MILBOURNE, Richard (c.1563-1624)

Milbourne’s parentage is unknown. Having spent most of his early life in Cumberland, he enrolled at Queens’ College, Cambridge as a sizar in 1579. After proceeding BA in 1582, he became a fellow, but resigned in 1593, shortly after his installation as rector of Sevenoaks, Kent, to which living he was presented by the local landowner Sampson Lennard^‡, who may have been godfather to his only known son, Leonard.18 Al. Cant.; Oxford DNB, xxxviii. 106; CCEd. The bishop also had a brother called Leonard; see Al. Cant. He first came to wider notice in 1607, preaching before William Barlow^*, bishop of Rochester and other commissioners during the visitation of Canterbury diocese, when he justified the practice of confirmation conducted at ecclesiastical visitations. His sermon was subsequently prepared for the press without his knowledge, but not before he added a brief preface advertising his own virtues: ‘there is to be found even in rural parishes … sufficiency for employment, and soundness for judgment, and ability for government’.19 R. Milborne, Concerning Imposition of Hands (1607), sig. A3r-v; Fincham, 124-5.

Milbourne’s willingness to defend an episcopal function some bishops were reluctant to perform may explain why he was one of two English clerics sent to attend the opening of the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh in July 1609, when the Scottish bishops, with powers newly augmented by the general assembly of the Kirk, appeared at the session ‘royally and prelate-like’.20 Autobiog. and Diary of Mr. James Melvill, 1556-1610 ed. R. Pitcairn (Wodrow Soc. 1841), 870-1. It must have been shortly after his return to England, at around the time of the creation of the prince of Wales in June 1610, that Milbourne was appointed one of Prince Henry’s chaplains. In the following year, Joseph Hall^* (later bishop of Exeter), another of the prince’s chaplains, addressed one of his published epistles, on the falsehood of the doctrine of papal supremacy, to Milbourne.21 J. Hall, Epistles III, decade VI, pp. 31-9. The latter was collated as dean of Rochester Cathedral in 1611, retaining Sevenoaks in commendam, while he briefly held another living in the gift of the Rochester chapter during 1612-13, perhaps to help with payment of his first fruits.22 Fincham, 305; Fasti, iii. 55; CCEd.

In December 1612, only weeks after Prince Henry’s death, Milbourne was appointed chaplain to Prince Charles (Stuart^*, later prince of Wales), with instructions to remain close to his master, and to keep him from popery.23 SP14/72/109; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 160. Milbourne was nominated as bishop of St Davids in March 1615, a surprising choice as he is not known to have had any connection with the principality, nor any facility in Welsh. Many years after his death, it was suggested that he owed his promotion to Prince Charles, but as the appointment was made following a royal visit to Cambridge, it is possible that King James was lobbied by some of his university connections.24 J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 207; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 591. Milbourne was licensed to hold Sevenoaks in commendam for a year, presumably to enable him to meet the cost of paying first fruits for his bishopric, which amounted to £411. During this time he remained in Kent, attempting to arbitrate in the marital differences between Lady Anne Clifford and her husband Richard Sackville^*, 3rd earl of Dorset. He surrendered Sevenoaks to John Donne^‡ in 1616, but it seems unlikely that he took up permanent residence at St Davids.25 Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1854), i. 302; CCEd; Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford ed. D.J.H. Clifford, 28, 31, 36.

Milbourne attended the opening weeks of the 1621 Parliament assiduously, missing only a handful of sittings before 24 April. On 3 Mar. he was ordered to attend a conference with the Commons about the best means to recapture the fugitive patentee, Sir Giles Mompesson^‡, and he was also included on four bill committees: to confirm duchy of Cornwall leases; to confirm the foundation of Sutton’s hospital in the London Charterhouse; the Sabbath bill; and a bill to restrict the use of writs of certiorari. Milbourne absented himself from the House after 24 Apr., thereby missing a conference with the Commons about the Sabbath and certiorari bills. He left his proxy with George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Morton^*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and Richard Parry^*, bishop of St Asaph.26 LJ, iii. 4a, 26b, 32b, 34a, 39b. He may have gone to Wales to conduct a triennial visitation.

In early June 1621, shortly after the death of Robert Snowden^*, Milbourne was offered the bishopric of Carlisle. This was a sideways move only – the diocese was valued at £478 a year – but Milbourne may have accepted the appointment in order to return to his childhood home. He subsequently used the diocesan resources to his own advantage, preferring his son to two livings in Cumberland, leasing tithes to his cousins, and appointing Isaac Singleton, his archdeacon of Brecon, as archdeacon of Carlisle and chancellor of his new diocese.27 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 382; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 312; CCEd; Le Neve, Fasti, i. 311; iii. 250-1; Carlisle Archive Service, D&C1/1/5, pp. 207-8, 338-9, 345-7. He attended all but one day of the parliamentary sitting in the autumn of 1621, but left no trace on its proceedings.

Even before Milbourne arrived in Carlisle, his predecessor’s widow appealed to him not to heed the calumnies of her ‘undeserved enemies’, who, she feared, would complain about Bishop Snowden’s mismanagement of the diocesan estates, particularly his leases to his own kindred. Milbourne evidently viewed her case sympathetically, for in 1623, the local magnate Lord William Howard persuaded Milbourne to lease widow Snowden the manor and rectory of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, comprising over 20 per cent of the bishop’s rent-roll, for the term of three lives, without charging any entry fine. This represented a considerable financial sacrifice: when the lease of Horncastle was challenged in 1635, the then bishop, Barnaby Potter^*, was offered an entry fine of £1,300 for a new lease, on the grounds that Milbourne had been ‘non compos mentis’ when he sealed the original lease. (This challenge was rejected, and there is no other evidence that Bishop Milbourne was mentally incapacitated). One reason Milbourne consented to the alienation of his best estate for a lengthy period may have been that he had already provided two livings for his son. Moreover, his health was failing and any fresh entry fine would probably have been paid to his successor. He was presumably also content to gratify both Lord William Howard and widow Snowden, whose husband had died in debt.28 C.M. Lowther Bouch, ‘Lowthers of Rose Causey’, Trans. Westmld. and Cumb. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. xxxix. 133-4; C2/Chas.I/C78/48.

It was presumably ill health which kept Milbourne from attending the 1624 Parliament. He granted his proxy to George Montaigne^*, bishop of London, and George Carleton^*, bishop of Chichester, and remained in Cumberland. He held his final ordinations at Rose Castle on 23 May, but died later in the month, and was buried in the churchyard of Carlisle Cathedral. He left no will, but his son Leonard was granted letters of administration in London on 1 September.29 LJ, iii. 212a; Cumbria RO (Carlisle), DRC1/3, p. 261; Oxford DNB, xxxviii. 106; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 569; PROB 6/11, f. 112.