Endea vours for to be of the Temple. came in a fair occasion for the Archbishop to commend Mr. Hooker to Father Alvey's place, which he did with so effectual an earnestness, and that seconded with so many other testimonies of his worth, that Mr. Hooker was sent for from Draiton Beauchamp to London, and there the Mastership of the Temple proposed unto him by the Bishop, as a greater freedom from his country cares, the advantage of a better society, and a more liberal pension than his parsonage did afford him. But these reasons were not powerful enough to incline him to a willing acceptance of it: his wish was rather to gain a better country living, where he might "be free from noise" (so he expressed the desire of his heart), and eat that bread which he might more properly call his own, in privacy and quietness. But, notwithstanding this averseness, he was at last persuaded to accept of the Bishop's proposal; and was by Patent for life made Master of the Temple the 17th of March, 1585,* he being then in the thirty-fourth year of his age. [But before any mention was made of Mr. Hooker for Travers this place, two other divines were nominated to succeed Master Alvey; whereof Mr. Walter Travers, a disciplinarian in his judgment and practice, and Preacher here in the afternoons, was chief, and recommended by Alvey himself on his death-bed, to be Master after him: and no marvel, for Alvey's and Travers's principles did somewhat correspond. And many gentlemen of the house desired him; which desire the Lord Treasurer Burghley was privy to, and by their request, and his own inclination towards him, being a good preacher, he moved the Queen to allow of him; for the disposal of the place was in her. But Archbishop Whitgift knew the man, and his hot temper and principles, from the time he was Fellow of Trinity College, and had observed his steps ever after; he knew how turbulently he had carried himself at the College, how he had disowned the English established Church and Episcopacy, and went to Geneva, and afterwards to Antwerp, to be ordained Minister, as he was by Villers and Cartwright, and others the heads of a congregation there; and so came back again *This you may find in the Temple Records. Will. Ermstead was Master of the Temple at the dissolution of the Priory, and died 2 Eliz. Richard Alvey, Bat. Divinity, Pat. 13 Feb. 2 Eliz. Magister sive custos domus et ecclesiæ novi Templi; died 27 Eliz. Richard Hooker succeeded that year by Patent, in terminis, as Alvey had it, and he left it 33 Eliz.-That year Dr. Belgey succeeded Rich. Hooker. by the more confirmed for the discipline. And knowing how much the doctrine and converse of the Master to be placed here would influence the gentlemen, and their influence and authority prevail in all parts of the realm where their habitations and estates were, that careful Prelate made it his endeavour to stop Travers's coming in; and had a learned Opposed man in his view, and of principles more conformable and Archbi agreeable to the Church, namely, one Dr. Bond, the Queen's shop. Chaplain, and well known to her. She well understanding the importance of this place, and knowing by the Archbishop what Travers was, by a letter he timely writ to her Majesty upon the vacancy, gave particular order to the Treasurer to discourse with the Archbishop about it. The Lord Treasurer, hereupon, in a letter, consulted with the said Archbishop, and mentioned Travers to him, as one desired by many of the house. But the Archbishop, in his answer, plainly signified to his Lordship, that he judged him altogether unfit, for the reasons mentioned before; and that he had recommended to the Queen Dr. Bond, as a very fit person. But, however, she declined him, fearing his bodily strength to perform the duty of the place, as she did Travers for other causes. And by laying both aside, she avoided giving disgust to either of those great men. This Dr. Bond seems to be that Dr. Nicholas Bond that afterwards was President of Magdalen College, Oxon, and was much abused by Martin Mar-prelate. These particulars I have collected from a letter of the Archbishop to the Queen, and other letters that passed between the Archbishop and the Lord Treasurer about this affair, while the Mastership was vacant. The passages whereof, taken verbatim out of their said letters, may deserve here to be specified for the satisfaction of the readers. And first, in the month of August, upon the death of the former Master, the Archbishop wrote this letter unto the Queen : Arch to the "It may please your Majesty to be advertised, that the The Mastership of the Temple is vacant by the death of Mr. bishop Alvey. The living is not great, yet doth it require a learned, Queen discreet, and wise man, in respect of the company concer there: who, being well directed and taught, may do much vacancy good elsewhere in the commonwealth, as otherwise also Temple. they may do much harm. And because I hear there is suit ing the of the made to your Highness for one Mr. Travers, I thought it my duty to signify unto your Majesty, that the said Travers hath been, and is one of the chief and principal authors of dissension in this Church, a contemner of the Book of Prayers, and of other orders by Authority established; an earnest seeker of innovation; and either in no degree of the Ministry at all, or else ordered beyond the seas; not according to the form in this Church of England used. Whose placing in that room, especially by your Majesty, would greatly animate the rest of that faction, and do very much harm in sundry respects. "Your Majesty hath a Chaplain of your own, Dr. Bond, a man in my opinion very fit for that office, and willing also to take pains therein, if it shall please your Highness to bestow it upon him. Which I refer to your own most gracious disposition: beseeching Almighty God long to bless, prosper, and preserve your Majesty to his glory, and all our comforts. "Your Majesty's most faithful Servant and Chaplain From Croyden, the day of August, 1584. Next, in a letter of the Archbishop to the Lord Treasurer, dated from Lambeth, Sept. 14, 1584, he hath these Arch- words: The bishop to the Lord Trea surer. The Lord Treasu. rer to the shop. "I beseech your Lordship to help such a one to the Mastership of the Temple, as is known to be conformable to the laws and orders established; and a defender, not a depraver, of the present state and government. He that now readeth there is nothing less, as I of mine own knowledge and experience can testify. Dr. Bond is desirous of it, and I know not a fitter man." The Lord Treasurer, in a letter to the Archbishop, dated from Oatlands (where the Queen now was), Sept. 17, 1584, thus wrote:-— "The Queen hath asked me what I thought of Travers Archbi- to be Master of the Temple. Whereunto I answered, that at the request of Dr. Alvey in his sickness, and a number of honest gentlemen of the Temple, I had yielded my allowance of him to the place, so as he would shew himself conformable to the orders of the Church. Whereunto I was informed, that he would so be. But her Majesty told me, that your Grace did not so allow of him. Which, I said, "WILL. BURGHLEY." From the Court at Oatlands, the 27th Sept. 1584. Part of the Archbishop's letter in answer to this was to this tenor: shop in answer to the of the sarer. "Mr. Travers, whom your Lordship names in your letter, The is to no man better known, I think, than to myself; I did Archbi. elect him Fellow of Trinity College, being before rejected by Dr. Beaumont for his intolerable stomach: whereof letter I had also afterwards such experience, that I was forced Lord by due punishment so to weary him, till he was fain to tra- Treavel, and depart from the College to Geneva, otherwise he should have been expelled for want of conformity towards the orders of the house, and for his pertinacy. Neither was there ever any under our government, in whom I found less submission and humility than in him. Nevertheless, if time and years have now altered that disposition (which I cannot believe, seeing yet no token thereof, but rather the contrary), I will be as ready to do him good as any friend he hath. Otherwise I cannot in duty but do my endeavour to keep him from that place, where he may do so much harm, and do little or no good at all. For howsoever some commend him to your Lordship and others, yet I think that the greater and better number of both the Tem ples have not so good an opinion of him. Sure I am, that divers grave, and of the best affected of them, have shewed their misliking of him to me; not only out of respect of his disorderliness in the manner of the Communion, and contempt of the Prayers, but also of his negligence in reading. Whose lectures, by their report, are so barren of matter, that his hearers take no commodity thereby. "The book De Disciplina Ecclesiastica, by common opinion, hath been reputed of his penning, since the first publishing of it. And by divers arguments I am moved to make no doubt thereof. The drift of which book is wholly against the state and government. Wherein also, among other things, he condemneth the taking and paying of Firstfruits, Tenths, &c. And therefore, unless he will testify his conformity by subscription, as all others do which now enter into ecclesiastical livings, and make proof unto me, that he is a Minister ordered according to the laws of this Church of England, as I verily believe he is not, because he forsook his place in the College upon that account, I can by no means yield my consent to the placing him there, or elsewhere, in any function of this Church."] And here I shall make a stop; and, that the reader may the better judge of what follows, give him a character of the times, and temper of the people of this nation, when Mr. Hooker had his admission into this place: a place which he accepted, rather than desired; and yet here he promised himself a virtuous quietness: that blessed tranquillity which he always prayed and laboured for; that so he might in peace bring forth the fruits of peace, and glorify God by uninterrupted prayers and praises: for this he always thirsted; and yet this was denied him. For his admission into this place was the very beginning of those oppositions and anxieties, which till then this good man was a stranger to, and of which the reader may guess by what follows. In this character of the times, I shall, by the reader's favour, and for his information, look so far back as to the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; a time in which the many pretended titles to the crown, the frequent treasons, the doubts of her successor, the late civil war, and the sharp persecution that had raged to the effusion of so much blood in the reign of Queen Mary, were fresh in the memory |