HALL, Joseph (1574-1656)

One of the most prolific authors among the early Stuart episcopate, Hall was trained at the puritan seminary of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but gradually evolved into a Calvinist conformist, and, ultimately, a defender of divine right episcopacy. His reluctance to court polemical controversy meant that he was able to survive the scrutiny of William Laud^*, archbishop of Canterbury, whom he had criticized much earlier in his career.

Early career, 1574-1608

Hall was intended for the ministry from an early age. His father, a servant of Henry Hastings^†, 3rd earl of Huntingdon, sent him to the local grammar school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, of which borough he was the bailiff, while his mother, an invalid of ‘rare sanctity, was influenced by the erstwhile Marian exile Anthony Gilby, vicar of Ashby. His parents, with many other children to provide for, were persuaded to apprentice him to William Pelsant, the rector of Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, as a cheaper alternative to university. However, Gilby’s son Nathaniel, a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, found Hall a place at his college, where he matriculated in 1589. His father struggled to meet the bills, whereupon his uncle Edmund Sleigh^‡, a wealthy clothier of Derby, offered to pay half the cost.33 Hall, Olive-Tree, 2-10; T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. ed. J. Freeman, 319.

In 1595 Huntingdon offered Nathaniel Gilby a chaplaincy, in order to create a vacancy for Hall at Emmanuel. The earl died shortly thereafter, but the master of Emmanuel, Lawrence Chaderton, decided that Gilby’s resignation should stand, and Hall was duly elected. Hall subsequently served as university lecturer in rhetoric for two years, during which time he published a book of Latin satires, the Virgidemiarum (1597). This volume was later recalled after John Whitgift^†, archbishop of Canterbury, incensed at the puritan appropriation of the genre, imposed a ban on the publication of satires.34 Hall, Olive-Tree, 10-11; R.A McCabe, Joseph Hall, 29-34. It was also while he was at Cambridge that Hall produced a Latin prose work, Mundus Alter et Idem, the text of which was published in 1605, without his consent. A satire about the discovery of a dystopian world in the Antipodes, it mocked contemporary intellectual practices and moral vices in the academic Latin used by university students.35 J. Hall, Mundus Alter et Idem (1605); McCabe, 73-92.

Following his ordination in 1600, Hall was recommended by Chaderton to Chief Justice Sir John Popham^‡ as master of the new grammar school at Tiverton, Devon. However, on his way to an inverview with Popham he was offered, and accepted, the rectory of Hawstead, Suffolk by the wife of Sir Robert Drury^‡.36 Hall, Olive-Tree, 11-12; CCEd. In 1605 Hall accompanied Lady Drury’s brother Sir Edmund Bacon^‡ to Brussels, engaging in theological disputations with English exiles and other Catholics. In an account of his travels, addressed to Prince Henry’s governor Sir Thomas Chaloner^‡, he mocked the credulity of Catholic devotional practices.37 Hall, Olive-Tree, 15-22; J. Hall, Epistles the First Volume (1610), 35-52.

While at Hawstead, Hall augmented the modest stipend he received from Drury by publishing a torrent of work. His first effort was a poem hailing King James on his accession, but his preference was for ‘practical divinity’, the application of moral principles to everyday life. Such works were probably quarried from his sermons, and in The Art of Divine Meditation he explained that his reflective approach to religion was a reaction against confessional polemic, which tended ‘rather to breed, than end strifes [sic]’. He acknowledged his debt to the spiritual writings of an anonymous monk, published in the 1490s, but during his time at Emmanuel he was also influenced by Richard Greenham, rector of Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire.38 J. Hall, The Kings Prophecie (1603); J. Hall, The Anathomie of Sinne (1603); J. Hall, Two Guides to a Good Life (1604); J. Hall, Meditations and Vowes (1605); J. Hall, Heaven Upon Earth (1606); J. Hall, The Art of Divine Meditation (1606), sigs. A3v-A4v; McCabe, 7, 142-206.

In 1608 Hall fell out with Drury when he was offered a lectureship at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Instead of offering a pay rise to keep his services, Drury advised him to try his luck with Edward Denny^*, Lord Denny (later earl of Norwich). This was a fool’s errand, as Denny was then away from his home at Waltham Abbey, Essex. However, a chance meeting with an old acquaintance, now tutor to Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, led to an invitation to preach before Prince Henry, and thereafter the offer of a chaplaincy in the prince’s household, which Hall accepted. Denny also contacted Hall, offering him the well endowed living at Waltham Abbey, whereupon Hall took his leave of Drury with a hint of satisfaction: ‘God calls me to a greater work; I must follow him’.39 Hall, Olive-Tree, 23-5; J. Hall, Epistles, the First Volume (1610), 92.

Preferment, 1608-18

In his early years, Hall, as an Emmanuel graduate, may have sympathized with the nonconformist clerics who felt unable to subscribe to the Three Articles required by the 1604 Canons. One puritan cleric described his report of a conformist sermon preached at Bury St Edmunds by William Bedell in 1604 as sounding ‘harsh in the ears of the best’; but his own focus on practical divinity carefully allowed him to avoid controversy. His move to Waltham Abbey allowed him easy access to the court at London and nearby Theobalds Palace. This clearly sharpened his ambition for preferment, as became obvious in his Epistles, published in three volumes in 1608-11. Many of these were addressed to prominent courtiers and clerics, and while some were doubtless written specially for publication, they are indicative of the exalted social circles in which he now moved. The religious views his letters expressed were carefully tailored to emphasize his moderation: John Smyth, a separatist exile in Amsterdam, was warned ‘that it had been a thousand times better to swallow a ceremony, than to rend a church’; while William Laud^*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, was challenged for taking an excessively narrow view of conformity: ‘whither will you go for truth, if you will allow no truth, but where there is no division? … Will you be a church alone?’40 Letters from Redgrave Hall ed. D. MacCulloch (Suff. Rec. Soc. l), 80; J. Hall, Epistles, the Second Volume, i. 9, 59, 61; P. Heylyn, Cyprianus Anglicus, 54. In 1610 Hall published an expanded polemic against separatism, which may have secured him a promotion as archdeacon of Nottingham in the following year. He was also installed as a prebend of Wolverhampton College, Staffordshire, at the behest of his cousin Samuel Burton, archdeacon of Gloucester, in order to fight a protracted lawsuit against a local landowner, Sir Walter Leveson, who held the college’s estates at a fixed rent.41 J. Hall, A Common Apologie of the Church of England (1610); Hall, Olive-Tree, 27-30.

In 1616 Hall went to Paris in the entourage of Lord Denny’s son-in-law James Hay^*, Lord Hay (later 1st earl of Carlisle), but was laid low by diarrhoea; the Huguenot pastor Pierre du Moulin arranged his passage home. Shortly after he returned to England, he was instituted as dean of Worcester, fighting off two other contenders, Richard Field, dean of Gloucester, and Anthony Maxey, dean of Windsor. His first task there was to conduct a visitation of his cathedral on behalf of George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury.42 Hall, Olive-Tree, 31-3; Bodl., Tanner 283, f. 195; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 14-15; Fasti, vii. 110-1; Worcester Cathedral Archive, D366, ff. 31v-3v. In March 1617, he was included on the clerical delegation the king took to Edinburgh to persuade the Scots of the merits of episcopacy. Most of those who accompanied James to Scotland were anti-Calvinists, and Hall later recalled that the ‘great love and respect’ he found among the Scots made some of his English colleagues envious. This regard also made him useful to the king, who required Hall to write an open letter to an Edinburgh cleric in justification the Five Articles of Perth which had been imposed on the Kirk.43 HMC Downshire, vi. 139; Hall, Olive-Tree, 33-4.

Having performed creditably in Scotland, Hall was chosen in the autumn of 1618 as one of five British clerics to attend the Synod of Dort. By the time this delegation arrived in the United Provinces, several of the leaders of the Dutch Remonstrant [Arminian] party had been arrested or fled into exile. One of the fugitives, Johannes Uytenbogaerde, offered to make a false renunciation of his Arminian views in return for asylum in England; Archbishop Abbot gave Hall a copy of Uytenbogaerde’s letter to take to Dort, the better to publicize his duplicity. On arrival at Dort, Hall accepted an invitation to preach to the synod without consulting the head of the British delegation, George Carleton^*, bishop of Llandaff (later bishop of Chichester), who feared that arguments might erupt over doctrinal differences. The sermon was generally commended, but Hall fell sick shortly thereafter, retiring to The Hague, and then to England. On 1 Feb. 1619 he had revived sufficiently to have a long interview with the king, but he was taken ill again on a journey to Worcester; by the time the synod concluded he was sufficiently recovered to joke that ‘I have been twice dead in general rumour, and my dignities sued for’.44 HMC Downshire, vi. 514, 540; SP105/95, f. 43r-v; J. Hales, Golden Remains (1673), ii. 13-14, 53, 67; Add. 72253, f. 4; SP14/108/72; Bodl., Tanner 74, ff. 113, 159; Hall, Olive-Tree, 35-6; J. den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 648.

Stagnation and revival, 1619-27

In the autumn of 1619 King James’s son-in-law, Frederick, Elector Palatine, accepted the crown of Bohemia from the largely Protestant local nobility, who had rebelled against Habsburg rule. Frederick’s rash decision was popular with his fellow Calvinists in England, including Hall, who reported that ‘I was so forward in praying for the king of Bohemia that my zeal was accused and censured’. James’s hope to contain the conflict by pursuing a marriage alliance with the Hapsburgs’ Spanish cousins left Hall out of favour at court, which presumably explains why his career stalled for some years. He courted trouble with a sermon preached at Theobalds in September 1623, shortly after the terms of the marriage treaty had been agreed. Speaking to Proverbs 23:23, buy the truth and sell it not, he insisted, ‘if truth were some goodly lordship, or the reversion of some good office, it would be bought’, but he warned, ‘give me a man that buys a seat of judicature; I dare not trust him for not selling of justice’. ‘What a shame it is’, he lamented, ‘there should not want some souls that should truck for the truth of God, as if it were some Cheapside, or some Smithfield commodity’. ‘You cannot sell truth’, he concluded, ‘and be saved’. Such polemic in a court sermon could have harmed his career, but fortunately for him, another preacher who had been more forthright in his invective was hauled before the Privy Council instead.45 SP14/110/71; J. Hall, The Best Bargaine (1623), 17, 25, 38-9; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 517; T. Cogswell, Blessed Rev. 44-5.

The summons of the 1624 Parliament changed the political situation, and in February 1624, Hall was chosen to preach at the opening session of Convocation.46 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 546. This Latin sermon was published as J. Hall, Columba Noae (1624). His next court sermon, delivered in September 1624, took place under very different circumstances: the diplomatic impetus towards a French alliance (Lord Hay, now earl of Carlisle, was one of the negotiating team) made a war with Spain almost certain, and Hall’s task was to convince James of the need to lay aside his pacific instincts: ‘if any shall offer wrong to the Lord’s anointed in his person, [or] in his seed, the work of that injustice shall be war’.47 J. Hall, The True Peacemaker (1624), 39; Cogswell, 298-9. James may not have enjoyed such belligerent rhetoric, but he clearly valued the artistry of Hall’s sermon, as the latter was presently offered the bishopric of Gloucester, which he declined ‘with much humble deprecation’. As the poorest of the English sees, Gloucester would hardly have been worth the loss of Hall’s deanery and archdeaconry; it passed instead to Godfrey Goodman^*. Hall was shortly thereafter nominated for a more valuable living, the deanery of York, by the lord keeper, John Williams^*, bishop of Lincoln. However, the dissolute John Scott, a prebend of York, was appointed in his stead.48 Hall, Olive-Tree, 41; Harl. 7000, f. 168; GODFREY GOODMAN.

In ecclesiastical circles, the mid 1620s saw an acrimonious dispute between the Calvinists, such as Archbishop Abbot, and their critics, who were often (though not always fairly) called Arminians. One of the latter, Richard Montagu^* (later bishop of Chichester) caused a storm in the 1624 Parliament by publishing A New Gagg for an Old Goose, in which he responded to a Catholic attack on the Synod of Dort by denying that the Calvinist tenets agreed there were the doctrines of the Church of England.49 N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 125-8; Brit. Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19) ed. A. Milton (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. xiii), 297-321; R. Montagu, A New Gagg for an Old Goose (1624); P. Milward, Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age, 40. Several Calvinist authors rushed to publish rebuttals of Montagu’s work, but Hall, presumably with one eye on his promotion prospects, penned a ‘little project of pacification’, the Via Media, which argued that Montagu’s views were not derived from Arminius, but rather from John Overall^*, late bishop of Norwich, who represented a middle way between the Calvinist and Arminian extremes. Hall concluded that Montagu’s only mistake was the forthright tone of his work.50 Tyacke, 155-7; F.L. Huntley, Bp. Joseph Hall, 111-12; Hall, Olive-Tree, 37-9.

His stance over Montagu meant that Hall was not one of those invited to put the Calvinist case against Montagu at the York House Conference of February 1626, and he was doubly fortunate that theological controversy was banned by a royal injunction of June 1626. However, his promotion prospects were frozen when several of the bishoprics which fell vacant at this time were left unfilled in order that their revenues might be diverted to the Exchequer.51 Stuart Royal Proclamations II: Chas. I ed. J.F. Larkin, 91-3; GEORGE ABBOT. The most likely prospects for a cleric of his standing were Carlisle, St Davids and Exeter, valued at £478, £411 and £450 per annum respectively. Carlisle was quickly snapped up by Francis White^*, and there were other contenders for the remaining two: Walter Balcanquhall, dean of Rochester, even calculated how many livings he might have to relinquish in order to secure a promotion.52 Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. (1913-15), vi. 56; SP16/52/55. Hall’s success in securing Exeter in October 1627 was partly due to the absence of the favourite, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham, who had backed the anti-Calvinists following the York House Conference. Buckingham’s absence on campaign in France allowed a group of moderates on the Privy Council the chance to promote at least one Calvinist to the bench of bishops. Hall probably assisted his prospects by working to secure a prebend at Worcester for one of the chaplains of Secretary of State Edward Conway^*, 1st Viscount Conway, a close ally of the favourite, while chance also played a part, as a letter from the favourite nominating another candidate arrived only hours after Hall’s congé d’élire was sealed. The financial terms of the deal were better than Hall expected: while required to surrender all his existing preferments, he was licensed to hold the rectory of St Breock, Cornwall in commendam.53 R. Cust, ‘Chas. I, the Privy Council and the Parl. of 1628’, TRHS (6th ser.), ii. 35; SP16/58/50; 16/75/85; Fasti, xii. 3; CCEd.

Parliamentary career, 1628-9

For a newcomer to the episcopal bench, Hall was reasonably active in the 1628 session of Parliament: he was granted a share in the proxies of two other bishops, George Carleton^*, bishop of Chichester, and John Bridgeman^*, bishop of Chester; attended over 80 per cent of the sittings; and made several speeches on the key issue of liberty of the subject. As one of the bishops scheduled to preach at the Lords’ fast day on 5 Apr., Hall was excused attendance for a week beforehand. He was nevertheless present on 4 Apr., when he secured an order to close the London markets during the fast. In his sermon, Hall likened the Church to a fruitful vineyard, cultivated by God and his faithful servants, and urged his audience to maintain ‘the hedge of good discipline, of wholesome laws, of gracious government’ – an allusion to the problems arising from the crown’s infringement of the liberties of the subject over the previous 18 months. However, he also reminded peers of what united them, lamenting the fate of continental Protestants, warning against social abuses at home – ‘spiteful suits … depopulations … usuries’ – and singling out Catholics for scorn. He received a vote of thanks for his labours, and the sermon was quickly printed by order of the House.54 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 25, 95, 98-9, 152-4, 157-8; J. Hall, One of the Sermons Preacht at Westminster (1628), 41, 47, 51.

With the Commons having voted to give the crown five subsidies on the day before the fast, agreement over the crown’s powers of arbitrary arrest suddenly seemed possible, but, having consulted the judges, many peers were concerned that a confirmation of the subject’s rights would undermine the crown’s prerogative powers. On 23 Apr., at Hall’s suggestion, the question of how to balance these conflicting interests was referred to a committee, which opted for a confirmation of Magna Carta and six supporting statutes.55 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 336-7; J.S. Flemion, ‘A Savings to Satisfy All’, PH, x. 33-5. As MPs considered whether this would suffice, an open letter to the Commons was circulated, purporting to be from Hall, which insisted that ‘our liberties and properties are sufficiently declared to be sure and legal … while parliaments live we need not misdoubt the like violation of our freedoms and rights … fear not to trust a good king, who after the strict laws made must be trusted with the execution’.56 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 125-6, n.26, which survives in many copies. The authorship cannot be proven, but the views expressed were consonant with Hall’s response to the Commons’ rejection of a confirmatory statute in favour of a Petition of Right: speaking on 14 May, he insisted that the Petition left no room for the prerogative, and moved to ask MPs ‘whether they had any intent to diminish the prerogative of the king?’ If not, he suggested they should be required to explain themselves. John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol, doubted whether the two sides were irreconcilable, and the plan eventually adopted was for the Lords to draft a ‘saving clause’ for the prerogative, and offer it to the Commons.57 Ibid. 424, 431; C. Russell, PEP, 361-2. This initiative was rejected, and on 21 May, in face of mounting pressure to reach an agreement, Hall proposed that the Lords insert a saving clause either in the preamble to the Petition, or elsewhere, ‘that it may stand upon record not to violate the king’s prerogative’. Once again, MPs refused to co-operate, and with the king desperate for funds, the Lords capitulated.58 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 490, 492, 495; Russell, 372-4.

Hall left little other trace on the other business of the session. He was included on a dozen committees, including one to strike down the New England fishing patent, which affected the livelihoods of many within his diocese, two for recusancy legislation, and another two to promote trade.59 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 88, 146, 548, 627, 678; Russell, 94. In a debate of 6 May on the peers’ right to exemption from the requirement to give evidence in courts under oath, Hall supported the consensus to maintain this privilege. Finally, at the end of the session it was noted that his diocese was one of those which had failed to remit any of the money collected in 1625 for relief of plague victims in London.60 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 385-6, 705.

Hall returned to Westminster for the 1629 session, missing only a few days of the Lords’ sittings. Once again, he preached one of the fast sermons on 18 Feb., attacking ‘impiety, mis-belief, heresy, superstition, atheism, and whatever other intellectual wickedness’. Drunkenness, Catholicism, bribery and usury were singled out for censure, as well as the failure of good laws to have any impact on such problems, while he ended with a warning to his eminent audience that ‘your sins are so much greater, as yourselves are’.61 LJ, iv. 24a; J. Hall, One of the Sermons Preacht to the Lords (1629), 25, 44-7, 50-1, 65. He was, however, little involved in the work of the session. Granted privilege to stay a suit over the right of presentation to a Devonshire vicarage, he was also ordered to attend the king with a petition for relief of Robert de Vere^*, the impoverished 19th earl of Oxford. He was included on a single committee, for the apparel bill.62 LJ, iv. 19a, 21a-2a, 34b.

The diocese of Exeter, 1627-41

Despite his godly credentials, Hall, like his two predecessors, William Cotton^* and Valentine Carey^*, had a difficult time at Exeter, both with his own cathedral chapter, and the godly laity. This owed something to his publication of a tract in 1628, which argued that Rome was a ‘true visible church’, albeit in error. The radical firebrand Henry Burton took exception to what was probably a slip of the pen, and challenged Hall to recant his statement. Hall appended an ‘apologetical advertisement’ to the second edition of his work, and in the following year produced a short tract which included testimonials to his doctrinal orthodoxy from four other Calvinist divines.63 J. Hall, The Old Religion (1628); J. Hall, The Reconciler (1629); K. Fincham and P. Lake, ‘Popularity, Prelacy and Puritanism in the 1630s’, EHR, cxi. 864; A. Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 142-3; Hall, Olive-Tree, 40.

Like many bishops, Hall sought to embed his own relatives within the diocesan administration: his eldest son Robert became prebend and treasurer of Exeter Cathedral in 1629, while William Peterson, appointed dean in the same year, quickly married one of the bishop’s daughters. However, Hall’s attempt to intrude his chaplain Martin Nansogg as archdeacon of Cornwall backfired, as Archbishop Abbot backed the aged incumbent, William Parker. Nansogg left the diocese in disgrace, but when Parker died in 1631 Hall appointed first the dean’s brother Robert Peterson, and then his own sons Robert and George in succession.64 Fasti, xii. 20, 28-9, 60; SP16/66/40, 71; J.A. Vage, ‘Dioc. of Exeter, 1519-1641’ (Camb. Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1991), 376-9. Doubtless with Hall’s encouragement, Dean Peterson began investigating the chapter estates: most of the profits were shared among the handful of resident canons, a policy which was terminated by the crown in October 1629. Reforms to leasing policy followed, and two years later Hall granted a dividend of £1,700 to eight of the canons, in return for which they provided a lump of £2,000 for cathedral repairs, and agreed that henceforth, one-tenth of their entry fines would be paid into a maintenance fund. In the autumn of 1631 Hall’s enemies frustrated the election of Robert Peterson as a canon, and lurid tales of the dean’s liaison with a kitchen maid led Peterson to bring a defamation case in Star Chamber, which made the chapter a laughing stock across the diocese.65 C2/Chas.I/H98/62; Reps. of Cases in Star Chamber and High Commission ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxix), 153-73; Vage, 378-87.

Laud held Hall ‘in great jealousy for too much favour of puritanism’, and the latter, aware that his sympathies were under scrutiny, carried out his duties with circumspection. Thus in 1634 Hall admonished the vicar of Okehampton, Devon for omitting parts of the liturgy, something that Laud’s officials were sure to note during their forthcoming metropolitical visitation of the diocese. Hall also proved willing to proceed against obdurate nonconformists such as those at Barnstaple in north Devon, although the fracturing of the puritan community in the area made it difficult to distinguish between the warring factions.66 Vage, 388-400. Where possible, Hall aspired to let sleeping dogs lie: thus while he distributed the 1633 Book of Sports, the clergy were not pressed to read it; the key Laudian policy of the railing of altars was not actively promoted, or even mentioned in his visitation articles; and where other bishops were suppressing lectures, Hall encouraged their establishment.67 Hall, Olive-Tree, 41; Fincham and Lake, 865-7, 872-5; K. Fincham and N. Tyacke, Altars Restored, 207, 210, 248; Vis. Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church II ed. K. Fincham (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. v), 1-11. Moreover, his churchmanship still focussed on practical divinity: in 1633 he published a 400 page exposition of scripture aimed at the ‘plain reader’ studying his bible at home.68 J. Hall, A Plaine and Familiar Exposition, sig. B5v; Fincham and Lake, 875.

Later years 1639-56

In 1639 Laud prevailed upon Hall to write a defence of divine right episcopacy, in an attempt to mobilize conformist Calvinists against the Covenanter threat. Its publication in 1641 destroyed Hall’s credibility with many puritans, and the authors of the radical ‘Smectymnws’ tracts initially banded together to refute his arguments. The bishop’s youngest son, Joseph Hall^‡, was returned to the Short Parliament for Penryn, in Cornwall, but was not re-elected that autumn. Hall himself attended the Long Parliament regularly, and the arrest of Laud improved his prospects: he was translated to Norwich in November 1641. However, after joining in the petition against the bishops’ exclusion from Parliament by the mob in December 1641, he was committed to the Tower. He subsequently retired to Norwich, but had his property sequestrated in 1643, and was eventually forced out of his palace to Heigham, Norfolk, where he died on 8 Sept. 1656.69 J. Hall, Episcopacie by Divine Right (1641); Oxford DNB, xxiv. 636-7. In his will of 21 July 1654, Hall divided property in Devon, Essex and Norfolk and his books and papers among his four sons; Dean Peterson was bequeathed a gilt bowl and cover; while his grandson Joseph Weld was given the medal the States General had presented to him for his services at the Synod of Dort. His son Samuel was granted probate only ten days after his death. At his funeral sermon, the preacher, John Whitefoote of Norwich, confessed that ‘some strugglings he had with his rougher brethren … all men honoured the doctor, though some loved not the bishop’.70 PROB 11/258, ff. 160v-1v, 162v; Whitefoote, 66.