The Destruction of Richard Hooker's Manuscripts, Revisited

Revisionist historians such as C.J. Sisson and David Novarr have dismissed Izaak Walton’s story of the destruction of Richard Hooker’s manuscripts as pure invention.  This paper re-evaluates Walton’s evidence, the hearsay chancery suit witness of the Staple Inn lawyer, Edmund Parbo, and the relationship of members of Hooker’s family to the list of possible culprits. The paper concludes that it is very likely that Hooker’s manuscripts were vandalized and that this act of vandalism ought properly to be seen in the context of a consistent conformist puritan critique of Hooker’s doctrine (as opposed to his ecclesiology).

Published in Anglican and Episcopal History 94.1 (March 2025)

Read it here:

https://www.academia.edu/130396580/The_Destruction_of_Richard_Hookers_Manuscripts_Revisited