HETON, Martin (1554-1609)

The inscription on his tomb claimed that Heton’s family hailed from Heton, Lancashire, but the connection must have been distant, as his grandfather and father were both London Merchant Taylors. The latter served as master of the company in 1556-7, but assisted London’s Protestants under Mary, when his brother was in exile in Germany. Chamberlain of London from 1563-77, George Heton was dismissed for financial irregularities which apparently bankrupted him.20 Oxford DNB, xxvi. 896-900; Ath. Ox. ii. 847-8. By then well established in an academic career at Christ Church, Oxford, his son Martin was unaffected by these woes, securing a prebend at Christ Church in 1582, the vicarage of Brize Norton, Oxfordshire in 1584, and serving as university vice chancellor in 1588-9, in place of the dean, William James^* (later bishop of Durham).21 Fasti, viii. 103; CCEd; Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 476.

In 1589, on the recommendation of Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, Heton was appointed dean of Winchester Cathedral. He was allowed to retain his prebend at Christ Church, but exchanged Brize Norton for a Hampshire living, to which he was collated by a former dean of Christ Church, Thomas Cooper^†, bishop of Winchester. In 1595, shortly after Cooper’s death, the crown presented him to another Hampshire rectory, while two years later, a group of local gentry petitioned Essex to nominate him for the newly vacant bishopric; but this went to Thomas Bilson^*, master of Winchester College.22 Fasti, iii. 84; CCEd; HMC Hatfield, xiv. 11; B. Usher, Ld. Burghley and Episcopacy, 1577-1603, pp. 108, 147. The next vacancy for which Heton is known to have been considered was the bishopric of Ely, long kept vacant by the crown for financial purposes. When the matter was discussed in 1599, Essex, newly appointed chancellor of Cambridge University, was well placed to make recommendations. Heton was consecrated as bishop of Ely in February 1600, but he was almost certainly not the earl’s first choice: the post had previously been turned down by Lancelot Andrewes^* (later bishop of Winchester), John Still^*, bishop of Bath and Wells, and Robert Bennett^* (later bishop of Hereford).23 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 79; HMC Hatfield, xiv. 119; LANCELOT ANDREWES; T. Fuller, Church Hist. of Britain (1656), x. 55; Usher, Burghley and Episcopacy, 177-8.

The crown’s problems with the appointment to a see valued at £2,000 p.a. arose because the new incumbent was expected to alienate much of his estate under the terms of the 1559 Act of Exchange, whereby episcopal manors could be replaced by crown rectories, tithes and annuities to the same annual value. Manors worth £656 a year had already been ceded in 1559 by Bishop Richard Cox^†, who complained that his grant of tithes and tenths deprived his parish clergy of much of their income.24 F. Heal, ‘Economic Problems of the Bpric. of Ely’, EcHR, xxvi. 203-4; F. Heal, ‘Bps. and the Act of Exchange of 1559’, HJ, xvii. 228, 231-2, 237, 239-41; I. Atherton, ‘Bps. of Ely, 1559-1667’, Ely: Bps. and Dioc. ed. P. Meadows, 186-7. In 1600 the crown took most of the remaining episcopal manors – quickly sold to pay for the Irish war – in exchange for £1,100 of spiritual revenues. Heton’s acquiescence was widely deplored: the dean and chapter were reluctant to give their consent; and he was apparently mocked as ‘Mar-Ely’.25 Heal, ‘Act of Exchange’, 246; Heal, ‘Econ. Problems’, 206-10; HMC Hatfield, x. 114-15; J. Harington, Briefe View of the State of the Church (1653), 79-80; Fuller, x. 55. However, thanks to his lobbying, the terms ratified on 27 June 1600 were better than had been feared: alienated lands worth £1,044 19s. 7½d. p.a. were replaced by three crown manors in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire, yielding £616 14s. a year, and rectories, tithes and advowsons valued at £428 5s. 7½d. annually; the latter were scattered across East Anglia and the East Midlands, a breach of the 1559 Act, which stipulated the new revenues must lie within the diocese affected.26 SP12/274/102; Lansd. 156, f. 382; CPR, 1599-1600, pp. 102-5; Atherton, 192-3. Heton’s willingness to overlook this awkward fact may have secured additional concessions: he was assigned the temporal revenues of his see from Lady Day 1599, almost a year before his consecration; while payment of his first fruits was cancelled.27 Lansd. 156, ff. 387-9, 391; SP12/274/104; Usher, Burghley and Episcopacy, 226-7.

Negotiations over Ely were concluded before Essex mounted his attempted coup d’état in February 1601. Heton was not implicated, but his brother-in-law Sir Simon Weston^‡, who briefly came under suspicion, was ordered to stay with him in the Isle of Ely until his name was cleared.28 HMC Hatfield, xi. 136-7. On 10 Apr. 1603 Heton preached in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall, and while King James had not yet arrived in London, his sermon, on sin and redemption, established his credentials as an orthodox Calvinist, by which he clearly hoped to impress the new monarch.29 Manningham Diary ed. R.P. Sorlien, 233-4.

Heton was not invited to discuss the future of the Church at Hampton Court in January 1604, but attended the Lords on all but a handful of days during the parliamentary session which followed, playing an active part in the proceedings. He was included on delegations sent to confer with MPs about the commutation of wardship and purveyance, and to hear the king demand statutory union with Scotland. Later in the session, when John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol, criticized the Commons for their lukewarm attitude to the Union, Heton was among those sent to reassure MPs that the Lords were dealing with the issue.30 LJ, ii. 266b, 277b, 284a, 290b, 292a, 309a, 332b. Godly MPs proposed ambitious plans for ecclesiastical reform, which the bishops were determined to frustrate: Heton was one of those sent to delay progress at a series of conferences on this issue, while Convocation pre-empted the debate by passing a fresh set of Canons. A handful of bishops supported the puritan cause, and in Convocation, when Anthony Rudd^*, bishop of St Davids, expressed sympathy for moderate nonconformists in a debate on the draft Canons, Heton was one of those who opposed him.31 Ibid. 282b; RICHARD BANCROFT; Bodl., Ashmole 1153, ff. 57v-8.

In addition to his involvement in political issues, Heton was included on committees appointed to consider a variety of legislation. As the custodian of Wisbech Castle, where many Catholic priests were incarcerated, it is not surprising that he was named to the committee for the recusancy bill, which was redrafted twice before it passed the House; he was also included on a committee for the bill to reverse the attainder upon Charles Paget, a Catholic exile who had recently returned to England, a measure which was ultimately rejected.32 Add. 11402, f. 101v; LJ, ii. 267b, 271a, 324b, 326b, 328a. Additional appointments included the committee for a bill for process in the ecclesiastical courts, and another for a bill to bar married dons from bringing their families to reside at university.33 LJ, ii. 323a, 332a. Other nominations involved bills of local interest, most notably one confirming a land exchange between Trinity College, Cambridge and Sir Thomas Monson^‡.34 Ibid. 269b, 275a, 281a, 319a. In a poorly reported session, he is only noted to have made one speech in the Lords, to secure parliamentary privilege for a servant of Tobie Matthew^*, bishop of Durham, another former dean of Christ Church.35 Ibid. 302a.

In the autumn of 1604, the crown sought to raise privy seal loans from wealthy taxpayers in lieu of a vote of parliamentary supply. Heton managed to avoid rating himself, but returned the names of 19 clergy in his diocese, who were expected to lend £309; he cannot have pursued the collection with much vigour, as only £109 was received by the Exchequer.36 CUL, Ff.ii.28; E401/2585, ff. 141-2. At the same time, the king and Richard Bancroft^*, newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, inaugurated a campaign against nonconformist clergy, who were required to subscribe to the three articles included in article 36 of the new ecclesiastical Canons. While the adjacent dioceses of Lincoln, Peterborough and Norwich saw several dozen ministers deprived, Heton repeatedly conferred with his own recalcitrants over the next two years, and ultimately persuaded all of them to conform. He also issued fresh citations against those who had persistently failed to appear in his consistory court upon repeated summons, and clamped down on unlicensed preaching by academics in Cambridge pulpits. These measures apparently satisfied the king, who kept a close eye on developments in the puritan heartlands of East Anglia and the east Midlands.37 R.G. Usher, Reconstruction of the Eng. Church, ii. 34-40; K.C. Fincham, ‘Ramifications of the Hampton Ct. Conf. in the Dioceses,’JEH, xxxvi. 210-11. Unlike several of his successors, Heton was not a court prelate, as he resided, for the most part, at Downham in the Isle of Ely, and while he rarely sat in his consistory court, he presided over each of his diocesan visitations in person. During his tenure there were few vacancies among the senior officeholders, but it was clearly his patronage which brought Robert Tinley, a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, to Ely as archdeacon and the incumbent of three livings in the bishop’s gift; he also found his brother-in-law James Weston a place in his household. He jealously guarded his privileges as bishop, managing to keep the king’s chief minister, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, from usurping his right to nominate the judge of the bishop’s court in the Isle of Ely.38 Fincham, 210; Al. Ox. (Robert Tinley); CCEd; SP46/68, f. 252; HMC Hatfield, xix. 37-8, 43.

Heton missed the opening of the new parliamentary session on 5 Nov. 1605, but was otherwise assiduous in his attendance. Once again, he played an active, though hardly prominent role in the Lords’ proceedings. He was included on several committees considering recusancy legislation, and another to scrutinize the bill to attaint the Gunpowder plotters.39 LJ, ii. 360b, 367a-b, 401a, 419b, 429a. Puritan measures for ecclesiastical reform caused significant friction between the two Houses, and Heton was one of the bishops appointed to confer with the Commons about a range of grievances; on 5 May 1606 he and Henry Robinson^*, bishop of Carlisle, answered the Commons’ complaints about the use of citations by church courts to summon defendants over trivial matters.40 Ibid. 409a, 411a, 416b, 428a; Bowyer Diary, 102-3. Heton was also included on the committee for the Commons’ bill which aimed to abolish purveyance without compensation, a measure the Lords found unacceptable.41 LJ, ii. 407b, 413a. Items of local legislation which came within his purview included an estate bill for Corpus Christi College, Oxford, another for the endowment of a divinity professorship at Oxford (although he was not included on the committee for a similar bill for Cambridge University), a bill to restrict new building and subdivision of tenements in London, a bill to restrict the erection of weirs in navigable rivers such as the Great Ouse, and another dealing with fen drainage in the Isle of Ely.42 Ibid. 371b, 386b, 389a, 410a, 436a.

During the next parliamentary session, in 1606-7, Heton and William Barlow^*, bishop of Rochester, held the proxy of Bishop James of Durham. At the start of a session dominated by the Union, Heton was one of the large delegation which urged the Commons to commence their deliberations on this subject. However, MPs ultimately refused to endorse the king’s pet project. Heton was included on the committee to scrutinize the only piece of legislation which resulted, for the repeal of hostile laws against Scots.43 Ibid. 449a, 453a, 520a. Presumably because of ill health, Heton missed over half of the Lords’ sittings, and so was named to few bill committees. These included one to consider a fresh draft of the measure against new building in London, and private bills to sell parts of the Norfolk estate of the recently deceased judge Sir Francis Gawdy^‡. They also included a measure to confirm Salisbury’s exchange of his Hertfordshire manor of Theobalds for the crown manor of Hatfield.44 Ibid. 456b, 460b, 461b, 511a.

Heton remained active as a diocesan in the final months of his life,45 HMC Hatfield, xxi. 14-15, 43. and only wrote his will, in failing health, four days before his death, which occurred on 14 July 1609. This document may have been intended as a preliminary draft, as it omitted any religious preamble, and named no overseers, although Heton seems to have intended that role for his brothers-in-law, who were ordered to sell all of his goods and leases. He ordered his funeral (which took place at Ely) to be ‘without any pomp or show’, and divided his estate between his wife and two daughters. The will was not proved for nine months, which suggests that the family had been searching for a fair copy.46 PROB 11/115, f. 225; Oxford DNB, xxvi. 898; Ath. Ox. ii. 847-8. His successor, Lancelot Andrewes, sued Heton’s widow for dilapidations, but in 1612 it was resolved that the £3,600 worth of depreciation assessed upon the episcopal estates had occurred during the 20 years the see had lain vacant prior to Heton’s appointment.47 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 38; C66/1956/13. Heton’s widow retired to Westminster, and it was only in her will that she honoured her husband’s wish for a tomb in Ely Cathedral.48 PROB 11/171, ff. 92v-3.