Johannes Sering

Johannes Sering or Johannes Seringius (died 1631) was a chaplain to Anne of Denmark in Scotland and England

Sering was a graduate of Rostock University where he had studied under David Chytraeus. His 1585 matriculation record says he was from Thuringia.[1] He was a member of the Lutheran church.

In Scotland

As part of the marriage negotiations of Anne of Denmark and James VI of Scotland the Danish council requested that she was allowed the freedom of religion and worship of her choice, and to keep a preacher at the expense of the Scottish exchequer, and recruit a successor as she wishes. The preacher was to be Danish or German.[2] Denmark was a Lutheran country, while Scotland had adopted a Calvinist form of Protestantism.

James VI of Scotland travelled to meet Anne of Denmark. On 25 November 1589 he had lunch with Sering and his own preacher David Lindsay, as guests of Jens Nilssøn, Bishop of Oslo.[3] James VI interviewed Sering promising him an annual stipend of 200 dalers and another 40 dalers for the wages of two servants for, "the instruction of our Sovereign lady his highness's dearest spouse in the true religion".[4]

Sering, the "Dens minister" (Danish preacher), was paid a yearly fee of £600 in three termly installments from the Scottish exchequer.[5]

David Chrytraeus wrote to him in October 1590.[6]

Sering may have written frequently to the court of Denmark with news of Scotland and the queen. One of his surviving letters to the Danish council seems to allude to this role.[7]

On 25 May 1595 he wrote the Council of Denmark, asking if he could leave Scotland and be a church minister in Denmark. He mentioned that the queen now could now speak Scots as fluently as any noblewoman.[8][9] However, he stayed in the queen's service and came with her to England in 1603.

He married Anna Ellis or Ebbes, a Danish servant of the queen on 28 April 1598. The queen paid for their wedding banquet at Holyrood Palace, and the household accounts recorded the day as the wedding of "Hairy Hans" and "Little Anna".[10]

In England

On 25 July 1607 he was granted denization in England, and was described as a subject of the Prince of Weimar.[11]

Little Anna died on 26 February 1608, and was buried at St Margaret's, Westminster, where Sering had a ledger stone placed with a Latin epitaph.[12]

Sering, known as the "Dutch chaplain" had a royal annuity of £50 per year from 11 February 1621.[13] In 1622 he sent a petition for payment to the Lord Treasurer, Lionel Cranfield.[14] He received a pension of £80 yearly. In 1626 he wrote a Latin poem for the coronation of Charles I of England to accompany another petition for arrears of his pension.[15]

He died in 1631 and was buried at St Margaret's, Westminster, leaving a widow, Grace.[16]

A man called "Frederick Searing", locksmith, also appears in lists of the queen's household. It is unclear if this man was a relation.

Matters of Faith

Historians Maureen Meikle and Helen M. Payne propose that Anne of Denmark converted to the Catholic faith in Scotland soon after her arrival, while still maintaining Sering in her household.[17] Jemma Field suggests that Anne of Denmark maintained a position that was a "middle path" or "via media" in her own Lutheran religion.[18]

References
  1. 'Immatrikulation von Ioannes Seringius', Universität Rostock.
  2. David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 83, 85.
  3. David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (Edinburgh, 1997), p. 94.
  4. National Archives of Scotland, PS1/66 f. 38r, 23 January 1593/4.
  5. George Powell McNeill, Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vol. 23 (Edinburgh, 1908), pp. 44, 152, 155, 208, 279.
  6. David Chrytraeus, Epistolae (Hanovia, 1614), p. 752.
  7. Maureen Meikle, 'Once a Dane, Always a Dane? Queen Anna of Denmark’s Foreign Relations and Intercessions as a Queen Consort of Scotland and England', The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 171.
  8. Steve Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603-1660 (Tuckwell: East Linton, 2000), p. 3.
  9. William Dunn Macray, Appendix to the 47th Report of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records (London, 1886), p. 38
  10. Michael Pearce, 'Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland', The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), pp. 142-147.
  11. Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland, vol. 18 (London, 1911), p. 12, see also TNA SP15/38/28, note of bill signed May 1606.
  12. John Stow, A survey of the cities of London and Westminster, vol. 2 (London, 1753), p. 622.
  13. Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer: James I (London, 1836), p. 258.
  14. HMC 4th Report: De La Warr (London, 1874), pp. 277, 300.
  15. British Library, Sloane MS 2717.
  16. A. M. Burke, Memorials of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster: the parish registers, 1539-1660 (London, 1914), pp. 489, 558.
  17. Maureen M. Meikle & Helen M. Payne, 'From Lutheranism to Catholicism: The Faith of Anna of Denmark (1574-1619)', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 64:1 (2013), pp. 66-9.
  18. Jemma Field, 'Anna of Denmark and the Politics of Religious Identity in Jacobean Scotland and England, c. 1592-1619', Northern Studies, 50 (2019), p. 107.

Further reading
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