cons. 25 Oct. 1685 bp. of PETERBOROUGH; depr. 1 Feb. 1691
First sat 9 Nov. 1685; last sat 27 Feb. 1689
b. 1628, s. of Peter White of Allington, Kent. educ. Wye sch.; St John’s, Camb. matric. 1642, BA 1646, MA; DD Oxford 1683. unm. d. 30 May 1698. will 1690, pr. 19 July 1698.1
Chap. to Princess Anne 1684, to James Stuart, duke of York 1684.
Vic. Newark, Notts. 1660-6; rect. All Hallows the Great, London 1666-79, Bottesford Leics. 1679-85, Stepney 1681; adn. Nottingham 1683-5.
Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Magdalen, Oxf.; oil on canvas by unknown artist, Corpus Christi, Oxf.; engraving c.1688, published by John Overton, British Museum, 1839,0413.119.
The nonjuror Thomas White was a native of Allington, Kent. His father’s origins are obscure, but his mother was ‘nearly related’ to the long-established gentry Brockman family of Beachborough, one of whom sat in the Commons for Hythe in 1690.2 White’s activities after attending St John’s College, Cambridge, are obscure, but shortly after the Restoration he petitioned successfully for the Nottinghamshire vicarage of Newark. The reasons for White’s appointment to All Hallows the Great in London (in the gift of the archbishop of Canterbury), shortly before the church was destroyed in the fire of London are equally unknown. In 1679 he was made a preacher at Stepney, while obtaining a living in Leicestershire in the gift of the earls of Rutland; in 1681 he obtained the rectorship of Stepney as well, in the gift of Philadelphia, the widow of Thomas, Baron Wentworth.3 In 1682, he came to the notice of the diarist Evelyn with a sermon on his preferred theme, submission to the will of God. Evelyn commented on his ‘very eloquent style’.4
In May 1683, supported by James Butler, duke of Ormond, White obtained a doctorate and joined the Anglican retinue of the duke of York as chaplain to both the duke and to the Princess Anne. Marked out for preferment, White returned to the Midlands as archdeacon of Nottingham in the diocese of York shortly after the granting of the city’s new charter, and much at the same time as John Dolben, the new archbishop; there, determined to quash Nottingham’s nonconformists, White proved ‘the terror of recalcitrant churchwardens’. Dolben commented admiringly that ‘I see now with my own eyes how equal he is to great business having done such things in Nottinghamshire as in two years as few else would have attempted and made that province now administrable by a discreet successor though of less courage and activity than himself’.5 Writing to William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury in 1686, White gave some indication of his attention to administrative detail, recalling that though his visitation of Nottinghamshire had been ‘painful’, ‘yet I had this advantage by it that upon one visitation I understood the whole state of the country and every clergyman that was blameable or praiseworthy in it’.6 After two years in which he was identified clearly with the Yorkist faction, White became one of James II’s personal appointees to the episcopal bench. Dolben seems to have expected him to go to Chichester, writing just after the death of Guy Carleton, bishop of Chichester, in July 1685 that the ageing Thomas Barlow, bishop of Lincoln, ‘might have been so kind as to die before old Guy, but it will be an easy remove from Peterborough and certainly no man so fit as White to go thither’.7 In fact White’s promotion was to Peterborough itself, following the translation of its bishop, William Lloyd, to Norwich. His consecration took place on 25 Oct. 1685. White was clearly a politically popular choice with the dominant landed interests in Northamptonshire. He was in close, and mutually respectful, contact with the anti-exclusionist Christopher Hatton, whose loyalty to the court had earned him a promotion from a barony to a viscountcy in 1683.8
James II’s Parliament was too brief for White to make a significant contribution to the life of the Lords; he took his seat on 9 Nov. 1685, attending the session for only 29 per cent of sittings. On 14 Nov. he accepted the proxy of Thomas Wood, bishop of Lichfield (vacated at the end of the session). On 18 Nov. he was named to the committee for Sir George Crooke’s bill, but Parliament was prorogued two days later so the bill was lost.
In January 1686 Dolben reported that ‘Peterborough says he will do whatever the king commands him in relation to the government but by God he’ll live and die of the Church of England.’9 Within a few months of his appointment, in the spring of 1686 William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, chose him to conduct a special visitation of Lincoln diocese following reports of neglect by Barlow. White corresponded with Sancroft about the details: whether he should divulge the fact that the visitation resulted from a special royal command or pretend that it resulted from Sancroft’s special care of the province. His devotion to the Church notwithstanding, he was reluctant to offend the king and before setting out on the visitation of Lincoln specifically asked Sancroft ‘what enquiry should be made about Catholics and whether his Majesty will suffer them to be presented though the censures of the Church do not pass upon them’.10 His articles of visitation concentrated on overdue repairs to Church fabric and barely had he drawn breath from this additional task before starting a visitation of his own diocese, writing in September that he hoped to ‘have some good effect in awakening the clergy, and bringing them to some more sense of their duty then they seem to have had before’.11 In the autumn, after the suspension of Henry Compton, he joined with Nathaniel Crew, of Durham, and Thomas Sprat, of Rochester, in administering the diocese of London. In October, after noting this, Roger Morrice added that White ‘seems to have as great an interest as any clergyman’. Later that month he described White as ‘the greatest Church of England man now at court’ and reported that White had informed the king that his visitation of Lincoln had revealed that ‘the clergy were very ignorant idle and vicious, excepting some few that were men of learning and virtue, and they were all Whigs’.12
On 22 Nov. 1686 White attended the House for the prorogation to the following February. In January 1687 Roger Morrice reported that the king was pressing members of both Houses to repeal the Test and that White was one of the bishops prepared to agree. In April Roger Morrice reported White’s initial response to the first Declaration of Indulgence as ‘that he apprehends there is no danger at all of Popery, but only of the Fanaticks and therefore it concerns them to make themselves as strong as they can against them.’13 But Morrice also recorded a meeting between five of the bishops and Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on 30 Apr. when White not only refused to sign a congratulatory address to the king for the Declaration but spoke against it ‘in uncourtly language’. When Sunderland told him that a failure to thank the king would ‘justify the reproach that is commonly cast upon the Church of England that they are for persecution’, White replied that the Church had never been for persecution for ‘mere religion’ but had ‘many times been put upon persecution for reasons of state … the persecution always began from the court, but never in the church’. He also exchanged bitter words with Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford, who accused him of Erastianism.14 Contrary to Morrice’s earlier view, White was assessed on four lists as likely to oppose the repeal of the Tests. Not surprisingly he was listed by Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) as an opponent of the king’s promotion of Catholicism.
On 18 May, just over three weeks after the second Declaration of Indulgence, he joined Sancroft and five of his fellow bishops to petition the king against his use of the dispensing power. On 27 May 1688 the seven bishops were summoned before the Privy Council; on 8 June they were committed to the Tower after they stood on their privilege and refused to give recognizances for their appearance in King’s Bench. On 24 June, just days before their trial, White wrote that ‘’tis no matter what becomes of seven men if their suffering may prevent that common calamity which we fear. I pray God ... keep the nation steadfast in their true faith’.15 Compton suggested as White’s sureties Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Charles Robartes, 2nd earl of Radnor.16 All seven bishops were acquitted on 30 June.
White, shuttling between London and Peterborough, attended the king on several occasions throughout the autumn of 1688 and trying to persuade him to restore the alliance with the Church.17 In October he assisted the increasingly worried George Jeffreys, Baron Jeffreys, to settle his estate at Bulstrode on his wife and son.18 On 2 Nov. 1688 White was absent when the bishops were summoned by the king to declare their abhorrence of the prince of Orange’s declaration that he had been invited to England by the lords spiritual and temporal, but he attended the king on 6 Nov. together with Sancroft, Compton and Sprat when the bishops chose their words with great care in order to refuse the king’s request whilst trying to avoid an appearance of open defiance.19 On 16 Nov. White subscribed a petition to James II for a free Parliament, joined the lords spiritual and temporal at Whitehall on 27 Nov. and signed the declaration to the prince of Orange at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. 1688.20
On 17 Dec. White, Francis Turner, bishop of Ely, Thomas Lamplugh, the newly appointed archbishop of York, and Thomas Sprat waited on the king after his return from his first flight. James was in conciliatory mood and the two sides parted ‘with great complacency’. White, Turner and Sprat were now said to be ‘the head of this powerful faction that labours to narrow and innervate the Prince’s designs’.21 At the king’s second flight White was one of 80 lords temporal and spiritual summoned by the prince of Orange. When the Lords assembled on 22 Dec. White did not attend.22
Before the Convention assembled, White joined in negotiations for a regency with Sancroft, John Lake, bishop of Chichester, Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon.23 He attended the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and was named to a committee to write a suitable form of prayer of thanksgiving, and on 28 Jan. to a committee to consider amendments to the Prayer Book for the thanksgiving service. He attended the session for only 11 per cent of sittings, though he was in the House constantly throughout the debates on the future of the monarchy. He voted for a regency on 29 Jan. 1689 and against the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen on the 31st, asserting that ‘all were rebels and traitors that had drawn their swords against the king and their only way was to return to their Loyalty’.24 In the abdication debates in early February, he stuck doggedly to his principles, helped to draft reasons why the Lords could not agree with the Commons, took part in the conferences on 5 and 6 Feb. and on 6 Feb. entered a dissent to the final vote. On 8 Feb. when the committee of the whole considered the necessity of composing oaths to be taken to the new monarchs, White was named to the subcommittee to draft them.25
Between 10 and 17 Feb. White pointedly stayed away from the House, missing the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen. He attended on the morning of 18 Feb. to hear William’s speech to the House and was present the following day for the passage of the bill on the legality of the Convention. Absenting himself for a further eight days, White went to the House for a last time on 27 Feb. 1689. Having refused the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to the crown, he was suspended from office in August 1689. By November he was being roundly criticized for his ‘stiff adherence … to that highest point of passive obedience’.26
White was considered sufficiently malleable that Carmarthen (as Danby had become) used him as a go-between in the aftermath of the discovery of a Jacobite plot early in 1691. The prospect of a restoration of some part of their revenue was held out as an incentive to persuade Sancroft and the rest of the nonjuring bishops to discredit claims that they were in favour of the return of the exiled king. Although White, William Lloyd, the deprived bishop of Norwich, and Sancroft arranged to meet to discuss the proposal, Sancroft made it clear in advance that he was unwilling to be convinced and the rest of the nonjurors followed his lead.27 At some point after his deprivation White seems to have made an attempt to speak with Princess Anne. Wary about allowing such contact, even though ‘He has been a servant in the family, and I never heard he meddled with anything’, she sought the advice of Sarah, then countess (later duchess) of Marlborough, who presumably discouraged her.28 In 1694 White took part in the first consecrations of nonjuring bishops at his lodgings in Southgate.29 An object of suspicion even though he seems to have little connection with Jacobite plotting, in the aftermath of the discovery of the Assassination plot in the spring of 1696 he was arrested on suspicion of high treason and brought to London where he was kept in custody until the Privy Council ordered his discharge on 23 May.30 At the request of Sir John Fenwick‡, White attended him several times between his conviction and execution, and ministered to him on the scaffold.31 In 1698 he appeared before the Privy Council for canvassing support for the deprived nonjuring clergy.32
White died on 30 May 1698. In 1689 he had claimed that his personal estate including books, a coach and two horses, one of which was blind, was of little value. He had ‘not one farthing in trade, or at use, upon bond, bill, mortgage, statute or any other ways in my own name or in any other man’s name in trust for me, whereby I make the advantage of one hair of my head’.33 At the time of his death his estate amounted to over £1,700 and a farm in Kent (left to his heir-at-law, the unnamed grandson of a paternal uncle). Hedging his generous charitable bequests with complex conditions, he left over £1,200 to the poor of six parishes and gave his library to the town of Newark on condition that they build the bookshelves. He also ordered the burning of his manuscripts.34 White was buried on 4 June in St Gregory’s vault in St Paul’s. Francis Turner helped to carry his coffin to its grave but was refused permission to conduct the burial service. When he and some 30 or 40 nonjuring clergymen saw that a conforming priest was waiting at the graveside to officiate, they left rather than participate in the service.35
B.A./R.P.- 1 TNA, PROB 11/446.
- 2 Lansd. 987, f. 19; HP Commons 1690-1715, iii. 331.
- 3 CCED.
- 4 Evelyn Diary, iv. 292, 505.
- 5 G.V. Bennet ‘The Seven Bishops: a reconsideration’, Religious Motivation ed. D. Baker (Stud. in Church Hist. xv), 274; Bodl. Tanner 31, f. 150.
- 6 Tanner 31, f. 277.
- 7 Tanner 31, f. 150.
- 8 HP Commons 1660-1690, i. 355; Add. 29584, ff. 62, 64, 68, 70, 72-73.
- 9 Add. 72481, f. 109.
- 10 Tanner 30, f. 29; Tanner 31, ff. 265, 277, 289.
- 11 Tanner 30, f. 111.
- 12 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 260, 271; Tanner 30, f. 146.
- 13 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 345-6; iv. 9.
- 14 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 31-32.
- 15 Add. 29584, f. 68.
- 16 Tanner 28, f. 76.
- 17 CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 281; Tanner 28, ff. 219-21.
- 18 CBS, D/RA/1/46.
- 19 J. Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa, i. 432-41.
- 20 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 353-4, 378; Kingdom without a King, 71-72.
- 21 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 420-1.
- 22 Kingdom without a King, 122, 153-55.
- 23 Evelyn Diary, iv. 613-14.
- 24 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 511.
- 25 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/24.
- 26 Add. 72516, ff. 89-90.
- 27 Tanner 26, ff. 81, 87; LPL, ms 3894, f. 7, 21.
- 28 Add. 61415, ff. 81-82.
- 29 Overton, Nonjurors, 58.
- 30 TNA, PC 2/76, 391, 433; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 49.
- 31 Add. 47608, ff. 88, 90; Account of the Behaviour of Sir John Fenwick at his Execution (1697).
- 32 Overton, 58.
- 33 Chatsworth, Halifax Coll. B.36.
- 34 PROB 4/21482; PROB 5/4114-4115.
- 35 Evelyn Diary, v. 289; LPL, ms 930, no. 24.