WATSON, Anthony (c.1551-1605)

Son of a minor gentleman from co. Durham, Watson may have been named after Anthony Lumley, brother of his patron John Lumley^*, Lord Lumley. He entered Christ’s College, Cambridge as a pensioner in 1567, and was elected to a fellowship there after proceeding MA in 1575.14 Vis. Dur. ed. J. Foster, 207; Al. Cant. He was probably chaplain to Lord Lumley by the time the latter procured his institution as rector of Cheam, Surrey in 1581, a living conveniently situated for attendance at court; and while in the early 1590s he also acquired the deanery of Bristol Cathedral and the chancellorship and a prebend at Wells Cathedral, together with rectories in Somerset and Sussex, these were largely sinecures.15 Fasti, v. 12-13; viii. 15; CCEd.

In 1596, with the backing of Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury), Watson traded most of his existing preferments for the bishopric of Chichester and the court position of king’s almoner. However, following pleas to Cecil, he was allowed to keep Cheam, and to retain Bristol deanery for two years, while his Sussex benefice was granted to one of his chaplains. Moreover, payment of Chichester’s first fruits of just over £600 was spread over the unusually long term of six years.16 HMC Hatfield, vi. 237, 265; vii. 135, 145-6; C58/2, m. 4; CSP Dom. Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 382; CSP Dom. 1595-7, p. 454; CCEd (Edward Wickham); CPR, 1598-9 ed. S.R. Neal and C. Leighton (L. and I. Soc. cccxxviii), 233-4. While he spent most of his time at court or at Cheam, Watson seems to have visited his diocese during the summer months – he kept a large stable of horses on his manor of Aldingbourne, Sussex – and conducted his visitations of 1600 and 1603 in person.17 K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 41, 55, 320; PROB 11/106, ff. 83-4. In 1602 he was said to have been a contender for the vacant bishopric of Hereford, but this seems unlikely, as the see was worth little more than his own, and would have brought liability for another payment of first fruits; it was eventually granted to Robert Bennett^*, dean of Windsor.

As almoner, Watson prayed at Queen Elizabeth’s deathbed, beseeching God to ‘pull down … the pride of those hateful Irish rebels’ and to overthrow ‘such as are malicious and ill affected to the good of this realm’ – presumably an allusion to Catholics.18 SP12/287/57; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 189. King James confirmed Watson as almoner shortly after his arrival at Whitehall, and when plans for a conference about ecclesiastical reform were first mooted, it was assumed that he would attend. Mindful of puritan complaints about episcopal laxity, Watson took action over the summer to arrange for the instruction of non-preaching clergy, and seems to have inflated the number of preaching ministers in his diocese in his report on ministerial training. Despite such precautions, he was clearly embarrassed by revelations that the clergy, gentry and common people of Sussex were circulating petitions for ecclesiastical reform, which raised several thousand signatures between them, and had to be dealt with by the Privy Council.19 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 9; Sloane 271, ff. 21v, 23r-v; Add. 28571, f. 179; HMC Hatfield, xv. 262-3; K.C.Fincham, ‘Ramifications of the Hampton Ct. Conf.’, JEH, xxxvi. 214-15. This may explain why he remained silent at the Hampton Court Conference when it convened in January 1604.

Watson attended the Lords on all but two days of the 1604 parliamentary session, but did not play a particularly significant part in the Lords’ proceedings. On 19 Apr. he was ordered to attend a conference with the Commons about ecclesiastical reform; but while MPs promoted an ambitious agenda, Richard Bancroft^*, bishop of London (later archbishop of Canterbury), shifted the debate to Convocation, where few dared criticize his new Canons. Puritan MPs sent several ecclesiastical reform bills to the Lords, but Watson’s services as a committeeman were not required to frustrate them. He was, however, named to committees to scrutinize two bills addressing moral issues, the adultery bill and another to prevent married men from occupying college fellowships.20 LJ, ii. 272a, 282b, 332a; RICHARD BANCROFT. On 3 May he was ordered to attend a conference with the Commons about purveyance, following which the Lords unsuccessfully proposed an annual cash composition; the other conference to which he was nominated – to explain the slurs cast upon MPs’ discussion of the Union by John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol – produced nothing but acrimony.21 LJ, ii. 290b, 294b-5a, 332b; JOHN THORNBOROUGH. Watson’s nomination to a committee for the bill to ban the export of iron ordnance was of considerable interest to the Wealden ironmasters of his diocese, while his inclusion on the committee for the bill regarding the estates of Edward Neville^*, 8th or 1st Lord Abergavenny, reflected the fact that the measure concerned lands in Kent and Sussex.22 LJ, ii. 285a, 337a.

In the aftermath of the parliamentary session, King James and Bancroft, newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, promoted a crackdown against puritans, paying particular attention to dioceses where the godly had caused trouble in the previous year. Presumably on Watson’s advice, ten Sussex ministers were deprived by the Court of High Commission in London, including several of the ringleaders of the 1603 petitioning campaign. However, Watson does not appear to have been particularly harsh in his proceedings, as several of those who had initially raised doubts decided to conform. Archbishop Bancroft investigated another 13 nonconformists during his metropolitical visitation of the diocese over the summer, and several of the deprived ministers continued to create difficulties thereafter.23 Fincham, Prelate, 201, 217, 323-4; Fincham, ‘Ramifications’, 216-21.

In September 1605 Watson, recuperating from an illness, insisted on travelling to court on business as almoner. This decision is said to have brought on his untimely death on 10 September. In his will, completed only four days earlier, he made generous bequests to relatives and servants, left £100 to the library at Christ’s College and gave 20s. apiece to ten poor sub-sizars there. His curate at Cheam got a new gown and his copies of the works of Bucer and Peter Martyr. Having neither wife nor children, his will was proved on the day after his death by his nephew and chief beneficiary, William Bryan; others noted that Watson had died ‘rich for so mean a living’.24 J. Harington, A Briefe View of the State of the Church of Eng. (1653), 140-1; PROB 11/106, ff. 83-4v; Chamberlain Letters, i. 209. He was succeeded as both bishop and almoner by another court prelate, Lancelot Andrewes^* (later bishop of Winchester).