John Warner, Bishop of Rochester and the authorship of Harleian Ms.6424

 

John Warner, Bishop of Rochester and the authorship of the account of proceedings in the House of Lords in British Library, Harleian Ms.6424

Just over fifty two years ago, Conrad Russell devoted an article published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research to identifying the author of the account of proceedings in the House of Lords from the middle of January, 1641 until the start of January, 1642. He considered that Willson H.Coates’s suggestion that William Juxon, Bishop of London, was a potential candidate for this role and, by a process of elimination, came to the view that John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, was the most likely of the Bishops to have compiled this document which now survives in a copyist’s hand.[1] This view has been widely accepted and the text is now normally referred to as that of Warner.

 

What Russell overlooked in 1968 was that at least one description of proceedings in the House of Lords in 1641 survived from Warner and had been published in 1933 in Dorothy Gardiner’s edition of the correspondence of Henry Oxinden of Barham. It can be found in Warner’s letter of 22^nd July, 1641, which was a Thursday, and recounts events on the preceding Saturday at a House of Lords’ committee meeting. Warner’s account is given below from Dorothy Gardiner’s transcription.

 

 

“On Saterday last, two of our great Lords at a Committee [com]e  unto the Parliament house sitting with other Lords on Parliament busines forgat themselves so farre that the one, viz the Lord [Chamb]erlaine  of the King’s house, told the Lord Mowbray, sonne and heire [of the] Earle of Arundell, it was false ; whereupon the Lord Mowbray [gave] the Lie. The Chamberlaine strooke with his white staffe, the other threw a Standish but missed. The Chamberlaine hereon strooke a second blow, and for this, on Munday last in the morning, they were both committed by warrant of the Lords’ house to the Tower. Yesterday the Lord Chamberlaine petitioned the house, and it is expected that the Lord Mowbray doe the same today : whereupon I conceive they will both have their release. …... This paper bids me make an end yet never to cease being Your freind to serve you

Jo: Roffens

July 22 1641”[2]

 

 

The account in Harleian Ms.6424 reads as follows:

 

July.19. The L.Chamberlain & Mowbry

are comitted to the Tower by the Lds for their

provoking, quarrelling & striking one ano-

ther at a Comittee on Saturday last. They

are Comitted by Warrant without their

own appearance in the House & the Warrant

is directed to the Constable & Lieutenant

requiring them as also the Lds comitted that they

do not meet or send Letters each to other

whereby any Challenge or further Quarrell

 

fol.83r]

may arise. The Cause & the further Censure is

hereafter to be heard in the House. The Cause as

it is subscribed by 8. of the Lds present at the

Comittee is thus. The L.Chamberlain said at

the Comittee that no man had named Sutton

Marsh but the L.Mowbray. The L.Mowbray

said, The Chamberlain had often named it.

Upon each affirming & denying, The L.Mow-

bray said the Chamberlain had named it, & he

would maintain it The Chamberlain replyed

That he would not maintaine it in another

place. Mowbray said, He would for it was

true. The Chamberlain said it was false. Mow-

bray told him, he lyed. Whereupon the

Chamberlain struck him over the head with his

white staff, & respiling Mowbray threw

a standish at him but missed him. The

Chamberlain returned & struck him another

blow over the head. The House held Mowbray

culpable, for that he did Endeavoure to vindi-

cate himself, not first complaining to the House.[3]

The account if Harleian Ms.6424 contains details of personal remarks apparently exchanged between the Lord Chamberlain, who was Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, and Lord Mowbray but were omitted in Warner’s letter to Henry Oxinden. Both accounts suggest that it was Lord Mowbray who gave the lie to the Lord Chamberlain but only that in Harleian Ms.6424 suggests that Lord Mowbray should have complained to the full House of Lords. It is not entirely clear that John Warner was the author of both accounts but this is a matter that needs to be studied further.

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Conrad Russell, The Authorship of the Bishop’s Diary of the House of Lords in 1641. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. Volume 41 (1968), Pp.229-236. This was reproduced in Conrad Russell, Unrevolutionary England, 1603-1642 (The Hambledon Press. London and Ronceverte. 1990),Pp.111-118. Cf. Hertfordshire Record Office, XII.B.37.

[2] The Oxinden Letters 1607-1642. Being the Correspondence of Henry Oxinden of Barham and his Circle. Edited by Dorothy Gardiner (Constable and Co.Ltd. London, 1933), Pp.203-204. Cf. British Library, Additional Ms.28,000, fol.111.

[3] British Library. Harleian Ms.6424, fols.82v-83r.