WOOD, Thomas (1607-92)

The eccentric Thomas Wood attracted so much negative attention from contemporaries that his political career has been obscured in a mire of invective. Condemned as ‘filthy natured’, ‘slippery’ and ‘a person of no merit’, Wood’s behaviour has nevertheless presented paradoxes to later historians: the ‘schemer and a miser’ who was a great philanthropist, the negligent pastor who was also a hero of Hackney loathe to desert his native parish for his bishopric. Bodl. Tanner 131, f. 115; Ath. Ox. iv. 881; Noble, 1; Hackney Hist. vii. 3.

Wood was the third of four sons of Thomas Wood, a household official to James I. His older brother was the ‘odd’ Sir Henry Wood^‡, treasurer to Queen Henrietta Maria, while his sister-in-law Mary was maid of honour to the queen. Thomas himself enjoyed an illustrious ecclesiastical heritage through his mother, a descendent of Thomas Cranmer^†, archbishop of Canterbury. Evelyn Diary, iii. 22, 49; Noble, 9. Thoroughly integrated into court circles, the family was also at the heart of both the mercantile community in London and provincial society.

Blessed with heritage and connections, Wood had been appointed chaplain to Charles I at the age of only 28. Ath. Ox. iv. 881. He spent much of the civil wars and Interregnum in Europe where he formed a close relationship with Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine (later duchess of Cleveland). The express nature of their liaison is unclear, but she came to play a significant role in his career. Hackney Hist. vii. 5. It is clear that Wood returned to England with expectations of restitution and even of rapid advancement. On 26 May 1660, the day after Charles II’s arrival in England, he petitioned to be reinstated to his rectory of Whickham-on-Tyne on the grounds that he had been ousted by the Long Parliament merely for being a chaplain to Charles I. The House ordered his reinstatement to his former living on 18 June. In that same month he was made a prebend in the Durham chapter. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 52, 85. In January 1664 he was further appointed dean of Lichfield, possibly through the influence of his brother, now treasurer and receiver general to the queen mother, although other evidence (almost certainly biased) suggests that Wood paid the king £100 for the position. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 461; CSP Dom. Addenda 1660-5, p. 96; Wood, Life, ii. 2; CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 551; Noble, 5.

Wood and John Hacket, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, were enemies from the outset. It became clear that Wood had little intention of living in the diocese or fulfilling his duties. As Hacket noted with sarcasm to Gilbert Sheldon, of Canterbury, in April 1666, he had had no dean at Lichfield for the past six months, but he was aware of a certain Dr. Wood who lodged in Axe Yard near Lambeth, from whom he had not heard since the previous October. Tanner 45, ff. 26, 71, 181, 137, Tanner 131, f. 14. Wood much preferred to live in Hackney, a house later known as Clapton House which belonged to his brother, or in his prebendal house in Durham. VCH Mdx. x, 85-86. In November 1666 he married the sister of Sir James Clavering^‡, of Axwell, co. Durham. Her relative youth – Wood had baptized her himself in 1636 – subjected the couple to much prurient comment; it was said that he had been courting her for the entire 30 years of her life. Tanner 45, ff. 118, 137, 153, 230; Noble, 5. Wood also disregarded and dismissed Hacket’s fundraising for the rebuilding of the cathedral and may even have actively sought to undermine it. Tanner 45, ff. 26, 230, 295, Tanner 44, f. 228. The absent Wood’s worsening relations with his bishop resulted in his excommunication by Hacket at the end of 1667. The action caused a scene in the cathedral: when sentence was pronounced, Wood insisted that divine service was completed in his presence, contrary to Church canons which proscribed worship in the presence of an excommunicate. LPL, AA/V/H/85/43; Pepys Diary, ix. 45. His provocation led to a suit in the arches where it seems that Wood could rely on influential friends, or on Hacket’s detractors, to aid his cause. The dean of arches, without first alerting Hacket, sent word of Wood’s absolution to a member of the chapter. It was read during a service of worship on 26 Jan. 1668 ‘to the joy and laughter of all Nonconformists, to see a bishop so much affronted before his face’. Tanner 45, ff. 255, 265, 269, 278.

Wood’s close relations with Nonconformists and the Puritan wing of the Church only worsened his relations with Hacket after this abortive attempt at excommunication. During Wood’s periodic residences in Lichfield, he blatantly kept company with Nonconformists, informing his bishop (in Hacket’s words) that ‘he did so, and he would do so’. Among his close allies in the diocese were the Presbyterian Member for Tamworth, John Swinfen^‡, who opposed any renewal of the Conventicle Act, and Robert Beake^‡, an alderman who led an Independent chapel, and was later an Exclusionist. Tanner 44, ff. 69, 121, 140, 196; Tanner 131, ff. 24, 26, 32, 34; HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 611, iii. 520. In the summer of 1669 Wood visited Sheldon at Lambeth to defend his behaviour, but Hacket begged the archbishop to be firm since Wood ‘must be cast overboard in all justice’. Tanner 44, f. 149, Tanner 131, f. 36. By this time in 1669, Hacket’s letters to Sheldon were increasingly peppered with invective against his dean, and he sought to sum him up in one letter: ‘I never met in one man with such an ingredient of maliciousness, pride, rudeness, covetousness and ignorance. I must endure him as an affliction sent by God to exercise my meekness and patience’. A prebendary of the cathedral similarly described Wood as ‘the strangest man that ever I have had anything to do with’. Wood further invited ridicule and contempt by his wilful ignorance of the duties and abilities incumbent on a cathedral dean. Hacket wrote to Sheldon in some exasperation that the ‘ridiculousness’ of Wood’s ‘lack-Latin’: ‘First he will keep no chapter, nor suffer any to be called, among the reasons, because the residentaries bring forth the statutes to him in Latin, and he understands not a line ... he told Mr. Archbold he had not read a book these two years. ... Never came to public prayers, nor his wife ... which makes the puritans mightily resort to him, whose patron he is upon all occasions’. Tanner 44, ff. 22, 66, 108, 121, 127, Tanner 45, ff. 265, 269, 278, 288, Tanner 131, ff. 18, 20, 22, 32, 45.

Despite Wood’s turbulent history with the Lichfield chapter, he was perceived as the likely successor to Hacket after the bishop’s death on 28 Oct. 1670. Tanner 131, f. 45, Tanner 44, f. 228; HMC Hastings, ii. 323; CSP Dom. Addenda 1660-70, p. 514. Henry Wharton^‡ later claimed that Wood gained elevation through the influence of the duchess of Cleveland (as Lady Castlemaine had become) ‘obliging her by permitting his niece ... to whom he was guardian, to marry the duke of Southampton’. Lansd. 987, f. 102. Wood’s niece was the seven-year-old Mary Wood, only daughter and sole heir to the wealthy Sir Henry Wood; Charles Fitzroy, later duke of Southampton, was the eldest son, at nine years old, of the king and the duchess. The settlement secured £2,000 from the king for Fitzroy and specified that should he die before the marriage, Mary Wood would marry his younger brother George Fitzroy, who later became duke of Northumberland. Add. 17019, f. 69. The coincidence of Wood’s elevation and the marriage negotiations is certainly suggestive, but Wood’s existing connections with the establishment and the ecclesiastical policy of the ‘Cabal’ made Wood ideally placed for the vacant bishopric despite a number of ‘potent’ competitors. Durham UL (Palace Green), John Cosin letter book 5b, no. 106. By 9 May 1671 Wood had been elected bishop and granted the commendam of his Durham prebend, worth £300 a year, for life. Add. 36916, f. 222; CSP Dom. 1671, p. 273; CSP Dom. 1672, pp. 279-80. Despite clear opposition to Wood’s elevation among the higher clergy and almost certainly from Sheldon himself, there was also a determination at the highest levels to secure Wood’s appointment, and to use the royal prerogative to circumvent Lambeth and secure a commendam. CSP Dom. 1671, p. 285. Wood’s elevation was temporarily halted by the death on 15 May of his brother Sir Henry, the unpopular ‘mad dog’ of the royal household whose entailed estate was left in the hands of Thomas Wood and their sister Dame Mary Chester. Ibid. 279; PROB 11/336; HP Commons, 1660-90, iii. 755. There seems to have been some objection to Wood’s administration of the estate. On 9 June 1671 he was formally elected bishop. Wood, almost certainly aware of impending difficulties, was anxious for the royal assent to be rushed through; but the following day the king put a stop to the election until further notice. CSP Dom. 1671, pp. 267, 315, 318, 319. Wood asked the secretary of state Henry Bennet, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, to use his influence but with the royal assent still undeclared, Wood sought out the duchess of Cleveland who declared herself ‘satisfied’ with Wood’s conduct over his brother’s estate and wrote immediately to Arlington instructing his immediate intervention. With such powerful patrons behind him the disagreement was resolved and on 6 July 1671 Wood duly did homage at Berkeley House where the king was at dinner. Ibid. 329, 360, 363, 368.

As a diocesan administrator, Wood found Hacket an impossible act to follow. His episcopate was no less eventful than his time as dean and he continued to attract hostility. He still had close connections at court and at the death of John Cosin, of Durham, on 15 Jan. 1672, speculation was rife that he would be translated to that see where he had already established a strong interest. One senior clergyman in that diocese, Dr. Daniel Brevint, wrote to Sheldon in a panic asking him to ‘avert from our dwellings the bishop of Lichfield’. Durham UL (Palace Green), John Cosin letter book 5b, nos 159, 165; CSP Dom. 1671-2, p. 108. Yet Wood often dined with George Morley, of Winchester whose 1674 scheme to soften the rigours of the Act of Uniformity he supported. Tanner 43, f. 29, Tanner 44, f. 249. Continuing his quarrel with John Hacket beyond the grave, Wood instigated a dilapidations suit against Hacket’s son, Sir Andrew Hacket^‡, claiming that his predecessor’s enthusiastic building work on the cathedral had prejudiced the repair of other episcopal residences. Hacket for his part counter-sued Wood for the bishop’s own neglect of episcopal property, prompting Wood to insist on his parliamentary privilege. The dispute rumbled for years on as Wood continued to try to obstruct it through his privilege. Court of Arches ed. J. Houston, 239; CSP Dom. 1672, pp. 279-80; Tanner 131, ff. 20, 84, 134, 139-143, Tanner 36, f. 76.

On 4 Feb. 1673, the first day of the parliamentary session that Wood could have attended as the new bishop of Lichfield, he failed to take his seat. Nine days later, no excuse was offered at a call of the House. On 11 Mar. 1673 Wood eventually registered his proxy with Peter Gunning, of Chichester, which Gunning held to the end of the session. Despite this lacklustre beginning to his parliamentary career, Wood was anxious to stand on his privilege of Parliament as a ‘matter of form’ in a tithes suit brought by Sir Edward Bagot^‡. Tanner 131, f. 49. By March 1673 Wood was still elusive, having been at Little Chelsea for the previous six weeks ‘for the benefit of the air’, while his wife was lodging in the Haymarket. Sheldon in early June wrote to Wood of ‘the reiterated and continued complaints I receive of your absence from your diocese and the neglect of the charge and care you have undertaken’ and ordered Wood’s immediate amendment of his behaviour. Tanner 42, f. 13, Tanner 43, f. 187, Tanner 131, f. 53. The new bishop, as usual, ignored him.

Wood did not attend any of the sittings of the brief parliamentary session from 27 Oct. 1673. Only on 7 Jan. 1674 did he finally take his seat in the House to begin a parliamentary career that mirrored his erratic and elusive behaviour as a diocesan. Of the 17 sessions convened during his 21 years as bishop of Lichfield, he attended only six, mostly in the late 1670s. Significantly, throughout the six week session in early 1674, when religious legislation to aid Nonconformists and to punish papists was again before the House, he attended over three-quarters (79 per cent) of the sittings. He appears to have been interested in the petition against papists and its answer, for the clerk of the Parliaments made a note for 14 Jan. 1674 that the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and others, were to receive copies of these papers. PH, xxxii. 116. On 13 Feb. 1674 Wood was present in the House for the first reading of the bill introduced by Morley of Winchester to compose differences in religion. On 21 Feb. Morley’s motion for the repeal of two clauses in the Act of Uniformity, relating to assent and consent to the liturgy and the renunciation of the covenant, was carried by almost 20 votes with the backing of Wood, Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury, John Pearson, bishop of Chester, and John Dolben, bishop of Rochester. Tanner 44, f. 249. Wood remained until the penultimate day of the session, but the bill he supported was lost with the prorogation on 24 Feb. 1674.

On 19 Dec. 1674, now in temporary residence at Chicheley, Buckinghamshire, where his kinsmen the Chesters were based, Wood asked Sheldon to dispense with his attendance in Lambeth until after Christmas. He declined to address the growing charges against him and merely suggested to his archbishop that he listen to no further accusations about his behaviour. Ibid. 42, f. 135. In January 1675 he was not invited to join the group of bishops advising Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), on the measures to be taken against Nonconformists and Catholics. CSP Dom. 1673-5, pp. 548-550. On 13 Apr. 1675 Wood arrived in the House on the first day of the new session, attended just under half of the sittings (48 per cent) and remained until 7 June, two days before the prorogation. The main business before Parliament was Danby’s non-resisting test, but Wood was not present when the House went into committee on the measure against disaffected persons, and was not named to a single committee during the entire session. His lack of reliability, together with his clear sympathies for Nonconformists, almost certainly made him an unwelcome member of Danby’s ‘Church’ party. On 7 Oct. 1675 his proxy was registered with James Fleetwood, bishop of Worcester, for the session scheduled to commence a week later. The proxy was cancelled on 10 Nov. when Wood arrived in the House, but he attended for only a further nine days and was named to only two select committees on legislation. Present in the House on 20 Nov., he voted with his fellow bishops against the address calling for a dissolution. The subsequent lengthy prorogation relieved Wood of the obligation to attend Parliament, and he went to his diocese where his contrariness had now led him into a patronage dispute with Dame Priscilla Littleton, the widow of the chancellor of Lichfield, Sir Walter Littleton. The king insisted that Wood abide by an earlier agreement made between Littleton and Hacket and also directed Wood to abide by an agreement for the augmentation of poor livings. Ibid. 1676-7, p. 13; CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 65.

On 15 Feb. 1677 Wood attended the start of the new parliamentary session. A week later, having attended only three sittings, he registered his proxy with Thomas Lamplugh, bishop of Exeter. The proxy was vacated on 11 Apr. when Wood returned to the House. He was not named to a single committee except on 12 Apr. when he was marked as present in the Journal and Seth Ward, reporting from the committee on infant baptism, moved that all bishops present in the House help to reword several clauses in the bill. With the several adjournments of this session, Wood was again frequently relieved of parliamentary attendance. He appeared on 5 Feb. 1678, a week into proceedings when the House was reconvened after an adjournment of eight months, but he was not named to a committee until 21 Mar. when he was appointed to that for the bill for burying in wool. In total he was present at just under a third of all the sittings of the frequently interrupted session of 1677-8. He was present for the first day of the following session starting 23 May 1678, at which he was present at 44 per cent of the sittings. He was also named to more committees than usual, including those on the bills: to inspect the statutes depending on a continuation of Parliament (on 25 May 1678); on the heralds’ registration of deaths (17 June); and on the creation of St Anne’s parish in London (1 July).

Wood attended neither the autumn 1678 session, nor the first Exclusion Parliament. Writing from Eccleshall Castle, an episcopal residence in the diocese, he claimed that ill health prevented his attending. Tanner 131, f. 57. His canons were still complaining of his conduct, claiming that Wood had defaulted on a promised £100 towards cathedral repairs, forcing them into costly interest payments. Ibid. f. 58. At a call of the House on 9 May 1679, he was excused attendance. He was sufficiently healthy from spring 1680 to attend two of the prorogations – on 15 Apr. and 17 May 1680 – that delayed the convening of the second Exclusion Parliament and then nine sittings in the last week of October 1680 of that Parliament, although he later told William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury that he had been in attendance for 14 days. Tanner 36, f. 84. In November 1680 his niece Mary, duchess of Southampton, died of smallpox at the age of 17. Noble, 6. As she was childless, the bishop inherited a life interest in his late brother Sir Henry’s estate under the entail set out in his will. This ignited a series of prolonged family disputes involving the young duke of Southampton and Wood’s nephew Sir Caesar Cranmer, both of whom felt they had a claim to the estate. PROB 11/336.

Wood did not attend any sittings of the Parliament held at Oxford in March 1681. With its dissolution he was again relieved of parliamentary duty for the rest of the reign of Charles II. Absent from his diocese, he attempted to exercise his episcopal duties from a distance, seeking permission from Sancroft on 21 May 1681 to ordain a Staffordshire man away from Lichfield. Tanner 131, ff. 59, 73. On 31 July 1681 Sancroft wrote to Wood of ‘the universal complaint’ of his absence and neglect of duty, warning Wood that if he neglected his ‘greatest affairs’ in this world, he could not expect any share in the next. It is clear that Wood devoted most of his energies to running his own estates and business affairs; Sancroft pointed out that Wood’s heirs were already well-provided for and that he should turn his thoughts to his episcopal successors by leaving the diocese in good repair. Wood responded that his brother’s estate at Hackney had been ‘much shaken and out of order’ and required his attention but that he would go to his diocese when the weather was cooler. Tanner 131, f. 60, Tanner 36, f. 76.

Tolerance of Wood’s wayward behaviour waned as the Tory reaction gathered pace. Those in the ecclesiastical establishment already hostile to the bishop finally had a sympathetic political environment in which to challenge him. In August 1681 he was still protesting against complaints of neglect on the grounds that the king had personally dispensed with his attendance at the Oxford Parliament and that he had commissioned one of his archdeacons to deal with diocesan business while he remained in Hackney. Tanner 36, f. 84. Yet he clearly neglected diocesan administration, including ordinations. His argument in August 1681 was that the Church was already ordaining too many priests and that he was in addition the victim of a witch-hunt by Sancroft’s advisers. However, a later visitation of the diocese revealed widespread preaching by unordained ministers because of Wood’s neglect of this episcopal duty. Tanner 36, f. 84, Tanner 131, f. 166. Promising the archbishop that he would be in Coventry by Michaelmas 1681, Wood relied on his connections at court to undermine Sancroft’s authority over him. Tanner 131, f. 62. In December 1681 he informed the archbishop that he had visited the king at Newmarket and obtained royal permission to return to his affairs at home. Brandishing his long personal history with the court, he warned that the king would not respond kindly to tales of negligence, but would recall that Wood had been a chaplain to Charles I 46 years previously and was now the most senior of the royal chaplains. The king, he maintained, would hardly indict him for being too ill to undertake his duties. Ibid. f. 70.

Yet by January 1682 Charles II himself was also losing patience with Wood. The bishop was in a ‘morose temper’ after being instructed by the king to settle his own estate on his great-nephew, the son of Sir Caesar Cranmer, ‘in consideration of a great match’ to be had by the young man with Mary Tudor, the daughter of former royal mistress Moll Davis. Wood disobeyed, and undoubtedly aware that after this he could no longer rely on favour at court, he attempted at this point to assure Sancroft that he was neither disobedient nor rebellious. Tanner 36, f. 215, Tanner 131, f. 71. A coup, however, was on foot in the diocese. In May 1683 the king instructed Wood to appoint Lancelot Addison, brother-in-law of William Gulston, bishop of Bristol, to the next vacant prebend. CSP Dom. Jan.-June 1683, p. 255. On 3 July 1683 Addison was made dean of Lichfield by the commission established in 1681, and led by Sancroft and Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, to oversee ecclesiastical appointments. Addison soon became Sancroft’s agent and informant in the diocese. The archbishop initiated legal proceedings against Wood in the Court of Arches to expedite the still unresolved dilapidations suit with Sir Andrew Hacket and to punish Wood’s intractability. Wood offered to pay £500, without admitting liability, and asked Sancroft to withdraw his suit. Tanner 131, ff. 76, 85, 92, 100. Sancroft refused and in May 1684 the case was referred to William Lloyd, of Peterborough, acting on behalf of Sancroft, and to Henry Compton, of London, who represented Wood. The two bishops met frequently at Fulham Palace and Wood called in common lawyers for advice. During mediation, Wood offered to rebuild Eccleshall Castle, slighted after its siege in the civil wars, if Hacket built a bishop’s palace at Lichfield, but Lloyd pushed for Wood to make formal submission for ‘neglect of duty and the scandal thereby given’, having judged that the diocese had suffered by Wood’s ‘niggardness’. Meanwhile Dolben, now archbishop of York, wanted Wood to commute his remaining penance into a financial penalty. Wood was still sufficiently influential – he was close to George Savile, marquess of Halifax – for Sancroft to tread warily. Sancroft’s ally Francis Turner, of Rochester, secured the king’s agreement that Wood should be disciplined. The king dismissed Wood ‘with the utmost contempt’, and any hope for clemency was blocked by lord keeper Francis North, Baron Guilford. Tanner 32, f. 97, Tanner 45, f. 265, Tanner 104, ff. 137-44, 311-13, Tanner 131, ff. 95, 101, 102, 103; HMC Downshire, i. 32-3.

On 18 June 1684 the Court of Arches ruled that Lancelot Addison should receive £2,600 from Wood and £1,400 from Sir Andrew Hacket to rebuild the two episcopal residences. It also directed that Wood be suspended for absence from his diocese, neglect of duty and ‘all other crimes’, including the felling of timber belonging to the diocese. An infuriated Hacket called for Sancroft to intervene in what he perceived was an unjust settlement, too harsh on him and too lenient to Wood. Wood was suspended from office on 19 July 1684. The suspension was to remain in force until he had made ‘a full and becoming submission’ to Sancroft and paid the dilapidations fine in full. Wood agreed only to pay the fine at £500 every six months, refused to give security ‘beside his bare word’ or to charge his estate with the amount if he died before payment was complete. The suspension raised a number of legal issues: while William Lloyd pondered whether Wood could appeal at common law, the vicar-general of Canterbury province was brought in to advise on the legal status of the diocese. In his opinion, ecclesiastical jurisdiction reverted to the archbishop and could not be granted to commissioners; the suspension was to be regarded as a vacancy until such time as Wood was restored to his post. Tanner 131, ff. 105-6, 109, 111, 114, 115, 116, 118, Tanner 104, ff. 311-16; HMC Downshire, i. 32-3. Throughout 1684, therefore, Sancroft and Addison administered the diocese jointly and Addison was given the additional post of archdeacon of Coventry to keep a close watch on both ends of the bishopric. Tanner 32, f. 115; CSP Dom. 1684-5, p. 224; TNA, SP 44/53, p. 169; HJ, x. 32. In November 1684 Wood agreed to submit to all demands except in the matter of his felling of timber. An arrogant letter to Sancroft undertook to make submission when he was fit to travel to Lambeth. He prevaricated until Christmas 1684 when he paid his portion of the dilapidations, only to apply to common law for an appeal against the requirement that he stop felling timber. Observers in Hackney reported that at this point Wood was skulking ‘in his garrison’. Tanner 104, f. 137; Tanner 131, ff. 126, 131, 138, 150, 154, 155, 172.

The accession of James II created a new, potentially more hostile, political climate for Wood and he made the submission required of him on 14 May 1685. Tanner 131, f. 174. Eleven days later he arrived in the House, six days into James II’s Parliament, although his suspension from his diocesan function was still in force. He attended almost half of the sittings of the Parliament and last sat on 2 July 1685. On 15 June he was named to the committee for the post office bill and on 26 June, with 17 fellow bishops, to that for the bill to revive expiring acts. On 14 Nov. 1685 Wood’s proxy with Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, was registered for the remainder of the session. Hacket quickly realized that he would not recover any of the debt owed to him because Wood could again claim parliamentary privilege which, given the bishop’s advanced years, ‘in all probability may last beyond the term of his life’. Ibid. f. 184. With John Lake, bishop of Bristol, undertaking confirmations in Stafford, Lichfield, Derbyshire and Shropshire during Wood’s suspension, Wood was also absent from any political activity in the diocese and does not appear to have had any involvement in the grant of the new charter for Lichfield in March 1686, which retained the bishop’s right, while in residence, to nominate the mayor of the corporation. Ibid. ff. 166-68; CSP Dom. 1686-7, p. 72. On 7 May 1686 Henry Pollexfen^‡ determined that Wood’s suspension fell within the general royal pardon of May 1685 and Wood was reinstated in his diocesan duties. Lansd. 987, f. 102; Tanner 104, f. 313, Tanner 131, f. 196; HMC Downshire, i. 178; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 152. He made his final visit to the House three days later, on 10 May 1686, on which day Parliament was again prorogued until 23 November.

In August 1686, wracked with pain from kidney stones, Wood made one of his rare visits to Coventry to oversee his diocese. Here he and Addison resumed their mutual animosity, but Wood’s letters to Sancroft were now more wary and deferential. Wood remained in Coventry, which he preferred to Lichfield, distributing books on clandestine marriages. Tanner 131, ff. 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 211. Wood’s main episcopal ally at this point was the unpopular Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, and throughout 1687 the two socialized, corresponded and indulged in reciprocal favours, each signing dispensations for the other’s chaplain to be excused diocesan duties. Wood concurred with Cartwright in March 1687 in the address of thanks for James II’s Declaration of Indulgence. Cartwright Diary, 1, 17, 30, 34, 41, 50, 54, 59, 64, 68. As a former comprehensionist, and possibly even a tolerationist, he was firmly associated with support for James II and in May 1687 it was assumed that he would endorse the king’s religious policies. With the promulgation of the second Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, it was ‘credibly reported’ that Wood, together with Ward of Salisbury and Herbert Croft, bishop of Hereford, would publish the Declaration throughout their dioceses. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 273-4.

Wood played no political role during the Revolution of 1688-9. He did not join Sancroft and a number of his episcopal colleagues in signing the petition for a free Parliament on 17 Nov. 1688, nor was he involved in the provisional government that met at the Guildhall in December during the time of James II’s first flight. He did not attend any sittings of the Convention or of the three sessions of William III’s first Parliament held in his lifetime. He even failed to manage his deceased brother’s estate effectively. On 19 Dec. 1689, the dispute over the estate between Southampton and Sir Caesar Cranmer, alias Wood, in which Bishop Wood was a named party, came before the Lords when Cranmer appealed against a chancery decree that had gone against him. Hearings were continuously postponed through the first months of 1690, and on 3 Apr. Cranmer petitioned that the cause be settled by the House before further hearings could take place in the inferior courts. The ensuing debates raised questions about the extent of the bishop’s privilege of Parliament as the committee for privileges found that Wood had been manipulating his privilege to his own best advantage, waiving it or insisting on it depending on how the case against him was faring. On 12 Apr. the House thus ordered Wood no longer to insist on his privilege in the dispute and two days later it also dismissed Cranmer’s petition and affirmed the chancery decree in Southampton’s favour.

Elderly and infirm, from about 1690 Wood retired to Astrop Wells in Northamptonshire where he died of the stone and gout on 18 Apr. 1692. Lansd. 987, f. 102; Wood, Life, iii. 387; Noble, 10. Wood’s will reveals him as a churchman who enjoyed considerable wealth. By the time of his death he had acquired property across England, in the counties of Middlesex, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Warwickshire, county Durham and Northumberland, as well as in the borough of Coventry. He endowed almshouses in his native Hackney, later known as the Bishop Wood Almshouses in Clapton Road, and provided an annuity for his wife in lieu of her jointure. More controversially, he ignored the entail on his older brother’s estate, rejecting a number of closer relatives to make his nephew Henry Webb, son of his sister Elizabeth, legatee of the estate on condition that Webb change his name to Wood. This final act of contrariness ensured continuing quarrels over Sir Henry Wood’s estate and from the time of the bishop’s death both chancery and the House dealt with numerous legal disputes between members of the extended Wood family. On 5 Dec. 1692 the House ruled in favour of Cranmer in another cause between him and Southampton, reversing chancery’s judgment in favour of the duke, but soon the number of protagonists in these disputes increased. On 14 Mar. 1696 the House rejected Cranmer’s appeal against a chancery decree in favour of Thomas Webb regarding the disposition of Sir Henry Wood’s estate. The House was still intervening in this family squabble in 1700 when, on 7 Mar. it dismissed the petition of yet another of Wood’s nephews, Thomas Kirke, son-in-law of the bishop’s brother John, against chancery’s rejection of his petition against the Webb brothers and Sir Caesar Cranmer. The bishop’s reputation, already tarnished by his conspicuous neglect of episcopal duties during his life, was not helped by this further discord he helped to foment in his family, and it was perhaps fitting that Wood was buried as inconspicuously as possible, at Ufford in Suffolk, where his brother had had an estate at Loudham Park, without any memorial inscription.