Great Tew Circle

[8] Major influences on the thinking of the circle were Hugo Grotius[1] and Richard Hooker because of the place the latter made for the use of reason in Biblical interpretation and church polity.

[9] These writers formed part of the broader Christian humanist tradition of Jacobus Acontius, George Cassander, Sebastian Castellio, Bernardino Ochino and Faustus Socinus.

[10] According to the writings of Hyde (as Lord Clarendon), the gatherings and discussions themselves were modelled on those of Cicero and Erasmus, with guests being welcome to differ on points of view.

[12] The context, as explained by the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, was that of the Thirty Years' War with its Protestant defeats of the 1620s and Catholic expansion; but also of the doctrines of the contra-Remonstrants in an environment of increasing skepticism on religious matters.

[15] Trevor-Roper supported the claims of the Great Tew group to the eirenic moral high ground on religious toleration and a commitment to rational dialogue on religion.

[19] Participation in any actual dialogues as described by Hyde is problematic to establish; and the time scale has different points on it, though a beginning date of 1634 (Martinich) seems to be agreed widely.

The influence of the circle can be traced in theological production (especially Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants, 1638),[20] literary works and translation in a humanist vein, and the political line pursued by Falkland and Hyde in 1640–1, attempting to find a middle position between Puritan and Laudian extremes.

Falkland also gave the first of the poetical tributes in the 1638 Oxford memorial volume Jonson Virbius, and others of the Circle who contributed were Henry Coventry, May and Digges.