Richard Bancroft: Archbishop In Waiting
RICHARD BANCROFT: ARCHBISHOP IN WAITING
Richard BANCROFT was one of the most relentless opponents of Puritanism in England. In a famous sermon, preached at St. Paul's Cross, London, in 1589, he declared that the Puritans were “false prophets” who were threatening to destroy the fabric of church and nation. For Bancroft, the facts of the matter were simple. God meant the Church of England to be governed by a monarch and bishops, and that was the end of the matter. Bancroft became indispensable to Archbishop Whitgift in his campaign against Puritan influence within the church by identifying Puritan activists and providing evidence to incriminate them. He came to the notice of Elizabeth I, who appointed him bishop of London in 1597. The position gave him new opportunities to pursue his anti-Puritan agenda.
The news that James VI of Scotland would succeed Elizabeth caused Bancroft considerable anguish. He knew James only by reputation, and that reputation was inauspicious. His suspicion was that James would convert England to Presbyterianism, and sweep away the bishops—himself included.
Yet Bancroft was aware of James's very high views on the nature of kingship. James had set these views out in his small book Basilikon Doron (“The Kingly Gift”), originally written to instruct his son in the responsibilities of kingship. Although first printed in Scotland, the work was published in London within a few days of Elizabeth's death. Those wishing to discover James's views on the nature of kingship had no difficulty in doing so. They would have found that he believed that kingship was a divinely ordained institution. It was equally clear that the English Puritans did not share any such viewpoint. It was in this tension that Bancroft saw his opportunity—and he promptly seized it.
Bancroft's strategy for coping with James was simple. He would persuade James that the monarchy was dependent upon the episcopacy. Without bishops, there was no future for the monarchy in England. He would depict both Puritans and Catholics as opponents of the English monarchy and the bishops of the Church of England as guarantors of its future. Bancroft would encourage James to take a view of the place of the episcopacy that went far beyond anything that Elizabeth I had envisaged. Elizabeth had never taken the view that the survival of the English crown depended on the bishops. Bancroft hoped to talk up the threat to the English crown posed by Puritanism, and thus to present the bishops as James's only hope for the long-term survival of the monarchy.
Portrait of Richard Bancroft
Bancroft, therefore, encouraged an official rhetoric of scorn directed against the opponents of Anglicanism, whether that opposition came from Protestant or Catholic sources. It was relatively easy for Bancroft to encourage James to see himself as a figure on the same level as Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, who ruled a Christian empire with wisdom and equity. Bancroft argued that the king's real enemies were “Papists” and “Puritans,” each having a vested interest in destroying his authority. Only a close working alliance with the bishops would preserve the status quo, and allow James to exercise his (as he saw it) divinely ordained kingly role in state and church.
This view was reinforced by other bishops of the period. Lancelot Andrewes—who would play a key role in the preparation of the King James Bible—preached a remarkable sermon based on Numbers 10:2–3: “Make thee two trumpets of silver… And thou shalt have them to assemble the congregation.” Andrewes argued that the clear meaning of this verse was that the two trumpets were symbols of church and state, James having authority over each. John King, who became bishop of London in 1608, succeeding Bancroft, preached a sermon on Song of Songs 8:11: “Solomon had a vineyard in Ball-Hamon: he gave the vineyard unto keepers.” According to King, the meaning of this text was perfectly clear. The “vineyard” was the church, and the “keepers” to whom this vineyard was entrusted were the king and his bishops—not a presbytery. Such rhetoric had its desired goal. James became persuaded that his role as the new Constantine could be exercised only with the support of the bishops. “Papists” and “Puritans” posed different, yet equally dangerous, threats to the royal authority in church and state.
Bancroft's influence over James increased significantly with the illness of John Whitgift. Whitgift had served as archbishop of Canterbury for the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth I. Although he had personally traveled to meet James on the outskirts of London in 1603, and obtained reassurances that James would maintain the Settlement of Religion effected by Elizabeth, it was obvious to all that his days were numbered. There was little doubt as to whom his successor would be. The mantle of Whitgift was widely expected to fall on Bancroft. Yet the final decision rested with James.
Bancroft thus found himself in a pivotal role at the beginning of the new reign. He was strategically placed to shape James's vision of the future of the English church; if James was pleased with what Bancroft proposed, and the way in which he carried it out, Bancroft would succeed Whitgift as archbishop of Canterbury on his death.