THE
P RTAL
February 2012
John,
First Viscount Scudamore
by Keith Robinson
Page 7
Anglican
Luminary
John, First Viscount Scudamore, may not not initially come to mind as an Anglican “luminary”, but
his work certainly “illuminates” some attitudes to the Reformation of those who lived in the century which
followed it. John was in many ways a typical English country gentleman of the first part of the seventeenth
century. Born in 1600 into a Herefordshire family, his father had been a gentleman usher to Elizabeth I, and
it was a family which had benefited enormously at the hands of Henry VIII and his redistri bution of wealth
following the dissolution of the monasteries.
John was several
This
beautiful
times
Member
and
moving
of Parliament for
fragment of Early
both Hereford and
English monastic
his County, was
architecture was
Ambassador
to
reroofed, and a
France from 1635-
chancel
screen,
39, and held various
which is a major
other appropriate
piece of English
offices. An ardent
renaissance design,
supporter
of
was
installed.
Charles I, he was
The concept of
captured by the
defining a “holy
Roundheads and
place”, anathema
held captive in
to the Puritans,
London for nearly
harked back to
four years. During
pre-Reformation
this
time
his
practice. But where
Herefordshire houses were plundered and his estates one would previously expect to see the crucified Lord
sequestered.
with Mary and John (on a rood loft) you see, instead,
the arms of Scudamore himself and Archbishop Laud
John had a reputation for being “a great scholar” and – representing Church and State. At the centre, and
possessed a notable personal piety which manifested much larger than either, are the royal arms, signifying
itself in the restoration of ruined churches, and the sovereignty of the King over both.
supporting “distressed divines” during the chaotic
and dangerous time of the Commonwealth. By at
It is a perfect statement of the religious settlement
least 1622 he had developed a strong friendship with inherited from Elizabeth I. Scudamore also provided
William Laud (Archbishop of Canterbury 1633-45), new stained glass windows for the east end, pulpit, altar
whose religious views he shared. Succeeding to the rails and other furnishings necessary for a dignified
family estates in 1623, the two men collaborated in a and orderly liturgy centred on Word and Sacrament.
noble scheme to restore the ruined Cistercian abbey at
Abbeydore in the Welsh Marches.
Even though that Establishment so soon came
tumbling down with the execution of both the King
Scudamore provided the resources, employing the and the Archbishop in 1649, and the abolition of the
King’s carpenter John Abel (who was himself almost Church of England, Dore Abbey was in such a deeply
certainly a recusant), and Laud advised on the scheme rural location that its furnishings survive to this day.
which turned the roofless transepts and presbytery As well as seeking to address, so far as Scudamore was
into a parish church unlike any other. It was an act able, a great spiritual wrong, his work here represents
of reparation for the past, as well as of restoration, a courageous statement of intent, deeply respectful
reconsecrated almost exactly one hundred years after of the Catholic past, and defiant of the prevailing
the abbey had been dissolved.
Puritanism.