John Ponet

John Ponet (c. 1514 – August 1556), was the bishop of Winchester, also Bishop of Rochester and a controversial Protestant religious leader.

In his day, Ponet was an influential theologian. However, despite addressing many of the most controversial issues of the mid sixteenth century, today is best remembered for his sustained attack on the Divine Right of Kings. [ cite book |title= "To the Perfection of God's Service: John Ponet's Reformation Vision for the Clergy"|last= Bowman Thompson|first= Glen|year= 2003|publisher= Anglican and Episcopal History|quote="one of the leading Protestant theologians during the Edwardian phase of the English Reformation. His writings offer compelling opinions on some of the most contentious doctrinal issues of the time. Unfortunately, one could not find this out by reading current scholarship on the man or, for that matter, on the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I. In fact, research on Ponet has without exception emphasized his ideas on political resistance".]

Biography

Ponet graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1533. He was elected a fellow in the same year: and proceeded to obtain a Masters of Arts in 1535. He was a pupil of Thomas Smith, who claimed that the new pronunciation of Ancient Greek had been introduced by himself, Ponet, and John Cheke.

Ponet was ordained a priest at Lincoln on 10 June 1536. By 1545, he was chaplain to Thomas Cranmer.

By November 1548, Ponet had married, even though the Parliament of England had not yet removed the ban on clerical marriage. The following year he dedicated a work defending clerical marriage to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset.

In 1549, Ponet published "A Trageodie, or, Dialoge of the Unjust Usurper Primacy of the Bishop of Rome", a translation of a work by Bernardino Ochino.

Following Somerset's fall from political power, Ponet was arrested in November 1549. However, by Lent 1550, he had been sufficiently rehabilitated to preach before the court and Edward VI of England. In March 1550, he was nominated to the see of Rochester, and was consecrated at Lambeth on 29 June. In January 1551, he was appointed to a commission to investigate anabaptists in Kent. And on March 8, 1551, he was appointed to the see of Winchester in place of Stephen Gardiner.

In July 1551, a consistory court at St Paul's announced the formal separation of Ponet from his wife on the grounds that she was already married to a Nottingham butcher. On 25 October of the same year, he married the daughter of one of Cranmer's financial officers.

In 1553 Mary I, a Roman Catholic, succeeded her Protestant half brother, Edward VI, to the English throne. Along with 800 other Protestants, Ponet and his wife fled abroad. Ponet was the highest-ranking ecclesiastic among the Marian exiles. [ cite book |title= 'The English Reformation'|last= Dickens|first= A.G.|year= 1978|publisher= Fontana/Collins|location= London & Glasgow|pages= p.391; ]

Whilst Ponet was in exile, Mary set about trying to restore Roman Catholicism by making sure that: Edward's religious laws were abolished in the Statute of Repeal Act (1553); the Protestant religious laws passed in the time of Henry VIII were repealed; and the Revival of the Heresy Acts were passed in 1554. The Marian Persecutions begun soon afterwards. In January 1555 first of nearly 300 Protestants was burnt at the stake under 'Bloody Mary'. When Thomas Wyatt the younger instigated what became known as the Wyatt's rebellion Ponet returned to England to participate in the uprising. [ cite book |title= 'The English Reformation'|last= Dickens|first= A.G.|year= 1978|publisher= Fontana/Collins|location= London & Glasgow|pages= p.358; ] He escaped to Strasbourg after the Rebellion's defeat and was reunited with his wife. A child was born to them in later in 1554, and they were granted citizenship in February 1555.

In 1556, Ponet published "An Apologie Fully Answeringe ... a Blasphemous Book" - another work on clerical marriage, as well as his most important work, [http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/Ponet1.HTM "A Shorte Treatise of Politike Power"] , in which he put forward a theory of justified opposition to secular rulers. The United States President, John Adams, noted that Ponet's "Treatise" was the seminal volume that later political philosophers such as John Locke expanded upon.

Ponet died at Strasbourg in August 1556.

Notes

References

Primary sources

* John Ponet, A shorte treatise of politike power, facsimile in Winthrop S. Hudson, John Ponet (1516?–1556): advocate of limited monarchy (1942)

econdary sources

* Beer, B.L., ‘John Ponet’s Shorte Treatise of Politike Power reassessed’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 21 (1990), pp. 373–83.
* Bowman, G., ‘To the Perfection of God's Service: John Ponet's Reformation Vision for the Clergy’, Anglican and Episcopal History (March 1, 2003).
* Burgess, G. and Festenstein, M. (eds), ‘English Radicalism, 1550-1850’.
* Dawson, Jane E.A., ‘Revolutionary conclusions: the case of the Marian exiles’, History of Political Thought, 11 (1990), pp. 257–72.
* Hudson, W.S., John Ponet (1516?–1556): advocate of limited monarchy (1942).
* Peardon, B., ‘The politics of polemics: John Ponet’s Short Treatise Of Politic Power, and contemporary circumstance, 1553–1556’, Journal of British Studies, 22 (1982), pp. 35–49.
* Pettegree, Andrew, Marian Protestantism: six studies (1996).
* O'Donovan, O. and Lockwood O'Donovan, J. (eds.), ‘From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, 100-1625’.
* Skinner, Q., ‘The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Vol. 2, The Age of Reformation’.
* Wollman, D.H., ‘The biblical justification for resistance to authority in Ponet’s and Goodman’s polemics’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 13 (1982), pp. 29–41.