

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divine inspiration that also struck the authors of the Bible at different times and in different ways.218 Similarly, Montagu underscores the appropriateness of monarchs styling themselves as authors by pointing out that God, as the first author, inscribed his law into every human being: ‘And certainely from this little Library, that God hath erected within us, is the foundation of all our Learning layd’.219 Montagu further argues that James is following the authorial examples of Moses (who was not just a priest and a prophet, but also king of the people of Israel), David, Solomon and the prophet Samuel – all of whom had one thing in common: ‘All these were rather workes to manifest humane wisdome, then Divine knowledge’.220 Montagu then sets out a chain of royal authors leading up to Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, leaving us in no doubt that James’s works likewise convey at least as much ‘divine knowledge’ as ‘humane wisdome’.221 This was also reflected in the individual works compiled in the collection, which can all be described as pursuing the same goal – that of presenting the king as a ‘godly ruler’, a theologian and a prophet.222 In his two texts on the Book of Revelation and his Meditation on 1 Chronicles 15:25–9, James presents himself as the supreme exegete and theologian. In Daemonologie, he addresses the destructive influence of witches and defends the spiritual purity of his people. His mirror for princes, Basilikon Doron, exhorts his heir apparent, Prince Henry (who died before the collection was published), to be a God-fearing king. In The True Lawe of Free Monarchies, James roots both the monarchical government and his own royal title in the monarchy founded by God in the Old Testament, while his polemic A Counter-Blast to Tobacco paints him as the supreme physician tending to the health of his people. He defends his commitment to the oath of allegiance he imposed on all English Catholics in two treatises – An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance and A Praemonition to all Christian Monarches, Free Princes and States – in which he battles against the destructive influence of the Pope. He also intervenes directly in the theological debates raging across Europe with A Declaration against Vorstius and A Defence of the Right of Kings, in which he presents himself as the defender of the true faith. The book then ends with five speeches James made to Parliament and the Star Chamber, which also draw on biblical arguments in order to justify his policies. The affinity between these texts and the Bible is also expressed in their argumentation, as the majority of the works are either entirely, or largely, exegetical in nature. More than once, Montagu suggests that James’s readings of Scripture are just as divinely inspired as the Bible itself: ‘I leave it the world to judge, whether there were not a speciall hand of God in it, or no.’223 Taking the first text in the collection, the Paraphrase upon the Revelation of Apostle St. John, into special consideration, Montagu adds the following analogy: ‘Anciently Kings drempt dreames, and saw visions, and Prophets expounded them …

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In this aage [sic], Prophets have written Visions, and Kings have expounded them.’224 Throughout his reign, James was at pains to express the sacred quality he saw embodied in himself as king in a quasi-intellectual way through his works, and Montagu, as editor, underscored these efforts by portraying James in the role of a prophet. Through his spiritual authority as a bishop, he certified the king’s special affinity with God, and this purported sacred quality was particularly manifest in James’s writings. James published two further exegetical treatises after the appearance of his collected works: A Meditation upon the Lords Prayer, first published in 1619, and A Meditation upon the 27, 28, 29 Verses of the XXVII Chapter of St. Matthew: Or a Paterne for the Kings Inauguration, first printed in 1620. Both texts found their way into the second edition of his collected works, likewise published in 1620, and in them he once again assumes the role of theologian. In the first Meditation, James interprets the Lord’s Prayer as a model of true worship passed down through the Bible. He stresses the need for humility and submission before God owing to the vast gap between powerless humans and omnipotent God, with prayer offering the best form of communication in the face of this disparity.225 The king describes God as the sole proprietor of heaven and earth, as well as of all earthly goods.226 All worldly kingdoms, governments and honours, he maintains, are merely pale reflections of His power.227 Yet in several places, we also see James’s intention to share, as king, in this divine omnipotence and to claim for himself certain qualities attributed to God. For example, when discussing the injunction that revenge is the right of God alone, he tacks on the words, ‘and by deputation from him, to his Lieutenants upon earth’.228 He also claims that the prayer’s call to forgive others their trespasses is addressed to all subjects, but not to their rulers, who were called by God to punish offences and ensure that justice is done.229 And in his explanation of the words ‘Hallowed be they name’, James uses the analogy of an audience to the king: ‘For it were an impudent thing for any Subject to make a sute to his Soveraigne Prince, before hee did his homage unto him.’230 On the other hand, James describes Puritans in his Meditation as lacking all reverence for both God and the king. He sums up the Puritan position in the ecclesiastical conflict over Holy Communion – specifically, their refusal to kneel during the ceremony – with the words ‘the Puritans … love to sit Jackfellowlike with Christ at the Lords Table, as his brethren and camerades’.231 The arguments of church reformers were based on the rejection of any liturgical elements that do not appear in the New Testament. Here, however, James turns their own biblicist weapons against them by claiming that their attitude undermines the humility and submission before God demanded by Christ himself in the Lord’s Prayer – and also before the king, we might add, in keeping with James’s views.

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By writing about the Lord’s Prayer, the king once again asserts his role as the prime exegete of his realm, and also seeks to provide guidance for judging which Bible passages were most useful for discovering God’s truth. The Lord’s Prayer, he writes, is ‘plaine, smoothe and easie’ and therefore instructive, while the Book of Revelation (which James had interpreted more than once before) contains many fallacies and aberrations and is therefore not a suitable key to understanding the divine will.232 The reader, he suggests, should focus solely on Bible passages that are addressed directly to the faithful, and should not seek to fathom God’s ‘secret will in his eternal counsel’.233 Although James refrains from making any analogies with secular kingship here, there is an unmistakable link to Andrewes’s assertion that it was sacrilege to attack the king, who is the incarnation of God’s mysteries. Similarly, the last text James published during his lifetime – A Meditation upon the 27, 28, 29 Verses of the XXVII Chapter of St. Matthew: Or a Paterne for the Kings Inauguration – can be read as a further attempt to portray the monarchy as an inseparable part of the rule of God. While James’s Meditation upon the Lord’s Prayer implicitly alludes to a link between himself and the son of God, in this treatise he points overtly to the Messiah as one of his predecessors. His earlier description of Jesus as ‘King, Priest and Prophet’ in the Meditation upon the Lord’s Prayer is also a list of the roles that he publicly attributed to himself from his earliest exegetical writings onwards, but his later Meditation on Christ’s crown of thorns presents the institution of the monarchy as a whole as directly descended from the son of God.234 It is difficult to assign the latter Meditation to a genre.235 The text is addressed to James’s son and heir, Prince Charles, and provides an insight into his under-standing of kingship and the rights and duties of a monarch towards God and his subjects. As such, we can surely class it as a speculum principum; yet it is also a very different kind of text to Basilikon Doron. In its argument, it resembles more closely a sermon than a mirror for princes, much like James’s other Meditations. James derives his understanding of kingship from the passage Matthew 27:27–29, in which the crown of thorns is placed upon Christ’s head: Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!236

James reads this description of Christ’s martyrdom as a perfectly legitimate coronation ceremony, leading him to see Jesus as a secular monarch – and thus himself as His successor.237

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The benefit of this interpretation in terms of James’s understanding of his own title becomes clear in his reading of the stripping and reclothing of the son of God. In James’s view, Jesus traded in the robes of a prophet for those of a king; a change that by no means stripped Him of His spiritual essence, because kings are ‘Gods Deputie-judges upon earth’ – not mere laymen, but ‘as mixtae personae … being bound to make a reckoning to God for their subjects soules as well as their bodies’. Moreover, as part of this duty the king was assigned the role of supreme custodian of the Church, as ‘vindex utriusque tabulae’ (defender of both tablets of the law).238 Even the reed that the Roman soldiers placed in Jesus’s hands in place of a sceptre symbolised the spiritual dignity of a king, and was comparable to a shepherd’s crook or a crozier.239 In short, James saw the office of king as incorporating that of prophet, so that the loss of Jesus’s prophetic robes was of no consequence. If we compare James’s self-representation in the Paraphrase and his translation of the Psalms to that of his final Meditation, an important difference comes to light.240 Whereas in his early texts the king claimed the role of prophet (and theologian) for himself as an individual, in his Meditation on Christ’s crown of thorns he claims it for his royal title. This may have been because the text was addressed to his successor, Charles I, so James sought to pass this prophetic role on to his son along with his crown. Yet James was also writing in the tradition of English monarchs, who found it far easier to assign themselves a leading role in the Church than was the case in Scotland. Aside from this important difference, however, James continuously and consistently fashioned himself as a supreme exegete, theologian and prophet in his writings throughout his reign. Authorship was the noblest way for James to shape his own public image and communicate with his subjects. His collected works thus serve as a kind of memorial to the king’s authorial efforts. Montagu’s preface plays an important part in this, as his panegyric readings, which all sought to glorify the king, provide instructions to the reader on how to interpret James’s writings. Montagu’s goal was to decontextualise the king’s works, which had been written in response to a number of specific events and occasions, and thereby neglect the diverse conditions from which they arose in order to emphasise the proximity between the king’s words and those of God. As a result, James’s texts are no longer tied to a specific period, appearing instead as manifestations of eternal truths. Even so, the contents of James’s treatises, and especially his attitude to the papacy, made these works a veritable treasure trove for those who sought to steer the king towards war with the Catholic powers. In other words, the decontextualisation of these once political speech acts did nothing to prevent their recontextualisation with regard to the Thirty Years’ War. As I will demonstrate, this manner of interpreting James’s works proved detrimental to the image of the self-styled ‘prophet-king’.

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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

Figgis, Divine Right. Allen, English Political Thought, 97–99; Judson, Crisis, Chapter 1. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, Chapter 1 and 224–50. Russell, ‘Divine Rights’; Oakley, Omnipotence, Chapter 4. See also Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 91–95. Ibid., 91–123. Ibid., 110–11. Ibid., 100: ‘the ideological character of “mainstream” Elizabethan political thought was dependent upon the simultaneous acceptance of the divine right of kings and avoidance of royal absolutism’. See Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 11–13 (whose examples I also draw on here) and Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 99–101. Hooker, Works, vol. 3, book VIII, Chapter 2. See also Sommerville, ‘Richard Hooker’, esp. 229–36. On the complicated publishing history of the eight volumes of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, see the introduction in Hooker, Works, vol. 3, xiii–xxiv; also Sommerville, ‘Richard Hooker’, 230. On Hooker’s relation to scholastic thought and its tradition at the University of Oxford during his lifetime, see Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 146–53. Sutcliffe, De presbyterio, 155: ‘Yet in the earliest times, the people were not subject to any particular government; they would invest supreme authority in someone or other and make him king.’ Translation my own. See Quin, Personenrechte, 144–341. Bilson, True Difference, 520–21. Ibid., 513–14. Ibid., 516–17. See Hunton, Treatise of Monarchie, 59; Bridge, Wounded Conscience, 10; Lamont, ‘Rise and Fall’, esp. 22–27. Allen, English Political Thought, 252–53. Allen sees no originality in James’s writings; however, he does not compare them with texts coming out of France at the time, and merely summarises possible influences instead. Jenny Wormald takes an opposing view with references to the treatises on kingship that had already been composed in Scotland; see Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 43. Royan, ‘Blackwood, Adam’; Blackwood, Adversus Georgii Buchanani. De Belloy, Catholicke Apologie. Royan, ‘Blackwood, Adam’. See Lloyd, ‘Political Thought’, esp. 924–28. John Neville Figgis therefore also asserts that the influence of Blackwood and William Barclay on The True Lawe was beyond question; Figgis, Divine Right, 131. Yet Barclay could hardly have influenced James’s treatise given that his great defence of the monarchy, De regno, only appeared two years later, in 1600. Blackwood, Adversus Georgii Buchanani, 51–55: ‘the empire degenerated into an aristocracy’. Translation my own. Ibid., 55: ‘The rights of the Scottish kings are very different; they preside over the lives and prosperity of the citizens because they are under no circumstances governed by the

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26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43.

people, and because they acknowledge no higher authority apart from that of God’s will. The same law binds the French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and many other peoples to their kings, and all their interests are entrusted to their rulers in such a way that the people have no share in supreme power and authority unless by the free will of their monarchs. Indeed, this is the nature of the monarchy: that it cannot exist without this supreme authority, which cannot be divided or bestowed upon anybody else by the commonwealth.’ Translation my own. See also ibid., 66–69, where Blackwood compares the Scottish kings with William the Conqueror in England and the conquest of Peru by Charles V. The polemic style of the entire treatise is accurately described in Lloyd, ‘Political Thought’, 924–26. Figgis, Divine Right, 133–34. Blackwood, Adversus Georgii Buchanani, 231. Translation my own. Ibid., 232, with reference to Aquinas and da Lucca, De Regimine Principum, book 3, chapter 15. See Metzger, ‘David und Saul’. Blackwood, Adversus Georgii Buchanani, 240. Ibid., 241: ‘For if we turn to the examples of the New Covenant: no matter how many of them lived by Christ’s decree, they never escaped the rule of tyrants or resisted them by force of arms. Instead they followed their ruler [i.e. Christ], who offered himself up to death – even though with the help of legions of angels he could have withstood the injustices inflicted upon him by the people, the priests and Pontius Pilate – in order to confirm through death what he had gently and peacefully taught in life through his patience: namely to endure injustice and not to answer it with violence.’ Translation my own. Ibid., 64: ‘Nimrod, the first of all kings, seized power with violence. In Scripture he is therefore called a mighty hunter before the Lord, which means a warrior who has been tested by God and installed in his station by the power of divine will.’ Translation my own. A similar argument is found in Floyd, Picture, 21: ‘In the beginning of the world, all people were willing to subject themselves unto a Monarch which was Nimrod’. The few references to the Holy Scriptures as evidence for the direct appointment of kings by God can be found in de Belloy, Catholicke Apologie, fol. 29r–30v. Allen, History of Political Thought, 384–85. On Saravia’s career, see Nijenhuis, Adrianus Saravia. Saravia, De imperandi authoritate, fol. 2v. Translation my own. Ibid., fol. 3r. Ibid., fol. 3r. Ibid., lib. IV, chapter XIX, 221: ‘For this alone is law: that which pleases the holder of supreme power, whether the people or the king.’ The parallel with Ulpian’s famous principle ‘quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem’ – ‘what pleases the ruler has the force of law’ – is obvious; see Institutes of Justinian I.2.20 in Kroll et al., Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 1. Translations my own. Saravia, De imperandi authoritate, lib. II, chapter XI, 62. Translation my own. Ibid., lib. II, chapter XI, 63: ‘By the laws of nature, fathers are the rulers of those whom they have begotten … Nature was created solely through the authorship of God.’ Translation my own. See Sommerville, ‘Richard Hooker’, 238.

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44. Saravia, De imperandi authoritate, lib. II, chapter XIII, 66; see also lib. IV, chapter XVIII, 218–19. 45. Ibid., lib. II, chapter XIII, 66–67. 46. Ibid., lib. II, chapter XI, 62. Translation my own. 47. Ibid., lib. II, chapter XII, 64. 48. Ibid., lib. II, chapter XII, 64–65. 49. Ibid., lib. IV, chapter XVIII, 219: ‘The rights of government were created by nature and divine providence, not by human will, as we have shown above.’ Translation my own. 50. See Crouzet, ‘Langages’. Le Roy also mounted a similar defence of the French hereditary monarchy; see le Roy, De l’excellence du gouvernement royal. 51. See Chapter 2. 52. Colville, Palinod. 53. Ibid., fol. A3v–A5r. The text in which Colville disputes James’s claim to the English throne has not survived. 54. Ibid., fol. A5v–A6r. 55. Ibid., fol. A6v–A7r. 56. Ibid., fol. A7v–B1r. 57. Barclay, De regno. 58. See Collot, L’école doctrinale. 59. Barclay, De regno, 143. Translation my own. 60. Ibid., 49–50. 61. Ibid., 144: ‘After all, Samuel was mindful of the law of the kingdom, which had been newly revealed and proclaimed to him by God, and which dictates that the errors and injustices and harms inflicted by kings must be endured.’ Translation my own. 62. Ibid., 87 and 58: ‘They did not submit unwillingly to the decisions of the kings once the opportunity to establish another form of government had been taken away from them; instead, they always preferred monarchy over all other forms of government. This was their wise and rational decision, on the one hand because they were taught to do so by the forces of nature and by the earliest lessons of their parents, as will be shown in detail below, and on the other because it is better to endure one man than to be oppressed by many.’ Translation my own. Barclay follows James in arguing that the Scottish monarchs should also be considered ‘free kings’, since Scotland was conquered by the first king, Fergus (ibid., 99). 63. Ibid., 268 and 483. Paradoxically, however, Barclay sees the right of resistance as legitimate in extreme cases where rulers, such as the emperors Caligula or Nero, threaten to drive their kingdoms into the ground. This point is later taken up by Locke; see Salmon, French Religious Wars, 82, 85 and 154–57. 64. Wormald, ‘James VI and I’, 45. 65. See Hayward, King Henrie III, esp. 84–98; Manning, ‘Hayward, Sir John’; Levack, Civil Lawyers, 113–15. 66. Hayward, Answer, fol. A3r. 67. Ibid., fol. A3r. 68. Ibid., fol. A4v and B4r: ‘As one GOD ruleth the worlde, one maister the familie, as all the members of one bodye receive both sence and motion from one heade … so it seemeth no lesse naturall, that one state should be governed by one commaunder’. 69. Ibid., 29. Hayward refers in turn to St John Chrysostom, who also names Nimrod as the first king in his homilies on Genesis.

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70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95.

Ibid., 31. Ibid., 42–45. Ibid., fol. M1v–M2r. Gentili, Regales disputationes tres. Levack, ‘Law and Ideology’, 229 and Civil Lawyers, 106. See also van der Molen, Alberico Gentili, 239. Van der Molen grants Gentili, as the founder of absolutism in England, the same status as Bodin in France. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 75 (describing him as an ‘exotic figure’) and 78. For a contrasting assessment, see Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 249. Althusius, Politica, cap. XIX, nos. 33, 37 and 51; cap. XXXVI, nos. 43–45 and 52; and cap. XXXVIII, nos. 77–87. Anon., Englands Monarch. Althusius, Politica, cap. XXXVIII, no. 87. Specifically, ‘Princeps legibus solutus est’ (‘the ruler is not bound by the laws’) and ‘quod Principi placuit, legis habet vigorem’ (‘what pleases the ruler has the force of law’); Gentili, Regales disputationes tres, 5–7. Ibid., 18–19. Annette Weber-Möckl inexplicably concludes that Gentili interpreted 1 Sam. 8:11–13 more dogmatically than King James; Recht des Königs, 141. Gentili, Regales disputationes tres, 11: ‘The prince is God on earth. His power is greater than … that which the father once had over the son, or which the master had over the servant.’ Translation my own. Ibid., 20: ‘the Mosaic Law is for the king; this law is for the people. The former teaches the king, the latter the people’. Translation my own. The classic counterargument appears in Anon., Englands Monarch, fol. B1v–B2r. Gentili, Regales disputationes tres, 18–20. Ibid., 103–10. Ibid., 113–14. See Burgess, Politics of the Ancient Constitution, 119–38; Judson, Crisis, Chapters 4–6. Institutes of Justinian I.2.6 and Digest of Justinian I.3.31 and I.4.1 in Kroll et al., Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 1. See Tierney, ‘Bracton on Government’; Lewis, ‘King above Law?’; Schilling, Normsetzung, 300–41; Morel, ‘L’absolutisme français’; Wyduckel, Princeps Legibus Solutus. Levack, Civil Lawyers, 90–95. Digest of Justinian I.4.1, in Watson, Digest, vol. 1, 15. Buchanan interprets lex regia in this way, which is why he disputes its applicability to the monarchy; see Buchanan, Dialogue, 92 and 94. On the constitutional interpretation of Digest of Justinian I.4.1 by humanist legal scholars see Skinner, Foundations, vol. 2, 130–34. A rare example of an anti-monarchist drawing on lex regia can be found in Althusius, Politica, cap. IX, no.16 and cap. XIX, no. 21; however, he only cites Digest I.4.1 alongside other authorities. For an example of the argument from universal equality based on natural law, see Buchanan, Dialogue, 18 and 20. For more on opponents of hereditary monarchy in France, see Quin, Personenrechte, 199–212. On the general relationship between Roman law and natural law, see Scattola, Naturrecht, 110–29. Cardwell, Synodalia, vol. 1, 330–79. Ibid., 331–32.

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96. Ibid., 334. 97. See canon 28; ibid., 345–46. James’s answer came in a letter to George Abbot, later Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘And whatever aversion you may profess against God’s being the author of sin, you have stumbled upon the threshold of that opinion, in saying upon the matter, that even tyranny is God’s authority, and should be reverenced as such. If the king of Spain should return to claim his old pontifical right to my kingdom, you leave me to seek for others to fight for it; for you tell us upon the matter beforehand, his authority is God’s authority, if he prevail’ (ibid., 334). 98. Historians have only noted the canons’ Patriarchalism; see Judson, Crisis, 178–79; Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 32–33, 78–79 and 191. John Overall was the prolocutor, so it was his job to keep a record of the Convocations; however, he is unlikely to have played a prominent role in drafting the resolutions, which were probably proposed by Richard Bancroft and subsequently passed by the Convocations; see Milton, ‘Anglicanism’, 175. 99. See Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 261. 100. The same is argued by Barclay, De regno, 381, in an attack on papal claims to power. 101. The Convocations had their reasons for choosing these specific exempla. A cursory comparison with prominent writings by the Monarchomachs shows that these examples were commonly cited in biblicist justifications of resistance to tyranny. See Beza, Brutus and Hotman, Calvinistische Monarchomachen, 2, 4 and 106 (Beza and Brutus on Pharaoh); 89 (Brutus on Azariah); 25, 94–95 and 105 (Beza and Brutus on Jehoiada); 76 and 84 (Brutus on Samuel); 4, 82 and 90 (Beza and Brutus on Elijah); 106 and 189–90 (Brutus on Jehu); and 106, 181 and 189 (Brutus on Ehud). John Knox bases his justification of tyrannicide on the same examples, especially Jehu, Amaziah and Azariah; see Pečar, ‘Suche nach den Ursprüngen’, 296–97. 102. On the idea of providence and its general effects on society, see Walsham, Providence. Walsham does not mention the debate over monarchy, however. 103. See canon 28 in Cardwell, Synodalia, vol. 1, 346, which states that it would be a great error to hold ‘that, when any such new forms of government, begun by rebellion, are after thoroughly settled, the authority in them is not of God’. This de facto legitimisation of power became particularly important in the wake of the execution of Charles I; see Skinner, ‘Conquest and Consent’. 104. Burgess, Politics of the Ancient Constitution, 161. 105. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 96–102 (though he does not mention Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book). 106. Cowell, Interpreter. Particularly controversial were the entries on ‘King’ (fol. Q4v–Qqiv), and ‘Praerogative’ (fol. Ddd3r–Eee1r); see Burgess, Politics of the Ancient Constitution, 149–61; Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 113–19. 107. Let it be noted, however, that a few days after the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft, a book that had been presented to the Convocation was condemned in the Commons by Richard Martin with the words, ‘let that book die with all ill memory of the book and of him that was the author of it’ (Forster, Proceedings, vol. 2, 328). This criticism was almost certainly directed against the canons of 1606 and the late Archbishop who had presided over the Convocations; see Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 78–79. 108. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 121. 109. Cardwell, Synodalia, vol. 1, 389.

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110. A Speach in the Parliament House, as Neere the Very Words as Could be Gathered at the Instant, in James I, Workes, 499–508. 111. Ibid., 499–500 and 508. 112. Ibid., 503: ‘… if I have spoken more like a Divine then would seeme to belong to this place, the matter it selfe must plead for mine excuse: For being here commen to thanke God for a divine worke of his Mercy, how can I speake of this deliverance of us from so hellish a practise, so well as in language of Divinitie, which is the direct opposite to so damnable an intention?’ 113. Ibid., 499. 114. Ibid., 500. James also alludes to the Gowrie Conspiracy; see Ferrell, Government by Polemic, 72–73. 115. James I, Workes, 503. 116. For an interesting discussion of the possible political goals James sought to achieve with his oath beyond that of securing his throne, see Questier, ‘Loyalty’. See also Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 170–72. 117. The oath is reprinted in full in James’s treatise Triplici Nodo, Triplex Cuneus; see James I, Workes, 250–51. 118. Ibid., 250–52. 119. Ibid., 247–86. 120. Ibid., 254. 121. Ibid., 264–67. 122. Ibid., 254. 123. Ibid., 284: ‘In the old Testament, Kings were directly Governours over the Church within their Dominions’. In evidence, James cites the following Bible passages: 2 Chr. 19:4; 2 Sam. 5:6; 1 Chr. 13:12; 2 Sam. 6:16; 1 Chr. 28:6; 2 Chr. 6; 2 Kings 22:11; Neh. 9:38; 2 Kings 18:4; 1 Kings 15:12; 2 Kings 13:4; 2 Chr. 17:8; 1 Kings 2:27; 2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 82:6; Exod. 22:8; 1 Sam. 24:11; 2 Chr. 9:8; 2 Chr. 6:15; 2 Sam. 14:20; 1 Sam. 13:14; 2 Sam. 21:17; and Isa. 49:23. On the lack of justification for papal primacy, see ibid., 269, 278–81 and 286. 124. On the attempt to prove the notion of plenitudo potestatis by means of biblical passages over the course of the Middle Ages, see Ubl, ‘Mehrwert’. 125. Parsons, Judgment; Bellarmine, Responsio. 126. Parsons, Judgment, 50. 127. See Chapter 4. 128. Parsons, Judgment, 51–52. 129. Ibid., 121. Although Parsons does not cite the Bible here, he very likely had Matt. 16:18 in mind: ‘And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ 130. The confession of authorship is found on James I, Workes, 290. Parsons had rhetorically called the authorship of the Apologie into question by denouncing its reasoning as so poor that the king could never have written it (Parsons, Judgment, 1–8). For the affirmation of the political theology of the Apologie, see James I, Workes, 295–97 and 306–7. 131. Ibid., 308–28. 132. In this, I largely follow Asch, ‘Revelation of the Revelation’, 328–29. For a discussion of James’s earlier readings of the Apocalypse, see Chapter 3. 133. James I, Workes, 318–19.

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134. Ibid., 331–37 and 326 (square brackets my own): ‘And (I hope) it is no small merchandise of Soules, when men are so highly deluded by the hopes and promise of Salvation, as to make a Frier murther his Soveraigne [Henry III]; a yong knave attempt the murther of his next Successour [Henry IV]; many one to conspire and attempt the like against the late Queene; and in my time, to attempt the destruction of a whole Kingdome and State by a blast of Powder: and hereby to play bankerupt with both the soules mentioned in the Scriptures, Animus & Anima.’ 135. Ibid., 325–26. 136. Andrewes, Tortura Torti; Barlow, Answer; Carleton, Jurisdiction; Ireland, Oath of Allegeance Defended; Burhill, De potestate regia. 137. Kennedy, ‘King James I’s College’; Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 32–35. 138. Sheldon, Certain General Reasons; Warmington, Moderate Defence; Forsett, Defence. Sheldon converted to Anglicanism in 1612 and from then on threw himself into the controversy with the Catholic Church; see Sheldon, Motives. 139. Barclay, De potestate Papae (translated into English as Of the Authoritie of the Pope); du Moulin, Nouveauté du Papisme; Bedé de la Gormandière, Jus Regum. 140. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean Political Thought’. 141. Ibid., summary. On the rejection of the sacral nature of the monarchy and the associated notion of the sanctity of the king, see Chapter 2. 142. Sommerville reaches a similar conclusion, taking the view that the arguments on both sides were fully established by 1610. Sommerville, ‘Jacobean Political Thought’, 64. 143. Andrewes, Tortura Torti, 43 and 157–58. Andrewes uses the same examples as James: Nebuchadnezzar, the Pharaoh and Cyrus. See also Warmington, Moderate Defence, 11, 50 and 72; Ireland, Oath of Allegeance Defended, fol. D1r–v. 144. On the priestlike role of the king, see Warmington, Moderate Defence, 91; Crakanthorpe, Sermon, fol. C4v; and [Richer], Treatise (translation of De ecclesiastica et politica potestate), fol. B4r–v. The Bishop of Rochester, John Buckeridge, opted for the argument from patriarchy in an enormous 1614 treatise in which he sought to refute the Pope’s right of deposition; Buckeridge, De potestate papae, 282 and 531. In addition, Richard Tuck has argued that the first book of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha was likewise written in 1614, and that his patriarchal arguments should therefore also be considered part of the controversy over the oath of allegiance; in any case, his main targets in his opening chapters are Bellarmine and Suarez. See Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 262–63 and ‘New Date’. See also Sommerville’s brief summary on the date of the text in Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Writings, xxxii–xxxiv; and for an argument in favour of a relatively late date see Wallace, ‘Date’. It is now generally accepted that Filmer tried to obtain a license to print his Patriarcha in 1632 and that Charles I personally intervened; see Thompson, ‘Licensing the Press’. 145. Andrewes, Tortura Torti, 180–88; Barlow, Answer, 27–29; Warmington, Moderate Defence, 18–20 (in rejection of the Pope’s claims to secular power) and 92–93; [Richer], Treatise, 4; Morton, Full Satisfaction, 2–4; Crakanthorpe, Sermon, fol. C2v–C3r. 146. See Sommerville, ‘Papalist Political Thought’. 147. Becanus, Refutatio torturae Torti, 11. 148. Ibid., 13–14. 149. Becanus, Dissidium Anglicanum, 8–12 and Controversia Anglicana, 14: ‘which was once legitimately usurped by the kings of Israel.’ Translation my own.

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150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159.

160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185.

Ibid., 18–19. Ibid., 25–26. Ibid., 70; Becanus, De pontifice veteris. Becanus, Controversia Anglicana, 115. Ibid., 121. Ibid., 123. For a summary of overlaps between Becanus and Bellarmine, see Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought. This included a controversy over how far James I could understand himself as a Catholic monarch; see du Perron, Letter; Casaubon, Answere; du Perron, Reply. Du Perron’s speech was quickly made available to the English public following the appearance of James’s treatise: du Perron, Oration. See also Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 221–22. James I, Declaration du serenissime Roy. This treatise can be found under its English title ‘A Remonstrance for the Right of Kings, and the Independencie of their Crownes, against an Oration of the most Illustrious Cardinall of Perron, Pronounced in the Chamber of the Third Estate, the 15 of Januar 1615’ in James I, Workes, 392–484. Ibid., 425. Ibid., 424. Ibid., 434–35. Ibid., 429. Ibid., 430. Ibid., 431–32. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, 10–11. On the festive character of commemorations of the Gunpowder Plot in particular, see Cressy, Bonfires and Bells; Morrissey, ‘Presenting James VI and I’. Barlow, Sermon, fol. C1r–C2v. Ibid., fol. E3r–E4r: ‘this worde Annointed, which makes a King a sacred person’. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, 1–27. Barlow, Sermon, fol. E4r. McCullough, Sermons at Court, 119–21. Andrewes, [Works], vol. 4, 243. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, 104–6. Andrewes, Sermon Preached before His Majestie on Sunday the Fifth of August Last at Holdenbie, 49–50. Ibid., 4. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 12. Ibid., 18–19. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 14–16 and 29–30. Ibid., 32. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 31–32. The book named here by Andrewes is Boucher, De iusta Henrici tertii abdicatione. Andrewes’s interpretation of kingship is a riposte to Boucher’s, who sees

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186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204.

205. 206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220.

kings as legitimate solely on the secular level and monarchy as stemming from a transfer of power from the people (ibid., fol. 11v–12r). Andrewes, Sermon, 46. See Chapter 4. ‘A Speach to the Lords and Commons of the Parliament at White-Hall, on Wednesday the XXI. Of March Anno 1609 [1610]’ in James I, Workes, 527–48. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 124. James’s speech also refers to this sermon; James I, Workes, 529. Ibid., 528. Ibid., 529. Ibid. Ibid., 529–30. For more on this distinction and its tradition, see Oakley, ‘Jacobean Political Theology’. James I, Workes, 530. Ibid., 531. Ibid. Ibid., 536–37. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 125. Locke, Two Treatises, 417–18. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots, 125–26. Christianson, ‘Royal and Parliamentary Voices’. Burgess, Politics of the Ancient Constitution, 148; see also Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 40–43. James I, Workes, 531 Parliamentary dissent on this point broke out once more in 1621 when MPs debated the question of whether they had the absolute right to freedom of speech in Parliament, or whether this was granted by the king and could be revoked at any time. The development of this conflict makes it hard to identify any consensus; see Colclough, Freedom of Speech, 168–85. Barlow, Summe and Substance, 46–47. A discussion of these comments by Barlow can be found in Daniell, Bible in English, 432–35. Greenslade, The Cambridge History of the Bible, 164. For a detailed account see Nicolson, Power and Glory, Chapters 7–11. See Carroll and Prickett, Authorized King James Version, lxvii. See Rickard, Authorship, 133–37. The King James Bible, fol. A2r–v. Ibid., fol. A2v. Ibid. Ibid., fol. A4r. Ibid., fol. A6v. Sharpe, Reading Revolutions, 51. Rickard, Authorship, 138. See ibid., 152–56; Sharpe, ‘Reading James Writing’, 19; Sharpe, Image Wars, 30–32. See the preface by James Montagu: James I, Workes, fol. B1r–v. Ibid., fol. B3r. Ibid., fol. B4v.

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221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240.

Ibid., fol. C4r. See Pečar, ‘Der König’. James I, Workes, fol. D3v. Ibid., fol. D3v. ‘A Meditation upon the Lords Prayer, Written by the Kings Majestie for the Benefit of all his Subjects, Especially of Such as Follow the Court’ in James I, Workes, 571–99, here 574–75 and 578. Ibid., 583. Ibid., 596. Ibid., 592. Ibid. Ibid., 578. Ibid. Ibid., 571–72 and 581, where James explicitly rejects the millenarian ideas of Thomas Brightman. Ibid., 580. Ibid., 598. On the specifics of James I’s self-fashioning, see Pečar, ‘Der König’. ‘A Meditation upon the 27, 28, 29 Verses of the XXVII Chapter of St. Matthew, or a Paterne for a Kings Inauguration’ in James I, Workes, 2nd ed., 601–20. Carroll and Prickett, Authorized King James Version. James I, Workes, 2nd ed., 607–8. Ibid., 611. Translation my own. Ibid., 613–14. See Chapter 2.

Chapter 4

THE GAP BETWEEN LEX DEI AND ROYAL AUTHORITY

? The Consolidation of an Oppositional Narrative James I’s ecclesiastical and religious policy was seen in a largely positive light in England throughout the first fifteen years of his reign. In particular, the distanced attitude he adopted towards the Catholic Church in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot had a harmonising effect and reduced tensions between Conformists and Nonconformists in the Anglican Church.1 Most of James’s appointments to vacant bishoprics were staunch anti-Catholics and supporters of the established church, but he also promoted committed Calvinists as a mark of his opposition to all things connected with Rome.2 As such, in the period from 1605 to 1618, the English Church was largely in agreement with its king.3 As long as the dispute over the oath of allegiance was conducted in the form of a scholarly theological debate, James I was always ready to attack the Antichrist in his own texts, using it as a symbol for the Pope. However, with the uprising of the Bohemian estates and the ensuing outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, James’s interventions and his denunciations of the Antichrist suddenly took on a different meaning. For many Calvinists, both in the Anglican Church and on the Privy Council, the time had come for kings to fulfil their salvation-historical mandate and take up arms against the Whore of Babylon – to ‘eat her flesh, and burn her with fire’ (Rev. 17:16) – a view exemplified by the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot. In the eyes of advocates of a holy war against the forces of darkness – namely, Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor – the hour of the great, apocalyptic conflict between salvation and damnation had arrived. In their view, not only would England’s attitude to the war decide the fate of their fellow Protestants, who were suffering badly in Bohemia and the Palatinate, but it

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would also ultimately determine where the country would stand at the moment of Babylon’s fall. Would England join the ranks of those fighting for Christian teachings, or would it side with those who had been fornicating with the Whore of Babylon? Neutrality was not an option in this conflict; after all, the letter to the Laodiceans in the Book of Revelation proclaims that ‘lukewarm’, irresolute believers will be condemned along with the enemies of Christ (Rev. 3:14–22).4 What attitude did James I adopt towards the conflict in Bohemia and the Palatinate? We must remember that James’s daughter was the wife of Frederick V of the Palatinate, had recently been proclaimed Queen of Bohemia and was therefore on the side of the rebels. For those in favour of a holy war against Spain, James’s political duty was obvious.5 Indeed, they might have been forgiven for thinking that the English king would take their side; after all, the collected writings of James I had been published in 1616 in an opulent folio edition, which brought together the many defences of the true faith against the Antichrist in Rome that he had written over the years and made his anti-papal diatribes and his political interpretation of the Book of Revelation available to the general public once more.6 In the eyes of Protestant activists, the time had come to bring that interpretation to life and to make the fight against Babylon a reality. Yet the king rejected this religious interpretation of events in the Holy Roman Empire and saw the uprising of the Bohemian estates as an unlawful rebellion against a legitimate ruler. For James, to compromise royal authority and speak out in favour of the right to resist was to cross a line, and any form of solidarity with the rebels was out of the question. Interconfessional conflict was a secondary consideration for him.7 This stance also informed James’s efforts to avert the brewing European war with his own peace initiative: by means of a dynastic marriage between his son Charles I and the Spanish Infanta, he intended to help strike a balance between the warring parties and reconcile the competing confessions.8 In order to build trust and win the Spanish ambassador Gondomar over to his marriage plan, James was willing to temporarily repeal the antiCatholic recusancy laws and once again allow Catholics to practise their faith in England, albeit in a limited capacity.9 For Protestants who viewed the bloodshed in the Holy Roman Empire through the prism of the Book of Revelation, however, this was a heavy blow. Not only was their king refusing to take up arms against the Whore of Babylon, he had even gone so far as to try to join her side. As we might expect, James encountered resistance to his plans, and this resistance was expressed primarily through polemical literature. Authors questioned the authenticity of the king’s own writings, the credibility of his public positions and ultimately the orthodoxy of his religious beliefs. If the 1620s was a time of political crisis in England, it was above all a crisis of James’s self-fashioning and the public image of the monarchy.10 The king’s efforts to derive his rule from God and to emphasise his own role as supreme exegete, prophet and divine mouthpiece were frustrated by the growing chorus of critical

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clergymen voicing their opposition to his foreign policy. Instead of seeing the king as an instrument of God, they were alarmed by the widening gulf between the lex dei and the political course charted by James and later by Charles I. The conflict over James’s foreign policy played out partly in England’s institutions – on the Privy Council and in the various Parliaments convened between 1621 and 1629, where the conflict between the king and the Commons at times degenerated into a clash of fundamental principles.11 Yet at the same time, the opposition to James I’s and Charles I’s policies was essentially a phenomenon of contemporary polemical literature. Critics used numerous genres to express their dissatisfaction with the political situation in England. In addition to traditional forms of political commentary, such as sermons and treatises, other genres appeared, including satires, lampoons, pamphlets and early newspapers.12 These publications were closely linked to sessions of Parliament: the public debate echoed the deliberations in the Commons and Lords and writers presented MPs with demands and requests, while MPs themselves enlisted the services of numerous authors to gain public support for their political aims and exert pressure on negotiations.13 Yet we cannot speak in broad terms of a conflict that pitted MPs against the king’s ministers and the court; rather, the proposed course of foreign policy was disputed within the royal court itself, and the various factions found their counterparts in the different parliamentary parties.14 In the publications that accompanied the numerous parliamentary sessions held between 1621 and 1629, the king’s policies were measured against norms and examples presented as binding sources of authority in various political languages that offered a means for authors to discuss the legitimacy of political processes. One of these languages was biblicism, and many critics adopted an exaggerated, emotive rhetorical strategy that drew on specific exempla from the historia sacra to raise public awareness of the supposed existential threat to England’s salvation. The sheer quantity and vehemence of such critical views gave contemporary observers the impression that England was on the brink of civil war. Thus the Venetian ambassador Girolamo Lando reported from London that in response to James’s plan for a Spanish match, preachers had begun spouting dangerous and seditious views from the pulpit instead of urging the people to show due obedience to their king.15 Likewise, the French ambassador Tillières saw the febrile atmosphere as showing all the typical harbingers of civil war.16 James’s attempts to curb criticism of his policies by means of official decrees attest to his impatience and unease at the increasingly censorious tone of the public debate, and also reveal his understanding of the dividing line between biblical exegesis and political agitation. In the following, I will also show that criticism of James I’s political course already contained nearly all of the biblical arguments and exempla that were used in the critical reckoning with Charles I’s ecclesiastical policy twenty years later.

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James I’s Peace Project in Public Debate The 1616 collected edition of James VI and I’s writings served as a monument to his life’s work even before his death, suggesting that the king’s positions and interpretations were, in a sense, enduring and eternally binding. Yet irrespective of this intended self-dramatisation, it is clear that the king’s approach to his public image had changed significantly over the four decades of his reign leading up to 1620, and that the import of his writings had also shifted accordingly. James’s early interpretations of the Book of Revelation had revealed a militant attitude towards the Catholic Church in general and Spain in particular, but these views no longer played a part in his self-fashioning during the final decade of his life. Instead, during the course of his reign over England, James had increasingly found a new role for himself as a balancing force, a mediator and an arbitrator – a new self-understanding that began to take shape with the signing of the peace treaty between Spain and England shortly after James’s accession to the English throne in 1603.17 Both of these stances were equally prominent in public discourse during the first fifteen years of James’s reign in England. In sermons and panegyric writings, the king was celebrated as a second Solomon for having brought peace to England, and he also made a name for himself as a mediator thanks to his personal involvement in ending the Kalmar War between Sweden and Denmark in 1613.18 In the controversy over the oath of allegiance that played out in Europe following the Gunpowder Plot, however, the Catholic Church continued to be depicted as a manifestation of the Antichrist – a view espoused both by James himself and in the writings of numerous English theologians. Nonetheless, there is no indication that the mixing of these two messages met with public criticism or was seen as in any way contradictory prior to the start of the Thirty Years’ War. The outbreak of hostilities in Bohemia, where the newly elected King Frederick V of the Palatinate – James I’s son-in-law – had been forced to defend himself against the armies of the Catholic League and the Habsburgs, resulted in significant changes to the reception of both the English king’s public selffashioning and his political agenda. James drew different conclusions from the events in Europe than did many of his subjects, as demonstrated by a prestigious book published in 1618 with the title The Peace-Maker: or, Great Brittaines Blessing. The volume is adorned with the initials and the coat of arms of King James and is addressed to his magistrates, officers and subjects in a manner comparable to official announcements and proclamations, though it was probably actually written by Thomas Middleton.19 James’s message to his subjects – that peace and unity were paramount political goals both in James’s own kingdoms and for the relationships between European monarchies – can be understood as a concrete political programme and also as part of his attempts to cultivate

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his public image during the last years of his reign. The text not only highlights the harmonious relationship between the kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland and England as a successful outcome of James’s politics of peace, but also heralds the treaty with Spain as a great political achievement.20 England is ‘Insula pacis’ – ‘the Land of Peace, under the King of Peace’ – and James himself a new King Solomon.21 In his later work A Meditation upon the Lords Prayer, first published in 1619, James also presents his role as rex pacificus as part of a biblical tradition that extends from Solomon to Jesus: ‘King Salomon was a figure of Christ in that, that he was a King of peace.’22 Though this element of James’s self-fashioning was nothing new, his selfappointed role as king of peace was nonetheless controversial in view of the oppression of Protestants in Bohemia. On top of that, James was not content merely to present himself to the public as a mediator; rather, he saw it as his duty to actively work towards reaching a settlement between the two warring confessions. To do so, he sought to use a classic strategy of dynastic politics and establish a connection between the rival Protestant and Catholic camps through marriage – specifically, between his son and heir Charles I and the Spanish Infanta Maria Anna. The resistance to this project that James encountered in England only seemed to strengthen his commitment to it, and for the remaining seven years of his reign, the Spanish match became his chief political goal.23 James’s policy of reconciliation with the Catholic powers met with little approval within the English Church.24 The war on the Continent was partly a sectarian war, and this aspect largely determined its public perception in England. Over the following years, the fact that James refused to wage a holy war and instead sought to achieve an interconfessional compromise – not to mention a dynastic connection with England’s Catholic arch-enemy Spain – served to intensify the opprobrium heaped upon him by many members of the Church of England, who feared for their Protestant identity. Concerns for the survival of Protestantism in England were also compounded by the prospect of concessions to England’s Catholics that had been raised at the very beginning of the marriage negotiations, as well as by the suspension of laws passed after the Gunpowder Plot that forced English Catholics to swear loyalty to the king.25 Taken together, these worries led many in the clergy to believe that England’s salvation would be at stake if the king’s political course was not checked. Critical exhortations that denounced the dangers of idolatry and imagined the Antichrist knocking at the door had long been a feature of public political debate in England. What was new, however, was that this time it was not just the usual suspects – the Nonconformists and separatists – who viewed events in the Holy Roman Empire from the perspective of salvation history. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, saw the Bohemian estates’ deposition of Ferdinand II as marking the moment when

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by piece and piece, the Kings of the earth, that gave their power unto the beast (all the word of God must be fulfiled) shall now tear the Whore, and make her desolate, as St John in his Revelation hath foretold.26

The archbishop addressed these words to Sir Robert Naunton, who at that time was Secretary of State and a member of the Privy Council, and thus responsible for diplomatic contact with foreign courts. Abbot may have seen him as a kindred spirit, since Naunton was himself a staunch advocate of the interests of James I’s son-in-law, Frederick V of the Palatinate, and also supported the idea of a war against Spain.27 Indeed, Abbot appears to have also expressed the same views to Frederick V himself, encouraging him to accept the Bohemian crown with the assurance that this was the Elector Palatine’s divinely ordained role in salvation history, and in the process acting in direct opposition to James’s later policy.28 After several years of watching in dismay as James not only declined to wage a holy war, but also showed an ever-increasing willingness to make concessions in order to secure a dynastic alliance with Spain, Abbot decided in 1623 that the time had come to make his voice heard. In a letter that was intended to find its way directly to the public, he accused the king of pursuing a policy that would bring about in England ‘that most damnable and heretical Doctrine, the Whore of Babylon.’29 Abbot’s criticism was directed in particular at the toleration of English Catholics and the public practice of their faith, which had been permitted during the course of the negotiations with Spain.30 In a larger sense, however, equating Spain, the Pope and the entire Catholic world with the Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation rendered any form of compromise-based politics impossible, since a policy of mediation between God and the Devil was unthinkable. Thomas Scott gave memorable expression to the contradiction by asking how it was possible ‘to please God and the Divel, Christ and Antichrist togither’.31 In his view, any attempts to do so would result in England’s certain damnation.32 Rare indeed were the occasions on which an archbishop of Canterbury found himself in agreement with a Presbyterian. For James’s critics, it made particular sense to look at the king’s politics through the lens of salvation history and consider his policy towards Spain from an eschatological perspective – not least because it was possible to draw on James’s own public statements in order to identify the Pope and his political allies with the Antichrist, since the king had advanced the same interpretation himself in several of his works. In Vox Regis, Thomas Scott ‘borrows’ James’s own voice in this way in order to urge the king to declare war against Spain, and argues that kings should align themselves with God in order to learn from His example how to match words with deeds.33 In James’s case, however, there was a considerable gulf between what the king said, and what he did: I doe assure my selfe it can be no presumption in me for my owne and other mens resolution, to observe his words, and to reade his writings, therby to learn to know

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him perfectly & to expect without doubt the accomplishment of his promisses. For his words and writings are published to this end and called his Works, because they should be turned into workes.34

Here, Scott refers to James’s writings in order to demand that the king pursue a policy that is consistent with his own published views, and his pamphlet Digitus Dei, printed in 1623, goes even further in exposing the gap between James’s words and deeds. In this pamphlet, he urges the king to acknowledge the logical conclusions of his own avowal that the Pope is a representative of the Antichrist: If the Pope be not Antichrist, why hath he written so? It is Gods Word and his Pen that hath deceived us. If the Pope be Antichrist, then to make a Covenant with him, or to trade with him in Spiritual Merchandize, is to make a Covenant with Death, Satan, and Hell, against God, his sun, and his Church.35

Although few authors expressed their criticism of the king as openly as Scott did, many others were able to raise the same questions at least implicitly by pointing to James’s exegesis of the Book of Revelation – whether by making general comparisons between James’s readings of the Apocalypse and the contemporary political situation,36 or by citing specific texts such as his Paraphrase upon the Revelation,37 his Meditations on Revelation 20 and 1 Chronicles 15,38 his Praemonition to all Christian Monarches39 or his Defence of the Right of Kings, against Cardinall Perron.40 These readings of James’s works by his opponents and critics not only meant that he lost control of his own writings, but they also eroded his public image as a godly ruler. The mere fact that it was possible to identify two different versions of the king depending on whether one looked to his writings or his actions exposed the lack of substance behind James’s self-fashioning and undermined his message that his readers and subjects could recognise their king in the mirror of his works. In the course of the controversy over his foreign policy, James seemed to increasingly realise that his authorial efforts had not achieved their intended effect among his readers and subjects, and no further texts from the king’s hand were published after 1620.41 The apparent gulf between James’s writings and political intentions was also framed by Scott and others in terms of the discrepancy between the duties of kingship mandated by God – of which James was well aware, as his own writings show – and his refusal to perform them.42 Seen in this light, his writings are reduced to mere simulations of piety that conceal less than godly intentions – and in the Bible, this same strategy is imputed to none other than the Antichrist himself. Admittedly, no participants in the debate made the accusation that James was a representative of the Antichrist (something we cannot say with the same certainty for Charles I), but the analogy does point to the political significance of contemporary readings of the king’s exegetical writings.

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Thomas Scott was one of the most outspoken of James’s many critics, writing over twenty pamphlets that railed against the king’s policy of peace with Spain and the idea of a dynastic union between the two royal houses. As a Presbyterian, he was also one of the staunchest critical voices in the debate; however, he was by no means alone in warning that James’s policy threatened the ‘ruine of Religion’ in England.43 Scott felt that all clergymen were obliged to speak out in admonishment, as the prophet Nathan had done with King David.44 He also repeatedly stressed the need to appeal to the public in order to raise awareness of the dangers posed by the king’s policy.45 Richard Sheldon likewise exhorted ministers to fulfil their duty of reminding kings of their salvation-historical mandate to abandon and destroy the Whore of Babylon, as set out in Revelation 17 – leaving his audience in no doubt that, for him, the Whore represented Spain and the papacy.46 Meanwhile, Thomas Jackson, a prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral, called upon ministers to follow the example of the prophet Jeremiah and not to gloss over the sins of their rulers, but to name and shame them.47 And Theophilus Higgons reminded his colleagues that they would one day have to answer to God for their dangerous silence.48 At the same time, however, many critical authors stressed that they in no way intended to interfere in political questions and in the arcana imperii – though James evidently took a different view of the matter.49 Overall, three topics in particular dominated the public controversy over the Spanish match and James’s politics of peace: the debate over war and peace; the problem of how to deal with idolaters; and finally (and in a sense combining the first two issues), the consequences of James’s politics for England’s salvation.

War and Peace Shortly after the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, John Everard preached a sermon in London on the subject of what constituted a just war in the eyes of the Almighty. Everard asserts that the Lord is at least as much a God of war as of peace – a position that was also espoused by numerous other authors of the time who attacked the king’s pacifist policies.50 Everard does not outright reject peace as a political goal, but he emphasises that true peace can only result from wars willed by God: ‘warre with Amalek, is the condition with Israel’s peace’.51 However, he argues that England has drifted a long way from this political ideal and succumbed to the temptations of peace and gluttony, and must therefore take care not to suffer the same fate as the city of Nineveh, which was destroyed for its effeminacy and heresy.52 Everard’s numerous allusions to the feminisation of England are doubtless intended to tap into general tropes of court criticism and, in particular, to cast aspersions on the king’s homosexual inclinations.53

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Everard went on to voice his criticism of James’s peace policy from the pulpit on multiple occasions, and as a result, he repeatedly found himself behind bars over the following years.54 Evidence for the general attitude of scorn towards the ongoing peace in England can also be found in a broadsheet poem by John Taylor entitled The Subjects Joy for the Parliament, which circulated in London in 1621 prior to the official opening of Parliament.55 In Taylor’s view, the previous eighteen years of peace had primarily encouraged sinfulness in England and led to the abandonment of the laws of God.56 As such, he urges both king and Parliament to take the biblical heroes David, Solomon, Joshua, Moses and Hushai the Archite as their templates in order to restore divine law and to ward off its enemies: ‘Plucke Heresies up by the very Roote, / And tread proude Antichrist quite under foote.’57 Taylor then goes on to spell out the course of action that inevitably follows from that advice: ‘The Prince and Princesse Palatines high Grace, / With all the Royall and the hopefull Race: / Defend them Against all that them oppose, / And fight their Battels still against their Foes.’ This poem was just one of several public calls for England to join the Thirty Years’ War, providing a public counterpart to parliamentary debates on the subject.58 Thomas Scott adopted the same line, starting with his 1622 treatise The Belgicke Pismire, in which he paints a picture of an England exposed to decadence by the long peace.59 In his view, although there was no higher goal for the nobility in particular than to be ready to take up arms, they had grown soft from life at court, living ‘not for action, but idlenesse’.60 For Scott, peace is synonymous with luxury, extravagance and neglected duty towards one’s country and one’s faith, and therefore encourages both idolatry and apostasy.61 By contrast – and especially in this treatise – Scott sees war as an essential component of the vita activa of service to the nation, which he frames as a duty for all Englishmen and especially for the nobility. Two years later, Scott published a second treatise addressed to Parliament with the revealing title The Belgick Souldier, which likewise makes no secret of his fundamental attitude towards war and peace. In it, he argues in general terms that war is more conducive to the moral condition of a country than peace; however, in the case of England, he sees it virtually as a national calling: ‘Common-wealth and religion of England, have had their fame and propagation by opposing Antichrist’.62 He also considers war to be a form of collective atonement for abandoning God’s laws: ‘if peace have abused us, let warre a Gods name repaire our credits’.63 Markku Peltonen sees Scott’s propagation of this ideal as a marker of his republicanism.64 He argues that although Scott’s core concerns were religion and anti-popery, it was nonetheless possible to find evidence of a humanist, republican tradition in his writings – a product of his academic socialisation in Scotland.65 For Peter Lake, on the other hand, Scott is a typical example of a Puritan, and although his Presbyterian attitude is not entirely in keeping with the Anglican mainstream, he goes to great lengths to articulate the consensus within

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the Church in his arguments against the Spanish match.66 In weighing up these two positions, we should note that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive in principle. It would have been nothing out of the ordinary for Scott to base his critique not only on religious and biblical arguments, but also on those of civic humanism, since authors at this time regularly used multiple political languages to make their points.67 Instead, we must pay close attention to how individual authors constructed their arguments. Insofar as Scott says anything at all on the question of his sources of authority, he gives clear precedence to religion, as Peltonen himself observes.68 In The Belgick Souldier, for example, he stresses that he no longer wishes to refer to historical examples or philosophical teachings about war and peace, but instead intends to rely solely on arguments based on religion and the church, and indeed he underpins his statements almost exclusively with exempla from the Old and New Testaments and from church history.69 Scott thus explicitly characterises himself as placing biblicism above other political languages. At the same time, however, he also draws upon a republican tradition stretching back to classical antiquity – either out of conviction (as Peltonen suggests) or for rhetorical reasons. Yet if Scott was prompted by his religious convictions to call for war with Spain, why did he choose to make his case using arguments derived from republican traditions? There are two possible explanations. The first of these may be to do with Scott’s intended readership. He published several treatises in connection with the Parliaments convened in 1621 and 1624 that sought to win support for a war against Spain among MPs who did not automatically equate England’s Catholic rival with the Antichrist in the same way as Scott did himself. In order to convince them of the necessity of war, he needed to make it clear exactly what was at stake. By depicting the choice between war and peace as one between freedom and slavery, or between virtue and corruption, Scott drew on basic concepts of civic humanism, thereby adopting a world view that was apparently particularly widespread among members of the Commons thanks to their education at England’s two universities. Secondly, however, Scott’s recourse to republican tropes is also an inevitable product of his argument, since his goal of delegitimising James’s peace policy in general terms – by questioning the value of peace in and of itself and characterising war as a necessary means of upholding morals – is not one that can be supported through biblical exempla. Roman authors, by contrast, were an ideal reference point for condemning the societal softness and degeneration brought about by long periods of peace. Yet Scott uses the terminology of the republican tradition in a highly idiosyncratic way. When he denounces ‘corruption’, for example, he usually means it as a synonym for ‘idolatry’, thereby putting a religious spin on the word. Similarly, his writings offer a warning against slavery; yet in Scott’s view, the threat of enslavement is posed not by arbitrary monarchical power, but by

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Spain and the papacy, while the freedom he calls on his readers to defend is not defined primarily in constitutional terms, but mainly as the freedom of the Church from the agents of the Pope (the church papists). In other words, it is in large part Scott’s subject matter that prevents us from seeing him as a pure civic humanist, let alone as a republican. He is mainly concerned with the Church of England, which in his eyes embodies the core of society and the state. Scott’s fundamentally positive attitude towards war was also unusual among critics of James I’s politics of peace, who tended to oppose the king’s course based on an analysis of competing moral claims rather than as a matter of principle.70 The fundamental question was whether peace was still a worthwhile political goal if it meant leaving truth to one side. In other words, if Spain could be seen as an enemy of the faith and a harbinger of the Antichrist, was it even acceptable for James to attempt to make peace? Or was he in fact obliged to wage a holy war against Spain in his royal capacity as defender of the church? Based on his reading of Revelation 17:16–17, the staunchly Calvinist court chaplain George Hakewill reasoned that peace is only worth pursuing if it does not put the true faith in jeopardy; otherwise, war should be favoured in order to destroy Babylon and the forces of darkness.71 The same conclusion was reached by Alexander Leighton, who unlike Hakewill was a radical critic of the Anglican Church, and who was imprisoned by Charles I for over ten years as punishment for his savage polemics.72 Meanwhile, Theophilus Higgons was seen by many contemporaries as unreliable thanks to his confessional vacillations, having first thrown himself into the arms of the Catholic Church only to return remorsefully to the Church of England just a few years later – although in both instances his changes of heart may have been informed by financial considerations.73 Be that as it may, on his return to the Anglican fold, Higgons adopted a strict anti-Catholic stance which manifested itself in his work Mystical Babylon, or Papall Rome, written in response to the controversy over the Spanish match.74 Like Hakewill, Higgons considers all policies of peace and compromise with ‘Babylon’ to be wrong and dangerous, but he leaves it to the reader to associate this position with Spain and James’s proposed marriage.75 His reference to the necessity of war with Babylon is similarly vague. Instead, Higgons questions the validity of peace as a political goal by setting it against the truth revealed by God: This warre, therefore, is honourable, religious, necessary, and to be preferred before a base, cowardly, and profane peace. If Jehoram speake of peace, yet Jehu will heare of none, because hee is the minister of Gods Justice … I say here; have peace from Babylon, in not medling with her societie; you can have no peace with her, in treating with her upon sweet, and amicable termes.76

Higgons sees the ideal of holy war as embodied by the figure of Jehu, who did the Lord’s work when he destroyed the house of Ahab, and who was undeterred from

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his duty by Joram’s requests for peace (2 Kings 9:17–24). Although Higgons declines to spell out the political implications of his biblical exegesis, it still communicates an unmistakable message of severe criticism for James’s political course – namely, that secular peace is worthless if it jeopardises the true faith, and that war is a divine mandate in such situations.77 As such, anyone who failed to rush to the defence of their beleaguered co-religionists was guilty in the eyes of those calling for war.78 In the conflict of principles between truth and peace, the defenders of truth had an easier time of it, as there was a general consensus that divine truth was the ultimate good and needed to be upheld. Even William Laud – by no means a critic of the Stuarts – emphasised as much on the occasion of his sermon on James’s birthday: ‘the very birthday of both Peace, and Peacemaker’. Laud considered peace to be a desirable goal for society, but he also stressed the impossibility of that goal if it went against divine truth.79 As a result, apologists for peace and compromise were forced to avoid any appearance of incompatibility between a policy of peace and one aimed at the protection of the true faith. According to the anonymous author of The Peace-Maker, truth and peace are two sides of the same coin,80 and religion is a product of peace, not of war,81 while Thomas Adams wrote that ‘peace is the daughter of righteousness’.82 James’s peaceful course also attained to divine legitimation in that it was seen as yet another link in the chain of blessings that God had bestowed upon England. That England was able to live in peace while the rest of Europe descended into war was as clear a sign of divine redemption as the victory over the Armada and the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, as multiple preachers agreed.83 Indeed, the court chaplain John Denison felt that the king’s politics of peace would ultimately secure the salvation of the English people. In Denison’s view, James followed in Jesus’s footsteps both as a mediator and as a king of peace, and in the latter capacity safeguarded the well-being of the people: ‘the Kings high-way, the way of Peace, which is the roade to heaven.’84 Yet Thomas Adams, who was famous for his eloquent sermons, ventured beyond such general statements to address the delicate question of whether it was legitimate to make peace with Catholic powers like Spain. In his view, it is important to ‘distinguish between offenders, and offences’.85 He is clear that England should never undertake to do things that are contrary to divine law in pursuit of a compromise; in other words, it should scorn ‘offences’. Yet he argues that the country could still conclude a peace agreement with the originators of those offences provided that the question of religion was left aside.86 Meanwhile, Walter Curll, at this time Dean of Lichfield and court chaplain to the king, preached a sermon that sought to frame the relationship between peace and truth in such a way that peace took precedence.87 To do so, he drew on Hebrews 12:14: ‘Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord’. Like Adams, Curll stresses that peace and holiness

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must be pursued in conjunction; however, the fact that peace is mentioned first in Hebrews leads him to conclude that it is the more important of the two.88 Curll also holds that peace is the essential condition for true religion, without which the faith would be ground down by endless controversies and schisms – an argument that echoes the stance put forward in The Peace-Maker.89 In much the same vein, he also speaks out against the proliferation of inflammatory tracts, whose exhortations to defend divine truth implied that that truth was in danger. In Curll’s view, the vehemence of the controversy was jeopardising peace and, by consequence, religion.90 As such, keeping the peace meant refraining from agitation against the Spanish match. Curll’s sermon impressed upon critics of James I’s politics of compromise that it was imperative to seek peace even with enemies and apostates, albeit without adopting their morals or religion – a position also adopted by Thomas Adams.91 Curll saw St Paul’s injunction in his Second Epistle to Timothy to live in peace with all ‘that call on the Lord out of a pure heart’ (2 Timothy 2:22) as non-exclusive – in other words, one should not solely make peace with such people, but they should take priority.92 Curll’s sermon was originally preached to the king’s court in Whitehall and subsequently published on royal orders, and therefore clearly reflects a political reading of the Bible that was shared by the king at the time.

No Dealings with Idolaters Given that James I’s general policy of peace and compromise was already subject to fierce debate, it is unsurprising that hardly any authors from the period came out in favour of the planned wedding between Prince Charles and Infanta Maria Anna – and indeed, there was no shortage of criticism of the match.93 The proposed marriage with Spain was the target of satirical pamphlets such as John Reynolds’s Vox Coeli, in which James’s royal predecessors debate the Spanish match among themselves, with only the Catholic Mary I approving of the project.94 The sense of illegitimacy this would have aroused among English readers is stoked even further by the fact that all of James’s Protestant predecessors base their rejection of the match on the Bible, while Mary refuses to acknowledge the scriptural evidence proffered by her interlocutors.95 In other words, Reynolds implies that if James were to stick to his idea of a dynastic connection with the Spanish royal family, he would be following in the tradition of a queen who was branded onto the cultural memory of Protestant England as ‘Bloody Mary’. In general, the attitude of the Protestant clergy varied between silence and criticism, with the latter coming from all corners of the Church and thus constituting a new form of protest. In the eyes of opponents of the match, a dynastic connection with the Spanish royal family would be an act of idolatry and thus a violation of divine law. What made things even more difficult for

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James was that the marriage between his daughter Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate in 1613 had been praised by numerous theologians for the fact that both partners in the match were Protestant. The Bishop of London John King, the strict Calvinist Andrew Willet and George Webbe all agreed at the time that only marriages where both spouses shared the same confession enjoyed the blessing of God.96 In 1613, this view would doubtless have been intended primarily in a panegyric sense in order to make the newly established dynastic union shine all the brighter – yet it also stood in the way of any subsequent marital connections with Catholic royal houses. Indeed, exploratory attempts undertaken shortly before Elizabeth’s marriage to Frederick V to arrange a marriage between James’s son Henry and a princess from one of the great Catholic dynasties of Europe had met with vigorous opposition from the king’s staunchly Protestant political advisors, such as Pembroke and Abbot.97 Even supporters of James’s peace policy proved to be forceful critics of his marriage project. For example, in his treatise Eirenopolis, published in 1622, Thomas Adams celebrated King James as a peacemaker; yet two years later, he went on to criticise the king’s political course in a public sermon, preached at Paul’s Cross on the anniversary of the Gowrie Conspiracy, that referenced 2 Corinthians 6:16, in which St Paul asks, ‘And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?’ Adams takes this passage as evidence of the fundamental incompatibility between Protestantism and Catholicism. In his earlier apology for the king’s peace policy, he set a clear limit on compromise, arguing that religion must remain untarnished and that the false doctrine of Rome should be kept far from England.98 If we take his later sermon at face value, Adams appears to see this line as having been crossed: In composing differences betwixt man and man, betwixt family and family, betwixt kingdome and kingdome, Beati Pacifici, Blessed are the Peace makers. But in reconciling Christ and Behal, the Temple of God and the Idols, Maledicti pacifici, Cursed are the peace-makers.99

The tone of this rhetoric is very similar to that used by Thomas Scott in his polemical writings, albeit with one crucial difference: Adams did not explicitly criticise the wedding project, but contented himself with allusions – though their explosive relevance to the contemporary political situation would have been crystal clear to his audience. By mocking James’s own personal motto, Adams makes it obvious that he is attacking the king without having to name him directly. Likewise, the ‘idols’ in the ‘temple’ probably refer to the renovation of the Chapel Royal at Whitehall begun in 1621, which involved the refurbishment of the wall paintings and the installation of a silver crucifix on the altar.100 They are also an oblique critical reference to the proposed match between a Spanish princess and the heir to the English throne, though Adams also denounces this plan much more overtly elsewhere:

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The familiar societie of orthodox Christians with mis-beleevers, hath by God ever been most strictly forbidden: and the neerer this conjunction, the more dangerous, and displeasing to the forbidder. No man can chuse a worse friend, then one whom God holds his enemy. When Religion and Superstition meet in one bed, they commonly produce a mungrell generation.101

In addition to this harsh criticism, Adams shows himself to be a master of insinuation at the king’s expense. For example, in order to illustrate the danger of interconfessional marriages (and especially royal ones), he points to the consequences for Israel of Solomon’s numerous dalliances with idolatrous women.102 Because Solomon was the key reference point for James I’s attempts at self-fashioning during the latter part of his reign, this criticism strikes at least a glancing blow on the king. Adams also recalls the plea to the Almighty made by all Christians whenever they recite the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Deliver us from evil’ – which at the same time implies an obligation to keep evil at a distance. This takes on a subversive edge when we consider that James himself published an exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer in 1619, and that it was his duty as a ruler not to expose England to evil. By equating idolatry with treason, Adams implicitly reminds the king of his own duty of obedience to God.103 Finally, as a parting shot, Adams recalls the occasion for his sermon – the conspiracy against James I and the commemoration of the king’s salvation – in order to express the wish that England should itself be saved.104 Yet the unspoken message behind the wish is that this would necessarily involve James renouncing his marriage project for Prince Charles. For Adams, the monarch who guaranteed England’s deliverance in 1588 and 1605 was now putting the nation’s salvation at risk. Thomas Adams’s harsh criticism is also interesting in view of his supporters and potential employers. Adams dedicated his sermon to Henry Carey, the fourth Baron Hunsdon; however, at this time he was also chaplain in the service of Henry Montagu, the first Earl of Manchester and from 1620 Lord High Treasurer, and was further able to rely on the protection of Ellesmere and Pembroke.105 The latter had a reputation as the strongest advocate of Protestant interests at court and was known to be both an outspoken critic of the Spanish match and an opponent of Buckingham, who in turn was initially one of the most ardent supporters of the planned marriage. Pembroke was also a patron of the theatre and financed several plays that denounced both Spain and corruption at court, generally in satirical form.106 Urban theatres thus became forums for courtly disputes about the course of foreign policy,107 and the same was also true of the pulpits of many churches. Pembroke, for example, retained Thomas Scott’s services as his chaplain until Scott went into exile in the Netherlands to avoid certain arrest.108 It is therefore conceivable that Adams’s sermon not only expressed his own personal opinion, but also sought to bolster a perspective adopted by members of James’s court, for whom sermons at Paul’s Cross offered an ideal way to reach as wide an audience as possible.109

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While the case of Thomas Adams shows that criticism of England’s political course was voiced in the highest circles of the land, George Hakewill offers another prominent example of how opposition to the Spanish match was also present at the heart of the Church of England. Hakewill had been a court chaplain to James’s son Charles since 1612 and was also the Crown Prince’s tutor on religious matters.110 His strict rejection of Catholicism almost inevitably drove him into the camp of critics of the king and his foreign policy, where he was joined by numerous theologians such as Andrew Willet and Matthew Sutcliffe, who – like Hakewill – had spent many years defending the Protestant Church with public statements against the Pope and Catholic polemic theologians.111 One of Hakewill’s greatest supporters in the Church was none other than Archbishop Abbot – another leading cleric with whom the king quarrelled during the course of his policy on Spain. Hakewill’s political tracts attacking James I’s course of compromise offer a perfect showcase of the various possible uses of biblicism as a means of making both covert and overt political statements, and two of his treatises in particular offer a masterclass in both implicit and explicit criticism of the king. Hakewill saw his criticism of the Spanish match as justified because, as tutor to James’s heir Charles, he was responsible for cultivating the prince’s commitment to the Protestant faith.112 As such, both of Hakewill’s tracts were dedicated to Charles. The older text – King Davids Vow for Reformation of Himselfe, his Family, his Kingdome: Delivered in Twelve Sermons before the Prince his Highnesse upon Psalm 101 – was published in 1621, with a second edition appearing as early as 1622. This was followed by a later work entitled The Wedding Ring, which would ultimately incur the lasting wrath of the king. Only a few weeks after the earlier book became available to readers, Hakewill had to answer for his second treatise before a commission of inquiry led by the Dean of the Chapel Royal, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, and subsequently lost his position at court. What is the difference between the two works? In The Wedding Ring – the work that got him into hot water – Hakewill openly discusses the motives that prompted him to pick up his pen. The title of the text already expresses its key message – namely, that it is against God’s law for Protestants to marry ‘papists’.113 In his dedication to Charles, Hakewill denies any intention of interfering in political issues; however, as the prince’s tutor, he considers it his duty to inform his charge of his duties before God, and especially of the importance of obeying divine law. Hakewill sets out his message openly in his preface: … it is not unfitt onlie, but unlawfull for a professed member of the church of England, but especially those of the highest rank … to contract marriage with ane Idolatour, and in specially with a professed member of the Church of Rome; for I take it as granted that all the members of that church are Idolators.114

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Throughout the rest of his treatise, Hakewill goes on to substantiate this assertion through his interpretation of the lex dei, arguing that the divine injunction to avoid all contact with idolaters is a universal law that must be obeyed by everyone under all circumstances.115 He sums up the looming dangers of idolatry to the kingdom using the words ‘suspicion’, ‘infection’ and ‘malediction’.116 For Hakewill, Joshua’s warning to Israel serves as a reminder to England, and in particular to Prince Charles, of the consequences of such transgressions: Else if ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you: Know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you … When ye have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you. (Josh. 23:12–13 and 16)

The historical books of the Old Testament provide Hakewill with a wealth of examples with which to demonstrate the truth of Joshua’s words, and he refers to figures such as Jehu, who was also a favourite among authors who sought to justify the right to resist monarchs who violated the law of God. However, Hakewill does not use Jehu to rehash those authors’ arguments; instead, he holds him up as a warning to Charles, to whom he expressly points out that ‘Jehu by Gods appointment and Eliah’s Prophecy slew all the remainders of this house’.117 He returns to this example at the end of his text, and the lesson for Charles is that Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel could not be justified merely by her royal pedigree.118 Hakewill also reminds James’s heir of Phinehas – another prominent example used in the discourse of the right to resist – as well as the angel of the Apocalypse, who at the moment of the destruction of Babylon calls out a warning to the people of God: ‘Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues’ (Rev. 18:4).119 Central passages of the later Fast Sermons preached before Parliament and of texts on the right to resist can also be found in Hakewill’s work, though he does not use this material to voice an opinion on the legitimacy of resistance to the monarch. He cites these examples to warn of the risk of punishment at God’s hands, not to discuss rebellion instigated by humans. Hakewill also seeks to reduce the subversive effect of his writing by invoking no less an authority than King James to support his position, citing Basilikon Doron, in which the monarch himself emphasises the need for a king and his consort to share the same confession.120 Although this strategy is designed to cover Hakewill’s back,

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it simultaneously scores a further point against the king since it confronts James with the fact that his current policy contradicts the arguments advanced in his own writings. This method of using the king’s own words against him was a popular weapon in the hands of critics at the time. As a result, the court chaplain had to face the consequences of his political intervention. After having some time to reflect on his words behind the walls of the Tower of London, Hakewill was hauled in front of Andrewes’s commission and fired from court.121 Hakewill’s assertion that marrying Catholics counted as idolatry and was therefore against the law of God was deemed to be inadequately founded on biblical scholarship, making it a political intervention that went beyond the boundaries of his role as a minister. Yet in 1622, while Hakewill was being punished for The Wedding Ring, his pamphlet King Davids Vow went to press without any problems. Peter McCullough has rightly pointed out in his book Sermons at Court that the political import of both texts was largely identical, and that there is no doubt that Hakewill saw James’s household and court as in need of reformation.122 And indeed – especially in view of The Wedding Ring – the subversive content of Hakewill’s earlier discussion of the oath sworn by King David in Psalm 101 is not difficult to spot. The psalm itself is written in the first person and has the character of an oath, and in Basilikon Doron, James I stresses its importance to all rulers, since ‘King David sets downe the best precepts, that any wise and christian King can practice in that point’.123 Hakewill makes this view his own, so that the message James conveyed to his eldest, now deceased son Henry is reiterated by the court chaplain in his speculum principum for the new heir to the throne, Prince Charles. At times, he even uses the same arguments that he would go on to repeat in The Wedding Ring, warning that Charles, like all rulers, must keep his distance from those who practise false doctrines in order to avoid the risk ‘[o]f suspicion from others, of infection in themselves, of malediction and punishment from God.’124 Hakewill also makes it clear that this danger of infection is often posed by women, as he explains using the examples of Eve, Delilah and the foreign wives of King Solomon – all of which are also found in his later work.125 Even the reference to James’s warning in Basilikon Doron not to take a wife of another confession can be found in both texts.126 The texts Hakewill addressed to Prince Charles thus clearly contain the same message; yet they led to very different consequences for their author. The crucial difference between them – which also determined the king’s divergent reactions to them – lies not in their implicit message, but in their rhetorical approach. In both texts, Hakewill cites largely the same biblical exempla to support his argument, but he uses those examples in different ways as a basis for his political statements. Hakewill’s published text, King Davids Vow, is a conventional biblical exegesis presented in the form of a collection of twelve sermons, in which the author never directly translates the moral imperatives of the Bible into contemporary political

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demands. Although he reminds Charles that he must avoid contact with idolaters and that it will be his duty as king to punish them, he at no point directly asserts that this renders the proposed marriage with the Spanish Infanta out of the question. Instead, he leaves it to his readers to draw that conclusion. The fact that King David’s Vow saw two editions in quick succession may also indicate that the treatise was not generally understood as a critique of the king. In The Wedding Ring, by contrast, the political message came first, with the scriptural exegesis merely serving to underpin it. Yet Hakewill once again failed to provide evidence for why all Catholics should be treated as idolaters.127 Instead, he took that as a given – probably due to his staunchly Calvinist outlook – and this was ultimately why he ended up in the Tower before being stripped of his position at court. Hakewill was only one among many opponents of the Spanish match. Nonetheless, his texts offer prime examples of the varying strategies of explicit or implicit censure of the king that were adopted by other critical voices in the debate. The same Bible passages were cited as evidence time and again in warnings against James’s political course, and later went on to enjoy great popularity once more in the Fast Sermons preached to Parliament two decades later. By way of example: in his sermon Judah Must into Captivitie, Thomas Jackson emphasises that anyone who fails to support the Church in moments of danger will be cursed by God, much like the city of Meroz (Judges 5:23).128 Furthermore, he adds that this sin is especially serious in view of the special grace bestowed upon England in the past, citing in near-incantatory fashion the salvation of the country from the Spanish Armada and the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot as crucial signs of England’s divine favour (indeed, one scarcely finds any admonitory sermons from the period that do not mention these events).129 The two biblical figures that Jackson presents in order to explain how to avert the Babylonian captivity that threatens England likewise come as no surprise: Phinehas and Josiah. Phinehas is referred to only briefly by Jackson, as a priest whose holy zeal helped him save the people of Israel from the looming threat of divine punishment.130 Josiah, by contrast, was a far less provocative example, albeit just as pointed. His name is primarily associated with the abolition of idolatry in Judah and the renewal of the covenant with God – the same courses of action that Jackson recommends to James.131

The Voice of the Apocalypse In many cases, opposition to James I’s politics of compromise was eschatologically charged, since in the eyes of his critics, what was at stake was no less than the salvation of the nation of England. James’s proposed marriage alliance between the royal houses of England and Spain was in their view tantamount to fornication with the Whore of Babylon. As with the Fast Sermons during

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the Long Parliament, the participants in this debate broadly deployed the same biblicist arguments, irrespective of whether the exempla underpinning those arguments were drawn from the historical books of the Old Testament or from the Book of Revelation. In either case, the message derived from Scripture was that of the need to actively fight idolatry. Richard Sheldon’s critical writings offer a good example both of how passages from the Old Testament and Revelation were synthesised into a unified point of view, and of how authors framed the issue as a crucial decision in terms of salvation history. Sheldon’s previous career made him just as unlikely an opposition voice as George Hakewill. During the controversy over the oath of allegiance, he had been an energetic supporter of James’s policy towards Catholics, and had even received the king’s patronage in return. For Sheldon, attitudes towards Catholicism were perhaps more personally important than for other members of the Church of England, given that he had converted from Catholicism around 1611 and subsequently defended the king against the Pope – a service that earned him a position as the king’s court chaplain, among other rewards.132 In the latter capacity, Sheldon preached a sermon to the king on Matthew 24 and its discussion of false prophets, whom he equated with Rome and the Catholic clergy.133 The sermon was delivered a few years before it was published, presumably at a time when this topic of polemic theology would have been unlikely to incur James’s displeasure; yet by the time it went to press, it had become a sensitive subject for the king.134 The year 1622 saw the climax of the controversy over the proposed marriage with Spain, and so Sheldon’s statement in the preface that Rome and the Catholic powers could only be described using words such as ‘Antichrist’, ‘false prophets’ and ‘idolatry’ could easily be read as an attack on James’s policies.135 Sheldon’s stance becomes even clearer in a later sermon that he preached publicly at Paul’s Cross in 1623, but did not publish until 1625. The Bible verses cited as a motto on the title page give a sense of the overall argument: by quoting Jeremiah 50:14, Sheldon spells out the divine injunction to destroy Babylon in retribution for her sins, while his reference to Revelation 14:9–11 reminds readers of the awful punishment that will be meted out by God to all who worship the Beast of the Apocalypse. The sermon leaves no doubt that Sheldon sees both the city of Babylon in the Old Testament and the Beast of the Apocalypse in Revelation as placeholders for the papacy and its ‘Antichristian State’, since in his view, the Pope has usurped political power and thus, unlike secular monarchies, cannot command obedience by virtue of divine mandate.136 Sheldon saw events in Bohemia as a clear indication that the downfall of Babylon and the end of the world were imminent, given that so many portents of Revelation had already come to pass.137 He therefore argues that rulers have a special obligation to fulfil their salvation-historical mandate by destroying the Whore of Babylon.138 Sheldon limits the political scope of this statement

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somewhat by emphasising that war with Rome is not necessarily the only possible form that this mandate could take, and he does not directly mention Spain either. The focus of his ire is not so much English foreign policy as the ecclesiastical policy that accompanied it over the preceding few years – specifically, the broad toleration of Catholic religious practices in England between 1622 and 1624.139 In this context, he not only points out the impossibility of negotiating with ‘Baal’ and the ‘Beast’, but also stresses the inevitable course of salvation history, which he believes makes a return to Catholicism impossible:140 … shall the words of God be accomplished, that those States and Kingdomes, which first loved the whore, should afterwards hate her, yea so hate her, that they should eat her flesh, and consume her bones with fire: and what is this else but to make her desolate, without any hope of ever recovering her former state againe?141

According to Sheldon, however, the need to destroy Babylon calls for changes in the Church of England to ensure that it will stand on the side of the saints in the imminent Last Judgement. First, he argues, England needs to become a stronghold for Protestant religious refugees in order to fulfil its duty as set down in salvation history; and second, the present partial reformation of the Church needs to be completed in full, with sweeping changes not only to doctrine, but also to ceremonies.142 Demands of this kind had hitherto been made predominantly by Nonconformists during James’s rule over England, and by repeating them here, Sheldon finds himself in agreement with the Presbyterian Thomas Scott, among others.143 It therefore stands to reason that this intervention cost him the support of the king and landed him before the Court of High Commission.144 Sheldon sees the need for a full reformation as an essential step in salvation history and demonstrates its necessity by comparing the Church of England to Laodicea – one of the seven churches listed in chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation – whose followers he castigates as ‘halters betwixt Baal and God’.145 Although he does not specify exactly whom he identifies with the Laodiceans, his demand for a complete reformation that extends as far as ceremonies only acquires a specific meaning if it is seen as a necessary step in raising the Anglian Church into righteousness in preparation for the Last Judgement. This at least was the message of Thomas Brightman, who first equated the Church of England with Laodicea in his Revelation of the Revelation in order to justify the need for further reforms.146 The same message was voiced directly to members of the Parliament of 1624 in a sermon by Thomas Taylor.147 Taylor was a spokesman for the highestranking politician in the kingdom of England, the Secretary of State Edward Conway, whom he served as chaplain.148 Conway left no stone unturned in his attempts both to establish a Protestant military alliance for the reconquest of the Electorate of Palatinate, and to persuade Parliament to support a policy of war against Spain and to approve the necessary funds.149 In this, he had the support of

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the heir to the throne, Prince Charles, and his influential favourite Buckingham; only James I remained reluctant to adopt a clear military course.150 In his sermon on Revelation 18:4 – ‘Come out of her [i.e. Babylon], my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues’ (insertion my own) – Taylor calls on MPs to answer the call of the Lord and to show greater commitment to God’s mandate and the interests of the true faith than to the demands of the king.151 He also uncompromisingly denounces all attempts at agreement with Catholics,152 whom he presents as doomed to damnation if they fail to recant their false beliefs.153 Although he does not specifically refer to the Spanish match, his message would have been clear enough to the assembled MPs: … we may not thinke our selves departed from Babylon, unlesse our wives and children be departed with us. He is but halfe departed whose other halfe is a Recusant, neither can a man of reason thinke him departed, that sends his pawnes, his sonnes and daughters, for education in Popish countreys.154

Citing the Book of Revelation gave dissenting authors the opportunity to criticise political developments without having to voice that criticism explicitly, allowing them to circumvent James’s repeated command that preachers should abstain from political commentary in their sermons.155 Often, critics referred to the specific role played in the Book of Revelation by the kings in the battle with the Whore of Babylon. Revelation 17 mentions ten horns, which symbolise ten kings who will initially be on the side of God’s enemies and the Beast of the Apocalypse, but who in due course will be ordered by God to renounce Babylon. This exhortatory exegesis of Revelation 17:16 can be found in Thomas Taylor’s A Mappe of Rome, Thomas Jackson’s Judah must into Captivitie, Richard Sheldon’s sermon at Paul’s Cross and Taylor’s sermon on Revelation 18:4.156 In his sermon on the fall of Babylon, Theophilus Higgons additionally calls upon Protestant kings – and especially James I, of course, whom he also praises as his theological teacher – ‘to burne the Whore [Babylon] and to subdue the Beast [the Pope] and so to accomplish that Royall worke, unto which God hath alreadie consecrated them in his holy Word.’157 Although the kings in Revelation 17 seem somewhat unwilling tools in God’s plan for salvation, Higgons’s exegesis transforms them into autonomous participants tasked with a sovereign duty in the events of the Apocalypse that they must fulfil of their own free will. He compares James’s position with that of King Saul, whom God ordered to destroy the Amalekites, but whose incomplete execution of this divine command ultimately cost him his crown.158 For Higgons, the fulfilment of the prophecies set down in the Book of Revelation appears to be imminent, making it all the more urgent for England to join the right side in the final apocalyptic battle. In his view, kings must not stand in the way of Scripture.

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Most of the theologians who took part in the controversy over the Spanish match shared James’s view that the kings in the Book of Revelation had an important – perhaps even crucial – role to play in destroying the Whore of Babylon, who was generally agreed to be a personification of the papacy. Indeed, this may partly explain why the king’s plans for a dynastic alliance with Spain were attacked with such ferocity and intensity. More unusual, however, and far more radical, was Thomas Scott’s position on the role played by the ten kings in the final confrontation with the Antichrist. In his work Digitus Dei, published in 1623, he succinctly states: God will no more use the temporall power or policie of Princes in the totall and finall supplantation and eradication of Antichrist, then he did use them in the first planting of the Gospell of Christ. They are to be nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers, not generating and naturall Parents to the Church, that Christ may be all in all.159

Scott calls into question the eschatological role assigned to secular kings in the final battle with Babylon. Further, he argues that if kings no longer had an essential role to play in salvation history, they could no longer claim to enjoy a sacrosanct status. In his view, loyalty to a given monarch must depend on that monarch’s allegiance to either God or the Devil – and unless James changed his policy towards Spain, he would find himself on the side of the Antichrist.160 However, Scott leaves it to his readers to draw the near-inevitable conclusion that the king would then need to be fought and defeated as an enemy of God.

James I’s Battle with the Prophets (1620–25) Supporters of the King Some of James I’s supporters among the clergy felt obliged to reinforce the king’s position or to back him up with their own public statements. In a sermon on the Resurrection of Christ preached to the king at Whitehall during Easter 1621, Lancelot Andrewes compared the resurrected Jesus’s injunction to Mary Magdalene (‘Touch me not’; John 20:17) to the state secrets of a king: just as one should refrain from meddling with the unfathomable secrets of the Almighty, so it is forbidden to delve into questions of the arcana imperii. ‘The Matters likewise, princes’ affaires, Secrets of State, David called them magna et mirabilia super se, and so super nos: points too high, too wonderfull for us to deal with.’161 Andrewes addressed this message to the royal court, but similar statements were also made to the wider public. During his sermon to mark the anniversary of the Gowrie Conspiracy on 5 August 1622, Samuel Purchas impressed upon his audience at Paul’s Cross the importance of obedience to the Crown.162

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Addressing James’s opponents, he insisted on the king’s special proximity to God, which rendered all censure blasphemous, and he also stressed that subjects should be conscious of their duty of unconditional obedience – a duty that remains binding regardless of the king’s politics: ‘To forget that we are his Subjects, if he have forgotten to be his, Gods, King, is contrarie to all Religion, in the Law and Gospell.’163 Furthermore, James is ‘Gods immediate instrument’, making any resistance against him equivalent to sacrilege.164 John Donne adopted a similar position, defending James’s policies in a public sermon at Paul’s Cross in mid-September 1622 in which he urged his audience to have patience.165 Although military events in Europe had proven disappointing for the Protestant cause, he reminded listeners that at times, God had only come to the aid of the chosen people of Israel after long years of waiting.166 Nonetheless, he stressed, it was important neither to doubt that divine assistance was coming, nor to lose patience; after all, the ways of the Lord are beyond human understanding, just as the counsel of kings is not always apparent to their subjects.167 And since divine intentions are unfathomable, it was also wrong to demand the execution of God’s avowed will against the will of the king.168 Here, Donne is clearly referring to the numerous treatises that invoked lex dei to call upon the king to take up arms against the Habsburgs. He also counters the growing calls for a spiritual war with the words of St Paul, who urged the early churches he addressed in his Epistles to be steadfast, quiet and orderly.169 According to Donne, King James had these qualities in mind when he commanded the clergy not to directly attack members of their rival confession in their sermons, and there could be no doubt that the king had the authority to issue such an order; after all, both the kings of Israel and the Christian emperors of Rome had opposed ‘disorderly preaching’. For Donne, it was also beyond question ‘That the King had the same authoritie in causes Ecclesiasticall, that the godly Kings of Judah, and the Christian Emperors in the primative church had’.170 While preachers who advocated war argued that the fight against idolatry in England and the defence of fellow Protestants in foreign monarchies were both virtually commanded by God, and that failing to zealously pursue these causes would jeopardise the salvation of England, Donne attempted to play down both the purported urgency of the situation and the idea of an obligation to act. In his view, the king bore sole responsibility for political events, and his judgement had to be trusted – even if his subjects and clerics did not understand it. Likewise, the clergy could not cite divine will as an argument against royal policy, since in Donne’s eyes, no one could claim to understand God’s will better than the king himself. In other words, one must trust the wisdom of the king in the same way as that of God. Donne had no doubt that the two supreme authorities – God and the king – worked in harmony, and he thus implicitly depicted James’s political course as touched by providence.

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What made the sermons and political statements arguing against the Spanish match and in favour of war against Spain so politically explosive was mainly the fact that their preachers and authors noted a discrepancy between divine law and royal politics, and thus drew a clear and public dividing line between the will of God and that of the king. This distinction between divine and monarchical authority carried subversive force even when authors did not openly demand that their audiences choose between the two, since as long as the king’s policies were in breach of the binding norms of God, the mere possibility of his subjects making that choice hung over his head like a sword of Damocles. Therefore, this theocratic line of argument threatened to discredit not only James’s politics, but also the legitimacy of his reign. John Donne sought to defuse these arguments, or to return authority to the king, and in his sermon, he subtly tries to bridge the gap between divine and royal power by declaring the king to be the sole authority with a mandate to act according to God’s will. Since no one can presume to understand either God’s will or that of the king, Donne argues, no one can legitimately assert that the two are separate. For James’s subjects, therefore, the only option is to trust that the will of God and the political intentions of the king coincide. In The Christians Comfort – originally preached as a sermon at St Paul’s Church and published in 1623 – Thomas Myriell also tries to encourage his audience to adopt a quietist attitude and to hope that James’s learning and power of judgement would enable him to act against false doctrine against the backdrop of contemporary events. The duty of subjects was to trust their king – a trust that should remain steadfast despite even the renewed presence of Catholic priests and Jesuits in public life. In Myriell’s view, all the people could do was to pray for the survival of the true faith.171 These appeals for patience and faith in the righteousness of the king attest not only to the numerous opposition voices that implicitly or explicitly criticised England’s political course, but also to the atmosphere of increasing hostility towards James I’s politics. They contain references to the divine right of kings – the theory that emphasised the divine origins of the monarchy, the God-given mandate of reigning monarchs and the necessity of obedience, and they also seek to exploit the reputation James had acquired as a godly ruler through his exegetical writings in order to bolster confidence in his political course. Nevertheless, the belief among James’s subjects that their king was following God’s path through his political agenda appears to have been weaker during the last few years of his reign than it had ever been before.

The Controversy over David Pareus The reactions from the king and his supporters among the clergy make it clear that sermons by opposition preachers pointing out the gap between royal policy and the lex dei were taken seriously as political speech acts, and that efforts

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were made to silence them. This tense situation may explain why a sermon given by the young clergyman John Knight on 14 April 1622 – Palm Sunday – at St Mary’s in Oxford received more attention than almost any other public statement of its day.172 For his topic, Knight chose the thirteenth chapter of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in order to argue that lesser authorities should offer resistance to the king in cases where the true practice of religion is called into question. As if this were not provocative enough, he also cited Emperor Trajan’s words to the captain of the Praetorian Guard: ‘Accipe hunc gladium, quem pro me si bene imperavero distringes; sin minus contra me; That is to say, Receive this Sword, which I would have thee use for my defence if I govern well; but if I rule the Empire ill, to be turned against me.’173 With these words, he crossed a line that all other critics of the king had hitherto scrupulously avoided: he spoke publicly about the right of resistance. Knight’s sermon had consequences for its author, who was investigated first by the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, then by the Bishop of St Davids, and finally by King James himself. During his interrogation, Knight stated that his sermon was based on David Pareus’s extensive commentary on Romans, from which he had taken not only his position on the right to resist, but also the example of Trajan.174 Upon this confession, instructions were issued to gather every copy of Pareus’s text that could be found in Oxford, Cambridge and London, and to publicly burn them. Furthermore, the University of Oxford compiled a list of Pareus’s most dangerous errors, which were condemned by a Convocation on June 25 as ‘false, seditious, impious, and destructive of all Civil Government’.175 The sermon and its repercussions offer a clear picture of the charged contemporary political climate. Pareus’s commentary on Romans was published in 1609, followed by a second edition in 1613 and a third in 1620. The text initially met with no significant opposition in England, and was well received in prominent English Bible commentaries of the day; after all, the erudition of its author – a Calvinist theologian living and teaching in Heidelberg – was beyond any doubt. Pareus’s reading of the Epistle to the Romans only took on public political importance during the most intense phase of the conflict over the Spanish match, which was triggered by Knight’s sermon in Oxford. Yet the book that was heaped on bonfires and burned was in no way a political tract; instead, it was a hefty contribution to polemic theology, with the thrust of its argument clearly aimed at Catholic theologians like Bellarmine. Of its more than eight hundred pages, only a short passage dealing with the exegesis of Romans 13 was seen by the king as politically dangerous. Despite its brevity, however, that passage packed a punch. In it, Pareus argues vehemently against all interpretations of monarchical authority as derived from God. Using both biblical and historical exempla, he stresses that no ruler who acts cruelly and without restraint can appeal to God for support; rather, government must conform with the law in order to be in

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harmony with the Lord.176 This interpretation was by no means revolutionary: over three centuries earlier, Thomas Aquinas had interpreted Romans 13 as describing a relationship between king and God that consisted in service, so that monarchs had a special duty to govern their realms virtuously.177 A number of reformers in the Holy Roman Empire drew political conclusions from this obligation for kings to rule in accordance with God’s will, and thus developed a conditional understanding of the injunction to obey the Lord in Romans 13 – namely, that subjects were obliged to submit to their rulers as long as those rulers governed in a manner pleasing to God. However, serious and repeated violations of divine or social norms were incompatible with the king’s role as a servant of God, and in such cases, the duty of obedience ceased to apply. This was an interpretation shared by Johannes Bugenhagen, Andreas Osiander and Martin Bucer, with minor variations.178 Pareus goes a step further in stripping royal rule of its divine legitimation by emphasising, with reference to both biblical and historical examples, that rulers are installed in office by people.179 Quoting 1 Peter 2:13 (‘Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake’), Pareus underscores that government regimes are human in origin, not divine. Although Moses, Joshua, the judges, David, Jehu and other rulers of the Old Testament had their titles bestowed upon them by God, Pareus argues that these are exceptions, not the rule.180 In his view, to ascribe divine properties to earthly phenomena is to fall under the influence of the Devil, and this applies equally to worldly government. Finally, his reading of Romans 13 rules out the idea of all power being divine in origin because – if nothing else – the Pope would otherwise be able to justify his own authority by the same means. Indeed, as a clear embodiment of the forces of the Antichrist, the Pope offers Pareus a further example of an authority unjustifiably claiming divine legitimacy for itself.181 As such, Pareus ultimately accuses all kings who derive their power directly from God of imitating the Pope, and therefore the Antichrist. For James I and apologists for the divine right of kings, this was an outrageous allegation. Effectively, Pareus understands rulers as divine officials who have been granted their authority by God for a specific purpose, and on condition that it is wielded in the right manner – that is, in accordance with both divine and secular law.182 If they abuse their power, they must be held to the law by lesser authorities, whom Pareus in a sense elevates to the status of co-rulers.183 In his view, those who installed the ruler in office also have the legal right to depose and punish him.184 To support this perspective, Pareus cites a series of biblical and historical examples ranging from Nebuchadnezzar to King Wenceslaus, concluding with the maxim of the Roman Emperor Trajan cited above.185 Before John Knight caused such a scandal with his sermon in Oxford, engagement with Pareus’s commentary on Romans had been limited to scholarly theological discussion in England.186 In this context, authors’ attitudes towards

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Pareus clearly depended on their theological leanings. Andrew Willet, for example, wrote a lengthy commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that paraphrases Pareus extensively in its discussion of Romans 13.187 However, Willet expresses himself more cautiously on the right of resistance, arguing that ministers are permitted to admonish their rulers and even to refuse communion to particularly cruel and godless kings, but deeming it unlawful to excommunicate monarchs. He also strongly emphasises that even excommunication cannot release subjects from their duty of obedience, and dismisses any dissenting views as evil, papist nonsense. In so doing, he replicates the exact position of those authors who supported the king in the controversy over the oath of allegiance. Although Willet concedes that subjects have the right to refuse orders from their rulers that clearly contravene divine law (Acts 4:19), he also stresses that outright resistance is illegal unless it takes place within the limits of the individual right of selfdefence, as defined by the laws of the land. Under some circumstances, however, resistance can legitimately be offered by lesser authorities.188 This statement clearly identifies Willet as a reader of Pareus’s commentary on the Romans – though he does not go into any detail regarding precisely whom in England he sees as a lesser authority enjoying the right to resist in certain urgent situations. Nonetheless, we can see here that Willet is trying to distance himself from Pareus’s firm ideas on the right to resist without attacking the great theologian, whose Calvinist convictions Willet shared.189 By contrast, the Cambridge scholar David Owen actively sought to generate controversy. In 1619, he presented a dissertation that constituted an all-out assault on Pareus’s conception of authority by means of an interpretive framework that had been established ten years earlier.190 This was the strategy of equating Jesuits with ‘disciplinarians’ – a term Owen uses to attack all Calvinist theologians of the Geneva school.191 He bases his argument on a conception of monarchy that James I would have approved of: ‘I call him King who hath a Supreame Power, subject to none.’192 Owen takes aim at Jesuits and ‘disciplinarians’ because both camps disputed this understanding of royal power, justifying their opposition with what in Owen’s view was a false interpretation of Scripture. He charges both his target groups with denying the king’s sovereignty over the Church (Robert Bellarmine and William Bucanus); calling into question his secular sovereignty by making it dependent on the law and the consent of lesser authorities (Robert Parsons and David Pareus); and assigning spiritual authorities – whether the Pope or the presbytery – the right to sit in judgement over kings (Robert Bellarmine and Theodore Beza). In Owen’s view, the similarity of these positions ultimately makes the two groups interchangeable, which is why he calls them ‘Puritan-Papists’. Owen reiterates the argument of James I’s The True Lawe of Free Monarchies, albeit without explicitly referring to it. Like the king, he distinguishes between Old Testament exempla in which eternal rights are granted – making them

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the cornerstones of contemporary monarchies – and extraordinary exempla in which God intervenes directly in the political events of Israel, which Owen does not see as setting down eternal laws. Owen’s dissertation was written in 1619, initially in contribution to a disputation at Oxford on the subject of Pareus’s ideas. In late August 1622, just a few months after Knight’s sermon in Oxford, Owen’s text was then published under the title Anti-Paraeus with a dedication to King James.193 The text was probably intended primarily for instructional purposes, and served as a warning to clerics not to rely on Pareus as a spiritual authority on questions of royal rule. Published in Latin, it was intended more for the international community of Protestant theologians than for a political readership in England. Anti-Paraeus only appeared in English in 1642, when it was published as a kind of Royalist commentary on the Civil War and a rebuttal to supporters of the Long Parliament, many of whom had adopted Pareus’s interpretation of Romans 13.

Sea Change: Charles Follows in the Footsteps of the Prophets Despite all appeals for him to change his course, James I stuck to his political guns and resisted pressure to go to war against Spain right up until his death on 27 March 1625. His peace policy remained the hallmark of his reign over England until the very end, and was also praised in the eulogies given to mark the occasion of his funeral.194 As such, he went down in England’s collective memory as ‘Great Britain’s Solomon’; yet this final honour did not alter the fact that the king’s foreign policy had left him an isolated figure during the final year of his reign. James had been unable to count on the support of his son and heir, Charles, or his favourite, Buckingham, ever since they had made an unauthorised journey to Spain in 1623 to woo the Infanta in person – without success. Their return to England had been celebrated with great jubilation, processions and bonfires to give thanks that Charles had once again escaped the clutches of the Spanish, as many of those celebrating would no doubt have interpreted the situation.195 Yet for the prince himself, his Spanish expedition was, in hindsight, a personal defeat for which he sought redress, and this gave him a political interest in war with Spain.196 Charles went on to publicly adopt a policy of war when he appeared in Parliament for the first time as the new king in 1625. He presented himself to both Houses as a resolute champion of the true faith, thereby following in the footsteps of his late older brother Henry, who had portrayed himself in a similar light throughout his life.197 Charles stated that his highest political goal was to go to war with Spain in order to support persecuted Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire and to come to the aid of the Elector Palatine – a stance he justified by his royal duty to follow the will of God.198 The Speaker of the House

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of Commons, John Crew, then reaffirmed the tenor of Charles’s speech and cited the city of Meroz, which did not heed God’s call to fight the heathens and was cursed for it – a fate that England needed to avoid.199 This official line was subsequently repeated in the speech given by the king’s most important minister, the Secretary of State Edward Conway.200 Between 1624 and 1628, then, the narrative of holy war formed part of Charles’s political discourse – at first as heir to the throne, and then, after 1625, as king.201 From the outset, however, practical political constraints threatened to make this presentation of the king as a defender of the faith implausible. It went without saying that England could only risk war with Spain with the help of a strong ally, and ultimately, the only suitable candidate was France. Yet this alliance was a major liability for Charles and the credibility of his narrative, for two particular reasons. One of these was the contract concluded in 1625 between England and France that set the conditions for a marriage between Charles and Henrietta Maria. Through this agreement, France was able to guarantee the same freedoms for English Catholics that had been brought about during negotiations with Spain – namely, the de facto repeal of laws against recusancy. This was hardly conducive to Charles’s promised holy war; after all, one could hardly justify why Antichrist should be fought beyond England’s borders, but not within the kingdom itself. As such, the continued toleration of English Catholics inevitably raised doubts over how seriously Charles would pursue his avowed objectives – not to mention that the many critics of the Spanish match as a marriage to an idolater also saw the wedding with Henrietta Maria as illegitimate.202 The second reason had to do with the disclosure, during deliberations in Parliament, that the English Crown had – at Buckingham’s behest – loaned a number of ships to its new ally in order to help the French king suppress the Huguenot rebellion in La Rochelle.203 In other words, long before efforts to go to war with Spain had gathered any momentum, England had actually helped in the fight against its own Protestant co-religionists. This assistance might have been opportune in terms of foreign policy, but was counterproductive when it came to ensuring that England would not share in the fate of the city of Meroz.204 As such, Charles’s avowed zeal for God’s cause proved impossible to reconcile with the political constraints he faced at the start of his reign. We therefore see that Charles I’s self-fashioning as a defender of the faith was accompanied from the outset by publicly voiced doubts over whether England’s new king really had devoted himself to the battle against idolatry. Even the dedication of the anonymous book Sacrae Heptades, which was published in exile in the Netherlands, can be read as a criticism of Charles I: ‘… to King Charles Defendor of the Fayth, and to the King and Queene of Bohemia professing the Fayth, and therefore persecuted.’205 While the defence of the true faith was one of the official duties of the King of England, for his sister Elizabeth it formed part of her personal convictions and came with serious negative consequences for

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her. Sacrae Heptades can be read as a kind of assessment of how seriously the king took his role as defender of the faith, and its author leaves us in no doubt that the war on the Continent was about no less than the clash between true, Protestant believers and Catholic representatives of the Antichrist. The anonymous author points out the political consequences of this interpretation partly through the allusive foreword, and partly through the closing list of positive and negative exempla from the Old Testament. The foreword issues a warning against a Jezebel who may once have been young and irreproachable, but is now nothing more than a ‘royall whore’; however, the author has no doubt that God will send a Jehu to cause all her ‘Fryars, Monks and other Votaries’ to throw her out of the window.206 This defenestration will also be the starting signal for a true reformation, which will result in the Antichrist being driven out once and for all. Nowhere does the author give any indication that this Jezebel is meant to refer to Queen Henrietta Maria.207 However, the text contains all the key words needed to trigger such an association in the minds of readers. As a Catholic, Henrietta Maria’s circles included Catholic clergymen who celebrated Catholic mass in her court chapel – an arrangement expressly granted to her in the wedding contract between France and England. Her extensive court was also predominantly populated by Catholics, most of whom she had brought with her from France to London.208 Thus the association between Jezebel, who promoted the cult of Baal in her husband Ahab’s kingdom, and England’s Catholic queen was both obvious and highly provocative.209 The author draws equally incendiary conclusions from his political interpretation of the Apocalypse, in which he insists that not only the Pope, but every single Catholic should be considered an Antichrist. This prompts the rhetorical question of ‘whether it may stand with the policie, safetie, or peace of any Christian kingdome state or common wealth, to permit and suffer Antichristian and divelish practises of filthines, infidelitie, murther, treason, Idolatrie, blasphemie, and superstition to increase amongst them.’210 If Charles I is to fulfil his role as defender of the faith, so the author argues, it will not be enough for him go to war against Spain; rather, he will first need to do his duty as protector of the Protestant faith in his own country and put an end to all forms of idolatry. Only then can he hope for military success, as the author explains with reference to several biblical exempla: ‘You cannot stand before your enemies, untill you have taken away the cursed thing from among you.’211 Like Sacrae Heptades, Samuel Bachiler’s Miles Christianus, or the Campe Royal – also published in the Netherlands – asserts that victory against external enemies requires unconditional loyalty to God.212 This argument is based on Deuteronomy 23:14, which Bachiler quotes on the title page: ‘For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of the Campe, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enimies before thee: therefore shall thy Campe be holy, that he see no uncleane thing in thee, and turne away from thee.’ On the one hand, Bachiler emphasises

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the urgency and holiness of war against Spain, referring explicitly to the kings in the Book of Revelation who are tasked with dealing the killing blow to the Whore of Babylon.213 On the other, however, he insists that this war must be fought in accordance with lex dei, and that success will only come to the pious.214 Ultimately, he argues, it makes no difference whether war is waged against enemies of the lex dei abroad or in England.215 Either way, the struggle is justified if it serves a sacred goal: ‘the slaughter of Gods enimies’.216 One particular legacy of ecclesiastical politics from the final year of James I’s reign posed an additional challenge to his heir’s strategy of presenting himself as a Protestant champion in the struggle against enemies of the faith. In 1624, Richard Montagu published the treatise A New Gagg for an Old Goose in response to a polemical tract by Catholic missionaries in Essex entitled The Gagge of the Reformed Gospel, whose authors sought to demonstrate the falsehood of Protestant doctrine with reference to numerous passages from Scripture – in other words, in a quasi-Protestant way. Montagu’s riposte departs from conventional polemic rhetoric in that he dismisses the Catholic authors’ attacks as irrelevant, since they are directed solely at the Puritans, whose arguments were by no means shared by all Protestants.217 Montagu itemises numerous similarities between the Catholic and Anglican Churches, and in several places expresses the conviction – shared by James I – that the Church of England is naturally part of the Catholic Church and in fact embodies it better than any other. He stresses the value of images in churches as a means of guiding the faithful to genuine piety; he emphatically denies the canonical view in England that the Pope embodies the Antichrist; and he takes issue with the Calvinist understanding of the doctrine of predestination. In the eyes of many church historians, Montagu’s text marks the start of the Arminian revolution in the Church of England.218 For the past three decades, there has been vigorous debate over whether or not Bishops Laud, Neile and Cosin represented an Arminian vanguard in the Church; over the extent to which these bishops brought about the increased emphasis on ceremonies and the altar in church services; over what role Charles I himself played in these changes; and above all, over how far these developments should be interpreted as a clear break with established ecclesiastical tradition and dogma in England. This debate falls beyond the scope of my study; furthermore, the controversy seems (at least implicitly) to centre on the question of whether the Laudians, the king or the numerous critics of the changes had the law on their side in these ecclesiastical clashes – a problem I do not intend to resolve here. In my view, the question of whether or not Richard Montagu and William Laud really were Arminians is of less importance from a political perspective than the undisputed fact that they were perceived and attacked as such by many influential figures in the Church and in Parliament. Similarly, the dogma espoused by Montagu in his writings is less relevant to my study than the effect of his treatise on the king’s self-fashioning and public perception. In a sense, he offers a means of

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gauging how far Charles I was truly committed to his role as a champion of Protestantism. The aspect of the controversy that is most relevant to my study is the extent to which arguments supporting or attacking Montagu are compatible with the narrative of a holy war. It is noteworthy, however, that this question plays at best only a subordinate role in the heated debate that continues to rage among historians. Montagu’s writings aroused suspicion even among his contemporaries, and what began as a local matter soon caught the full attention of the entire British political scene. As early as 1624, John Pym put Richard Montagu’s statements on the agenda of the House of Commons, and his opinions on the identity of the Church of England continued to be debated by the first Parliament of the reign of Charles I one year later, as well as by the Parliaments that met in 1626 and 1628/29. MPs grew suspicious of Montagu partly because – in response to criticism of his first treatise – he published a second text dedicated to James I entitled Appello Caesarem, in which he defended his arguments and stressed their alignment with the traditional principles of the Anglican Church.219 The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, formally registered his misgivings about Montagu’s writings in July 1625, taking issue as much with the latter’s alleged Arminianism as with his denial of the Pope’s status as a representative of the Antichrist. In Abbot’s eyes, both statements ran counter to the views of James I, who had made his aversion to Arminianism clear in his Declaration against Vorstius and had also demonstrated over the course of numerous works that the Pope was the Antichrist.220 However, Parliament’s efforts to initiate impeachment proceedings fizzled out in 1625 – not least because Charles had appointed Montagu as one of his court chaplains, making it difficult to officially prosecute him.221 This royal protection transformed the Montagu affair into a matter of national importance. In the eyes of many clergymen and MPs, Charles’s backing made Montagu’s controversial statements a threat to orthodoxy in the Church of England.222 It must also have made the king’s self-appointed role as a defender of Protestants appear doubtful in the eyes of Montagu’s critics. Furthermore, Thomas Wentworth expressed his concern that failing to punish Montagu might bring the wrath of God down upon the whole of England. Wentworth saw Montagu’s books as an insult to Scripture that needed to be punished, and underscored this necessity with reference to godly monarchs such as Theodosius the Great, Louis IX of France and Elizabeth I, who had earned lasting recognition for their respect for the Bible.223 In short, a number of MPs made it very clear in the House of Commons that they felt Charles would risk divine punishment being visited upon England if he continued to protect Montagu. Over the following years, this affair found its way onto the agenda every time Parliament was summoned, and on 17 April 1626, John Pym presented a full list of the objections against Montagu. The latter was accused of violating established

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dogma in England (specifically, the thirty-nine articles that had been set into law by Parliament in 1571); of contributing to the alienation of the king from his people; and of leading the people into ‘popery’ and seeking to reunite the Anglican and Catholic Churches.224 Although all of Parliament’s efforts to impeach Montagu failed, doubts over his orthodoxy lingered and shifted onto Charles I. The king’s attempt to dispel the debate over dangerous innovations in the Church of England with a placatory proclamation in June 1626 proved unsuccessful, as did a reprint of the thirtynine articles in 1628 with a foreword by the king, in which he stated that his chief aim was ‘to conserve and maintaine the Church commited to our charge in the unitie of true religion and in the bond of peace’.225 Instead of receiving acclaim for his role as a champion of Protestantism, Charles had to defend himself against accusations of promoting innovation in the Church. The mounting public discontent could not be appeased with proclamations or repeated calls for moderation. Numerous treatises were published that expressed doubt about the king’s religious politics, and critics attacked recent measures in the Church in connection with a wide range of different topics. Multiple authors affirmed the doctrine of predestination as forming part of the longstanding, established beliefs of the Church of England, and denounced alleged Arminians as dangerous innovators who were planning to overhaul the dogma of the Church. These authors included John Yates, Henry Burton and George Carleton – the latter formerly an Anglican delegate at the Synod of Dort in 1618, where the teachings of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius had been condemned.226 Secular scholars such as Francis Rous and William Prynne also spoke out against the advance of Arminianism.227 Some of these writers referred to James I’s Declaration against Vorstius, citing the late king as a witness for their case in favour of the doctrine of predestination and against Arminius.228 Henry Burton also made the Montagu affair into a matter of direct personal concern for Charles I by arguing that the king was obliged to intervene against Montagu’s publications in his capacity as defender of the faith. In the process, Burton reminded his readers that Montagu’s writings were produced cum privilegio, which meant that the king was in a sense jointly responsible for Montagu’s arguments and therefore needed to go even further in distancing himself from them. In Burton’s view, Charles needed to clear both himself and his predecessors of all charges of Arminianism.229 Charles’s treatment of Catholics also stoked doubts over his resolve in matters of faith, and so Henry Burton’s The Baiting of the Popes Bull called for harsher action against Catholics in England. Burton announces to his readers that his piety has induced him to run the risk of being charged with high treason in a bid to persuade the king to correct his political course.230 His dedication to Charles I refers to the cautionary example of Haman, who abused his status as the favourite of King Ahasuerus in order to alienate him from the Jews in his

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realm and bring about the ruin of Israel.231 In the context of 1627, it would not have required much imagination for readers to realise that Haman stood for none other than Lord Buckingham. In his dedication to Buckingham, however, Burton chooses another object of complaint: the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria, whom he covertly attacks by writing of the frogs presently creeping into the king’s bedchamber. These are the frogs of Revelation 16:13–14, which summon the kings of the earth to join the Antichrist.232 With these critical allusions, Burton expresses his concern that Charles might be seduced by his inner circles to turn away from God and towards the Catholic Church on questions of religion, and this provides the context for his appeal to the king. Burton urges Charles to take a stand against Pope Urban VIII’s recent bull, which appealed to all English Catholics to be steadfast in their faith and to refuse the oath of allegiance, by branding it high treason and having it burned.233 Burton’s publicly voiced concern was fuelled by the fact that the papal bull named the queen’s chapel as a place of refuge for persecuted Catholics, and he found further recommendations for action in the Bible. Thus he quotes the law of the king – Deuteronomy 17:18–20 – which urges monarchs to fear God and uphold His laws.234 He also points to Moses’s helpers, who were appointed for their truthfulness and piety (Exodus 18:21), and urges Charles to follow the same principle in selecting his ministers. Likewise, he issues a general warning to the king to free the Church from ‘pollutions of idolatry and superstition’.235 Burton further adopts the general view of the Pope as Antichrist as a means of emphasising his opposition to the toleration of Catholics in England, which he feels is ultimately equivalent to tolerating the Whore of Babylon.236 In Burton’s view, if the king veers into error in questions of faith and fails to fulfil God’s mandate to cleanse the land of idolatry, or fulfils it only in part, he will have to consider the fates of Saul, Ahab and Jezebel – all of whom God held to account for their disobedience.237 Peter Smart, a prebendary of Durham Cathedral, also felt that the Church of England was moving dangerously close to Catholicism. On 7 July 1628, he took advantage of the absence of his bishop, Richard Neile, to preach a sermon protesting against the superstitious rites that had proliferated in the cathedral over the previous ten years, despite having been rooted out during the Reformation.238 His sermon was based on the words of Psalm 31: ‘I have hated them that regard lying vanities’. Smart contrasts the law of God, which must be obeyed, with idolatrous human innovations that violate the lex dei and pave the way for the Antichrist to enter the Church.239 Preaching with a fury that proved almost suicidal, Smart calls for the originators of such vanities to be wiped from the earth with fire and sword and reminds his audience of the kings in the Book of Revelation, who are called upon to strip, devour and burn the Whore of Babylon.240 Smart’s position on the question of ceremonies in the Church is also clear: ‘The life and soule of every Ceremony is the word of God; without which,

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it is dead and damned.’241 He blames the papacy for constantly introducing new rites that have no basis in Scripture, thereby carrying out the work of the Antichrist.242 He also laments the recent reintroduction of an altar with a cross on top of it in Durham Cathedral, along with chandeliers, images, hymns and other church music, and points to these in his sermon as marks of the return of the Antichrist to the English Church.243 These selected examples demonstrate the full extent of the religious controversies that stood in the way of Charles I’s self-fashioning as a defender of the Protestant faith. In none of the controversies discussed here was the king willing to adopt the views of critics of contemporary ecclesiastical policy; nor did he see himself as a champion of the reformed faith against allegedly Arminian machinations among his bishops or the adoption of rites and ceremonies within the Church. However, this undermined the credibility of both his proposed holy war and his own self-appointed role in it as a divinely ordained protector of Protestants across Europe – not only among critical clergymen, but also among MPs, on whose support he was dependent. According to the logic of the holy war narrative that Charles chose as a motif for the early years of his reign, there was only one means by which he could have silenced his doubters and critics: that of military success. This was because it was God who determined the victors of war – not tactics or army strength. Further, God made that choice based on how faithfully his people upheld divine law; thus, on the battlefield, godliness was rewarded and disobedience punished. By this logic, victory was therefore not only a mark of divine election, but an endorsement of the victor’s religious integrity. For English Protestants, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 offered decisive proof that God was on their side. At the same time, however, the consequences of defeat went far beyond mere military matters. If, at the decisive moment, God withheld the help and support He had given England on multiple occasions in the past, it would be because the English had failed to uphold His laws and ignored the divine will. A glorious victory over Spain might therefore have temporarily silenced the critics of Charles I’s religious policy, while by the same logic of divine providence, a defeat would have proven his opponents right. Unfortunately for Charles, the news reaching England from its various theatres of war offered confirmation in abundance for the king’s critics. Every operation undertaken by England or its allies went wrong. Mansfeld’s plans for an expedition to liberate the Electoral Palatinate failed miserably, as did the English naval attack on Cadiz.244 As if that were not enough, England’s newly recruited ally in the Thirty Years’ War, King Christian IV of Denmark, was utterly defeated at the Battle of the Lutter, with England’s failure to deliver the subsidies it had promised the Danish king playing no small part in the outcome.245 These disasters prompted many voices to be raised in search of answers. For the king, one reason for the debacle was Parliament’s failure to

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release sufficient funding from taxes; however, for many MPs in the Parliament of 1626, the lack of success was largely due to the incompetence of the Duke of Buckingham, whom they felt bore personal responsibility for at least the failed attack on Cadiz.246 They therefore demanded his dismissal as a condition for their approval of the additional funds the king needed in order to pursue the war. With this demand, the Parliament of 1626 doomed itself to failure from the outset despite its apparently instrumental role in raising the funds for military action, as Charles was not prepared to fire his closest advisor. He therefore dissolved Parliament in June 1626 before its impeachment procedure against Buckingham could be concluded.247 Having failed to obtain funding from either the Commons or the Lords, the king was forced to look for alternative sources of money. First, he turned to the City of London with a request for a loan, which was refused.248 Then the government attempted to encourage justices of the peace to collect a voluntary levy from their counties.249 These political efforts were accompanied by a collateral campaign in which clergymen across the country were instructed to enlist their parishioners’ support for the king’s cause.250 Accordingly, on 5 July and 2 August 1626, every Christian in the kingdom offered up prayers for the positive outcome of the just and necessary war against Spain: … in this our English and Spanish Warre, Trueth may seeme to fight against falsehood, Innocence against Antichristian cruelty and syncerity of worship against flat Idolatry, and therefore … what can bee expected from God by us in this battell, but victory and great triumph?251

The holy war narrative remained part of the king’s self-fashioning, and was now intended to lend the necessary air of legitimacy to his extra-parliamentary financial demands.252 Against the backdrop of these more-or-less desperate efforts by the Crown to raise funds, William Hampton delivered a sermon at Paul’s Cross on 23 July 1626 that can also be understood as a call for donations to the war effort.253 Yet judging by the tenor of the sermon, by this point there was little left of Charles’s early enthusiasm to present himself publicly as a champion of Protestantism in Europe. Instead, Hampton speaks of the need to commit every last ounce of strength to defending against a superior adversary and averting an invasion if at all possible.254 However, the sermon contains two lines of reasoning that at first sight appear to be contradictory. First, Hampton subscribes to the narrative of holy war by emphasising that victory or defeat are in God’s hands alone. In accordance with the history of the people of Israel, England can only hope for divine salvation if it refrains from violating God’s laws, and Hampton points out that the nation has already experienced such salvation on several occasions with the Reformation, the destruction of the Spanish Armada and the discovery of the

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Gunpowder Plot.255 Conversely, defeats are God’s punishment for sinfulness, and Hampton sees England as especially guilty of the sins of pride, drunkenness and gluttony.256 In his view, the assault on Cadiz could only have succeeded if the sins of the defending Spaniards had been greater than those of the attacking English.257 Hampton thus explains past military defeats with reference to the sins of the English people in general. At the same time, however, Hampton urges his audience to provide financial support to the Crown in order to help finance the measures urgently needed to defend against a Spanish invasion.258 Hampton phrases this request as an appeal to morality: ‘[Do we] Love our wealth more then our selves, more then our lives, more then our wives, more then our children, more then our Country, more then the Gospell?’259 Taken together with his assertions that God alone can decide between victory and defeat, and that He will only grant mercy if England reforms its morals, Hampton’s appeal to his audience’s pockets is deeply surprising. If the sinfulness of the English people led to the defeat in Cadiz, no amount of extra funding for the Crown would change the outcome of the ongoing conflict with Spain. The contradiction that emerges here can only be resolved if we see the provision of financial support itself as a contribution to moral reform. In Hampton’s view, therefore, subsidising the king was the best way to appeal to God’s mercy.

Financial Levies as an Act of Faith: The Forced Loan Controversy (1626–27) During the course of 1626, it soon became clear that the Crown’s financial needs could not be met by benevolence – that is, by voluntary contributions collected from various cities and counties.260 The news of the crushing defeat of England’s ally Christian IV, who had been forced to wait in vain for English subsidy payments, offered Charles I another forceful reminder of his financial plight and prompted him to raise a compulsory levy to fill his coffers.261 This levy proved highly successful in collecting the funds Charles needed to pursue his policies.262 Yet it came at a high price, in that it poisoned the domestic political atmosphere over the long term. In many counties, the levy met with protests and sometimes even open resistance, and a number of members of the gentry flatly refused to pay. Seventy noblemen were subsequently jailed without trial, and when five of them petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, they were merely informed that they had been arrested on special orders from the king.263 The so-called Five Knights’ Case shifted the focus of public attention and debate onto the legitimacy of royal levies imposed without parliamentary approval, as well as the detention of prisoners without trial.264

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The forced loan was justified with reference to the political emergency in which the king – and with him all of England – had found himself. Yet the measure also found eloquent advocates among members of the Church, after clergymen throughout England were ordered to defend the compulsory levy before their congregations in spiritual terms.265 In 1627, no less than three sermons were published whose authors took it upon themselves to defend the forced loan by placing special importance on royal authority.266 Two of these authors, Robert Sibthorpe and Roger Maynwaring, were subsequently impeached by the Parliament convened the following year, though the third, Isaac Bargrave, was spared prosecution.267 To explain this inconsistency, Glenn Burgess points out that Sibthorpe and Maynwaring intervened directly on the topic of Parliament’s right to approve taxes – a highly sensitive political matter – whereas Bargrave did not make a direct link between the divine right of kings and the monarch’s right to impose taxes without parliamentary approval.268 Burgess’s position will be examined in detail below. Robert Sibthorpe took great pains to argue his political case as clearly and comprehensibly as possible, and as a result, the opposition he encountered was not restricted to Parliament. Even among the political decision-makers in Charles I’s inner circle, not everyone was convinced that escalation was the right strategy. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, refused to grant permission to publish Sibthorpe’s sermon even though Charles I himself had ordered it to be printed. This may be explained in part by the fact that Abbot did not support the forced loan, and would have preferred to see Parliament summoned in order to raise funds.269 Abbot faced lasting repercussions for his resistance: he was temporarily exiled to his estate in Kent, and his official functions were delegated to five other bishops in the meantime.270 He was only permitted to return to his office when Parliament was summoned in 1628; however, by that point he had lost his authority in court for good. Furthermore, his objections failed to prevent the publication of Sibthorpe’s sermon, which incurred only a brief delay until it was granted an imprimatur by the Bishop of London, George Montaigne, in Abbot’s stead.271 Sibthorpe makes his object clear in the very title of his sermon: ‘Shewing the Duty of Subjects to pay Tribute and Taxes to their Princes, according to the Word of God, in the Law and the Gospell, and the Rules of Religion, and Cases of Conscience’.272 In order to prove that the payment of taxes is a religious duty imposed by Scripture on every Christian, he turns to the magic bullet of Romans 13 and its discussion of obedience to higher powers, focusing in particular on the seventh verse: ‘Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.’ Sibthorpe exhorts his listeners and readers to meet this obligation not only at times of immediate necessity and political distress, but ‘voluntarily and

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cheerefully’.273 In his view, subjects must even pay taxes that are unjustified by the law of the land in order to fulfil the moral obligation of obedience they owe to their monarch.274 Indeed, he holds all forms of taxation to be lawful under the lex dei, as he makes clear with reference to Samuel’s speech to the people of Israel on the consequences of the establishment of a monarchy.275 In the process, Sibthorpe leaves his audience in no doubt that he sees 1 Samuel 8:11–17 as a list of royal rights, and not as a description of tyranny.276 Sibthorpe backs up his reading of Samuel’s speech on kingship with references to other passages from the Old Testament: Ecclesiastes 8:3–4 stresses the sole legislative authority of the king, while Proverbs 16:10 demonstrates his supreme judicial authority. He also sharply rejects the idea of a right to resist: If Princes command any thing which Subjects may not performe, because it is against the lawes of 1. God, or of 2. Nature, or 3. impossible; yet Subjects are bound to undergoe the punishment without either resistance, or railing and reviling.277

This offers a representative example of the harsh tone of the sermon, in that Sibthorpe bases his dismissal of the right of resistance on an extreme example that almost all other authors advocating the divine right of kings preferred to avoid – namely, what happens when the king’s commands conflict with the law of God. For Sibthorpe, even in this situation subjects are not permitted to resist or refuse to obey their ruler, and they must resolve their crisis of conscience in a manner that does not go against the orders of the king. Although Sibthorpe used the extreme cases of taxation and the right to resist in order to demonstrate how far royal power could extend before the people could legitimately refuse their monarch’s orders, he in no way intended to suggest that this question was relevant to Charles I’s subjects. Like many of his predecessors in the pulpit, Sibthorpe characterises the contemporary political situation by citing the need for England to come to the aid of its fellow Protestants and to defend itself from attacks by enemies of the faith. In his view, these political measures were in full agreement with the will of the Lord, and so to reject them would be to invite divine punishment – thus ensuring that England would meet the same fate as the city of Meroz in the Bible. Sibthorpe thus adopts established rhetoric in presenting the king as a divinely ordained defender of the faith who merits all the support needed to ensure his success.278 Roger Maynwaring’s sermons on the forced loan were at least as controversial as Sibthorpe’s, and even William Laud – one of the king’s staunchest supporters on the Privy Council with respect to his financial measures – was uneasy about the idea of publishing them for a wider audience and thus potentially adding fuel to an already heated political debate.279 However, Charles I dismissed these concerns and had the sermons printed ‘by his Majesties special command’.280 There is thus no doubt that Maynwaring’s argument also expresses the king’s

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own position. Maynwaring presented his thoughts on the links between religion and obedience during the course of two sermons preached before the king in July 1627, both of which draw on similar arguments. In each case, Maynwaring’s starting point is the relationship between divine and royal rule – the former being independent, while the latter is derived from God. Kings therefore partook in divine authority, and owed neither their power nor their office to the people.281 In the first of the two sermons, Maynwaring also turns to patriarchy as a means of stressing the freedom of royal rule from human influence, arguing that Adam first obtained his rights as a ruler by virtue of the creation – ‘before ever there was either Pope, or People’.282 The second part of Maynwaring’s reasoning follows virtually inevitably from the idea of royal authority bestowed by God – namely, that resistance to the orders and edicts issued by the king is not merely disobedient, but outright iniquitous, and a danger to salvation. In Maynwaring’s view, however, royal injunctions are not equally binding if they violate divine law, making his position more moderate than that adopted by Sibthorpe.283 From this, Maynwaring concludes that the same duty of obedience continues to apply even when the king is compelled by exigency to impose levies on his subjects. By the same token, Parliament should not stand in the way of the king’s proposed taxes, since it too is obliged to abide by Jesus’s injunction to ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s’ (Matthew 22:21). After all, Maynwaring argues, since secular laws can only prescribe what is already set down in divine and natural law, one of the king’s fundamental royal rights is to imposes taxes and levies on the people.284 He further cautions against resisting that right by pointing to Korah and his followers, who rose up against Moses and were punished by being burned alive in a fire sent by the Lord (Numbers 16).285 Maynwaring’s and Sibthorpe’s sermons are unusual in that they refer directly to the contemporary political situation and use the language of biblicism to expressly grant the king a right to impose special taxes at times of need. Yet they proved controversial not only because they intervened in a specific struggle for authority between the king and Parliament, but also because angry MPs were outraged that the preachers drew upon the Bible to make assertions about the right of taxation, thereby casting doubt on the political relevance of the law of the land. As Burgess has rightly observed, the divine right of kings only became a subject of political controversy in England when its proponents began to argue that it replaced common law as the basis of political decision-making, instead of seeing both languages as complementary. The third member of the triumvirate of preachers who sought to prove the legitimacy of the forced loan was the court chaplain Isaac Bargrave; however, he stated his position implicitly and thus managed to avoid being impeached by Parliament. Nonetheless, his sermon also contains some incendiary material. Bargrave equates disobedience with idolatry, and calls England to obedience so

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that it can continue to receive the blessings God has bestowed upon it above all other nations – namely, a Protestant Church and domestic peace.286 He also notes that God has tasked the king of England with safeguarding these blessings for the future.287 In Bargrave’s view, disobedience would jeopardise England’s special favours and risk incurring divine punishment in the same way that Saul doomed himself by sparing Agag and by confiscating the Amalekites’ herds of livestock instead of destroying them.288 Bargrave does his utmost to equate this offence to that of refusing to pay the forced loan by pointing out that the people of Israel were focused not on God’s will, but on filthy Mammon. In Bargrave’s view, Saul disobeyed the Lord’s command because he was guided by the wishes of his people.289 God was thus supplanted by self-interest – an accusation that Bargrave likewise levels at his audience in England – and the result was disobedience to both God and the king.290 Amid all these warnings and accusations, Bargrave never explicitly mentions the forced loan; however, some of the general examples of wrongdoing that he holds up in his sermon only make sense in the context of the surrounding controversy. Thus, according to Bargrave’s logic, anyone who refuses to pay the forced loan or argues that the levy runs counter to the law of the land would, in practice, be making a distinction between the king’s commands and the interests of the nation, and anyone citing common law as an objection would do better to refer to Scripture, which in Bargrave’s view remains the ultimate authority. Finally, Bargrave reminds his audience of Charles I’s self-appointed role as a champion of the true faith, taking up arms against Amalek on God’s behalf. In other words, to fail to support the king’s cause would be akin to disobeying a divine command. Thus, we see that Bargrave’s sermon absolutely contains references to the contemporary political situation; however, they remain implicit, leaving space for interpretations not directly linked to the dispute over the forced loan and thereby making the text less politically pointed. Ultimately, Bargrave leaves it to his listeners and readers to decide whether to view the sermon as a contribution to the controversy over Charles’s fundraising measures. Nonetheless, at least some of Bargrave’s contemporaries saw his sermon as more dangerous than Burgess suggests. The MP for Canterbury, Thomas Scott, devoted a lengthy entry in his diary to Bargrave, who at the time was Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. Scott was particularly interested in the relationship between obedience to God and obedience to the king. In Bargrave’s eyes, Charles I sought to follow divine orders uncompromisingly and bring about the destruction of the Amalekites, while those who refused to lend him the support he needed were equivalent to King Saul, who failed to follow the command of the Lord when he spared the life of the Amalekite king Agag. Thus, Bargrave implied that obedience to God necessarily entailed obedience to King Charles in order to avoid repeating Saul’s error. Scott’s diary entry, by contrast, reflects on a possible contradiction between obedience to God and loyalty to the king: should the king

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deny that it is necessary ‘to kill Agag’, Parliament would be forced to act in his stead.291 In this way, Scott identifies himself as a supporter of the right to resist under certain circumstances, arguing that if the king failed to follow the will of God, or did so only incompletely, Parliament had the right and duty to do so in his place. In contrast to Bargrave, Scott also sees Charles I as following in Saul’s footsteps in certain respects, although it remained to be seen whether or not the king would ultimately obey the injunction to kill Agag when the time came. Yet Scott never makes it clear which of his contemporaries he sees as embodying Agag. Whereas for Bargrave, the Amalekite king was a personification of enemies of the faith in general (and thus presumably the Spanish in particular), Scott seems to associate him specifically with Buckingham, whom he holds responsible in his diary for the contemporary political crisis, and whom Charles had hitherto shielded from impeachment by Parliament. Thus, although Bargrave’s sermon did not make any explicit statements about the forced loan, it nonetheless prompted one member of the Parliaments of 1626 and 1628 to give serious thought to the legitimacy of political resistance against the king. Ultimately, the debate over the legitimacy of the forced loan was separate from the controversy over the political goals it allowed the king to achieve. Thanks to the loan, the Crown was able to obtain the funds it urgently needed in order to launch military operations; yet the outcome of those operations did little to silence the numerous critics of the levy. According to the official justification for the forced loan, which had been disseminated both through the sermons preached by clergy across the country at the king’s behest and through those he commissioned from his court chaplains, the levy helped England meet its need to defend itself against Spain. As a general political goal, however, this proved less controversial than the manner in which Charles set about achieving it. England’s chances of success against Spain were not solely hampered by its lack of money, as despite all the agreements it had struck with England, France proved to be a highly unreliable ally. Louis XIII made no move to go to war against Spain, instead deploying his troops to besiege the fortified town of La Rochelle and suppress the Huguenot revolt.292 Buckingham held Richelieu responsible for this change of course and used military threats to try to force France to declare war against Spain as promised.293 The result was a naval expedition in the summer of 1627 – led personally by Buckingham and accompanied by a large-scale propaganda campaign – which attempted to occupy the isle of Ré near La Rochelle with a view to using it as a base for further operations in France.294 The attack was financed using money from the forced loan. Buckingham’s close personal involvement in this undertaking may have been another attempt to dispel scepticism towards him.295 However, given the course of the war so far and the degree of general discontent with the government over the previous few years, it would have taken a stunning victory for Buckingham to restore himself to public favour. Despite initial success, the siege of Saint-

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Martin-de-Ré proved to be yet another disaster, and after suffering heavy losses, the English troops were forced to retreat to England in the autumn.296 Taken together with the storm of complaint and protest against the king’s ecclesiastical policy and the de facto toleration of Catholics in England, the disastrous course of the war heavily undermined Charles I’s self-fashioning as a champion of oppressed Protestants in France and the Holy Roman Empire. Both Buckingham and Charles had failed to prove that God was on their side in the struggle against Spain and France. Nonetheless, it would take another year for the king to fully relinquish his self-appointed status as a holy warrior.

Assigning the Blame (1628–29) The events of 1627 made it inevitable that Parliament would be summoned once more, and sure enough, Charles ordered MPs to assemble at the beginning of March 1628. By way of preparation, the Bishop of Lincoln, John Williams, attempted to defuse the tense atmosphere by urging the Lords to show restraint. His sermon Perseverantia Sanctorum, preached on Ash Wednesday to the assembled bishops and peers of the House of Lords, offers a vivid account of the Book of Job, pointing to Job’s patience at times of extreme hardship as an example for everyone and arguing that this makes him a typus Christi.297 In Williams’s view, the abundant blessings bestowed upon Job at the end of his life are directly attributable to his patience, his steadfast faith in God and his quiet suffering.298 Williams then recommends that MPs adopt the same attitude – one of patience and trust in God’s ultimate grace. He argues that the recent setbacks experienced by England offered no grounds for doubt or recrimination, dismissing them as mere temporary afflictions that must be borne without complaint.299 Likewise, he cautions his audience against public controversy, which he sees as leading to the alienation of the king from his people and risking the disfavour of the Lord.300 In his later address to Parliament, Charles I added a further message to this appeal for patience. On convening the first of the many Parliaments that met during the 1620s, James I had been determined to avoid war if at all possible, despite opposition from certain members of the Lords and the Commons who urged him to take action against Spain. In the Parliament of 1628, however, the roles were reversed: Parliament had lost all enthusiasm for prolonging the war while the king insisted on maintaining the country’s military efforts.301 Given the ongoing siege of La Rochelle and the prospect of imminent starvation if the Huguenots were not relieved soon, and given the previous failure of English military interventions in the conflict, the king felt that he had no choice but to press on with the war in order to avoid jeopardising his international reputation. Charles therefore asked Parliament for funds in order to support Buckingham,

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who was busy preparing another naval intervention in La Rochelle.302 In making this request, Charles I and his inner circle pursued the holy war narrative to its logical conclusion: if English military operations were being carried out on God’s behalf in order to protect fellow Protestants from the enemies of the faith, then surely it was incumbent upon Parliament to supply the necessary funds without delay. By refusing to provide financial support, MPs would be directly disobeying the Lord – and in that event, the king would in turn be obliged to raise the money by other means in order to obey God’s command, even if it went against the law of the land.303 Charles addressed Parliament directly: ‘These Times are for Action; wherefore, for Example Sake, I mean not to spend much Time in Words’.304 In his speech, he stated that the chief aim of the moment was to help England’s Protestant co-religionists and avert the present danger to the true faith. However, MPs had a different list of priorities, on which ‘holy war’ was nowhere to be seen. In the wake of the forced loan and the arrest of numerous members of the gentry, the House of Commons was instead primarily concerned with safeguarding the civil liberties that had been enshrined in England ever since the Magna Carta. This soon led to a battle of fundamental principles over the precise interpretation of the Magna Carta and the scope of royal prerogative rights. In the context of the ensuing debates, which ultimately resulted in the Petition of Right, the sermons of Roger Maynwaring and Robert Sibthorpe also caught the attention of the Commons. John Pym gave a speech recommending impeachment proceedings against Maynwaring, arguing that his defence of the king’s right to impose taxes without the approval of Parliament constituted an attack on the fundamental rights of the people of England that would bring about changes to the constitution and, ultimately, the nation’s ruin.305 Furthermore, Pym argued, Maynwaring’s interpretation of Matthew 22:21 (‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s’) was false, since the Jews had been conquered by the Romans and were therefore subject to absolute rule, whereas in England the institution of monarchy was regulated by law and tradition.306 On 4 June, the Commons officially charged Maynwaring with insulting the laws and customs of England and calling into question the rights and freedoms of its citizens.307 While the impeachment in the lower house related solely to the political conclusions Maynwaring had drawn from Scripture in his sermons, he also found himself under fire in the House of Lords – this time for his manner of interpreting the Bible. After Maynwaring had defended himself to the Lords by saying that he had spoken with reference to a specific political emergency, and that he had never intended to question either the rights of Parliament or the laws of England, Archbishop Abbot took the floor and seized his opportunity to settle the score. He accused Maynwaring of blasphemy for his reading of Psalm 82 (‘Ye are gods’), since he had improperly equated the king with God, and the Lords saw fit to punish him accordingly ‘for attributing unto the King a

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Participation of God’s Omnipotency, and an absolute Power of Government; for his scandalous Assertions against Parliaments; and for branding those Gentlemen who refused the late Loans with Damnation.’308 Parliament’s appetite for revenge was not sated by Maynwaring’s downfall, however, and June 1628 saw renewed attacks on the Duke of Buckingham, which were brought together in a remonstrance to the king.309 Once again, Charles was unprepared to sacrifice his favourite, and instead chose to postpone parliamentary sessions until the autumn. Due to further delays, Parliament did not meet again until spring 1629. Buckingham, however, did not live to see it reconvene. Lieutenant John Felton, who had participated in the unsuccessful operation on the isle of Ré, took Parliament’s accusations and complaints into his own hands by murdering the king’s favourite in Portsmouth, and subsequently justified his actions with reference to the remonstrance.310 Despite the publication of Felton’s confession prior to his execution, Buckingham’s assassination was celebrated in many quarters, and some even saw his murderer as an emissary from God who had inflicted just punishment on the king’s favourite.311 Buckingham’s death was justified in part using the language of civic humanism;312 yet biblical exempla played a part in this discourse too.313 One contemporary pamphlet praises Felton by comparing him to David, Phinehas and Ehud.314 Such underground publications met with broad popular approval, and Felton was accompanied by large crowds as he was transported to London. In Kingston, one old woman even received him with the words, ‘God bless thee, little David’.315 Pamphlets circulated in many towns and cities containing poems that praised Felton for his actions, which were seen as having liberated England from a great burden.316 Many members of the political ruling class also saw the hand of God at work in Buckingham’s murder.317 After the death of Buckingham in August 1628 and the fall of La Rochelle in October, Charles I’s attempts to fashion himself as a champion of holy war and the defender of European Protestants finally ended in failure. Indeed, he had never convincingly managed to assume the militaristic role that earlier critics of James I’s peace policies had tried to impose on the king. Furthermore, Charles felt betrayed by Parliament, since in his view he had been forced into military engagement only to be denied the money he needed to win the war. As far as the king was concerned, the resulting loss of face and standing that he experienced in Europe was a direct consequence of the obstructionist policies of a handful of influential opponents in Parliament. In the summer of 1628, therefore, the king began to forge a new course in national politics. First, he revoked a number of decrees that he felt Parliament had forced him into passing, but for which he had not received adequate consideration in return. In particular, these related to the punishment of a number of ministers who had spoken out in support of the king and thus incurred the wrath of Parliament. Indeed, Conrad Russell pithily sums up

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Charles’s attitude towards the hiring and firing of clergymen by observing that being denounced by Parliament seemed to be the best letter of recommendation a minister could receive if he wanted to make a career in the Church. In 1628, Parliament sentenced Roger Maynwaring to a long prison term; however, he was quickly pardoned by the king and subsequently made a court chaplain. Likewise, Richard Montagu, who had been denounced in Parliament in 1624, 1625, 1626 and 1628, was named Bishop of Winchester on 4 July; his patron, William Laud, was appointed Bishop of London; and Laud and Neile, the two clergymen who had been personally suspected of Arminianism in the remonstrance of 1628, were given seats on the Privy Council from 1629 onwards.318 Second, there is little doubt that Charles wanted to end England’s wars with France and Spain as soon as possible. The disastrous course of the war, the unresolved financial problems and the ensuing criticism of the king’s political decision-making all pushed Charles to follow in his father’s footsteps and henceforth pursue a pacifist course. The soldiers enlisted for the wars were released from military service in November and peace talks were opened with France and Spain. For Charles, war ceased to be a viable political option, and he was no longer willing to follow the example of Job. However, the king’s ecclesiastical policies and his abandonment of the war against Spain triggered a storm of public criticism. For example, Richard Bernard’s 1629 treatise The Bible-Battells argues in favour of pursuing what its author sees as a holy war, and consistently refers to the Bible as a template showing how a just war should be waged.319 Bernard is at pains to point out what wars are righteous in the eyes of the Lord and how they should be fought, and he presents the people of Israel as a model worthy of imitation.320 The Bible-Battells denies the legitimacy of Charles I’s new politics of peace without ever referring to it directly; nonetheless, in his dedication, Bernard explicitly urges the monarch not to give up: ‘Stand therefore (o King) in the Forefront of the Lords Battailes’.321 In Bernard’s view, war against idolatry is a divine duty, and to refuse to wage it is an act of disobedience to God.322 At the same time, England will only find salvation at the side of the Lord. According to Bernard’s reasoning, therefore, war and peace are not matters for negotiation or options to choose between based on political opportunism; rather, the proper course of action is ordained by divine law. Other authors took an even harder line on the first few years of Charles I’s reign. The radical critic Alexander Leighton raised the question of why England had suffered such heavy losses and defeats in recent battles, and argued that the answer lay in the king’s religious politics. Following the example of the Scottish Presbyterians, his controversial pamphlet An Appeal to the Parliament; or Sions Plea against the Prelacie demands no less than the abolition of the episcopacy in the Church of England.323 Leighton fully adopts the Mosaic distinction in his argument against bishops, reasoning that England and Scotland’s salvation

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would be guaranteed if the ‘Kingdome of Christ’ were restored, whereas if the two realms opposed the rule of the Lord, they would be doomed.324 In Leighton’s view, the chain of defeats suffered by England over the previous few years marked the beginning of God’s punishment of its sins.325 He lays the choice between Christ and the Antichrist squarely at the feet of Parliament. No argument is too outlandish for Leighton in his efforts to brand not just the Pope, but the bishops of England as representatives of the Antichrist, and he even blames them for the Gunpowder Plot – especially the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, Richard Bancroft, whom he accuses of orchestrating the assassination attempt in a bid to secure the Holy See.326 In Leighton’s view, Parliament’s duty is to restore God’s grace by abolishing episcopacy in the Church.327 Leighton expressly warns against waiting for God to punish enemies of the faith; instead, he stresses the importance of independently taking the action needed to restore divine law.328 This makes his appeal all the more incendiary, as he presents the murder of the Duke of Buckingham as inspired by God.329 Leighton thus implicitly echoed the popular association between Buckingham’s assassin, John Felton, and the biblical figure of Phinehas even as the king was sentencing Felton to death as a murderer and traitor.330 Leighton’s appeal to Parliament reveals the paradigmatic importance of Phinehas to his reasoning. By committing an act of violence, Phinehas restored the divine order and thus averted God’s punishment, and so Leighton’s admonition to Parliament to do the Lord’s work is no less than an invitation to follow Phinehas’ example. Leighton was summoned before the Star Chamber in 1630 to answer for his treatise, and he paid a heavy price for his appeal to Parliament. His nose was split, his ears were cut off and he was branded with the letters SS, standing for ‘Sower of Sedition’.331 He was also imprisoned, until Parliament released him in 1640 along with Burton, Bastwick and Prynne (who had been jailed in 1637). Leighton’s treatise was certainly unique in its radicalism at the time, and MPs saw no need to discuss it during parliamentary sessions.332 It was only after Charles I and Archbishop Laud had introduced their new ecclesiastical policies that the voices calling for the abolition of episcopacy in the Church of England grew louder, reaching a crescendo with the Long Parliament.333 However, the abolition of bishops was not on the parliamentary agenda in 1629 – though MPs did consider some bishops to be dangerous innovators whose policies needed to be opposed, and the general outcry over the expansion of alleged innovations and abuses in the Church, which were bundled together under the catch-all term ‘Arminianism’, likewise found a ready audience in Parliament. Charles I’s suppression of Montagu’s Appello Caesarem shortly before the beginning of the second session of Parliament in 1629 did nothing to alter the fact that the king’s religious policies were a cause of discontent, including in the Commons.334 A group of MPs headed by John Pym led the charge in opposing these alleged innovations in the Church, and only seven days into the new parliamentary

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session, the Commons resolved to make ecclesiastical policy and Arminianism its central concern. Much like the authors of the various treatises addressed to Parliament, they cited the need to lead England back onto the path of God in order to avoid His judgement and increase the chances of victory on the battlefield.335 Other members of the Commons, such as Francis Rous, saw the Whore of Babylon on the rise in England, and Rous made the following appeal to his fellow MPs: I desire that it may be considered, how the See of Rome doth eat into our Religion, and fret into the banks and walls of it, the Laws and Statutes of this realm … an Arminian is the Spawn of a Papist, and if there come the warmth of favour upon him, you shall see him turn into one of those Frogs, that rise out of the bottomless pit[.]336

Since productive political discussions were unthinkable in the face of such charges, Charles’s decision to dissolve Parliament was inevitable.337 Similarly, it is understandable that the king resolved not to summon any further Parliaments over the following decade, given his experiences during the early years of his reign. During the period of his Personal Rule, Charles was able both to make peace with France and Spain and to rule largely undisturbed; however, he was unable to dispel the opinion shared by many clergymen and former MPs that England was veering dangerously close to Catholicism, and that certain elements of heretical dogma were increasingly taking root in the Anglican Church. The hardening conviction among clerics and politicians that Charles’s religious policy was drifting apart from the lex dei meant that the king’s hopes for unity and peace in the Church proved illusory. This sense of departure from the ideals of the reformed Church is one reason why the rhetoric of repentance ultimately fell on such fertile ground in the Long Parliament. The majority of MPs perceived divine and royal rule as incompatible, and gave priority to loyalty to God in the event of a conflict between the two, much like the Scottish Covenanters had done earlier. Their choice set the Civil War in motion.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Prior, Defining the Jacobean Church. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor. Fincham and Lake, ‘Ecclesiastical Policy’. Brightman, Revelation of the Revelation, 137 and 165; Asch, ‘Revelation of the Revelation’, 325. 5. Schreiner, Heilige Kriege; Brendle and Schindling, Religionskriege; Schilling, Konfessioneller Fundamentalismus; Pohlig, ‘Konfessionskulturelle Deutungsmuster’; Walzer, Revolution of the Saints, 277–99. 6. See Chapter 3.

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

See Rüde, England und Kurpfalz, 174. Asch, Jakob I., 182–85. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 37. Sharpe, Image Wars, 130–31. Russell, Parliaments and English Politics; Colclough, Freedom of Speech, Chapter 3, especially 168–85. McRae, Literature; Raymond, Pamphlets; Freist, ‘Öffentlichkeit und Herrschaftslegitimation’; Cust, ‘News and Politics’ and ‘Patriots’; Grabes, Das englische Pamphlet, 97–100; Firth, ‘Ballad’, 44–56. Clegg, ‘Print in the Time of Jacobean Parliaments’. Russell, Unrevolutionary England, 1–57; Sharpe, Faction and Parliament; Rüde, England und Kurpfalz, 187–93 and 212–16. CSP Ven., vol. 17 (1621–23), 445 (21 Sept. 1622). Sharpe, Image Wars, 130. See also Young, King James VI and I, 62; von Raumer, History, vol. 2, 246. Smuts, ‘The Making of Rex Pacificus’; Sharpe, Image Wars, 14–17. Lee, Great Britain’s Solomon, 264; Patterson, King James VI and I, 294–95. Middleton, The Peace-Maker, fol. A3r: ‘To all Our trueloving, and Peace-embracing Subjects.’ See also Amussen, ‘The Peacemaker: A Critical Introduction’; Dunlap, ‘James I, Bacon, Middleton’; Patterson, King James VI and I, 296, fn. 9. Middleton, The Peace-Maker, fol. B1r. Ibid., fol. A4r and B1v. James I, Workes, 590. Patterson, King James VI and I, Chapter 9. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 24–35; Russell, ‘Foreign Policy Debate’; Adams, ‘Foreign Policy’. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 37. ‘Abbot to Naunton’ [1619] in Anon, Cabala, Sive Scrinia Sacra, 102–3. Schreiber, ‘Naunton, Sir Robert’; Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 151–52; Rüde, England und Kurpfalz, 173–74. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 17; Asch, Revelation of the Revelation and Jakob I., 153–54; Adams, ‘Foreign Policy’, 146–47; Breslow, A Mirror of England, Chapter 2. ‘[Abbot] to James [August 1623]’, Beinecke Library (Yale University), Osborn fb 57, 110–11, cited in Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 46. Rüde, England und Kurpfalz, 214–15. Scott, Digitus Dei, 33–34; Taylor, Two Sermons, fol. A3v. Scott, Digitus Dei, 33: ‘… to come on upon their side, and take upon us the least marke of the Beast which we have cast off, therby to buy our peace, and to endeare our entertainment, is to wound our owne Consciences, and to sinne with a high Hand against the Light of Knowledge.’ Scott, Vox Regis, fol. ** 1v (parentheses my own): ‘His [i.e. God’s] workes are but the eccho of his word’. Ibid., fol. ** 2v. The anonymous pamphlet of 1622 entitled The French Herauld sent to the Princes of Christendome is even clearer: ‘Wake out of your slumber, give your servant the pen, and take the sword in hand’; Anon., The French Herauld, 12. Scott, Digitus Dei, 30–31. In this passage, Scott cites Jer. 20:27 and Ezek. 28:16. Jackson, Judah, 96; Anon., Sacrae Heptades, 2.

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37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

Higgons, Mystical Babylon, preface, fol. A2v; Burton, The Seven Vials, 76–78. Everard, Three Sunnes, 2 and 20. Sheldon, Sermon, 9, 19 and 40. Higgons, Mystical Babylon, 54. See Perry, ‘If Proclamations Will Not Serve’. Anon., ‘Tom Tell-Troath’, 420. Scott, Vox Regis, 36; Anon., ‘Tom Tell-Troath’, 420. Scott, Vox Regis, 42. See Colclough, Freedom of Speech, 112–16. Sheldon, Sermon, 42. Jackson, Judah, 41: ‘… to see their sinnes, and being farre off from serving the time, and flattering them, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace’. Cf. Jer. 6:14. Higgons, Mystical Babylon, dedication, fol. 3v; second sermon, 76. Oxford BL, Rawlinson MS D. 853, (Hakewill, The Wedding Ring), preface (unpaginated); Higgons, Mystical Babylon, dedication, fol. 3v. Everard, Arriereban, 63 (with reference to Ex. 15:3); Scott, Belgick Souldier, 6. See also Scott, Robert Earle, 4, 13 and 16–17; Leighton, Speculum Belli Sacri, 32. Everard, Arriereban, 13. Ibid., 73. See also ibid., 87 and 94. Young, King James VI and I, 80. Allen, ‘Everard, John’. Taylor, The Subjects Joy. Ibid. Some of these examples also appear in Everard, The Arriereban. See Scott, A Speech; Anon., ‘Tom Tell-Troath’. Scott, Belgicke Pismire, 13. Ibid., 30–32. Ibid., 38. See also Young, King James VI and I, 91–92. Scott, Belgick Souldier, 2. Ibid., 3. Peltonen, Classical Humanism, 232: ‘But in so far as his advocacy of active citizenship is concerned, Scott’s arguments are almost exclusively classical republican in character.’ Ibid., 233–34. Lake, ‘Constitutional Consensus’, 807. Todd, Christian Humanism. See also Colclough, Freedom of Speech, 103: ‘The Bible and the history of the church combine perfectly, for Scott, with the humanist values of public interest, liberty, and the resistance of tyranny.’ Peltonen, Classical Humanism, 233. Scott, Belgick Souldier, 5; Vox Regis, 66; Synmachia, 14; Belgicke Pismire, 5. See Leighton, Speculum Belli Sacri, 1–8; Forster, Notes from the Caroline Underground, 20–25. Hakewill, King Davids Vow, 297–98. Leighton, Speculum Belli Sacri, 5: ‘A just war is to be preferred to an unjust peace’. Questier, Conversion, 42 and 72. Higgons, Mystical Babylon. Ibid., 78. Ibid.

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77. Reynolds, Votivae Angliae, fol. Piv–Piir; Gataker, Sorrow for Sion, 31; Leighton, Speculum Belli Sacri, 31; Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 398. 78. Barnes, Vox Belli, 19: ‘Cursed be he that holdeth backe his sword from bloud, when he is willed and warranted to dip it, to dye it in the same.’ 79. Laud, Seven Sermons, 19: ‘peace against truth is not pax Jerusalem’. 80. Middleton, The Peace-Maker, fol. B4r: ‘yet still shall Truth have Peace, and the Peacemaker shal preserve the truth; They shall dwell together, and live together.’ 81. Ibid., fol. B3r. 82. Adams, Eirenopolis, 1. 83. Willan, Conspiracie, 3; Adams, Eirenopolis, 170–71; Purchas, The Kings Towre, 76–82; Buggs, Davids Strait, 57; Donne, Sub-Poena, 41. James made the same argument in his speech at the opening of Parliament on 19 February 1624; Journal of the House of Lords, vol. 3, 208–10. 84. Denison, Beati Pacifici, 23 and 37 (incorrect pagination: 33 and 47). 85. Adams, Eirenopolis, 13. 86. Ibid., 14–15: ‘wee may have Peace … with evill men, though not in evill matters’; on the explicit exclusion of religion, see ibid., 16. 87. Curll, Sermon. Curll went on to become Bishop of Rochester, Bath, Wells and Winchester. Anthony Milton characterises him as a ‘Laudian bishop’; see Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 50 and 365. 88. Curll, Sermon, fol. A3r. 89. Ibid., 11. 90. Ibid., 16. 91. Ibid., 27. 92. Ibid., 28. 93. Cogswell, ‘Politics of Propaganda’, 197. Exceptions include Duval, Rosa Hispani-Anglica, 51–52; Garrard, The Countrie Gentleman Moderator; and Stradling, Beati Pacifici. 94. Reynolds, Vox Coeli, 74; Scott, Robert Earle of Essex, 162 and Sir Walter Rawleigh’s Ghost. See also Colclough, Freedom of Speech, 105–13. 95. Reynolds, Vox Coeli, 70. 96. King, Vitis Palatina, 13; Willet, A Treatise of Salomons Marriage, 9; Webbe, The Bride Royall, 77. 97. Rüde, England und Kurpfalz, 142. 98. Adams, Eirenopolis, 9–12 and 16. 99. Adams, The Temple, 3. 100. See McCullough, Sermons at Court, 33–34. 101. Adams, The Temple, 35. 102. Ibid., 35–36. 103. Ibid., 65: ‘… the one being a breach of Allegiance to the Lord, the other a breach of allegiance to the Lords Annointed’. 104. Ibid., 66–67. 105. McGee, ‘Adams, Thomas’; see also McGee, ‘On Misidentifying Puritans’. 106. Tricomi, Anticourt Drama, 153; Heinemann, Puritanism and Theatre, 165–66. 107. Sharpe, ‘Representations and Negotiations’, 854–59. 108. Lake, Constitutional Consensus, 813–14. 109. Morrissey, ‘Rhetoric, Religion and Politics’ and ‘Presenting James VI and I’; Owen, ‘Paul’s Cross’.

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110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145.

McCullough, Sermons at Court, 197. For more on Sutcliffe, see Levack, Civil Lawyers, 180 and 272–73. Oxford BL, Rawlinson MS D. 853 (Hakewill, The Wedding Ring). Ibid. Ibid., preface (unpaginated). Ibid., 7. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 35. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 28. See also James I, Workes, 172: ‘… ye have deeply to weigh, and consider upon these doubts, how ye and your wife can bee of one flesh, and keepe unitie betwixt you, being members of two opposite Churches: disagreement in Religion bringeth ever with it, disagreement in maners; and the dissention betwixt your Preachers and hers, wil breed and foster a dissention among your subjects, taking their example from your family; besides the perill of the evill education of your children. Neither pride you that ye wil be able to frame and make her as ye please: that deceived Salomon the wisest King that ever was; the grace of Perseverance, not being a flowre that groweth in our garden.’ Chamberlain, Letters, vol. 2, 393–94. McCullough, Sermons at Court, 202. James I, Workes, 167. Hakewill, King Davids Vow, 158. Ibid., 159–60. Ibid., 160. Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 193. Jackson, Judah, 60–61; Gataker, Sorrow for Sion, 37. Jackson, Judah, 101–2; Taylor, Mappe of Rome, 4; Taylor, Two Sermons, II, 6 and 24; Scott, Vox Regis, 16; Scott, Belgicke Pismire, fol. A3v–A4v. Jackson, Judah, 35. Ibid., 109–10. Questier, Conversion, 45 and 161. Sheldon, Christ, on his Throne, 2. The only available evidence for the interval between preaching and publication is Sheldon’s own declaration that he had preached the sermon to the king in Wanstead a few years previously. Sheldon, Christ, on his Throne, fol. a3v. Sheldon, Sermon, 9–18, esp. 17–18. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 42–45. Ibid., 50. Ibid., 49. Ibid. See Scott, Digitus Dei, 34–37. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 40. Sheldon, Sermon, 49.

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146. Brightman, Revelation of the Revelation, 137 and 165; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, 167–69; Asch, Revelation of the Revelation, 325. See also Surridge, ‘An English Laodicea’. 147. Taylor, Two Sermons, fol. A2v. 148. McGee, ‘Taylor, Thomas’. 149. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 76 and 115–16; Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 168. 150. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 133; Adams, ‘Foreign Policy’, 153–57. 151. Taylor, Two Sermons, fol. A2v. 152. Ibid., I, 12: ‘Wee must depart from needlesse association and assistance: how can we strike hands, and embrace amitie and societie with such as have broken off with God? How can iron and clay temper together? What societie betweene light and darknesse? What agreement betweene a member of Christ, and a limbe of Antichrist?’ 153. Ibid., I, 33–34. 154. Ibid., I, 14. 155. See the section below. 156. Taylor, A Mappe of Rome, 43–44; Taylor, Two Sermons, 13; Jackson, Judah, 102; Sheldon, Sermon, 42 and 49. 157. Higgons, Mystical Babylon, II, 75 (parentheses Higgons’s own). 158. Ibid., 72 (parentheses Higgons’s own): ‘God hath prest you unto this service, and not onely warranted, but required you unto it. You are sent against Rome (as Saul against Amalek) to destroy it with fire, and sword … Now the time is come [it is past with God] it is now at hand, that you may, you must, you shall take up a temporall against his spirituall Sword’. See also Taylor, Two Sermons, II, 4–5. 159. Scott, Digitus Dei, 33. 160. Ibid.: ‘… for us to come on upon their side, and take upon us the least marke of the Beast which we have cast off, therby to buy our peace, and to endeare our entertainment, is to wound our owne Consciences, and to sinne with a high Hand against the Light of Knowledge.’ 161. Andrewes, ‘Sermon Preached before the King’s Majestie, at White-Hall’, 548. The quotation from David is taken from Psalm 131:1. 162. Purchas, The Kings Towre. 163. Ibid., 66. 164. Ibid., 102. 165. Donne, Sermon upon the XV. Verse. See Shami, ‘The Stars in their Order’; Morrissey, ‘Donne as Conventional Paul’s Cross Preacher’. 166. Donne, Sermon upon the XV. Verse, 4. 167. Ibid., 9 (referring to Deborah in Judg. 4:1–5, Ezra 37:36, 2 Kings 5:16 and 1 Sam. 23:5), and 18–19. 168. Ibid., 21. 169. Ibid., 39 (referring to Col. 2:5; 1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:6). 170. Ibid., 45–46. 171. Myriell, The Christians Comfort, 49–50. 172. Chamberlain, Letters, vol. 2, 434, 439 and 443; see also Judson, Crisis, 312–13. 173. Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus, 95. 174. Pareus, Epistolam Commentarius. 175. Whiting, ‘Pareus’, 220; Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 519.

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176. Pareus, Epistolam Commentarius, col. 1339: ‘If all rights of authority came from God, they would have to be used for the greater good in every act of government.’ Translation my own. 177. Aquinas and da Lucca, De Regimine Principum, lib. 1, chapter 7. 178. See Scheible, Widerstandsrecht, 25–29 (on Johannes Bugenhagen); Hortleder, Der Römischen Keyser und königlichen Majestät, II, 83–84 (on Andreas Osiander); Bucer, Metaphrases, 477–81. See also Skinner, Foundations, vol. 2, Chapter 7. 179. Pareus, Epistolam Commentarius, col. 1339. 180. Ibid., col. 1346. 181. Ibid., col. 1339. 182. Ibid., col. 1351. 183. Ibid., col. 1351: ‘Thus when a higher magistrate does wrong – inflicts grievous injustices on his subjects, or commits blasphemy – then the lower magistrate must be a wrathful avenger. For this is why lower magistrates are added to the higher: to share in government, but also to check their boundless licence.’ Translation my own. 184. Ibid., col. 1352: ‘They are installed in office either by popular consent, or by parliament, or by voters, or by other magistrates. Thus these parties do right when they check or remove robbers.’ Translation my own. 185. Ibid., col. 1352–53 186. See Burgess, British Political Thought, 117. 187. Willet, Hexapla, 588–94. 188. Ibid., 592. 189. Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 519. 190. Owen, Herod and Pilate Reconciled. 191. Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 519–20. 192. Owen, Anti-Paraeus, or, a Treatise, 2. 193. Owen, Anti-Paraeus: Sive Determinatio. 194. Williams, Great Britains Salomon, 37–38; Donne, ‘Death’s Duell’, 748–52. 195. Chamberlain, Letters, vol. 2, 515. 196. Sharpe, Personal Rule, 5–6. 197. Strong, Henry Prince of Wales. 198. Gardiner, House of Commons, 5. 199. Ibid.: ‘… and if in this case wee withhold our succor, wee shalbee lyeable to that curse of Egipt and Meros for not helpinge the Lorde’. 200. Ibid., 73–74. 201. See Schreiner, Heilige Kriege; Flaig, ‘Heiliger Krieg’; von Rad, Der Heilige Krieg; Johnson, The Holy War Idea. 202. See Marcelline, Epithalamium Gallo-Britannicum, title page, according to which the wedding will lead to ‘the destruction and ruine of Antichrist, the establishment of the true Faith, the propagation of the Gospell, the restitution of the Palatinate’. 203. Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 211–12; Lockyer, The Early Stuarts, 27–28. 204. Lockyer, Buckingham, 230. 205. Anon., Sacrae Heptades, fol. A2v. 206. Ibid., fol. A3v. 207. Hill, English Bible, 69–70. 208. See Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, 114–15; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 168; Lockyer, Buckingham, 251–52.

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209. See Hill, English Bible, 70; Hunt, The Puritan Moment, 277. 210. Anon., Sacrae Heptades, 211–12. 211. Ibid., 213, referring to Josh. 7; 2 Chr. 19–21 and 23; and Jer. 51. See Clark, ‘Thomas Scott’, 17. 212. Bachiler, Miles Christianus. Bachiler preached this sermon to English soldiers who were stationed in the Netherlands at the time. 213. Ibid., fol. A2v: ‘… God shall put into the hearts of the tenne Hornes (the Kings of the earth) to fulfil his will in the judgment of the Whore by warre against her’. 214. Ibid., fol. A3r: ‘And when we goe out to war against our enimies, Gods law must order us’. 215. Ibid., fol. A4r. 216. Ibid., 14. 217. Montagu, Gagg, 323–24. 218. See Chapter 1. 219. Montagu, Appello Caesarem. 220. Gardiner, House of Commons, 47–48. 221. Journal of the House of Commons, vol. 1, 809–10. 222. Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 240–41; Gardiner, House of Commons, 46. 223. Ibid., 70–71: ‘He insisted cheifly upon the abuse of the Bible, paralellinge it with that of tramplinge upon the Bible at Canterburye. Both which, if they were not punisht by authority of private faults, would become publicke, and thoughe it be at no tyme fit to provoke the wrath of God, yet much less at this tyme, when we are all as it were making our wills, beinge already under his hande.’ 224. Journal of the House of Commons, vol. 1, 845; Gardiner, House of Commons, 179–86. 225. Larkin and Hughes, Stuart Royal Proclamations, vol. 2, no. 43, 90–93; Church of England, Articles, fol. A3r. See Sharpe, Personal Rule, 282–83 and 292–95. 226. Carleton, Examination; Yates, Ibis ad Caesarem; Burton, Plea to an Appeale. 227. Rous, Testis Veritatis; Prynne, God, No Impostor nor Deluder; Prynne, The Church of Englands Old Antithesis. 228. Rous, Testis veritatis; Yates, Ibis ad Caesarem, fol. A4r–v; Burton, Plea to an Appeale, fol. ¶3r. 229. Burton, Plea to an Appeale, fol. ¶2v and ¶4v. 230. Burton, Baiting, fol. ¶2v. 231. Ibid., fol. ¶1r–¶2r. 232. Ibid., fol. *1v–*2r. 233. Ibid., fol. ¶3v–4r and *1v. 234. Ibid., fol. ¶¶2r. 235. Ibid., fol. ¶¶2v. 236. Ibid., 22–23, 28. 237. Ibid., 18. 238. Smart, Sermon. For a detailed account of the context, see Fincham and Tyacke, Altars Restored, 137–39. 239. Smart, Sermon, 4–5: ‘So must we love Gods law, which forbiddeth Idolatry, and hate vaine inventions, and the inventours of vanities’. 240. Ibid., 5–6. 241. Ibid., 7. 242. Ibid., 8 and 11: ‘But the Whore of Babylons bastardly brood, doting upon their Mothers beauty, that painted Harlot the Church of Rome, have labored to restore her all her robes

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243.

244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 254. 255. 256. 257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262. 263. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 271. 272. 273. 274. 275.

and jewels againe: especially her looking glasse the Masse, in which she may behold all her bravery.’ Ibid., 17 and 20, where he explicitly levels the charge of imitating Rome. Smart backs up his accusations of innovation in the Church with reference to Peter Martyr Vermigli, who in the 1550s denounced the presence of altars in churches as idolatry in his response to Stephen Gardiner (ibid., 28–29), and by citing James I’s Paraphrase upon the Revelation (31). For further developments in the altar controversy and the conflicts over ceremonies in the church, see Fincham and Tyacke, Altars Restored, 137–75 and 227–73. Lockyer, The Early Stuarts, 24–26 and Buckingham, 222–29 (on Mansfeld) and 281–85 (on Cadiz). See Sharpe, Personal Rule, 15; Kampmann, Europa und das Reich, 54–61. See Lockyer, Buckingham, 308–17. Ibid., 330–31. Cust, Forced Loan, 38. Ibid., 32–39 and 153–58. Cogswell, ‘Politics of Propaganda’, 196. Church of England, A Forme of Prayer. See also the critical commentary by the French observer Dumolin in London, who reported to Paris: ‘They wish for war against heaven and earth, but lack the means to make it against anyone’; cited in Russell, Parliaments, 323. Hampton, Proclamation of Warre. See Russell, Parliaments, 326. Hampton, Proclamation of Warre, 9–10. Ibid., 20. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 18: ‘… our most gracious Souveraigne, to be carefull to provide for our defence and safety, so move the hearts of the people to furnish him with supplies sufficient for the performance of it, before it be too late’. Ibid., 33 (parentheses my own). Cust, Forced Loan, 33–39. Larkin and Hughes, Stuart Royal Proclamations, vol. 2, 110–12; Cust, Forced Loan, 99–102; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 15. See also Cust, ‘Charles I’, 215. Cust, Forced Loan, 47. Lockyer, The Early Stuarts, 223–24; Kishlansky, ‘Tyranny Denied’, 60–61. See Guy, ‘Origins’, 289–312; Kishlansky, ‘Tyranny Denied’. Charles I, Instructions; see also Cust, ‘Charles I’, 218. Cust, Forced Loan, 62–67; Towers, Control, 169; Fincham and Tyacke, Altars Restored, 134–35. Snapp, ‘Impeachment’. Burgess, Absolute Monarchy, 110. Rushworth, Historical Collections, vol. 1, 454. See also Cust, ‘Charles I’, 216. Fincham, ‘Abbot, George’, 24–25. Fielding, ‘Sibthorpe [Sibthorp], Robert’. Sibthorpe, Apostolike Obedience. Ibid., 6–7. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 17.

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276. 277. 278. 279. 280. 281. 282. 283.

284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300.

301. 302. 303. 304. 305. 306. 307. 308. 309.

See also Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Sibthorpe, Apostolike Obedience, 13. Ibid., 20–22: ‘… to establish and defend Religion, and the law of God’. Laud’s suggestion was ‘to think better of it that there were many things therein which will be very distasteful to the people’; see Cust, Forced Loan, 62. On Laud’s role in deliberations on the Privy Council, see Cust, ‘Charles I’, 216. Maynwaring, Religion and Allegiance. Ibid., 8–13 (first sermon) and 10–11 (second sermon). Ibid., 13 (first sermon). Ibid., 17–19 (first sermon). In his second sermon (18–23), Maynwaring also mentions a number of classic Bible passages: Matt. 22:21; Prov. 24:21; 1 Pet. 2:17; and Eccles. 8. Maynwaring justifies the refusal to follow royal commands that clearly infringe upon divine law by pointing to the biblical example of Nebuchadnezzar’s order to worship a golden image (41–42). Ibid., 27–29 (first sermon) and 47 (second sermon). Ibid., 47 (second sermon). Bargrave, Sermon. Bargrave’s topic is 1 Sam. 15:23, albeit with a clear focus on disobedience to God – an offence committed by King Saul in the Bible. Ibid., 9. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 14. Clark, ‘Thomas Scott’, 18–19; Cuttica, ‘Kentish Cousins’. See Parrot, Richelieu’s Army, 87–91. Lockyer, The Early Stuarts, 28. Cogswell, ‘The People’s Love’. See Lockyer, Buckingham, 313; Fairholt, Poems and Songs, 6–9. Lockyer, Buckingham, 378–404. Williams, Perseverantia Sanctorum, 3 and 8. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 54: ‘… the most deplorable case of our distressed Brethren in the Palatinate, and other places, where, in regard of any free profession of the true Religion, the fire of God seems to have fallen from heaven, and to have consumed all’. Ibid., 40: ‘Nothing dries up faster then a publique teare; It seldome continues moist a whole day. Faction, Ambition, and private ends, by separating a Good King from a Good people, a good People from a good King, and so both King, and People (for the time) from the wonted benedictions of a good, and gracious God’. Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 340–41. Lockyer, Buckingham, 419–26. CSPD Charles I, vol. 3 (1628–29), 533 (April 1628). See also Sharpe, Personal Rule, 45–46. Journal of the House of Lords, vol. 3, 686–89 (17 March 1628). Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 14–16. Ibid. See also Russell, ‘Parliamentary Career’. Journal of the House of Commons, vol. 1, 908–9. Journal of the House of Lords, vol. 3, 852–54. Johnson, Commons Debates 1628, vol. 4, 257; see also Gardiner, History of England, vol. 6, 317.

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310. CSPD Charles I, vol. 3 (1628–29), 271. 311. Felton, Prayer and Confession, 4: ‘Gentlemen, to satisfie you; know that in this Bloody and haynous fact that I have committed, I was seduced by the Divell’. Also 5: ‘I beseech you, none of you thinke that the fact was done well’. 312. Matthieu, The Powerfull Favourite, 129: ‘Seianus hath raised himselfe upon the Ruines of the State, the State must raise it selfe upon the ruines of Seianus.’ 313. Fairholt, Poems and Songs, 50; Burton, Israels Fast, fol. A3v–A4r. 314. Fairholt, Poems and Songs, 73: ‘When David had Goliah cast to ground, / How full was Israel’s campe with joyfull sound! … All deaths I would contemne, my lives all bring, / My God to honour, my countrie free, and king. / I know what Phinees did; and Hebers wife, / And Ehud, Israells judges, with Eglons life: / And I did heare, and see, and know, too well, / What evill was done our English Israell: / And I had warrant seal’d, and sent from heaven, / My work to doe: and soe the blow is given’. 315. Lockyer, Buckingham, 459. 316. Cogswell, ‘John Felton’; Bellany, ‘Raylinge Rymes’ and ‘Libels in Action’, 106–10. See also Fairholt, Poems and Songs, 53: ‘But howsoe’re it is, the case is plaine, / God’s hand was in’t, and the duke striv’d in vaine: / For what the parliament did faile to doe, / God did both purpose and perform it too.’ 317. CSPD Charles I, vol. 3 (1628–29), 268, Sir Francis Nethersole to James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, 24 Aug. 1628: ‘The stone of offence being now removed by the hand of God’. Further examples of this can be found in James Holstun’s otherwise somewhat questionable essay: Holstun, ‘God Bless Thee’, 529–30. 318. Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 396. 319. Bernard, The Bible-Battells. 320. See Walzer, Revolution of the Saints, 277–85. 321. Bernard, The Bible-Battells, dedication. 322. Ibid., preface, fol. ¶7r: ‘Our cause is just, though God please a while to afflict us. Set the worth of our Religion before your eyes: Its the truth of the eternal God. The Scriptures command it; and thereby our consciences bound, doe tie us unto it.’ 323. Leighton, Appeal to the Parliament, 224–25. 324. Ibid., fol. A3r. 325. Ibid., fol. A2r. 326. Ibid., 76–77. 327. Ibid., 6. 328. Ibid., 170: ‘… it is a great fault in men of place, both Ministers and Magistrats, that they would have God to doe all the hard worke by himself, and they would come, and gather up the spoyle: but they who will raigne with God, even in the glory of any good work, must do for him, and suffer with him in the doing of the Work.’ 329. Ibid., 172: ‘A third thing we looked for, was the removall of the former Favourite, which the Lord effected’. 330. Bellany, ‘Felton, John’; Cogswell, ‘John Felton’. Leighton was by no means alone in this interpretation. Felton was referred to as a new Phinehas or Ehud in numerous pamphlets, and one poem even described him as one of the Maccabees: ‘Stout Macabee, thy most mighty arm, / With zeal and justice arm’d, hath in truth won / The prize of patriot to a British son’ (Fairholt, Poems and Songs, 70). 331. Forster, Notes from the Caroline Underground, 28–32. 332. See Cressy, England on Edge, 133–34. 333. See Prynne, Unbishoping; Breviate; and Lord Bishops.

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334. Larkin and Hughes, Stuart Royal Proclamations. vol. 2, no. 105, 218–20. 335. Sir Francis Seymour noted that ‘If God fight not our battles, the help of man is in vain … the cause thereof is our defect in Religion, and the sins of idolatry and popery’; cited in Russell, Parliaments and English Politics, 406–7. 336. Cited in ibid., 407. 337. Ibid., 404–8; Lockyer, The Early Stuarts, 350; Sharpe, Personal Rule, 54–55.

CONCLUSION

? For after the Bible was translated into English, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty, and understood what he said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over. The reverence and obedience due to the Reformed Church here, and to the bishops and pastors therein, was cast off, and every man became a judge of religion, and an interpreter of the Scriptures to himself. —Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth Also those, who are called to regulate public morals by their teaching (especially doctors of the Church and they not knowing by whom they are called to so great a ministry), demand that kings themselves, the supreme governors of the Church, be ruled by them; yea, with the greatest danger to the state, they wish it to seem that this office hath been granted to them, not by kings, and by those whom God hath commissioned for the care and safety of the people, but directly by God. —Thomas Hobbes, De homine

For Thomas Hobbes, the causes of the English Civil War were essentially religious in nature, and the Bible and ancient philosophy provided arsenals of subversive rhetoric that fuelled the arguments of critics of the monarchy. He saw churches and universities as places where subjects and members of the political ruling class alike were taught values and role models that undermined their loyalty to the Crown. If it was not possible to curb access to these stores and sources of authority for political speech acts, or to specify how they should be interpreted politically, then the monarchy, in Hobbes’s eyes, was on shaky ground.1 Hobbes was by no means the only author to point out the potential of the Bible as a tool for undermining authority. After the collapse of the established Anglican regime

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in the autumn of 1640, a number of Conformists in the Church raised concerns over the political consequences of the universal accessibility of the English Bible.2 In their eyes, the word of God was a political resource that had escaped the control of both ecclesiastical and secular authorities and weakened their power. In light of the contemporary context, these complaints by senior members of the clergy were understandable. However, in their laments over the subversive consequences of making Scripture accessible to a broad audience, Hobbes and the Conformists failed to mention that the political resources of the Bible were not only exploited by opponents of the king and clergy. It is true that against the backdrop of the erosion of royal and episcopal authority in Scotland from 1637 onwards and in England from 1640, supporters of the king and the bishops increasingly believed that the Bible was primarily an effective political resource in the hands of their opponents; yet this view had been expressed only rarely in the decades beforehand. We have instead seen that certain fundamental interpretations of the Bible took root in England after the Reformation, and that these understandings promoted the growth of political biblicism over the following decades. Scriptural maxims and exempla were cornerstones of political debate, and for most authors, the Bible was a source of binding statements that pertained to fields beyond that of Christian doctrine. As I have shown, the Bible offered a rhetorical basis for controversies over the external form of the Church – its constitution and ceremonies – and was critically important in disputes about the origins of monarchy in natural law. The account of the ancient Jewish monarchy found in the historical books of the Old Testament offered crucial reference points that were liberally used in political debate. The Bible came to the fore in controversies over war and peace, it provided arguments for discussions over dynastic marriages, and its maxims and exempla were deployed when tempers ran high over Charles I’s levies and taxes. This brief summary of the topics on which biblicist arguments were brought to bear demonstrates that the political language of biblicism was distinct from theology. Biblicism was at once more and less than a specialist language of theological scholarship. As such, the scholarly debate over the precise meaning of the Bible, which took in patristics and the doctrine of quatuor sensus scripturae, was only rarely reflected in wider political debate. The case of the young theology student John Knight in Oxford shows how theological discourse – in this case, David Pareus’s commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – was only transformed into a political speech act when it was preached in a public sermon, triggering a sweeping response from the authorities. Only political speech acts called for sanctions and censorship and prompted the government to engage with scholarly theological debate. Yet at the same time, biblicist speech acts were not the preserve of theologians. Numerous literary authors and scholars of Roman law – not to mention James I himself – took up the language of biblicism to support their political arguments.

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Like other political languages, we can paradigmatically associate the language of biblicism with a particular setting in which it was used especially frequently. The language of the common law was typically found in courts of law, and especially in Parliament; that of Roman law appeared mainly in those courts that used it as a basis for their judgements, such as the High Court of Admiralty or the Court of High Commission; and the languages of classical political philosophy and civic humanism found a home in England’s universities. The principal location of biblicism, by contrast, was the pulpit. Indeed, the archetypal biblicist speech act took the form of a scholarly speaker interpreting Scripture to a broad audience and applying biblical texts to a contemporary context. Studying various biblicist speech acts allows us to conclude that the speaker role of the scholarly theologian conducting scriptural exegesis from the pulpit was appealing not only to clergymen, but to the political class more broadly. As a method of political argumentation, biblicism allowed speakers to partake in the authority of the Holy Bible and granted them a special authority of their own to communicate the meaning of Scripture to their contemporaries. And just as the Bible was a source of divine authority, so the speaker’s own words seemed worthy of particular attention. It is therefore unsurprising that the language of biblicism became a contested resource after the Reformation. In England, preaching formed part of the official duties of every clergyman; however, ministers were subject to the judicial authority of their bishops and, ultimately, the Church’s internal disciplinary court – the Court of High Commission. And bishops in turn were appointed by the king – the supreme head of the Church – with the result that certain conditions were attached to what ministers could preach in their churches. Mounting opposition to James I’s politics of peace during the Thirty Years’ War and his plans for a dynastic marriage with Spain prompted the king to remind England’s clergy of the limits of their freedom of speech on several occasions. Yet these incidents also reveal how difficult it was to draw a clear line between biblical exegesis and political criticism. The harsher line adopted by Charles I and Archbishop Laud against upstart clerics increasingly gave some contemporaries the impression that they opposed the truth of the word of God itself, and in the eyes of many Protestants undermined the authority both of bishops, in their role as ecclesiastical censors, and of the Court of High Commission. This effect was exacerbated by the fact that some ministers were able to charismatically style themselves as prophets of the Lord, and thus to claim the same sanctity and authority for their declamations against the Church regime as had been enjoyed by the prophets of the Old Testament. The example of Henry Burton shows us how these ministers’ self-appointed status as prophets challenged the established order of the Church, forcing it to choose between passively tolerating subversive speech acts or punishing the individuals in question, who were believed by at least a section of the public to be representatives of God.

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Yet although the two allies of Burton who joined him in the pillory – John Bastwick and William Prynne – were no clergymen, they still successfully claimed the same prophetic role in their attacks on the governance of the Church of England. Furthermore, the release of Burton, Bastwick and Prynne gave them the opportunity to style themselves as the witnesses of the Apocalypse, and thus as key figures in fulfilling the prophecy of salvation. This self-fashioning was no mere aberration in the conflict over church politics in England; rather, it was an extremely successful form of public image management that ensured that these self-styled prophets’ ecclesiastical agenda met with widespread recognition and acceptance. For the majority of MPs sitting in the Long Parliament, it was perfectly clear that Burton was in the right when he claimed that God was on his side, while the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was firmly in the wrong. I have also shown that as a young King of Scotland, James VI was at pains to style himself as the supreme exegete of the nation and to demonstrate his expertise in theology in order to claim prophetic status for himself. He positioned himself as a successor to the glorious King David, but emphasised the latter’s role as a prophet over his status as a monarch. James’s early exegetical writings allowed him to demonstrate his authority over the Church without openly challenging the Presbyterian ecclesiastical establishment. The fact that he wrote his texts as sermons was a form of deliberate transgression which permitted the king to adopt a speaking role that was technically reserved for the clergy – a monopoly that was defended especially vigorously by Scottish Presbyterians. Having tested that role out in Scotland, James then retained it for long stretches of his reign, and in the process exploited the rhetorical potential of scriptural exegesis for diverse political ends. He used his writings to engage in diplomacy with Elizabeth I in England; he wrote a treatise on the divine right of kings to defend his claim to the English throne; and in the speculum principum he wrote for his son Henry, he presented himself as bearing special responsibility towards God. He also wrote multiple texts attacking the Pope’s purported right to depose monarchs through excommunication, and even intervened in a debate on the subject in the French Estates-General. In all these texts, James demonstrated that his role as king was not limited merely to secular affairs, but also gave him supreme authority in spiritual matters. As a result, his prophetic status started to merge into his position as monarch, and by the time he inherited the English throne and began to style himself as ‘his sacred majestie’, his self-fashioned role of priest and prophet was no longer merely an aspect of his personal character, but part of the office of kingship. James’s court chaplains likewise played their part in recognising the special sanctity of the king and proclaiming his proximity to God. The battle over who could legitimately access the reservoir of maxims and exempla in the Bible continued in the form of conflicts over the correct interpretation of individual passages of Scripture. My analysis of numerous, highly disparate biblicist speech acts has shown that it is useful for researchers

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of biblicism as a political language to consider individual speech acts on three different levels. The first level involves looking at the canonical books of the Bible as a whole, which form a rhetorical reservoir. As the holy word of God, scriptural maxims and exempla were in a sense imbued with normative force, despite the overall heterogeneity of the Bible and its many internal contradictions. As such, the Bible became a foundational text that was often cited as a means of lending authority to political arguments. Second, references to the Bible in political debate were always selective. The speakers and authors who engaged in the controversies I have examined in this book based their arguments on specific maxims and exempla, or on specific themes and emblematic narratives. Three themes in particular have played a prominent role in my study – namely, lex dei, the institution of monarchy and the apocalyptic discourse concerning the destruction of Babylon as a sign of the imminent end of the world. Divine law was a key topic for the majority of the speech acts examined here; yet what authors understood lex dei to be – which maxims and exempla beyond the Ten Commandments informed it and what conclusions could be drawn from it regarding politics in England – depended on the specific meaning assigned to divine law in the context of the author’s reasoning, and was only defined in the Bible in rare cases. The same was true of the various statements in the Bible on the monarchy of Israel – especially those in the historical books of the Old Testament – which were used extensively in the debate over divine right and the rights and duties of the king. The ambivalence of the Old Testament towards the institution of monarchy was reflected in the versatile use made of these statements and exempla, which – depending on the speaker and the political context – were deployed both to underscore the sanctity of kings and to attach various conditions to royal power. Third and finally, it is important to remember that the various emblematic narratives that were regularly cited in political debate and applied to contemporary affairs did not come with circumscribed, preordained meanings, but were open to a range of possible interpretations. As such, they were used in very different ways in the speech acts examined in this study, and did not always stand for the political agendas or ideologies of particular groups in either the Church or the government, such as the Puritans. Even references to the Apocalypse were not exclusively intended to call the existing order into question. Instead, all three of the scriptural themes discussed in this study were generally accessible to participants in public debate as a resource for constructing political arguments. Nonetheless, speakers did not make arbitrary use of the emblematic narratives contained in the Bible. In particular, James I’s and Charles I’s efforts at public self-fashioning reveal the possible outcomes of kings taking biblical maxims as the measure of their conduct or casting themselves as the successors to biblical role models. James’s public, authorial engagement as the supreme exegete of his

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nation meant that throughout his life, he was held to pronouncements and biblical references he had made early in his reign for reasons of political expediency. His self-styling as a godly ruler – one who took seriously his scripturally defined role as a warrior against Babylon and the Antichrist – made him vulnerable towards the end of his reign when he committed to a policy of peace with nearby Catholic powers, as his widely published interpretation of the Book of Revelation and the recommendations for action contained therein proved incompatible with his later politics. Similar problems befell Charles I when he decided to intervene in the Thirty Years’ War and declare war on Spain in support of the Protestant cause. To justify this military action, Charles referred to the lex dei and the Old Testament to argue for the necessity of aiding oppressed co-religionists and taking up arms against idolaters and enemies of the faith. In doing so, he relied on an understanding of the institution of monarchy that had been taken up by the many opponents of James I’s politics of peace, who sought to assign the king a role as defender of the faith. Adopting this role offered Charles a means of averting criticism; however, the role of champion of the true faith in the face of idolatry was not one that he could assume only partially. In order to be credible, it required the adoption of extensive political measures – not just against Spain, but also in ecclesiastical and dynastic politics and in the treatment of English Catholics. As Charles I was neither willing nor able to implement such an agenda in full, his biblically inspired self-fashioning soon put him at a disadvantage against his critics. Instead of perceiving the king as a Protestant hero, more and more of his subjects came to see the policies carried out in his name as the reason for England’s renunciation of the true faith. The response in England to the public images cultivated by both James I and Charles I thus gives a sense of the possible political consequences of biblicist rhetoric. It also touches upon the fundamental question of how important a role political biblicism played in the outbreak of civil war in England. Naturally, we cannot posit any clear paths of causality here; the Civil War was not an inevitable consequence of biblicist critiques of royal authority. However, we can identify a few inherent aspects of the biblicist interpretive framework and its focus on divine law that, in certain situations, tended to incline its subscribers towards taking up arms against the king. The authors of biblicist speech acts used scripturally informed rhetoric to express their commitment to the goal of bringing about the kingdom of God on earth; yet opinions varied widely on the question of when that goal would be achieved. In the eyes of advocates of divine right, the kingdom of God had in a sense already been institutionalised on earth by the establishment of secular monarchy. According to this view, the king occupied the role of sovereign on God’s behalf, enjoyed supreme authority over the state and the Church and was untouchable by his subjects. Monarchs were also divine instruments in God’s plan for the

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salvation of humankind at the Last Judgement, and multiple authors stressed the special role assigned to kings during the destruction of Babylon in the Book of Revelation. In their view, the fact that these kings fornicated with the Whore of Babylon prior to her downfall did not offer any counter-evidence to their argument, as this was part of the Lord’s plan. As such, idolatry was no reason to question the institution of monarchy, and the same applied to all other forms of royal misconduct too. Because advocates of divine right saw kings as instruments of the Lord, they argued that all royal transgressions had a preordained place in salvation history and should therefore be received as divine punishment for the sins of the people. This form of political theology turned the will of God into an argument that could only be wielded by the king, and according to providential logic, no one could accuse monarchs of violating God’s norms apart from God Himself. By contrast, an entirely different understanding of the kingdom of God on earth was advanced by those who based their political theology on the covenant struck between God and the people of Israel. According to this idea of a conditional covenant, only a society that scrupulously followed the norms stipulated by God could hope for His blessing – and the rejection of all forms of idolatry came at the top of the list of priorities. Ideally, the political community would merge with the community of the elect to form a single, unified people of God who would obey divine law and thus attain salvation. In such a society, the king’s role would be to monitor and safeguard the observance of divine norms, and he would only be able to command the people’s obedience to the extent that he carried out his duty. Amid the critical discourse that began to appear in England from the early 1620s in connection with the king’s policy of peace and compromise with Spain, numerous speakers pointed out that a gap was emerging between the king’s political agenda and God’s norms. These opposition voices did not trigger the Civil War, but their warnings did conjure up a scenario in which England – the ‘chosen nation’ – ran the risk of being rejected and punished by God, and their sermons and treatises drew on countless Old Testament examples to illustrate what lay in store for England if the country did not change its political course. In the 1620s, these speech acts had not yet started to question the limits of loyalty to James I or Charles I; however, biblicist rhetoric began to feature scriptural role models, such as Phinehas, who distinguished themselves through their particular zeal for the law of God, and who were willing to commit murder to restore the divine order. The political atmosphere grew calmer at the beginning of the 1630s; yet the perceived gulf between Charles I’s religious policy and the ideal of a fully reformed Church that met the provisions of divine law continued to preoccupy many contemporaries. This perception almost inevitably shifted the focus of debate onto the question of which laws should be obeyed when royal commands

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ran counter to the lex dei. Biblicist speech acts played their part in constantly highlighting and condemning this contradiction, thereby keeping it in the minds of the public. The Fast Sermons of the 1640s were likewise free of any explicit calls for resistance against the king; however, the preachers of St Margaret’s presented MPs solely with biblical narratives and models that held up unconditional war against enemies of the faith as an ideal of moral conduct. In their view, the Commons ought to prove itself by showing zeal for God’s law, by destroying those who sought to undermine that law and by resolutely taking up arms against the Whore of Babylon. The preachers targeted the episcopacy, representatives of the king’s hated ecclesiastical policies, Charles’s Catholic queen and her court, and – indirectly – the king himself, unless he chose to devote himself unreservedly to battling the enemies of the faith. According to the logic of this narrative, concessions to the constitution were tantamount to abandoning God’s holy mission, and any hesitation would incur divine punishment. Of all the Fast Sermons preached to the Commons between 1640 and 1642, only one expressly spoke of a duty of obedience to the king – and tellingly, Parliament denied it permission for publication. Advocates of the divine right of kings were not silent after 1640 either, but they had all made their way into the Royalist camp by the time the Civil War broke out. Although the idea of the inviolability of the king as a representative of God on earth had been broadly accepted in Stuart England, this consensus evaporated from 1640 onwards. The two rival groups whose armies faced off in the summer of 1642 not only had divergent understandings of the rights of the king and of Parliament, they also had different opinions on the exegesis of Romans 13, on the sanctity of the king, and on the question of how the lex dei should be interpreted and what political conclusions should be drawn from it. Though both the opposing sides in the Civil War were populated by English Protestants, their political theology could not have been more different. The question of how to establish the kingdom of God on earth would subsequently be settled by force of arms, and political biblicism was the foundation on which both factions built their understanding that God was on their side.

Notes 1. Hobbes, English Works, vol. 3, 427. 2. Cressy, England on Edge, 266.

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INDEX

Please note: Since the Kings James VI/I and Charles I are frequently mentioned throughout the text, references to them have not been indexed. Aaron, 128, 131 Abbot, George, 149n, 155, 159–60, 168, 170, 187, 193, 199 Abimelech, 91 Abraham, 2, 91, 135 Achan, 37–38 Adam, 10, 44, 56, 115–16, 118, 121, 195 Adams, Thomas, 166–70 Adamson, John, 20n Adonijah, 124 Agag, 44, 196–97 Ahab, 58, 85, 111, 119, 121, 133, 165, 171, 185, 189 Ahasuerus, 38, 188 Ahaz, 124 Ahud (Ehud), 124, 200, 213n Alexander the Great, 118 Allen, John W., 106 Althusius, Johannes, 116, 119 Amalekites, 44, 162, 176, 196–97 Ambrose, St, 66n Ancient Constitution, 9–10, 14, 16, 86, 97, 104n Andrewes, Lancelot, 130, 134–36, 143, 170, 172, 177 Antichrist, 6, 12, 22, 27, 42– 43, 57–59, 61n, 74–81, 129, 131, 135, 155–156, 158–61, 163–65, 174, 177, 181, 184–87, 189–91, 202, 220 Antiochus IV, 133 Aquinas, St Thomas, 84, 111, 181 Aristotle, 82, 97

army. See under Militia Arminians, Arminianism, 11, 32, 35, 38, 186–88, 190, 201–3 Asa, 32–33, 47 Ashe, Simeon, 48 Athaliah, 131 Augustine, St, 66n authorship (King James), 70–72, 144, 161, 172, 218 Basilikon Doron, 75, 88, 93–98, 141, 143, 171–72 A Counter-Blast to Tobacco, 141 Daemonologie, 141 Declaration against Vorstius, 141, 187–88 Defence of the Right of Kings, against Cardinall Perron, 141, 161 A Fruitfull Meditatioun, 71–72, 78–81, 141, 161 Lepanto, 80 A Meditation upon the 27th Chapter of St. Matthew, 142–44 A Meditation upon the Lord’s Prayer, 142–43 Meditatioun upon the First Buke of the Chronicles, 141, 161 Paraphrase upon the Revelation, 71–80, 141, 161 Premonition to all Most Mightie Monarchs, 72, 129–30, 141, 161 Triplici Nodo, Triplex Cuneus, 127–128, 130 The True Lawe of Free Monarchies, 81–94, 141 ‘A Remonstrance for the Right of Kings’, 152n The Workes (1616), 71–72, 82, 140–42, 156, 158

258 | Index

Azariah (High Priest), 124, 133 Baal, 175, 185 Babylon, 6, 23, 27, 32–33, 35, 37, 40–43, 46, 48–49, 57–59, 73, 129, 155–56, 160, 162, 165, 171, 173–77, 186, 189, 203, 219–22 Bachiler, Samuel, 185 Backus, Irena, 99n Bale, John, 76 Ball, William, 54 Bancroft, Richard, 149n, 202 Barclay, William, 116–17, 119, 130 Bargrave, Isaac, 193, 195–97 Barker, Robert, 140 Barlow, William, 134 Barnardiston, Nathaniel, 31 Baron, Hans, 7 Bastwick, John, 22–24, 42, 49 Baxter, Richard, 1–2 Becanus, Martin, 131–32 Bellarmine, Robert, 127–128, 131–32, 151n, 180, 182 Belloy, Pierre de, 110–12, 114 Bernard, Richard, 201 Beza, Theodore, 72, 182 Bible biblical examples, 2, 9, 12, 33, 37, 40, 43, 47–48, 51–52, 57, 86, 92, 97–98, 108, 114, 117, 124, 128, 132–33, 157, 164, 172, 180, 182–83, 185, 200, 218, 221 biblicism, 2–6, 9–17, 22, 30, 31, 38, 49, 51–54, 56–58, 108, 112, 114–15, 118, 120, 122–23, 132, 134, 157, 164, 170, 174, 195, 216–17, 219–22 translations (English Bible), 12, 71–72, 76, 99n, 139–40 Bilson, Thomas, 109–10 Bishop’s Wars, 34, 38 Black Acts, 70, 75, 88, 95 Blackwell, George, 127, 131 Blackwood, Adam, 110–12, 114, 116, 120 Bodin, Jean, 120 Bohemia, Bohemian Estates, 155–56, 158–60, 174, 184 Bridge, William, 42–43, 47

Brightman, Thomas, 41, 175 Bucanus, William, 182 Bucer, Martin, 181 Buchanan, George, 83–84, 88, 92–93, 97, 104n, 110–12, 117, 134, 148n Buckeridge, John, 151n Buckingham. See under Villiers Bugenhagen, Johannes, 181 Bullinger, Heinrich, 100n Burges, Cornelius, 30–34, 41, 44, 47 Burgess, Glenn, 9, 28–29, 49, 68n, 107–9, 119–20, 125, 138, 193, 195–96 Burroughs, Jeremiah, 57–58 Burton, Henry, 22–28, 35, 38, 42–43, 46, 49, 188–89, 202, 217–18 Calamy, Edmund, 31, 41, 47, 66n Caligula, 118 Calvinists, Calvinism, 7–8, 117, 130, 135, 155, 165, 168, 173, 180, 182, 186 Carey, Henry, Lord of Hunsdon, 169 Carleton, George, 188 Carter, Robert, 115 Caryl, Joseph, 41–42 Casaubon, Isaac, 130 Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, 109 Charles II, King of England, 5 Chesire, Thomas, 44 Christian IV, King of Denmark, 190, 192 Christianson, Paul, 41–42, 72, 101n, 138 Church (of England), 22, 34, 41, 117, 122, 135, 155, 159, 170, 173–75, 186, 188, 190, 203 canons (1606), 122–25 canons (1640), 55, 125–26 ceremonies, 11–12, 26, 35–36, 40, 126, 175, 189–90, 216 hierarchy/episcopacy, 11–12, 24–27, 43, 108, 125–26, 201–202, 216–17, 222 king as head of the church, 124, 128, 178, 217 Presbyterians, 16, 57, 85, 89, 107–08, 112, 160, 162–63, 175, 201 Reform/Reformation, 33–35, 40–42, 45–46, 49, 189, 191–92 Church (of Scotland), Kirk, 70, 95 hierarchy/episcopacy, 70, 95, 216

Index | 259

king as head of the church, 70, 218 Presbyterians, 70, 74–77, 85, 89, 94–96, 132, 201, 218 Reform/Reformation, 33–34, 95 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 48, 51, 56, 92, 97 civic humanism, 10, 16, 38, 51, 53, 56, 97, 164–65, 217 Civil War, 3–12, 16, 22, 29–30, 48–50, 53, 56, 109, 119, 130, 183, 203, 215, 220–22 Clarendon. See under Hyde Colville, John, 115–16 Common Law, 9, 50–51, 54, 68n, 90, 116, 120, 125, 137, 217 Conway, Edward, 175, 184 Cosin, John, 186 Covenant, 2, 32–35, 173, 221 Covenanters (Scottish), National Covenant, 32, 34, 46, 203 Cowell, John, 125, 137 Cozbi, 47 Craig, Thomas, 90–91 Crew, John, 184 Cromwell, Oliver, 1, 7, 9 Curll, Walter, 166–167 Cyrus, 128, 136 Darius, 47 David, King, 39, 44, 47, 55, 58, 82, 85, 90–91, 111, 114, 119, 121, 123–24, 133–34, 141, 162–63, 170, 172–73, 177, 181, 200, 218 Deborah, 48 Delilah, 172 Denison, John, 166 Deuteronomy, 4, 32 Devereux, Robert, 2nd Earl of Essex, 117–18 Diggs, Dudley, 56–57, 59 Donne, John, 178–79 Dort (Synod 1618), 188 Douglas, James, Earl of Morton, 76 Dykes, John, 94 Edward VI, King of England, 141 Egerton, Thomas, Viscount of Ellesmere, 169 Ehud. See under Ahud

Elias (Elijah), 58, 85, 133, 149n, 171 Elizeus, (Elisha), 124 Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 31–32, 34, 46, 70, 76–78, 80–81, 90, 94, 107, 109–10, 118, 140–41, 187, 218 Elizabeth, Princess of the Palatinate, 163, 168, 184 Ellesmere. See under Egerton Elton, Geoffrey, 8 Erasmus of Rotterdam, 84 Essex. See under Devereux, Robert Esther, 27, 38–39 Eve, 44, 121 Everard, John, 162–63 Fairclough, Samuel, 31, 37–40 Fast Sermons, 22, 29–53, 58, 171, 173, 222 Felton, John, 200, 202, 213n Ferdinand II, Emperor, 159 Ferrell, Lori Anne, 134–135 Ferne, Henry, 54–57, 59, 68n Figgis, John Neville, 106 Filmer, Robert, 151n Fischlin, Daniel, 73, 77 Forced Loan, 191–97, 199 Foxe, John, 79 Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate, 156, 158, 160, 163, 168 Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, 6–7, 10 Gardiner, Stephen, 211n Gentili, Alberico, 119–120 Gentry, 8, 199 Gerson, Jean, 111 Gideon, 91 Gillespie, George, 128 God’s law, obedience to God’s law, 2, 4, 24–27, 32–33, 35, 37–40, 45–47, 52, 54, 56, 58, 83–84, 90–91, 96, 108, 115–16, 119, 121–22, 133, 157, 163, 166–67, 169–72, 178–79, 181–82, 186, 189, 191, 194–95, 199, 201–3, 219–22 God’s rule. See under providence God’s wrath and punishment, 39, 41, 48, 172, 174, 187, 196, 202–3, 221–22 Golden Acts in Scotland (1592), 89

260 | Index

Gondomar, Don Diego de Sarmiento, 156 Goodman, Christopher, 109 Goodwin, John, 58 Goodwin, Thomas, 41–42, 46 Gowrie Conspiracy, 134–135, 168–69, 177 Guise, Mary, 95 Guise, Henry, 76 Gunpowder Plot, 24, 33–34, 126, 134–35, 155, 158–159, 166, 169, 173, 190, 202 Hakewill, George, 165, 170–74 Haman, 27, 38–39, 64n, 188–89 Hampton, William, 191–92 Harsnett, Samuel, 136 Hayward, John, 117–18 Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, 33, 46, 184–85, 189, 222 Henry VIII, King of England, 70, 131, 140–41 Henry, Prince of Wales, 88, 93, 95–98, 110, 168, 172, 183 Henry IV, King of France, 110, 116–17, 135, 151n Herbert, William, Earl of Pembroke, 168–69 Herle, Charles, 29, 57 Heylyn, Peter, 24–25, 28–29 Higgons, Theophilus, 162, 165–66, 176 High Commission, Court of, 24–25, 36, 50, 60n, 61n, 175, 217 high treason, 2, 24, 37, 42, 126–27, 189 Hill, Christopher, 7–8, 10, 65n Hobbes, Thomas, 29, 56, 215–16 Holmes, Nathanael, 42 holy war, 49, 155, 159–60, 165–66, 184, 186–87, 190–91, 198–201 Hooker, Richard, 109 Hushai the Archite, 163 Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 30–31 idolatry, 32–33, 35, 47, 53, 74, 85, 121, 129, 132, 162, 164, 167, 169–74, 178, 185, 189, 191, 195, 201, 220–21 impeachment, 23, 37, 187–88, 191, 197, 199 Irish Rebellion (1641), 33, 46–50 Isaac, 91

Isabella Clara Eugenia, Spanish Infanta, 89 Isocrates, 97 Jackson, Thomas, 162–63, 176 Jael, 48 Jacob, 86, 91, 116, 135 Jehoiada, 124, 132 Jesuits, 38, 74, 79, 88–92, 103n, 131–32, 179, 182 Jezebel, 171, 185, 189 Jehu, 85, 111–12, 114, 121, 124, 165, 171, 181, 185 Jesus, 46, 112, 114, 129, 131, 135–36, 143–144, 159, 166, 177, 195 Jeremiah, 32–33, 85, 128, 162, 174 Joachim of Fiore, 75 Job, 198 John of Austria, 80 John the Divine, 12, 41, 73 Joram, 166 Joshua, 37, 90, 123, 128, 163, 171, 181 Josiah, King, 173 Julian the Apostate, Emperor, 133 Kenyon, John P., 8 King, John, 168 King’s Confession. See under Negative Confession Kishlansky, Mark, 8, 102n Knight, John, 180–81, 183, 216 Knox, John, 105n, 149n, 134 Lake, Peter, 88, 163 Lando, Girlamo, 157 Laodizea, 41, 156, 175 Laud, William, 11, 22, 24–26, 28, 34, 38–40, 45, 48, 50, 64n Leighton, Alexander, 165, 201–2, 213n Lennox. See under Stuart, Esmé Le Roy, Louis, 2 Levack, Brian, 119–20 Lex Dei. See under God’s law Locke, John, 116, 137 Ludlow, Edmund, 5–6 Louis IX, King of France, 187 Louis XIII, King of France, 197 Luther, Martin, 66n

Index | 261

Maacha, 47 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 17 Maitland of Thirlestane, John, 70, 94 Mansfeld, Ernst, 190 March, John de la, 23 Maria Anna, Spanish Infanta, 156, 159, 173, 183 Marshall, Stephen, 30, 35, 44, 48–49 Mary (Stuart), Queen of Scotland, 88–89, 95, 97, 111 Mary (Tudor), Queen of England, 109, 167 Mary Magdalene, 177 Mattathias, High Priest, 133 Maynwaring, Roger, 193–195, 199–201 McCullough, Peter, 172 McGiffert, Michael, 67n Medici, Maria, Queen of France, 132 Melanchthon, Philipp, 84 Melville, Andrew, 94, 96, 132 Melville, James, 132 Meroz, 48–49, 173, 184, 194 Middleton, Thomas, 158 Militia, Militia Ordinance, 22, 49–50, 53, 55–56 Millenarianism, 6, 12 monarchy absolutism, 8–9, 28–29, 101n, 106–7, 119–20, 200 divine right of kings, 10, 29, 51–54–55, 57, 81–82, 86–88, 90, 106–110, 115, 117, 119–20, 122, 126–27, 129–31, 133–34, 136, 138–39, 179, 181, 195–96, 219–22 hereditary monarchy, 55, 87–88, 90–91, 108–12, 114–16, 121, 123, 125, 133 king’s authority drawn from the people, 52–56, 88, 91–93, 107, 109–10, 112–13, 120–23, 130, 180–81 king is subject to the laws of God, 25–26, 28, 106–7 king is subject to the laws of the country, 9, 26, 28–29, 58, 87, 108, 120, 122, 125, 137–38, 180, 199 obedience to the king, 22, 28–29, 44–45, 83–84, 107, 113, 128, 137, 178, 193, 222

patriarchalism, 10, 56–57, 91, 112–13, 115, 119, 121, 125–26, 130–31, 135 rule by conquest, 56, 87, 114, 124–25 Montagu, Henry, Earl of Manchester, 169 Montagu, James, 72, 77, 94, 140–42, 144 Montagu, Richard, 186–188, 201–2 Montaigne, George, 193 Mordecai, 38–39 Morrill, John S., 11–12 Moses, 55, 90, 113, 121, 128, 141, 163, 181, 189, 195 Moulin, Pierre du, 130 Myriell, Thomas, 179 Nathan, 162 Natural Law, 28, 52, 57, 82–83, 86, 90–92, 113–18, 121–26, 135 Naunton, Robert, 160 Nebuchadnezzar, 85, 118, 128, 181 Negative Confession, 76–79 Neile, Richard, 186, 189, 201 Nero, 85, 118 Nimrod, 90, 112, 114–15, 118, 121, 136 Nineteen Propositions, 51, 53 Noah, 113–15, 123 Oakley, Francis, 106 Oath of Allegiance, 72, 126–27, 130–33, 155, 174, 189 Osiander, Andreas, 181 Overall, John, 122–23, 125, 149n Owen, David, 182–83 Palatinate, 155–56, 158, 160, 168, 175, 190 Pareus, David, 66n, 128, 179–83, 216 Parker, Henry, 22, 49–57, 59, 68n Parliament (England), 8–10, 141, 217 Long Parliament, 5–6, 8–9, 11, 22–24, 29–33, 41, 43, 46–48, 50–53, 55, 130, 183, 202, 218, 222 Parliament (1562), 188 Parliament (1605/06), 126–27 Parliament (1610), 136–37 Parliament (1621), 157, 163–64 Parliament (1624), 157, 164, 175–76, 187, 201

262 | Index

Parliament (1625), 157, 183–84, 187, 201 Parliament (1626), 157, 187, 191, 197, 201 Parliament (1628/29), 157, 187, 193, 197–98, 200–2 Parliament (Scotland), 89 Parsons, Robert, 88–93, 110, 118, 128–29, 182 Paul V, Pope, 127 Paul, St, 52, 57, 85, 121, 167, 178, 180, 182, 216 Peltonen, Markku, 163–64 Pembroke. See under Herbert Perron, Jacques Davy du, 132–33, 152n, 161 Peter, St, 55, 121, 131, 181 Pharaoh, 128 Phinehas, 47, 67n, 171, 173, 200, 202, 213n, 221 Pius V, Pope, 80 Plato, 97 Plessis de Richelieu, Armand-Jean du, 197 Pocock, John G.A., 9–10, 14–17, 18n, 19n, 21n political language, 13–17, 30–31, 52–54, 56, 86, 92, 114, 120, 122, 132, 164, 216–17 Pope, Papacy, 73–78–80, 92, 108–10, 113, 127–33, 141, 144, 155, 160–62, 165, 170, 174, 176–77, 181, 185–87, 189–90, 202, 218 Popery, 24, 27, 32, 39 predestination, 11, 188 Pride’s Purge, 30 Privy Council, 23–25, 155, 157, 160, 194, 201 Prophet (role of a), Prophecy, 24, 141–44, 156, 217–18 providence, 6, 29, 45–46, 49, 55, 85, 95, 98, 108, 114, 116, 121, 124, 126, 136, 178–79, 183, 190–91, 200, 220–21 Prynne, William, 22–24, 42, 49, 188, 202, 218 Purchas, Samuel, 177 Puritans, Puritanism, 6–8, 10, 37, 51, 67n, 94, 142, 163, 186, 219

Puritan Revolution, 6–8, 10 Pym, John, 23, 31, 36–39, 53, 59n, 61n, 67n, 187, 199, 202 Rainolds, John, 139 Recusant Laws, 159–60, 175, 184, 188–89, 220 Rehoboam, King, 119 republicanism, 6, 9, 14, 16–17, 50, 97–98, 163–65 revisionism, 8–10 Reynolds, John, 167 Rich, Robert, Earl of Warwick, 31 Richard II, King, 118 Richelieu. See under Plessis de Richelieu right to resist, 27, 45, 55, 58, 66n, 67n, 68n, 84–85, 87–88, 90, 92, 97–98, 106, 109–10, 114, 116, 118, 121, 124–25, 129, 134–35, 156, 171, 180, 182, 194, 197, 132, 220, 222 Roman Law, 114, 116, 118–20, 122, 217 Rous, Francis, 188, 203 Rudolf II, Emperor, 72, 129 Russell, Conrad, 8, 11–12, 66n, 106–108 Russell, Francis, Earl of Bedford, 36 Rutherford, Samuel, 128 Samuel, 52, 83–87, 90–93, 111, 115-117, 119, 123–24, 131, 133, 137, 141, 194 Saravia, Hadrian, 110, 112–16, 123–24 Saul, King, 36, 44, 54–55, 58, 82–85, 87, 90, 92–93, 110–13, 115–16, 119, 121, 123, 126, 131, 133, 136, 176, 189, 196–97 Savonarola, Girolamo, 75 Schröder, Hans-Christoph, 67n Scott, Thomas, 160–165, 168–69, 175, 177 Scott, Thomas (MP), 196–97 Sedgwick, William, 42–46 Sejanus, Lucius Aelius, 38 Seymour, Francis, 214n Sharpe, Kevin, 8–9, 12 Sheldon, Richard, 162, 174–76 Ship Money, 50 Sibthorpe, Robert, 193–95, 199 Sisera, 48

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Skinner, Quentin, 9–10, 14–17, 50–51, 53, 59 Smart, Peter, 189, 211n social contract, 84, 86–87, 90 Solomon, King, 90, 114, 116, 124, 141, 158–59, 163, 169, 172, 183 Sommerville, Johann Peter, 10, 20, 28–29, 88, 106, 130, 138 Spain, 80 peace with England (1603–1625), 158–60, 163–166, 175, 179, 220 Spanish Armada, 34, 79–80, 166, 169, 173, 190–91 Spanish Match, 156–57, 159–60, 162, 164–65, 167–70, 173–74, 176–77, 179–80, 183–84, 217 war with England (1625–1629), 183–86, 190–91, 197–98, 200–1, 220 speech acts, 3, 11, 13–17, 49, 120, 122, 133, 136, 179, 215–19, 222 Star Chamber, 23–25, 27, 50, 141, 202 Steinmetz, Willibald, 3 Stewart, Francis, Earl of Bothwell, 115 Stewart, James, Earl of Arran, 76, 78 Stuart, Esmé, Sieur d’Aubigny, Earl of Lennox, 76 Stuart, Henry, Lord Darnley, 76 Suárez, Francisco, 151n succession (to the English throne), 78, 81–82, 88–90, 94, 110, 115–16, 118, 133 Sutcliffe, Matthew, 109, 130, 170 Taylor, John, 163 Taylor, Thomas, 175–76 theocracy, 1–2, 34, 52, 179. See also God’s law; providence Theodosius, 187 Thirty Years’ War, 155–56, 158–59, 162–63, 217, 220 Tillières, Tanneguy Leveneur Comte de, 157

Trajan, Emperor, 180–81 Trevor-Roper, Hugh R., 37–39 Tuck, Richard, 151n Tully, James, 14 Tyacke, Nicholas, 11 Ulpian, 120 Urban VIII, Pope, 189 Uriah, 90, 124 Uzziah, King, 124, 133 Vermigli, Peter Martyr, 211n Villiers, George, Duke of Buckingham, 169, 176, 183–84, 189, 191, 197–98, 200, 202 Waldegrave, Robert, 81–82, 89 Walzer, Michael, 7–8 Webbe, George, 168 Wenceslaus, King, 181 Wentworth, Peter, 89–91, 116 Wentworth, Thomas, Earl von Strafford, 23, 37–40, 50, 64n, 187 Whig interpretation of history, 6, 8 Willet, Andrew, 168, 170, 182 William the Conqueror, King of England, 124, 146n William III, King of England, 122 Williams, John, 198 Wilson, John F., 37–39, 49 Wilson, Thomas, 39–40, 47 Woodford, Robert, 23 Wormald, Jenny, 88, 94 Xenophon, 97 Yates, John, 188 Zimri, 47