Many Elizabethan bills which failed to become Acts of Parliament don’t now survive, and little is known about them except their titles. But two lost bills to annex Dorset to the diocese of Salisbury shed new light on one of Reformation England’s most bizarre sagas. Dr Paul Hunneyball of our Lords 1558-1603 section explains…

Medieval English dioceses varied considerably in size, some being much bigger than others and consequently more difficult to administer. The dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII provided an opportunity to redraw the map, and between 1540 and 1542 six new bishoprics were added to the existing seventeen, utilizing former abbeys. For example, in 1541 the substantial see of Worcester was subdivided, the southern half becoming the diocese of Gloucester, stretching from Tewkesbury in the north down to the bustling port of Bristol. Then, a year later, clearly as an afterthought, Bristol itself became the seat of another new bishopric.

This development, for which Bristol’s civic leaders seem to have lobbied, was problematic. To be viable, every diocese needed a basic number of parishes for the bishop to oversee, and an adequate endowment of property to generate episcopal income. However, the city of Bristol sat on the border between two medium-sized dioceses, Gloucester to the north, and Bath and Wells to the south, and there was no real geographical justification for carving out a new see in this location. Accordingly, although a handful of parishes in Bristol’s hinterland were requisitioned from each of the two neighbouring bishoprics, it was felt necessary to look further afield for additional territory. And thus, rather improbably, the government decided to separate off the archdeaconry of Dorset from the large diocese of Salisbury, and hand it to Bristol.

From the outset, this solution was controversial. The bulk of the new bishopric abutted the English Channel, but its cathedral was located 40 miles to the north, on the far side of the diocese of Bath and Wells. There was no precedent for this arrangement, and in administrative terms it quickly proved inconvenient. The first two bishops, the Protestant Paul Bush and the Catholic John Holyman, rarely even visited Bristol, and made little impression at all on the rest of the bishopric. From 1551 the most significant figure in the day-to-day management of the diocese was the archdeacon of Dorset, John Cotterell, who held that post for more than two decades.

Although Mary I opted to continue with the new bishoprics (except for Westminster, which had been scrapped in 1550), her successor Elizabeth I was less convinced of their usefulness, not least because it proved difficult at the start of her reign to recruit enough Protestant bishops to fill the twenty-two vacant English dioceses. No appointment was made to either Gloucester or Bristol until 1562, by which time Bristol’s corporation suspected that a merger of the two sees was being considered. In the event, in April that year Richard Cheyney became bishop of Gloucester, and as a boost to his income he was also handed the revenues of Bristol diocese.  However, spiritual authority over Bristol was retained by the archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, who merely appointed Cheyney his deputy, or vicar-general. The latter in turn commissioned Archdeacon Cotterell as his own deputy, so in practical terms little changed.

This ad hoc arrangement satisfied no one, except perhaps Cotterell. Bishop Cheyney resented the fact that Bristol had absorbed ten parishes from Gloucester diocese, and nursed ambitions to recover them. Meanwhile, the energetic young bishop of Salisbury, John Jewel, was unhappy that his own diocese had lost around one third of its territory. This situation was rendered more absurd by the fact that the dean and chapter of Salisbury cathedral still enjoyed jurisdiction over several pockets of land in Dorset, while Jewel’s own principal country residence, Sherborne Castle, was located in the county. Matters came to a head during the 1563 session of Parliament, when the theologically conservative Cheyney found himself in disgrace for failing to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of religion. By way of punishment, Archbishop Parker decided to terminate Cheyney’s role as vicar-general of Bristol. This created a brief window of opportunity for change, and a few weeks later, a bill was introduced in the Lords to return Dorset archdeaconry to the diocese of Salisbury. Although no other details of this legislation have survived, it must surely have been promoted by Bishop Jewel, who stood to gain the most from it. Cheyney himself probably didn’t object, since the loss of Dorset would have greatly strengthened the case for dissolving Bristol diocese, in which event the see of Gloucester stood to recover the parishes of Bristol deanery. However, the bill clearly didn’t enjoy the government’s backing, and received just one reading before disappearing from the records. In the following month, Parker effectively endorsed the status quo by promoting Archdeacon Cotterell to keeper of spiritualities at Bristol.

There matters rested until April 1571, when Cheyney again got into trouble, this time for absenting himself from Convocation without permission. As before, he was trying to avoid subscribing to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and a furious Parker promptly excommunicated him. Shortly afterwards, Bishop Jewel was appointed commissary general for Bristol diocese, thereby securing at least temporary control over Dorset. However, he had little time to enjoy his new powers, since he fell sick and died in the following September. For once, Cotterell was himself too ill to step into the breach, and accordingly Parker settled on Jewel’s successor at Salisbury, Edmund Guest, as Bristol’s latest keeper of spiritualities.

At this juncture, a fresh complication arose. Cotterell died in February 1572, whereupon Bishop Guest appointed James Proctor, a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, as the new archdeacon of Dorset. Almost immediately, a rival candidate, Henry Tynchener, emerged. Decades earlier, Bishop Best of Bristol had granted to one of Tynchenor’s kinsmen the right to nominate Cotterell’s successor, and finally the opportunity to exercise this privilege had arrived. Archbishop Parker now had to choose between the two clerics, and hesitantly backed Tynchenor, who had the paperwork to back up his claim. However, presumably under pressure from Guest, the primate then suspended Tynchenor from exercising his office.

In May 1572 Parliament met again, and a further bill was brought in ‘for the annexing of the jurisdiction of Dorset’ to Salisbury diocese. Since Tynchenor’s claim depended on the archdeaconry being in the gift of the bishops of Bristol, this legislation was most likely an attempt by Guest to break that link in Proctor’s favour. As only the bill’s title has survived, it’s impossible to say whether its objective was once again to dismantle Bristol diocese, or merely to perpetuate the authority of the bishops of Salisbury over Dorset.  Either way, after its first reading on 17 May the bill was assigned to a committee which included Parker, and no more was heard of it.

The dispute between the two would-be archdeacons rumbled on for nearly three more years. Tynchenor’s suspension was lifted, then re-imposed. Proctor became acting archdeacon, but was eventually sacked in early 1575 for corruption and negligence, after which Tynchenor was finally allowed to enjoy the archdeaconry in peace. As for Dorset itself, it remained part of Bristol diocese until 1836, when it was at last restored to the bishopric of Salisbury.

PMH

Further reading:

M.C. Skeeters, Community and Clergy: Bristol and the Reformation (1993)