JEGON, John (1550-1618)

The eldest son of an Essex clothier, who bequeathed him a single tenement in Coggeshall, Jegon matriculated from Queens’, Cambridge as a sizar (working as a servant to other, wealthier students) in 1567. Elected a fellow in 1572, during the mastership of William Chaderton^* (later bishop of Lincoln), he was ordained in the following year, and appointed to the college living of St Botolph, Cambridge. He subsequently served as tutor to Roger Manners^*, who succeeded as 5th earl of Rutland in March 1588, supervising the latter’s studies both at Cambridge and (during vacations) on the family estates, for which the dowager countess had him instituted as rector of Redmile, Leicestershire.29 PROB 11/66, f. 179v; Al. Cant.; Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 619; HMC Rutland, i. 233, 243, 247-8, 269, 274-5, 293. Jegon was also noticed by the university chancellor, William Cecil^†, 1st Lord Burghley. It was presumably with the latter’s backing that in 1590 he secured a royal mandate for election as master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where his younger brother Thomas already held a fellowship, overriding the claims of an internal candidate. Previous masters had spent heavily on building, left bills unpaid, and pocketed entry fines for reversionary leases of college estates, whereas Jegon not only cleared the college’s debts in under three years but also, in 1593, rewarded the fellows with a generous dividend. In return, Burghley supported his brother for a university proctorship.30 HMC Rutland, i. 248, 274; Lansd. 63, f. 215, Lansd. 73, no. 22, Lansd. 75, nos. 51, 57; SP12/233/19; Camb., Corpus Christi Archive, CCCC02/M/18/25-30, 33; CCCC02/B/6, pp. 29, 36, 44; Camb. Univ. Trans. ed. J. Heywood and T. Wright, ii. 101-2; V. Morgan, Hist. Univ. Camb. ii. 270, 281-2, 295.

In 1595 Jegon was one of the heads of house who reported William Barrett, a college chaplain, to John Whitgift^†, archbishop of Canterbury, for questioning the Calvinist orthodoxy of late Elizabethan Cambridge. The case led Whitgift, in November, to agree to a series of Calvinist propositions known as the Lambeth Articles. The following year Burghley nominated Jegon as university vice chancellor. Jegon served for four of the next five years, during which time he did his best to suppress theological controversy.31 H.C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Camb. 314-15, 344-50. When Whitgift recommended the replacement of Barrett’s supporter, Peter Baro, as Lady Margaret professor of divinity, Jegon therefore complied, although he recalled that Baro had been ‘a painful teacher of Hebrew and divinity to myself and others’, and vainly hoped he might be permitted to continue teaching.32 Ibid. 378-90; CUL, CUA Misc.Collect.7, pp. 13, 44-5; Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 654. In 1597 Jegon was required to take surety for Barrett’s good behaviour. He also censured a visiting preacher who delivered ‘an undiscreet sermon’ at Great St Mary’s, the university church. In the following year, he unsuccessfully attempted to quash the election of another sceptic about Calvinist theology, the Regius professor of divinity, John Overall^* (subsequently bishop of Coventry and Lichfield), as master of St Catharine’s Hall. Complaints about Overall’s heterodox teaching then persuaded Jegon to establish an inquiry headed by two Calvinist divines, which culminated in a public confrontation in July 1600.33 CUL, CUA, Misc.Collect.7, pp. 9, 22, 24, 89-93; Porter, 397-407. Jegon also defended the university’s rights against encroachment from the town corporation, and protested to Burghley about the 1597 parliamentary bill to prevent married men (including several heads of house at Cambridge) from residing in colleges.34 CUL, CUA, U.Ac.2(1), ff. 176, 188v; CUA, Misc.Collect.7, pp. 11-13, 44, 73; CUA, Misc.Collect.8, ff. 1-3; Camb. Univ. Trans. ii. 102-12, 129-30, 136-7; Morgan, ii. 172-3.

In February 1601, following the execution of the university’s chancellor, Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, Jegon swiftly organized the election of Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury) as his successor. Cecil returned the favour four months later, recommending Jegon for the deanery of Norwich as a man ‘learned, of good government’, who ‘desires no preferment, and [is] therefore fit to be called’.35 SP12/278/80; 12/279/119; CUL, CUA, U.Ac.2(1), ff. 187v-8. Jegon stood down as vice chancellor at Michaelmas 1601, but held on to his benefices for another year in order to enable him to pay first fruits. He was thus in a strong position to become bishop of Norwich following the death of William Redman^† in September 1602. Despite a petition from the local gentry in favour of his predecessor as dean, Thomas Dove^*, then bishop of Peterborough, he was consecrated on 20 Feb. 1603, one of Elizabeth’s last episcopal appointments.36 Fasti, vii. 38, 42; CCEd; HMC Hatfield, xii. 413-14; B. Usher, Ld. Burghley and Episcopacy, 1577-1603, pp. 180-2.

Following his consecration, Jegon remained in London to deliver a sermon in the Chapel Royal on 20 March. He was thus one of the bishops who signed the proclamation of 25 Mar. announcing King James’s accession. He may have hoped to retain the mastership of Corpus, but plans to replace him with one of the fellows, Benjamin Carier, led him to hold a snap election which secured the post for his own brother. This dismayed Carier’s patron, Archbishop Whitgift, but Cecil, while clearly annoyed at Jegon’s presumption, ensured there were no repercussions.37 McCullough, (suppl. cal. 94); SP12/287/17-18, 20-2, 26, 36; Pprs. of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey V, 24-5; Usher Burghley and Episcopacy, 182.

Jegon proved as assiduous a diocesan as he had been a university administrator, and, thanks to the efficient record-keeping of his secretary, Anthony Harison, his episcopate can be studied in detail. In 1603, at Whitgift’s behest, and despite an outbreak of plague, Jegon quickly produced comprehensive reports on pluralism and non-residence among his clergy and on the shortcomings of the officials in his diocesan courts. The commissaries who ran his diocesan courts had been attacked in a sermon preached at Norwich by John Robinson,38 Robinson, of Emmanuel College, was confused with the separatist of the same name by Porter, 249-50. See M.R. Reynolds, ‘Puritanism and the Emergence of Laudianism in City Pols. in Norwich, c.1570-1643’ (Univ. Kent Ph.D. thesis, 2002), 84. a Corpus graduate, whose complaints were endorsed by the local clergy and gentry. Having held a private meeting with Robinson, Jegon implicitly accepted his criticisms by reducing the number of the courts’ apparitors.39 Registrum Vagum of Anthony Harison, 23-35, 45-6, 52-68, 156-9; Norf. RO, DN/SUN 3, f. 222v; P. Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 450-1; K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 157-8; R.A. Marchant, Church Under the Law, 35-7. However, this administrative restructuring evidently displeased his chancellor, who, in revenge, sent a list of nonconforming ministers directly to Archbishop Whitgift in the autumn of 1603.40 Registrum Vagum of Anthony Harison, 15-16, 32-4.

Jegon did not attend the Hampton Court Conference on ecclesiastical reform in January 1604, but was present in the Lords on almost every day of the parliamentary session which followed. He was ordered to attend conferences to discuss the king’s desire to achieve an Anglo-Scottish Union, and to consider the tract in which John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol attacked the Commons’ objections to these plans. He was also appointed to attend a conference with the Commons about ecclesiastical affairs.41 LJ, ii. 277b, 284a, 332b. Among his legislative appointments were measures to ban the import of Catholic books and other proscribed literature, and to punish recusancy. He was also included on committees that dealt with private bills regarding the estates of several East Anglian landowners.42 Ibid. 275a, 280a, 290a, 301b, 314a, 319a, 324b, 341a.

On returning to East Anglia over the summer, Jegon conducted his primary visitation, apparently in person. Large numbers of Catholics were cited into the Church courts, along with 17 ‘sectary recusants, alias Brownists’, including the wife of Justice Clench. Jegon also deprived nine ministers who refused to subscribe to the Three Articles stipulated in the 1604 Canons. Other lecturers and curates lost their positions, including John Robinson, who eventually opted for exile in the Low Countries. However, in July 1606 Jegon called a halt to the proceedings, requiring those who had not yet subscribed merely to signify their ‘present resolution to conform hereafter’.43 Bodl., Tanner 75, f. 125; Registrum Vagum of Anthony Harison, 177-84; Reynolds, 72, 85-6; Fincham, 252, 272, 325. Thereafter, in 1612, his officials uncovered an Arian heretic, William Sayer, and while Jegon admitted that there others had expressed ‘many blasphemous errors’, he assured George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury that they had been ‘brought to recant at our cathedral’. There were also troubles in the parish of St Andrew’s, Norwich, where Robinson had served as curate, which Jegon resolved by appointing John Yates, a puritan conformist, as lecturer, although Yates eventually fell foul of his anti-Calvinist successor, Samuel Harsnett^* (later archbishop of York). Following his relaxation of conformity proceedings, Jegon was sympathetic to petitions to revive combination lectures in market towns, and thereafter largely confined his investigations to unrepentant separatists, and ministers accused of moral lapses.44 Reynolds, 86-96; Registrum Vagum of Anthony Harison (Norf. Rec. Soc. xxxii), 96-103; (xxxiii), 247-9, 267-8, 271, 279-80, 342; CUL, Mm.vi.58, ff. 1-17v; Collinson, 210; SAMUEL HARSNETT.

During the parliamentary session of 1605-6, Jegon was again assiduous in his attendance. Most of the legislative committees to which he was named concerned economic legislation or private bills. One sought to confirm the endowment of two divinity lectureships at Cambridge, a measure which reflected his university interests, while other bills, concerning the drainage of the great fens, the improvement of decayed towns and the export of coloured wool cloth, were perhaps of interest to his diocese.45 LJ, ii. 380a, 386b, 410a, 436a. Jegon was named to the committee for the revived bill to ban the import of Catholic and other prohibited books, and was twice ordered to scrutinize bills against swearing. He was also named three times to committees for bills to attaint Henry Brooke^†, 11th Lord Cobham.46 Ibid. 365a, 379a, 380b, 381b, 395b, 403a.

In the 1606-7 session, Jegon and two other bishops shared the proxy of Robert Bennett^*, bishop of Hereford, but otherwise he left little trace on the Lords’ proceedings. Nominated to two committees on estate bills for East Anglian families, he was also appointed to consider bills to regulate the manufacture of woollen cloth (a measure of particular relevance to his native town), to reform abuses connected with mariners, and to preserve timber, which affected the management of episcopal estates.47 Ibid. 449a, 456b, 461b, 473a, 514b, 527b, 528b.

Like most bishops, Jegon gained personally from office. He had a reputation for charging high fees, which he invested in lands at Buxton and Aylsham, Norfolk and Thornham, Suffolk, and a verse libel circulated after his death which accused him of asset-stripping his estates. When the episcopal palace at Ludham, Norfolk burnt down in 1611, he built a new mansion on his own estates, which became the family seat; however, he was also said to have spent £700 rebuilding Ludham.48 Fincham, 272-3; C142/382/41, 142/384/124; Blomefield, iii. 562-3; Bodl., Tanner 228, f. 90; PROB 11/131, ff. 221r-v; C2/Jas.I/C10/2. He also continued to promote the career of his brother, whom he appointed archdeacon of Norfolk and a prebend at Norwich Cathedral. Two of his chaplains also acquired benefices at his nomination.49 Fasti, vi. 45, 53; Pprs. of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey IV ed. V. Morgan, J. Key and B. Taylor (Norf. Rec. Soc. lxiv), 114; Registrum Vagum of Anthony Harison (Norf. Rec. Soc. xxxii), 15.

At the start of the new parliamentary session in 1610, Jegon was one of the large delegation sent to hear Lord Treasurer Salisbury broach the subject of the crown’s financial problems. Later he was later among those dispatched to advise the king of the Commons’ willingness to negotiate a composition for wardship. He was also ordered to attend a conference with the Commons about the absolutist statements made in print by the civil lawyer Dr John Cowell.50 LJ, ii. 550b, 557b, 579b. His legislative appointments included a fen drainage project in Norfolk and Suffolk, and regulation of the weaving of woollen cloth. He was also required to consider seven estate bills pertaining to East Anglian families.51 Ibid. 553b, 569b, 571a, 579b, 600a, 611a, 623a, 624b, 639a.

Jegon did not attend the autumn session of 1610, but granted his proxy to Richard Bancroft^*, archbishop of Canterbury, and George Abbot (then bishop of London). It was presumably ill health which kept him away, as was the case in 1614, when he insisted ‘that my aged crazy body continueth still in such distempers that I am not able to travel without danger of life’; on this occasion he granted his proxy to Abbot (by then archbishop of Canterbury) and James Montagu^*, bishop of Bath and Wells.52 Ibid. 666a, 686a; Registrum Vagum of Anthony Harison (Norf. Rec. Soc. xxxiii), 340-2. After the end of the session, he, along with other absentees, was urged by Abbot to collect a benevolence resolved on after the dissolution. The clergy of Norwich diocese contributed £588, only 40 per cent of the yield of a clerical subsidy, but about the same amount as they had raised towards the 1604 privy seal loans.53 Bodl., Tanner 74, f. 40; E351/1950; SP14/133/13; E401/2585, pp. 40-4, 65-6, 138-9.

Failing health meant that Jegon played a less active role in diocesan administration in the final years of his life. In his will of 10 Mar. 1618, he bequeathed his books and his Suffolk estate to his eldest son, Robert, and his Norfolk lands to his younger son John. As both were under-age at the time, his wife was appointed his executrix. According to his monumental inscription at Aylsham church, where he was buried, he died on 13 Mar., but his inquisition post mortem stated that he expired three days later. The bishopric was granted to his old Cambridge adversary John Overall.54 PROB 11/131, ff. 220v-1v; Blomefield, iii. 363; C142/382/41; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 151. His widow swiftly took the diplomat Sir Charles Cornwallis^‡ as her second husband, who purchased the wardship of her son for £200.55 E. Anglian Peds. 120; C2/Jas.I/C30/36; WARD 9/162, f. 359v.