LLOYD, George (1559/60-1615)

The younger son of a family from western Denbighshire, Lloyd was educated at King’s School, Chester, where his elder brother David was a merchant. He continued his studies at Jesus College, Cambridge, before being elected to a fellowship at Magdalene College. On resigning his position in 1594, he returned to Chester where, his brother having just served as mayor, he obtained the post of divinity lecturer at the cathedral.20 Sanders, 87-8; Al. Cant. In 1596 he was presented to the rectory of Llanrwst, Denbighshire, by the newly appointed lord keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton^* (later 1st Viscount Brackley), but was apparently superseded by a rival. In the following year Richard Vaughan^*, bishop of Chester, instituted him as rector of Heswall, Cheshire, where several of his children were baptized.21 Bodl. Tanner 179, unfol.; CCEd; Sanders, 89.

In December 1599 Lloyd was appointed bishop of Sodor and Man. The bishopric had hitherto been within the gift of the Stanley family, earls of Derby, as lords of Man, but following the death in 1594 of Ferdinando Stanley^†, 5th earl of Derby, the right of nomination was enjoyed by the crown. Lloyd may therefore have been nominated by Egerton, a Shropshire landowner and former servant of Henry Stanley^†, 4th earl of Derby. Matthew Hutton^*, archbishop of York, was ordered to perform the consecration, which was evidently performed the following February, but Lloyd, protesting that his purse was ‘emptied with long suit’, asked that Bishop Vaughan be commissioned to perform the task at Chester instead.22 Hutton Corresp. ed. J. Raine (Surtees Soc. xvii), 151-2; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 360. Lloyd seems to have visited his diocese only occasionally: in the summer of 1601 he supported a petition from the Manxmen asking that the island’s garrison be paid in cash rather than provisions, and he presided over a consistory court in 1603; but he retained his living at Heswall, where one of his sons was baptized in 1604.23 HMC Hatfield, xi. 271; J.R. Dickinson, Lordship of Man under the Stanleys, 22; Sanders, 89-91.

Lloyd clearly regarded Man as a stepping stone to further preferment, for in the summer of 1601 he lobbied unsuccessfully for the vacancy at St Asaph. However, not until the winter of 1604-5, following Bishop Vaughan’s removal to London, was he translated to Chester. As the episcopal estates were worth only £378 p.a., he was allowed to retain the revenues of Heswall, and he also acquired, in 1607, the vicarage of Thornton le Moors, Cheshire. Bishop Vaughan had also held the rectory of Bangor Monachorum, Flintshire, worth almost £300 a year, in commendam, but in 1605 this was granted to Thomas Blague, dean of Rochester, who may have been a contender for the bishopric itself. Following Blague’s death in 1613, Lloyd exchanged Heswall for Bangor.24 Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. (1913-15), vi. 56; CCEd; Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, iii. 52; Staffs. RO, D1287/3/1, pp. 170, 175.

From the outset, Lloyd was well aware of the problems of the southern part of his diocese. Indeed, he reported a Cheshire gentleman for harbouring a seminary priest only weeks after taking over his new diocese. However, he was apparently shocked by the extent of Catholic and puritan nonconformity in Lancashire which his primary visitation revealed in the summer of 1605. He recommended the search of Catholic households for arms acquired at the time of the queen’s death, and rented a property in Lancashire in order to focus on the further reaches of his see. However, he did not follow up Bishop Vaughan’s proceedings against nonconformists among the Lancashire clergy, as only two of those investigated were replaced, in February 1607. Indeed, Lloyd eventually admitted defeat in his efforts to bring the archdeaconry of Richmond under closer control.25 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 93, 320-1; K.Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 323; C. Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancs. 233, 304-5. For all of these problems, he was clearly an active diocesan, personally attending at least three of his four diocesan visitations, hearing disciplinary cases in his consistory court, and probably preaching regularly.26 Fincham, 89, 169, 171, 320.

Lloyd was present at the opening of the new parliamentary session in November 1605. He attended almost every day until Easter 1606, but was largely absent thereafter. While not recorded as having made any speeches, he was included on committees for a dozen bills, including that which considered John Hare’s^‡ controversial bill to abolish purveyance. He was also ordered to attend the conference at which the news of the Lords’ decision to reject Hare’s bill was relayed to the Commons. Lloyd played little part in considering the religious legislation which came before the House, apart from the bill to prohibit the import of ‘seditious, popish, vain and lascivious books’.27 LJ, ii. 380b, 407b, 413a. However, he was included on several committees for bills concerning northern and Welsh interests: Archbishop Hutton’s endowment of St Bees’ grammar school in Cumberland; the regulation of Welsh cloth manufacture; the Newcastle coal trade; and customs discounts on northern cloth. Two other bill committees to which he was named, to improve decayed towns and restrict the erection of weirs on navigable rivers, were also relevant to his diocese.28 Ibid. 370a, 374a, 396b, 408b, 410a.

Present for most of the 1606-7 session, Lloyd was less involved in the House’s legislative business than in the previous session. He was included on the committee which stifled the bill intended to reinstate ministers deprived for refusing to subscribe to article 36 of the 1604 Canons; and also on the committee for the bill to suppress drunkenness. Moreover, he was named to committees for bills to enfranchise crown copyholders, confirm the estates of the daughters of the 5th earl of Derby, and preserve timber.29 Ibid. 473a, 480a, 489b, 503a, 524b, 528b.

At Chester, Lloyd instituted proceedings against recusants merely for failure to attend their parish church. This provoked complaints that moved the Privy Council, in October 1608, to warn him to restrict himself to ‘moderate use’ of his ecclesiastical sanctions, ‘in regard … that the frequent exercising of it (and upon light occasions) was likely to breed inconveniences’. That same year, Lloyd and other Chester magistrates captured a messenger from the rebel Irishman Sir Cahir O’Doherty, and returned him to Dublin.30 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 240; SP14/32/45; 14/37/28; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 502.

In the parliamentary session of spring 1610, Lloyd was one of the large delegation which heard Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, outline the crown’s financial problems, but he played no known part in the subsequent negotiations which produced the Great Contract. He attended a conference with the Commons about the absolutist opinions voiced in a textbook by Dr John Cowell, and was included on the committee for the bill intended to overturn the deprivation of nonconformist ministers, apparently because he had spoken in the debate, although no such speech is recorded in the surviving records.31 LJ, ii. 550b, 557b, 611a. He was also appointed to committees for several bills of local interest. These included a measure to return control of the Isle of Man to the earls of Derby, the revived bill regarding the estates of the late 5th earl of Derby, and a measure to settle the Lancashire estates of Sir John Byron.32 Ibid. 601a, 606b, 616b. Other bills of northern interest to which he was named to consider included one to confirm the enfranchisement of the copyholders of Wakefield, Yorkshire, another to restrict the season for moor-burning in the north, and a third to settle the issue of remanding on the Anglo-Scots border.33 Ibid. 553b, 592b, 619a, 634b; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 123. Lloyd is noted as having preached at Paul’s Cross on 20 May.34 ‘Paulet 1610’, f. 11v.

During the autumn session, Lloyd and Tobie Matthew^*, archbishop of York, shared the proxy of Henry Robinson^*, bishop of Carlisle. Lloyd was one of those present when the Lords pressed MPs for a final decision about the Great Contract. Following the rejection of this project, he was included on another delegation which asked the Commons to consider alternative forms of supply.35 LJ, ii. 666a, 671a, 678a. He was included on several bill committees, including those to preserve timber trees, prevent the export of iron ordnance and confirm duchy of Cornwall leases beyond the lifetime of Prince Henry.36 Ibid. 669a, 670a, 677a.

In 1613 Lloyd was involved in a dispute with the Chester corporation, after preaching an inflammatory sermon at the funeral of Recorder Thomas Gamull (who had married his brother’s widow). In this sermon he deplored Mayor Robert Whitby’s promotion of his son Edward^‡ to the vacancy, citing Isaiah 3:4-5, ‘babes shall rule over them’. He compounded this offence after the next mayoral election, claiming in a further sermon to have ‘known this city this 47 years, and never knew it worse governed, nor the church so little frequented as now of late it hath been’. The new mayor was outraged at having his government publicly slandered, but the quarrel appears to have subsided after Recorder Whitby married his predecessor’s widow.37 HP Commons 1604-29, iv. 335-6; vi. 746; Harl. 2103, ff. 7v-10.

Lloyd attended most sittings of the brief 1614 Parliament, but was named to only two committees, one for a bill to define the succession rights of Princess Elizabeth’s children, the other to avoid lawsuits over bequests of land. On 24 May, Lloyd was one of 16 bishops who voted against the Commons’ request to confer with the Lords on the subject of impositions, creating a rift between the two Houses which led to the dissolution two weeks later.38 LJ. ii. 692b, 694a; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 533. The bishops resolved to raise a benevolence in lieu of a vote of supply; Lloyd contributed 65oz. of plate, but raised only £190 from his diocese – just over one-third of a clerical subsidy – before his death on 1 Aug. 1615. Administration of his goods was granted to his wife Anne – who outlived him by 30 years – on 2 September. In 1639 one of Lloyd’s sons-in-law, Theophilus Eaton, became the founder of the New Haven colony in New England.39 E351/1950; SP14/133/13; Burne, 95; Wills in York Reg. 1612-19 (Yorks. Arch. Soc. viii), 186; Sanders, 98-100.