BENNETT, Robert (1544/5-1617)

An academic whose career flourished after his appointment as chaplain to William Cecil^†, 1st Lord Burghley, Bennett was appointed dean of Windsor by his patron in 1596. One of Queen Elizabeth’s last promotions to the episcopal bench in February 1603, Bennett had to endure a protracted selection process, eventually winning the support of the queen’s chief minister, Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury). However, in 1605 the blame for various acts of defiance by the local Catholics was laid at his door, and he subsequently caused offence in supporting the efforts of the local gentry to emancipate themselves from the jurisdiction of the council in the Marches. Thus in 1610, a plea to Salisbury for further promotion (to the neighbouring diocese of Worcester) was ignored, and he died in post.

Early career to 1603

The younger son of a Hertfordshire yeoman, Bennett was bequeathed only £5 in his father’s will, presumably because, by the time of the latter’s death in the early 1580s, he was already well established in his academic career; his earliest biographer recounted that, as a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, ‘he would toss an argument in the schools better than a ball in the tennis court’. On leaving Cambridge in 1583, in which year he secured his doctorate, Bennett became chaplain to the university chancellor, Lord Treasurer Burghley, in whose household he later recalled spending ‘five years’ faithful and painful service’.22 PROB 11/64, f. 77v; J. Harington, Briefe View of the State of the Church of Eng. (1656), 139; Hatfield House, CP 98/42. It was Burghley who secured his first preferment, as warden of the hospital of St Cross, near Winchester. The Robert Bennett, BA, who was instituted as vicar of Eling, Hampshire in 1593 was a namesake.23 Al. Cant. (mistaken identity of vicar of Eling); CCEd; P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Ct. (suppl. cal. 68); Fasti, iii. 104.

Bennett preached his first court sermon in Lent 1595. Shortly thereafter the queen had him instituted as a prebend of Winchester Cathedral. Only two months later, when William Day^†, dean of Windsor, was nominated as bishop of Winchester, Bennett became a contender for the deanery, challenging a local rival, Thomas Bilson^*, warden of Winchester College. The latter was reluctant to surrender his existing post for anything less than a bishopric, and therefore his nomination to Worcester cleared the way for Burghley (as high steward of Windsor Chapel) to procure the deanery for Bennett, who was allowed to retain his existing preferments at Winchester.24 Lansd. 80, no. 9; Windsor Chapter Acts ed. S. Bond, 33. He was offered the bishopric of Salisbury in 1598, but declined appointment to this lucrative see (worth twice as much as his subsequent promotion at Hereford), probably because he was not prepared to accede to the requirement that the new incumbent should surrender several lucrative episcopal properties to the crown.25 B. Usher, Ld. Burghley and Episcopacy, 1577-1603, pp. 151, 172-3; HENRY COTTON.

Contrary to later allegations, Bennett seems to have been a diligent steward of the estates entrusted to his care. In 1596-7 he energetically (though unsuccessfully) defended one of St Cross’s rectories from the crown’s demand for a 60 year reversionary lease;26 CSP Dom. 1595-7, pp. 305, 485-6; HMC Hatfield, vi. 550-1; vii.306, 322, 334. and he spent four years resisting the claims of a royal ward to a long lease of the Windsor chapter’s rectory of South Molton, Devon.27 CSP Dom. 1595-7, pp. 543-6; Windsor Chapter Acts, 40-1; D. Dean, Law-Making and Soc. in Late Elizabethan Eng. 225. Some of the perquisites of office naturally accrued to his family: a brother received a lease from St Cross, and his nephew Leonard Bennett was given a scholarship to Oxford by the Windsor chapter;28 SP12/286/19, 21; Windsor Chapter Acts, 29, 40. but he apparently dragged his feet over the queen’s reversionary grant of a prebendal stall to Henry Beaumont, until the latter’s patron, John Whitgift^†, archbishop of Canterbury, ordered him to be allocated the next vacancy.29 Windsor Chapter Acts, 34, 40. Bennett’s tenure at Windsor afforded regular access to the queen, and in August 1599 he was tipped for promotion to the long-vacant bishopric of Ely. Valued at £1,920 a year, the post came at a price: the new incumbent was expected to exchange vast estates in the Isle of Ely for impropriate rectories scattered across the country, terms which Bennett and others found unacceptable; the bishopric was eventually settled on Martin Heton^*.30 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 79; HMC Hatfield, xiv. 110; Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc. (1913-15), vi. 56; Ely: Bps. and Dioc. ed. P. Meadows, 192.

Bennett was next considered for a vacancy at Hereford early in 1602, when he faced challenges from Anthony Watson^*, bishop of Chichester, Richard Vaughan^*, bishop of Chester (later bishop of London), and John Bridges^*, dean of Salisbury (later bishop of Oxford). While he received qualified support from Sir Robert Cecil, his appointment hung in the balance for some time. This was probably because Hereford (valued at £692 p.a.) offered only modest financial gains, which prompted Bennett to seek a dispensation to retain St Cross in commendam. However, Cecil’s suggestion that this might imperil the promotion quickly led Bennett to drop this request.31 HMC Hatfield, xii. 109, 160, 214-15; Chamberlain Letters, i. 147. By October 1602 he had recruited one of the queen’s favourites, Henry Brooke^†, 11th Lord Cobham to his cause, apparently by promising the latter’s brother George the reversion of both his existing livings. It was presumably because of Cobham’s influence that Whitgift agreed to nominate Bennett and Vaughan to the queen. However, at this critical juncture, Silvanus Scory, son of a former bishop of Hereford, submitted a ‘slanderous libel’ against Bennett, who was accused of abusing his position at St Cross, ‘having fleeced it to the uttermost by making leases’. Scory urged that Charles Langford, dean of Hereford, be appointed instead. Although Bennett submitted a detailed rebuttal of Scory’s charges, news of the libel prompted Henry Robinson^*, bishop of Carlisle, to inquire whether he might be considered for the vacancy.32 HMC Hatfield, xii. 424, 437-8, 478; Chamberlain Letters, i. 181; SP12/286/19, 21. In December 1602, Bennett warned Cecil of the consequences of leaving Hereford vacant for too long: ‘the country doth overgrow with seminaries, the inferior ministry slacketh their hand of doctrine; the people will be corrupted in duty, the houses will quickly ruinate’. This seems to have done the trick, although Bennett probably helped his own cause by offering Cecil a lease of the rectory of Urchfont, Wiltshire, which lay in the gift of the Windsor chapter, and was sealed shortly after his congé d’élire had passed.33 HMC Hatfield, xii. 507; xv. 248; Windsor Chapter Acts, 45.

Diocesan and parliamentarian 1603-5

One of the last bishops ordained under Elizabeth, Bennett had to wait until King James arrived in London before he secured possession of the temporal revenues of his see. In the meantime, the lord treasurer, Thomas Sackville^*, Lord Buckhurst (later 1st earl of Dorset), granted him leave to collect the rents due at Hereford from the death of his predecessor in March 1602, which presumably afforded him a measure of credit, even though these revenues were ultimately due to the Exchequer. After surrendering Windsor in February 1603, he was probably forced to subsist on the income from St Cross, which he held until May. When his successor at St Cross, Arthur Lake^* (later bishop of Bath and Wells), took up his post, he found that Bennett had accepted cash in lieu of corn rents from the tenants, and locked the hospital’s muniment room so that Lake could not discover what he was due.34 SP46/42, f. 260; Fasti, xiii. 3; SP15/35/24.

As the most junior member of the episcopal bench, Bennett was not summoned to the Hampton Court Conference of January 1604, but he played an active role in the parliamentary session which followed, attending virtually every day. He was one of those ordered to attend a series of conferences about plans for radical reform of the Church put forward by puritan MPs, plans which were delayed while Convocation settled the matter with a new set of Canons. On 21 Apr. he was added to the delegation for conferring with the Commons about the king’s initial plans for a cross-border Union commission. Later, after John Thornborough^*, bishop of Bristol, criticized the Commons’ proceedings on this issue, he was one of those required to attend two conferences at which peers attempted to mitigate the offence caused.35 LJ, ii. 282b, 284a, 309a, 332b. A vehement anti-Catholic, Bennett was named to the committee for a controversial bill to reverse the attainder of the Catholic plotter Charles Paget, which was dropped after heated debates. He was also included on two committees for examining different drafts of the witchcraft bill, a subject in which the king took a keen interest, and was later included on committees for two drafts of the recusancy bill, which codified and extended previous legislation.36 Ibid. 267b, 269a, 271a, 275a, 314a, 324b. Moreover, he was included on the committee for the bill to regulate proceedings in ecclesiastical courts, which ran out of time at the end of the session. Neither he nor any of the other bishops ordered to attend a conference about the expiring laws’ continuance bill noticed that the repeal of Marian legislation against married priests reinstated earlier statutes altering the way in which church courts issued process.37 Ibid. 323a, 329a-b; RICHARD BANCROFT. Bennett was also named to consider a private bill to confirm an exchange of lands between Sir Thomas Monson^‡ and his old college.38 LJ, ii. 281a.

No fresh taxation was voted by Parliament or Convocation in 1604, but after the prorogation James I sought privy seal loans from wealthier taxpayers. Bennett worked hard to ensure the success of this levy in his diocese, paying £100 himself, and rating 49 of his clergy for a total of £1,065, of which almost half was received at the Exchequer, a better yield than the national average.39 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 234. The ratings are in CUL, Ff.ii.28, ff. 92v-3v; the receipts in E401/2585, f. 102. This was 50 per cent more than the diocese had raised in 1597, for which see E401/2590, unfol.

At the end of 1604 the king and Richard Bancroft^*, Whitgift’s successor as archbishop of Canterbury, promoted a nationwide crackdown against nonconformist ministers, but Bennett is not known to have deprived any incumbents within his diocese. Later, in 1612, Bennett did everything possible to avoid depriving Thomas Pierson, who was presented for nonconformity, endlessly discussing the latter’s scruples about the surplice and Prayer Book.40 K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 259, 324. It should be noted that the bishop’s register is missing for the years 1580-1608. Bennett was a keen patron of preaching, endorsing the efforts of Pierson and Sir Robert Harley^‡ to promote a combination lecture at Leintwardine, Herefordshire and setting theological exercises for unqualified ministers after his 1615 visitation. The bishop required local non-preaching ministers to hone their skills by this exercise, which resembled the controversial ‘prophesyings’ of the 1570s.41 Ibid. 203-4; P. Collinson, Religion of Protestants, 132-3.

The Whitsun rising 1605

As he had claimed shortly before his appointment, Bennett’s top priority at Hereford was the suppression of Catholicism in an area well served by priests. Many of the latter operated from Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire, where they enjoyed the protection of the privy councillor Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester, amid hopes that the new monarch might grant some sort of toleration. At Candlemas 1604, Bennett surprised a large number of Catholics at mass. Many of them were subsequently indicted at the Lent assizes, but (as he later fumed) the case was removed to King’s Bench by a writ of certiorari, and no further action was taken. He nevertheless continued to investigate the children detained on this occasion, trying to persuade them to conform, and expelling the obdurate from Hereford Cathedral school.42 HMC Hatfield, xvii.235; [T. Hamond], The Late Commotion of Certaine Papists in Herefordshire (1605), sigs. C4v-5; Responsa Scholarum I ed. A. Kenny (Catholic Rec. Soc. liv), 244-5; L.A. Underwood, Childhood, Youth and Religious Dissent in Post-Reformation Eng. 60-1. It was presumably his disappointment at the outcome of these proceedings that prompted Bennett to apply twice over the next year for an ecclesiastical commission to be granted to his diocese, both times unsuccessfully.43 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 93.

Misgivings about the insolence of the local recusants were borne out in May 1605, when a Catholic burial service was held in the churchyard at Allensmore, south-west of Hereford. The vicar, who had refused to bury an excommunicate, was probably too frightened to intervene, but reported the names of those persons whom he recognized to Bennett, who issued arrest warrants in his capacity as a magistrate. Two of those captured subsequently escaped, and a third was rescued by an armed gang within sight of Hereford, suspected to have been organized by a local recusant gentleman, William Morgan of Treville Park.44 Hamond, sigs. C4 [an error for C8] to D4v; R. Mathias, Whitsun Riot, 2, 5-7. In reporting this incident to Cecil, now earl of Salisbury, Bennett criticized several magistrates with recusant wives, and justifiably claimed that most of the local elite was ‘allied to some of these evil affected set’. A week later, 300 attended mass at the Darren, a wooded area on the Monmouthshire border, and many remained in the area for two days, challenging the authorities to disperse them; an apparitor who arrived at this inopportune moment (to summon several recusants to confer with Bennett) was beaten by the crowd. It took Bennett a week to marshal the forces for a lengthy sweep along the county’s western border, when, unsurprisingly, he found his quarry had fled.45 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 235; Mathias, 45-8; Dodd’s Church Hist. of Eng. ed. M.A. Tierney, iv. app. p. c.

News of the swift escalation of this local crisis was wildly exaggerated in London: the Venetian ambassador reported that a thousand armed men had resisted the authorities at the Darren, and that hundreds of suspects had been arrested. The king, fearful that the incident might undermine his authority and prompt the ambassadors of Catholic powers to further complaints, sent the earl of Worcester to investigate.46 CSP Ven. 1603-7, pp. 247-8, 252; Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 77; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 165-6; Mathias, 49, 55. Meanwhile, the local protagonists tried to excuse themselves: three Herefordshire Catholics, sent to London to plead with the king for mercy, were arrested and threatened with a charge of rebellion. Bennett naturally took advantage of the situation to remind Salisbury of his previous unsuccessful efforts to obtain an ecclesiastical commission.47 CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 259; Dodd’s Church Hist. of Eng. iv. app. p. ci; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 269-70. On 1 July Worcester summoned Bennett and Herefordshire’s magistrates to Raglan, where he insisted that the rise in recusancy since 1603 must be due ‘either [to] want of preaching and good instruction’, something which could be blamed upon Bennett, or ‘negligence of justices of peace or inferior ministers’. Worcester concluded by announcing a fresh sweep along the troubled border area, but predictably this uncovered little, allowing him to portray the disturbances as inconsequential on his return to London.48 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 304-6; Hamond, sigs. E2v-3; CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 266; Mathias, 56-61. This whitewash was designed to cover up embarrassing links between Catholics and the authorities in the Marches.

In the aftermath of this affair, Bennett turned on his adviser, the erstwhile Catholic priest Rice Griffith, upon whom he had relied for information on the recusant community. To Bennett, the troubles of 1605 suggested that Griffith was ‘a mere agent and spy for the papists’, and therefore the bishop had him indicted at the Hereford assizes that summer. However, Griffith was protected by Bancroft, who had the cause revoked to King’s Bench, where the proceedings were allowed to lapse.49 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 304-6, 360-2, 389, 455-6; Mathias, 27, 59-60. This was not the only setback suffered by Bennett at this time, as the bishop’s relations with Salisbury also cooled after his failure to procure the earl’s request for the nomination of a burgess at the parliamentary by-election held at Hereford in October 1605. In August Bennett warned that the corporation were sworn not to return any non-resident, and his prediction that they would not even be swayed by the local landowner Sir John Scudamore, 1st Bt. (later Viscount Scudamore [I]) subsequently proved accurate. However, Salisbury, perhaps suspecting that Bennett had failed to exert himself out of pique at his recent humiliation by the earl of Worcester, apparently had him removed from the council in the Marches, to which he had been appointed ex officio in 1603; he was only reinstated shortly after Salisbury’s death.50 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 360; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 171; Eg. 2882, f. 52.

Parliament and the Marches 1606-10

Bennett missed the first day of the next parliamentary session, 5 Nov. 1605, but thereafter he attended regularly, except for a two week absence in March 1606. Unlike most other bishops, he was not named to any of the committees on recusancy legislation, presumably because of Bancroft’s displeasure at his recent conduct in Herefordshire. He was, however, included on the delegation ordered to confer with the Commons about ecclesiastical affairs, which met on several occasions; in preparation for one of these meetings, Bennett and Anthony Rudd^*, bishop of St Davids were ordered to discuss the excessive use of excommunication by the Church courts, but press of other business meant that this topic was never reported.51 LJ, ii. 411a, 416b. For the issues which were reported, see ibid. 428a. He was also required to attend a conference at which the Lords attempted to persuade MPs to drop their bill to abolish purveyance without compensation.52 Ibid. 413a; Bowyer Diary, 116-17. Many of Bennett’s committee nominations involved bills of interest to the Marches: an estate bill for the Worcestershire peer Thomas Windsor^*, 6th Lord Windsor; a bill to restrain the erection of weirs on navigable rivers, such as the Wye; a bill to repeal a clause in a statute allowing the crown to make law for Wales by proclamation; and a bill for the maintenance of Chepstow bridge in Monmouthshire. He was also included on the committee for the bill which confirmed Salisbury’s purchase of land to extend his Strand palace.53 LJ, ii. 376b, 406b, 410a, 420b-1a.

Bennett returned to Westminster for the parliamentary session which began in November 1606, during the course of which he held the proxies of Bishop Rudd and William Overton^*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. He was included on the large delegation which urged the Commons to begin consideration of the Union, which subject dominated the session.54 Ibid. 449a, 453a. He was also named to committees to consider the usury bill, two bills to confirm ownership of lands questioned by the commissioners for defective titles, and an estate bill about a Gloucestershire manor.55 Ibid. 454a, 471b, 494a (he was absent from the House by the time this committee met).

Having attended almost every sitting in the first half of the session, Bennett secured a licence to depart in March 1607, his health having failed, and left his proxy with two other Cambridge alumni, Gervase Babington^*, bishop of Worcester and John Jegon^*, bishop of Norwich. He was thus unable to support the bill to preserve meadowland in Herefordshire when it reached the Lords in May; Bishop Babington and Francis Godwin^*, bishop of Llandaff were instead included, presumably to look after local interests.56 HMC Hatfield, xix. 83; LJ, ii. 449a, 512b. However, Bennett had recovered by September 1607, when he attacked in High Commission the puritan lawyer Nicholas Fuller^‡, who was being harassed by Bancroft for his efforts to mount a legal challenge to the deprivation of nonconformist ministers.57 Chamberlain Letters, i. 248; RICHARD BANCROFT.

Back in Herefordshire, Bennett gave offence to the new president of the Marches, Ralph Eure^*, 3rd Lord Eure, by joining many of the gentry of Herefordshire and Worcestershire in a petition of January 1608, which insisted that Eure had ignored his instructions by claiming jurisdiction over the Marcher shires. As bishop, Bennett outranked the gentry signatories, leading Eure to make a specific complaint that he was ‘the prime man to subscribe his hand’. However, as Eure explained, the petition had been promoted not by Bennett, but by Sir Herbert Croft^‡, who had acted out of resentment at being removed as a magistrate for his earlier opposition to the council in the Marches. Bennett may have signed in protest at his removal from the council, but there is no evidence that this incident caused him significant trouble.58 Cott., Vitellius C.I, ff. 205-6; SP14/31/14, 24.

Bennett confessed his ‘great debility’ to Salisbury shortly before the parliamentary session which began in February 1610, and was therefore granted leave of absence, awarding his proxy to George Abbot^*, bishop of London and James Montagu^*, bishop of Bath and Wells.59 SP14/44/29; SO3/4, unfol.; LJ, ii. 548a. He nevertheless pleaded with Salisbury to consider him for promotion to the bishopric of Worcester after hearing of Babington’s own failing health, but his own health problems presumably ruled him out of contention, and the vacancy went to Henry Parry^*, bishop of Gloucester.60 SP14/52/64; HENRY PARRY.

Final years 1611-17

Despite his ill health, Bennett remained an active diocesan, conducting his episcopal visitations of 1612 and 1615 in person and pressing the cathedral chapter to repair a church which lay within their jurisdiction.61 Fincham, 321; Hereford Cathedral Archive, 7031/2, f. 182v. He also played an active role in ensuring that his clergy mustered their quota of militiamen within his diocese.62 Herefs. Archives, AL19/16/1, ff. 54v-62v, 106v; AL19/16/2, pp. 11-18, 57-63. The 1605 fiasco did not discourage him from proceeding against recusants: in 1609 he renewed his request, unsuccessfully, for an ecclesiastical commission for his diocese; while he continued to present lists of recusant gentry for indictment at the assizes, and to the council in the Marches.63 SP14/44/29; 14/48/137; Herefs. Archives, AL19/16/2, pp. 8, 64-83. On Easter Day 1610 Bennett scored his greatest success, arresting the priest Roger Cadwallader, one of the ringleaders of the 1605 protests, who was, at his recommendation, executed at Hereford later the same year ‘for the terror of others’.64 SP14/53/98; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xii), 90.

Gout kept Bennett from Parliament that autumn, when he granted his proxy to bishops Montagu and Jegon. It may also have kept him away from Westminster in 1614, when he awarded his proxy to Montagu and Abbot, now archbishop of Canterbury.65 LJ, ii. 666a, 686a. In the aftermath of this latter Parliament, Abbot promoted the collection of a benevolence among the clergy. Bennett personally contributed 100 marks, but he raised £244 6s. 8d. from his diocese, a significantly lower yield than the privy seals of 1604.66 E351/1950. In 1622 the diocese raised £400 towards the Palatine benevolence: SP14/133/13.

Bennett drew up his will on 3 Mar. 1617. It demonstrates that he possessed considerable assets, as he made bequests to his relatives of almost £2,500 in cash, plus lands in Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. His chief beneficiaries were two cousins, who had served him for many years as stewards of the episcopal palaces at Hereford and Whitbourne, Herefordshire. He provided the lavish sum of £500 for his funeral, ordered his books to be shared between three of the cathedral prebends, and specified that the wainscoting his predecessors had installed at Hereford and Whitbourne should remain in situ.67 PROB 11/130, ff. 464-5v; J. Berlatsky, ‘Elizabethan Episcopate’, Princes and Paupers ed. R. O’Day and F. Heal, 123. He died on 25 Oct. and was buried, as requested, in a tomb in his cathedral, which bore an inscription praising his piety, his role as a diocesan and his preaching; his see had already been promised to Bishop Godwin of Llandaff.68 Monumental Inscriptions in the Cathedral Church of Hereford, 6-7; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 118.