Publisher's Synopsis
Gillian Ford used The Diary of Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, his last will and testament, and many other documents to work out his family connections. Using genealogy and his published sermons, Ford reveals new information about who Cartwright was and what he believed. The results demonstrate the vital role of genealogy in interpreting history. Through Gillian's meticulous search, Cartwright takes shape as a flesh and blood individual among his family and friends. Age-old skirmishes between Protestants and Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans, church and state, and king and Parliament are revisited. Of special interest to scholars are the links throughout Cartwright's life to Archbishop Laud and his high church values, revealed in Cartwright's choices about ordination, career and marriage. Importantly, Cartwright is shown to be unrelated to the famous Thomas Cartwright, the Puritan, who was born a century earlier. He is not born to Presbyterian parents; his father was an Anglican. However, on his mother's side, in her early lifetime, there were strong Catholic influences. This book lays the necessary groundwork to accurately reinterpret Bishop Thomas Cartwright. It shows that his support of King James II before and during the Glorious Revolution is comprehensible in the light of his extreme belief in the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. Like other prominent gentry, Cartwright was Anglican, but Jacobite-they believed they should support the king as under God despite his religion. Because it's almost always the victors who write history, the Jacobites have been less well studied. As well, this book is of interest to genealogists and family historians because of Cartwright's connections to gentry families. Those interested in 16th- and 17th-century gentry genealogy will find many previously overlooked connections. Unlocking The Diary of Thomas Cartwright enabled the decoding of The Diary of John Manningham as well. Though written 85 years earlier, Manningham's Diary reveals connections to both sides of Cartwright's family. Ford's conclusions will add and amend current knowledge about Manningham and greatly interest Shakespearean scholars. There is also new information here about the Calvinist Anne Vaughan Locke and her Catholic sister Jane Vaughan Wiseman. These women sat at each end of the Protestant-Catholic spectrum within the same family in Tudor times. Prior to this, Stephen Vaughan's family was thought to be evangelical, but historians have overlooked the influence of Father John Gwynneth, sixteenth-century Tudor musician, Catholic priest, and chaplain to Henry VIII. His niece and ward, Jane Wiseman, younger daughter of Stephen Vaughan, took over the work begun by Gwynneth in order to fight the Protestant Reformation in Elizabethan England. She sent her four daughters to France to train as nuns. One became the Abbess of Sion and the other a Prioress. Her four sons were in sequence a recusant, a Catholic warrior and two priests. The story shows two sisters, possessing remarkable religious devotion, who were on opposite sides of religious and political intrigue in Elizabeth's Court. Henry Lok, nephew of Jane Wiseman is revealed as close to the Cecils, and sources consider that he betrayed his Aunt Jane as a recusant in order to get her income. The Rev. John Mason is revealed as a cousin of Thomas Cartwright. He is noted for his Christian devotion and sweetness, his contribution to early English hymnology and his departure into millennial speculation in 1694. Here Ford expands what is known about the family of Mason, because of his connection with Cartwright. This book will be a store of information to many people for many different reasons. It shows how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century individuals can be set in their family frame, thus providing a great deal of helpful information about the individual's contribution to society and history.
