OVERALL, John (1561-1619)

A native of Hadleigh, Suffolk, Overall was educated at the town’s grammar school, where he attracted the attention of the rector, John Still^* (later bishop of Bath and Wells). He matriculated as a sizar (a servant to other, wealthier students) from St John’s College, Cambridge shortly after Still was elected master, and subsequently followed his patron to Trinity College, where he secured a fellowship in 1581. In 1592 he was collated to the vicarage of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire at the nomination of Trinity College, while Sir Thomas Heneage^‡ presented him to another living at Epping, Essex.25 CUL, Add. 48, ff. 222v, 237, 250v; Al. Cant.; CCEd. Both were held as sinecures, as Overall remained at Cambridge, where he acquired a reputation as ‘one of the most profound school divines of the English nation’. However, one diarist who heard him preach at court remarked that ‘he discoursed very scholastically’, while Overall himself, apparently more used to expounding theology in Latin to a university congregation, claimed to be uncomfortable preaching in English.26 T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. ed. P.A. Nuttall, iii. 170-1; Manningham Diary ed. R.P. Sorlien, 224.

Most critics of the ‘Calvinist consensus’ within the late Elizabethan Church avoided discussing the theology of grace. For example, Lancelot Andrewes^* (later bishop of Winchester) and Samuel Harsnett^* (future archbishop of York), both of whom were at Cambridge at the same time as Overall, avoided public controversy about such matters after 1595-6, when Peter Baro and William Barrett were expelled from the university for questioning Calvinist doctrine. By contrast, Overall not only engaged in soteriological debate, casting doubt upon two of the Lambeth Articles issued in response to this furore, but also forged links with Continental divines who expounded similar views to his own.27 HMC Hatfield, v. 478; H.C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Camb. 277-87, 344-90; M.H. Curtis, Oxf. and Camb. in Transition, 211-23; P. Lake, Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, 201-35. Despite his controversial opinions, Thomas Neville, master of Trinity, recommended Overall for the Regius professorship of divinity in the autumn of 1595, in succession to the rigorous Calvinist William Whitaker. Surprisingly perhaps, John Whitgift^†, archbishop of Canterbury, while noting that Overall was ‘something factious’, not only consented to his election, but also secured for him the rectory of Hinton Waldrist, Berkshire to augment his stipend. His new post allowed Overall to support Baro at a disputation in January 1596. However, this did not prevent Baro from being replaced as Lady Margaret professor of divinity later that year.28 Porter, 375, 385; Lake, 235-6; CCEd.

In March 1598 Overall was a contender for the mastership of St Catharine’s Hall, standing against Simon Robson of St John’s College. With the vote deadlocked, three of the fellows unilaterally declared Robson elected: their choice was ratified by vice chancellor John Jegon^* (later bishop of Norwich) and the heads of house, but was overturned by the queen.29 CUL, CUA, Misc.Collect.7, pp. 88-93; Lake, 236-8. The controversy over this election suggests that Overall was disliked by the Calvinist heads of house, but the latter waited until June 1599, when the new university chancellor, Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, was in Ireland, before proceeding against him. Overall was required to justify his ‘erroneous points of doctrine’ to Robert Some, master of Peterhouse, and Roger Goade, provost of King’s College; the written papers he produced were probably circulated around the university, and certainly discussed in the pulpits. Overall finally lost his temper at the Commencement on 30 June 1600, when he was silenced by Some (then vice chancellor). On the following day, Overall retaliated by criticizing Richard Neile^* (later archbishop of York) for the uncharacteristically Calvinist slant of the latter’s doctoral theses. His riposte, which argued for the superior authority of Scripture and the Church Fathers over Calvin and other contemporary divines (as endorsed by Canon 6 of the 1571 Canons), carefully avoided discussing the (predominantly Calvinist) works of English divines, was opposed by Professor Playfere – recently his rival for the mastership of Clare Hall – in the face of whose criticisms it was said that Overall ‘went quite red with mortification’.30 CUL, Gg.i.29, ff. 102-4v; HMC Hatfield, x. 151, 208-12; Porter, 398-404, N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 109-11; A. Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth: the Career and Influence of John Overall’, Religious Pols. in Post-Reformation Eng. ed. K. Fincham and P. Lake, 165-6, 171-2. Vice Chancellor Some forwarded copies of Overall’s controversial doctrinal arguments to Whitgift and Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury), but Overall’s standing at court remained unharmed: over the next 18 months he acquired a royal chaplaincy and two new rectories, while the archbishop and the secretary endorsed his appointment to the deanery of St Paul’s Cathedral.31 HMC Hatfield, x. 208-12, 241; xii. 67; CUL, CUA, U.Ac.2(1), f. 183; CCEd; Fasti, i. 5.

Overall’s nomination for the deanery was perhaps facilitated by the courtier Fulke Greville^* (later 1st Lord Brooke), whose lease of the ecclesiastical manor of Paddington, Middlesex, sealed in March 1604, may have been a reciprocal favour.32 CUL, Add. 48, ff. 225, 241; HMC Cowper, i. 34; LMA, CLC/313/C/001/MS25630/4, ff. 26v-7; Fuller, Worthies, iii. 170. The new dean secured a generous financial settlement: he was allowed to retain his college headship and the rectory of Clothall, Hertfordshire, acquired a cathedral prebend in addition to the deanery, and exchanged three other sinecures for the lucrative Hertfordshire living of Therfield, later said to be worth £300 per annum. However, another of the prebends, Dr Thomas White, insisted that the advowson of Therfield rotated among the chapter members, and claimed that it was his turn to present. White was an influential puritan preacher, and evidently disapproved of Overall’s appointment, but though his complaint gave rise to a Chancery suit, the matter was apparently dropped.33 CCEd; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xii), 260; C2/Jas.I/P4/3.

As dean of St Paul’s, Overall made no effort to disguise his theological opinions, preaching a sermon in the Chapel Royal in April 1603 on the nature of temptation, when he argued that God did not force men to commit sin, an implicit critique of the doctrine of double predestination. He expressed further misgivings about the Calvinist doctrine on predestination at the Hampton Court Conference on 16 Jan. 1604, after the puritan spokesman Dr John Rainolds suggested that the Lambeth Articles be added to the Thirty-Nine Articles as a statement of doctrinal orthodoxy. The new king, James I, asked for an explanation of the controversy which had led to the Lambeth Articles, whereupon Overall represented double predestination as an issue still under debate, an assertion most Calvinists would have found offensive. Thus briefed, the king expressed his ‘utter dislike of this doctrine’.34 Manningham Diary, 223-4; Barlow, 38-43; Tyacke, 20.

In the aftermath of the Hampton Court Conference, Overall was ordered to add a section on the sacraments to the official catechism of the Church of England. This mentioned sacraments other than those of baptism and the eucharist, and therefore inferred that the Catholic doctrine of seven sacraments was not as repugnant as Calvinists insisted.35 Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 167. Overall was also included among the first Westminster company instructed to work on a new translation of the bible, a team led by Andrewes. When Convocation met in March 1604, Overall gave the formal oration, in which he presented Thomas Ravis^* (later bishop of London) as prolocutor of the lower House.36 Oxford DNB, xlii. 150; D. Norton, King James Bible, 55; CUL, Add. 80, ff. 32-5. The latter’s subsequent promotion to the bishopric of Gloucester meant that Overall was himself chosen as prolocutor in November 1605. In his opening address he urged that preaching of the word of God, shorn of the apocalyptic hyperbole favoured by many Calvinist divines, be used as a sword to behead the papal hydra. As an alternative, he advocated that a fresh statement of the doctrines of the Church of England be issued, derived from the Gospels and Church Fathers. The most immediate result was the formulation of a set of Canons, absolutist in tone, which condemned the resistance theories advocated by Jesuit authors and espoused by the Gunpowder Plotters. However, Overall is unlikely to have been the sole author of this draft, which must have been approved by Richard Bancroft^*, archbishop of Canterbury. His labours in piloting it through the lower House of Convocation were in vain, though, as the Canons were vetoed by the king, who feared that the Spanish would use them to discredit his support for the Dutch rebels.37 A. Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 49; Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 162-3; CUL, Gg.i.29, ff. 84-6v; Anglican Canons 1529-1947, ed. G. Bray (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. vi), pp. lxi-lxii, 454-84; GEORGE ABBOT. Overall was also involved in the interrogation of the Jesuit superior, Henry Garnett, insisting that it was ‘menacing to impart to a priest intended villainies’, and asking why Garnett had not denounced the Gunpowder Plot when it was revealed to him in the confessional; the Jesuit, caught on the horns of this dilemma, admitted that he had considered doing so, while keeping the identities of the plotters secret.38 Fuller, Church Hist. x. 39. The priest is misidentified as Edmund Campion in CUL, Add. 48, ff. 239-40.

In April 1604, Overall married a daughter of the registrar of the court of Arches. His wife, while a great beauty, brought him little but grief: she committed adultery with Richard Sackville^*, 3rd earl of Dorset, and in 1608 she attempted to elope with Sir John Selby^‡, a plan she abandoned when neighbours prevented her from absconding with her husband’s plate. News of this incident circulated widely, but Overall’s status ensured that his wife was never cited into the ecclesiastical courts for her infidelities.39 Chamberlain Letters, i. 263; Oxford DNB, xlii. 150; HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 261.

None of Overall’s works were printed during his lifetime, almost certainly because they were considered too controversial. However, he did have considerable influence as a drafter and editor of texts published under others’ names. In 1609 he issued a fresh edition of the works of John Jewel^†, bishop of Salisbury, a project sponsored by Bancroft. The following year, according to his secretary, John Cosin^† (later bishop of Norwich), he was ‘chief author’ of the Catholike Appeale for Protestants, published under the name of Thomas Morton^* (a future bishop of Durham), which cited Catholic authors in support of Protestant doctrine. Cosin also claimed that Overall was the original author of another tract, Of the Consecration of Bishops in the Church of England, which was, with his encouragement, revised and published in 1613 under the name of Francis Mason. As a member of the short-lived Chelsea College, founded in 1610 to promote the publication of anti-Catholic polemic, Overall, in 1613, is said to have been ordered to refute the resistance theories espoused by the Jesuit Suarez.40 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 57, 83, 136, 233n; Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 169-70; THOMAS MORTON; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead, 265. Three years later, when the renegade Catholic Marc’Antonio de Dominis, archbishop of Spalato, came to England, Overall conducted the initial interview which established de Dominis’s doctrinal orthodoxy. The latter’s enthusiastic defence of the orthodoxy of the Church of England in De Republica Ecclesiastica (published in 1620, after Overall’s death) may have been inspired by Overall’s approach to this question.41 Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 170-1.

Intellectually, Overall’s critique of Calvin (of whom he spoke dismissively in private) derived from studying the Church Fathers – his patristic scholarship was even cited by Catholic authors. In polemical terms, this allowed him to take a ‘moderate’ line against Rome: as early as 1599-1600, he argued that the epithet ‘Antichrist’ fitted the Ottoman caliphate as well as it did the papacy.42 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 110-17, 217n, 274-5, 328-9; Tyacke, 142. This approach had its perils: in 1609 an Oxford don endorsed his work in a tract proclaiming his conversion to Catholicism; but Overall had better success with another convert, William Alabaster, who, after several years in Overall’s household, returned to the Church of England and was granted Overall’s own benefice of Therfield.43 Tyacke, 64; Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 41; CUL, Add. 48, f. 222; HMC Downshire, ii. 407; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead, 260; CCEd. The Scottish presbyterian Andrew Melville, and the puritan lawyer Nicholas Fuller^‡, both of whom were remanded to his custody under house arrest in 1606-7, presumably found his views less congenial.44 D. Calderwood, Hist. of the Kirk of Scot. ed. T. Thomson, vi. 643-4, 654-6; HMC Hatfield, xix. 349.

A prophet without honour in his own university, Overall made dismissive remarks about a thesis on double predestination at the Commencement of 1606; it was presumably Goade, then vice chancellor, who pressed him to resign the regius professorship in the following year. (Interestingly, Overall’s successor shared his soteriological views).45 Tyacke, 37-40. Despite his lack of publications, Overall acquired an international reputation, perhaps with the assistance of Fulke Greville, a correspondent of the Leiden theologian Gerard Vossius. In 1611 Overall and Andrewes were ordered to confer with Isaac Casaubon about the prospect of instituting bishops in the Huguenot church; while early in 1613 the Heidelberg divine Abraham Scultetus, who came to England in the entourage of the Elector Palatine, lodged with Overall at St Paul’s deanery.46 CUL, Add. 48, ff. 233, 250; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead, 100. At the same time, Overall was contacted by Hugo Grotius, who sought allies in his quest to secure toleration for Arminianism in the officially Calvinist Dutch Republic. In May 1613 Overall sent Grotius a long letter outlining the similarities in their views on predestination, together with a manuscript tract by Richard Thomson of Clare Hall, Cambridge, rejected by the censor in England, which Grotius arranged to be printed at Leiden in 1618.47 J. den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, ii. 544-5; Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, 1597-1618 ed. P.C. Molhuysen (Rijks Geschiedkundige Publikatiën lxiv), 240-5; Tyacke, 36; Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 168-9.

There is no evidence that Overall preached before King James in the first decade of the reign,48 Not listed as preaching in the Chapel Royal between April 1603 and March 1614: P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Ct. (suppl. cal. 96, 193). but in the summer of 1613 he was co-opted onto the commission hearing the divorce case brought against Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, by his wife. When the original commissioners failed to reach a verdict, the king, who wished to see the countess married to his favourite, Robert Carr^*, earl of Somerset, reinforced the court with Overall and others, who were offered royal patronage in return for their votes. The nullification was followed by a flurry of preferment, as a result of which Overall obtained the see of Lichfield (though only after it was turned down by another anti-Calvinist, John Buckeridge^*, bishop of Rochester).49 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 469, 486; State Trials, ii. 829-30; HMC Downshire, iv. 216. This promotion may not have led to any significant improvement in Overall’s financial position, for although Lichfield was valued at £633 p.a., he surrendered his rectory at Therfield and his prebend at St Paul’s, despite being granted licence to hold them in commendam. However, he did obtain the sinecure rectory of Clifton Campville, Staffordshire.50 Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. vi. 56; CCEd.

Overall was consecrated only two days before the start of the 1614 Parliament. Although he attended the Lords regularly until Easter, he was absent for most of May, during which time he was enthroned at Lichfield, and conducted his primary visitation in person.51 Staffs. RO, B/V/1/28. We are grateful to Ken Fincham for this reference. As a result of this prolonged absence, Overall missed the key debates which saw the Lords reject the Commons’ request for a conference about impositions. In the aftermath of the dissolution, he contributed the relatively generous sum of £55 towards the benevolence raised in lieu of any parliamentary subsidy; but his clergy contributed the disappointing sum of £220, just over 40 per cent of the value of a clerical subsidy.52 E351/1950; SP14/133/13.

Little information survives about Overall’s work as an ecclesiastical administrator. Early in his career he had opposed the idea that religious images were necessarily idolatrous, and during his time at St Paul’s, he lobbied the London corporation for improvements to his cathedral. As a bishop, he spent much of his time in London, preaching at court and serving regularly on the court of High Commission, but in August 1617 he hosted the king at Coventry, where (as he reported to Grotius) the notoriously puritan townsmen were required to receive the communion kneeling. He subsequently attempted to stop the parishioners of the Walloon church at Norwich from receiving communion while seated.53 K. Fincham and N. Tyacke, Altars Restored, 89, 110-11; McCullough, (suppl. cal. 196, 206, 213, 224); K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 317; Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, 1597-1618, pp. 577-8; Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 514. In 1617 he urged the parishes of Lichfield diocese to buy copies of the Prayer Book and the new Authorised Version of the Bible, while his 1618 visitation articles for Norwich diocese paid close attention to enforcement of the rubric of the Prayer Book, proceedings against Catholic recusants, and to the regulation of preaching. The pastoral priorities laid out in this set of articles were unusual for their time, but caught the imagination of subsequent anti-Calvinist bishops, and were thereafter reissued with only slight alterations by his successors at Norwich and elsewhere.54 T. Ridley, Forasmuch as I have lately seen (1618); Vis. Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church I ed. K. Fincham (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. i), 157-71; Fincham and Tyacke, 130.

While Overall was sympathetic towards the Dutch Arminians, the growing strife between the latter and their Calvinist critics in the Low Countries required him to exercise caution. When a Huguenot ordained in the Dutch Reformed church at Leiden came before him for presentation to a benefice, he did not refuse the request, but required the candidate to seek legal advice as to whether he would need to be re-ordained in order to be collated by a bishop.55 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 482. By 1616, the Calvinist champion Archbishop Abbot was aware of Overall’s support for the Dutch Arminians, and in the following year, when some of Overall’s correspondence with Grotius was printed in the Netherlands, Abbot warned the English ambassador in The Hague, Sir Dudley Carleton^* (later Viscount Dorchester) that Overall was ‘more learned than judicious’, and prone ‘to deliver doubtful things for true, and feigned things for certain’.56 SP14/89/35; SP105/98, f. 9v; Brit. Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 26, n.87; Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 253-4. According to Cosin, King James asked Overall to write two Latin tracts outlining the doctrinal controversies in the United Provinces. These treatises emphasized that the Church of England offered a via media between Calvinism and Arminianism, but they offered little criticism of the latter’s position. James solicited his views in the light of plans for an international synod to resolve the religious disputes in the Netherlands, commissioning a group of both Calvinist bishops and their critics to make the necessary preparations. Overall was included on this commission, and two months later, when Bishop Jegon of Norwich died, he was named as his successor; Lichfield was granted to the Calvinist Thomas Morton.57 Brit. Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 25-6; Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 172-4; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 151. This even-handed approach was clearly intended to prevent similar controversies from erupting in England, but ultimately James had little time for Overall’s Dutch Arminian friends: in May 1618, when Grotius’s patron Johan van Oldenbarnevelt asked that Overall, Buckeridge and Neile be included on the British delegation to Dort, he received short shrift: the clerics dispatched were all Calvinists, who played an active role in ensuring that the synod condemned Arminian beliefs.58 Tyacke, 89-91, 120; den Tex, 628. However, Overall’s tracts may have influenced the views of one of the British delegates, John Davenant^* (later bishop of Salisbury), who seems to have cited one of his arguments in the key debates about perseverance in faith.59 Milton, ‘“Anglicanism” by Stealth’, 173-4.

In April 1619, news of the synod’s condemnation of the Arminians may have encouraged the diocesan registrar of Norwich to defy Overall’s attempts to conduct a thorough investigation of his activities. Overall indignantly justified his proceedings against this man, but his health was already failing, and he died in May, before he could conduct his visitation. As he died intestate and childless, it was his unfaithful wife secured administration of his goods.60 SP14/108/30; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 230, 240-1; Fortescue Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. i), 128; Brit. Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618-19), 361; PROB 6/10, f. 20. Overall’s writings were preserved by his former pupil John Hayward^‡, who had served as chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral during his tenure as bishop. They were closely studied by Richard Montagu^* (later bishop of Chichester) who, while composing his own controversial works in 1623-5, corresponded regularly with Overall’s former secretary, John Cosin.61 Milton, Catholic and Reformed, 110-22; Tyacke, 126-7; Fasti, x. 20; RICHARD MONTAGU. Others influenced by Overall included Richard Hunt, his contemporary at Trinity College, who reinstated the high altar at Durham Cathedral in 1620, Samuel Clarke, his nominee as archdeacon of Derby in 1617, and Edmund Reeve, who acknowledged him in a publication of 1635.62 Tyacke, 118-19; Fincham and Tyacke, 146, 187; Fasti, x. 11. Finally, the draft Canons of 1606 were published in 1690 by William Sancroft^†, archbishop of Canterbury, in justification of the non-juring clergy’s refusal to swear allegiance to William III after the Glorious Revolution.63 Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book [ed. W. Sancroft] (1690).