WILLIAMS, John (c. 1636-1709)

John Williams, a native of Northamptonshire of probably humble parentage, left few details of his personal life, a problem exacerbated by the absence of a will. An ‘ardent advocate’ of religious comprehension, Williams’ clerical livings were all held in London where he was associated with the circle of clergymen identified by G.V. Bennett as clients of Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham. Eighteenth Century Oxford, 26. Despite his unequivocal Whig affiliations and activity as a parliamentary workhorse after he had been elevated to the episcopate, Williams remains an enigmatic figure whose political career has been overlooked both by his contemporaries and more recent historians.

Williams was an energetic controversialist who was equally vehement towards both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. In the wake of the Popish Plot, he published at least twice against Catholic apologetics, addressing what he perceived as the political subversion in counter-reformation activism. J. Williams, History of the Gunpowder-Treason (1678); Christianity Abused by the Church of Rome (1679). In a letter of 20 Mar. 1681, he criticized Charles II’s abrupt dissolution of the Exclusion Parliament, maintaining that it did little ‘but exasperate matters, and puts the bellows into the hands of all discontents to blow up and inflame our differences’. Add. 45511, f. 7. It has been claimed that Williams favoured the exclusion bill yet during the Tory reaction he was made a prebendary of St Paul’s. If his Anglican credentials were without doubt, his loyalty towards James II was more suspect. On 26 July 1685 he preached an equivocal thanksgiving sermon for the defeat of the rebellion of James Scott, duke of Monmouth. Williams later published the sermon with a dedication to Henry Compton, bishop of London, presenting it as an attempt to defuse criticism that he had preached only a ‘general discourse … not to the purpose of the day and occasion’. J. Williams, Sermon Preached July 26, 1685, being the Day of Publick Thanksgiving (1685), dedication. As James II’s religious policies evolved, Williams became a leading member of the campaign orchestrated by Thomas Tenison, the future archbishop of Canterbury to publish anti-Catholic apologetics, J. Williams, Papist Represented, and not Misrepresented (1687); Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome (1687); Protestant’s Answer to The Catholick Letter to the Seeker (1688); Pulpit-Popery, True Popery (1688); Carpenter, Tenison, 49, 67. and was listed as such by Gilbert Burnet, the future bishop of Salisbury. Burnet (1724), i. 674. Whether he actively opposed the Declaration of Indulgence is unclear, but his polemics and location in London suggest that he was an Anglican activist in the campaign to resist the king’s drift towards religious toleration.

In 1689 Williams was one of two men recommended to Lady Russell as a candidate for the rectory of Covent Garden by John Tillotson, later archbishop of Canterbury. Tillotson described him as ‘one of the best men I know, and most unwearied in doing good, and his preaching very weighty and judicious’. He was, however, less suited for the rectory than his rival, the ‘truly pious, and of a winning conversation’ Mr Freeman, who had the added advantage of being remembered fondly by the king. T. Birch, Life of … Tillotson (1753), 228. Williams was awarded his Cambridge doctorate after recommendations from both Nottingham and Tillotson to Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, the university’s chancellor. CSP Dom. 1689-90, pp. 280-1. In September 1689 it was rumoured that Williams was to become canon residentiary of St Paul’s. Wood, Life, iii. 310, 312. On 4 September 1689 he was appointed ecclesiastical commissioner to review the liturgy and to consider the comprehension proposals sponsored by Nottingham. TNA, SP 44/150 ff. 25-27. As secretary to the commission, he left a diary of its proceedings, recording the challenge by Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester, to its legality and terms of reference. LPL, ms 1774, ff. 7-8. After the second meeting of the commission, Williams dined with his London clerical colleagues, Compton, Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, Simon Patrick, bishop of Chichester, Robert Grove, who would succeed Patrick at Chichester, and Tenison, the future archbishop. They constituted an informal subcommittee to co-ordinate their ideas before the next meeting. Autobiography of Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely (1839), 149-51. He recorded that liturgical concessions to the Presbyterians were rejected in Convocation only because a voting bloc in the lower house was being managed by ‘a faction’ in the establishment who were resistant to change. Add. 45511, f. 39.

On 1 Apr. 1690 Williams observed that the new Parliament was ‘so much of the mind of the old’. Despite suffering bereavement following the loss of his wife in late February from ‘a dead-palsy’, Williams continued to publish with undiminished zeal, condemning nonjurors as guilty of schism. Add. 45511, f. 38; J. Williams, Vindication of a Discourse Concerning the Unreasonableness of a New Separation on Account of the Oaths (1691). Whiggish in his political leanings and connections, he was saddened by the death during the siege of Limerick of Adam Loftus, Viscount Lisburne [I], the father-in-law of Thomas Wharton, the future 5th Baron Wharton. Add. 45511, f. 64. A stalwart defender of the Church against the now-tolerated dissenting congregations, he published an attack in 1694 against the extremely unorthodox Muggletonian sect. J. Williams, True Representation of … the Sect Commonly Known by the Name of Muggletonians (1694). In the same year, he defended Tillotson from criticism by nonjurors (in particular Thomas Ken, the deprived bishop of Bath and Wells) of pastoral neglect following the archbishop’s funeral sermon for Queen Mary. J. Williams, Defence of the Archbishop’s Sermon on the Death of her Late Majesty (1695).

Williams’ polemics were directed against enemies of the post-revolutionary ecclesiastical and political establishment, but promotion had to wait until nearly two years after the queen’s death. On 11 Dec. 1695 he preached the fast sermon before the Commons, and it was rumoured that he would be elevated to Lincoln. J. Williams, Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons on Wednesday the 11th of December, 1695, being a Solemn Day of Fasting and Humiliation (1695); Wood, Life and Times, iii. 476. It was not until 13 Oct. 1696 that he was recommended by Tenison to the see of Chichester. CSP Dom. 1696, p. 415. He was consecrated two months later, on 13 December. A flustered Williams took his seat in the House the day after his consecration, taking the oaths at the end of the sitting. Williams’ determination to take his seat at the earliest possible opportunity revealed the punctilious approach to parliamentary duty he showed throughout his career in the House. He attended each of the 14 sessions held during his episcopate; 13 of these he attended for more than half of the sittings, nine for more than 60 per cent, and four for more than 70 per cent. He was also in attendance on the first day of 11 sessions. There is no surviving evidence of his making speeches in the House or in chairing select committees, but he did manage conferences with the Commons.

Williams attended his first parliamentary session for 57 per cent of sittings and was named to 23 select committees. On 23 Dec. 1696, nine days after taking his seat, he voted, as the court desired, for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick^‡. Throughout the early part of 1697 he continued to preach in London, giving the 30 Jan. martyrdom sermon before the king at Whitehall and the Easter Monday sermon before the mayor and aldermen of London. J. Williams, Sermon Preach’d before the King at Whitehall, on January 30 1696 (1697); J. Williams, A Sermon upon the Resurrection (1697).

Williams made use of his episcopal authority to advance Whig politics and churchmanship. One of his first public acts as bishop was to publish a declaration attacking the ‘scandalous proceedings’ of the nonjuring clergy who absolved Sir John Freind^‡ before his execution. J. Williams, Declaration of the Sense of the Archbishops and Bishops now in and about London, upon the Occasion of their Attendance in Parliament (1696). Yet there is little surviving evidence of his involvement in parliamentary elections in his diocese. It is possible that direct involvement would have been superfluous since elections at Chichester and in west Sussex were dominated by the 6th duke of Somerset until at least the Tory victory of 1701; what episcopal influence there was in the county may have remained with Simon Patrick’s candidate, Robert Orme^‡. HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 594, 603.

On 3 Dec. 1697 Williams was present for the first day of the new session. He attended some 86 per cent of sittings, his most regular attendance of any session. He was named to 54 select committees, of which 37 were on private bills. Four days before the session opened, Williams received the proxy of Humphrey Humphreys, bishop of Bangor (vacated at the end of the session). The session also saw the introduction, on 21 Jan. 1698, of Williams’ own estate bill, in which he sought permission to make leases of certain houses and grounds belonging to the bishopric in Chancery Lane. PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/497/1201; HL/PO/RO/1/41/5; HL/PO/RO/1/41/6. Following committal of the bill on 4 Feb. and amendments in committee the bill was reported on 21 Feb. by Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford. PA, HL/PO/RO/1/41/6; PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/497/1201, annexed item d. It was given its third reading on 25 Feb. and sent to the Commons. PA, HL/PO/RO/1/41/2; CJ, xii. 139. The bill was returned to the Lords on 26 Mar. and received the royal assent on 2 April.

Meanwhile, on 15 Mar. 1698, Williams had voted to commit the bill to punish Tory goldsmith Charles Duncombe^‡. On 25 May 1698 he managed the conference on the suppression of blasphemy and profaneness and on 20 June 1698 the conference on the Alverstoke waterworks bill involving Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester. Williams attended the last day of the session on 5 July and on 18 July examined the Journal. During the session he was described by Arthur Charlett, master of University College, Oxford, as someone of ‘conversation very instructive and beneficial, but all such persons are best company alone, few being so open in mixed company’. Bodl. Tanner 22, f. 84. The following session again confirmed Williams’ diligence in the Lords. He was present for the first day of business on 6 Dec. 1698 and attended nearly 75 per cent of sittings. He was named to 28 committees including eight on public bills. On 28 Mar. 1699, present for prayers, he joined his fellow bishops (all of whom offered a protestation to be absent) who withdrew before the trial of Edward Rich, 6th earl of Warwick, in Westminster Hall. Attending until the penultimate day end of session, he returned to his diocese at the end of May. Ibid. 21, f. 83.

He was back in Westminster in time for the start of the November 1699 session; attending nearly 66 per cent of sittings, he was named to 12 select committees. On 2 Feb. 1700, he sat as one of the delegates in the appeal against deprivation brought by Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids. Bodl. Rawl. B 380, f. 211; Bodl. Ballard 23 f. 98. He arrived for the session that began in February 1701 on the fourth day of business. He attended the session for just over 72 per cent of sittings, and was named to 11 select committees, including the committees on vexatious suits and on the regulation of the King’s Bench and fleet prisons. On 9 May he was named to the committee on the manner of the Commons’ delivery of articles of impeachment after the Lords received the articles sent up against Edward Russell, earl of Orford. On 22 Apr. Williams again examined the Journal. At the start of June he informed a colleague of his intention to remain in London until the end of the session. Add. 4274, f. 119. His presence in the House was vital to bolster the Whig vote and to counter attempts to impeach both Orford and John Somers, Baron Somers. Williams voted for Somers’ acquittal on 17 June and for Orford’s acquittal on the 23rd. During the same month, he was one of the five bishops who sat alongside Tenison when the archbishop read his suspension of Edward Jones, bishop of St Asaph. Bodl. Rawl. B 380, f. 211. Williams attended the House until the last sitting on 24 June. He presumably returned to Chichester for the summer months, but on 30 Oct. he was one of the 16 lords present (including Stamford) to hear the formal prorogation; Williams and Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough, were the only bishops present in the House on that day.

He again attended on 30 Dec. 1701 for the first day of the new session and was named to the sessional committees. He attended this session for 56 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 select committees (including legislation for land exchange between the queen and the Church in Windsor, and to preserve the rights of the crown and of the House of Lords). On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address to the king protesting the acknowledgement by the French king of the Pretender’s claim to the English throne. Six days later he was ordered to preach on the 30th (and was thanked formally on 4 Feb.). On 1 Feb. a report about the Savoy hospital composed by Williams, Tenison, five fellow bishops and Stamford (with whom Williams’ name was frequently linked in a parliamentary context), was read at the cabinet. CSP Dom. 1700-2, p. 496-8. With the death of William III on 8 Mar., he was present in the Lords to help manage the conference on the accession of Queen Anne. He examined the Journal on 20 May, and attended until the last day of the session on the 25th.

Unusually, he arrived two weeks after the start of business for Anne’s first Parliament. Nevertheless, he attended almost 66 per cent of sittings. On 1 Dec. 1702 Williams presented a petition to the Lords for a further estate bill, to extend the time under which he could make leases under his 1698 Act. PA, HL/PO/JO/10/6/38/1845. It was given its first reading the following day and was committed on 3 Dec. On the same day, Williams voted in favour of Somers’ amendment to the occasional conformity bill, which was designed to restrict its scope to those covered only by the Test Act. On 17 Dec. 1702, with the Commons demanding a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill, the House again divided on an adjournment. On the next vote, Williams joined the mainly Tory minority (including Sharp, Compton, Nathaniel Crew, bishop of Durham, Mews, Sprat, and Jonathan Trelawny, bishop of Exeter) to vote for the delay, but the motion was defeated. On 18 Dec. William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle sat on the committee on Williams’ estate bill. Nicolson, London Diaries, 146, 147. The bill was reported from committee by John Hough, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, agreed and engrossed, and passed the Lords the following month.

At the start of 1703 Nottingham forecast that Williams would oppose the bill to prevent occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. 1703 Williams duly voted to adhere to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause in the bill. Three days later, he protested against the resolution against the clauses relating to grants in the bill concerning Prince George, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland. The queen’s birthday on 6 Feb. 1703 saw Williams with the assembled court at St James, but not before he and John Moore, bishop of Norwich, had taught Nicolson and Humphreys how to remove stains or ink from books and to strengthen the leaves afterwards. Ibid. 181-2, 198. He continued to attend the House doggedly, and was present on the last day of the session (27 Feb.) to hear his estate bill given the royal assent.

Williams was again in his seat in the House on the first day of business of the November 1703 session and attended just over 75 per cent of sittings. He was named to the committees for the preparation of addresses to the queen on 18 Dec. 1703 and 22 Mar. 1704, and legislation to prevent irregularities in hearing causes at the bar. On both 1 Nov. and 26 Nov. 1703, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, had forecast that Williams would oppose the renewed attempt to pass legislation against occasional conformity. On 14 Dec., with Tenison and 12 other bishops, Williams voted against the bill. Following an order of the House on 3 Mar. 1704, he preached in the Abbey on the anniversary of Anne’s accession on the ‘psalm of praise’ and was thanked the following day by the House. J. Williams, Sermon Preach’d in the Abby Church at Westminster, on Wednesday the 8th day of March, 1703/4 (1704). He was in attendance when the House rose on 3 Apr. and again on the first day of the autumn session, attending 62 per cent of sittings. On 6 Nov. he received the proxy of James Gardiner, bishop of Lincoln, and, five days later, the proxy of John Hall, bishop of Bristol (both vacated at the end of the session). He was nominated to the committees appointed to draw up addresses to the queen to congratulate her on the military successes of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough (24 Oct.), and on the state of the nation with regard to Scotland (16 December). That which provoked the most activity from Williams was his appointment on 10 Oct. to the committee on the methods of keeping records in government offices. The committee met on 11 Nov., choosing Charles Montagu, Baron Halifax, as chairman, and entrusting Williams and Nicolson with the task of visiting the records at the Tower of London. On 13 and 17 Nov. Williams and Nicolson inspected progress by the recently appointed clerks in classifying and calendaring the records. The 17th proved a full day; the two men arrived at the Tower by 9am, were back in the House by 1pm, and afterwards had a late dinner. On 26 Dec. both men again attended the St Stephen’s dinner. Nicolson, London Diaries, 224, 225, 228, 260. On 27 Feb. 1705 Williams was named to the committee to consider heads for a conference with the Commons concerning Ashby v. White, a case arising from the Aylesbury election. He attended when the House rose on 14 March. The following day he joined Burnet, Hough, Cumberland and Moore in a complaint to the Tory agitators in the lower house of Convocation, bidding them ‘govern themselves by the constitution as it is, and not as they would desire it might be.’ LPL, ms 934, f. 37. His signature in the Journal on four occasions between 19 and 30 Mar. attests to his activity as a member of the Journals committee.

Williams was again in the House on the first day of business of the 1705-6 session. He attended nearly 66 per cent of sittings, was named to the sessional committees and, on 27 Oct. 1705, to the committee composing an address of thanks to the queen. He continued with the London social and political round, dining on 10 Nov. at Lambeth with Nicolson, Sir Isaac Newton^‡ and William King, archbishop of Dublin. Nicolson, London Diaries, 300-1. On the evening of 4 Dec., Williams, William Wake, recently appointed bishop of Lincoln, Hough and ‘Dr Gee’ (presumably the anti-Catholic controversialist Edward Gee) met to discuss a strategy to prevent the growth of Catholicism. LPL, ms 1770, f. 8. Two days later he was present in the House for the ‘Church in danger’ debate, but there is no evidence as to his participation in the debates.

Williams again dined at Lambeth on 19 Jan. 1706 with Nicolson, Somers and Halifax where discussion was of Union with Scotland. Nicolson, London Diaries, 357. On 28 Jan. (according to Nicolson’s diary), Williams and Nicolson were the only bishops present in the chamber and both voted against the motion for an adjournment put forward by Wharton, after the House voted against following an order of the previous day that they go into a grand committee on a proposal to allow the reimportation of French wines currently at Copenhagen. Ibid. 365. On the 13th he reported from the committee on William Gomeldon’s estate bill, recommending the bill without amendment. The following day, 14 Mar., was the last day Williams attended that session, uncharacteristically missing the last two months of business. It is unclear whether he was resident in London or in Chichester at this time. Throughout the earlier part of the session, however, he had continued to fulfil his obligations on ecclesiastical bodies including the commission for Queen Anne’s bounty (2 Nov. 1705) and the committee in Whitehall with Tenison, Cumberland, Nicolson and John Evans, bishop of Bangor, on pension arrears to be paid out of tenths (11 Feb. 1706). Ibid. 297, 374.

By the start of the following session on 3 Dec. 1706, Williams was back at Westminster. He attended 51 per cent of sittings. He attended for six days in December 1706 and it is probable that during that month he returned to Chichester; the episcopal register records that he conducted an Advent ordination ceremony, admitting four deacons and 17 priests to ordination, only five of which were for his own diocese. EHR, xlvii. 423. By 23 Dec. he was again in London at the Church committee on the payment of tenths. This body resumed its deliberations in Whitehall on 29 Jan. 1707; on the same day Williams was present in the House. Nicolson, London Diaries, 404, 413. He attended throughout the spring, was present on the last day of the session on 8 Apr. 1707, and again on 14 Apr. for the first day of the next session. He attended six days out of the ten day session.

Williams attended the following session in October 1707 less regularly – nearly 43 per cent of the time – but still arrived on the first day and was named to the sessional committees. On 26 Dec. he attended the traditional Lambeth dinner. LPL, ms 1770, f. 54v. Williams, who had been categorized as an unequivocal Whig in a published list of party affiliation the following May, continued his routine pattern of parliamentary activity: he attended the autumn 1708 sessions for nearly 54 per cent of sittings. On 21 Jan. 1709 he took part in the division on the voting rights of Scots peers with British titles. Williams’ voting intentions are unclear from the surviving division list although it suggests that he voted with the non-contents (opposing the proposition that Scots peers with British peerages could vote in the election for representative peers) who also included Somers, Moore, Wake and Tenison.

At the start of February 1709 Williams again petitioned the House to bring in a private bill to clarify the content of his previous estate bill and to give him more time to perform its requirements. On 14 Feb., according to the Journal, he was named to the select committee on his own bill, but it is unclear whether he attended it. On 15 Mar. the House gave a second reading to the general naturalization bill. In a division of a committee of the whole on an amendment to the bill (whether to retain the words ‘some protestant Reformed Congregation’ rather than to insist on the insertion of ‘parochial church’), the episcopal bench split, according to Nicolson, by ten votes to seven. Nicolson noted that Williams had been amongst the Whig ‘not-contents’ but that his vote had been given by mistake.

On 22 Mar. 1709 Williams voted with the majority for the motion in a committee of the whole on the treason bill, that those accused of treason should be given a list of witnesses five days before trial, but the clause was thrown out on a second vote. Three days later, in a committee of the whole on the same bill Williams voted to adjourn consideration on the validity of Scottish marriage settlements, until the following day in opposition to a cross-party group that included Sunderland, Trelawny, Sprat, Hough and Evans. Nicolson, London Diaries, 488-9.

On 7 Apr. 1709 his most recent estate bill (again extending the time for him to make leases of his houses in Chancery Lane) was returned from the Commons without amendment and was given the royal assent on the last day of the session, 21 April. On 8 Apr. he wrote to Wake from his son’s lodgings at Gray’s Inn, concerning the appointment of a vice principal at Brasenose College, Oxford, adding ‘I am not in a condition at present to wait on you.’ Christ Church, Lib. Oxf. Wake mss 4, f. 355. He attended the House for the final time on 19 April. Two days later Nicolson reported that Williams was dying, and on 24 Apr. he died at his lodgings in Gray’s Inn of ‘a mortification in his foot’. Ibid. 17, ff. 205, 207; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 14, f. 370. Despite having a surviving son, administration of the bishop’s estate was granted to his unmarried sister. Williams had already made contributions to Chichester Cathedral Library during his lifetime. Chichester Cathedral ed. M. Hobbs, 175, 178. Williams was buried in his former City church of St Mildred Poultry. Nicolson, London Diaries, 503. Much political jockeying surrounded the appointment of his successor, but by August 1709 Thomas Manningham, then dean of Windsor, was confidently and accurately predicted to be his successor. Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 46, f. 79.