CARLETON, George (1558-1628)

A cousin of Dudley Carleton^* (later Viscount Dorchester), the bishop hailed from Cumberland but was born at Norham Castle, where his father served as governor, in the East March. Schooled at Houghton-le-Spring, co. Durham by the celebrated preacher Bernard Gilpin, whose biography he later wrote, he matriculated in December 1577 from St Edmund Hall, the sister foundation to Queen’s College, Oxford, where Gilpin had once been a fellow.22 Oxford DNB, x. 108; Carleton, Gilpin, 3, 24; Al. Ox. Shortly after proceeding BA, Carleton was elected to a fellowship at Merton College, which he resigned following his institution as vicar of Mayfield, Sussex in 1589. His patron on this occasion was a Merton connection, Henry Neville^‡, who in 1603 was the dedicatee of his first publication, a set of Latin panegyrics in praise of Queen Elizabeth, King James, Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex and Sir Philip Sidney^‡.23 Registrum Annualium Collegii Mertonensis, 1567-1603 ed. J.M. Fletcher (Oxf. Hist. Soc. n.s. xxiv), 122-3; CCEd; Heroici Characteres (Oxford, 1603), sigs. A2-A3.

In 1605 Carleton exchanged Mayfield for a one-third portion of the rectory of Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, vacated by the deprivation of the nonconformist John Burgess; his patron was the local landowner, Sir Francis Goodwin^‡. Four years later, Carleton also acquired the rectory of Nuffield, Oxfordshire, to which he was nominated by the Court of Wards during the minority of the owner, his cousin George Carleton of Holcombe, Oxfordshire.24 C2/Eliz/W23/54; CCEd. This was presumably a valuable living, as Dudley Carleton recorded him hurrying to take possession ‘as if he rode post for a bishopric’. Carleton’s income allowed him the freedom to publish, by which means he clearly hoped to rise in the ecclesiastical hierarchy: his 1606 tract on the clergy’s divine right to tithes was dedicated to Richard Bancroft^*, archbishop of Canterbury, as was a 1610 refutation of the papal claim to jurisdiction over temporal monarchs. In 1611, a fresh edition of his work on tithes carried a dedication to the new archbishop, George Abbot^*, as did his doctoral thesis of 1613, which argued that the decrees of the Council of Trent were contrary to scripture, the Church fathers and the doctrine of predestination.25 SP14/48/120; G. Carleton, Tithes Examined (1606), sig. A3r-v; ibid. (1611), sig. §§2r-v; G. Carleton, Iurisdiction Regall, Episcopall, Papall (1610), sigs. ¶2-A3. He discussed the publication of his thesis with Dudley Carleton, then English ambassador in Venice, who presumably helped to put him in contact with Paolo Sarpi, the Venetian friar then writing a deeply critical history of the Council of Trent. On receiving a copy of the first impression of his cousin’s work, Ambassador Carleton welcomed such useful propaganda for the Serene Republic, which had been hostile to the papacy since the interdict of 1605-6. However, he observed that the Venetians were more inclined to say that errors had crept into the Roman Church before Trent. He also noted that his cousin’s claim that ordination was the sole preserve of bishops in apostolic times was likely to offend many Reformed churches which had no episcopal hierarchy.26 SP14/66/36; 14/67/166; 14/75/51; 14/77/9; Chamberlain Letters, i. 494.

Carleton’s reward for his labours was a chaplaincy to Prince Charles (Stuart^*, later prince of Wales), which prompted him to dedicate his next tract, published in 1615, to his new master. This developed his earlier arguments that the Roman Church had been irredeemably corrupted only by the decrees of the Church councils of the sixteenth century, a thesis increasingly popular among conformist Calvinists in England, and appealing to many Catholic critics of papal absolutism.27 G. Carleton, Directions to know the True Church (1615), sigs. A2-A6v; A. Milton, Catholic and Reformed 286-91. Carleton explained to his cousin that he owed his chaplaincy to Sir James Fullerton^‡, a senior member of the prince’s household, who, recognizing that he was ‘not so forward to beg as some others be’, had proposed him to Archbishop Abbot and the king. As for Charles, Carleton claimed that ‘within these last two years he is grown extraordinarily in strength and health … that he understandeth more at these years than his brother did at the same years’ and that, ‘he is willing to hear an advice of such as he knoweth loves and honours him’.28 SP14/80/27. It was presumably at the prince’s recommendation that Carleton was collated as a canon of Llandaff Cathedral, but Charles’s backing for his attempt to secure the bishopric of Carlisle in 1616 came to nothing, as the new royal favourite, George Villiers^* (later 1st duke of Buckingham) procured the vacancy for Robert Snowden^*.29 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 14-15, 29; British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19) ed. A. Milton (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. xiii), 56-7; ROBERT SNOWDEN.

While Carleton complained of being regarded as ‘a man bookish, unfit for government’, he only had to wait a year for preferment: in November 1617 the prince overrode challenges from some of the king’s chaplains to secure Carleton’s nomination as bishop of Llandaff. However, as he mournfully observed, his see’s revenues had been reduced to £139 a year ‘by the ungracious practices of my predecessors’. For this reason he was permitted to retain Waddesdon in commendam, although he was obliged to surrender his prebend at Llandaff and his Oxfordshire rectory.30 British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 58, 60; Le Neve, Fasti (1854), ii. 252-3; Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc., vi. 56. Carleton feared that his pastoral duties at Llandaff might be hindered by his lack of Welsh, and by ‘the opposition of some men who have been there too much, opposite to the truth’ – presumably an allusion to the crypto-Catholic Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester. His consecration was delayed until July 1618, perhaps because he had hoped to secure the wealthier bishopric of Oxford, which had, in fact, long since been promised to John Howson^* (later bishop of Durham).31 British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 60; JOHN HOWSON.

Before he had time to visit Llandaff, Carleton was ordered to report to the Low Countries as a delegate to the synod of Reformed churches which convened at Dort in November 1618. He first took notice of the theological controversy which prompted this meeting in 1616, when he perused the works of Jacobus Arminius, late professor of theology at Leiden University, whose sceptical views on predestination were echoed by Howson, among other English divines. Carleton circulated an anti-Arminian manuscript among his friends, but Ambassador Carleton (recently posted to the Low Countries) considered that his cousin would have been ‘better to take his ease in his old age’. After this ‘ill-compacted piece’ reached him at The Hague, he presumably discouraged the bishop from publication; the tract never appeared in print.32 British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 57-9; Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 226; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 118. Nevertheless, Ambassador Carleton recommended his cousin to the king as leader of the delegation sent to Dort in October 1618 to offer support to the contra-Remonstrant (Calvinist) party in the Netherlands.

The Dutch granted Carleton precedence at Dort, not only as the leader of the British delegation, but also as the only bishop present at the conference. In a ‘grave and discreet speech’ to the States General and the Prince of Orange upon his arrival in the Low Countries, he welcomed the opportunity for the various Reformed churches to harmonise their confessions of faith. Also, in expressing dismay at the prospect of a return ‘to sidings, to factions, to contentions’, he implicitly accepted the need for confessional discipline, and he later refused overtures to help the Arminians at the synod.33 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 169; British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 119-23; J. Hales, Golden Remains (1673), ii. 19-20. His delegation was not easy to manage: when his colleague Joseph Hall^*, dean of Worcester (and later bishop of Exeter) accepted an invitation to preach to the synod, Carleton feared this might provoke controversy; and the British delegates later disagreed over theological issues. Carleton was further dismayed at the uninvited arrival of the nonconformist exile William Ames, whose anti-episcopal writings were cited with approval by the Arminians.34 Hales, ii. 13-14, 53. Carleton attempted to co-ordinate the responses of the foreign delegates to the five articles of doctrine the Dutch contra-Remonstrants had drafted prior to the synod, holding private meetings before the plenary debates. However, he exceeded his brief in welcoming a proposal by the Huguenot Pierre du Moulin for a joint confession of faith, which endorsed the presbyterian system of church government. Following this unfortunate incident, he had the wisdom to refer his proposed emendations to the Thirty-Nine Articles to England for official approval.35 Ibid. 85-6; British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 197-9, 203-4.

The chief threat to harmony at Dort was a difference of opinion between the Dutch Calvinist Franciscus Gomarus and the delegation from Bremen over the question of universal grace – whether Christ had died for all men, or solely for those predestined to salvation. The British clerics, sent to persuade the two sides to bury their differences, found themselves at odds over the same question, until Carleton insisted the issue be referred to Archbishop Abbot, who backed the contra-Remonstrants.36 Hales, ii. 109, 112, 114, 117, 129-30; British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), pp. xliv-xlvii, 200-3, 208-9, 212, 216-17. The synod concluded by roundly condemning the Remonstrants, to the dismay of their sympathizers in England.

The success of the Synod of Dort boded well for Carleton’s future. His initial address to the States General was printed and (at Ambassador Carleton’s mischievous suggestion) given to the most prominent English sympathizer of the Arminian cause, Lancelot Andrewes^*, bishop of Winchester.37 Carleton to Chamberlain, 262; G. Carleton, An Oration made at The Hage (1619); Chamberlain Letters, ii. 330. The returning delegates, arriving to find the court almost empty on the day of Queen Anne’s funeral, had a lengthy interview with the king, who singled out Carleton for praise. Archbishop Abbot promised to recommend Carleton for the bishopric of Norwich, vacated by the death of the Arminian John Overall^*, but this went instead to Samuel Harsnett^*, bishop of Chichester (later archbishop of York). Despite Prince Charles’s backing, Carleton feared that ‘nothing is like to come to me’. However, a frantic week of lobbying at court saw the dean of Westminster, John Townson^* (an early contender for Chichester, later bishop of Salisbury) thrust aside, while Buckingham threw his weight behind Carleton, on the understanding that Theophilus Field^*, another nominee from his circle, would become bishop of Llandaff.38 British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 360-3, 365-6; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 240-1. Fincham, 34, offers a plausible explanation of the king’s role. Carleton apparently held his living at Waddesdon for another four years, presumably to assist in paying off the first fruits of a diocese valued at £600 a year. By the time he arrived at Chichester, he had also married the widow of his old friend Sir Henry Neville.39 Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. (1913-15), vi. 56; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 270; Add. 72275, f. 81.

Although denied any opportunity to prove his mettle at Llandaff, Carleton was an energetic diocesan at Chichester. He was active as a civil magistrate, and often presided over his consistory court, which he organized to promote rigorous investigation of office cases. He initially quarrelled with Clement Corbett, Harsnett’s appointee as diocesan chancellor, but the two men worked out their differences. After Corbett’s death, Carleton installed his own stepson William Neville as chancellor, while he instituted another of his second wife’s relations as vicar of Cuckfield, Sussex.40 Fincham, 98-101, 134, 159-60, 169, 174-5, 196-7, 289-90. Carleton conducted his triennial visitations in person, although he usually delegated the preaching on such occasions to his chaplains, and he closely investigated the misdemeanours reported in his visitation courts. He attempted to call absentee vicars choral at Chichester Cathedral to order by stopping their commons, but was most reluctant to deprive ministers: one of the few he removed was the nonconformist Anthony Lapthorne, lecturer of Lewes, Sussex, for breach of the royal preaching instructions of 1622.41 Ibid. 141-4, 208, 224, 291, 320.

The outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany led King James to summon a Parliament in 1621. When his health permitted, Carleton was generally regular in his attendance in the House of Lords, although he rarely played any significant part in its proceedings. In 1621 he attended over 80 per cent of the sittings, and was one of four bishops who shared the proxy of Miles Smith^*, bishop of Gloucester; yet he is not recorded to have spoken at all during the session.42 LJ, iii. 3b, 26b, 27b. Early in its proceedings he was included on the committee to scrutinize two bills to increase military preparedness, one to ban the export of iron ordnance manufactured in the Sussex Weald, the other to upgrade militia arms. His only other committee nominations were for three private bills, one concerning the Sussex magnate Charles Howard^*, 1st earl of Nottingham and another for the benefit of another local landowner, Sir Richard Lumley.43 Ibid. 13a, 110b, 128b. He left no trace on the autumn sitting, but joined in the consecration of several new bishops (including his former colleague at Dort, John Davenant^*, bishop of Salisbury) during the suspension of Archbishop Abbot.44 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 407, 409.

Having offered a generous donation to the benevolence raised for the Palatine cause in 1620, Carleton contributed £100 two years later, when King James appealed for a fresh benevolence, and also raised £329 from his diocesan clergy, just over half the value of a clerical subsidy – a creditable performance when compared with other dioceses.45 SP14/118/32; E401/1908; 401/2434-5. This is slightly more than the figure given in SP14/133/13. With the pro-Spanish faction in the ascendancy, he did not feel comfortable at court when he came to preach during Lent 1622. He advised his cousin Sir Dudley (still in the Low Countries) that ‘he is best that is farthest off’, and suspected that he had been ‘drawn into some disfavour of his Majesty’, presumably by the Arminian sympathizers of the Durham House group, led by Richard Neile^*, bishop of Durham. The king assured him of his continued support, but advised him to return to his diocese.46 SP14/129/1; P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Ct. (suppl. cal. 259).

When a fresh Parliament met in 1624, the Lords’ Journal recorded Carleton as having been present in Parliament for seven sittings, but the clerk’s manuscript minutes do not record him as having attended at all; it seems likely that poor health kept him in Sussex throughout the session, during which time his proxy was held by two anti-Calvinists, George Montaigne^*, bishop of London and William Laud^*, bishop of St Davids. He clearly followed parliamentary proceedings closely, celebrating the breach with Spain in a letter to Ambassador Carleton:

I think it a matter of the greatest importance that hath been moved in Christendom this many hundred years. … for these wars will turn from the quarrel between the emperor and the palsgrave [Elector Palatine] to be the quarrel for religion, … our parts must be to prepare ourselves.

He told Sir Dudley he had written to Archbishop Abbot calling for a public fast, and to warn that ‘in divers places, the doctrine of general grace [i.e. Arminianism] is published with such confidence, as if it were the doctrine of the Church of England. In mine own diocese I shall take order with some of these humorists’. Although he never took any such steps against Arminians in his diocese, the object of his criticism was Richard Montagu^*, recently appointed rector of Petworth, Sussex (and later bishop of Norwich), whose anti-Catholic polemic the New Gagg had been attacked in the Commons in 1624 for promoting Arminian doctrine. Carleton called for the formal adoption of the Five Articles of Dort, or the Lambeth Articles of 1595, as the doctrine of the Church of England – an initiative Abbot would have liked to have adopted, although the king would never have countenanced it.47 Add. 40087, f. 3; SP14/164/11; RICHARD MONTAGU. In the same year, Carleton set the breach with Spain in a broader context by publishing a tract recounting ‘the works of God in delivering this Church and State from the cruel plots of the adversaries’ since 1558, which he dedicated to Prince Charles.48 Carleton, Thankfull Remembrance (1624), sig. A2v.

Carleton’s health had improved by 1625, when a fresh Parliament met. He attended most of the Lords’ sittings at both Westminster and Oxford, and was named to three bill committees, two for measures concerning legal procedures, the other an estate bill for the recently deceased Sussex magnate, Richard Sackville^*, 3rd earl of Dorset. On 4 July Carleton made his only recorded speech, when the Lords debated the Commons’ recusancy petition, denouncing Anthony Maria Browne^*, 2nd Viscount Montagu, for harbouring England’s foremost Catholic priest (Richard Smith, bishop of Chalcedon) at Cowdray Park, Sussex. Following the outbreak of war with Spain that autumn, Carleton led the party which confiscated Montagu’s armaments.49 Procs. 1625, pp. 85, 88, 97, 179; SP16/11/39. The Commons’ investigation of Arminianism during the 1625 Parliament was terminated by the abrupt dissolution, but over the following year several Calvinist controversialists published works refuting Richard Montagu’s views, including Carleton, who, in dedicating his work to King Charles, warned of the dangers of ‘the plague and the Pelagian [Arminian] heresy, the one destroying bodies, the other souls’.50 N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 151-2; G. Carleton, An Examination (1626), sig. A3v. Carleton’s work was apparently in print by May 1626, see Procs. 1626, iv. 283, 288, 290.

As the leader of the British delegation at Dort, Carleton would have been an obvious choice as a disputant at the York House Conference, which debated Montagu’s views in the opening days of the 1626 Parliament; it was presumably his poor health that prompted the selection of Thomas Morton^*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in his stead. Carleton was nevertheless well enough to appear in the Lords regularly during the opening weeks of the session, when he took the oath of allegiance, but was named to only one committee, to consider the apparel bill, and largely disappeared from the House after Easter.51 Procs. 1626, i. 49, 265. Meanwhile, in the Commons, his cousin Sir Dudley Carleton unsuccessfully pleaded to be excused from the interrogation of Richard Montagu, for fear that he might be thought partisan; while the charge of promoting Pelagian heresy which MPs brought against Buckingham was probably inspired by Bishop Carleton’s recent attack on Montagu.52 Ibid. 480; iii. 25.

By 1628, when Parliament next met, Carleton was too ill to take up his seat in the Lords. Instead, he awarded his proxy to Bishop Davenant of Salisbury, Bishop Hall of Exeter and Robert Wright^*, bishop of Bristol. He died, intestate, on 12 May 1628, and was buried in Chichester cathedral; administration of his goods was granted to his son Henry on 5 June.53 Lords Procs. 1628, p. 28; Oxford DNB, x. 110; PROB 6/13, f. 29. His successor at Chichester was Richard Montagu, who provocatively criticized his stewardship of the diocesan estates in a letter of 1629 to Secretary of State Dudley Carleton (newly created Viscount Dorchester).54 SP16/153/73. While there were moves to suppress the reprinting of Carleton’s attack on Montagu after his death, his life of Bernard Gilpin went through several editions, and a second edition of his tract on God’s deliverance of England appeared in 1630, perhaps in support of continuing the war against Spain, which was concluded that same year. Finally, in 1642, a letter Bishop Carleton had written from Dort in 1619 was published as an endorsement of plans then under consideration for reduced episcopacy.55 Carleton, Thankfull Remembrance (1630); Bp Carletons Testimonie Concerning the Presbyterian Discipline (1642).