Anthony Earbury
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Anthony Earbury (Earburie, Erbery, etc.) (c. 1571-1638) was a minister in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England, who represented puritan interests while remaining within the Anglican ministry. He is notable for his involvement in the puritan group at the Hampton Court Conference and his confrontation with Archbishop Richard Bancroft soon afterwards, and in later life for his resistance to a challenge to his ministry brought on personal grounds by Sir Edward Powell, Master of Requests. Associated with various groups and patrons interested in the emigrant puritan ministry in America, he was prebendary of Wherwell in Hampshire, under the patronage of the Barons De La Warr, and vicar of Westonzoyland, Somerset for most of his career, and is thought to have been a chaplain to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.
Of Wiltshire origins, Earbury entered Magdalen Hall in the University of Oxford as a commoner, matriculating in October 1589 aged 18. He graduated B.A. at Merton College on 5 February 1591/92, and M.A. on 12 November 1594.[1] On 13 March 1598/99 he received royal presentation to the archdeaconry of St Asaph.[2] He was instituted to the Rectory of Wherwell (Winchester jurisdiction) in May 1602 on the lay presentation of Anna, the dowager Lady De La Warr,[3] whose husband William West had died in 1595.[4] West himself (who had survived a conviction for treason under Queen Mary in connection with Henry Dudley's conspiracy) had presented the notable puritan Stephen Bachiler to the vicarage of Wherwell in 1587,[5] and Bachiler was still in occupation at Earbury's institution as rector, the two men appearing together in the Liber cleri of 1603.[6]
As prebendary rector of Wherwell, in which he continued until 1635, Earbury remained directly associated with the patronage of the De La Warr family, successively under Thomas West, 2nd Baron De La Warr (son of the first baron), who died in March 1601/02, and then of his son Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, who was Governor-for-life and Captain-general of the Colony of Virginia until his death in 1618.[7][8]
The Sussex Petition
Earbury is stated to have been part of the inner circle, together with John Rainolds, Laurence Chaderton, John Knewstubs and other University men and ministers, who prepared and advanced the Millenary Petition of 1603, meekly advocating to King James a series of reforms in the established church to enable puritan ministers to remain in conformity with it.[9]
Its success led to the formation of a puritan committee in London, led by Henry Jacob, to advance petitions on behalf of ministers and congregations in various regions of the country.[10] Earbury was particularly involved with Stephen Goffe, rector of Bramber,[11] Samuel Norden, rector of Hamsey,[12] John Frewen, rector of Northiam and others in the petitions for Sussex,[13] which were circulated, claiming that the whole laity of Sussex approved of its contents. This raised such a stir that its promoters, including Earbury, were arrested in late September 1603 at the instigation of John Whitgift and Richard Bancroft, and were interrogated by the Bishop of Chichester and the Privy Council.[14]
Despite these difficulties, Earbury, Norden, Frewen and Goldsmith represented Sussex among the puritan reformists admitted to the Hampton Court Conference in 1604.[15] Among those occupying formal places in the conference Chaderton (Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge) and Reinolds (President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford) were received gracefully, but the King thought the prominent East Anglian puritan Knewstubs an uncharitable man.
Richard Bancroft
Soon after this, Earbury challenged the episcopal party in the person of Richard Bancroft, then Bishop of London. He found that Bancroft had, over the preceding years and up to the present, been involved in secret discussions and negotiations with the Catholics.[16] He drafted a bill accusing Bancroft of treason, which was printed and put forth by William Jones, puritan propagandist.[17] Earbury was then living in the Devon house of Thomas West, "more in curtesie then for anie stipend".[18] The bill was delivered for presentation by Herbert Pelham (1545-1620), son-in-law of the 2nd Baron de la Warr,[19] and was presented on 15 May 1604, "For the Declaration of certayne practises of the Bishops of London to be treson",[20] the Speaker and Commons deemed it to be libellous and sent Jones and Earbury to Newgate Prison for examination by the Privy Council.[21] The prisoners made their petitions for release,[22] and it appears that, while Bancroft had in fact been in negotiation with the Catholics this had been with royal approval from both Queen Elizabeth and King James, and the Council was mainly concerned because the secret discussions had been "leaked".[23]
Earbury, being in possession of this knowledge, was released without further adverse consequences, and indeed managed to retain his position as prebendary rectory of Wherwell, while by 1605 Samuel Norden, Stephen Goffe and Stephen Bachiler were deprived or ejected from their livings for their unwillingness to conform.[24] Earbury was by this time married, his son Mathias born c. 1604[25] and his daughter Jane c. 1609.[26] On 10 July 1605 the four Wardens of the Worshipful Company of Mercers in London nominated Anthony Earbury MA to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, to be presented by them to Archbishop Bancroft for the rectory of St Michael Paternoster Royal, London.[27]
Sir Richard Martyn
Soon after this Earbury became involved in the case of John Eccleston (or Eglestone), a debtor in Ludgate Prison. A Warden of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in 1587/88, Eccleston helped prepare and approve the cases of weights for use in Elizabeth's reforms of her gold and silver coinage.[28] His sister Dorcas (died 1599) was the wife of Sir Richard Martyn, Master of the Mint 1582-1617, Lord Mayor of London 1588/89 and 1593/94, and Master of the Goldsmiths' Company in 1592/93. The Martyns were supporters of presbyterian reform of the church. With a fellow goldsmith Eccleston had acquired two parts, and a lease of the third, of the manor of Elsham Priory, in Elsham, North Lincolnshire, from Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby, all of which in time passed to Eccleston alone.[29] In 1597 several goldsmiths had complained that Martyn was retaining large sums from them and converting it to his own use.[30] By the early 1600s Eccleston had fallen heavily into debt, not least to Sir Richard Martyn, and was imprisoned for some long time.[31]
Martyn claimed that his brother-in-law had agreed in prison to convey his titles in Elsham to him in settlement of more than £2000 owing to him. However at the same time Anthony Earbury was visiting Eccleston in prison ("under colour of religion and charitie") and came to a like agreement to get Eccleston released, to pay off all his debts and to provide him with an annuity of 100 marks, for a similar conveyance to himself. Earbury effected his release on bail and the conveyance was then made. According to Martyn, who (finding his own expectations thwarted) painted Earbury's actions in a highly damning light, Earbury did not pay Martyn what he was owed, and refused Eccleston his annuity, with the result that Eccleston was arrested for a debt of £5 and later died in prison. In 1608 Martyn brought suit against Earbury, who by his rejoinder admitted that he owed Martyn £200 but otherwise stayed away from court. In 1609 in a Judgement in Default the Court of Chancery ordered Earbury to pay him this sum with costs, but made no other ruling in the matter.[31][32] Sir Thomas Coventry, Attorney-General, made a decree in the Exchequer concerning bonds between Sir Richard Martyn and Anthony Earbury in 1624.[33]
Earbury appears as a defendant alongside Sir Valentine Knightley (a member of the Virginia Company in 1611) in a suit brought by Richard Poole[34] touching the disputed manors of Woodmancote, Rentcombe and North Cerney, Gloucestershire, and ownership of the advowson of North Cerney.[35] Valentine Knightley, who died in 1618, had in 1605 presented a petition with Sir Edward Montagu on behalf of 36 deprived puritan ministers of Northamptonshire, an action which was regarded so severely by the Council that Knightley and Montagu, who refused to withdraw, were stripped of their offices.[36]