TOWNSON, Robert (1576-1621)

The shortest-serving English bishop of the early seventeenth century, Townson was born and raised in Cambridge, where his father, Renould or Reginald, was sub-cook at Queens’ College. Although Renould’s surname is recorded as ‘Toulnesson’, Townson himself used the spelling ‘Tounson’, and was frequently referred to during his lifetime as ‘Tolson’ or ‘Toleson.15 Searle, 415; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 105; SP14/90/118; Acts of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster ed. C.S. Knighton (Westminster Abbey Rec. Ser. v), 60. According to his nephew, Thomas Fuller, Townson ‘was blessed with an happy memory, insomuch that when DD he could say by art the second book of the Aeneid, which he learnt at school, without missing a verse’.16 T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. i. 231-2. Evidently an intelligent child, he was admitted to Queens’ in 1587 at the age of 11, shortly after his father’s death. This apparently philanthropic act launched him on a successful academic career, as he was elected a fellow in 1597, on the same day as John Davenant^* (later bishop of Salisbury). Ordained the following year, he proved to be ‘an excellent preacher, and becoming a pulpit with his gravity’. He made his debut at Paul’s Cross in London as early as 1602, but apparently never published his sermons. Townson resigned his fellowship in 1604 in order to marry Davenant’s sister, Margaret, and sometime thereafter he became chaplain to the prominent lawyer and politician Sir Edward Coke^‡. In 1607 Coke reportedly helped him obtain the rectory of Old, whose patrons, Sir William^‡ and Francis Tate^‡, were Coke’s relatives by marriage. It is not known whether Coke also influenced Townson’s appointment as chaplain to James I.17 Ibid. 231; Searle, 415; Diary of John Manningham ed. J. Bruce (Cam. Soc. ic), 93; Liber Famelicus, 60; Cassan, 108; HP Commons, 1604-29, vi. 493.

Townson accompanied the king to Scotland in 1617, and was promoted to the deanery of Westminster in the following December. In February 1618 he found himself in trouble with the Privy Council for licensing local butchers to trade during Lent, though a year later it was agreed that a single Westminster poulterer might cater for those unable on health grounds to eat fish.18 HMC Downshire, vi. 139; APC, 1618-19, pp. 56-7, 382. As dean he ministered to Sir Walter Ralegh^‡ in the final hours before his execution on 29 Oct. 1618, but failed to persuade him to make a full confession on the scaffold. He nonetheless admired the condemned man’s composure, ‘which left a great impression in the minds of those that beheld him’.19 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 176, 178; Walteri Hemingford, Canonici de Gisseburne ed. T. Hearne (1761), i. pp. clxxxiv-clxxxvi. In May 1619, he gave the final dismissal at Anne of Denmark’s funeral in Westminster Abbey. A few weeks later it was briefly rumoured that he would be the next bishop of Chichester, but the post went instead to George Carleton^*.20 J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, iii. 543. Townson inadvertently offended the king in March 1620, banning from the abbey ladies wearing yellow ruffs, when he should have been clamping down on the new fashion of women adopting male attire. Despite this faux pas, he was elected bishop of Salisbury a fortnight later, and consecrated in the following July.21 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 286, 294, 296; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 162.

A bishop for barely ten months, Townson had little time to make an impact on his see, though he displayed some initial vigour, issuing visitation articles by the end of 1620. His model was the set composed in 1619 by John Overall^*, the anti-Calvinist bishop of Norwich, which Townson reproduced almost unaltered, including a new and controversial recommendation of auricular confession.22 Fincham, 238; Vis. Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church ed. K. Fincham (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc. i), 173. In October 1620 he was requested by the Privy Council to contribute to the Palatinate loan, but he delayed for around two months, merely undertaking to make a payment when he came up to London for the forthcoming Parliament. It is unclear whether he actually did so.23 APC, 1619-21, p. 292; SP14/118/58.

Townson took his seat in the Lords on 30 Jan. 1621, rather belatedly swearing the oath of allegiance 11 days later. Initially a very regular face in the upper House, he was absent on only five occasions prior to his final illness in early May, making three speeches, and receiving ten appointments. Predictably he was named to two bill committees with religious themes, one to punish breaches of Sabbath observance, the other to tighten penalties against recusants.24 LJ, iii. 15a, 39b, 101a. On 20 Mar. Townson spoke up for his old university, insisting that Cambridge should take precedence over Oxford in the subsidy bill preamble. He was also appointed to help consider the proposal by George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, for a new academy to educate the sons of the nobility and gentry.25 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 28; LJ, iii. 37a.

On 30 Apr. Townson drew on his local knowledge of Westminster to confirm the ‘troublesome’ nature of Jeffrey Passemore, who was being investigated over a breach of parliamentary privilege.26 LD 1621, p.40; He evidently showed interest in the inquiry into Sir Giles Mompesson’s^‡ patent to license inns, for he was nominated both to confer with the Commons on how to arrest the offending monopolist, and to help examine the abuses committed by Mompesson. He was also named to attend a conference at which the Lords requested more evidence from the Commons about misuse of patents.27 LJ, iii. 34a, 42b, 46. On 23 Mar., during a debate on bribe-taking by the lord chancellor, Francis Bacon^*, Viscount St Alban, Townson argued that those offering bribes were equally guilty of corruption.28 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 39; LD 1621, p. 133.

Townson’s parliamentary career ended suddenly with three grants of leave of absence on 5, 9 and 12 May.29 LJ, iii. 110a, 117b; Add. 40085, f. 136. According to Fuller, ‘being appointed at very short warning to preach before the Parliament, by unseasonable sitting up to study, [he] contracted a fever, whereof he died’. However, the reality may have been more prosaic; the newsletter-writer John Chamberlain heard that he had succumbed to smallpox.30 Fuller, i. 232; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 375. Townson died intestate, administration of his estate being granted to his widow on 28 May 1621. Noted for his ‘hospitable heart’ and ‘generous disposition’, he had not used his offices to enrich himself, and his assets were apparently too meagre to support his family. When his brother-in-law Davenant was appointed to the see of Salisbury shortly afterwards, it was reported that the king was giving him the means to bring up Townson’s 13 children. As Fuller later contentedly observed, Townson ‘was always confident in God’s providence, that, if he should die, his children … would be provided for; wherein he was not mistaken’. Two of his daughters, Ellen and Mary, married future bishops of Salisbury, Humphrey Henchman^† and Alexander Hyde^†.31 PROB 6/10, f. 122; Cassan, 108; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 379; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 254; Fuller, i. 232; Searle, 416-17.