I fear that I may have been unfair to William Sancroft in my last post regarding his position on toleration. Reading Patrick Collinson’s excellent article on Sancroft (”William Sancroft, 1617-93: A Retiring Disposition in a Revolutionary Age” in From Cranmer to Sancroft, Continuum 2006) I find a reference to the possibility that Sancroft might have considered ‘comprehension’ for the Dissenters: “For it is possible that if [the Non-Jurors], and Sancroft in particular, had stayed on board, playing an active role in Parliament and Convocation, the revolution settlement would not have merely tolerated Protestant Dissent but would have accommodated the more moderate Dissenters, especially the Presbyterians, within a more broadly defined national Church. That was implicit in the greater measure of latitude and ‘tenderness’ which Sancroft’s Church, assisted by more moderate churchmen and some of the leading Dissenters themselves, had improvised at the trial of the Seven Bishops” (pp. 192-3).
The trial of the Seven Bishops had the potential to unite all English Protestants, in spite of the fact that the Bishops were opposing a measure of toleration for Dissenters, so in order to bring the Dissenters on board the Bishops sought to extend the hand of friendship to them. Even James II himself acknowledges this; he records that the clergy of Chester, who sent in an address thanking him for the Declaration of Indulgence, ‘could not but with trouble of mind hear of the proceeding of the Seaven Bishops, who tho’ they tenderly promised the dissenters something, yet refused to do their part about the Declaration least they should be parties to it’ (Clarke pp. 167-8).
Sancroft’s concern, it seems, was with toleration for Catholics rather than toleration of Dissenters. Interesting in this regard is Sancroft’s conversation with James about the conversion of Charles II, also recorded in his memoirs:
Some few days after the late King’s death, his Majesty looking into the papers he had left behind him found two relating to Controversie, one in the strong box, the other in the Closet, both writ in his own hand, they were short but solid, and shew’d, that tho’ his Conversion was not perfected til a few houres before his death, his conviction was of a longer date: The King thought fit to shew them one day to the Archbishop of Cantorburie in his Closet, no body being by, who seem’d much surprised at the Sight of them, and pawsed almost half an houre before he said any thing; at last tould the King, He did not think his late Majesty had understood controversie so well, but that he thought they might be answer’d: If so, sayd the King, I pray let it be done gentleman like and sollidly, and then may it have the effect you so much desire of bringing me back to your Church; to which the Archbishop replyd, It would perhaps be counted a disrespect to him to contradict the late King, but his Majesty reassured him in that point, by telling him the change it might produce in himself (if answer’d effectually) was of that consequence as to out ballance any other consideration, and therefore desired he might see a reply either from him or any other of his perswasion; but tho’ he, My Lord Dartmouth, and others, were several times reminded of this matter and earnestly press’d to it, never any formal reply was produced during the four years of his Majesty’s reign in England…it is probably the Arch Bishop dispair’d of answering it so effectually as to bring his Majesty back to their Communion, whereas the publishing a reply would have own’d and published the papers too; and he had reason to apprehend, that the authority and arguments of their dying Prince would influence more persons to that Religion, than his answer would perswuade to relinquish it.
James and Sancroft went on to discuss the Coronation, with the King insisting on a modified Anglican ceremony – note that it was not Sancroft who pressed for this (there is no evidence, that I have found at least, to support Andrew Gant’s assertion that James had a ‘Catholic’ coronation in St. James’ before that in Westminster Abbey, or that he disdained the Protestant ceremony). The two men’s conversation reveals how far James was prepared to go for his belief in toleration (insisting that Sancroft write a refutation of his own beliefs) and how disinclined Sancroft was to bring religious controversy into the public domain. He was deeply distrustful of religious freedom, which makes his ‘tenderness’ at the time of the trial all the more remarkable.
Sancroft is one of the great figures of the 17th century church; he is unjustly neglected and George D’Oyly’s 1821 biography remains the only one. Furthermore, Sancroft is one of Suffolk’s greatest sons and he has received little recognition for this; Collinson, as an East Anglian scholar, rightly acknowledges the importance of Suffolk and of Fressingfield to Sancroft, who attended the Bury Grammar School and unusually went up to Emmanuel instead of Caius (more usual for Burians) because his uncle was master. The antiquary Thomas Tanner, who inherited Sancroft’s voluminous papers, appears to have acquired even copies of Sancroft’s school exercises, which would give valuable information about the nature of the curriculum at the Bury Grammar School in the 1630s. John Battely was, of course, one of Sancroft’s chaplains – and it is a shame that whilst Henry Wharton gets a mention in Collinson’s article Battely is left out. I am not sure whether Ufford Hall in Fressingfield, where Sancroft was born and died is still in existence – but his tomb on the exterior of Fressingfield church is certainly still there and I intend as soon as I am able to make a pilgrimage to see it.
