Treason and Calvin and puritan preaching and Edmund Peacham and interrogatories and tower of london

Treason! (First Essay)

Bill Long 12/16/04

The Case of the Rev. Edmund Peachum (1615)

The US Constitution, in Article II, Section 4 provides that the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the US shall be removed for office if they are convicted of "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Though the phrase received a lot of national attention during the Clinton-Lew(d)insky scandal of the late 1990s, Americans really don't spend much time thinking about what constitutes treason.

In contrast, treason was a very live issue in 16th-17th century England. Enemies without (especially France and Spain) and enemies within (Catholics and Puritans, among others) could be seen as those who were trying to bring down a sometimes precarious monarchy. One way to understand James I's articulation of the doctrine of the divine right of kings is in the context of the fragility of the monarchy.

Introducing Peacham

Thus it really should occasion no surprise that when some potentially explosive sermon notes of the Rev. Edmund Peacham, a Puritan preacher from Somersetshire who was frequently in trouble with the monarchy, came to light, King James signed a warrant for his arrest. Peacham was transferred to the Tower of London in January 1615 (new calendar) to be examined under torture to see what he might have meant by statements, which he never published or spoke from the pulpit, such as "the people might rise in rebellion against these new taxes [which James had, under the euphemism of a "free gift," required of his subjects] and "all the King's officers mought be put to the sword, and when Prince Charles assumed the throne, might not the people say, Come, this is the heir, let us kill him?" Among his notes was also the statment, "On a sudden, the King might be strucken with death, perhaps within eight days, as Ananias or Nabal."

The examiners of Peacham would have to determine if these statements, found in his private study, constituted treason under the Treason's Act of 1571 (and its predecessors going back to Edward III) which was specifically drawn up to deal with opponents of Queen Elizabeth. It provided, in relevant part, that any person who "shall in writing, printing, preaching, speech...affirm that...Queen Elizabeth is an heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel,...then, such said offense shall be...high treason."

In composing this and the next three mini-essays, I have relied heavily on two sources that are not fully compatible: Catherine Drinker Bowen's award-winning biography of Edward Coke, The Lion and the Throne (pp. 350ff.) and the actual letters/transcripts of the proceedings, reprinted in Howell's State Trials, vol. 2, cols. 869-879. Thus, one of the subtexts of these essays is the difficulty of managing and understanding sources that tell of events in the distant past.

The Interrogatories

When Peacham was indicted, he was subject to interrogatories and to torture. Neither of the sources suggested who wrote the interrogatories, but we know that they were "administered" to Peacham on January 19, 1615 (new calendar--under the old calendar, in effect until the mid-18th century, the first three months of the year were counted as belonging to the previous year. Thus, January 1, 1614 followed directly on December 31, 1614 under the old calendar. Now, of course, it is January 1, 1615). After the "examination," the King's secretary Winwood reported,

"Upon these Interrogatories, Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding, nothing could be drawn from him, he still persisting in his obstinate and insensible denials and former answers."

The interrogatories consisted of 12 questions. Space doesn't permit a full listing of them (here they are), but a few should be highlighted. 1. Who procured you, moved you, or advised you, to put in writing these traitorous slanders which you have set down against his majesty's person and government, or any of them? 3. Whom have you made privy and acquainted with the said writings, or any part of them? and who hath been your helpers or confederates therein? Then, to the particulars of what he had actually written: 4. What use meant you to make of such writings? was it by preaching them in sermon, or publishing them by treatise? if in sermon, at what time and in what place meant you to have preached them? if by treatise, to whom did you intend to dedicate, or exhibit, or deliver such treatise? and, referring to the Biblical references to Ananias and Nabal, 6. What moved you to write, the king might be stricken with death on the sudden, or within eight days, as Ananias and Nabal; do you know of any conspiracy or danger to his person or have you heard of any such attempt? Finally, the examination concluded with a question about the King's fidelity to his task. 12. What moved you to say in your writing, that our king, before his coming to the kingdom, promised mercy and judgment, but we find neither? What promise do you mean of, and wherein hath the king broke the same promise?

Conclusion

The questions are a window into the King's (justifiable) fear and the nature of Puritan preaching in the early 17th century. I have already said a word about the former. With respect to the latter, the Puritans were steeped in the Reformed theological tradition of the previous century. One of the contributions of Reformed theology to political thought was in Book IV of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, where he lays out a gentle philosophy of rebellion if the ruler has abandoned the true worship of God. Ever since those days (and the first edition of the Institutes was published in 1536), people from the Reformed theological persuasion combed the Bible for stories illustrative of the fate of unrighteous kings. Therefore, under the guise of simple biblical exposition Puritan preaching could have a real political "edge" to it.

In this context, then, Peacham's unpreached sermon notes took on a potentially seditious tone. How should the King's minions handle him, however, after the failed interrogatories? That was the big question. In response, the King began to "mess with" the judicial machinery. After the administration of interrogatories and torture (and we do not know what form the torture took-from the more mild restraints to a more active abuse), the King authorized his Attorney General Bacon to meet with Coke and the other judges on King's Bench to "sound them out" individually on the guilt of Peacham. The next essay talks about what happened.