SENHOUSE, Richard (c.1576-1626)

The younger son of a border family, Senhouse was a great-great-nephew of William Senhouse^†, bishop of Carlisle (1495-1502) and Durham (1502-5). A student at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was elected to a fellowship at St John’s in 1598, which he held for 25 years, numbering among his pupils Thomas Wentworth^* (later 1st earl of Strafford) and the antiquarian Sir Simonds D’Ewes^‡.13 Nicholson and Burn, ii. 159; Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. 4th ser. xii), 319; J.H. Marsden, Coll. Life in the Time of Jas. the First, 27-30. Early in his career he is said to have become chaplain to Edward Russell^*, 3rd earl of Bedford, while in 1606 the crown presented him to the vicarage of Steeple Bumpstead, in northern Essex, at the nomination of L’Estrange Mordaunt of Little Massingham, Norfolk. As this living was less than 20 miles from Cambridge, Senhouse was able to remain in residence as a fellow.14 Ath. Ox. ii. 858; Bodl., Tanner 179, unfol. When the mastership of St John’s fell vacant in June 1612, John Williams^* (later archbishop of York) lobbied him on behalf of Owen Gwyn, one of the senior fellows. While he would have been happy to support Williams himself, Senhouse retorted that he had no intention of voting for Gwyn. Instead, he presumably backed one of the rival candidates, Thomas Morton^* (later bishop of Durham) or Valentine Carey^* (later bishop of Exeter). He indirectly benefited from Gwyn’s election, succeeding the latter as president (vice-master) of the college.15 J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 22-3; Marsden, 23-4, 27.

By 1616 Senhouse was a chaplain to Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales), and in the following year he was installed as rector of Cheam, Surrey, a sinecure vacated by George Montaigne^* upon his appointment as bishop of Lincoln. This living was far more conveniently situated for the prince’s household at St James’s Palace, where Senhouse acquired an apartment, than his Essex living, which he resigned by April 1621.16 McCullough, (suppl. cal. 207); CCEd; Diary of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. E. Bourcier, 185. His resignation probably coincided with an offer of the master’s lodge at St John’s, which Owen Gwyn was intending to vacate for the bishopric of St Davids. However, the Welsh diocese went to William Laud^* (later archbishop of Canterbury), who had originally been tipped to succeed Williams as dean of Westminster.17 Bodl., Tanner 73, f. 36; T. Birch, Ct. and Times Jas. I, ii. 362; CCEd.

Like most Johnians, Senhouse was an orthodox Calvinist – the young D’Ewes approved of his sermons – and was alarmed at the prospect of a Spanish Match. He found some consolation in Prince Charles’s private remark that ‘he did not think that a papist could be a good subject, much less a good wife’. However, two of Senhouse’s court sermons, published shortly after his death and dating to 1622/3, attempted to staunch the conversions of prominent courtiers in the early 1620s.18 Diary of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, 185; Marsden, 29-30; R. Senhouse, Foure Sermons Preached at Court (1627), sig. A4v. One ridiculed Catholic devotion to the Virgin Mary as a variant of the pagan cult of Diana of Ephesus (Acts 19:28). It insisted that the Catholic ‘Dianas’ of purgatory, confession and indulgences imperilled the soul, and warned against ‘idolaters of ceremony, as one calls courtiers’ and ‘idolaters of others’ greatness’. The other, on the same text, warned that ‘Ephesus come nearer England, and Diana be brought home to our own doors’. It asked, ‘shall Turks, shall papists, shall idolaters, shall heathen solicit their bad cause so earnestly, and we our good cause, our God’s cause so faintly?’19 Senhouse, 67, 93, 130, 137-8; McCullough, (suppl. cal. 257, 270). Another sermon, on Galatians 4:16 (am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?), perhaps preached during Lent 1624, portrayed the doctrine of the Church of England as ‘the primitive truth, when Purgatory was yet unkindled, and indulgences yet unhatched, when mass was yet unmoulded, and transubstantiation yet unbaked …’, but saved its sharpest barb for those who espoused the Arminian doctrines soon to be attacked in Parliament:

As Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage … so do they too, who living in places where the truth is publicly professed, do Judas-like yet stand ready pressed for pence, as much as in them lies to betray the truth, or out of politique ends, to sell the truth …20 Senhouse, 40, 56; McCullough, (suppl. cal. 279).

While Prince Charles did not share his chaplain’s alarm at the threat posed by Arminianism, Senhouse continued to enjoy his patronage: in May 1621 he exchanged Steeple Bumpstead for the rectory of Toppesfield, Essex, which he held in commendam with Cheam; while six months later, he was appointed dean of Gloucester Cathedral.21 CCEd; C58/25.

During the winter of 1623/4 the prince’s emergence as leader of the anti-Spanish cause led to a diplomatic rift with Spain, accompanied by stricter enforcement of the recusancy laws. In June 1624, at the height of this anti-Catholic wave, Senhouse was chosen bishop of Carlisle, in succession to the recently deceased Richard Milbourne^*. Having secured a living worth £480 a year, he surrendered all of his other preferments; Toppesfield went to another Johnian, Lawrence Burnell, while Williams, now lord keeper, procured Cheam for his chaplain John Hacket^† (later bishop of Coventry and Lichfield).22 The Eagle, xvii. 347-50; xxiii. 10; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 304; SO3/8, unfol.; CCEd.

During the first week of the 1625 Parliament, Senhouse was named to attend the conference with the Commons to draft a petition to the king for a national fast, and included on the committee for privileges. Excused attendance on 25 June, he was named during his absence to the committee for the bill to modernize militia armaments. He attended the brief further sitting at Oxford in August, but left no trace on its debates.23 Procs. 1625, pp. 43, 45, 72. He preached at the coronation on 3 Feb. 1626, on a text from Rev. 2:10, and I will give thee a crown of life. Having acknowledged the divine origin of royal authority, he made a slighting reference to the exponents of the Catholic doctrine of good works, ‘who as they dare trade and bargain about the sale of worldly kingdoms, so venture they to truck and traffic about sale of heavenly crowns, too’. He assured Charles that his faith would ‘serve you as a shield against all assaults, a supersedeas against all fear’.24 Senhouse, 7, 14, 25. T. Fuller, Church Hist. of Eng. (1655), xi. 109, confirms the attribution of this sermon.

Senhouse was named to the privileges’ committee at the start of the 1626 Parliament, but he fell seriously ill with black jaundice, and attended the Lords only once before leaving his proxy with George Carleton^*, bishop of Chichester, and retiring to his diocese. He died at his episcopal palace of Rose Castle, in Cumberland, and was buried at nearby Dalston parish church on 7 May; his brother John Senhouse and sister Elizabeth Briscoe secured letters of administration in London on 25 May.25 Procs. 1626, i. 48; iv. 10; Fuller, xi. 109; Dalston par. reg. 175; PROB 6/12, f. 83. His court sermons were seen through the press by another Johnian, Thomas Blechyndon, in 1627.26 Senhouse, sig. A4v.