Welsh Journals

Kitchin's Return (1563) J. Daryll Evans The above titile does not refer to a film, a sequel to a drama called simply "Kitchin". Nor could there be in the series a "son of Kitchin", at least we hope not, for Anthony Kitchin, or Kechyn, was a Benedictine monk. No, this article concerns a 16th century report made to the Archbishop of Canterbury by one of his bishops. Its interest to us in Gwent lies in the information which it provides on our ancient churches and the clergy who served them in 1563. The author of the Return had assumed responsibility for the diocese of Landaff, which then included most of Gwent, in 1545. Consecrated bishop in Westminster Abbey, he held the position through the regins of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. He sat uneasily in his bishop's chair throughout the changes amd arguments of this turbulent period. Dean Conybeare of Llandaff, writing in 1850, judged him particularly harshly for having done so: "The times in which he lived might well have tried the man even of real principle and moral resolution, in him they only developed a congenial spirit of tergivisation and dishonesty" (Birch 1912). Certainly the Bishop managed to perform some remarkable turnabouts. On his confirmation to the office in Henry's reign he had taken an oath renouncing the authority of the Pope. When Mary came to the throne she re-established the Roman Catholic faith. Kitchin now found himself able to support it, and so retained his see. Unmarried, he was qualified to serve on the commission which was then formed to investigate married bishops. Not only so, he also became a member of the body appointed to enquire into epsicopal heresy (Williams 1974). He was not a persecutor, however. In fact, he did all he could to save the Cardiff fisherman Rawlins White from being burnt as a heretic. Kitchin was unsuccessful, for White, as described by Professor Glanmor Williams (ibid) was "opinionated and unamenable to persuasion as only a self- educated fanatic can be". With Elizabeth's accession the pendulum of orthodoxy swung back. The Bishop of Llandaff at first opposed both the Queen becoming Supreme Governor of the Church, and the subsequent Act which enforced the issue of a Book of Common Prayer. But within months he was prepared to take the necessary oath, the only bishop of the previous reign to do so, Later the same year (1559) he was present at the dinner at the Nag's Head Tavern in London when the election of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, was confirmed (Stephen and Lee 1917). Soon afterwards