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A BOOK ABOUT THE CLERGY.

VOL. II.

A BOOK ABOUT THE CLEEGY.

JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON,
B.A. OXON.
AUTHOR OF
"A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS," "A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS,"
&c. Sec.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. 11.

Bmtiii €hxtm.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MAELBOEOUGH STREET.
1870.
I7i4 Right of Trimslation is raerved.

LONDON:
Stkangewats and Waldek, Printebs,
Castle St. Leicester Sq.

CONTENT S

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

PART IV;— OLD WAYS AND NEW FASHIONS.
(Continued.)
CHAP. PAGE
IIL THE CHANCEL AND TH3I NAVE — ^FURNITURE AND DE
CORATIONS   1
IV. TOMBS, SEATS, FLOWERS, AND CANDLES  10
V. CLERGY AND LAITY IN CHURCH  22
VI. SHRINES AND RELICS  42
VIL PULPITS AND PREACHERS  49
VIII. POSTILS, HOMILIES, AND SERMONS ..'...., 62
IX. FUNEBRIOUS BITES  83
X. VICAB OF BRAY  100
XL THE SUNDAY IN OLD TIME — FROM THE SAXON PERIOD
TO THE REFORMATION  113
XIL THE SUNDAY OF ELIZABETHAN AND LAUDIAN CHURCHMEN 128

vi Contents.

PART v.— RELIGION UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH. PAGE
CHAP. L RESULTS OF PURITANISM ON THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE
PRESENT GENERATION 
II. ROYAL SUPREMACY  '¦^'¦
HI. THE BREWING OF A STORM  I""'
IV. THE STORM BURSTS  ^'^
V. SCANDALOUS AND PLUNDERED CLERGY  181
VI. CHURCH SERVICE UNDER ASSEMBLERS AND TRIERS . . 201
VII. EPISCOPALIANS UNDER THE PROTECTOR  215
PART VI.— BEFORE AND AFTER THE RESTORATION.
I. Ic6n BA8ILIKE  223
II. THE CHURCH POLITICAL  234
III. A FOLIO OF PORTRAITS  245
IV. POOR CURATES  255
V. DOMESTIC CHAPLAINS  264
VL HONOUR AND CONTEMPT OF THE CLERGY  274
VH. HOSPITALITY AND GAMES  295
VIIL THE ROYAL TOUCH  302
IX. FAREWELL  312
INDEX  315

PART IV.-OLD WAYS AND NEW FASHIONS.
(Continued.)

CHAPTER III.
THE CHANCEL AND THE NAVE — FURNITURE AND DECORATIONS.
THE reader, however, would be guilty of a great error, who
should imagine that our feudal ancestors were altogether
devoid of the sentiment which in modern England jealously
preserves our churches from profanation. The cathedrals and
other important churches were usually provided with private
chapels, in which masses were continually offered for the souls
of departed benefactors. Each of these sacella contained an
altar and the sacred adornments usual in places of worship;
and whilst pride and affection inspired the founder's descendants
to protect it from decay, and to renew from time to time its
artistic decorations, the ordinary frequenters of the church to
which it was attached cherished for its altar the same reverence
which they displayed for the high altar in the church.*
Whatever the stir and uproar in the nave on wakes and minor
feasts, there was quiet in these subsidiary chapels which the
* In allusion to the worldly pride often displayed in the decorations of these
private sacella, the satirists of feudal times were wont to remark that Satan always
had a chapel hard by the Lord's house. This sentiment became proverbial, and
Foxe the Martyrologist preserves it in one of the marginal notes to his fullest
edition of the ' Acts and Monuments.' ' God,' he says, ' never builded a church,
but the devil hath his chapel by.' Truth so aptly and pungently expressed is
not likely to disappear from popular opinion ; and Defoe, who is erroneously sup
posed to have originated the sentiment, reproduced it in the couplet, —
' Wherever God erects a House of Prayer
The devil always builds a chapel there.'
VOL. II. B

A Booh about Clergy.

pious visitor of the temple might enter at auy hour of the day
for prayer and edifying reflection.
Again, the vigilance with which we guard the entire church
and its precincts from violation falls short ofthe heed which our
forefathers took to maintain the sacredness of the chancel.
The medieval nave by turns or simultaneously was a public-
hall, a theatre, a warehouse, a market, a court of justice, and a
place of worship ; but the chancel was rigidly reserved for
the mysterious and sublime offices of priestly service. It was
the holy place set apart for the priests and clerks in sacred
orders. At its eastern end, built into the wall, stood the
high altar; and for the accommodation of persons qualified
to enter this mysterious chamber of the Lord's House, it was
provided with furniture costlier in material and richer in art
than the furniture of the chief rooms in the castles of the
wealthiest nobles. During the celebration of divine rites, the
devout laity, standing reverentially and kneeling meekly in the
nave, caught the solemn intonations of the officiating priests
and the rich melody of the choir, that came to them through
the open door beneath the rood-loft ; but ' no layman ventured
to pass under the elevated rood and put his foot on the hallowed
ground of the inner court, save at the special invitation of
officiating clergy, and then only to prostrate himself in adora
tion at the foot of the altar. And no sooner had the service
terminated, than the gates of lattice were closed upon the
uninitiated crowd.
Divided from the other parts of the church, by iron or
wooden trellises, through which the interior was imperfectly
visible, this peculiar court was termed the chancel — a name
derived from the comcdli, or crossed bars of the fence.
Though from a very early date of our church history, the
lay patrons of churches were provided with seats within the
trellises of the clerical court, and though in later times lay
persons of high importance were sometimes permitted, by the
special favour of their clergy, to eccupy places in the chancel
during service, the general congregation of the laity continued
after the Eeformation to refrain from intruding themselves into
so peculiarly sacred a part of their temple. In short, it was the
clerical quarter of the building, — dedicated from the foundatiott

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 3
of the church to. the clergy, and set apart for ecclesiastical uses
and occupants at the time when the nave was provided for
ordinary people. So jealous were the clergy of their peculiar
right to this part of the church, that they forbore to tax the
people for its maintenance, lest by spending their money on its
fabric the laity might in course of time be thought to have
acquired proprietary right to enter its boundaries. The eccle
siastical right to the chancel and the clerical obligation to
preserve it from material injury are as old as our churches
themselves ; and our reforming monarchs recognised both the
right and the obligation by the successive injunctions which
required the clergy to maintain their chancels out of their
revenues, whilst the laity were left to provide for the timely
repair and restoration of the bodies of the churches.
Concerning the ijature of the chancel and the gradual en
croachment of the Elizabethan laity upon its hallowed ground.
Hooker observes in the ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' ' our churches
are places provided tbat the people might assemble themselves
in due and decent manner, according to their several degrees.
Which thing being common unto us with Jews, we have in this
respect our church divided by certain partitions, although not
so many in number as theirs. They had their several for
heathen nations, their several for the people of their own nation,
their several for men, their several for women, their several for
priests : and for the high priest alone their several. There
being in ours for local distinction between the clergy and the
rest (which yet we do not with any great strictness or curiosity
observe neither) but one partition : the cause whereof at the first
(as it seemeth) was that as many as were capable of the holy
mysteries might there assemble themselves and no other creep
in amongst them : this is now made a matter so heinous, as if
our religion thereby were become even plain failure, and as
though we retained a most holy place, whereinto there might
not any but the high priest alone enter, according to the custom
of the Jews.'
Between those of the Elizabethan clergy who insisted most
strongly on the necessity of maintaining the ancient privileges
of the sacerdotal order, and the Pyritans who were most reso
lute in asserting tJae equality of the laity with their spiritual

'4 A Boole about Clergy.
ministers, there arose much ill feeling and many disputations re
specting the chancel, which the former continued to regard as
the holiest part ofthe sacred edifice, whilst the latter irreve
rently designated a cage for black-birds. In his ' Survey,'
Abp. Bancroft, that fierce opponent and scourge of the Puritans,
observes, ' There is in every church for the most part a distinction
of places betwixt the clergy and the laity. We term one place
the chancel and another the body of the church ; which manner
of distinction doth greatly offend the tender conscience (for
sooth) of the purer part of our reformers, insomuch as Mr, Gilby,
a chief man in his time among them, doth term the quire a cage,
and reckoneth that separation of the ministers from the congre
gation one of the hundred points of Popery which, he affirmeth,
do yet remain in the Church of England.' On this point,
however, as on more iraportant matters of contention, the clergy
were at length compelled to yield to lay-opinion which in course
of time succeeded in giving ordinary worshippers the same rights
in the chancel as they continued to enjoy in the body of the
church. In our cathedrals and certain other churches the
chancel is still guarded by gates and fences, similar to the
ancient cancelli, but during celebrations of divine service it is
thrown open to the laity of both sexes. In parochial churches,
where the ancient partitions between the chancel and the nave
survived the continual changes of the Eeformation period, and
also in those parish churches in which recent ecclesiastical
restorers have again set up trellises or other light barriers
between the two parts of the sacred building, the principal space
ofthe chancel is ordinarily devoted to the accommodation ofthe
wealthier and more modish members of the congregation, whilst
worshippers of inferior quality are provided with seats in the
nave. The most conspicuous of the interior adornments of the
people's quarter in the medieval church was the rood-loft or
lifted rood, — a crucifix raised and fixed above the entrance into
the chancel from the nave. Figures of the Virgin Mary and
John were usually put beside this exalted emblem of the
Saviour's supreme agony ; the Virgin's statue being placed on the
one, and the image of John on the other side of the chief object
of adoration. Sometimes, instead of these subordinate figures,

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 5
¦Iff — .—  ___
there appeared the four evangelists and rows of saintly effigies.
But, whatever the group, it usually exhibited signs of artistic
ability and costly labour. Carved in times when the sculptor's
art was nothing higher than an artistic industry subordinate to
architecture, the older roods and their groups of supporters
were of rude and cumbrous workmanship : but, regarded
as works of art and considered apart from the sacred history
which they illustrated, they were sometimes not devoid of merit,
and would under any circumstances have roused the wonder of
the simple gazers for whose behoof they were fashioned. This
qualified commendation of their art is of course applicable only
to the roods of the superior temples : for in the obscure church
of a poor and secluded parish the figures of the rood-loft and
gallery were, so far as their material and shape are concerned,
no better than enormous dolls, clumsily fashioned, execrably
painted, and decorated with tawdry vestments.
In the cathedrals and other principal churches, the sculptors
and painters employed their best cunning on the foliage and
traceries of the gallery on which the rood and its attendant
statues were placed. The floor of this gallery was the orchestra
of the church, where the instrumental performers and some of
the vocalists were stationed to create melody during the cele
brations of the sacred services. Hence, when the congregation
looked upwards to the chief source of the solemn harmony
which filled them with heavenly thoughts, their eyes encountered
the mystic calendar, which was intelligible to the most ignorant
of the unlettered folk.
Occasionally the enormous figures on the rood-gallery were
so ingeniously contrived with joints, and hinges, and concealed
appliances, that, at the will of a hidden player on their mechan
ical fittings, they would open or shut their eyes, nod their
heads, or move their limbs. One of the most famous of these
scandalous toys was theEood of Grace, which was long exhibited
at Boxley, in Kent, to the surprise and delusion of simple crea
tures. One of the Lord Cromwell's wise and daring acts was
to move this Eood of Grace from the church, where it had for
many a day astonied and misled the vulgar, to Henry the
Eighth's London, where it was publicly dissected, and lectured
upon from the pulpit of Paul's Cross, by Bishop Hilsey, in

A Book about Clergy.

whose diocese of Eochester it had achieved its lying tricks no ^
less to the profit of the priests than to the hurt of the peoples4
Of this rood and its destruction, Foxe says, ' Wliat posterity •
will ever think the church of the pope, pretending such religion,
to have been so wicked, so long to abuse the people's eyes with
an old rotten stocky called the Eood of Grace, wherein a man
should stand enclosed, with a hundred wires within the rood, to
make the image goggle with the eyes, to nod vrith his head, to
hang the lip, to move and shake his jaws, according as the
value was of the gift which was offered ? , If it were a small
piece of silver, the image would hang a frowning lip ; if it were
a piece of gold, then should his jaws go merrily. Thus miser
ably were the people of Christ abused, their souls seduced, their
senses beguiled, and their purses spoiled, till this idolatrous
forgery at last, by Cromwell's means, was disclosed, and the
image, with all his engines, showed openly at Paul's Cross, and
there torn in pieces by the people.'
Henry the Eighth's reforming years, and the reign of
Edward the Sixth, saw the abolition of the roods from the rood-
galleries. Together with the statues of saints, the pictures, and
the other calendars for the ignorant — which the great fathers of
Anglican reform had tolerated, and even defended, in the four
teenth century — the crucifixes were taken from their ancient
loftSi in obedience to successive injunctions ; and most of them
were mutilated by the axes of Puritan iconoclasts, and then
consumed with fire. But in Mary's reign — which witnessed
the restoration of Papal images as well as Catholic practices —
it was found that many of the removed roods, instead of having
been destroyed, had fallen into the custody of superstitious
believers, who merely removed them to places of concealment,
in anticipation of the time when it would be safe to bring them
again into the light of day, and re-establish them on their old
galleries. Taken from cellars and closets, these works of
Catholic art were once more displayed to the delighted populace,
the majority of whom had preserved their attachment to the
old faith; and in parishes where the ancient crucifixes had
been destroyed on their enforced removal, the ecclesiastical
authorities bestirred themselves to buy fair and stately images
of the Eedeemer's death. But when Mary had expired, to the

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 7
relief of her terrified and disgusted subjects, Elizabeth's acces
sion was signalised by bonfires, that illuminated the streets and
market-squares of our cities, whilst they reduced to ashes vast
piles of roods, statues, and Catholic vestments. In London these
wholesale burnings of ecclesiastical furniture and apparel began
on August 24, 1559, the first day of Bartholomew's fair, when,
on their return from the Clerkenwell wrestlings, the lord mayor'
and aldermen, attended by a proud array of foreign ambassadors
and English nobles, beheld the populace hurl whole cartloads of
images, relics, missals, and clerical robes into two stupendous
fires, raised near Ironmonger Lane and the Mercers' Chapel.*
To realise the brightness and ornate appearance of our
temples in Catholic times, the reader must remember that the
interior surfaces of their walls were profusely and elaborately
embellished with paintings, illustrating scriptural story or
wholesome moralities. Some of these artistic works were
painted on panels or canvas ; but more generally the illu-
* ' The 24th (August),' Strype records gleefully in his ' Life of GrindaU,'
'was the first day the burning of Papal relics began. Aud it was so ordered as
to be seen of the lord mayor, the aldermen, foreign ambassadors, besides a multi
tude of other persons attending them: for, according to an old custom, this
being the first day of Bartholomew Fair, the mayor, aldermen, ambassadors, aud
many others in company with them, afforded their presence at a wrestling at
Clerkenwell ; and as they came home through Cheapside, against Ironmonger
Lane, and against St. Thomas of Acre (s. c. Mercers' Chapel), were made two
fires in the street, wherein were thrown a great number of goods, with the images
of John and Mary, and the resemblances of divers other saints, that had been
taken down from the churches ; the people looking on with great wonder. The
inext day, viz. August 25, was burnt at St. Botolph's, without Bishopsgate, tbe
jcood, with Mary and John, and the patron of the church, and other church goods.
^nd while these were burning, a person stood within the church wall and made
a sermon upon the occasion ; and at length, in the midst of his discourse, threw
into the fire certain books. At this time was taken down a cross of wood that
stood in the ohuiohyard, and was burnt with the rest: which cross had lately
been set up by one Warner, a tanner of skins ; whether as an enjoined penance
or a voluntary work I know not. September 16, the rood, with Mary and John,
belonging to St. Magnus Church, was burnt at the comer of Fleet Street, to
gether with other superstitious things pertaining to that church  so that
from Bartholomew-tide and so forward, within a month's time, or less, were de
stroyed all the roods, church images, church goods, with copes, crosses, censers,
altar-cloths, rood-cloths, books, banner-staves, waintscot, with much other like
gear, in and about London. These were somy of the matters that passed in the
visitation of the city, whereof, not long alter our divine ' (i. e. Grindall) ' was
called to be bishop.'

A Booh about Clergy.

minators of our sacred edifices worked upon the very materiafe;
of the walls, — producing the pictures which the Eeformers,-
under Cranmer's primacy, instead of actually scraping them
from the plaster and stone on which they had been put, merely
obliterated by covering them with thick overcoats of whitewash
or paint. Of the pictures thus obliterated by the brushes of
house-painters, numerous specimens have been brought to light
in these later times by our church-restorers, who have taken
commendable pains to relieve these interesting relics of medieval
art of the disfiguring materials imposed upon by successive
generations of churchwardens. Of these pictorial curiosities
some good examples may be found in the church of Wisborough
Green, Sussex, the vicar of which parish recently published a
very entertaining and scholarly treatise on their characteristics
and purpose. These remains of mural adornment, lately dis-'
covered in a country church, are perhaps more valuable, as
historic evidence, than the relics of greater and higher work in
more important temples, since they assist in showing that the
churches of even obscure parishes were not overlooked by the
medieval limners. Mr. Maze Gregory inclines to the opinion
that some of the Wisborough Green relics may have been
painted so early as the later part of the eleventh century ; but
we are disposed to think that the learned vicar assigns too
remote a date to the paintings about which he has spoken and
written* so serviceably.
In lieu of the paintings, thus removed or defaced under
Cranmer's primacy, the walls of churches were decorated with
verses of Scripture which were regarded by the Catholic party
with vehement dislike, — as innovations on ancient ways, and
controversial affronts to the papal system. That the clergy,
who directed the labours of the Protestant illuminators in
Edward the Sixth's time, selected for exhibition on the church
walls such texts as appeared to justify the proceedings of the
Eeformers, and to reflect on Catholic abuses, may be inferred
from the language of the mandate in which Bonner ordered the
* ¦' The Sins and Punishment of Our Members. Six Lectures, delivered on
tbe Fridays in Lent, 1867, on the Ancient Paintings recently discovered in the
Parish Church.' By the Rev. Maze W. Gregory, M.A., Vicar of Wisborough
Green, and Chaplain of Loxwood, Sussex. Rivingtons, 1667.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 9
prompt obliteration ofthe scriptures and writings painted upon
the church walls' of the. diocese of London. 'Because some
children of iniquity,' the insolent prelate proclaimed, * given up
to carnal desires and novelties, have by many ways enterprised
to banish the ancient manner and order of the church, and to
bring in and establish sects and heresies ; taking from thence
the picture of Christ, and many things besides instituted and
observed of ancient time laudably in the same ; placing in the
room thereof such things, as in such a place it behoved them
not to do, and also have procured, as a stay to their heresies (as
they thought) certain scriptures wrongly applied to be painted
on the church walls, all which persons tend chiefly to this end —
that they might uphold the liberty of the flesh, and marriage of
priests, and destroy, as much as lay in them, the reverent
sacrament of the altar, and might extinguish and enervate holy-
days, fasting-days, and other laudable discipline of the Catholic
Church ; opening a window to aU. vices, and utterly closing up
the way unto virtue ; wherefore we, being moved with a Chris
tian zeal, judging that the premises are not to be longer suffered,
do, for discharge of our duty, commit unto you jointly and
severally, and by the tenor hereof do straitly charge and com
mand you, that at the receipt hereof, with all speed convenient,
you do warn, or cause to be warned, first, second, and third time,
peremptorily, all and singular church-wardens and parishioners
whatsoever, within our diocese of London (wheresoever any such
scriptures or paintings have been attempted) that they abolish
and extinguish such manner of scriptures, so that by no means
they be either read or seen.'

10 A Booh about Clergy.

CHAPTEE IV.
TOMBS, SEATS, FLOWERS, AND CANDLES,
AF tombs and other material devices for perpetuating the
^ memory of deceased persons — the excess of which demon
strations of human pride and vanity tends in modern times more
to the disfigurement than the beauty of our temples — the medieval
church had comparatively few. Instead of interriug their dead
"within the walls of their towns, our earlier Saxon ancestors
devoted to purposes of sepulture pieces of ground lying at a
distance from the habitations of the living, — a course to which
their descendants of the nineteenth century have resorted after
enduring for generations upon generations the inconvenience
and evils of intramural interment. Cuthred, king of the West
Saxons, (740-754) was the first English ruler to allow the dead
to be buried within the walls of towns, during the life of which
Sovereign Archbishop Cuthbert obtained the Pope's permission
that churchyards should be used as burial-grounds. But the
practice of interring corpses in churches did not begin till a
much later date. Even so late as 1076, Archbishop Lanfranc,
in the council of Winchester, forbade that burial should be per
formed within the temples under his sway ; and a considerable
period elapsed before this canon was relaxed in favour of private
persons. During the Norman and Plantagenet period, individuals
who wished to lie beneath the roofs of sacred buildings could
obtain their desire at great cost and through special ecclesiastical
favour by erecting chapels contiguous to churches, — care being
taken by the authorities of the original edifices, that the
architecture of these sacella harmonised with the temples
to which they were attached, and that the control and custody,
though not the absolute ownership, of the new chapels went

Part IV: — Old Ways and New Fashions. 11
with the parent churches.* It was thus that many of our
churches acquired their aisles (alee), or wings built out from
the original edifices, within which no interments might be
made. Thus also, through the combined piety and arrogance
of the wealthy individuals who erected the side-chapels, or
sacella, of which sufficient notice has already been taken, a
single church in course of time became, as it were, an accumu
lation of churches. But long after royal and noble persons,
and humbler individuals of extraordinary wealth, could thus
obtain intra-ecclesial sepulture for themselves and their fami
lies without infringing Lanfranc's ninth canon, persons of
considerable, though secondary influence, — persons, to use
modern terms, of gentle condition and average social respect
ability, — continued to be debarred from the costly distinction
of interment under the church-roof.
Even so late as Henry the Seventh's time the author of
' The Book of the Festival ' — a work throwing much light on
the church-life of our ancestors in the fifteenth century — speaks
with strong disapprobation of the growing fashion of burying
inferior persons in the Lord's House. That patrons and incum
bents might be buried in their churches, the author admits;
but he insists that to inter persons of inferior quality within
church walls was a profane and abominable act. In language
which it is difficult to peruse with gravity, he assures us, ' They '
(i.e. churchyards) 'were appointed by the fathers to bury in,
for two causes : one, to be prayed for, as our holy Church useth ;
• So recently as July 7, 1866, one of our Vioe-Chancellors recognised, in a
judicial decision, a manorial lord's apparent right of private property in a saceUum
thus attached by a medieval lord to Icklesham Church. In his judgment, his
honour said, ' that in ancient times the founders of churches were very generally
lords of manors; and that it was the custom in early times for the lord of a manor,
when founding a church, to found with it « private chapel, not annexed to his
house, but to the church itself; considering, perhaps, that it derived some addi
tional sanctity from being, as it were, made part of the church, in appearance,
and close to the church. And it was a common practice for lords of manors, and
other men of note in the country, to obtain leave either from the Pope, or from
the Crown, or from the Patron, the ordinary and the incumbent (and the lord of
the manor would generally be the patron), to annex a chapel to an existing
church ; that this was most commonly done in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen
turies, and in that manner a number of chapels were annexed to churches, such
chapels being founded for the purposes of private masses and as places of sepul
ture for the families of the founders.' — Vide ' Law Rep.' Churton v. Frewen.

12 A Booh about Clergy.

and another, for the body, to lie there at rest. For the fiend
hath no manner of power with Christian burials. No burying
in the church, except it be the patron, that defends it from
bodily enemies ; and the parson, vicar, priest, or clerk, that de
fend the church from ghostly enemies with their prayers. Some
have been buried there and cast out again on the morrow, and
all the clothes left still in the grave. An angel came on a time
to a warden of a church, and bade htm go to the bishop to cast
out the body he had buried there, or else he should be dead
within thirty days. And so he was ; for he would not do as he
was bidden.'
The custom of burying the dead in churches grew more and
more general in the Elizabethan period and throughout the
seventeenth century, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition
offered by many influential persons to the objectionable
usage. When John Evelyn's father-in-law had died, Feb.
12th, 1683, at Sayes Court, he was interred in the churchyard
of his parish, in accordance with his particular directions, given
in the hope that the example of his interment, would tend to put
intra-ecclesial burial out of fashion. ' By a special clause in his
will,' says his son-in-law, the diarist, 'he ordered that his body
should be buried in the churchyard under the south-east window
of the chancel, adjoining to the burying-places of his ancestors,
since they came out of Essex into Sayes Court, he being much
offended at the novel custom of burying everyone within the
body of the church and chancel ; that being a favour hereto
fore granted to martyrs and great persons ; this excess of
making churches charnel-houses being of ill and irreverend
example, and prejudicial to the health of the living, besides the
continual disturbance of the pavement and seats, and several
other indecencies. Dr. Hall, the pious Bishop of Norwich,
would also be so interred, as may be read in his testament.'
Six years later (April 12th, 1689) John Evelyn co-operated
with the Bishop of St. Asaph to urge the Archbishop of Canter
bury to forbid needless private administrations of baptism, and
to lessen the frequency of intra-ecclesial interments: — 'the one
proceeding much from the pride of women, bringing that into
custom which was only indulged in case of imminent danger,
and out of necessity during the Eebellion and persecution of the

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 13
clergy in our late civil wars; the other from the avarice of
ministers, who, in some opulent parishes, made almost as much
of permission to bury in the chancel and the church as of their
livings, and were paid with considerable advantage and gifts for
baptising in private,' After his death the diarist was interred,
apart from vulgar folk, in the mausoleum, or ' dormitory ' of the
Evelyns at Wotton, Like Bishop Hall, Bishop Compton of
London used to say ' The churchyard for the dead, the church
for the living;' and when he died, in 1713, he was buried in
Fulham churchyard.
The medieval church differed notably from the modern temple
in not having permanent seats in the nave for the accommo
dation of the laity. Though mention is made of pews in the
literature of the fifteenth century, it is uncertain what was the
article of furniture to which the word ' pew ' was applicable.
The ' pew closed with iron,' and placed near the high altar of
the minster, mentioned in Sir Thomas Malory's translation of
the ' Morte d' Arthur,' was probably a priest's confessional. In
his 'Instructions for Parish Priests,' Mirk says not a word
about pews — silence which of itself demonstrates that private
seats for lay worshippers were not common in the earlier half of
the fifteenth century ; and though Eussell's ' Book of Nurture,'
a production of the same period, shows that private closets,
similar to our modern pews, were occasionally placed in our
temples, for those whom Dr. Doran in ' Saints and Sinners ' de
signates ' the finer people,' it may be confidently inferred from
the author's language, that the grand folk thus distinguished
from ordinary worshippers were exceptionally important person
ages. Eussell says, —
' Prince or prelate if he be, or any other potentate,
Ere he enter into the church, be it early or late,
Perceive all things for his pew, that it be made preparate ;
Both cushion, carpet, and curtain, beads, and book forget not that.'
Prelates, of course, sat in the chancel, to which sacred
quarter admission was also accorded to princes and other persons
mighty enough ,to be deemed potentates. The chancel of every
cathedral or superior church abounded with sumptuous furniture
of massive and richly- carved wood. Eussell's ' pews,' therefore.

14 A Booh about Clergy.

do not affect the assertion that, in CatSolic times, the naves of
our temples were neither pewed nor benched.
So long as the area of the nave was periodically set out for
a fair, a market, or court of law, the presence of fixed pews on
its pavement would have been a source of constant inconvenience
to the public. Such permanent seats would, moreover, have
occasioned continual embarrassment and dissatisfa.ction to the
clergy in tiraes when pompous processions of richly-robed eccle
siastics moving within as well as about the sacred edifice, were
conspicuous features of the solemnities on Sundays and other
holy days. But when the Eeformation had suppressed the
ancient ambulatory processions, and prohibited the holding of
fairs and social feasts within consecrated buildings, no consider
ation for clerical observances or public convenience forbade the
laity to parcel out the area of their peculiar quarter with wooden
compartments. Bishop Kennet states precisely that ' churches
were first generally seated ' in the times immediately following
the Eeformation. This change, however, was not effected with
out opposition from many ecclesiastics and laymen, to whom it
¦appeared that Sir Thomas More was worthy of commendation
for having protested against tbe few pews which were to he
found in Henry the Eighth's London churches. Under Elizar
beth pews became numerous, though by no means universal, in
the London churches ; and the High Church clergy of the next
two reigns — friends to all ecclesiastical arrangements that tended
to orderliness and the material advancement of their class-^
were seldom loth to assign pews to lay families who were ready
to pay handsome fees for the comfort and distinction that at
tended their possession. But even so late as the reig^i of
Charles the First, the contention* between the introducers and
opponents of pews OGcasionally gave rise to riots in the churches*
* Taking the part of the opponents of private seats. Bishop Corbet remarked
disdainfully, ' Stately pews are now become tabernacles, with rings and curtains
to them. There wants nothing but beds, to hear the word of God on. We have
casements, looks, keys, and cushions — I had almost said, bolsters and pillows;
and for these we love the church ! I will not guess what is done in them ; who
sits, stands, or lies asleep at prayers, communion, &c. : but this I dare say, they
are either to hide some vice or to proclaim one ; to hide disorder or proclaim
pride.* Respecting old pews, my readers will find some entertaining particulars
in Dr. Doran's volumes on ' Hassock and Cassock.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 15
of London and its neighbourhood. And, after pews had become
common in the naves of churches, the word ' pew ' was so far
from being restricted to its present signification, that we find
Pepys applying it indifferently to a private closet in a house of
worship, and a private box in a theatre.
Having no permanent seats in their quarter of the. church,
the devout laity of a medieval congregation usually knelt or
stood throughout celebrations of Divine Service, if they were in
a condition of health that permitted them to hear mass, anthem,
chant, and sermon, in attitudes of unrest. The indolent were
wont to loll against walls and pillars; the irreverent were
accustomed to walk to and fro, making an unseasonable clatter
on the pavement as they passed from spot to spot to exchange
greetings and whispered gossip with their acquaintance. But
aged persons and worshippers of infirm health were from an
early date of our Church history permitted to seat themselves
on little stools or portable chairs, which they either brought
with them from their homes whenever they attended service, or
hired of an official of the church. The reader does not need
to be reminded how, during Laud's calamitous primacy, Jenny
Geddes began a famous riot in the High Church of St. Giles,
Edinburgh, by flinging her stool at the Dean's head,* When
this custom of bringing seats into church had become prevalent,
the first step had been taken towards the introduction of per
manent benches ; and, when private families had acquired a
customary right to a particular bench on a particular spot of
the sacred area, the bench — gradually furnished with a back to
lean against, a desk to put books upon, and a bar to keep out
intruders, — developed into a primitive pew, that was copied
and improved upon by emulous imitators.
Another article of furniture universally conspicuous in the
modem church, and almost as universally absent from the me
dieval temple, was the fixed pulpit. The permanent wooden or
* Some historians insist that Jenny Geddes's stool was a three-legged sea,t ;
but one of the several pictures in the unique frontispiece of Rushworth's ' His
torical Collections ' represents the riot in St. Giles's Church, and gives Jenny's
stool four legs. The people are depicted sitting on four-legged stools, and be
neath the picture is the legend,^-
' Strange y' from stooles, at Scotysh Prelates hurl'd,
Bellona's dire alarms should rouse the world.'

16 A Booh about Clergy.

stone pulpits of the feudal churches were usually placed in the
open air, so that the preachers might address larger audiences
than could be entertained in the churches. Sermons however
were delivered within the walls of our temples before the Eefor
mation,— less frequently, indeed, than at the present time, but
often enough to be an important element of ecclesiastical
instruction. And these addresses were usually delivered from
portable box-desks,* — just such pulpits as appear in many of
the illustrations of Foxe's ' Acts and Monuments.' In the Ee
formation period pulpit-oratory became more general and ser
viceable in the churches than it had been for many previous
generations. The clergy and the laity alike needed its help to
* White Kennet, bishop of Peterborough, says of the medieval pulpits, and
those by which they were replaced at or after the Reformation, ' Having entered
the church' (i. e. of Chilton) 'in the eastern wall on the right, facing the west,
near the entrance into the chancel, we find a seat, pew, or piUpit, made in the
wall : a seat, perhaps, for the Abbot of Noteley or his representative, when here ;
or a confessional for the parish-priest on particular days and proper seasons ; or
a pulpit, from whence the legends of the saints were read, and stated sermons or
discourses read to the people. For other pulpits heretofore were unfixed, port
able, to be placed or removed at pleasure ; and the present conveniences that are
now fixed in our churches are owing to the times that accompanied the Reform
ation : for then churches were first generally seated ; when ambulatory processions^
within and about the church, were laid aside ; and a pulpit ordered to be pro
vided and set up in every church by the churchwardens, at the cost of the parish.
On the one side of the pulpit, towards the right hand of the preacher, is a hand
some frame for an hour-glasse, heretofore an attendant on every pulpit : but at
the present time the frames are to be found but in few. However, there was
one left at Stokenchurch, Oxon, and another at Turfield, com. Bucks ; and I ob
served in the parish-church of High Wycombe, that there is the like iron fastened
just by the pulpit, which iu the year 1737 I saw furnished with an hour-glass for
sand, but cannot say whether it is still used to its original purpose. Not far from
this, at the corner-seats in the great isle, is a poor's box, with a slit in the lid, to
receive benefactions dropped by the well-disposed into it. This in the time of
Popery was called " truncus," and there were many at several altars and images
of the churches; and the customary free-wiU offerings, dropt into the trunks,
made up a good part ofthe endowment of the vicars, and thereby made their con
dition better than in later tirries. "¦ Vicarius habebit oblationes quascunque ad
truncos tam in dicti ecclesia. &o. &o., quam alibi infra parochiam ipsius ecclesisB
factas." ..... This way of collecting charity by a chest placed iu consecrated
places hath been ofvery ancient standing ..... a.d. 1201, 3 John, Eustace, the
abbot, coming as a missionary preacher into England, amongst other institutions
directed that a wooden box should be put in every parisb-church, under the cus
tody of two or three faithful persons, to receive the alms ofthe people designed
for buying lights for the chureh, and for the burial of the poor.'— Vide Bishop
Kennet's ' Parochial Antiquities.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 17
a degree unknown in the Catholic times, — the former that they
might justify the Eeformation to the popular mind, and lay
clearly before simple folk the doctrines of the Eeformed church :
the latter that they might definitely ascertain the new views
which the .spirituality had adopted respecting matters of faith
and practice. Hence, from having consisted mainly of rites and
ceremonies, varied with occasional written or extempore dis
courses from the priests, the services of the Church were so re-
arramged that civic congregations assembled quite as much to heaf
sermons as to say prayers. The clergy had new tidings for ike
people, and the people were eager listeners to the novel doctrines.
The church became a leotmre-hall, the worshippers became stu
dents : and ito meet the exigencies of the crisis, the reforming
monarchs and their bishops insisted on the erection of permanent
pulpits in the parish churches, took jealous precaution that
none but clergymen honestiy attached to itlie principles of the
Eeformation should disehaxge the functions ofthe preacher, and
provided sound discourses of wholesome dociaine for delivery
from the pulpit to congregations, whose ministers either from
lack of ability or from disaffection towards Protestantism could
not with:safety be permitted to preach sermons of their own com
position. The pulpits thus built during the Eeformation period
were usually provided with hour-glasses, put on little brackets
of iron and wood, so that the preacher might know when he
had pueached an hour, which was deemed the full time fqr a
single sermon.
In an inventoiy of the principal articles of medieval church-
furniture mention must be made of the floral adornments which,
though of no or only trivial value, were as exactly articles of
furniture, as the cocoa-fibre mats, Turkey carpets, and artistic
devices with which we now-a-days decorate our private houses.
It still remains with us a universal custom to deck the interior
of our churches at Christmas-tide with holly, mistletoe, and
laurel; and at other seasons of the year — such as Whitsuntide,
and Easter — it is the custom of some of our incumbents to
embellish their churches with green foliage and bright flowers,
in accordance with usage handed down to us from our rempte
ancestors. By those persons, however, who thus bestir them
selves to preserve an innocent and graceful practice from passing
VOL. II. ^

18 A Booh about Clergy. 
away, it is seldom remembered or known that these floral decora
tions are relics of the social, rather than of the sacred, use of
the Christian temple,* and that they are memorials of a state
of society when the pure and lovely products of nature were
made to perform the same services in private dwellings as are
now rendered by works of art and manufacture. The same
persons who embellished and supplied our medieval churches
with flowers, and boughs, and rushes strewn upon the floor,
periodically fitted up their homes in the same style : and if we
would imitate the spirit rather than the form of these church-
decorators of old feudal time, instead of preparing our churches
for festival seasons with holly and birch branches, yew boughs
and oak leaves, box twigs and rushes, we should fit them up
with turkey-carpets, curtains of silk damask, and such articles
of taste and luxury as are ordinarily found in well-appointed
drawing-rooms. Ancient usage and religious associations have
induced many persons to attach certain vague notions of sacred
ness to these floral, embellishments : but it is a matter of his
toric certainty that, though they cannot be shown to have had
a purely secular origin, they are chiefly interesting to the anti
quary as relics of the time when the parish church was ^
common home, as well as a place of worship.
Concerning these floral adornments, a beneficed clergjraan
of the seventeenth century — Herrick in the ' Hesperides ' —
sung with delightful sweetness, after witnessing the preparations
for Candlemas, —
' Down with the Rosemary and Bayes, The HoUy hitherto did sway,
Down with the Mistleto ; Let Box now domineere,
Instead of Holly, now upraise Until the dancing Easter Day
The greener Box for show. Or Easter's Eve appeare.
* To assert that the use of flowers and leaves for the decoration of our sacred
places had a secular origin, would be to say more than what can be proved. The
practice, of course, is traceable to the pagan period of our history, when, as in
later times, boughs, flowers, and berries, were employed at festive seasons, for
religious as well as social ends. Whether the religious use of such natural ob
jects proceeded from, or gave rise to, their use for purposes of domestic embel
lishment and festal adornment, must remain a matter for conjecture. To raise
the question is to enter the still wider field of unanswerable inquiries, whether
social life proceeded from, or gave birth to, religious life ; how far each is indebted
to the other for its forms and modes ; and what in pre-historic times were the
boundaries between the one and the other province of human life.

Part IV.— Old Ways and New Fashions. 19

The youthful Box, which now hath Green Rushes • then, and sweetest
grace Bents,
Your houses to renew, With cooler Oaken boughs.
Grown old, surrender must his place Come in for comely ornaments
Unto the crisped Yew. To readorn the house.
When Yew is out, the Birch comes in. Thus times do shift; each thing his
And many flowers beside ; turne do 's hold :
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne. New things succeed, as former things
To honour Whitsuntide. grow old.'
Though etymologists concur in assigning different derivations
to 'holly' and 'holy,' it is at least a matter for discussion
whether the former word, instead of having been derived from
' holen,' is not fairly referable to the same Saxon root as the
latter epithet. All that is definitely known of the two words
inclines me to the opinion that the holly-tree gained its name
from the liberality with which it was used for the decoration of
churches and private dwellings on the chief of holy days, — or,
to adopt the spelling frequent in old books, of holly days.
Another ancient name of the tree with prickly leaves and red
berries, was Hulfere, or Hulver, which is explained by Skinner
with questionable judgment as a corruption of 'hold fair' — a
term applicable to the tree that kept the fairness and beauty of
its leaves throughout the year ; but not on that ground more
applicable to the holly than any other evergreen tree. Another
and perhaps preferable explanation of the word, is that it comes
* Herbert, in bis ' Country Parson,' alludes to the now obsolete practice of
strewing church-floors with rushes — a custom universal at a time when the gal
leries of great mansions and the parlours of manor-houses were carpeted in the
same primitive manner. ' The country parson,' says Herbert, ' hath a special!
care of his church, that all things there be decent, and befitting His name by
which it is called. Therefore, first he takes order that all things be in good
repair, as walls plaistered, windows glazed, floore hard, seats whole, firm, and
uniform; especially that the pulpit, communion-table, and font, be as they ought,
for those great duties that are performed in them. Secondly, that the church be
swept, and kept cleane, without dust or cobwebs, and at great festivalls strawed,
and stuck with boughs, and perfumed with incense.' The Laudian High
Churchmen were over-zealous for the attainment of uniformity in clerical cos
tume, practices, and rites. This same delight in' regularity was the motive
to most of those Laudian innovations which provoked the Puritans ; and the
foregoing passage shows, that even in the country churches of Charles the
First's time, pews were general, and of uniform construction. The extract also!
demonstrates how largely incense was used in our churches long after the
Reformation.

^0 A Booh about Clergy.
from 'hold fear'— a 'term appropriate to the foliage which,
when put up in private dwellings at festal seasons, was supposed
in superstitious times to drive off Satanic spirits, and restrain
persons from fear of them.
Conspicuous also amongst the iatemal adornments of our
churches in old time, were the candles which, liberally at ordin
ary times, though most bountifully at festal seasons, were burnt
at sacred shrines, and before the images of saints in every part
of the temple, as well as before the various altars of the edifice.
It was seldom that an important church was altogether without
artificial illumination ; and on occasions of exceptional pomp
and ceremonious splendour, even rural "churches were filled with
light that must have been alike attractive and exhilarating to
spectators in days when Candle-light was a costly luxury, and
used with severe parsimony even in the houses of the wealthy.
By recalling the social use of the medieval Church, and re
flecting how largely its abundance of artificial light contributed
to its cheerfulness and the satisfaction of its habitual frequenters,
we put ourselves in a position to apprecaate the reasonableness
and practical utility of the penances which enjoined persons
guilty of ecclesiastical offences to demonstrate their contrition,
and conciliate the clergy, by offerings of tapers, to be consumed in
their ordinary places of worship. The penitent thus compelled
to supply a pair of large fair tapers for the high altar, or to
place a row of cheaper candles before a saint's image, in his
parish church, was required to render atonement in the manner
most likely to benefit the special community which he had
scandalised and injured by his misdemeanour.
So also, to appreciate the incidents of medieval church-life
and the influence which every parish church exercised on its
habitual attendants, we must contrast the beauty, and bright
ness, and numerous attractions of the Common Home, against
the meanness, and darkness, and sordid discomforts of the
private dwellings of ordinary men in feudal England. In an
age that delighted in gorgeous pomps and spectacles designed
to stimulate the imagination, the populace were entertained in
the churches with ambulatory processions of richly-clothed
priests and ministrants, compared with which frequent displays
of clerical magnificence the occasional parades of civic magis--

Part IV.— Old Ways and New Fashions. 21
trates were paltry and insignificant. In times that had no
profane theatres, lecture-rooms, opera-houses — none of those
sources of artistic amusement and intellectual diversion which
are so abundant in modern society — the medieval citizen went
to his church for wholesome relaxation and aesthetic culture, as
well as for devotional exercise and spiritual edification. His
ordinary dwelling-room was low, dark, narrow, and ill-furnished :
the church, a work of noble art, was lofty, luminous, spacious,
and richly decora-ted. His home was usually a foul, stinking
place : the church airy, and redolent vrith the rich perfumes
of incense. Away from the churches he never heard any music
better thaw the strains of ballad-singers, aud such discordant
noises as wandering minstrels produced with, fife a.nd bagpipe,
drum and fiddle, for the exhilaration of jaided pilgrims : in the
churches he was stirred and fascinated by sacred harmonies, to
which the most fastidious critics of the melodious art still listen
with delight and admiration. Whilst the- homes of the weal
thiest persons ofthe land were without, the instrumental appH.r
ances for the creation; of harmony superior to the music of a
booth at a village fair,, the poorest of our medieval ancestors
might satiate their appetite for sweet sounds by listening to the
organs and choristers of ouj; cathedrals and miostens,

22 A Booh about Clergy.

CHAPTEE V.
CLERGY AND LAITY IN CHURCH.
THOSE who have watched the demeanour of a full congrega
tion in the Catholic cathedral of a continental city, at a
time when a flood of English tourists and other Protestant
sight-seers has added to the ordinary confusion and restlessness
of the scene, may realise something of the stir and bustle that
usually pervaded an assembly of worshippers in an important
medieval church during sacred celebrations ; but the buzz and
clatter of a feudal congregation were far louder and more
opposed to Puritanical decorum than the hum and agitation of
any similar gathering of the present time.
One bad result of the ancient social use of the Christian
temple, was the air of irreverent familiarity that distinguished
the medieval church-assemblies during Divine service. On
such occasions the public quarter was never without a due
complement of frequenters, but their dress and conduct were
such, that the spectators whose religious proclivities were in
the direction of Lollardy had cause to disapprove the lightness
and inquietude of the gossiping throng. The women donned
their brightest attire ere they set out for church on sacred days ;
and on entering the place of worship they often showed that
their presence in the house of prayer was quite as much due to
love of the world as to delight in holy thoughts. Having duly
crossed themselves half-a-score times, knelt on the bare floor
for ten minutes, and muttered a few prayers to the rood, they
deemed themselves at liberty to look about for their admirers
and prattle to their acquaintance. The ladies of superior
degree very often had pet sparrow-hawks perched on their
wrists, and toy-hounds following close at their heels.
The case was the same with the men, who, having walked to

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 23
church on the look-out for wild birds and four-legged game,
brought their hounds and falcons into the sacred edifice, —
where the chants of the choir and rolling melodies of the organ
were often marred by the barking of dogs, the jangling of hawk-
bells, and the screams of children terrified by the noise of savage
mastiffs.* And while this riot was going on in the nave, the
priests in the quire or chancel would put their heads together
and gossip about the latest scandals of their chapter or of
the neighbourhood, make engagements for pleasure-meetings
after service, and exchange opinions on the newest affairs of
"= That this is no overdrawn picture, the reader may satisfy himself by a pe
rusal of the ' Stultifera Navis, or Ship of Fools,' by Alexander Barclay, who died
in 1532, and whose pictures of the church-life of his contemporaries may also be
fairly taken as illustrative of the church-life of Englishmen in WycUffe's time.
In the section devoted to ' them that make noises, rehearsinges of tales, and do
other things unlawful! and dishonest in the churche of God,' the satirist says, —
' 1. A foole is he, and hath no minde devoute,
And geveth occasion to men on him to rayle.
Which goeth in the churche his houndes him about.
Some running, some fast tyed to his tayle,
A hawke on his fist : suoh one withouten fayle,
Better were to be thence, for by his din and crye
He troubleth them that would pray devoutly.
2. Yet of mo foules finde I a great number,
Which think that is no shame no vilany.
Within the church the service to encumber
With their lewde barking, rounding, din and cry;
And whyle good people are praying stedfastly.
Their heart to good, with meke minde and devoute.
Such fooles them let with theyr mad noyse and shout.
3. And while the priestes also them exercise.
In mattens, praying, sermon, or preaching divine,
Or other due that longe to their service,
Teaching the people to vertue to incline;
Then these fooles as it were roring swine
With their jesting and tales of viciousnesse.
Trouble all such service that is saide more and lesse.
4. Into the church then comes another sotte.
Without devotion, jetting up and downe.
Or to be scene, or to showe his gard^d cote.
Another on his fiste a sparhauke or fawcone.
Or else a cokow, and so wasting his shone,
Before the aulters he to and fro doth wander,
With even as much devotion as a gander.

24 A Booh about Clergy. -
politics. In the ' Ship of Fools,' Alexander Barclay tells how,
when a priest sitting on one side of the quire wished to com
municate during service a piece of trivial gossip to a brother-
i. In comes another, his houndes at his tayle,
With lynes and leases and other like baggage ;
His dogges bark, so that without faile
The whole church is troubled by theyr outrage:
So innocent youth leametb the same of age.
And their lewde sounde doth the church fiU.
But in this noyse the good people kepe them still.
6. One time the hawkes beUs jangleth hye,
Another time they flutter with their winges,
And now the howndes barking strikes the skye,
Nowe sounde their feate, and now the chaynes ringes.
They clap with their hands by such manner thiages,
They make of the church for their hawkes a mewe^
And canell for their dogges, which they shall after rewe.
7. So with such fooles is neither peace nor rest,.
Unto the holy church they have no reverence.
But wander about to see who yet may best.
In ribawde wordes, pride and insolence :
As mad men they feare not our Saviour's, presence.
Having no honour unto that holy place.
Wherein is geven to man everlasting grace.
8. There are handled pleadings and causes of the lawe.
There are mayde bargayues of divers matter thynges,
Byings and sellings scant worth a hawe ;
And there are for luere contrived false leasings.
And while the priest his mass or mattins sings.
Those fooles which to the church do repayre
Are chatting and babbling as if it were a fayre.
9. Some gigle and laugh, and some on maydens stare.
And some on wives with wanton countenance;
As for the service they have small force or care.
But full delite them in their misgovemance.
Some with their slippers to and fro doth prance,
Clapping their heels in church and queare.
So that good people cannot the service heare.
10. What shall I write of maydens and wives,
Of their roundings and ungodly communing ?
Now one a slander craftely contrives.
And in the church thereof has hir talking;
The other have therto their eares leaning.
And when they all have heard forth hir tale,
Witii great devotion they get them to the ale.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 25
priest on the other side of the chancel, he would beckon to the
rector ehori, and make him act as a messenger or medium of
intelligence between the two sides of ' the queere.'
11. Thus is. the church defiled with vilany,
And in steede of prayer and godly orison
Are' used shamefull bargainee and tales of ribawdry,
Jestings, and mockings, and great derision.
There few are or none of perfect devotion ;
And when our Lorde is consecrate in forme of breade.
Thereby walkes a knave, his bonet on his head.
13. And while those modes of consecration
Are sayde of the priest in God's own presencoj
Such caytives keepe tales and communication
Fast by the aulter, thinking it none offence ;
And where as the angels are there with reverence.
Lauding and worshipping our holy Saviour,
These unkinde caytives will scanily Him' honour.
13. Alas, whereto shall any man complaine
For this folly and accustomed furor,
Since none of them their faultes wUl' refrayne.
But ay proceede in this their lewde errour ;
And notwithstanding that Christ our Saviour
Hath left us example, that none shall mis do
Within the chureh, yet encline we not thereto.
14. John the evangelist doth openly expresse
How Christe our Saviour did drive out and expell
From the temple suche as used there falsenesse,
And all other that therein did bye and sell ;
Saying as it after lieth in the gospel,
But the Jewes rebuke and great repreves.
That of God's house they made a den of theves.
15. Remember this man, for why thou doest the same^
Defyling God's church with sinne and vanitie.
Which sothely was ordeyned to halowe God's name.
And to lawde and worship the holy Trinitie,
With devout hearte, love, and all benignitie.
And with all our might our Lorde to magnifie.
And then after all the heavenly company.
16. For this cause hath God thy holj church ordeyned,,
And not for rybaude wordes and thinges vayne :
But by no Christen men it is destayned,,
Much worse than ever the Jews did certayne.
And if our Lorde should nowe come downe againe.
To drive out of the church such as there do sin,
Forsooth I thinke right few should bide within.

26 A Booh about Clergy.

The women of the congregation of CQurse wore their head-
kerchiefs or other bonnets ; but instead of veiling their faces
they made the greatest possible display oftheir personal charms,
so as to catch new suitors or gratify old lovers. The men also'
had their heads covered, and were not required even by precise
censors to remove their caps, unless the host was being exhibited
and raised for the adoration of the tumultuous assembly.
Alexander Barclay makes it a special and separate charge
17. 0 man that boasteth thyself in Christe's name,
Calling thee Christen, see thou thy sin refuse ;
Remember well it is both sinne and shame
The house of God thus to defyle and abuse.
But this one thing causeth men oft to muse,
That tbe false Paynims within their temples be,
To their ydols minde more devout than we.
3|c 4: 4:
18. I have before touched the great enormitie,
The foUy aud disorder without all reverence,
Which in the church dayly we may see.
Among lay fooles, which better were be thence ;
But nowe shall I touche another like offence,
And that is of fooles which in the queer habounde,
Not saying the service of God as they are bounde.
19. But diverse toyes and japes variable
They spread abrode, enoombring the service,
And namely with their tonge wherewith they hable.
Echo one to other, as if they toke advise
And counsell together their cartes to devise.
Unto our shippes their company to cary.
For loth they will be so long fro them to tarry.
* * «
20. There be no tidings nor nuelties of warre.
Nor other wonders done in any straunge lande,
Whatsoever they be, and come they never so farre.
The priestes in the queere at flrst have them in hande.
While one recounteth the other to understande
His fayned fable, barkening to the glose.
Full little adverteth howe the service goes.
21. The battayles done perchance in small Britayne,
In Fraunce or Flaunders, or to the worldes end.
Are told in the queere (of some) in wordes vayne,
In midst of matters in stede of the legende,
And other gladly lo heare the same intende.
Much rather then the service for to heare,
The rector ehori is made the messengere.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 27
against the irreverent commonalty of his time that godless
knaves often omitted to uncover when ' the Lorde consecrate in
forme of breade' was revealed to the congregation. And in
accordance with ancient usage the men of old England continued
to wear their head-attire in church, during religious services,
down to and long after the Eeformation. Eichard Cox, bishop of
Ely, died in 1581 ; and it is remarked by Peck in the ' Desiderata
Curiosa,' that the mourners and congregation, who attended the
prelate's obsequies, and heard his funereal sermon, are repre-
22. He runneth about like a piirsevant.
With his white staff moving from side to side,
Where he is learning tales are not stent,
But in one place long doth he not abide:
So he and other themselves so lewdely gide
Without devooion by theii; lewde negligence,
That nothing can bind their tongues to silence.
23. And in the morning when they come to the queere.
The one beginneth a fable or a historie.
The other leaneth their eares it to heare,
Taking it instede of the Jnvitorie.
Some other maketh respons autem and memory.
And all of fables and jests of Robin Hood,
And other trifles that scantly are so good.
24. With ti-ifles they begin and so oft time they ende.
Recounting nuelties, they wast their time therein.
And whereas they ought their service to intende.
Of God Almightie, they spend the time in sinne;
And other some into the quere doth ren.
Rather for lucre and curse covetise
Then for the love of the divine service.*
Exclaiming against the customary restlessness of congregations in times prior
to the general introduction of pews, which conduced greatly to the quietude of
religious church-assemblies, Latimer — in one of the Lenten sermons preached
in the banqueting-hall of Westminster Palace (1549)— exclaimed: 'The people
came to here ye word of God ; thei hard him with silence. I remember now a
saying of Sayucte Chrisostome, and peraduenture it myghte come here after in
better place, but yet I wyll take it whiles it commeth to my mind. The saying
is this : " Et loquentem eum audierunt ire silentio, seriem locutionis non inter-
rumpentes." They harde them (sayeth he) in silence, not interruptynge the order
of his preachinge. He means, they hard him quietely, with out any shouelynge
of feete, or walkynge vp and downe. Suerly it is an yl misorder, that folke shalbe
walkynge vp and downe in the sermon tyme (as I haue sene in this place thys
Lente), and there shalbe suche bussynge and bussynge in the preacher's eare,
that makyth him at times to forget hys matter.'

28 A Booh about Clergy. 
sented in 'an admirable, fair,' large old drawing,' as sitting
with their bonnets on in the quire of Ely Cathedral during the
delivery of the obsequious panegyric. The usage, which makes
men uncover on entering a church, seems to have originated isa
the time of Charles the First, in whose reign Archbishop Laud
wrote to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. 'Sir, I am informed,
that the masters, many of them sit bare at St. Marie's, having
their hats there, and not their caps ; rather choosing to sit bare,
then to keepe forme, and then, as soon as they come out of
church, they are quite out of form all along the 'streets. I am
likewise told, that divers of the younger sort, and some masters,
b^gin again to leave the wide-sleeved gown apace, and take up
that which they call the lawyer's gown. If both or either of
these be, you had better look to it before it gather head. And
if it be true for the gowns, you must chide the taylors that make
them very severely, besides what you do to the scholars. W. Cant.
Lambeth, Feb. 26, IGSS-Q.' In a marginal note the primate
added, ' I approve their sitting bare, so long as they go along the
street in their caps, and keep form, which the vice-chancellor
tells me they do.'
It would be impossible to give in few words a general picture
of the Elizabethan congregations and the internal arrangements
of English churches during divine service under the Virgin
Queen, for the true description, of the proceedings in one church
would be inapplicable to the proceedings in another. A perusal
of canons and injunctions would induce the uninformed reader
to imagine that uniformity of public worship was attained
throughout the kingdom soon after Elizabeth's accession ; but
to promulgate orders was far easier than to enforce compliance
with them, and one of Cfecil's papers demonstrates how little
attention was paid by clergy and laity to the rules laid down for
their conduct in Church by their ecclesiastical superiors. At
the opening of her reign Elizabeth ordered ' that the holy table
in every church should be decently made, and set in the place
where the altar stood, and there commonly covered as heretofore
belongeth, and as shall be appointed by the visitors, and so to
stand, saving when the Communion of the Sacrament is to be
distributed ; at which time the same shall be so placed in good
sort within the chancel, as whereby the minister may be more

Part IV.-— Old Ways and New Fashions. 29

conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and
ministration, and the communicants also more conveniently,
and in more number, communicate with the said minister. And
after the Communion done, from time to time the same holy
table to be placed where it stood before.' But in disregard of
this explicit order, in some cases the table was kept permanently
in the nave, in other cases it stood always in the chancel near the
body of the church, and not seldom it was put ' altar-wise '
against the eastern-wall, and so maintained alike during the
services of communion and at other times. In many churches
communicants were allowed to elect for themselves whether to
receive the bread and wine, in an attitude of supplication or on
their feet or whilst occupying their seats. The implements used
for the administration of the elements were no less various, — the
vessel for the wine being sometimes a chalice, sometimes a silver
cup, sometimes a bowl of earthenware ; the paten being made
now of silver, now of wood, now of cheap crockery.
With respect to their apparel, the clergy were no less dissi
milar and regardless of authoritative directions. Elizabeth's
thirtieth injunction commanded, 'that all archbishops and
bishops, and all other that be called or admitted to preaching
or ministery of the sacraments, or that be admitted into vocation
ecclesiastical, or into any society of learning in either of the
universities or elsewhere, shall use and wear such seemly habits,
garments, and such square caps as were most commonly and
orderly received in the latter year of the reign of King Edward
the Sixth, not thereby meaning to attribute any holiness of
special worthiness to the said garments, but as St. Paul writeth
'" omnia decenter ac secundum ordinem fiant." ' But, though
the highest of the high-church clergy, who were secretly hoping
for a return of Popery, and the moderate clergy, who whilst
sincerely attached to the principles of the Eeformation ap
proved of the politic concessions which Protestant authority
had made to Catholic sentiment and taste in the new religious
settlement, were careful to wear the surplice, the Puritan clergy
either persistently refused to adopt, or avoided the use of, the
white robe which they abhorred as a relic of superstition.
Some of these last-named clergy, who reluctantly consented to
wear the surplice, refrained from wearing the square cap, —

30 A Booh about Clergy.

which had become, and long continued to be, the badge of
orthodoxy ; whereas the clergy who wore round caps, or button
caps, or ordinary hats were known thereby to be favourers of
Puritanism, — or, in current parlance, to be 'off the square;'*
a term that survived the fierce controversies about ecclesiastical
vestments, which distracted our devout ancestors of the Ee
formation period, and still holds its place in popular slang
to designate whatever violates social rule. Similar irregu
larities were discernible in gowns, coats, and other vestments
of the Elizabethan clergy, in their ways of administering bap
tism and delivering sermons, and in the details of their per
formances of all other parts of the appointed liturgy. In one
church the incumbent would read prayers in the chancel, in
another they would be uttered in the nave ; here the minister
would read them from the pulpit, in the church ofthe adjoining
parish they would be duly delivered from a reading-desk.
Whilst the Eitualistic clergy made much show in giving the
sign of the cross and in bowing at every utterance of the
Eedeemer's name, the Puritan clergy omitted the sign even
from administrations of baptism, and uttered the sacred name
without an obeisance of the head,
* ' Upon the death of Archbishop Grindal, Dr. John Whitgift became Arch
bishop of Canterbury, and was confirmed Sept. 23, 1583. The queen charged
him to restore the discipline of the Church, and the uniformity estabUshed by
law, ' which,' she says, ' through the connivance of some prelates, the obstinacy
of the Puritans, and the power of some noblemen, is run out of square.' — Vide
Benjamin Brook's ' Lives of the Puritans.' Of the diversities of ecclesiastical
practice thus pointed at we have a view in Secretary Cecil's paper, dated Feb. 24,
1564, which acquaints her msgesty that some clergymen ' perform divine service
and prayers in the chancel, others in the body of the church ; some in a seat
made in the church, some in the pulpit with their faces to the people ; some
keep precisely to the order of the book, some intermix psalms in metre ; some
say with a surplice, and others without one. The table stands in the body of the
church in some places, in others it stands in the chancel; in some places the
table stands altar- wise, distant from the wall a yard ; in others in the middle of
the chancel, north and south; in some places the table is joined, in others it
stands upon tressels ; in some the table has a carpet, in others none. Some ad
minister the communion with surplice and cap, some with surplice alone, others
with none; some with chalice, others with a communion-cup, others with a
common cup : some with unleavened bread, and some with leavened. Some
receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting ; some baptize in a font, some in
a basin; some sign with the sign of the cross, others without; some with a
square cap, some with a hat, some in scholars' clothes, some in others'.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 31
To eff'ect an approach to general compliance with the in
junctions and canons, and bring about a measure of uni
formity of worship in the parochial churches, without giving
needless offence to the opinions dominant in special localities,
the bishops of the Eeformed Church used to confer with the
ecclesiastical and civil authorities of the different districts of
their respective dioceses, and after consultation with them
sanction the adoption of rules for the performance of divine
services, which whilst complying with the requirements of Con
vocation differed in unimportant details. Strype has preserved
the rules which Scambler, bishop of Peterborough, thus enjoined
on the inhabitants of Northampton. By these ordinances it was
decided — that 'the singing and playing of organs, beforetime
accustomed in the quire,' should cease ; that the prayer should
be read by the officiating clergy in ' the body of the church
among the people; that a sermon should be preached after
morning prayer, on every Sunday and other Holy days, the
people singing a psalm before and after the delivery of their
preacher's address;' that 'a general communion should be
administered once every quarter in every parish church, with
a sermon,' due and repeated notice being given by the ministers
on Sundays to their congregations, enjoining them to prepare
themselves for the solemnities of the Lord's table ; that one
fortnight before the administration of each communion, the
churchwardens should make a domiciliary visit to each of the
communicants, omitting no house in their respective parishes,
and taking care to ascertain the nature of each communicant's
life ; that ' the carrying of the bell before corpses in the streets,
and bidding prayers for the dead (which was there used until
within these two years)'— i. e. until within two years of 1571,
in which year these rules were agreed upon by the mayor and
brethren of Northampton and justices of the peace of the coun
try and town of Northampton — should cease. The most remark
able of these Northampton provisions is one equally illustrative
ofthe social life of England in the sixteenth century, and re
pugnant to our notions of Christian fellowship and decency. It
was decided that on every day of general communion in each pa
rish church there shbuld be administrations ofthe Lord's Supper
—one at nine A.M. for the . edification of 'the quality,' at which

32 A Booh about Clergy.

no menial or other servile person should presume to attend, and
another at a still earlier hour for the benefit of servants and
vulgar persons, at which of course no Christian of superior degree
would deign to be present. 'Every communion day,' runs
this wonderful rule, ' each parish hath two communions ; the
one for servants and officers, to begin at five of the clock in
the morning, with a sermon of an hour, and to end at eight;
the other for 'masters and dames, &c. to begin at nine the same
day, with like sermon, and to end at twelve.'
In spite of the numerous injunctions of orderliness on
congregations, and the penalties attached to the offence of
brawling in churches during divine service, irreverent commotions
were very frequent in our places of worship throughout the
Elizabethan period, and still later during the times of Charles
the First. The writings of our clerical biographers and ecclesi
astical annalists abound with anecdotes of the turbulence of
English congregations from the accession of Elizabeth to the
execution of 'Charles,* in districts where religious pairties con
tended with more than common animosity. At one time the
riot is raised by Elizabethan Puritans, followers of Cartwright or
Browne, bent on silencing a high-church rector with groans and
vituperative clamour: at another time it originates in the
extravagances of Anabaptists and Quakers, moved by the Spirit
to warn mankind that steeple-houses are mere contrivances of
Satan. During the struggle between Charles the First and the
Parliament, the interruptions of public worship usually sprang
* A characteristic church-riot that occurred at Halsted, Essex, is thus noticed
in Nalson's 'Impartial Collection' (1682): — '1640. Upon Monday the lord
keeper signifled to the House of Lords, that his majesty had commanded him to
let their lordships know, that he was yesterday at council-table informed of a
great disorder and riot committed in the parish-church of Halstead,in the coimty
of Essex, on Simon and Jude's Day last past, by one Jonathan Pool, an excom
municated person, who in the time of divine service took the parish-clerk by the
throat, and forced him to go into the vestry and deliver to him the surplice and
hood, which he, with others with him, rent in pieces ; and likewise one Robert
Haward strook the service-book out of the curate's hand, and himself did with
others kick it about, saying it was a Popish book ; so, upon the complaint of
Mr. Etheridge, the minister, a warrant was directed to the constable of that town,
and that the said Pool and divers others of that town were attached, but imme
diately rescued by a multitude of people.' This commotion is a fair sample of
the riots provoked b^ the Laudian innovations.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 33

from the misdirected zeal of enthusiasts who, detecting an
officiating minister in the use of the words of the prohibited
prayer-book, threatened to knock him down, or blow out his
brains with a pistol-bullet, if he continued to wound their
spiritual sensibilities. Dr. Plume has recorded how Bishop
Hacket, whilst rector of St.. Andrew's Holborn, was savagely
accosted by a Parliamentarian soldier who, entering St. Andrew's
church during time of prayer, walked up to the reading desk and
pointing a pistol at the officiating incumbent, threatened to
shoot him dead, if he persisted in uttering the words ofthe book
of Common Prayer. By his presence of mind and lofty bearing,
the rector silenced his assailant without yielding to the menace ;
but soon afterwards he prudently withdrew from his London
living to his country parish, Cheam, where he continued to
discharge the functions of a parochial minister, rendering just so
much submission to Puritan opinion as barely enabled him to
retain his pulpit under the regime of the saints.*
Whilst prudent fear of authority and respect for the counsels
of judicious friends restrained Hacket from a course of action
that would have resulted in his ejection from the parsonage of
Cheam, the same influences induced Dr. (afterwards Bishop;
Sanderson to depart from the forms laid down for the celebration
of divine service in the Book of Common Prayer. Ejected, in
June 1648, from his office at Oxford by the Parliamentarian
visitors, Dr. Sanderson retired to his living of Boothby
Pagnell, Lincolnshire, where he continued to read the proscribed
service to his parishioners until a series of riots in the church
convinced him that he could not with impunity persist in
defying the laws imposed on the land. ' For the soldiers,' says
* ' There,' says Hacket's biographer, ' he constantly preached every Sunday
morning, expounded the Church Catechism every afternoon, read the Common
Prayer all Sundays and holidays, continued his wonted charity to all poor people
that resorted to it upon the week-days, in money, besides other relief out of his
kitchen, till the Committee of Surrey enjoyned him to forbear the use of it by
order ofthe parliament at any time, and his catechising out of it upon Sunday
afternoon. Yet after this order he ever still kept up the use of it in most parts,
never omitting the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments, Confession
and Absolution, and many other particular collects ; and always, as soon as the
Church sei-vice was over, absolved the rest at home, with most earnest prayers
for the good success of his majesty's armies, of which he was ever in great hope,
till the tidings came of the most unfortunate hattal at Nazeby.'
VOL, II. D

54 A Booh about Clergy.

Isaak Walton, in his memoir of the prelate, ' would appear, and
visibly disturb him in the church when he read prayers, pre
tending to advise him how God was to be served most acceptably :
which he not approving, but continuing to observe order and
devout behaviour in reading the Church Service, they forced his
book from him, or tore it, expecting extemporary prayers. A%
this time he was advised by a parliament man of power and
note, that valued and loved him much, not to be strict in
reading all the Common Prayer, but make some little variation,
especially if the soldiers came to watch him : for then it might
not be in the power of him and his other friends to secure him
from taking the covenant, or sequestration, for which reasons he
did vary somewhat from the strict rules of the rubric'
Puritan opinion was not more averse to printed prayers than
written sermons ; and in the seventeenth century congregations,
not ordinarily disposed to riotousness, would express their dis
like of bosom-sermons in ways that would now-a-days be termed
abominably indecorous. Whilst officiating during the IhterV
regnum as minister of St. George's near Bristol, George Bull,
afterwards bishop of St. David's, was preaching in his church
from notes, which his hearers mistook for the manuscript of a
sermon, when the papers escaped from his grasp and fell from the
pulpit to the ground below. Consisting mainly of seafaring
men, the congregation burst into laughter at this mishap,
supposing that the young preacher would be overcome' with
confusion and display his inability to continue his discourse
without the aid of his written words. Whilst the sailors were
proceeding from their first hoarse laughter to subtler expressions
of derision, some of the minister's more sedate hearers gathered
up the scattered leaves and restored them to the preacher, who,
having thanked his friends for their civility, thrust the recovered
papers into the folds of his academical gown and silenced the
scoffers by such an outburst of unstudied eloquence as satisfied
them that it was no consciousness of oratorical deficiency which
induced him to put on paper the heads of his discourse.
But though the tars of Bristol port were on the alert to
deride their minister for giving them written essays when they
would have preferred extempdre addresses, the simple fellows
liked their young pastor for his benevolence and complaisant

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 35
manners; and when an abusive Quaker had the temerity to
denounce hitn before his flock as a false prophet, the flock
turning fiercely on the intruder displayed more of the fierceness
of wolves than of the timorousness of sheep. ' George,' ex
claimed the Foxite friend, ' come down : thou art a false prophet
and a hireling.' Whereupon such a riot broke out as the little
. church had never before witnessed. Indignant at hearing the
word ' hireling' applied to their minister, whose professional
income barely covered his house-rent and tailor's bill, and whose
private means were spent with habitual generosity for the good
of the poor, the sailors fell upon the Quaker and were handling
him so roughly, that Mr, Bull hastily came down from the pulpit,
and rushing into the fray rescued the vituperator from his
chastisers. Having quieted the tumult and given the brawler
some counsel, alike seasonable and gentle, the pastor prepared
to return to his place in the pulpit, ' upon which,' says Eobert
Nelson with delight altogether commendable in a layman, ' the
people, being touched with a sense of gratitude to this minister
of God for his extraordinary kindness and constant bounty
toward them, , , . . and seeing the silly enthusiast at a perfect
non-plus, and not able to speak a word of sense in his own
defence, fell upon him a second time with such violence that
had not Mr. Bull hustled very much amongst them, .... they
would have worried him on the spot.'
Mention should here be made of a disturbance which shows
that in the seventeenth century the good citizens of York were ac
customed to deport themselves in their cathedral during hours
of divine service almost as irreverently as the thoughtless fre
quenters of Christian temples, whom Barclay lashed in the ' Ship
of Fools.' The principal actor in the fracas, and chief cause of
it, was an enthusiastic residentiary of York Cathedral, who with
more zeal than discreetness resolved to put an end to an un
seemly usage, which called loudly for correction. ' There was,'
says the historian of this extraordinary riot,* ' an ill custom at
York, of walking in the body of the cathedral during the time
* Vide ' A Defence of the Profession which the Right Reverend Father in
God John, late Lord Bishop of Chichester, made on his Deathbed, concerning
Passive Obedience and the New Oaths. Together with an Account of some
Passages of his Lordship's Life.' 1690.

36 A Book about Clergy.
of divine service, and the common sort of people would often-
time be rude and loud, so as to disturb and almost interrupt
the service. His lordship (then a Eesidentiary of York Cathe
dral) had, from the beginning, resolved to break this custom ;
and it happened one Shrove Tuesday, that the noise was more
than ordinary, and the numbers greater, insomuch that he could
no longer restrain himself, but went down to them from his .
seat in the quire, and with his own hand, plucked off some of
their hats, and spoke to them either to come with him, and join
in the worship of God, or to go out of church. They were all
daunted and without much disturbance went out ; yet the ver
gers had no sooner shut the doors, than they pressed so hard
upon the south door that they broke the iron bar which fastened
it, and forced it open ; and as is usual with a rabble, they heated
and animated one another into rage and madness, and when he
came out of church, followed him home in a tumultuous and
furious manner, with reviling and threatening language, and
had undoubtedly done him some mischief, if his gravity and
courage had not overawed them ; but then growing still more
insolent and outrageous, they plucked up the rails before the
deanery, and his house, and beat down the wall in divers places,
and had taken off a great deal of tiling, and would in all pro
bability have demolished it and killed him, if in that instant of
time. Captain Honywood, who was then deputy governor, had
not come with some soldiers to his rescue.'
A survey of the church assemblies of our ancestors should
not omit to notice the ' prophesyings ' which contributed so
largely to the religious dissensions ofthe earlier years of Queefl
Elizabeth's reign, until her majesty with a bold exercise of the
powers vested in her suppressed the mischievous exercises, and
reduced Archbishop Grindal, their chief promoter and advocate,
to submission by sequestering him from his office. The origin
of these experimental disputations deserves attentive considera
tion, as they arose from some of the most remarkable and per
plexing difficulties of the reformed church. As we have already
remarked, on Elizabeth's accession the Protestants of the country
did not in all exceed a third of the entire population of the
kingdom : and of the clergy who continued to hold their prefer
ments after Mary's death it is not probable that so many as a

Part IV.-T-Old Ways and New Fashions. 37
third were sincerely attached to the new settlement of ecclesi
astical affairs. The clerical order in the earlier part of Queen
Elizabeth's reign consisted of three parties, — the party whose
leaders were Catholic at heart, and prayed in private for a speedy
restoration of the Pope's power ; the party who cordially ap
proved of the recently established ecclesiastical polity ; and the
party whose moderate members inclined towards the Presby
terians, whilst its more violent members held intercourse with
the Wandsworth precisians.* Of course each of these parties
contained many persons whose views softened almost to imper-
ceptibility the lines of demarcation betwixt the three divisions.
Whilst not a few of the Catholic party approached so nearly to
a minority of the Orthodox churchmen, that it was very difficult
to distinguish between the former and the latter, a considerable
number of the Puritan clergy were so far satisfied of the general
reasonableness and excellence of the Anglican establishment
that, notwithstanding their disapproval of some of its provisions
and requirements, they came in course of time to think far
more highly of Hooker than of Cartwright.
To enlarge the Anglican party of the conforming clergy, by
drawing within its lines the moderate and more intelligent
members of the two other sections of the clerical order, was a
chief object with Elizabeth's prelates ; and it appeared to them
that no contrivance was more likely to accomplish the desired
end than the institution of clerical discussions, at which the
more liberal representatives of the different divisions, in their
various parts of the country, should openly state their difficulties
with respect to questions of theology and Church government,
and by frank and dispassionate interchange of opinions should
endeavour to come to the conclusions at which the authorities of
the Church, with mingled simplicity and egotism, were confident
• Anglican Nonconformity, engendered by the contentions betwixt the ex
treme and moderate Reformers of Elizabeth's time, had definite birth on No
vember 20, 1578, at Wandsworth — three hundred years since a mean village on
the banks of the Thames, instead of a populous town surrounded by a district of
fine residences and trim suburban villas. Its proximity to London, and the fa
cility with which correspondence could be carried ou betwixt the Puritan waverers
in town and the zealous precisians collected together on the Surrey bank, made
what is now a favourite quarter of civic Conservatives the chosen seat of the
EUzabethau Church Radicals.

38 A Booh about Clergy.

every honest and earnest inquirer must arrive, after a prayerful
consideration of all the arguments relating to the matters of dis
pute. Though we may smile at the simple conduct of prelates,
not wanting in worldUness and subtlety, who imagined that such
meetings would be more fruitful of harmony and fraternal affec
tion than of dissension and polemical animosity, it, at least,
testifies to their honesty and the genuineness oftheir professions,
that they were wilHng to submit the dogmas and decisions of
the Church to the arbitrament of public discussion, under th6
belief that their views, as the views of truth, would necessarily
prevail over all antagonistic opinions.
In these days the pen and the printing-press are the instru
ments employed by controversialists for the work which the
Elizabethan prelates vainly endeavoured to accomplish by the
influence of oral discussion ; and, if failure attended the efforts
of the reforming bishops, it may be conceded, in palliation of
their mistake, that the prophesying disputants effected as much
for general harmony and universal agreement as the literary
disputants of their own and later times.
These prophesyings, or meetings for discussion, were vari
ously carried on in the different dioceses of the kingdom, and
even in different parts of the same diocese. In one place each
meeting lasted so long as four or five hours ; in another, the
business of a single prophesying was not allowed to cover more
than two hours ; but the main features of all these local convo
cations for Christian argumentation were alike. The clergy of a
particular district were summoned to meet at a convenient church
in their neighbourhood on a day that was neither a Sunday nor
other holy day, and hear disputations on certain questions selected
beforehand for discussion. Sometimes the district was that of
a deanery ; but Fuller tells us, that for this particular purpose
the old divisions of rural deaneries were not strictly observed.
The same historian speaks of the clergy of a prophesying district
as ' ministers of the same precinct,'
In compliance with the invitation, the clergy having assem
bled in the church of a central market-town or other convenient
place of worship, the proceedings of the meeting opened with
solemn prayer, after which the disputation on the proposed
question or questions took place, after the model of the scholastic

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 39
disputations of the universities. 'The junior divine,' says
Fuller, ' went first into the pulpit, and for half-au-hour, more
or less (as he could with clearness contract his meditation),
treated upon a portion of Scripture, formerly by a joynt-argu-
ment assigned unto him. After him four or five more, observing
their seniority, successively dilated on the same text. At last a
grave divine, appointed on purpose (as Father of the Act),
made the closing sermon, somewhat larger than the rest, prais
ing the pain and performance of such who best deserved it;
meekly and mildly reproving the mistakes and failings of such
of those, if any were found in their sermons. Then all was
ended, as it was begun, with solemn prayer ; and at a public
refection of those ministers together (with many of the gentry
repairing unto them), the next time of meeting was appointed,
text assigned, preachers deputed, a new moderator elected, or
the old one continued, and so all were dissolved.' If we give
half-an-hour to each of the six preachers, an hour to the moder
ator, and an hour to prayers before and after the preachings,
such a prophesying as FuUer describes lasted five hours. But
in many quarters of the country the proceedings of a prophesy
ing were contracted within two hours. For instance, the Bishop
of Lincoln, laying down rules for the prophetic assemblies in
Hertfordshire, rf)rdains, 'First, it is thought meet your exercises
shall be kept every other week, upon the Thursday.s, from nine
of the clock in the morning until eleven, and not past. So that
the first speaker exceed not three-quarters of an hour, nor the
two last half-an-hour between them both. The remnant of the
time to be left to the moderator.'
Of these meetings Fuller observes that they ' were founded
on the Apostle's precept, — " For ye may all prophesie one by
one that all may learn, and all may be comforted ;" ' but unfor
tunately, whilst they afforded comfort neither to preachers nor
to hearers, they were productive of unsound learning and dan
gerous opinions amongst the laity who flocked to the prophesy
ings to hear the angry contentions of their official teachers,
and, having thus attended an exciting church-exercise on an
ordinary day of the week, deemed themselves justified in keep
ing away from public worship, and looking after their worldly
affairs on the following Sunday. 'The prophesyings,' says

40 A Booh about Clergy.
Fuller, ' being accounted the faires for spiritual merchandizes,
made the weekly markets for the same holy commodities on the
Lord's day, to be less respected, and ministers to be neglected
in their respective parishes.' But the worst results of the pro
phesyings were the unseemly railings and rancorous feuds to
which they gave rise within the ranks of the clergy ; and, in
this respect, they were so manifestly prejudicial to religion and
social order that Elizabeth did well in suppressing them, to the
acute chagrin and humiliation of Grindal, who, believing in
their usefulness, defended them with the warmth of a zealous
divine, and with the temper of a bad subject.
But, in spite of Elizabeth's prohibition of ' prophesyings,'
they were in some parts of the country continued without inter
ruption, or relinquished only for a time, to be renewed by their
favourers at the earliest opportunity. That the Puritan clergy
of James the First and his son held week-day meetings in parish
churches for religious lectures, followed by discussions, arranged
and designed after the fashion of the forbidden prophesyings, is
shown by Bishop Montague's orders for the suppression of the
Puritan lecturers of the Norwich diocese. ' Bishop Montague,'
says Neal, in the 'History of the Puritans,' 'who succeeded
Wren in the diocese of Norwich, 1638, imitated his successor in
his visitation-articles ; it being now fashionable for every new
bishop to frame separate articles of inquiry for the visitation of
his own diocese, Montague pointed his inquiries against the
Puritan lectures, of which he observes three sorts. 1. Such as
were superinducted into another man's cure ; concerning which
he enjoined visitors to inquire whether the lecturer's sermons
in the afternoons are popular or catechistical ? Whether he
be admitted with the consent of the incumbent and bishop?
Whether he read prayers in his surplice and hood ? Of what
length his sermons are, and upon what subject ? Whether he
bids prayer according to the fifty-fifth canon ? 2. The second
sort of lecturers are those of combination, when the neighbouring
ministers agree to preach by turns at the adjoining market-
town on market-days; inquire who the combiners are, and
whether they conform as above ? 3. A third sort are running
lecturers, where neighbouring Christians agree upon such a day

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 41
to meet at a certain church in some country-town or village ;
and, after sermon and dinner, to meet at the house of one of
their disciples to repeat, censure, and explain the sermon ; then to
discourse of some points proposed at a foregoing meeting by the
moderator of the assembly, derogatory to the doctrine and dis
cipline of the Church ; and, in conclusion, to appoint another
place for the next meeting. If you have any such lecturers,
present them.' The lectures and meetings of this third kind
were close copies, with a few alterations, of the Elizabethan
prophesyings.'

42 A Booh about Clergy.

CHAPTEE VI.
SHRINES AND RELICS,
THE tourist making a journey through medieval England en
countered no brighter or more joyous sight than the
spectacle of a company of pilgrims wending their way to a
distant temple ; and in the spring months, when the yeather
was propitious to travellers, and the exigencies of agricultural
Ufe permitted large numbers of the populace to absent them
selves for a while from the scenes of their customary toU, these
parties of hilarious excursionists were so numerous that no one,
in the season for pilgrimages, could make a day's march through
Kent or Norfolk, or any other county which possessed a famous
shrine, without coming upon several of them.
The pilgrims, who may be seen on Chaucer's canvas pursu
ing their course from London to the tomb of Thomas of Kent,
are not more noticeable for the mirthfulness of their discourse
than for the richness and diversity of their personal adornments.
The young squire's dress, embroidered with white and red, re
sembles a meadow full of fresh flowers. The green of the
yeoman's garb is relieved by the gay embellishments of his arm
lets and buckler. Daintiness and delicacy of texture and pattern
qualify the vestments of the nun, whose beads are gauded all
with green, and on whose conspicuous brooch of gold is visible
a love-motto. Eich in material and hue the monk's costume
is sumptuously fitted vrith fur. The merchant rides in motley ;
the serjeant-at-law in a coat of mixed colours, girt with a silken
sash of barred pattern. Eadiant in the liveries of their guilds,
the haberdasher, the weaver, the dyer, and the maker of tapestry,
wear knives, girdles, and pouches, richly ornamented with fit
tings of brass and silver. The miller, whose bagpipe enlivens
the march when the storytellers flag, is clad in white and blue ;

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 43
the reve wears blue, the usual colour of a gentle serving-man's
Uvery. Conspicuous amongst the gaudy throng the doctor of
physic blazes in taffeta and silk, dyed bright red and sky blue ;
and by his side may be seen the wife of Bath, wearing a costly
head-dress and bright scarlet stockings. Until the miserable
canon, who has thrown away his own and his friend's substance
on the futile labours of alchemy, has joined the troop in ' clothes
blake ' * the colour of mourning is nowhere discernible in the
company — the actors in whose merry tales are not more com
mendable than the tellers of the stories for brightness of raiment.
Instead of exhibiting their taste and affluence by covering the
walls of their houses with works of art, which were produced
chiefly, if not solely, for the internal embellishment of churches,
the men of feudal England displayed their opulence and gratified
their love of ostentation by covering their bodies with the finest
and most pictorial kinds of raiment that the sumptuary laws
permitted them to wear.
Of the evils attendant on these riotous and nominally re
ligious journeyings — evils noticed at some length in the first
section of this work — no one of the earlier Eeformers was a
bolder denouncer than the Lollard, William Thorpe, who de
clared to Archbishop Arundel, — 'I have preached and taught
openly, and so I purpose all my lifetime to do, with God's help ;
saying that such foolish people waste shamefully God's goods in
their vain pilgrimages, spending their goods upon vicious hos
telers, which are oft unclean women ; and at the least, those
goods with which they should do works of mercy, after God's
bidding, to poor needy men and women. These poor men's
goods and their livelihood, these runners about offer to rich
priests, who have mudh more livelihood than they need. And
thus those goods they waste wilfully and spend them -unjustly,
* In his tale the Knight points the special use of black : —
• Tho came this woful Theban Palamon
With flotery herd, and ruggy asshy heres,
In clothes blake ....
* * *
Thurghout the citee, by the maister strete.
That sprad was all with black, and wonder hie
Bight of the same is all the strete ywrie,'

44 A Booh about Clergy.
against God's bidding, upon strangers, with which they should
help and relieve according to God's will their poor needy neigh
bours at home. Yea, and over this folly oftentimes divers men
and women, of these runners madly hither and thither into pil
grimage, borrow hereto other men's goods ; yea, and sometimes
they steal men's goods hereto, and they pay them never again !
Also, sir, I know well that when divers men and women will go
thus after their own wills and finding out on pilgrimage, they
will ordain with them before to have with them both men and
women that can well sing wanton songs, and some other pilgrims
will have their bagpipes. So that every town that they come
through, what with the music of their singing, and with the
sound of their piping, and with the jingling of their Canterbury
bells, and with the barking out of dogs after them, they make
more noise than if the king came there away with all his clarions,
and many other minstrels. And if these men and women are a
month out in their pilgrimage, many of them shall be half a
year after great janglers, tale-tellers, and liars.' To which bold
and fervid speech the Primate answered the ' lend losel ' hotly, —
' I say to thee, that is right well done, that pilgrims have with
them both singers and also pipers ; that when one of them that
goeth barefoot striketh his toe upon a stone, and hurteth him
sore, and maketh him to bleed, it is well done that he or his
fellow begin them a song ; or else take out of his bosom a bag
pipe, to drive away with such mirth the hurt ofhis fellow. For
vrith such solace the travel and weariness of pilgrims is Ughtly
borne out.'
In a previous page — where mention was made of Archbishop
Sudbury's disapproval of pilgrimages — occasion was taken to
remark that the fourteenth-century Lollards were supported by
some of the dignified ecclesiastics as well as by the Wycliffian
priests in their endeavours to throw discredit on the periodic
journeyings to national shrines. The agitation against shrine-
worship, however, was commenced by the Lollards, though at
an early period the movement was stimulated by Churchmen,
who, if not narrowly orthodox, would have indignantly repudi
ated a charge of participation in the Wycliffian heresies. And
by nothing is the influence, which the Wycliffian Lollards had
on popular opinion with respect to this matter, more forcibly

Part IV — Old Ways and New Fashions. 45
illustrated than by the way in which their favourite figures of
speech and rhetorical strokes against the domestic pilgrimages,
and the worship of images, were adopted by the more liberal
thinkers, who immediately preceded the revolution which changed
Wycliffian heresy into Anglican orthodoxy. A doctrine in
high favour with the fourteenth -century reformer was that
which insisted on man being God's true image, and the only
image which worshippers should treat worshipfully out of love
to God. Enunciating this opinion, the author of ' The Plough-:
man's Complaint' exclaims pathetically, ' Lord God, what
herying is it to' cloth mawmettes of stocks and of stones in
silver and gold, and in other good colours ? And Lord, I see
thine image gone in colde and hete in clothes all to broken,
without shone and hosen, an hungred and a thrust,' By the
opinion of the sixteenth century this argument against the
iniquity of lavishing on stocks and stones the wealth which
ought to have been expended on human sufferers was so gene
rally accepted, that Erasmus put it into the mouth of an cut
lightened pilgrim, who discusses with him the propriety of
lavishing on the shrines and images the money that would be
better spent on 'the living temples of Christ.'
But though, with irony so fine as to be scarcely perceptible
to his less sensitive listeners, and with satire too delicate for the
dull apprehension of ordinary readers, Erasmus could pour
searching ridicule on the ignorance and corruption ofthe clerical
class, and though he saw a need for a purification and regener
ation of the entire sacerdotal order, a reformation brought about
by the multitude and consummated vrith violence was a remedial
process in which he had no faith. As a man pf no less en
lightenment than learning, he nursed an active disdain for the
stupidity, the narrowness, and vindictive arrogance ofthe clergy;
but whilst despising their condition, the ignominy of which was
qualified by a faint tincture of letters, he was far more contemp
tuous to the laity who for the most part appeared to him to be
more dull and rancorous, and something less educated, than
the ordinary priests. If the case of the clergy were one for
despondency, that of the laity was still nearer hopelessness. To
increase the knowledge of the clergy, to infuse them with
intellectual vigour, and to render them fit leaders of the blind.

46 A Booh about Clergy.
he could labour cordially, and even at times, perhaps, make
sacrifices of his personal interest : but, though he wished the
clergy to be reformed, he would rather have left them as they'
were than try the experiment of a reformation effected by forces
outside their order. Moreover, though he could laugh in his
sleeve, or to a few chosen comrades, at ecclesiastical tricks and
juggleries, he was by no means sure that such devices were not
feerriceable to the populace — just as toys are beneficial to
children, A chief of those fastidious censors and supercUious
critics who always rise to sit in judgment on the ruder and
bolder mortals who push the world forwards, the translator of the
Gospel was a nice discerner of the differences between the
vulgar and the better sorts of people. Had he lived in these
days he would have written with graceful insolence about the
need for an exoteric as well as an esoteric Christianity, — a
theology covered vrith historic and scientific inaccuracies for
farmers and farm-servants, and a theology divested of all those
errors for gentlemen with academic degrees and ladies of refine
ment and culture. Being of the period in which free thought'
made war on Eome, whilst doing good service for the party of
change he forbore to make open war on the party of resistance.
"Hence in ' The Pilgrimage for Eeligion's sake,' whilst holding
up the priests and their fables to ridicule, he takes every occasion
to demonstrate that the laity are no less ridiculous than their
priests, and to suggest that the absurd and mischievous practices,
which ought to be abated without violence, were productive of a
certain amount of benefit. At Walsingham, when Eobert
Aldrich incensed the canon by asking for proofs of the genuine
ness of the Virgin's milk, Erasmus, laughing secretly at his
sceptical companion's inquisitiveness, soothed the angry priest
with the gift of a few pence. In like manner at Canterbury,
when Dean Colet disdainfully declined the Priest's proffered
present of one of the pieces of linen on which Thomas a Beckett
used to wipe his nose, Erasmus assures us, with more of se
riousness than irony, that he ' was at once agitated with shame
and fear,' by his friend's indiscreet candour and discourtesy.
Had the rag been offered to Erasmus instead of to Colet it would
have been accepted with all imaginable politeness and insincerity.
So also on their return from Canterbury to London, when Colet

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 47
roughly refused to kiss St. Thomas's slipper, which an aged
Herbaldown hospitaUer extended to the dean, Erasmus compas
sionately solaced the old man with the gift of a small coin ; and
afterwards, on relating the incident to Menedemus, who declared
that ' Gratian was not irritated without reason,' the tolerant
man of letters responded, ' I must own that these things had
better not be done ; but from such matters as cannot be at once
corrected I am accustomed to gather whatever good can be found
in them.'* Whilst the scholarly and sceptical visitors to the holy places
openly exhibited contempt for the sacred relics or inspected
them with secret derision and a courteous affectation of reverence,
the untaught people of all classes and learned pilgrims, whose
knowledge had not Uberated their minds from the trammels of
superstition, behaved far otherwise. At Walsingham they feU
on their knees in the Virgin's chapel, kissed the crystal vase
that contained the white lump which, they were gravely assured,
consisted of coagulated milk from the immaculate mother's
breasts, and put pieces of silver and gold into the box — Uke the
little boxes ' presented to the toll-takers on the bridges in
Germany' — which the attendant canon extended silently to
their hands. At Canterbury they sighed and groaned over St.
Thomas's cleft skull, and, on seeing the saint's nose-kerchiefs,
which Colet treated so impiously, added to their defilements by
pressing them to their lips. Of a throng of pilgrims, many of
the more enthusiastic devotees would crawl on their knees to
the shrine or image which they had journeyed far and with
much cost to worship : arid, not content with kissing the carved
stones, they would lick them with eager tongues, — after which,
lying on the ground in abject prostration of body and soul
before the symbols which were declared to elevate all beholders,
they would besmear their eyelids and faces with spittle, which
was imagined to have derived some mysterious medicinal efficacy
from the contact of their tongues with the licked images.
It was thus that a crowd of pilgrims from Devonshire and
• Readers who wish to derive entertainment from Erasmus's graphic pictures
of shrine-worship in England, but have not sufficient knowledge of Latin to peruse
the ' Colloquies ' in their original tongue, should purchase Mr. John Gough
Nichols's translation of ' The Pilgrimage for BeUgion's Sake.'

48 A Boole about (Jiergy.
Cornwall and less distant counties demeaned themselves at
Windsor to the disgust and compassion of Eobert Testwood, the
musician, whose detestation of idol-worship resulted in his death
by fire. ' Then he went further,' Foxe says in his narrative of
Eobert Testwood's trouble, ' and found another sort licking and
kissing a white lady made of alabaster ; which image was mortised
in a waU behind the high altar, and bordered about with a
pretty border, which was made like branches with hanging apples
and flowers. And when he saw them so superstitiously use the
image as to wipe their hands upon it and then to stroke them
over their eyes and faces as though there had been great virtue
in touching the picture, he up with his hand, in which he had
a key, and smote down a piece of the border about the image,
and with the glance of the stroke chanced to break off the
image's nose.'
Eobert Testwood the musician^ in due course, died a
martyr's death ; but the honest feUow's protests against profane
things done in the name of religion were not in vain.
One of King Henry's first acts for the purification of reUgion
was to enjoin his clergy to ' exhort as well their parishioners as
other pilgrims, that they do rather apply themselves to the
keeping of God's commandments, and the fulfilUng of his works
of charity ; persuading them that they shaU please God more
by the true exercising of their bodily labour, travail, or occu
pation, and providing for their families, than if they went
about to the said pilgrimages; and it shall profit more their
soul's health if they do bestow that on the poor and needy
which they would have bestowed upon the said images or
relics.' The Lollards had said the same in the fourteenth century.
Thus the heterodoxy of a former became the orthodoxy of a
later time.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 49

CHAPTEE VII.
PULPITS AND PREACHERS.
RICH though they are in illustrations of the social life of
Elizabethan England, Shakespeare's plays contain no
brief passage that reminds us of the religious contentions of his
period more vividly than those few lines in the third act of
'Julius Csesar,' which commemorate the political uses of the
pulpit in times when the preacher discharged functions which
in these later days have devolved on the political journalist.
When Caesar has fallen under the blows of his assassins, the
conspirators see that they must lose no time in putting their
version of the event before the populace, from the platforms to
which the multitude ordinarily thronged at moments of excite
ment for information on public affairs,
' Cinna. Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead !
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
Cassius. Some lo the common pulpits, and cry out,
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement !
Brutus. People and senators I be not affrighted ;
Fly not ; stand still : — ambition's debt is paid.
Casca. Go to the pulpit, Brutus'
The ensuing oratorical duel between Brutus and Marc Antony,
in which the former encounters signal defeat, is fought from
the pulpit ; and though in one of the earlier stage-directions of
scene 2, act iii,, the dramatist describes Brutus as ' going into
the rostrum,' he uses a more familiar word in a subsequent
direction, and mentions Marc Antony as ' coming down from
the pulpit,'
Though the ordinary pulpits of Catholic England were
small, portable, wooden desks, pictures of which may be seen
in Foxe's 'Acts and Monuments,' our feudal ancestors had a
VOL. II. E

50 A Booh about Clergy.
few permanent pulpits — most generally built altogether of stone,
or of wood and stone, and usually erected in the open air in the
immediate vicinities of the chief churches of large towns. In
one case the permanent pulpit would be built into a church
wall ; in another, it would be found at the distance of several
yards from the church, so that it could be surrounded by a
numerous congregation when it was occupied by an extra
ordinarily eloquent preacher. From these public stands pro
clamations were uttered to the commonalty by the secular
authorities, and sermons preached by selected ecclesiastics in
behalf of the measures thus communicated to the people. And
it was of these pulpits and their political use in Elizabethan
England, about which he knew much, rather than of the Eoman
rostra, about which he knew little, that Shakespeare was think
ing when he made Cassius exclaim, ' Some ' [or * come '] ' to the
common pulpits,'
Of these pulpits the most famous and important was that of
Paul's Cross, which was used for secular and religious purposes so
early as 1 259, the date ofthe first definite mention of its existence,
and which stood* in the middle of the Cathedral yard from that
date till its destruction, in 1643, by Sir Eobert Harlow ; who, iu
thus doing away with an interesting memorial of our ancestors'
religious life, exceeded the powers with which he was invested
* There is no need to trouble the reader with tbe dates at which this cross-
surmounted pulpit was rebuilt or repaired. The structure, which stood in Eliza
bethan times, was a wooden pulpit roofed with lead, and fixed on a stone base,
provided at its rear with stone steps for the accommodation of the preacher, who,
whilst addressing a congregation of Londoners, stood with his face towards the
Cathedral. A picture of this pulpit, occupied by a preacher addressing a nu
merous assembly, may be found on the titie-page and last sheet of that inter
esting tract, ' St. Paule's Church : her Bill for the Parliament .... Partly in
Verse, partiy in Prose. Penned and Published for her Good by Henry Farley,
Author of her Complaint,' A description of it occurs in Walton's ' Life of Hooker,'
where it is called ' A pulpit-cross formed of timber, covered with lead, and
mounted upon stone steps, which stood in the midst of the churchyard of the
Cathedral; in which sermons were preached by eminent divines every Sunday
in the forenoon, when the court, the magistrates ofthe city, and a vast concourse
of people, usually attended.' There is notice of its use so early as 1259, but it
was not finished in the form here exhibited until 1449, by Kemp, bishop of
London ; and it was finally destroyed by order of the parliament in 1643. The
corporation of London ordained, that all ministers who came from a distance to
preach at this cross were to have lodgings and provisions for five days ; and the
Bishop of London gave them notice of their place of residence.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 51
by parliament, ' to deface, demolish, and quite take away, all
images, altars, or tables turned altar-wise, crucifixes, superstitious
pictures, monuments, and relics of idolatry, out of all churches
and chapels,' Acting up to the spirit, instead of the letter, of
his instructions. Sir Eobert, with zeal, more to be regretted than
commended, swept away the cross in Cheapside, Charing Cross,
St, Paul's Cross, and other like adornments, whether standing in
churches, churchyards, or public thoroughfares.
At this date, when preachers are generally thought to be
guilty of something worse than mere indiscretion if they address
their congregations on political questions, that do not directly
and materially affect the interests of the Church and the welfare
of public religion, it is difficult to realise how — in the days
when, if politics and reUgion were not the same thing, the reli
gious action of the community comprised all the most momentous
politics of the period — our forefathers gathered together on
Sundays and other holy days to receive political tidings and
guidance from their Paul's Cross teachers ; how at special crises
of public affairs they returned to their homes in dudgeon and
anxious concern if the preacher at the Cross, chosen and approved
by the sovereign's minister, had said nothing to let them know
the intentions of their rulers vrith respect to matters of state ;
how, whilst Ustening to a political preacher who struck out boldly
about the unpopular war, the new tax, the latest measures for
or against the Pope's power or the Protestant faith, they caught
his words greedily, printed them into their memories, and on
returning to their homes discussed shrewdly whether the notable
utterances boded good or ill to the nation,— meant more or
less than they appeared to mean at their first declaration. The
Paul's sermon of old time teemed with indications, if not with
express statements, of the course which the highest powers of
the nation were taking and might probably take ; and hearers
Ustened to them with aU the avidity and sharp inquisitiveness
vrith which at any critical conjuncture of parties our modern
poUticians read and sift an article of special character in a
journal that is understood to be in the confidence of the cabinet.
Before the rise of journaUsm, ordinary men were led or driven,
vrith greater or less faciUty, by sermons, just as they are now
adays led or driven by newspaper articles ; and the pulpits of

52 A Book about Clergy.

the minor churches, whether in London or the provinces, caught
the tone of St. Paul's Cross, just as the journals of the weaker
and obscurer sort at the present day echo the voices of the
leading organs of the press. Paul's Cross may be said to have
led the pubUc discussion of our ancestors.* When it spoke
hopefuUy, men's hearts were buoyant ; when it desponded, the
national spirit feU. Its predictions were sometimes falsified,
but more frequently they came true. Under ordinary circum
stances it was a loyal supporter of the sovereign, court, and
ministers ; when it had the courage to denounce, or the pru
dence to grow cold to prince or statesman, citizens looked out
for new and startUng events.
In the days when the preacher was a political no less than
a religious instructor arose the custom (wrongly attributed to
the Puritans) which our feudal ancestors, no less than their
descendants of the seventeenth century, had of expressing
audibly their concurrence with or their dissent from the views
of their pulpit orators. If a sermon gratified its auditors they
' hummed,' i. e. made a monotonous purring noise, by repeating
very rapidly in an undertone the words, 'Hear, hear, hear,' By
• In the later years of Henry the Eighth and during the reign of Edward the
Sixth, the sermons preached at the royal palace of Westminster — from the open-
air pulpit iu the privy garden when the weather was fine, and from a pulpit placed
in the chapel or the banqueting-hall when the weather was unpropitious — were
listened to by Londoners even more eagerly than sermons preached at Paul's
Cross. In 1534, Latimer preached Lenten sermons before Henry from a pulpit,
of which Stowe says, ' The 7 of March, being Wednesday, was a pulpit set vp in
the king's priuie garden at Westminster, and therein doctor Latimer preached
before the king, where he mought be heard of more than foure times so manie
people as could haue stood in the king's chappell ; and this was the first sermon
preached there.' In l.')49, preaching one of his Lenten sfermons in the ban-
queting-chamber of the palace to Edward the Sixth and a crowded congregation,
Latimer said, ' 0 let vs consider the kinges maiestyes goodnes. Thys place was
prepared for banketynge of the bodye, and his maiestye hath made it a place for
the comforte of the soule, and to haue the worde of God preached in it, shewynge
hereby that he would haue all hys subjectes at it, if it myghte be possible. Con
sider what the kynges maiestye hathe done for you: he alloweth you all to heare
wyth him. Consider where ye be : fyrste, ye oughte to haue a reuerence to
Godda word, and thoughe it be preached by pore men, yet it is the same worde
that oure Sauioure spake. Consider also the presence of the kynges maiestie,
Gods higlie vyoare iu earth : hauing respect to his personag, ye ought to haue
renerenoe to it ; and consider that he is Goddes hyghe ministre, and yet alloweth
you all to be partakers with him of ye heryng of Gods word.'

Part IV. -^ Old Ways and New Fashions. 53
reiterating this word with great velocity some scores or hundreds
of times they produced the church ' hum,' out of which subse
quently grew the bolder, clearer, and more articulate applause
of our Houses of ParUament, When a sermon gave offence,
the hearers were ominously silent, till they broke out into in
articulate groans, which were none the less expressive as demon
strations of dissent, and much safer, because of their inarticu
lateness, in times when words of disapproval might have been
construed into treasonable language.
Of the tumult which occurred on an early day of Queen
Mary's reign, when Dr, Bourne preached in behalf of the Papacy
at St, Paul's Cross, Strype says, in his ' Ecclesiastical Memorials,'
'This last-named came up at Paul's Cross, Aug, 13, where were
present the lord mayor and his brethren, and the Lord
Courteney and a great auditory. This man did, according to his
instructions, fiercely lay about him, in accusing the doings of
the former reign, with such reflections upon things that were
dear to the people, that it set them all in a hurly-burly. And
such an uproar began, such a shouting at the sermon and
casting up of caps, as that one, who lived in those times, and
kept a journal of matters that then fell out, writ, it was as if the
people were mad, and that there might have been great mischief
done, had not the people been awed somewhat by the presence
of the mayor and the Lord Courteney. In this confusion the
young people and the women bore their part ; and so did some
priests, and, namely, the minister of St. Ethelborough's within
Bishopsgate: who, as we shall hear, smarted severely for it.
And which most of all shewed the popular displeasure against
the preacher, a dagger was thrown at him, which broke up the
assembly, and the divine was conveyed away for fear of his life.
The next Sunday, being Aug, 20, preached at St. Paul's Cross
Dr, Watson, one of as much heat as the other, but with more
safety ; having two hundred of the guard about him, to see no
such disturbance happened again. There were present aU the
crafts of London, in their best liveries, sitting on forms, every
craft by themselves; together with the lord mayor and
aldermen,' Bearing in mind the scandalous riot which Dr, Bourne's
imprudence had raised at the opening of her sister's reign.

54 A Book about Clergy.

Elizabeth, acting on the advice of her cautious consellor, Cecil,
took care that on the Sundays following closely on her accession
Paul's pulpit should be filled by discreet and moderate orator.'!.
The twelfth article of Sir WilUam Cecil's paper of memoranda,
respecting steps to be taken to ensure public order on the new
queen's elevation, runs : ' XII. to consider the condition of the
preacher of Paul's Cross, that no occasion be given by him to
stir any dispute touching the governance of the realm,'
Notice has elswhere in this work been taken of the ' shrouds ' —
a covered meeting-place hard by the pulpit-cross and adjoining
the cathedral, in which the Paul's sermons were delivered when
the inclemency ofthe weather forbade the Londoners to assemble,
and sit or stand out the delivery of a long discourse, in the open
airi That on cold or rainy days the sermons were thus preached
in the temporary shed instead of the cathedral itself, was due to
the fact that the body of the church was so far blocked and filled
with stalls and other furniture requisite for its permanant bazaar,
that its unoccupied spaces would not have afforded standing-room
to half the number of an ordinary Paul's Cross congregation.
Though the Eeformation stimulated the preachers to an
activity unknown amongst the pulpit orators of Catholic England,
the number of sermons preached in an ordinary parish church
during the Protestant times ofthe sixteenth, and the first forty
years of the seventeenth century, fell far short of the number of
discourses delivered in the same building during any period of
the same length, in more recent time. In 1538, Henry the
Eighth was of opinion that so long as a congregation heard four
sermons a-year it had an adequate supply of pulpit instruction*
If, in addition to the quarterly sermon enjoined by law, the fre
quenters ofa particular church heard a monthly discourse from
a licensed preacher, they received an unusually liberal supply
of oral instruction. Edward the Sixth enjoined that at least
eight sermons should be delivered yearly in every parish church
to its congregation — four of them against the Papal usurpation,
and in behalf of the royal supremacy ; the other four on some
of the scriptural doctrines of the Protestant church. By two of
the loosely worded, and in some places scarcely intelligible
injunctions of 1559, Elizabeth seems to express her intention
that an original sermon by a licensed preacher should be

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 55
delivered once a-quarter in every parish church on a Sunday,
and that on each of the Sundays when the frequenters of the
church were not edified by the original eloquence of a licensed
preacher, one of the appointed homilies should be read to them
by their pastor. The forty-fifth of ' The Constitutions and
Canons Ecclesiastical,' published in the first year of James
the First, enjoins that 'every beneficed man allowed to be a
preacher, and residing on his benefice, having no lawful impedi
ment, shall in his own cure, or in some other church or chapel,
where he may conveniently, near adjoining, (where no preacher
is) preach one sermon every Sunday of the year; wherein he
shall soberly and sincerely divide the word of truth to the glory
of God, and to the best edification of the people.' The next
rule required that an original sermon by a licensed preacher
should be preached on one Sunday in every month to every
congregation, and that on the Sundays when no such original
discourse was delivered to them, they should be edified by hear
ing one of the appointed homilies read to them by their pastor
or his assistant curate.
But the more zealous parish-priests of Elizabethan England,
possessing licenses to preach, usually gave their congregations an
original sermon on every Sunday of the year, though the canons
did not require them to do so. Hooker in each of the country
parishes to which he successively ministered used to preach a
sermon of his own composition every Sunday. ' His use ' says
Isaak Walton ' was to preach once every Sunday, and he or his
curate to catechise after the second lesson in the Evening
Prayer. His sermons were neither long nor earnest, but uttered
with a grave zeal and an humble voice ; his eyes always fixed
on one place, to prevent imagination from wandering ; insomuch
that he seemed to study as he spake.' In the days of Charles
the First, George Herbert was of opinion that the model country
parson would not fail to give his parishioners a sermon every
Sunday. ' Then ' says the pious writer of his parish-priest,
'having read divine service twice fully, and preached in the
morning, and catechised in the afternoon, he thinks he hath in
some measure, according to the poor and fraile man, discharged
the public duties of the congregation.'
With respect to the average length of Elizabethan sermons,

56 A Book about Clergy.
the custom of providing the pulpit with an hour-glass put on a
bracket-stand has led some writers into the error of supposing
that they were necessarily of an hour's duration. The preachers,
however, of that period, often delivered sermons, the utterance
of any one of which could not have exceeded twenty minutes
or half-an-hour. Some of the homilies, which it was the custom
to read in parts, are very long, but others of them may be read
aloud in a few minutes. The hourrglass, therefore, was not so
much a measure of the amount of eloquence which the consci
entious preacher was bound to supply to his hearers, as an in
strument for informing him when respect for his auditors' com
fort required him to dismiss them to their homes. Until the
sand of an hour-glass had run down, the orderly members of an
Elizabethan or Caroline congregation, however wearied they
might be by their orator's incapacity, made a show of respectful
attention ; but, if he ventured to detain them longer, they dis
persed with hubbub and clatter, 'The parson,' says George
Herberf, 'exceeds not an hour in preaching, because all ages
have thought that a competency, and he that profits not in that
time will belike afterwards, the same affections which made
him not to profit before making him then weary, and so he
grows from not relishing to loathing,'* It is, however, re
corded of Bishop Burnet and other highly popular preachers of
bis period, that when they had preached out their hour to the
* Of the parson's oratorical method and style George Herbert says, ¦ When
he preacheth he procures attention by all possible art ; both by earnestness of
speech, it being naturall to men to think, that where is much earnestness there
is somewhat worth hearing; and by a diligent and busy cast ofhis eye on his
auditors, with letting them know that he observes who marks and who not;
aud with particularizing of his speech, now to the younger sort, then to the
elder, now to the poor, and now to the rich. This ia for you, and this is for you;
for particulars ever touch and awake more than generalis .... Sometimes ha
tells them stories and sayings of others, according as his text invites him : for
them also men heed, and remtember better than exhortations .... The parson's
method in handling of a text consists of two parts : first, a plain and evident de
claration of the meaning of the text ; and secondly, some choice observations
drawn out of the whole text, as it lyes entire and unbroken in the Scripture
itself. This he thinks naturall, and sweet, and grave. Whereas the other way
of crumbling a text into small parts, as, the person speaking or spoken to, the
subject and object, and the like, hath neither in it sweetness, nor gravity, nor
variety, since the words apart are not scripture, but a dictionary, and may be
considered alike in aU the Scripture.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 5*7
last grain of its sand, their 'hummers' would 'hum' them into
giving them an additional hour of pulpit exhortation.
Like many other injunctions put upon the Anglican clergy,
the canon requiring incumbents to preach or procure the de
livery of monthly sermons to their congregations was by no
means scrupulously observed by Charles the First's rural rectors.
In 'The Curates' Conference,' in the Harleian tract already
mentioned in this work. Master Poorest says, 'It is a strange
world that they' (i. e. the beneficed clergy), ' should flourish
and flow in wealth for doing nothing, and the poor curates, that
do all, can get nothing ; I will tell you truly, he has not given
his parish a sermon these three quarters of a year,' To which
remark Master Needham responds, ' I wonder how they can
answer the canon which enjoins them to preach once a-month,'
But, whilst the zealous High Church clergy of the Laudian
period, preached one sermon every Sunday after morning prayer,
and many oftheir world-loring contemporaries forbore to deliver
the monthly sermon required by the canons, the Low Church
ministers were with difficulty restrained by their diocesans from
giving their flocks ah afternoon lecture as well as a morning
discourse. Against the Sunday-afternoon preachings the pre
lates, whilst winking at the shortcomings of the licensed rectors
who neglected to preach the required monthly sermons, made
consistent warfare on the ground that they were innovations
adverse to the intention of the forty-fifth and forty-sixth canons,
that they wasted the time and energy which clergymen ought to
expend on catechistic instruction, that they encouraged the
people to indulge in pragmatical disputations, and that they
interfered with the people's rightful enjoyment of the Sunday
revels. Whilst he was Bishop of London, Laud bestirred himself to
silence the afternoon preachers of his diocese ; and when he be
came Primate of Canterbury, he influenced the bishops of his
province so that the lectures on the afternoon of the Lord's Day
were suppressed in nearly every parish within his reach. ' But
none,' says John Withers, in his 'Vindication of Dissenters,'
' declared themselves more violently than Dr. Pierce, bishop of
Bath and Wells; he gave God thanks that he had not one
lecturer left in all his diocese. He suspended Mr, Devenish, the

58 A Book about Clergy.
minister of Bridgewater, for preaching a funeral sermon on a
Lord's Day evening ; and convened the minister of Beercookham
before him for having two sermons on that parish revel-day;
alleging, that it was an hindrance to the revel, and to the utter
ance of the Church-ale, Mr, Exford was summoned before him
as a delinquent for preaching on a revel-day, on Joel's exhort
ation to fasting, weeping, and mourning ; and was told that his
very text was scandalous to the revel. And when some ministers
enlarged themselves upon the questions and answers in the
Church Cathechism, for better instruction of their people, they
were sharply rebuked by their diocesan, who told them that it
was catechising sermon-wise, and as bad as preaching,'
Whilst politics consisted chiefly of reUgious contentions,
and the pulpit was an instrument of political guidance no less
than a source of religious instruction, preachers were placed
under surveillance and censorship similar in nature and purpose
to the control which fetters journalism in despotic countries at
the present time. When either of the contending parties rose
to power it immediately silenced the mouths of opposing
preachers ; so soon as either of them lost the ability to tyrannize
it lost the privilege of declaring its sentiments from the national
pulpits. In Edward's time the Protestants could speak their
minds freely and the Catholics were gagged;* Mary accorded
free speech to preachers loyal to the Papacy, and shut the
mouths of the Pope's enemies ; Elizabeth silenced the Catholics
on the one hand and the Puritans on the other, granting
preachers' licenses only to those of her clergy who could be
trusted to argue before the congregations in favour of her Eccle
siastical Polity, In Edward's time even bishops (with the single
exception of the Archbishop of Canterbury), might not preach
* ' Much harm,' says Strype, ' was also now done in disaff'ecting the people
by seditious and contentious preaching. To prevent the further hurt thereof,
the king by a proclamation, April 24, 1548, charged and commanded that no man
hereafter should be permitted to preach (however they might read the Homilies)
except he were licensed by the King, the Lord Protector, or the Archbishop of
Canterbury, under their seals ; aud the same license to be shewed to the parson
or curate, and two honest men of the pariah beside, before his preaching, lipon
pain of imprisonment, both of the preacher and ofthe curate that suffered him to
preach without license. And a charge was given to all parties to look to this
diligently.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 59
unless they were expressly Ucensed to do so. ' So,' says Strype,
in the ' Ecclesiastical Memorials,' ' I have seen licenses to preach
granted to the Bishop of Exeter, ann. 1551 ; and to the Bishops
of Lincoln and Chichester, ann. 1552.' Not content with enforcing
silence on the Protestants Mary punished several of them with
imprisonment or the fiery death for what they had taught from
the pulpit in her predecessor's reign; and in 1553, whilst for
bidding unlicensed clergymen to preach, she ordered that no in
terlude should be played until it had received the sanction of
the ecclesiastical authorities, and that no one should play in an
interlude without express license to do so. This last order in
dicates how great was the serrice which the Protestant interludes
had rendered to the cause of the Eeformers, At the outset of
her reign, whilst she was deciding as to the course which it be
hoved her to take on reUgious matters, EUzabeth for a short
time silenced all the parties of her clergy, and altogether forbade
preaching in her churches ;* and throughout her reign she
regarded the pulpit with jealousy and antagonism, as a danger
ous engine calculated to do much harm and little good. In her
altercation with Grindal, which resulted in the suppression qf
the prophesyings, she declared that the Homilies were all the
sermons which her people needed ; that the excess of preachers
was hurtful to Church and State ; and that at most three or four
licensed preachers were enough for a single county. And it is
computed that, ten years later, not many more than a third of
her clergy held licenses to preach.
* ' Of which last,' says Strype, iu the ' Annals of the Reformation,' under
date Dec. 28, 1558, ' the queen being aware, forbad all preaching, and especially
in London .... By virtue of which proclamation, not only all preaching was
forbidden for a time, but all hearing and giving audience to any doctrine or
preaching. And nothing else was allowed to be heard in the churches but the
Epistles and Gospels for the day, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar
tongue: but without any manner of exposition, or addition of the sense and
meaning thereof; and no manner of prayer and rite to be used than waa aheady
used, and by law received, except the Litany then used in the queen's chapel,
and the Lord's Prayer and Creed in English.' With respect to the number of
Elizabeth's licensed preachers, Sir Francis KnoUys remarked in 1584, iu a paper
drawn up by himself or at his direction, ' It is aayd, that it ia impoasible to have
so manye preachers as this byll' (against pluralism and non-residence) 'doth
require resydent, because there be nine thousand parishes, and but three thou
sand preachers in the realme.'

60 A Book about Clergy.
That there was need for this stringent censorship and
despotic control of the pulpit, in the earlier generations of the
Anglican Church, no one is likely to question who, familiar with
the controversial literature of the Eeform period, bears in mind
the unseemly violence and reckless vituperation with which the
more ardent and less discreet partisans of the various theological
schools of Elizabethan England assailed their opponents. In
the earlier generations of the Anglican Church the discourses of
the pulpit were often animated by the same bitter enmities
and personal hatreds that qualified the writings of English
journalists in the jlifancy of journaUsm. Whilst a good and
honest man like Walter Travers could think it his duty to hold
Hooker up to ridicule and odium in the Temple Church, to
which they were both officially attached, clergymen of less
ability and worth than Travers would, from the pulpits, pour on
their clerical adversaries the abuse of the bear-garden. No
respect for the dignity of their order restrained the indignant
passions of ill-conditioned and defamatory preachers in the
days when Drant could declare of Dr. (afterwards Bishop)
Overton to a congregation assembled in Winchester Cathedral,
'That Dr. Overton was a very hypocrite — a noble, a glorious,
an everlasting hypocrite, and nothing else but a mere satchel of
hypocrisy; that he was brimful, topful, too full of hypocrisy;
and, though he danced the net of hypocrisy, yet he would dis
cover him and whip him naked. That he was like a vice in a
play, representing a grave man's part, and had not gravity;
he swelling with the title of a doctor, and had no doctrine.
Concerning doctrine and learning he said, that the said doctor
did not understand nor feel the deepness of his sermons , . , ,
Furthermore, that whereas this doltish doctor that had nothing
but the bare title of a doctor, and came by a degree by some
•sinister means.'
A characteristic instance of the discourtesy and arrogance
with which the clergy, at a later date, made war upon each other
at the instigation of political resentments, may be found in the
account which Peter Heylyn's biographer gives us ofthe manner
in which the Bishop of Lincoln, immediately after his liberation
from the Tower in 1640, affronted Heylyn in Westminster Abbey,
before a full congregation of clergy and fashionable laity. The

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 61
bishop had read prayers and Heylyn was preaching when the
insult was offered. The EoyaUst preacher gave the provocation
by craftily preaching at Christians who lacked moderation, love,
and charity, — the Christians, thus reproved in suggestive lan
guage, being of course understood to be politicians who differed
from the orator. ' Is it not,' remarked Dr. Heylyn, ' that we
are so affected with our own opinions, that we condemn whoso
ever shall opine the contrary : and so far wedded to our own
wills, that, when we have espoused a quarrel, neither the love of
God nor the God of Love shall divorce us from it ? Instead of
hearkening to the voice of the Church, every man hearkens to
himself, and cares not if the whole miscarry, so that himself may
bravely carry out his ovni devices. Upon which stubborn
height of pride, what quarrels have been raised, what schisms
in every corner of the Church (to inquire no further^ some rather
putting all into open tumult, than that they would conform to a
lawful government, derived from Christ and His Apostles to these
very times.' Of course this language of the High Church
preacher was very unacceptable to many of his hearers ; doubt
less it was specially intended to irritate the prelate who had
taken part in the previous service ; but no annoyance could
justify the bishop's manner of showing his disapprobation. ' At
the speaking of which words,' says the narrator of the affair,
' the Bishop of Lincoln, sitting in the great pew, knocked aloud
with his staff upon the pulpit, saying, ' No more of that point.
No more of that point, Peter.' To which order, ' the doctor
readily answered, without hesitation or the least sign of being
dashed out of countenance, so that,' adds the biographer who of
course gives only one side of an ugly story, ' at this, and at the
other parts of his sermon, the auditory was highly pleased, but
the bishop in so great a wrath, that his voice and the noise ofhis
pastoral staff (if I may so call it) had like to have frighted the
whole flock or congregation out of the fold.'

62 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE VIII.
POSTILS, HOMILIES, AND SERMONS.
THE pulpit oratory of the English clergy comprised in former
times three distinct kinds of addresses, — the postil, the
homily, and the sermon. The signification of each of these
terms varied from time to time so much, that at some period's
we find each of them used as appUcable to any kind of scriptural
discourse, uttered by a preacher to a congregation. The Book
of Homilies uses the words homily and sermon as synonymous r
and in Catholic days ecclesiastical writers often applied the same
signification to postil and homily. In strict language, however,
the three names designate three very different varieties of
lecture. The postiller was a preacher who explained a considerable
passage of Scripture — a chapter, or even more than a chapter —
to his auditors : reading a few verses 'pf the part of the sacred
writings taken under consideration, and then post ilia (verba)
making comment upon them before he read out another passage,
which he explained or postilUzed in the same way. In fact,
the postiller discharged simultaneously the functions of the old
Scripture-reader and the modern sermon-preacher, — doing to
a numerous assembly nearly what the Scripture-reader of the
present day does to a single hearer, or to a group ofa few persons
in the ordinary performance of his duty. The term ' homily,'
though there is abundant authority for applying the word to auy
kind of sermon, was at first the peculiar designation of a moral
discourse, uttered in illustration of the nature of any particular
department of Christian duty rather than in elucidation of a
special passage of Scripture ; whereas ' sermon,' in its narrowest
sense, meant an address, the main object of which was to demon-

Part IV. — -Old Ways and New Fashions. 63
strate the teaching of a particular portion of holy writ, called its
text.* Discourses of each of these three sorts might be either
written or extempore ; and in Catholic England, as well as in
the earlier generations of the Post-Eeformation period, written
sermons were caUed bosom-sermons, because the preachers took
the paper, on which their sermons were written, from the bosom-
folds of their canonical dress after ascending the pulpit. Alike
in feudal England and in later times, our forefathers nursed a
strong dislike of bosom-sermons, partly from a mistaken notion
that a preacher's habitual use of them demonstrated his indo
lence, but far more from a feeUng that the sacred orator should
speak at the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and rely
ing on the Spirit's power and unvarying will to furnish him
with thoughts and language, should not, before entering the
pulpit, pre-arrange his arguments, or even select the particular
subject of his eloquence. Whilst the people thus preferred ex
tempore discourses, the orthodox clergy — knowing from experi
ence that the heavenly power did not operate on the preacher's
mind and tongue in the manner imagined by the populace, and
that sound sermons could not be produced without forethought
and preparatory labour — were for the most part bosom-preachers.
Dean Colet, whose sympathy with the new-doctrine clergy and
the reforming laymen caused him to adopt some of their
erroneous views, made for himself many enemies by the warmth
with which he denounced bosom-sermons, at a time when the
octogenarian Bishop (Fitzjames) of London could not, by reason
of his infirmities, preach extempore. ' The third crime,' says
Foxe, prince of Grub-street authors, concerning the measures
which the dean's adversaries took for his discomfiture, ' where
with they charged him, was for speaking against such as used
* Speaking of the pulpit oratory of the first years of the thirteenth century,
the compiler of 'Oxoniana' remarks : — '1203. About this time began the custom
of preaching from a text, but the sages and seniors of the University would by
no means conform to this custom, but followed their old course, according to the
manner of the fathers, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Bernard, &c., who preached
to the clergy and people by postillizing; that is, expounding any particular
chapter, by taking all the texts one after another. After which way (without a
text) St. Augustine preached four hundred sermons. Some neither preached by
postillizing nor by taking a text, but began their discourses by saying that they
meant to preach on such a subject ; as, on the fear of God, the love of God, &c.'

64 A Book about Clergy.
to preach only by bosom-sermons, declaring nothing else to
the people but what they bring in their papers with them;
which, because the Bishop of London used then much to do for
his age, he took as spoken against, and therefore bare him this
displeasure.' Now-a-days one hears much of the badness of our pulpit
oratory. From time to time the editors of leading journals
open their columns to correspondents, who bewail, in pathetic
terms, the decadence of the Anglican pulpit, and ask why they
should do weekly penance by listening to tedious lecturers who
tell them nothing new, and proclaim their stale truths in the
worst possible style. That there is an element of justice in
these complaints few persons will deny ; but I am by no means
of opinion that our nineteenth-century preachers are inferior in
learning or rhetorical skill to the preachers ofthe earUer centuries
ofthe AngUcan Church. On the contrary, I am satisfied that the
average standard of pulpit eloquence is higher now than it was at
any period since the Eeformation, and that we should hear fewer
lamentations about the inferiority of modern sermons if the
malcontents were better acquainted with the sermons of past
times. The style of the Homilies, greatly superior to the style
of the ordinary licensed preachers of the Eeformation period,
does not dispose the critic to think very highly of the average
pulpit eloquence of the age when those essays were deemed
models of the preacher's art. If dull and wearisome sermons
are common now, they were far more frequent in the age when
the gentle George Herbert used to console himself under the in
flictions of incapable preachers by imagining that God had
taken up the text and was preaching patience. It would, of
course, be ridiculous to take the sermons of Cranmer, Latimer,
Jewell, Tindal, Hall, as samples of the average preaching of the
reform period; or the sermons of Burnet, Baxter, South, as
specimens of the pulpit instruction ordinai-ily afforded to our
ancestors of the later half of the seventeenth century ; for they
were exceptionally endowed teachers, as far superior to the
common pulpiteers of their times as the Bishops of Winchester
and Peterborough are above the ordinary rectors and curates
of to-day. To come nearer to our time, let any critical reader
explore the theological discourses of the Oxford and Cambridge

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 65
divines of the last century — divines whose writings may, in
some instances, be found in costly and almost unreadable col
lections of pulpit lectures — and he will close them with a
reasonable conviction that, so far as pulpit edification is con
cerned, our ancestors of the Augustan and early Georgian
period were not better off than the gentlemen and ladies of
to-'day, who imagine themselves aggrieved because some of the
preachers of their rural churches are neither eloquent nor
learned. This further can I say in evidence on this point.
When due allowance has been made for the influence of vanity
in inducing poor preachers to publish their worthless sermons,
it may be fairly assumed that, upon the whole, the published
sermons of past times were something better than those which
no one ever ventured to put in type. And, having made
some patient examination into the quality of the theological
discourses published between Queen Anne's death and George
the Third's first iUness, I do not hesitate to say that in the way
of dullness aud grotesque ignorance, the British Museum con
tains no mass of Uterary rubbish, so large in bulk and alto
gether worthless for the purposes its writers had in view, as ils
collection of sermons delivered by the less famous and exalted
clergy of that period.
Instead of being inferior, the average preachers of to-day
are greatly superior to the average preachers of past time ; but
they labour under disadvantages unknown to their ^official pre
cursors. By diminishing the intellectual disparity between the
clergy and laity, by rendering the latter more critical and the
former less confident of their ability to sway the minds of their
hearers, education has lessened the docility of the congregations ;
and, whilst actually raising the learning of the preachers, it has
lowered their relative superiority. The average pastor of to-day
preaches far better than the average pastor of a hundred years
since ; but whereas the latter, in ninety-nine cases out of every
hundred, was greatly superior in mental 8ndowments to the
most learned of his flock, the former never opens his Ups in the
pulpit without knowing, .or having cause to know, that many
of his hearers are masters of his own business. If our learned
clergy sometimes fail in the pulpit to do justice to their powers,
their failure is less often due to the orator's natural incompetence
VOL, II, ^

66 A Book about Clergy.
for his office than to the embarrassing consciousness that many
of his auditors are as well taught as himself, and that within the
lines of theological instruction he can tell them nothing which
they do not already know. Of course the dull, arrogant, and
comparatively unlettered preacher is never troubled by this view
of his position; but, just in proportion as the pulpit-orator
possesses the delicate nerve, warm sympathy, and fine percep
tions, which under other circumstances would ensure his
oratorical success, he feels a chilling sense of the incongruity of
his appointed function and actual position.
Of course we have amongst us preachers to whom these
remarks are only partially applicable, — preachers whose art is
such that it can impart a fascinating freshness to trite doctrine? ;
whose words are so fluent and dextrously chosen that the hearer
cares as much for the manner as the matter of their best utter
ances ; whose intonations are so melodious that the ear listens
to their voices for the sweet sounds' sake. We have also a few
preachers of a still higher sort, who, bringing philosophy to the
illustration of religion, and addressing themselves to the pro
foundest and acutest thinkers, assert the pulpit's power to illum
inate the learned no less than to instruct the ignorant. But
such men must always be rare— their influence must always be
exceptional. But however tolerant men may be of the defects of ordinary
pulpit speech, they are far less patient of its shortcomings when
they encounter them in print. That really good sermons find
an abundance of willing readers may be inferred from the large
sale of Eobertson's and Kingsley's sermons, and from the high
price which the proprietors of a popular serial recently thought
it worth their while to pay for the privilege of publishing in its
pages the pulpit-lectures of one of our most eloquent preachers.
It is, however, generally conceded that bearable sermons often
make unreadable books ; and the persons are many who regret
the comparative feVness of the volumes of published sermons
which, whilst promoting the spiritual health of the thoughtful
and cultivated reader, afford diversion and refreshment to his
intellectual powers.
To the complainants it may be recommended that they
should provide themselves with the published discourses of our

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 67
most famous Anglican divines from Wycliffe to that most critical
and pungent of homiUsts, Eobert South, and peruse them alike
for the sake of their religious instruction and for the Ught which
they throw on the social condition of England at the times
when they were first delivered.
Pervaded by the earnestness and lucidity natural to teachers
who, having in perilous and changeful days painfully succeeded
in solving difficult problems, burn with a desire to make others
share their fuller light, and for the achievement of this end use
every means to render their own thought the property of their
hearers, — the sermons of the Anglican Eeformers are never
perused with inattention, or perused only once, by the religious
inquirer who has experienced their peculiar and fascinating
influence. Nor are the addresses of these old preachers more
congenial to the temper and aspirations of the simple Christian,
who has recourse to them for ghostly counsel and encourage
ment, than delightful to the worldly student who values them
chiefly for their illustrations of the temper, nature, usages, and
political conditions of our forefathers at one of the grandest
and most dramatic epochs of our national story.
In many respects these old homiUsts differ greatly from the
more decorous and gracefiil preachers of later times; and in
nothing is this general dissimilitude more noticeable than the
frequency with which the former orators enlivened their hearers
with pithy mention of mundane pursuits, with homely metaphors
drawn from the customs of the market or the hunting-field,
with humorous allusions to trivial, if not profane, pastimes.
In these days pubUc sentiment would be shocked by the levity
ofthe preacher who should illustrate the doctrines ofthe church
by reference to the chances and tricks of the whist-table, the
science and skill of billiard-players ; but the pulpit orators of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries deemed themselves
at liberty to drive their exhortations home to the hearts of sport-
loving and game-loving auditors by allusions to cards and cock-
fighting, the pursuits of the huntsman and the angler.
It was from the pulpit of Paul's Cross, in 1540, that Dr,
Barnes preached against Stephen Gardiner the sermon in which
the prelate of Winchester was likened to a garden-cock that
lacked good spurs, — a pun on the bishop's name that elicited a

68 A Book about Clergy.
hum of approval from the reformer's sympathizing hearers.
' In the process of which sermon,' says Foxe, ' he proceeding,
and calUng out Stephen Gardiner by name to answer him,
alluding in a pleasant allegory to a cock-fight : terming the said
Gardiner to be a fighting-cock, and himself to be another ; but
the garden-cock (he said) lacketh good spurs.' In no way loth
to administer punishment to an opponent whom he disdained,
the bishop accepted the heretic's challenge : and says the narrator
of this spirited contest, ' In the end of this cock-fight, Winches
ter thus concludeth this glorious tale, and croweth up the
triumph,' That the highest and most decorous clergy of the
earlier half of the following century afforded similar sanction to
the brutalizing excitements of the cock -pit, evidence is afforded
by the way in which the pious Bishop Hall in his ' Occasional
Meditations' draws a moral from the spectacle of a contest
between game-birds. ' On sight of a cock-fight : . . . How fell
these creatures out? Whence grew this so bloody combat?
Here was neither old grudge, nor present injury? What, then, is
this quarrel ? Surely, nothing but that which should rather
unite and reconcile them ; one common nature : they are both
of one feather, I do not see either of them fly upon creatures of
different kinds : but, while they have peace with all others, they
are at war with themselves : the very sight of each other was
sufficient provocation. If this be an offence, why doth not each
of them fall out with himself, since he hates and revenges in
another, the being of that same which himself is ? Since man's
sin brought debate into the world, nature is become a great
quarreller. The seeds of discord were scattered in every furrow
of the creation, and came up, whereof yet none is more odious
than those which are betwixt creatures of the same kind.'
Admitting the repulsiveness of the conflict, as an exhibition of
the contentious spirit everywhere prevalent throughout the world,
the bishop says not a word of the sinfulness of deriving diversion
from the ferocious instincts of brutes.
In like manner, in his ' Godly Sermons ' on ' How to Play
with Certain Cards,' using language that, coming from a preacher
in the pulpit, would now-a-days be thought revoltingly irreverent,
Latimer afforded instruction and amusement to congregations of
Cambridge scholars and burgesses by discourses in which he

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 69

demonstrated the resemblance of the Christian's Ufe of painful
striving after holiness, to the gamester's sport with cards. ' Now,'
the preacher observed, in a characteristic portion of one of these
singular addresses, ' I trust you wot what your card meaneth,
let us see how that we can play with the same. Whensoever it
shall happen you to go and make your oblation unto God, ask
of yourselves this question, " Who art thou?" The answer as
you know is, " I am a Christian man," Then you must again
ask unto yourself, what Christ requireth of a Christian man,
By-and-bye, cast down your trump, your heart, and look first of
one card, then of another. The first card telleth thee thou shalt
not kill, thou shalt not be angry, thou shalt not be out of
patience. This done, thou shalt look if there be any more cards
to take up, and, if thou look well, thou shalt see another card of
the same suit, wherein thou shalt know that thou art bound to
reconcile thy neighbour. Then cast thy trump upon them both,
and gather them all then together, and do according to the virtue
of the cards, and surely thou shalt not lose,' The commotion
which Master Latimer's sermons and cards occasioned at Cam
bridge was profound and vehement : and to lessen the hurtful
infiuence of the ' Christen Cards,' Dr, Buckenham, a black friar,
put forth his pious instructions of how to play with dice, ' It
would,' says Foxe, ' ask a long discourse to declare what a stir
there was in Cambridge upon this preaching of Master Latimer,
Belike Satan began to feel himself and his kingdom to be touched
too near, and therefore thought it time to look about him, and
to make out his men at arms. First came out the prior of the
Black Friars, called Buckenham, otherwise surnamed ' Domine
Labia,' who, thinking to make a great hand against Master
Latimer, about the same time of Christmas, when Master
Latimer brought forth his Christen cards* (to deface belike the
• The preacher's ' cards ' were brought out at Christmas time, the festive
season when card-playing was more in favour with our ancestors than at auy
other period of the year. ' And because,' says the preacher, ' I cannot declare
Christ's rule unto you at one time, as it ought to be done, I will apply myself ac
cording to your custom at this time of Christmas. I will, aa I said, declare unto
you Christ's rule, but that shall be in Christ's cards. And whereas you are wont
to celebrate Christmas in playing at cards, I intend, by God's grace, to deal unto
you Christ's cards, wherein you will perceive Christ's rule. The game that we
play at shall be called the Trump, which, if it be weU played at, he that dealeth

70 A Book about Clergy.

doings of the other) brought out his Christmas dice, casting
them to his audience cinque a,nd quatre ; meaning by the cmgue
five places in the New Testament, and the four doctors by the
quatre; by which his cinque-quatre he would prove that it was
not expedient for the Scripture to be in English, lest the
ignorant and vulgar sort, through the occasion thereof, might
haply be brought in danger to leave their vocation,'
The pulpit of this period gave birth to many of the terms
and phrases still current in the language of poUtical disputants,
and, amongst others which have passed to the other side of the
Atlantic, the use of the word ' platform,' so frequently heard on
the lips of the stump-orators of the United States. ' If,' says
Foxe, ' the platform of Stephen Gardiner had been a thing so
necessary for the church, and so grateful unto God, why then
did it not prosper with him, nor he with it, but both he and
his platform lay in the dust, and not left behind him to build
upon it?' '
With respect to our ancestors' commercial usages and their
ignorance of political science, the sermons of our old preachers
abound with information for those who imagine that the
morality of trade was purer in feudal than it is in modern-
England, or who are curious about the growth of certain obsolete
legislation that resulted in injury to the trades and industries
which it was supposed to foster. ' Furthermore,' says Cranmer,
in one of his series of sermons, entitled the ' Catechism,'
shall win; the players shall likewise win; and the standers and lookers upon
shall do the same : insomuch that there is no man that is willing to play at this
trump with these cards but they shall all be winners, and no losers. Let, there
fore, every Christian man and woman play at these cards, that they may have and
obtain the trump. You must mark, also, that the trump must apply to fetch
home unto him all the other cards, whatsoever suit they be of. Now, then, take
ye this first card, which must appear and be showed unto you aa foUoweth:
" You have heard what waa apoken unto men ofthe old law. Thou shalt not kUl :
whosoever aball kill shaU be in danger of the judgment. But I say not unto you
of the new law," saith Christ, " that whosoever ia angry with hia neighbour shall
be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say unto his brother, Raca"
(that is to say, brainless, or other like word of rebuking), " shall be in danger ot
the council; and whosoever shall say unto his neighbour. Fool, shall be in danger
of hell-fire." Thia card was made and spoken by Christ; it appeareth in the
fifth chapter of St. Matthew. Now must it be noted, that whosoever shall play
with this card must first, before they play with it, know the strength and virtue
of the same.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 71
' merchantmen, brokers, chapmen, merchants, factors, are thieves
when they require unreasonable gains in selling of their mer
chandise, or when they utter corrupt and naughty ware for
good ; when they deceive their neighbour with false weight and
measure ; when, with forged letters and feigned newsj they per
suade others to be hasty to sell that kind of ware good cheap,
which they know will be dear shortly after ; or else, by such
like craft, entice men to buy of them great plenty of that kind
of merchandise, of the which they know that the price will
shortly after decay ; or when, with their lies and perjuries,
they cause a man to give more money for any stuff than he
would have done if he had known that they had lied. Also,
when the rich merchantmen and usurers have the heads of the
poor handicraftsmen so bound under their girdles, that the poor
men are of necessity compelled to bring their ware to them, and
when the handicraftsmen do come to them and offer their stuS^
then they feign that they have no need of such wares at that
time, and by such means compel them to sell their wares better
cheap than they may be able to afford them, not regarding
what loss their poor neighbour doth suffer thereby. Also, when
by forestalling, regrating, agreements in halls to raise the price
of things, engrossing of merchandise, when one man or one
company gets all in their own hands, so that no man may have
gain, but they only — when by these or such-Uke deceits, they
compel the poor to buy at their own price such wares as they
must need have, then they are arrant thieves before God:
for by such frauds they beguile their poor neighbours, and
pillage them of their money against their wills. The handi
craftsmen and daily labourers are also thieves, when they do
not apply to their work diligently and faithfully, but sell
counterfeited and slightly-wrought wares for substantial stuff,
or require more for their labour and pains than they have
deserved,' Whilst Cranmer denounced thus frankly and fearlessly the
extortionate methods of capitalists, and the thievish tricks of
trade, which recent statutes and co-operative associations now-
a-days obviate imperfectly or punish inadequately, Latimer
denounced the covetousness and selfishness, the inordinate
desire of wealth and the unscrupulous practices for its attain-

72 A Book about Clergy.
ment, which were no less deplorably prevalent in the London
of the sixteenth than in the London of the nineteenth century.
'Now,' he exclaimed from the pulpit in the Shrouds — the
covered meeting-place on the north side of St, Paul's Cathedral
— in January 1548-9, ' what shall we say of these rich citizens
of London ? what shall I say of them ? Shall I call them
proud men of London, malicious men of London, merciless
men of London ? No, no, I may not say so ; they will be
offended with me then. Yet must I speak. For is there not
reigning in London as much pride, as much covetousness, as
much cruelty, as much oppression, and as much superstition, as
there was in Nebo ? Yes, I think, and much more too. There
fore I say, Eepent, 0 London ! repent, repent ! Thou hearest
thy faults told thee, amend them, amend them, I think, if Nebo
had had the preaching that thou hast, they would have been
converted. And you, rulers and officers, be wise and circum
spect, look to your charge, and see you do your duties ; and
rather be glad to amend your ill living than be angry when
you are warned or told of your fault. What ado was there
made in London at a certain man, because he said (and, indeed,
at that time on a just cause), " Burgesses," quoth he, " nay,
butterflies." What ado there was for that word ! and yet would
that they were no worse than butterflies ! Butterflies do but
their nature ; the butterfly is not covetous, is not greedy of other
men's goods, is not full of envy and hatred, is not malicious, is
not cruel, is not merciless. The butterfly glories not in her
own deeds, nor prefers the traditions of men before God's word ;
it commits not idolatry, nor worships false gods. But London
cannot abide to be rebuked : such is the nature of men. If
they are pricked, they wiU kick ; if they are gaUed, they will
wince ; but yet they will not amend their faults, they will not be
ill spoken of. But how shaU I speak weU of them ? Ifyou could
be content to receive and foUow the word of God, and favour
good preachers, if you could bear to be told of your faults, if
you could amend when jon hear of them, ifyou could be glad
to reform that which is amiss ; if I might see any such incUna
tion in you, that you would leave off being merciless, and begin
to be charitable, I would then hope weU of you, I would then '
speak well of you. But London was never so iU as it is now.

Part IV.— 'Old Ways and New Fashions. 73
In times past men were full of pity and compassion, but now
there is no pity ; for, in London their brother shall die in the
streets of cold, he shall lie sick at the door, and perish for
hunger. Was there ever more unmercifulness in Nebo ? I
think not. In times past, when any rich man died in London,
they were wont to help the poor scholars of the universities
with exhibitions. When any man died, they would bequeath
great sums of money towards the relief of the poor. When t
was a scholar in Cambridge myself, I heard very good report of
London, and knew many that had relief from the rich men of
London ; but now I hear no such good report, and yet I inquire
into it, and hearken for it ; but now charity is waxen cold, none
helps the scholar nor yet the poor. And in those days, what
did they when they helped the scholars ? They maintained
and gave them livings who were very papists, and professed the
pope's doctrine ; and now that the knowledge of God's word is
brought to Ught, and many earnestly study and labour to set it
forth, now hardly any man helps to maintain them,'
It was thus frankly, and without any softening of terms to
qualify the unpalatable truth with honied falsehood, that King
Edward's clear-voiced, trenchant speaker, preaching before the
wealthiest and most powerful people of the nation, — preaching,
too, in the chief pulpit of the metropolis, and in the hearing
aUke of employers and workmen at fierce war on questions con
cerning the remuneration of labour, — charged the sufferings of
the needy upon the rich, as a mass of crime for which they
were responsible, and upbraided purse-proud merchants and
selfish capitalists for tolerating a state of things that permitted
Christian men and women to die of starvation in the midst of
plenty. In these days of smooth words and courteous euphuisms,
when ' mealy-mouthed rectors ' are more ready to extol the
affluent for their little virtues than to upbraid them for their
great faults, such language would be severely reprehended by
'good society' as vriolent, reckless, calumnious, and calculated
to ' set class against class,' That it was not acceptable to pros
perous and insolent selfishness in the sixteenth century, the
quoted passage furnishes conclusive testimony; and Latimer's
sermons abound with proof of how he was detested and vilified
by the wily plutocrats, whose greed and falseness he denounced.

74 A Book about Clergy.
whilst they kept their eyes fixed on the weathercocks which
showed how the winds of Protestantism and Popery rose and
fell, and took heed when the Protestant breeze was steady and
strong to give no offence to the man who would be powerful,
should Catholic gales again prevail. Butterflies in their fickle
ness, wolves iu their ravenous greed, serpents in subtlety and
poisonous bite, these people chuckled in their sleeves when in
the following reign the preacher, who had told them to be
guardians instead of robbers of the poor, was committed to the
fiery death.
The apt phrase which now-a-days charges inconveniently
earnest philanthropists with setting class against class had not
been devised in King Edward's time; but Latimer's enemies
had constantly on their lips a word that did them all the
service that ' setting class against class ' could have done.
Master Latimer was ' indiscreet,' — that was the word, on every
form of which the preacher's maligners incessantly played, as
though the discretion which they approved and practised — the
caution of cowardice and selfishness — were the chief virtue
requisite in a minister of the gospel. Master Latimer lacked
discretion ! If Master Latimer would but be discreet, there ¦
would be contentment on the part of the poor, and an affluence
of all such good fortune as discreet citizens could desire for the
common weal. ' In England,' this lamentably indiscreet pastor
exclaimed in his sermon on ' Covetousness,' ' if God's preacher,
God's minister, is anything quick, or do speak sharply, then he
is a fooUsh feUow, he is rash, he lacketh discretion. Nowadays,
if they cannot reprove the doctrine that is preached, then they
will reprove the preacher, that he lacketh due consideration of
the times, or that he is of learning sufficient, but he wanteth
discretion. They say, "What a time is this picked out to
preach such things ! he should have a respect and a regard to
the time, and to the state of things and of the commonwealth,"
It rejoices me sometimes, when my friend comes and teUs me
that they find fault with my discretion, for by likelihood, think
I, the doctrine is true; for if they could find fault with the
doctrine, they would not charge me with lack of discretion, but
they would charge me with my doctrine, and not with the lack
of discretion, or with the inconvenience of the time,'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 75
But if Latimer's denunciations of the pride and cruelty of
the rich remind us vividly of some of the worst social evils that
disfigured the decadence of feudal life, the abject condition of
the poor, writhing under the tyranny and impoverished by the
exactions of the privileged orders, is yet more forcibly and pa
thetically displayed by the passages of Tindal's ' Exposition
upon the Sermon on the Mount,' which urge the humbler folk
to submit meekly to the arrogance and dishonest practices of
their landlords and landlords' stewards, ' If any man rail on
thee and rebuke thee,' the preacher says, iu his illustrations of
the blessings attendant on meekness, ' answer not again, and
the heat of his malice shall die in itself, and go out immediately,
as fire does when no more wood is laid thereon. If the wrong
done be greater than thou art able to bear, trust in God, and
complain with all meekness to the officer that is set of God to
forbid such violence. And if the gentlemen that dwell about
thee be tyrants, be ready to help to fetch home their wood, to
plough their land, to bring in their harvest, and so forth ; and
let thy wife visit my lady now and then with a couple of fat
hens, or a fat capon, and such Uke, and then thou shalt possess
all the remnant in rest, or else one quarrel or other may be
picked with thee, to make thee quit of all together.' In the
same graphic and familiar style, continuing to set forth the evil
treatment which needy tenants endured at the hands of their
taskmasters and official plunderers, Tindal, in a later section of
the ' Exposition,' observes, — ' Let all the world study to do thee
wrong, yea, let them do thee wrong, and yet, if thou be meek,
thou shalt have food and raiment enough for thee and thine.
And moreover, if the worst come, God shall yet set such a tyrant
over thee, that, if thou be meek and canst be content that he
poll thee properly, and even as thou mayest bear, shall defend
thee from all others. Who is polled intolerably, so that his Ufe
is bitter and even death to him, but that he is impatient and
cannot suffer to be poUed? Yea, poll thyself and prevent
others, and give the bailiff or like officer now a capon, now a
pig, now a goose, and so to thy landlord likewise, or if thou
have a great farm, now a lamb, now a calf; and let thy -wife
visit thy landlady three or four times in the year with spiced
cakes, and apples, pears, cherries, and such like. And be thou

76 A Book about Clergy.
ready with thine oxen or horses, three or four, or half-a-dozen
days in the year, to fetch home their wood, or to plough their
land ; yea, and if thou have a good horse, let him have him good
cheap, or take a worse for him, and they shall be thy shield and
defend thee, though they be tyrants and care not for God, so
that no man else shall dare poll thee. And thereto thou mayest
with wisdom get of them that shall recompense all that thou
doest to them. All this I mean, if thou be patient, and wise,
and fear God thereto, and love thy neighbour, and do no evil.
For if thou keep thyself in favour with hurting thy neighbour,
thy end will be evil ; and at the last desperation in this world,
and hell after. But if thou canst not poll thyself with wisdom,
and laugh and bear a good countenance, as though thou re-
joicest while such persons poll thee, every man shall poll thee,
and they shall maintain them, and not defend thee. Let this,
therefore, be a common proverb, — " Be contented to be polled
of some man, or to be polled of every man." ' Hideous must
have been the condition of the husbandmen and other members
of rural commonalty, and scarcely removed from serfdom, when
a preacher, so liberal, and enlightened, and spirited, as William
Tindal, could thus counsel them to contend against their ra
pacious oppressors with hypocritical submissiveness and politic
servility. The counsel, however, was no less judicious than
needful in those revolutionary times ; and the homely language
in which it was conveyed is characteristic of the preacher, who,
to demonstrate the unprofitableness of mere ceremonial obser
vances, quaintly remarked, 'He tbat goes about to purchase
grace with ceremonies doth hut suck the ale-pole to quench his
thirst, inasmuch as the ceremonies were not given to justify the
heart, but to' signify the justifying and forgiveness that is in
Christ's blood,'
The sermons of old Anglican divines contain no better illus
trations of our ancestors' erroneous notions respecting the science
of commerce than the terms in which the preachers of the reform
period denounced usury; not only the usury that insisted on
inordinate interest for small loans, but that system of lending
money on terms in exact accordance with its value in open
market, which is at the same time the mainspring of commercial
enterprise and the chief source of our national prosperity.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. *i*7
' Here,' says Jewell, in his commentary ' On the First Epistle to
the Thessalonians,' ' will I speak somewhat of the unhappy trade
of usury, because therein stands the most miserable and shame
ful deceiving of the brethren, I will not speak all that may be
said, for it would be too long and over-wearisome . , , . Many
simple men know not what is usury, nor ever heard of the name
of it. The world were happy if no man knew it, for evil things
do less harm when they be most unknown. Pestilence and
plagues are not known but with great misery. But that you
may learn to know it, and the more to abhor, this it is. Usury
is a kind of lending of money, or corn, or oil, or wine, or of any
other thing, wherein, upon covenant and bargain, we receive
again the whole principal which we delivered, and somewhat
more, for the use and occupying of the same. Whence, then,
springeth usury ? This is soon showed. Even thence, whence
theft, murder, adultery, the plagues and destruction of the
people do spring ; all these are the works of the devil, and the
works of the flesh , , , , Let us see further what are the fruits
which come of usury. For perhaps it doth some good, and you
may think that many are the better for it. These, therefore,
are the fruits, — It dissolves the knot and fellowship of mankind ;
it hardens man's heart ; it makes men unnatural, and bereaves
them of charity and love to their dearest friends; it breeds
misery, and provokes the wrath of God from heaven ; it con
sumes rich men ; iJ eats up the poor ; it makes bankrupts, and
undoes many households. The poor occupiers are driven to
flee, their wives are left alone, their children are helpless, and
driven to beg their bread, through the unmerciful dealing of the
covetous usurer , , , . They were wise men ; they thought that
an usurer was much worse than a thief. For a thief is driven
by extremity and need — the usurer is rich and hath no need ;
the thief stealeth in the corners, and in places where he may
be unknown — the usurer, openly and boldly at all times, and in
any place ; the thief, to relieve his wife and children — the usurer,
to spoil his neighbour, and to undo his wife and children ; the
thief stealeth from the rich who have enough— the usurer from
the poor who have nothing ; the thief fleeth, and will be seen no
more — the usurer standeth by it, continueth and stealeth stiU,
day and night, sleeping and waking, he always stealeth; the

78 A Book about Clergy.
thief repents of his deed, he knows he has done wrong, and is
sorry for it — the usurer thinks it his own, that it is well gotten,
and never repents nor sorrows, but defends and maintains hia
sin impudently; the thief, if he escape, many times becomes
profitable to his country, and bestows himself painfully upon
some trade of life — the usurer leaves his merchandise, forsakes
his husbandry, gives himself to nothing whereby his country
may have benefit; the thief ia satisfied at length — the usurer
never has enough.'
Inferring from the excessive warmth of this invective against
a commercial practice which, when fairly exercised, is eminently
beneficial to mankind, that the prelate meant his remarks to be
applied to none but dishonest money-lenders, one of his editors
asks us to believe that Jewell apoke only 'against advantage
taken unfairly in the use of money or other commodities, to the
ruin of those who borrow,' But whilst, on the one hand, the
lecturer on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians makes no such
exception of honest dealers in money, it is, on the other hand, a
matter of certainty, that in Elizabethan England every practice
of usury, every mode of deriving benefit from capital by placing
it out at interest, was deemed by the clergy immoral, and an
infringement of divine law. It was not till the civil troubles
of the seventeenth century had driven many ofthe ejected clergy
to convert their modest accumulations into sources of income,
that clerical opinion reluctantly sanctioned the commercial system
in which every holder of government-stocks is a participator.
Expelled from their parsonages, deprived of their glebe and
tithal incomes, and left with no means but the inadequate and
irregularly paid 'fifths' for the support of themselves and
families, a considerable proportion of the incumbents displaced
by the Parliamentary Committees preserved themselves from
almost total destitution, or at least from painful straits, by a
timely relinquishment of their scruples against usury,
Dr, (afterwards Bishop) Sanderson is one of the most in
teresting of these cases ; for, though he had previously written
against usury, the Doctor, on being ejected from all his pre
ferments with the exception of his modest Lincolnshire living,
consented to make profit out of his capital by a device which
he could reconcile to his conscience, as having in it no savour

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 79
of the money-lender's sin. In ' Church and Dissenters Com
pared,' an able refutation of some of the impudent assertions
in Dr, Walker's 'Sufferings of the Clergy,' Dr, Calamy says
of this subtle teacher and pious Churchman, — 'Thus, for in
stance, the learned Dr, Sanderson, though he met with some
trouble at his living of Boothby Panel, in Lincolnshire, yet
after a short confinement at Lincoln, he being exchanged
for Mr. Clark of Allington (who was prisoner at Newark),
matters were so compromised between them two (the one
being by agreement a security for the other), that the Doctor
was far from being reduced to any poverty in those times,
nor was he in a pitiful condition in 1658, He lived in as
much plenty as the better sort of clergy did upon his rectory,
and maintained his family fashionably. His living was valued
at 130i, or 140L per annum, and he had money besides, which
did not lie dead. For though he did not put it out to interest
in the ordinary way, which he had written against, yet did he
dispose of it in a way really more advantageous to the lender,
and sometimes to the borrower. For he would give an 1001,
for 201. for seven years. This he thought lawful, but not the
common way, which occasioned refiections from several on his
casuistical skill.'
The Elizabethan preachers used plain and discourteous
language in ridicuUng the effeminacy and egregious vanity of fops,
and the extravagant apparel of fine ladies ; but of all the clerical
denouncers of costly attire and grotesque adornments I know of
none more piquant and humorous than the author of the homily
against ' Excess of Apparel.' ' But alas,' exclaims this censor
of fashionable folly, 'now-a-days, how many may we behold
occupied wholly in pampering the flesh, taking no care at all,
but only how to deck themselves, setting their affection al
together on worldly bravery, abusing God's goodness when He
sendeth plenty, to satisfie their wanton lusts, having no regard
to the degree wherein God hath placed them. The Israelites
were contented with such apparel as God gave them, although
it were base and simple. And God so blessed them, that their
shoes and clothes lasted them forty years ; yea, and those clothes,
which their fathers had worn, their children were contented to
use afterward. But we are never contented, and therefore we

80  A Book about Clergy. 
prosper not ; so that most commonly he that ruffleth in his
sables, in his fine furred gown, corked slippers, trim buskins, and
warm mittens, is more ready to chill for cold than the poor
laboring man, which can abide in the field all the day long,
when the north wind blows, with a few beggarly clouts about?
him. We are loth to wear such as our fathers have left
us ; we think not that sufficient or good enough for us. We
must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one
long, another short; one for winter, another for summer; one
through-furred, another but faced; one for the working-day,
another for the holy-day; one of this colour, another of that
colour; one of cloth, another of silk or damask. We must
have change of apparel, one afore dinner, another after ; one of
the Spanish fashion, another Turkey; and to be brief, never
content with sufficient  Certainly, such as delight in
gorgeous apparel are commonly puffed up with pride, and filled
with divers vanities. So were the daughters of Sion and people
of Jerusalem, whom Isaiah the prophet thr eateneth, because they
walked with stretched-out necks and wandering eyes, mincing
as they went, and nicely treading with their feet, that almighty
God would make their heads bald, and discover their secret
shame. " In that day," saith he, " shall the Lord take away the
ornament of the slippers, and the cauls, and the round attires,
and the sweet balls, and the bracelets, and the attires of the
head, and the slops, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and
the ear-rings, the rings, and the mufflers, the costly apparel,
and the veils, and wimples, and the crisping-pins, and the glasses,
and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the lavras." ....
Yea, many men are become so effeminate that they care not
what they spend in disguising themselves, ever desiring new
toyes, and inventing new fashions. Therefore a certain man
that would picture every countryman in his accustomed apparel,
when he had painted other nations, he pictured the EngUshman
all naked, and gave him cloth under his arm, and bade him make .
it himself as he thought best, for he changed his fashion so often,
that he knew not how to make it. Thus with our fantastical"'
devices we make ourselves laughing-stocks to other nations;,,
while one spendeth his patrimony upon pounces and cuts, another

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 81

bestoweth more on a dancing-shirt, than might suffice to buy
him honest and comely apparel for his whole body. Some hang
their revenues about their necks, ruffling in their ruffs, and
many a one jeopardeth his best joynt, to maintain himself in
sumptuous rayment.'
Turning again, and yet more fiercely, on the clients of the
Mesdames Eachel of the sixteenth century, and on the Eliza
bethan ' girls of the period,' the homiUst exclaims, — ' But it
will be here objected and said of some nice and vain women,
that all which we do in painting our faces, in dying our hair, in
embalming our bodies, in decking us with gay apparel, is to
please our husbands, to delight his eyes, and to retain his love
toward us.* 0 vain excuse, and most shameful answer, to the
reproach of thy husband. What couldst thou more say to set
out his foolishness, than to charge him to be pleased and
delighted with the devil's attire ? Who can paint her face, and
curl her hair, and change it into an unnatural colour, but therein
doth work reproof to her Maker, who made her ? As though she
could make herself more comely than God hath appointed the
measure of her beauty, . . , What else dost thou, but settest out
thy pride, and makest of the undecent apparel of the body the
devil's net, to catch the souls of them which behold thee ? 0
thou woman, not a Christian, but worse than a Paynim, thou
minister of the devil ! Why pamperest thou that carrion flesh
so high, which sometimes doth stink and rot on the earth as thou

* That the clergy of more recent periods equalled, if they did not surpass, the
clergy of Elizabeth's time in the frankness with which they preached against
woman's taste for artificial adornments, we know from one of the ' Guardians,' in
which Addison says, ' I know a pariah, where the top woman of it used to appear
with a patch upon some part of her forehead ; the good man ofthe place preached
at it with great zeal for almost a twelvemonth, but instead of fetching out the
spot which he perpetuaUy aimed at, he only got the name of Parson Patch for
hia pains. Another is to this day called Dr. Topknot, for reasons of the same
nature. I remember the clergy, during the time of Cromwell s usurpation, were
very much taken up in reforming the female world, and showing the vanity of
those outward ornaments in which the sex so much delight. I have heard a
whole sermon against a white-wash, and have known another against a coloured
ribbon. The clergy of the preaent age are not tranaported with these indiscreet
fervours, as knowing that it is hard for a reformer to avoid ridicule when he is
severe upon subjects which are rather apt to produce mirth than seriousness.'
VOL, II, G

82 A Book about Clergy.

goest? Howsoever thou perfumest thyself, yet cannot thy
beastUness be hidden or overcome vrith thy smells and savours,
which do rather deform and misshape thee than beautifie
thee.' Such broad and intemperate language may seem scarcely
meet for deUcate ears in these times of refinement and dainty
speech, but it is still regarded by authority as fit to be read
aloud in our parish-ehurehes.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 83

CHAPTEE IX.
FUNEBRIOUS RITES.
RICH thougb they were in pictorial sights, the streets of old
London afforded loungers few spectacles more pompous
and impressive than the pageants with which the corpses of
important and wealthy persons were conveyed from their relin
quished dwelUngs to the grave. The funereal procession,
arranged and conducted by heralds with nice attention to every
detail of the deceased person's worldly honours, comprised a
numerous body of robed priests and choristers who marched
before the coffln, chanting in plaintive strains the Latin words
of the Catholic dirge. Immediately preceded by an ecclesiastical
servitor who swung to and fro a sacred bell, the coffin was either
conveyed on an open car (from which we derive the modern
hearse), or bome on the shoulders of the dead man's nearest .
friends; and, instead of being veiled by a black pall, it was
usually decked with flowers or draped with a coverlet made of
sacerdotal copes. Sometimes the coffin was preceded by an open
chariot which displayed to spectators the ' lively effigy ' or
waxen image of the individual whose corporeal remains were
being taken thus sumptuously to the tomb. The rear of the
procession consisted of a long train of black-robed mourners,
bearing in their hands floral wreaths or sprigs of rosemary.
On April 12, 1559, whilst the spirituality were still designing
the important changes in our national faith and religious observ
ances which are now-a-days designated by the comprehensive
word — Eeformation, Sir Eice Mansfield, a knight of ancient
lineage and honourable achievements, was interred in Blackfriars
Church with all the picturesque formalities usual at tbe burials
of great men in Catholic England. ' The corpse,' says Strype,

84 A Book about Clergy.
in his notice of this characteristic interment, ' was brought from
Clerkenwell into the Blackfriars, with two heralds, and the rest
of the ceremonies usual : twenty-four priests and clerks singing
before him, all in Latin, The friars' church was hung with
black, and coats of arms. The dirige was sung both in the
parish where he died and likewise where he was buried. There
were carried along with him four banners of saints and many
other banners. The morrow masses were said in both churches.
Afterward was his standard, coat, helmet, target, offered up at
the high altar. And all this being performed, the company
retired to his place to dinner. This was the common way of
funerals of persons of quality in the popish times.'
Not quite two months later, the obsequies of a lady of
quality were celebrated with similar pomp, but with significant
innovations, in the time which may be called the Elizabethan
interval betvrixt the Papal and Protestant periods of our national
history.' 'June the 2nd,,' says Strype, in his 'Annals of the
Eeformation,' ' was buried in Little St, Bartholomew's the Lady
Barnes, late wife of Sir George Barnes, Knt. Sometime lord
mayor of London  There attended the funeral Mr.,
Clareneeux, and twenty clerks singing afore her to the church,
all in English. AU the place (i. e. her house), and the streets
through which they passed, and the church, all hung in black
and coats of arms. Being come to the church and the English
service sung, Mr, Home made a sermon. After that, the clerks
sung " Te Deum," in English, then the corpse was buried with
something sung — I sruppose it was the versides, beginning
" Man that is bom of a woman." ' The weeks that elapsed
between Sir Eiee Mansfield's funeral and Lady Barnes's inter
ment, had been weeks of rapid religious progress, resulting in
more important changes thaji this introduction of English into
the religious service of the gentlewoman's obsequies.
The same instructive collector, to whom we are indebted for
the foregoing accounts of burials in the first year of Elizabeth's
reign, has also given us a giapthic picture of the forms observed,
or rather instituted, at the obsequies of a Protestant lady who
was committed to the grave, four days before Sir Eice Mans
field's burial, by friends whose Protestantism was of a puritanical
complexion. 'April the 7th,' says Strype, in 'Annals of the

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 85
Eeformation,' ' a gentlewoman was buried at St. Thomas of Acre ;
whose funeral being performed after a different way from the
common superstitious and ceremonial custom, my journalist sets
it forth down as a matter worthy his noting ; and writes, that
she was brought from St. Bartholomew's beside Lothbury, with
a great company of people, walking two-and-two, and neither
priests nor clerks present (who used ever to be present [and
that in considerable numbers] at the burials of persons of any
note, going before, and singing for the soul of the departed).
But instead of them went the new preachers in their gowns ; and
they neither singing nor saying, till they came to the church.
And then, before the corpse was put into the grave, a collect was
said in English (whereas before time all was said in Latin), and
the body being laid in the grave, one took earth and cast it
upon the corpse, and read something that belonged to the same ;
and incontinently they covered it with earth. And then was
read the epistle out of St, Paul tb the Thessalonians for the
occasion, (Perhaps that place where it begins, " But I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are
asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others, which have no hope,"
i. e. unless here be a mistake, and the Thessalonians put for
the Corinthians ; the epistle that is appointed in our Common
Prayer-book to be read at funerals). And after this they sung
the "Pater Noster" in EngUsh, as well preachers as all the
¦ company, women not excepted, after a new fashion. And after
all one went into the pulpit and made a sermon. -This was
accounted strange at this time ; but it seems to be partly the
office of burial used in King Edward's time, and some other
additions to it. And this was somewhat boldly done, when as
yet the old religion was in force.'
For many years after Elizabeth's accession, choristers,
chanting sacred strains whilst they marched through the streets
before the coffin, continued to be a feature of important funerals.
'It is a custome,' we are told by Greene in 'Conceipt' (1548),
' still in use with Christians, to attend the funerall of their de
ceased friendes with whole chantries of choyee quire-men singing
solemnly before them ; but behind followes a troope all clad in
black, which argues mourning ; much have I marveled at this
ceremony, deeming it some hidden paradox, confounding thus

86 A Book about Clergy.

in one things so opposite as these signes of joy and sorrowe,'
Gradually relinquished in our cities so that, so far as they are
concemed, it may be said to have expired in the seventeenth,
this custom was retained in various parts of the provinces so late
as the close of the eighteenth century. Pennant tells us that
in his time the usage was preserved in North Wales in 'a
custom of singing psalms on the way as the corpse is carried to
church,' When the coffin was exposed to view, and sometimes when
it was draped with an embroidered pall, the undertakers of
Elizabethan England used to adorn it with flowers and branches
of trees — not laid upon the Ud, but stuck into the wood of
the mortuary chest, sa that they stood up like planted shrubs.
In Bishop Hall's ' Occasional Meditations "' we read ; — ' On the
sight of a coffin stuck with flowers: — Too fair appearance is
never free from just suspicion. While here was nothing but
mere wood, no flowers was to be seen here ; now, that this wood
is lined with an unsavoury corpse, it is adorned with this sweet
variety. The fir, whereof that coffin is made, yields a natural
redolence alone ; now, that it is stuffed thus noisomely, all helps
are too little to countervail that scent of corruption.' Just as
the mutes and black-clothed footmen, now-a-days employed
by undertakers to heighten the pomp of funereal processions,
officiate in place ofthe banner-bearers and walking guard with
which the heralds of former time surrounded an obsequious
car and train of mourners, — the rigid sticks of black material,
miscalled plumes, which disfigure rather than adorn our modem
hearses or coffin-cars, are supposed to represent the growth of
gloomy foliage vrith which coffins were decked for public exhi
bition by our forefathers.
In Elizabethan England the word ' hearse ' was applicable
to three different objects — the coffin in which a dead man's
actual corpse was carried to the tomb ; the funereal car which
preceded the coffin in obsequious processions, and on which, in
an open coffin, was exhibited the deceased person's 'lively
effigy,' modelled in wax ; and the catafalco, or temporary struct
ure of a draped and artfully-decorated scaffold, erected in the
church where the obsequies were celebrated. The Shake
spearian reader of Scene IL, Act I,, Eichard IIL, does not need

Part IV.-— Old Ways and Neiw Fashions. 87
to be reminded of the pathetic speech with which Lady Anne
opens the scene,— ' Set down, set down your honourable load, —
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse.'
The words following this order, construed Uterally, imply that
Henry the Sixth's corpse, and not his 'lively effigy,' was the
object of the mourner's regard as well as the burden bome by
the bearers ; but it is probable that the dramatist merely de
signed to represent the royal widow and the royal usurper as
gazing on the dead man's w^-xen image, though, to a late date
of England's medieval story, the actual corpses of the dead were
displayed at their obsequies in open coffins. That the interlo
cutors in the scene speak of the figure as the actual corpse is no
evidence with respect to the poet's intention ; for had he speci
fied in a stage-note that the exhibited form was only a ^ Uvely
image^J he would have been none the less true to nature and
usage m making Lady Anne and Eichard address it and speak
of it as though it were the thing which it represented. But
whether the bearers are understood to be carrying an open
coffin, in which the relics of the murdered king are visible, or a
closed coffin surmounted by a couch, containing a Uvely effigy,
the object is caUed a hearse, in accordance with the usage
of our Elizabethan ancestors, who appUed the term indifferently
to a draped coffin and a funereal car as well as an ecclesiastical
catafalco. Draped with black cloth the catafalco, or fixed hearse, was
the platform on which were exhibited, in the church of his Iut
ferment, the deceased man's waxen image, the heraldic de
scription of his ancestry and honours, his armorial coat and the
banners of his house, the account of his virtuous achievements,
and the numerous verses, original or adopted, which friendly
pens inscribed to his glorification. The catafalco pf an impor
tant person usually stood a month or six weeks for the admiration
of gentle mourners and simple gazers, when it was removed to
make way for another mortuary structure of the saiue kind.
The fixed hearses of kings or other royal persopages stood for
much longer periods ; and, in times when deaths were frequent,
an important church in a populous parish was seldom without

88 A Book about Clergy.
two or three of the costly and cumbrous erections. Westminster
Abbey rarely had less than half-a-dozen of them reared at various
points of its interior ; and it was a favourite amusement with
the loimgers and quidnuncs of the Elizabethan time to visit
the church, for the sake of inspecting the adornments of its
hearses, and reading the numerous laudatory writings in verse
and prose which had been affixed to their draperies. The
hearse of an eminent patron of letters, or of a writer popular
amongst the members of his craft, sometimes had a score, or
even two score, of these literary tributes, which, in Elizabethan
England, were inspired by sympathy for the Uving as weU as
by respect for the* dead, and achieved the ends nowadays more
exactly and appropriately effected by letters of condolence. Of
these epitaphs for exhibition on catafalcos, no finer specimen
exists than the well-known Unes in which Ben Jonson rendered
meet honour to the Countess of Pembroke, 
' Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ;
Death ! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned, and fair, and good as she.
Time shaU throw a dart at thee.'
That this custom of adorning fixed hearses with poetical com
positions survived the Elizabethan period, and was observed in
comparatively recent time, it is needless to remark ; but readers,
not familiar with Anthony a Wood, will like to peruse a passage
of his autobiography, which relates to the obsolete usage. In
1655, when Oxford was in the hands of the Puritans, Anthony's
eldest brother, Edward Wood, fellow of Merton, died to the
great concern of the University, whilst he was still occupying
the office of junior proctor. 'His body,' says Anthony, the
antiquarian, 'was carried into the common hall of Merton
College, where the society, and such masters of art that were
pleased to come to pay their last respects to him, had gloves,
wine, and bisket in abundance, as also had the doctors,
heades of houses, and his brother proctor, Samuel Bruen, to
which last E. Wood had bequeathed money to buy him a
mourning-gown. Afterwards, his body being carried to Merton
College Church, there was a sermon preached for that occasion

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 89
by his aforesaid quondam tutor, which, being not extant, I can
not refer to it. His hearse was adorned with escocheons and
verses ; among which last was a copie, made by his acquaintance
Dr. Barton Holyday, archdeacon of Oxford, running thus, —
' Upon the Death of his vertuous and prudent Friend, Mr. Edw. W^ood, in the
beginning of his Proctorship of the Univeraitie of Oxon.
Chosen he was a censor of the times ;
He chose to dye, rather than view the crimes J
The Cynique's lanterne he far wiser thought.
That for an honest man at high-noon sought.
Then bring a midnight sinner to the light.
Whose darker actions do outshade the night.
Friend ! thou wast wise, with honour thus to dye.
Fame is thy epitaph, thy tombe the skye.'
That the black pall was not generally used to veil the coffin
in funereal processions before the civil war of Charles the First's
time may be inferred from a passage in Francis Cheynell's
' ChilUngworthii Novissima,' * the work in which one of the
wildest of puritanical fanatics set forth the particulars of William
ChilUngworth's sickness, death, and interment at Chichester.
After inveighing with equal fervour and indecency against the
acts and imputed motives of his dead adversary, CheyneU in
forms us that ChilUngworth's coffin was draped with a ' mourn
ing herse-cloth, instead ofheing covered with a pall made of old
copes ; and that his bearers were provided, in accordance with
the custom of the country, with gloves, mourning-scarves, and
branches of rosemary.' ' First,' the writer observes, ' there were
all things which may any way appertain e to the civility of a
funeraU, though there was nothing which belongs to the super
stition of a funerall. His body was decently laid in a convenient
coffin, covered vrith a mourning herse-cloth, more seemly (as I
conceive) than the usuall covering, patched up out of the mouldy
reliques of some moth-eaten copes. His friends were entertained
(according to their own desire) vrith wine and cakes, though that
* The vniter's temper is indicated by the abusive tifle of this scandalous pub
lication, — 'ChiUingworthu Novissima; or. The Sicknesse, Heresy, Death and
Buriall of William ChUlingworth (in his own Paiish), Clerk of Oxford, and, in
the Conceit of his FeUow-Souldiers, the Queen's Arch-Engineer and Grand
InteUigencer. Set forth in a Letter, &o. By Francis CheyneU, late Fellow of
Merton College.'

90 A Book about Clergy.
is, in my conceit, a turning of the house of mourning into an
house of banqueting, AU that offered themselves to carry his
corpse out of pure devotion, because they were men of his per
suasion, had everyone of them (according to the custom of the
country) a branch of rosemary, a mourning-riband, and a paire
of gloves.' In the persistency with which our forefathers of the
seventeenth century clung to this ancient use of palls made out
of copes, long after repugnance to Catholic opinion and practices
had become a ruling sentiment in aU classes of the laity, we
have an instructive iUustration of the slowness and reluctance
with which men relinquish long-established customs that stir
the affections without revolting the conscience,
CheyneU omits to say who were ChilUngworth's bearers;
but we may safely presume that the author of ' The Eeligion of
Protestants ' was borne to his last earthly resting-place by
friends who were members of his sacred profession as weU as
'men of his persuasion.' That clergymen in Catholic times
were ordinarily carried to the grave by men of their own vo
cation and spiritual quality, the reader needs not to be told;
and that this comely practice was observed in Charles the First's
time we have an abundance of biographic evidence, but no
single piece of testimony more worthy of commemoration than
the terms in which Dr. Humphrey Henchman, after becoming
Bishop of London, recalled the part he had taken at George
Herbert's funeral. 'I laid my hand, then, on Mr. Herbert's
head,' the prelate remarked to Isaak Walton, in reference to
Herbert's ordination ; and, after a pause, he added vrith emotion,
' and, alas ! vrithin less than three years, I lent my shoulder tp
carry my dear friend to the grave,'
Funereal sermons were delivered in old time over the graves
of the persons to whom they specially referred ; and, like the
obsequious eloges still uttered in many countries over the
open tombs of distinguished men, they appear almost inva
riably to have been dictated by a wish to confer honour on the
dead and afford comfort to the survivors. In England's variable
climate it was, however, soon found most convenient for the
preacher and the congregation of mourners that the panegyric
should be spoken under cover of the a(^acent church, where the
orator could more easily render justice to his subject and the

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 91
auditors could listen with greater comfort and profit. The next
change, modestly introduced and gradually made general, was to
postpone the utterance of the funereal encomium from the day of
interment, — when in the case of a comparatively humble person's
death, no large concourse of listeners would be present, — to the
nearest holy-day, when the dead man's praises would be sounded
in the ears of a full congregation. Occasionally preachers
ventured to point the moral of a bad man's life by speaking
frankly of his misdeeds on the solemn day when, had he been a
worthy man, his memory would have been covered with affection
ate praise ; but public opinion seldom failed to express disappro
bation of these unusual departures from the established etiquette
of funereal oratory, and the clergy, in commenting on the Uves
of deceased parishioners, were constrained to respect the rule
that awards silence or praise to men who are no longer in the
world to answer their censors. But if charity gained, social
sincerity was often injured, by this arrangement. When signifi
cant reticence had become the instrument by which the conscien
tious priest demonstrated his disapproval of a dead man's charac
ter and career, the pastor's silence became no lesa condemnatory
and dreadful than audible censure; and, fearful of the evil
report, ' He was a sorry fellow : even the parson could speak no
good of him,' dying men, solicitous for their posthumous respec
tabiUty, were wont to leave their parish priests legacies on
condition that the reverend legatees spoke of them from the
pulpit, — the testators knowing well that, if mentioned at all by
a public preacher, they would be mentioned with charitable
forbearance, if not vrith enthusiastic eulogium. Hence arose the
class of obsequious panegyrics, aptly denounced by a funereal
orator of the Commonwealth period as ' the vain flourishes of
mercenary tongues, and the weak supports of an emendicated
fame.'* — sermona which resulted from tacit compact between
preachers and dying men, or the representatives of dead men,
* ' The testimony given him at his interment by him who performed that last
office with many tears, and which he knowingly spake from his long and intimate
acquaintance and conversing with him almost forty years, take with you for a
close in that miniater'a own words out of the pulpit : — " Although funeraU ora
tions are commonly either the vain flouriahea of mercenary tongues, or the weake
supports of an emendicated fame ; and since good men's works shaU praise them

&2 A Book about Clergy.

that the former should give praise and the latter reward it
directly or indirectly with adequate remuneration.
Tenacious ofthe ancient funereal usages which had originated
in medieval superstition and feudal pomp, our Protestant an
cestors were especially obstinate in maintaining all thoae obse
quious practices which added to the pecuniary expense of burials.
Superstitious attachment to old ways, family pride, and affection
for the dead, concurred in rendering them unwilling to resist
the costly exactions of the undertaker, and slow to aboUsh the
ostentatious ceremonies with which fantastic heralds and extor
tionate tradesmen had given meretricious attractiveness to the
necessary and repulsive business of interment. The obsequies
of a gentle person, even so late as the close of the last century,
were seldom performed vrithout a wasteful expenditure of money
on the useless display of a long funereal train ; on presents of
mourning-clothes and mourning-rings to the relatives and
mourners of the deceased person ; on funebrious hangings for
the church in which he was buried ; on exorbitant fees to
clergymen and clerks, organists and singers, sextons and ringers;
and on a luxurious banquet, from which the guests seldomi
retired until they had conquered their transient grief with
excessive indulgence in wine. In the days of Charles the
Second, it was ordinarily remarked that it cost a private gentle«-
man of small estate more to bury his wife than to endow his
daughter for marriage with a rich man ; and the same might
have been said at any time prior to George the Third's accession.
When Samuel Pepys died in straitened circumstances, at the
opening of the eighteenth century, so many as one hundred and
forty-two gold rings were distributed amongst his kinsmen,
friends, and slight acquaintances ; and from the several entries
in his Diary, which make mention of burials at which he, in
common vrith invited and uninvited mourners, received gold
mourning-rings, I am disposed to think that the number of
in the gates, 'tis but to light a candle to the sun ; and since bad men's works
cannot be covered with so thin a daub, 'tis but to paint a rotten post. Yet some
testimony is due to such, as having obtained a more eminent place in Christ's
mysticall body the Church, have also been instruments of more than ordinary
good to His members.' — Vide ' Life and Death of Mr. Samuel Crook, late Pastor-
of Wington.' (1051.)

Part IV.— Old Ways and New Fashions. 93
these useless mementoes given away at his own obsequies did
not surpass custom.
Aware of the harm which this funebrious prodigality wrought
to gentle but not wealthy families, that had neither the courage
to refuse nor competent means to accede to the claims of ancient
obsequious fashion, several of our eminent Anglican divines set
an example of prudent simplicity in the directions which they
left for the celebration of their own obsequies. Thus Bishop
Sanderson, dying whilst Charles the Second was still a new king,
gave the following orders in his last testament : ' As for my
corruptible body I bequeath it to the earth whence it was taken,
to be decently buried in the Parish Church of Buckden , , . .
and that with as little noise, pomp, and charge as may be,
without the invitation of any person how near soever related to
me, other than the inhabitants of Buckden ; without the un
necessary expense of escutcheons, gloves, ribbons, &c,, and
vrithout any blacks to be hung anywhere in or about the house
or church, other than a pulpit-cloth, a hearse-cloth, and a
mourning-gown for the. Preacher ; whereof the former — after
my body shall be interred — to <be given to the preacher ofthe
funeral sermon, and the latter to the curate of the parish for
the time being. And my will further is, that the Funeral
Sermon be preached* by my own household Chaplain, containing
some wholesome discourse concerning mortality, the Eesurrec-
* John Evelyn's commendatory notice of the sermon deUvered at the ob
sequies of his father-in-law. Sir Richard Browne, Knt., gives us a complete
picture of what was deemed in Charles the Second's days an appropriate fune
brious encomium for a gallant and scholarly gentleman. ' The vicar,' says the
diarist, ' preached a short and proper diacourae on Paalm xxxix. 10, on the fraUty
of our mortal condition ; concluding with an ample and well-deaerved eulogy on
the defunct, relating to his honourable birth and ancestors, education, learning
in Greek and Latin, modem languages, travels, public employments, signal
loyalty, character abroad, and particularly the honour of supporting the Church
of England in its pubhc worship daring its persecution by the late rebels' usurp
ation and regicide, by the suffrages of divers Bishops, Doctors of the Church,
and others, who found such an asylum in his house and family at Paris, that in
their disputes with the Papists (then triumphing over it as utterly lost), they used
to argue for its visibility and existence from Sir R. Browne's chapel and assembly
there. Then he spake ofhis great and loyal sufferings during thirteen years'
exile with his present majesty, his return with him in the signal year 1660, his
honourable employment at home, his timely recess to recoUect himself, his great
age, infirmities, and death.'

94 A Book about Clergy.
tion of the Dead, and the Last Judgment ; and that he shall
have for his pains 51., on condition that he speaks nothing at
all concerning my person, either good or ill, other than I myself
shall direct, only signifying to the auditory that it was my
express desire to have it so,'
The funebrious practices with church-bells— still observed
with greater or less irregularity at many, if not most, of our
churches, were derived from Catholic campanology, the professors
of which ancient and fantastic art laid down rules for the ringing
of passing (or soul) bells, peals to announce the soul's arrival in
purgatory, peals to remind Christians of their obligation to pray
for human spirits retained in purgatorial bonds, and joy-peals
to dispel the gloom contracted by the performance of obsequious
rites, Eung whilst the sick person lay in extremis, — some
times in his hearing, and to his great perturbation, — thfe
passing-bell was tolled from the moment when his attendants
pronounced him to be sinking, until he had actually expired his
last breath. At the same time an announcement to the priest
to hasten to the dying man's side, and a warning to pious
mortals that their suppUcations were needed by a fellow-creature,
who had not relinquished the body's fetters, the passing-bell had
its wholesome uses, besides the pernicious influence which it
exercised on the imaginations of superstitious misbeUevers who
had been trained to think that its resonant pulsations drove off
Satanic spirits, and hindered them from worrying the soul during
its departure and passage to the next world.
By one of the advertisements for due order, pubUshed in the
seventh year of Elizabeth, it was ordered: 'Item, that when
anye Christian bodie is in passing, that the bell shall be tolled,
and that the curate after the time of this passinge to ringe no
more but one short peale: and one before the buriall, and
another short peale after the buriall.' Against the moderate
use of the passing-bell — i. e. used whilst the soul is actually
leaving its earthly tenement, and not continued beyond the
moment of death — nothing can be alleged on Protestant
grounds. Nor can the Protestant object to the peal rung im
mediately before the burial, so long as it is regarded only as a
summons to the congregation to attend the obsequies of a
departed brother from motives of affection. But as much can-

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 95
not be said for the intermediate peal, which can serve no social
purpose apart from its original design to call on the Uving to
pray for the dead. That the passing-bell continued so late as
the middle of the last century to be rung whilst the person, in
whose behalf it was sounded, retained Ufe in his body, we know
from Nelson who says in his ' Fasts and Festivals of the Church '
(1732), 'If his senses hold out so long, he can hear even his
passing-bell vrithout disturbance.' Strangely, however, re
pugnance to superstitious usage has caused us to discontinue
the ringing of passing-bells, which do not necessarily involve
any countenance of vain superstitions, and yet almost as
Ittniversally we preserve the custom of ringing the second or
intermediate peal — i. e. the peal between the old passing peal
¦and the peal immediately before burial, which in the first
instance had only a superstitious use and significance. In many
parishes, where the passing peal has been discontinued, its name
has been conferred on this second peal vriiich, in the opinion
of some antiquarians, was the soul-bell of Catholic timesw Foir
instance, — to name one out of thousands of parishes,-'^^at
Framlingham in Suffolk, the miscalled ' passing-bell ' is tolled
when the soul of the dead person has passed from the body a
certain number of hours.
The sixty-seventh canon ofthe church defines precisely the
times for the four bells, — 1, the passing-bell; 2, the second
(or soul) bell ; 3, the burial-beU, to summon mourners to the
interment ; 4, the quick (or joy) peal after interment, ' When '
runs the canon ' any person is dangerously sick in any parish,
the minister or curate, having knowledge thereof, shall resort
unto him or her (if the disease he not known, or prohahly
suspected, to he infectious *• ), to instruct and comfort them in
distress, according to the order of the Communion Book, if
he be no preacher ; or if he be a preacher, then as he shall think
most needful and convenient. And when any is passing out of
this Ufe, a bell shall be tolled, and the minister shall not slack
to do his last duty. And after the party's death, if it so fall out,
there shall be rung no more than one short peal, and one other
before the burial, and one other after the burial.'
* To the honour of onr clergy be it observed, that they seldom avail them
selves ofthe pretext for negligence held out by this cruel and cowardly clause.

96 A Book about Clergy.
In his ' History of Whiteford and HolyweU,' Pennant says,
with respect to these four beUs for the dead, 'That excellent
memento to the living, the passing-beU, is punctually sounded,
I mention this because idle niceties have, in great towns, often
caused the disuse. It originated before the Eeformation, to
give notice to the priest to do the last duty of extreme unction
to the departing person in case he had no other admonition.
The canon (67-) allows one short peal after death, one other
before the funeral, and one other after the funeral. The second
is ¦ still in use, and is a single bell solemnly tolled. The third
is a merry peal, rung at the request of the relations ; as if, '
Scythian like, they rejoiced at the escape of the departed out of
this troublesome world.'
Not only did our Elizabethan ancestors terminate their fu
nereal rites with a quick and joyous peal, but, on the anniversary
of a notable person's death, they would sometimes commemorate '
the doleful event by a repetition of the merry ringing. And
from this singular and inconsistent practice arose the still
general custom of celebrating royal birthdays with the music of
church bells. The particular circumstances that gave rise to
this latter practice are recorded in Anthony a Wood's ' History
and Antiquities of the University of Oxford ;' and the annalist's
notice of the affair is all the more worthy of insertion in this
work because it has escaped the researches of the several col
lectors of the curiosities of campanology, with whose writings I
am familiar. Filling the Catholics vrith deep dejection in proportion as it
elated the Protestants, Queen Mary's death was at the same
time a cause of open rejoicing to the one, and of secret lament
ation to the other, party of our forefathers ; and in no city ofthe
kingdom was this conflict of feelings and opinions deeper and
keener than at Oxford, where the majority of the gownsmen
were warmly attached to the old faith, and the citizens no less
cordially devoted to religious reform.* From an early date the
* The terras in which Anthony a Wood speaks of Edward the Sixth's unhappy
reign and Queen Mary's beneficent rule, show how enthusiastically the Caroline
Royalists cherished the sentiments of the Marian CathoUcs. ' And now, reader,'
says Wood, ' having given you a brief relation of the unhappy transactions of the
University in the reign of King Edw. VI., I shall speak of the affairs acted in the
time of Q. Mary, who, obtaining the crown, ReUgion and Learning put on another

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 97
town had thus opposed the university with a hostile spirit that,
surviving the quarrels of the ecclesiastical revolution, has dis
played itself in antagonism to the academic authorities from the
days of Elizabeth to the days of Victoria, with the exception of
the brief period of the interregnum, when popular poUtics pre
vailed aUke in the municipality and the schools. Under Eliza-
betU, when the scholars were for the most part fierce High
Churchmen or disguised favourers of the Papacy, the citizens
were supporters of the Puritans. In the days of Laud's supre
macy, the Oxford burgesses prayed and plotted for the subversion
of the episcopacy and the triumph of the Presbyterians ; and
when Oxford became the head-quarters of the royal army, and
the students formed themselves into regiments sworn to defend
their sovereign's cause and person, the authorities of the town,
sullenly submitting to the martial law which they dared not
openly defy, did their utmost to aid the Parliament by revealing
the movements of the EoyaUst forces to> the scouts and spies of
the rebel armies. In later days, when the university was
Jacobite, the town was Hanoverian,— when the colleges were
nurseries of Tory politicians, the tradesmen who subsisted on
the colleges proved themselves staunch Whigs ; and so, at the
present hour, whilst the university is represented at West
minster by two Conservatives, the city sends two Liberals to
ParUament. But never, either before or since the triumph of Protestantism,
was the feud between town and gown hotter or more maUgnant
than it was during the opening years of Elizabeth's reign, which
saw the university tradesmen become more insolent as their
party became more triumphant, and rendered the Marian
Churchmen more acrimonious to the city in proportion as they
lost influence in the state. The mutual animosity of the belU-
gerents broke out in bickerings and recriminations, assaults and
riots ; but on no occasion was it productive of anything more
comic at the time, or more notable in its results, than the alter-
face (fancy it, if you please, to have been ao as at the restauration of K. Ch. IL),
in some things for the better, in some for the worse. AU these observations and
oaths that were put upon each society by the king and his councU, to be per
formed and taken in the admission of every bead and fellow, especiaUy that of
denouncing the Pope, were now commanded to be taken away ; and all things to
be as anciendy, before anything ofthe Reformation began.'
VOL. IL ^

98 A Book about Clergy.
cation which took place between the Puritan mayor, John
Wayte, and the fellows of Lincoln College, on November 17th
(St. Hugh's Day), 1561.
St. Hugh's Day had formerly been the gaudy day of Lin
coln CoUege; and in 1561, the feUows of Lincoln, after dining
in hall, adjourned to the church of AU Saints to amuse them
selves with a turn at bell-ringing, Anthony a Wood repre
sents that they had no object in thus sounding their fine peal
of bells, apart from a desire for suitable recreation by means of
an art in which they excelled ; but it is probable that they
were not unmindful of Queen Mary's death, or unwilling to
recall her memory by a brilliant feat of campanology. Any
how the most offensive construction was put on their conduct
by Master John Wayte, the mayor of the city, whose ears had
no sooner caught the resonance of the All Saints' bells, than he
hastened to the church to demand how the ringers presumed to
render such honour to the late queen. The door of the belfry
was closed, and the angry mayor was constrained to knock more
than once and raise no Uttle hubbub before he could gain ad-
mitance to the campanologists. At length, however, he effected
an entrance ; and, baring forced himself into the presence of the
riDgers, he reviled them as Papists for thus ringing a dirge to
the Popish queen. Dismayed by the mayor's vehemence, and
fearful lest the affair would bring them into trouble, most of the
ringers began to stammer out assurances that they had rung
only for amusement's sake and out of no regard to the dead
queen; when one of the offenders — a gentleman of rare in
ventiveness and self-possession — silenced his comrades, and
extricated them from a perilous embarrassment by a statement
which no one but a person endowed vrith a genius for lying
could have uttered on the spur of the moment. Eeminding
the mayor that, if Mary had died on St. Hugh's Day, it was also
on that same day that her successor had been proclaimed, the
ready and subtle gentleman averred that he and his fellow-
collegians had rung the peal in honour of their sovereign's
accession, and not in regret for her predecessor's death. In
fact, they were ringing altogether for joy at having gained a
Protestant ruler, and in no degree for sorrow at having lost a
Catholic sovereign. ' Whereupon,' says the annalist, ' the mayor,

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 99
going away satisfied, caused St. Martin's bells to be rung, and
as many others as he could command. From hence the custom
grew in Oxford to ring on that day during her reign (for so
also it appears in the rolls of several parish churches accompted,
wherein this stiU runneth, — " Item, to the ringers on St. Hugh's
Day  "), as also on the days of coronation and births of
kings and princes, which yet remaineth.'
Another device of campanology, still practised in many
parts of England, is the method by which ringers at the end of
funereal ringings signify whether the deceased person was a
man, a woman, or a child. In case of a child's interment,
where this custom is observed, the ringing ends with three
solemn knells — a stroke or 'teller' for each person of the
Sacred Trinity. The ringing for a woman's death concludes
with six strokes — two knells for each of the Sacred Persons.
The bell music for a man terminates with a yet higher multiple
of three. The campanological rule, as it is ordinarily enun
ciated by a rustic ringer, for this practice, runs, — ' Three for a
child, six for a woman, and nine tellers make a man.'

100 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE X.
VICAR OF BRAY.
DUEING the religious struggles that occupied the interval
between Henry the Eighth's rupture with Eome and the
secure establishment of the Eeformed Church under Elizabeth,
England witnessed no such secession of ordained persons from the
clerical ranks as the voluntary retirement of the two thousand
ministers who, on the restoration of episcopacy by Charles the
Second, simultaneously relinquished the preferments and offices
which they might no longer retain on terms reconcileable to
their consciences.
On the contrary, the EngUsh clergy exhibited a singular
plasticity to the wishes of civil authority, and moved to and fro
— now in the direction of Eome, and now in the direction of
Geneva ; at one time declaring their enthusiasm for episcopal
rule and at another manifesting seasonable tolerance of the
Presbyterian method, — in accordance vrith the fashion of the
hour, and the policy of the existing government. Nor are we
justified in attributing exceptional baseness to the ecclesiastics
who, thus veering with the vrind, obeyed forces which they were
powerless to resist, and took timely heed for their personal
interests amidst the perplexities and distractions of a revolution
ary period. They were men, and in this respect they acted after
the vi^ont of men under circumstances of Uke difficulty, — effect
ing successive compromises between their notions of what was
right and their perceptions of what was obviously needful;
consenting on compulsion to do for a time what they secretly
hoped they should not be required to do for long; complying
from mingled motives of private policy and public necessity
with arrangements which they regarded as provisional and
temporary innovations. It was thus that the majority of our

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 101

priesthood — at heart sincerely attached to the Catholic system
and traditions — accepted new laws and satisfied new exigencies
during the later years of Henry the Eighth, and throughout the
reign of Edward and the earlier years of Elizabeth. Thus, on
the other hand, a considerable section ofthe Anglican Eeformers,
bending to the storm which menaced them with destruction,
said masses at the Marian altars, whilst longing for the time
when they should be again called upon to read English prayers
in the naves of the churches. The censors, who are nowadays
most vehement in declaring disdain for this clerical pliancy,
would most probably have displayed the same prudent modera
tion and poUtic plasticity, had they lived either as priests or
laymen in the restless and perilous days which gave birth to our
Established Church.
When the Anglican clergy were required by their sovereign
on the one hand to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, and by
the Pope on the other hand to prove their devotion to his rule
by withdravring themselves from the realm of the excommuni
cated king, no one having any knowledge of the instincts and
governing principles of human nature imagined for a moment
that the CathoUc ecclesiastics would generally endeavour to obey
the latter order. Before they could have taken the first steps
to gratify the pontiff's arrogance, they would have been seized
by the servants, and thrown into the prisons, of a king who did
not fear to enforce submission to his despotic will by inflicting
death on dignified ecclesiastics and laymen of the highest rank.
The monarch, who beheaded a venerable prelate and an exem
plary chancellor for decUning to acknowledge his supremacy,
and who did not hesitate to commit priors and monks to igno
minious deaths for no worse offence than their conscientious
inability to declare him the head of the Church, was a terrible
power, with whom such humble mortals as country rectors and
provincial curates had better not trifle. The Pope was at a
distance, the king was at hand ; and knowing well that to
repudiate the sovereign's supremacy sent the recusant to death,
the clergy, with a few exceptions, verbally gave up the Pope for
a time, soothing their disturbed consciences by reflecting that
they were taking the only course by which they could hope to
promote the interests of the true Father of the Church. Their

102 A Booh about Clergy.
disobedience was thus regarded even at Eome, whence per
mission soon came to the CathoUc clergy of England to render
all the external concessions that triumphant heresy demanded of
them. So long as they were true at heart to the Pope, and
zealous for the welfare of the Church, they might be false to
their spiritually-deposed king, — and in fighting heresy with
fraud they might exercise their own discretion in deciding what
evasions and flat perjuries might be justifiably employed for
the attainment of righteous victory. Upon this understanding
with the Holy Father, the most severely conscientious of the
English Catholic clergy, alike during Henry's later years and
throughout Edward the Sixth's reign, deemed themselves not
only justified, but righteously engaged, in discharging the
functions of Eeformed priests, and at the same time secretly
plotting to re-establish the Papal power within the English
kingdom. There is no doubt that a large proportion of the Marian
clergy acted with perfect honesty and sincere delight in relin
quishing the Protestant professions and usages of King Edward's
days, and proclaiming themselves true members of the one and
everlasting CathoUc Church ; for in many parts of the country
their conversion — or rather, let us say, the revelation of their
real sentiment — preceded the legal re-estabUshment of Papal
authority. Before the mass had been formaUy ordered, the
clergy hastened to celebrate it in most of our important towns,
Anthony a Wood teUs us of the zeal and pleasure with which
the feUows of the Oxford coUeges, and the priests of the Oxford
churches — who had apparently gone with the Eeformers in
King Edward's days — on Mary's accession brought out the
mass-books and Catholic vestments, the images and pictures, the
cmcifixes and relics, which, instead of having been destroyed
in compliance with successive injunctions for their demoUtion,
had merely been stowed away in cellars and secret closets until
it should once again be lawful to exhibit and use them. And
these doings of the Oxford Catholics accorded with the perform
ances of the national priesthood in other parts of the kingdom.
Nor did the genuinely Protestant minority of the unmarried
clergy generaUy manifest any strong disinclination to accom
modate themselves to the crisis by adopting the sacerdotal

Part IV. —Old Ways and New Fashions. 103

robes and restored ritual of the foreign Church. Some eight
hundred EngUsh Protestants,* of whom a considerable propor
tion were ecclesiastics, fled from the coming storm, and found
safety in exile at Embden, Weasel, Arrow, Strasburgh, Zurich,
Frankfort-on-the-Main, and other continental towns. But of
the clergy amongst these eight hundred refugees, there probably
was not one who could have saved his Ufe by any compli
ances had he remained at home, — not one who had any alter
native besides exile or martyrdom. Of the clergy who re
mained at home and suffered at the stake for the Protestant
cause, several gave proof of their readiness to escape the ex
treme punishment by timely recantation; and no doubt they
would have been more numerous had not the persecutors shown
that a heretic's pardon would not as a matter of course follow
on his recantation. The genuine Protestants amongst Edward's
sixteen thousand clergy, rated at the lowest, must have num
bered several thousands, of whom only a small proportionf went
* ' The storm gathering ao thick upon the Reformers, above eight hundred of
them retired into foreign parts: among whom were five bishops, viz. Poynet of
Winchester, who died in exile; Barlow of Bath and WeUs, who was superintendent
of the congregation at Embden ; Scory of Chichester ; Coverdale of Exon ; and
Bale of Ossory ; five deans, viz. Dr. Cox, Haddon, Horn, Turner, and Sampson :
four archdeacons, and above fifty doctors of divinity and eminent preachers,
among whom were Grindal, Jewel, Sandys, Reynolds, Pilkingtou, Whitehead,
Lever, Nowel, Knox, Rough, Whittingham, Fox, Parkhurst, and others famous in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth : besides of noblemen, merchants, tradesmen, arti
ficers, and plebeians, many hundreds. Some fled in disguise, or went over as the
servants of foreign Protestants, who, having come hither for shelter in King
Edward's time, were now required to leave the kingdom : among these were Peter
Martyr and John a Lasco, with his congregation of Germans.' — Neale's History
of ihe Puritans.
t What this proportion was must remain matter for conjecture. Parker
makes the wild and ludicrous calculation, that of the 16,000 clergymen officiating
at the time of Mary's accession, not less than 13,000 were deprived in 1554, —
a statement that gives a colour of moderation to Walker's estimate of the
number of clergy deprived by the ParUamentarian committees for the reform
of religion. Neale could not think that the number of priests deprived at tbe
opening of Mary's reign exceeded 3000, since in the diocese of Norwich only
335 clergy were deprived. The married priests, who would not repudiate their
wives, were no doubt summarily ejected and perma.nently deprived. Strype
states the fact when he remarks, that in the successive changes of rehgion
the clergy ' went to and fro with the stream.' It must also be remembered, that
those of Mary's deprived clergy who renounced their wives were sent to other
cures.

104 A Book about Clergy.

to exile or the stake, or relinquished spontaneously their pre
ferments, whilst the remainder, with a prudent contempt of the
honours of martyrdom, adopted the CathoUc faith and practices,
thereby preserving to themselves at the- same time their lives
and their Urings,
In justice to Cranmer — about the sin of whose ' unworthy
right hand ' so much ungenerous censure has been penned by
historians, forgetful how far easier it is to despise cowardice
from a position of security than to act heroically in the very
face of great danger — we should remember that, if in a weak
moment of his decay he succumbed to dread of death and love
of life, the age which witnessed his momentary lapse — a fall so
bitterly repented and nobly redeemed — was an age in which
the more enlightened and courageous of our clergy, together
with the multitude of obscure priests, floated backwards and
forwards from CathoUcism to Protestantism, borne to and fro
by the tempestuous billows of controveraial warfare and religious
persecution, Cranmer's recanted recantation was not a solitary
instance of transient imbecillity foUowed by sharp remorse and
glorious atonement. Bilney wavered and fell before the terrors
of the law against heresy ere he summoned courage to place
deliberately on his sacred brow the crovra of martyrdom. On the
first application of menace, Jewell subscribed his acceptance of
the Catholic creed before he fled to Frankfort, whilst Cranmer,
who might also have saved himself by flight, elected to remain
at the post of duty and danger, and receive whatever recom
pense his enemies should award to him for his services to the
Eeformed Church. Of the martyrs of the sixteenth century,
whose labours and sufferings are recorded in Foxe's noble book,
a considerable proportion were relapsed heretics, — Eeformers
who, like the martyr-primate, had repudiated the new doc
trines, ere they paid the extreme penalty for recanting their
recantation. Whilst the nobler and more resolute Eeformers were thus
driven hitheir and thither by the blasts and counterblasts of the
raging storm, now weakly denying and now bravely asserting
the doctrines oftheir party, the Protestant clergy — ofthe luke
warm and less heroic sort — turned vrithout a struggle as the
tide turned, and with less of spiritual fickleness or mental

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 105
instability than of sheer worldly prudence, marched and
counter-marched, wheeled to right or left, as the word of com
mand came to them from their superior officers. In fact the
general body of the sacerdotal force acted in those revolutionary
times just as the general body of the French army has acted
under similar circumstances in these later generations, — recog
nising the ipso facto government of the hour. Speaking of the
versatiUty which distinguished the clergy of these unsteady
times, and more especially of the ease with which the Protestant
curates accommodated themselves to the requirements of the
Marian prelates, Strype says, in the ' Ecclesiastical Memorials,'
' It was now about the middle of the Queen's reign, and Popery
was completely settled again, and the mass celebrated every
where ; and the mass-singers, who boggled at the work at first,
went currently and jolUly on with it in their several parish
churches, and became great enemies and informers against those
that frequented it not. For the Popish priests and curates, in the
change of reUgion, went generally along with the stream, how
little soever they liked to see the English liturgy changed for a
Latin mass, and a reasonable service thrown by for a super
stitious, unintelligible worship. For most of them knew the
truth weU enough, and upon their first conformity with the old
religion, would privately, among their friends, freely confess it.
But after some time had passed over their heads, and a year or
two's use of the mass had made it familiar to them, they were
very well reconciled to it, and even zealous in its behalf.'
That the general body of this versatile priesthood did not
exhibit more alacrity and ease in adopting Catholicism under
Mary than they displayed in becoming Protestants under Eliza
beth, is shown by the fewness of the dignified and inferior
ecclesiastics who surrendered their preferments rather than
comply with the injunctions put upon them by the latter queen.
By the measures which Elizabeth instituted for the religious
settlement of the country, a handful of contumacious prelates,
a few recusant deans and archdeacons, and an insignificant
nuinber of inferior parochial incumbents, were deprived of
their offices and preferments. The atrocious Bonner* — out
* Of the treatment which this ecclesiastical Jeffreys received in prison, Strype
says :  'As for Boner, I find he was committed to the Marshalsea in April, 1560,

106 A Book about Clergy.

of merciful regard for his personal safety, and in no degree
from vindictiveness for his barbarous excesses — was imprisoned
in the Marshalsea, where he passed the remainder of his life,
faring daintily, receiving the visits of his friends, and extoUing
the pious achievements of what he regarded as his misunder
stood career. But of all the ecclesiastics who sung mass and
glorified the Pope in Queen Mary's reign, not two hundred and
fifty were found who resigned their preferments rather than
read English prayers, acknowledge the sovereign's supremacy,
and denounce the Pope, when Elizabeth had ascended the
throne. According to the lowest computation, the number of
the Marian ecclesiastics deprived for adherence to the Papacy in
the early years of Elizabeth was one hundred and seventy-seven,
according to the highest it was no more than two hundred
and forty-three,* Dean Marshall was but one person amongst
the thousands of his order who were successively Catholic,
Protestant, Catholic, and Protestant, as the one or other religion
became the religion of the state.
Whilst the clergy thus moved to and fro, like weather-cocks
controlled by contrary vrinds, the main body of the laity, aUke
gentle and simple, displayed the same dociUty to official
authority. But having seen how erroneous it would be to regard
the clerical versatility of this strange period as a sign of clerical
indifference to the religious questions and ecclesiastical interests
and seems to have been at liberty tiU then. It is true he was kept in the priarai
of the Marshalsea, and that turned to his own safety ; being so hated by the
people, that it would not have been safe for him to have walked in public, lest he
should have been stoned or knocked on the head by some of the enraged friends
and acquaintance of those whom he had but a littie before so barbarously beaten
or butchered. He grew old in prison, and died a natural death in the year 1569,
not suffering any want or hunger, or cold. For he lived daintily, had the use of
the garden and orchard when he was minded to walk abroad and take tbe air;
suffered nothing Uke imprisonment, unless he was circumscribed within certain
bounds. Nay, he had his liberty to go abroad, but dared not venture ; for the
people retained in their hearts his late bloody action.' — Vide ' Annals of the
Reformation.' * ' When the visitors had gone through the kingdom, and made their report
of the obedience given her majesty's laws and injunctions, it appeared that not
above two hundred and forty-three clergymen had quitted their Uvings; viz.
fourteen bishops and three bishops elect, one abbot, four priors, one abbess,
twelve deans, fourteen archdeacons, sixty canons or prebendaries, one hundred
beneficed clergy, fifteen heads of coUeges in Oxford and Cambridge : to which

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 107
concerned in the struggle, we must also remember that it would
be no less erroneous to infer from the apparent unanimity with
which the populace went to and fro, that they were»for the most
part careless as to the eventual issue of the contest. To draw
such an inference would be as unjust as to argue that the masses
of the French people are totally devoid of poUtical principles and
predilections, because they are found industrious and orderly
citizens, busy in the acquisition of material prosperity and
prizing the blessings of peace above the calamities of civil con
tention, whatever may be the constitution of their present
government. History says enough of abortive risings and
conspiracies against the parties successively in power, enough
also of th^ persecutions of the later Lollards, to show that,
even when the general demeanour of the gentry and populace
was most strongly marked by submissiveness to authority,
our ancestors were not driven hither and thither like flocks
of sheep, to which some historians have ventured to compare
them. But though the laity sought security from persecution in
outward conformity to opinions, which they secretly regarded
with disapprobation, they could not allow that the clergy were
justified in adopting the same policy of prudent hypocrisy. It
seemed to them that ministers of religion were bound to adhere
rigidly to their principles, to subscribe to no doctrine which had
not their sincere credence, and to stand or fall by their pro-
may be added, about twenty doctors iu several faculties. In one of tbe volumes
in the Cotton Library the number is one hundred and ninety-two. D'Ew's Journal
mentions but one hundred and seventy-seven ; Bishop Burnet, one hundred and
ninety- nine: but Camden and Cardinal AUen reckon as above. Most of the
inferior beneficed clergy kept their places, as they had done through all the
changes of the last three reigns ; and without all question, if the queen had died
and the old reUgion had been restored, they would have turned again : but the
bishops and some of the dignified clergy having sworn to the supremacy under
King Henry, and renounced it again under Queen Mary, they thought it might
reflect a dishonour on their character to change again, and therefore they resolved
to hold together, and by their weight endeavour to distress the Reformation.
Upon so great an alteration of religion, the number of recusants out of nine
thousand four hundred parochial benefices was inconsiderable; and yet it was
impossible to find Protestants of a tolerable capacity to supply the vacancies,
because many of the stricter sort, who had been exUes for reUgion, could not
come up to the terms of conformity and_ the queen's injunctions.'— Neale's
History of the Puritans.

108 A Book about Clergy.
fession. The layman, as a comparatively worldly creature,
might, without scandal to his feUows or injury to his own soul,
practise ar1| of concession and evasion that, in the case of an
ordained priest, would amount to sin against the Holy Ghost.
That this view of laical privilege and clerical obligations, — a
view arising from a romantic estimate of sacerdotal nature, —
was on the one hand far too lenient to the laity, and on the
other hand far too exacting to the priests, whom ordination had
not altogether purged of human weakness, there is no need to
demonstrate. For the present purpose it is enough to say that
our forefathers of the sixteenth century had one standard of
honesty and courage, with respect to religious matters, for
simple laymen who claimed to be no better than their neigh
bours, and a far higher standard for spiritual persons who
arrogated to themselves the honour due to superior devotion
and godUness; and that drawing this distinction between
secular and sacred individuals, they were moved with deep
indignation at beholding the latter no less unstable and time
serving than the former.
There was, however, a numerous class of priests for whom
they cherished a disdain far more acrimonious and personal
than the qualified and general contempt with which they looked
dovm upon the ordinary sort of sacerdotal turncoats, who forbore
to add the offences of the persecutor to the less odious failings
of the timorous renegade. This especially hateful class of
priests consisted of men who, after changing their religion:
from prudential motives, were not content to live quietly vrith
their neighbours, but, partly from a desire to justify their
conduct to their own consciences, partly from an ambition to
convince the woridly of the sincerity of their latest conversion,
but chiefly from a base design to win professional advancement
by noisy zeal, became angry disputants in behalf of their newly
adopted tenets, and bitter maligners of those outward conformists
whom they suspected of secret attachment to prohibited opinions.
In King Edward's time these men railed with equal rancour and
insolence at the creatures of papal bigotry ; after Mary's accession
they became maUcious informers against peaceful folk who seldom
attended mass and were suspected of inclinations to LoUardy;
under Elizabeth they raised their harsh voices with characteristic

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 109
spitefulness against CathoUc recusants and Puritan precisians.
For these men, odious in the extreme to moderate people of all
parties, popular satire invented a nickname that bids fair to Uve
so long as the English tongue endures. It was seen that they
were men of no charity, no manly feeling, no truthfulness, no
real religion, — but they could hray. Their hray was audible in
every part of the kingdom, it was uttered now on this side, now
on that, as interest dictated. To their incessant braying they
were indebted for notoriety, influence, preferment. They brayed
themselves from miserable curacies into rich livings ; they brayed
themselves into deaneries and episcopal thrones. For each of
these men, whatever his rank in the sacerdotal class, what
nickname could be more exact and pungent than — Vicar of
Bray ? Only the other day, lashing the malice and uncharitable
ness and arrogance of a sanctimonious sectarian, Tom Hood
compared the object of his invective to a noisy jackass, who had
' not got no milk hut he could hray^ In the same spirit of
healthy loathing and fierce disdain, the satirist of the sixteenth
century designated the vindictive turncoats and shouters of the
pulpit — 'Vicars oi Bray.' The offender might hold no actual
vicarage ; he might be a mere stipendiary lecturer ; he might be
rector, archdeacon, a dean, or even a prelate, but if he exhibited
the qualities of virulent turncoat, he was caUed a Vicar of
Bray. The term became proverbial: and when the proverb had
survived the odious class for whose special infamy it was invented
— when the original deUnquents had passed out of the world and
popular memory — the nickname gave rise to a mythical story
of a certain vicar of the parish of Bray, in the county of Berks
and the diocese of Oxford, who was supposed to have distin
guished himself in the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward the
Sixth, Mary, and Elizabeth, by figuring successively as a Papist,
a Protestant, a Papist once more, and yet again a Protestant.
Fuller gravely tells his readers that this particular vicar of Bray
 who thus distinguished himself by merely doing exactly what
thousands of EngUsh clergymen did in the same reigns — was
Simon Aleyn, canon of Windsor, who held the vicarage of Bray
in Berkshire from 1540 to 1588 ; and that this same vicar Aleyn,
on being taunted with his continual changes of religion, an-

110 A Book about Clergy.
swered his assailant with jocular effrontery, that, though a turncoat
in creeds, he had stuck to his one grand principle, which was ' to
live and die the vicar of Bray.' The mythical nature of this
anecdote is apparent to a glance. By acting as Simon Aleyn is
said to have acted, no clergyman of the period in question would
have achieved notoriety or earned special attention. Instead of
being the actual title of a particular individual, the term was a
satiric nickname originated for a class of clergyman. Moreover,
the foundations of Fuller's narrative have been swept away by
research into the parish register of Bray in Berkshire. No
clergyman, either named Aleyn or bearing any other name, held
the vicarage for the term mentioned by the anecdotical annalist.
Simon Symonds was instituted, on March 14, 1522-3, to the
vicarage of the only Bray in the list of Anglican benefices;
and Simon Symonds remained vicar of this Berkshire parish
till 1551 — the year of his death. Consequently the case
against Fuller's story stands thus: — no vicar of the parish of
Bray in Berkshire can have acted as the narrative alleges:
and had any vicar of that parish acted in the manner alleged,
his conduct would have been so perfectly commonplace and
ordinary that it would have caused no extraordinary obser
vation. Many of Fuller's contemporaries, however, beUeved no less
than the annalist himself in the mythical story of the Berkshire
vicar : and amongst the Eestoration preachers who missed the
exact force of the old proverb, and attributed the saying to the
conduct of a particular parson, was John Evans, who, preaching
in 1632 before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, took
occasion to say, ' And if this be moderation, the old vicar of Bray
was the most moderate man that ever breathed.'
Having survived the Civil War, the Commonwealth, the
Eestoration, and the fierce politico-religious contentions of the
closing years of the seventeenth, and the earlier jrears of the
eighteenth centuries, the proverb acquired additional popularity
from the familiar song which appUed its satire to the versatility
which distinguished the vicars of Bray, who between Charles the
Second's restoration and George the First's accession emulated.
the fickleness and malignancy of their precursors ofthe sixteenth
century.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. Ill

' In good King Charles's golden days,
When loyalty no harm meant,
A zealous High Churchman was I,
And so I got preferment.
To teach my flock I never missed.
Kings were by God appointed,
And lost are those that dare reaiat.
Or touch the Lord's anointed.
And this is law that I 'U maintain
UntU my dying day, sir,
That whatsoever king may reign,
I 'U stUl be the Vicar of Bray, sir.
When royal James possess'd the crown.
And Popery grew in fashion,
The penal laws I hooted down,
And read the Declaration ;
The Church of Rome I found would fit
FuU well my conatitution,
And I had been a Jesuit
But for the Revolution.
And this is law, &c.
When WilUam was our kmg declared.
To ease the national grievance,
With this new wind I steered,
And swore to him allegiance ;
Old principles I did revoke.
Set conscience at a distance ;
Passive obedience was a joke,
A jest was non-reaiatance. And this ia law, &c.

When royal Anne became our queen,
The Church of England's glory,
Another face of things was seen.
And I became a Tory :
Occasional conformists base
I blamed for moderation.
And thought the Church in danger
was
By such prevarication. And this is law, &e.
When George in pudding-time came
o'er.
And moderate men looked big, sir.
My principles I changed once more,
And so became a Whig, sir ;
And thus preferment I procured
From our new faith's defender.
And almost every day abjured
The Pope and the Pretender.
And this is law, &c.
The illustrioua house of Hanover,
And Protestant succession.
To these I do aUegiance swear.
While they can keep poaaeasion :
For in my faith and loyalty
I never more will falter.
And George my lawful king shall be.
Until the times do alter.
And this is law, &c.

The author of this admirable song is said to have been a
soldier in Colonel FuUer's troop of dragoons. To demonstrate
its humour and vigorous lightness there is no need of a single
word of comment; but it is weU to observe that the writer
caught exactly the original signification of the old nickname.
The versatile parson of the song is a vicar who brays, not a
preacher who changes sides in order to retaija possession of a
particular bring, but one who plays the part of a braying vicar,
so that he may acquire fresh preferment. Apply Fuller's in
terpretation to the words 'Vicar of Bray,' and the chorus loses
its force, and renders the entire song a blunder. To retain pre
ferment, to which he had been inducted in Charles the Second's
reign, a beneficed clergyman was under no necessity to change

112 A Book about Clergy.
his politics with the times; but to obtain further promotion
from patrons, who favoured in turn each of the politico-religious
theories, which sprung successively into fashion, such a gOv?ns-
man as the sonHSter satirised would have made the turns and
twists enumerated in the song. Thus, having brayed himself
in one fashion into a living under Charles, the versatile pulpi
teer, after talking for further advancement in three different
strains under James, William, and Aime, by adopting a new
note, secured another piece of preferment from George the
First.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 113

CHAPTEE XI.
THE SUNDAY IN OLD TIME — FROM THE SAXON PERIOD TO THE
EEFORMATION.
IN the absence of such historic data as would enable us to
speak precisely concerning the manner in which the Lord's
Day was observed by our ancestors of the Saxon period, it is un
certain how far they held opinions analogous to those maintained
by the Sabbatarians of recent centuries. Enough, however, is
known of their religious life to justify the assertion that, with
respect to their keeping of the weekly holy day, their reverential
use of holy places, and their sepulchral arrangements, its severity
is far more in accordance vrith the sentiment of the nineteenth
century than with the notions and practices of our feudal fore
fathers. Some ofthe Saxon laws for the celebration of the Chris
tian Sunday display the determination of their promulgators to
render it a day of rest after the model of the Jewish Sabbath ;
but, since it is matter for conjecture how far these laws were
strictly enforced, and made uniformly operative on rich and
poor, the social historian hesitates to infer from them that the
Lord's Day of the Saxon epoch was kept in any part of the
country with the decorum and devoutneas which would have
resulted from their precise and consistent execution.
In an early year of the eighth century, the West-Saxon
king, Ina, ordained that if a slave profaned tiie weekly holy day
by working at the command of his master, the latter should be
punished with a fine of thirty shillings and the loss of his bonds
man, whoik the law, with illogical generosity, endowed with
liberty bee luse his owner was a sinner. It was also provided,
that a servi.nt, guilty of his own free will and without his em
ployer's intigation of working on the Lord's Day, should be
mulcted an I whipped ; and that the free man who, with or with-
VOL. II I

114 A' Book about Clergy.
out an employer's order, perpetrated the same offence against re
ligion should be either reduced to bondage, or compelled to pay a
fine of sixty shillings — a sum which no Saxon ofthe poorer sort
could have paid even for the preservation ofhis freedom. In the
middle of the same century Archbishop Cuthbert, with the sanc
tion of an ecclesiastical synod, ordered that the Sunday should be
strictly set apart for the worship and glory of the Lord. More than
a century later, together with other regulations for the celebration
of sacred days, Alfred the Great made a law that no malefactor
should be executed on Sunday ; ahd Alfred's successor, Edward
the elder, pursuing the same Sabbatarian poUcy, induced the
Danish ,Gunthrum to concur with him in forbidding markets to
be held on Sundays, and ordering that the Lord's Day should be
strictly observed as a day of rest from worldly labour. By this
piece of concurrent legislation, the Dane who bought anything
on a Sunday was punishable vrith the forfeiture of the purchased
article, and a fine of sixteen shilUngs: but the Saxon, found
guilty of the same crime, was punished with the far highei;
mulct of thirty shilUngs — a distinction alike significant of the
Danish legislator's comparative lukewarmness in religious re
form, and of the relative positions of the Saxon and Danish
peoples. The act of Edward and Gunthrum further ordained
that freedmen, guilty of labouring on Sunday, should be reduced
to bondage if they could not redeem their freedom with money ;
that slaves for the same offence should be flogged, unless they
could purchase immunity from the scourge by the payment of
fines ; and that masters, whether Saxons or Danes, should be re
garded as the actual perpetrators of whatever offences they
caused their servants to perpetrate against the Sabbath law.
But how far these and other like enactments of Saxon and
Danish legislators were impartially and vigorously enforced it is
impossible to say. The promulgation of such laws, however,
demonstrates conclusively the direction and tenor of religious
opinion in the times of their enactment.
Whatever Sabbatarian preciseness may have claracterised,
the observance of the Lord's Day in Saxon and Danish England,
it is certain that it had no influence on the Normm invaders,
who had no sooner planted themselves in the country, on which
they imposed their institutions and laws, than they imparted to

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 113
the national Sunday the jubilant air and festive usages, from
which it was eventually freed by the triumph of Puritanism in
the seventeenth century. The intruders, who imposed their
language on the markets and law-courts in the vain hope that
the subjugated people would exchange their mother-tongue for
the speech of their oppressors, were little likely to respect the
religious scruples of a despised populace, whom it was their
purpose to retain in abject degradation. The arrogance which
required the Saxon people to adopt Norman fashions, or remain
the objects of Norman contempt, expressed itself no less inso
lently in the domain of religion than in other departments of
social life. The control of the National Church passed from
Saxon clergy to Norman ecclesiastics, who, whilst resembling
the Norman laity in passionate love of pomp and inordinate
devotion to field-sports, surpassed them in haughtiness to the
down-trodden EngUshry. Under the rule of these splendid pre
lates the Church became more affluent, and powerful, and mag
nificent, than she had ever been ; but, in exchange for new pomp
and luxury, she relinquished her old simplicity and earnestness.
The weekly holy day, no longer a time of rest, became the
peculiar day for riot and festivity, — for gorgeous pomps and
costly ceremonials. Alike by the clergy and noble laity, it was
regarded as the fittest of the seven days for such national
solemnities or local feasts as exacted unusual labour from a
large proportion of the poorer people, and encouraged all classes
of the rich to indulge with extraordinary Ucense in hilarious
pleasure. It grew to be the day for coronations and court-
pageants, for the ceremonious and costly openings of eccle
siastical cotmcils and parliaments; and whilst our forefathers
in peaceful periods deemed it a pecuUarly auspicious day for
peaceful affairs, in times of war they regarded it as no less pro
pitious to military undertakings. Just as Friday was a day of
ill-luck for works of peace and enterprises of war, Sunday was
thought to ' )Q surcharged with propitiousness, which resulted in
success to e'ery performance attempted upon it. Hence it was
a day for tl? inception of all kinds of important transactions, —
for christen: ngk and marriages, for the commencement of nego
ciations anl the execution of treaties, for the settlement of
public comiacts and the arrangement of private bargains.

116 A Book about Clergy.

William Eufus, Stephen, Henry the Second, Eichard the First,
and John, were all crowned on the Lord's Day. It was noticed
as a favourable omen by contemporary observers, that Eichard
the First, on coming from Normandy to assume the English
crown, reached the English coast on Sunday, — a favourable
event, to which he had taken the first step by starting from
France at such a time, that, with a fairly prosperous voyage, he
might hope to catch sight of England on the Sunday's dawn.
And having thus reached the white cliffs on the Lord's Day,
instead of making it a day of rest, he forthwith continued his
journey to London, and in so doing encountered at every stage
of the route fresh companies of his most loyal and august sub-
jects, so that when he reached the metropolis he was attended
by archbishops and bishops, earls and barons, and was foUowed
by a long retinue of knights, mounted on mettlesome steeds
and brilliant with flashing armour. In the following September
he was crowned on a Sunday ; and after his return from the
Holy Land, his .second coronation was also celebrated on a Sunday.
When the Patriarch of Jerusalem and WilUam of Scotland, to
gether with all the chiefs of the English and Scotch nobility, both
lay and spiritual, waited on Henry the Second, to hear him
decline the proffered sovereignty of Jerusalem, it was the Lord's
Day (the first Sunday in Lent) on which Henry, in one of the
proudest moments of his life, received the dazzling throng.
And on the fourth Sunday of Lent, this same sovereign yet
further showed how he thought Sundays should be kept, by
conferring the dignity of knighthood on his son John, in the
presence of a superb assemblage 'of courtly spectators, and send
ing him forth to Ireland.
That the commonalty of the kingdom imitated the nobles and
high ecclesiastics in keeping the weekly holiday with festive
riot we have remarked in the first section of this work, where
we noticed how Sunday was a general day for fairs and markets,
for wedding-feasts and social jollity in every part of WycUffe's
England, the manners of which period were derived from former
times. In the same section, also, occasion was ta^en to show
how the Lollards earned obloquy and hatred by denouncing such
flagrant violations of a day which it was their wiser practice to
observe with Sabbatical strictness as a day for rest ind prayer.

Part IV.— Old Ways and New Fashions. 117
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that WycUffe's
followers were the first Englishmen to raise their voices against
the carnal profanations of the holy day. The Sabbatarians of
the fourteenth century had their precursors in the disciples of
the French priest Fulco, whose emissary, the Norman Abbot
Eustatius, visited England for the express purpose of decrying
the general abuse of the Lord's Day, and urging our forefathers to
keep it vrith decency and devoutness. Eustatius came to this
country in the first year of the thirteenth century, and by preach
ing in the southern parts of the land against Sunday amusements
drew upon himself such a storm of disapprobation, that he pru
dently retired before the agitations which hia zeal had created,
and recrossing the Channel sought further instructions and en
couragement from the instigator of his missionary endeavours.
In the following year he resumed his enterprise, fortified with
a miraculous epistle in which the Almighty waa represented to
have expressed in legible writing the abhorrence with which He
regarded the universal riolations of His day of rest. The
blasphemous fabrication waa entitled, ' An Holy Mandate touch
ing the Lord's Day ; ' and the zealots who published it had the
daring to declare that, having been sent down from heaven to
Jerusalem, it had been found on Saint Simeon's altar in Gol
gotha, where Christ had suffered for the sins of the world. For
three days and three nights the spectacle of this awful letter,
lying unopened on the altar, had filled a multitude of worshippers
with terror and admiration, causing them to prostrate themselves
on the ground and implore their Creator to have mercy on their
wretched sinfulness. For awhile the chiefs of the spirituality
refrained from touching the mystic scroll; but after taking
counsel vritli one another and their heavenly Master, the Patri
arch and Archbishop Akarias ventured to examine its contents,
which, in justice to its writer it must be admitted, were in
perfect harnlony vrith the impious charlatanry of the outward
description. ' I am the Lord,' began this marvellous piece of
writing, ' whp commanded you to keep holy the Lord's Day, and
you have neither kept it, nor repented of your sins.' After
enumerating the enormities which it denounced, and comment
ing on the fulility of the milder punishments by which Sabbath-
breakers had ieen reminded of their duty to their Creator, the

118 A Book about Clergy.
latter threatened that unless they forthwith and completely
changed their ways, the heavens should rain down upon them
stones, and wood, and scalding water, — and that, forthe destruc
tion of such incorrigible misdoers there should be sent amongst
them a new sort of ravenous and loathsome beasts — creatures
with the heads of lions, the hair of women, and the tails of
camels. The bearer of this terrifying epistle, Eustatius, made a
second voyage to England; but instead of reappearing in the
districts which in the previous year had exhibited a strong desire
to reward his zeal with the honours of martyrdom, the abbot went
to York, where he found a fitter field for his exertions in a
populace more abounding in credulity and more inclined to
fanaticism than the people of the southern province. Alarmed
by the prospect of death at the jaws of lions adorned with
women's hair and camel's tails, the men of the North vowed that
they would never again buy aught but needful food and drink
on the Lord's Day, and would do their utmost to put down Sun
day marketing. Associations were "hastily formed — not to
petition Parliament as modern reformers do, but to compel
universal compliance with the abbot's requirements by means
more accordant with the temper of mobs : and, as though the
miraculous letter were not sufiiciently wonderful and horrifying,
the zealots invented a number of wild stories about the various
ways in which the Deity had manifested his hatred of Sabbath-
breakers. At Wakefield, a miller, having worked his mill after
three o'clock P. M. of Saturday — the hour at which the Sunday
was supposed to commence — bad received clear proof of his
iniquity in the sudden stopping of his miU-wheel, and the
equally unaccountable presence of a quantity of blood in his flour
bin. At Nafferton, a Sabbath-breaker had baked a cake on
Saturday evening, and having supped off a portion of the bread
he was about to breakfast on the remainder, on the following
morning, when -he had no aooner broken it than from the crumb
of the accursed loaf there exuded drops of blood. , Elsewhere a
carpenter, for making a wooden pin after three o'clock of a
Saturday afternoon, and a woman for weaving at ths same period
of the same day, were suddenly smitten with palsy, It was also
told by Yorkshire gossips how a certain mysterious prophet,

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 119
having on his back a white coat, but wearing no shoes on his
feet, had in a previous generation accosted the King of England
at Cardiff in Wales, in the sacred names of John the Baptist and
Peter, and had warned him that, unless he prohibited every sort
of trading and servile labour on the Lord's Day, he should ere
the lapse of twelve more months receive such news aa would
bring him with sorrow to the grave. Eoused by such fables as
these, and by the inflammatory harangues of the Sabbatarian
clergy who sided with Eustatius, the northern zealots appeared in
places where Sunday markets were being held, and ventured to
upset the booths and destroy the wares of the impious dealers.
Whereupon, finding that the agitation threatened diaaster to the
state, the king and his council, taking the matter in hand, dealt
so roughly with the leaders of the movement that it soon died
down from fiaming rage into a smouldering distemper, and ordi
nary mortals — disposed to think more highly of old ways than
new fashions — went marketing on Sundays as heretofore.
Whilst the Lord's Day was observed thus hilariously, it was
rated by the Church merely as one of its higher festivals, and
in no way more sacred than other holy days of the first rank.
By an ecclesiastical council, held at Oxford in 1222, the holy
days were divided into three orders, — the first being made to
comprise all the Sundays of the year, the feast of Christ's
nativity, the feasts of the Virgin Mary (vrith the exception of
the festival of her conception), the parochial feasts of dedication,
i.e. wakes, certain holy days suppressed by the Eeformation,
and all the holy days which the Church of England still observes.
The second class of sacred festivals comprised some gcore or
more holy days, on which days Christians were enjoined to a
partial cessation from servUe labour of comparatively slight
moment, according to the various usages of different localities,
— of which sort of inferior feasts was that of St. George, which,
just two ceniiiries later. Archbishop Chicheley ordained should
be celebrated no less pompously and reverentially than the
feast of Chrikmas. The third and lowest rank of feativala —
such as those Ofthe Octaves ofthe Epiphany, John the Baptist,
and St. Peteriland the translations of John the Baptist and St.
Peter — required no abstinence from toil on the part of orderly
persons who hftd begun the day with public mass. But though

120 A Book about Clergy.
a general restraint was thus put on labour on feast-days of the
highest rank, the council specially provided that necessary works
of husbandry and maritime enterprise might be performed on
Sundays and other chief holy days.
From the rise of the Wycliffian agitation down to the
Eeformation, and still later down to the triumph of Puritaniam
in the aeventeenth century, Sabbatarian sentiment and profane
usage were at continual war with respect to the proper mode of
observing the Lord's Day ; and it is noteworthy that,- whilst
busy in the work of discrediting or exterminating Lollardy, the
Church — wishing perhaps to deprive heterodox believers of all
plausible pretext for clamouring against ecclesiastical practices
— displayed at times a decided disposition to adopt the Sabba
tarian views of the miserable Lollards.
In the middle of the fourteenth century. Archbishop Islip,
with the advice and concurrence of his prelates assembled in
provincial synod, put a restraint on Sunday labour throughout
his province, — requiring that the Lord's Day should be under
stood to commence on Saturday evening, and not a moment
sooner, lest the ignorant people should be led to confound the
Christian Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath. Of Archbishop
Stafford's decree (1444) against fairs and markets held in churches
on Sundays, notice has been taken in an earlier section of this
work, where it was also remarked that, whilst forbidding fairs
and markets to be held in churches or churchyards on Sundays,
the order allowed them to be held in the temples on the Lord's
Day during times of harvest. Witnessing a decided growth of
SabbatEyrian opinion, the fifteenth century saw the promulgation
of several ecclesiastical, parliamentary, and raunicipal orders^
which aimed at the suppression of Sunday trading, either
throughout the kingdom or in particular localities. In 1444, the
year of Archbishop Stafford's decree against Sunday church-fairs,
the lord mayor and common council of London ordered, ' That
upon the Sunday should no manner of thing within the Franchise
of the citie be bought or sold, neither victual nor other thing;
nor none artificer should bring ware unto any man to be worne,
or occupied that day; as tailors garments, and cordwayners
shooes, and so likewise all other occupations.' Fabian, however,
assures us that this ordinance failed to accomplish its object.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 121
Seven years later Henry the Sixth — following in the steps of
Edward the Third, who forbade the shewing of wools on the
Lord's Day — supported his primates with a strong Sabbatarian
enactment, which enjoined, ' That all manner of Faires and
Markets on the said principall Feasts and Sundayes, and Good
Friday, shall clearly cease from all shewing of any Goods and
Merchandise, necessarie Victuall onely except, upon paine of
forfeiture of all the Goods aforesaid to the Lord of the Franchise
or Liberty, where such Goods be or shall be shewed, contrarie
to this Ordinance : the foure Sundayes in Harvest except.''
Fourteen years later (1465) Edward the Fourth in parlia
ment gave his assent to a Sabbatarian enactment, which is a
curiosity of unequal legislation, for whilst forbidding ahoe-
makera to ply their craft on Sunday in the city, or within three
miles of the city of London, it made an exception in the favour
of the shoemakers of St. Martin's-le-Grand, who were expressly
authorised by the new statute to make shoes on Sunday, as
heretofore. ' Our Sovereign Lord the King,' Tan the act, ' hath
Ordayned and established that no cordwainer or cobler, within the
city of London, within three miles of any part of the said city,
doe upon any Sunday in the yeere, or on the feastes of the Ascen
sion or Nativity of our Lord, or on the feast of Corpus Christi,
sell or command to be sold any shooes, huseans, or galoches ; or
upon the Sunday or any other of the said Feastes, shall set or
put upon the feete or leggs of any person any shoes, huseans, or
galoches, upon paine of forfeiture and losse of 20 shillings, as
often as any person shall doe contrarie to this ordinance.'
This singular statute, framed in the interests of religion and
the shoemakers of St. Martin's-le-Grand, remained in force till
14 & 15 of Henry the Eighth, when it was repealed, 'that to the
honour of Allmighty God, all the king's subjects might be here
after at their Uberty, as weU aa the inhabitanta of St. Martin's-
le-Grand.' The views taken by orthodox and moderate churchmen vrith
respect to the observance of the Lord's Day, in the middle of
the fifteenth century, may be gathered from the terms in which
John de Burgo, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, dis
criminated between lawful and unlawful works for the day
of rest. That Christians were bound to abstain on Sundays

122 A Book about Clergy.
from the labours of husbandry and the mechanical arts, and
from the business of the markets and law courts, the chancellor
was clear. He was no less firm in teaching that Sundays and
other chief holy days should be principally spent in public
worship, private prayer, and deeds of charity. But he was
equally emphatic in declaring that all works of necessity might
be performed innocently on those sacred days ; and in defining
what were needful works, he showed no disposition to convert
the Lord's Day into a Jewish Sabbath. In times of harvest,
hay might be stacked and corn garnered on Sunday, to protect
it from the storm. Butchers and rictuallers might on the holy
days prepare for the morrow's sale such articles as, being pre
pared on the eve of a holy day, would not be fit for consumption
on its morrow. Carriers, barbers, surgeons, farriers, messengers,
postmen, might follow their ordinary vocations on Sunday, pro-i
vided they could not desist from them without causing injury
to the Commonwealth. On the Lord's Day travellers might
journey for the transaction of important affairs, and miUers
might grind corn by water-mills or wind-mills, though not by
means of horse-mills. With respect to Sunday recreations, the
Chancellor of the University was no less liberal, — affirming that
young men and maidens might without sin dance on the Lord's
Day, provided they danced from unaffected gaiety of heart and
for no vile purpose. When a grave chancellor, instructing the
religious youth of a great national seminary, could sanction
such freedom of behaviour on the restful day, it may be fairly
presumed that the popular observance of the weekly holy day
was at 'wide variance with Puritanical opinion.
Of the Sunday life of our ancestors, in the times of Henry
the Seventh and his son, a suggestive picture is given in the
' Ship of Fools,' in the following verses ' On Sabbath-breaking
and Profanation of Saints' Days :' —

' These dayes were ordeyned for men to exercise
Themselves in prayer, goodness and vertue.
Our Lorde and His Saintes to honour, aud likewise
Of word and deede all excease to eschewe;
But for that we more gladly subdue.
To worldly trifles, and bodely pleasour.
We violate the faith by our wilful! errour.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 123

Those laudable customs we defile and violate.
By the holy lawes (alas !) we set nothing.
But on the holy day made riot and debate
Troubleth the service of the Almighty King.
The holy day we fill with echo unlefuU thing,
As late feastes and bankettes aauaed with gluttony.
And that from morning to night continually.
* * Sf
The tavern is open before the church be ;
The pottes are ronge as bels of dronkennesse,
Before the church bels with great solemnitie.
There here these wretches their mattins and their masae.
Who Usteth to take heede shall often see dowtless.
The stalles of the tavern stuffed with echo one,
When in the church staUes he shall see few or none.'
How the Sunday was observed by grave and God-fearing
English folk, and in what manner decent people were expected to
demean themselves on the weekly holiday, the reader may learn
from 'The Institution of a Christian Man' — the authoritative
treatise on the duty of Christian citizens first put forth in 1537
by the bishops, eight archdeacons, and seventeen eminent doctors.
Commentiijg on the difference between the Jewish Sabbath and the
Lord's Day, this official declaration remarks, ' But this precept
of the sabbath, as concerning rest from bodily labour, the seventh
day is ceremonial, and pertained onely to the Jewes, in the old
Testament. Neverthelesse, as concerning the spirituall rest,
which is figured and signified by this corporall rest, that is to
say, reit from all carnall workes of the flesh, and all manner
of sinne ; this precept is morall, and remaineth still, and bindeth
them that belong unto Christ ; and not for every seventh day onely,
but for aU dayes, houres, and times. For at all times we be
bound to rest from fulfilling our owne carnall will and
pleasures.' That this distinction between ceremonial rest and
figurative rest was a subtlety beyond the comprehensions of
simple folk the authors ofthe ' Christian Man 'were aware ; and
not to leave such readers without practical guidance for their
conduct on the Lords Day, the writers went on to say, ' Further
more, besides this spirituall rest, which chiefely and principally
is required of us, we be bound by this precept, at certaine times,
to cease from bodily labour, and to give our minds entirely and
holly unto God ; to heare the Divine Service, approved, used.

124 A Book about Clergy.
and observed in the church; and also the word of God; to
acknowledge our owne sinfulnesse unto God, and his great mercie
and goodnesse to us ; to give thankes unto him for his benefits ;
to make publike and common prayer for all things needfuU.; to
visit the sick, to instruct every man his children and family in
vertue and goodnesse, and such other like workes.' But lest this
statement in behalf of decorous and prayerful observance of the
Sunday should be construed as affording sanction to the extreme
opinions ofthe Sabbatarians, the authors ofthe ' Christian Man'
were careful to add, 'That men must have a speciall regard,
that they be not over-scrupulous, or rather superstitious, in
abstaining from bodily labour on the holy day. J^or notwith
standing all that is afore spoken, it is not meant, but wee may
upon the holy day give ourselves to labour, for the apeedie per
formance of the neceasarie affaires of the prince and the common
wealth, at the commandment of them that have rule and
authoritie therein ; and also in all other times of neceaaity ; as
for the saving of our corne and cattell, when it is like to be in
danger, or like to be destroyed, if remedie be not had in time. For
this lesson our Saviour taught us in his holy gospel, and we need
not have any grudge or scruple in conscience, in case of such
necessitie, to labour on the holy dayes ; but rather we should
offend, if we should for scrupulositie not save that God hath
sent for the sustenance and relief of his people. And yet, in
such times of necessitie, if their business be not very great and
urgent, men ought to have such regard to the holy day, tlfet they
doe bestow some convenient time, in hearing divine service, as
is aforesaid.' The same view of the Christian Sunday is set forth in
Edward the Sixth's 'Injunctions ' (1547), one of which, after en
joining meet observance ofthe holy days concludes, ' Yet notwith
standing, all parsons, vicars and curates, shall teach and declare
unto their parishioners, that they may with a safe and quiet con
science, in the time of harvest, labour upon the holy and festivall
days, and save that thing which God hath sent. And if for and
by any scrupulosity or grudge of conscience, men should super
stitiously abstain from working upon those days, that then they
should grievously offend and displease God.' In the same spirit
and almost in the same words. Queen Elizabeth's Twentieth

Part IV. — OH Ways and New Fashions. 125
injunction (1559) sanctions necessary labour on Sunday in times
of harvest; but this precept requires husbandmen to abstain
from such needful toil on such holy day until they have joined
their fellow-parishioners in Common Prayer.
That the requirements of Edward's injunction for the better
observance of the weekly holy day far exceeded the respect
usually accorded to Sunday by his subjects, is shown by the very
words of the ordinance which says, ' And whereas in our time,
God is more offended than pleased, more dishonoured than
honoured, upon the holy day, because of idleness, pride, drunken
ness, quarrelling and brawling, which are most used in such days,
people nevertheless persuading themselves sufficiently to honour
God on that day, if they hear mass and service, though they
understand nothing to their edifying.' In accordance with this
statement of the grievous profanations of a sacred institution
Crowley in his ' Epigrams concerning Abuses,' says, —
' Nodes must he have places for vitayle to be sold.
For such as be ayck, pore, feble, and old.
But, Lord, to how great abuse they be grown.
In echo little hamlet, vyllage and towne !
They are become places of waste and excess,
An harbour for such men aa lyve in idlenesse.
And lyghfly in the contry they be placed so.
That they stand in men's way when they should to church go.
And such as love not to hear theyr faults told
By the minister that readeth the N. Testament and Old,
Do turn into the alehouse, and let the church go :
And men accompted wise and honest do so.
But London, God be praised ! al may commend.
Which doth now thia great enormity emende.
For in servyce-tyme no dore standeth upp,
Where such men are apt to fyl can and cupp :
Wold God in the country they would do the same.
Either for God's love or for worldly shame.'
The closing of taverns and shops on holy days in London
during hours of Divine service was only one of several measures
by which the spiritual and lay authorities of Edward the Sixth's
time endeavoured to bring about a sabbatical observance of
the Lord's day : of aU which measures the one that produced the
deepest and most enduring effect on national opinion waa the
adoption of the words of the ten Mosaic commandments into the
common service of the Church. Absent from the Liturgy

126 A Book about Clergy.

authorised in the second year of Edward's reign, the command
ments were introduced into the liturgy appointed for public use
in the churches by the statute of 5 and 6 of Edward the Sixth ;
and it would be difficult to exaggerate the effects of this important
alteration on the growth of those views to which we are mainly
indebted for the distinctive characteristics ofthe modem Sunday.
In the days of Charles the First, when episcopacy waged its
disastrous war with Puritanical nonconformity, pious folk were
subjected to criminal prosecutions in bishop's courts, for the
offence of attending prayer-meetings and prohibited lectures,
when orthodox Churchmen were demonstrating their devoutness
by dancing and quoit-throwing on public greens. It was the
fashion of the Laudian clergy to insist that it had never been the
intention of the Church to teach, or of the legislation to urge,
that the Sunday ought to be kept rigidly as a restful day after
the model of the Sabbath. In requiring the minister of every
parish-church to repeat solemnly the fourth commandment as
though it were a precept binding Christian men vrith regard to
the Lord's Day, and in requiring the people to respond implor
ingly, ' Lord, have mercy upon us, and incUne our hearts to keep
this law,' the church and the legislature, it was averred, did not
mean to imply that the fourth commandment should be kept
literally and completely, but kept in ' as far as it contained the
law of nature, and had been entertained in the Christian Church.'
But so far as the attainment of their end was concerned, it was
bootless for the clergy to put this nice distinction before simple
and earnest worshippers, to whose sight the words of the fourth
precept were exhibited, legibly printed on church-walls, and
from whose lips the solemn and plaintive entreaty periodically
ascended, — 'Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts
to keep this law.' If the law waa to be kept with a reservation,
why had not the Church, they asked, taught them to pray, ' Lord,
have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law, so
far as the laws of nature and the church require it to be kept?'*
* ' As for the Prayer there used,' says Peter Heylyn, sti'iving to explain away
the obvious meaning of the Prayer-book, ' wee raay thus expound it, according to
the doctrine and practice both of those very times; viz., that their intent and
meaning was to teach the people, to pray unto the Lord, to incline their hearts to
keepe that law, as farre as it contained the law of nature, and had been entertained
in the Church.'— Vide Peter Heylyn's ' History of the Sabbath.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 127
Thus, whilst the Sabbatarians, who were hostile to the Church,
clamoured for a literal application of the fourth commandment
to Sunday observance, the doctrine of the high church pulpits
was practically contradicted by the liturgy and the principal
internal adornment of the parish church.
AboUshing the restraints which her brother had imposed on
the customary festivals of the Lord's Day, Mary restored the
Sunday to what it had been in her father's earlier years, — a
restoration, it may be observed, that had comparatively slight
effect on most of the rural districts, where provincial conser
vatism exhibited characteristic repugnance to the innovations
of the religious Eeformers. The Protestant interludes were
forbidden ; but the plays and moralities, which favoured CathoUc
opinion, were put upon the stage for the diversion of Sunday
holiday-makers, who were also entertained with bear-baitings,
bull-baitings, and other sports equally discordant to the merci
ful and humanizing sentiments of Christianity. ' The same day,
being Sunday,' says Strype, in the ' Ecclesiastical Memorials,'
of a sensational mishap that roused a commotion amongst
Marian Londoners, '(for it seems these sports and pastimes
were commonly practised on these days) was a bear-baiting on
the Bankside, when a sad accident happened ; for the great
blind bear brake loose, and running away, he caught a serving-
man by the calf of the leg, and bit off a great piece of it, and
after by the huckle-bone, and vrithin three days after he died.'

128 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE XIL
THE SUNDAY OF ELIZABETHAN AND LAUDIAN CHURCHMEN.
WHAT the Sunday was during Mary's short reign, we know
from the manner in which it was observed in Elizabeth's
earlier years, — an affair of history, over which the scribes ofthe
period have allowed no obscuring cloud to rest. Biographers,
preachers, pamphleteers, framers of parUamentary enactments,
concur in proving that, notwithstanding the many steps taken
in the long interval for securing a better observance of the
weekly holy day, the Elizabethan Sunday closely resembled the
Sunday of WycUffe's England. It was still a day for fairs and
markets, for public games and private banquets, fpr the clamorous
amusements of the bear-garden and the maypole. Artisans,
without incurring reproof, followed their ordinary vocations on
the Lord's Day, or desisting from toil spent the hours of rest
on the benches of ale-houses. The preamble of a parliamentary
proposal which failed to become law, dravring attention in 1562
to the general profanation of the sacred day, observes, ' That the
people commonly kept fairs and marketa on this day, and other
great festivaUs,' and that ' those that kept victualUng-houses,
and artificers, admitted guests, and opened their shops in time
of dirine service.' To put an end to this last-mentioned scandal^
the abortive proposal suggested, ' That no victualler or crafts
men have his shop open before the service be done in his parish
where he dwelleth.'
The homily on the ' Place and Time of Prayer,' presenting
us vrith a still more striking picture of these abuses, observes,
' But, alas ! all these notwithstanding, it is lamentable to see
the wicked boldness of those that will be counted God's people,
who pass nothing at aU of keeping and haUowing the Sunday.
And these people are of two sorts. The one sort, if they have

 PartlV — Old Ways and New Fashions. 129
any business to do, though there be no extreme need, they
must not spare for the Sunday, they must ride and journey on
the Sunday, they must drive and carry on the Sunday, they
must row and ferry on the Sunday, they must keep markets
and fairs on the Sunday ; finally, they use all days alike, work
days and holy-days are all one. The other sort is worse. For
although they will not travel nor labour on the Sunday, as they
do on the week-days ; yet they vrill not rest in holiness, as God
commandeth ; but they rest in ungodliness and filthiness,
prancing in their pride, pranking and pricking, pointing and
painting themselves, to be gorgeous and gay; they rest in
excess and superfluity, in gluttony and drunkenness, like rats
and swine ; they rest in brawling and railing, in quarrelling and
fighting; they rest in wantonness, in toyish talking, in filthy
fleshliness : so that doth too evidently appear that God is more
dishonoured, and the devil better served on the Sunday, than
upon all the days in the week beside.'
Nor did these profanations cease or even grow less flagrant
after Elizabeth had firmly established herself on the throne.
Stephen Gosson, writing » The School of Abuse ' in 1579,
remarks, with respect to the most profligate women of Elizabethan
London, ' Por they that lack customers al the weeke, either
because their haunt is unknown or the constables and officers of
their parish watch them so narrowly that they dare not quealche,
to celebrate the Sabbath flock to the theatres,'' where sinners,
putting no cloak over their abominable propensities, gloried in
their uncleanness. And throughout the reign of good Queen
Bess, stage-players pursued their calling on Sunday vrithout
rousing general censure, or encountering much vexatious opposi
tion. In 1580 it was ordained by her majesty and the civic
magistracy that plays and interludes should no longer be acted
on Sunday within the liberties of the city : but though this
ordinance was enforced, the result was only a local hindrance or
temporary embarrassment to the players who forthwith opened
theatres outside the municipal bounds for the dramatic perform
ances on the day of rest. In proportion as decorum was
enforced in the city, licence prevailed in the suburbs. The
bear-baitings and theatrical diversions of Paris gardens were
attended by gentle and simple, to the horror and indignation of
VOL. n. K

130 A Book about Clergy.
precise observers of the nation's wickedness, whose dismay was
not vrithout a pleasant approval of so signal a manifestation of
divine vengeance, when on January 14, 1583, eight persons were
suddenly killed and a still larger number of sabbath-breakers
seriously injured by the fall of an over-crowded scaffold in the
said gardens.
It is probable that had no inauspicious influence checked
the righteous intentions of Elizabeth and her prelates, they would,
have taken efficient steps to secure the Lord's day from the
profanations which too generally attended its observance from
the beginning to the end of her reign : but unfortunately for the
interests of pmbUe religion and morals, the question of Sunday
usages became a principal ground on which the orthodox
Churchmen and the Puritans fought their fierce battle vrith
equal bitterness and violence. The two parties had many points
of rindictive difference: they were at variance about vestments,
the use of the sign (jf the cross, the doctrines ofthe Prayer-book,
the nature and functions of episcopacy ; but there was no matter
about which they wrangled more furiously than the customary
mode of keeping the Lord's day. In language less discreet than
substantially truthfiil the Puritans declared their abhorrence of
practices which made the popular Sunday all that the homily on
' The Place and Time of Prayer ' admitted that it had become to
a large proportion of the English people ; and whilst declaiming
against abuses which cried aloud for correction, the zealots either
expressly or suggestively charged them upon the perversity and
pride of the stiff-necked prelates-
To a reader, with no accurate knowledge ofthe controversial
spites and frenzies of the Elizabethan period, it is difficult to
convey in a few words any adequate notion of the extravagances
of which the extreme Sabbatarians were guilty. They taught,
that to commit murder or adultery was not a greater sin than to
do a turn of secular work on the weekly holy day ; that the
man who attended a wedding-feast on Sunday was as odious a
reprobate as the ruffian who turned upon his father with a knife
or cut his child's throat, Eegarding the fury of these agitators
with reasonable disapprobation, Elizabeth recognised in them
the uncompromising enemies of her bishops, her church, her
spiritual supremacy ; and instead of distinguishing between the

Part IV. — Old Ways arid New Fashions. 131

reasonable and the unreasonable, the virtuous and mischievous,
elements of the Protestant party that opposed her ecclesiastical
poUcy no less resolutely than the Catholics fought against it,
she cherished the UveUest repugnance to every person and thing
that had a taint of Puritanism. It was the same vrith the more
infiuential of her bishops who, as the rage of Puritanism grew
fiercer and more fierce, became no less thoroughly convinced
.that the precisians were the enemies of goodness and order, than
the orthodox churchmen of the fourteenth century had been
convinced that the Lollards were in the highest degree per
nicious as miscreants and hurtful as political agitators. What
ever the Puritans demanded must either be bad in itself or
required for a bad end. Since the impiety of Sunday sports
and the urgent need for a sabbatical observance of the Lord's
Day were foremost articles of the Puritan platform, it was clear
either that the sports and the profane observance ofthe day were
beneficial to the Church, or that their suppr^ion under existing
circumstances would be detrimental to the Establishment.
It is singular, and very noteworthy, that the EngUsh sovereign
who closed the theatres on Sundays, and forbade the holding of
bear-baitings and bull-baitings on the Lord's Day, was the king
who subsequently published the proclamation in favour of
Sunday games — the proclamation destined to work incalculable
disaster to the Church, and to become notorious in history under
the misleading title of the ' Book of Sports.' One of the few
acts, by which James the First raised the hopes of his Puritan
subjects, and gave an appearance of sincerity to the professions
of favour to Puritanism, with which he took leave of Scotland
and entered England, was the order given at Theobalds, May 7,
1603 : ' That whereas he had beene informed, that there had
beene in former times a great neglect in keeping the Sabbath-
day, for better observing ofthe same, and avoiding of all impious
prophanation of it, he straitly charged and commanded, — That
no Beare-baiting, Bull-baiting, Interludes, Common Playes, or,
other like disordered or unlawfull exercises, or Pastimes, be
frequented, kept or used at any time hereafter, upon any Sabbath
Day.' The publication of this manifesto, with respect to Sun
day observances, occasioned the Puritans lively satisfaction ;
but a scarcely less remarkable concession to their views, and

132 A Boot about Clergy.

evidence of the general respect for their opinions, was the
conduct of Convocation in omitting for their repubUcation of
EUzabeth's Injunction for the celebration of holy days, the
words which sanctioned Sunday toil in harvest-time. But im
portant though they were, these concessions, instead of satisfying
the Puritan clergy and laity, only whetted their appetite for
further favours and greater triumphs. The contest between the
Sabbatarians and the bishops soon surpassed its former fury and
virulence ; and in 1618, the king — whose quaUfied forbearance to
Puritaniam was very transient, and who had vowed again and
again to be king of his subjects' souls no less than of their
bodies, published the ' Book of Sports.'
Like his father, Charles the First at the opening of his
reign made insufficient concessions to the Sabbatarian zeal of
the large and rapidly increasing section of his subjects, who
were bent on rendering the Lord's Day what it finally became
and still is. But yj^thout conciliating the party of change, the
king's concessions irritated the party of resistance ; and after a
stormy interval — during which our forefathers had kept the
sabbath puritanically, or profaned it indecently, in illustration
of their poUtico-religious sentiments — Charles followed up the
affair of the Somersetshire wakes, by repubUshing at Laud's
suggestion, the fatal ' Book of Sports,' whejreby his subjects were
invited to show their loyalty to the king, and their contempt of
the Puritans, by spending their Sunday afternoons in riotoijs
merriment. It is not too much to say that — by exasperating
the Puritan gentry and commonalty against the bishops, by
demonstrating to intelligent EngUshmen how completely the
supreme head of the Church was a puppet in the hands of the
arrogant and fantastic primate, and by planting in the minds
of simple folk an unreasonable and unjust conviction of their
sovereign's hostiUty to religion, — this untimely repubUcation
of an unwise proclamation * did more than any one other act
of Charles's long career of blunders to bring him to the scaffold*
* Some of my readers will Uke to peruse in its republished form the manifesto
that proved in the end aUke disastrous to Charles and the Church : — ' The King's
Majesty's Declaration to his Subjects, concerning Lawful Sports to be used.
1633. — Our dear Father of blessed memory, on his retume from Scotland, com-
ming through Lancashire, found that his subjects were debarred from lawfU

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 133

Of the manner in which Sunday was ordinarily kept in
rural parishes, during the reigns of James the First and Charles
the First, the pious and learned Eichard Baxter gives a remark
ably vivid picture in his autobiography, ' Eeliquise Baxterianae ;'
where he tells us that his father, a regular attendant at church
land a consistent respecter of bishops, was derided and slandered
for a malignant Puritan by the godless people of Eaton Con
stantine and other parishes in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury,
because the worthy man refrained from taking part in the
Stmday sports of his parish, and used to read the Scriptures to
his family whilst his neighbours got drunk at the may-pole.
recreations upon Sundays, after Evening Prayers ended, and upon holy dayes ;
and hee prudentiy considered, that if these timea were taken from them, the
meaner sort, who labour hard aU the weeke, shoulde have no recreations at all to
refresh their spirits. And after his retm-ne hee further saw, that his loyall sub
jects in all other parts of his kingdome did sufl'er in the same kinde, though
perhaps not in the same degree ; and did therefore, in his princely -wisdome,
publish a Declaration to aU his loving subjects conoepiing lawfuU sports to be
Hsed at suoh times, which was printed and published by his royall commandement
in the yeare 1618. For the tenor of which hereafter foUoweth : — By the King.
Whereas upon our retume the last yere out of Scotland, we did publish our plea
sure touching the recreations of our people in thoae parta under our haud : for
some causes us thereunto moving, wee have thought good to command these
directions then given in Lancashire, with a few words thereunto added, and most
applicable to these parts of our realme, to bee published to aU our subjects.
Whereas, wee did justiy, in our progress through Lancashire, rebuke aome Puri-
tanes and precise people, and tooke order that the Uke unla-wfuU carriage should
not be used by any of them hereafter, in the prohibiting and unlawful punishing
of our good people for using their lawful recreations, and honest exercises upon
Sundayes and holydayes, after the afternoon's sermon or service : Wee now finde
that two sorts of people wherewith the county ia much infected (we mean Papiats
and Puritana) have maUcioualy traduced and calumniated thoae our juat and
honourable proceedings ; and, therefore, lest our reputation might upon the one
side (though innocently), have some aspersion layd upon it, and that, upon the
other part, our good people in that country be misled by the mistaking and mis
interpretation of our meaning. We have, therefore, thought good hereby to
cleare and make our pleasure to be manifested to all our good people in those
parts. It is ta-ue that at our first entry to this crowne and kingdome, wee were
informed, and that too truly, that our County of Lancashire abounded more in
Popish recusants than any county of England ; and thus hath atUl continued
since, to our great regret, -with littie amendment save that now of late, in our last
riding through our said county, we find, both by the report of the judges and ofthe
bishop of the diocese, that there ia some amendment now daily beginning, which
is no smaU contentment to us. The report of this gro-wing amendment amongst
them made us the more sorry when, -with our owne eares, we heard the general! com
plaint of our people, that they were barred from aU lawfuU recreation and exercise

134 A Book about Clergy.
' In the village,' says Baxter, in his personal memoir, ' where I
lived, the Eeader read Common Prayer briefly, and the rest of
the day till dark night almost, except eating-time, was spent in
dancing under a may-pole and a great tree, not far from my
father's door, where all the town did meet together ; and, though
one of my father's own tenants was the piper, he could not
restrain him, nor break the sport ; so that we could not read
the Scripture in our family without the great disturbance of the
taber, and pipe, and noise of the street. Many times my mind
was inclined to be among them, and sometimes I broke loose
from conscience, and joyned with them ; and the more I did it,
on the Sundaye afternoon after the ending of all Di-vine Service, which cannot
but produce two eviUa : the one, the hindering of the conversion of many, whom
their priests wUl take occasion hereby to vexe, persuading them that no honest
mirth or recreation is lawfuU or tolerable in our religion, which cannot but breed
a great discontentment iu our people's hearts, especially of such as are peradven
ture on the point of turning ; the other inconvenience is, that this prohibition
barreth the common andmeaner sort of people from using such exercises aa may
make their bodies more able for warre, when we or our successors shaU have
occasion to use them. And in place thereof gets up filthy tiplings and drunken-
nesse, and breeds a number of idle and discontented speeches in their ale-houses.
For when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays
and holydaies, seeing they must apply their labour and win their li-ving in all
working-daies ? Our expresse pleasure, therefore, is, that the lawes of our king-
dome and canons of our Church be as well observed in that countie aa in aU other
places of this our kingdome. And on tbe other part, that no lawfuU recreation
shall be barred to our good people which shall not tend to the breach of our
aforesaid lawes and canons of our Church, which is to expresse more particularly,
our pleasure is, that the bishops, and all other inferiour Churchmen and church
wardens, shall fer their parts be carefuU and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant,
and to cou-rince and reforme them that are misled in religion, presenting them
that will not conforme themselves, and obstinately stand out to our judges and
justices; whom we likewise command to put the law in due execution against
them. Our pleasure likewise is, that the Bishop of that diocesse take the Uke
straight order with aU the Puritans and Precisians -within the same, either con
straining them to conforme themselves, or leave the county according to the lawes
of our kingdome and canons of our Church, and so to strike equally, on both
hands, against the contemners of our authoritie and adversaries of our Church.
And as for our good people's lawfuU recreation, our pleasure Ukewise is, that,
after the end of Divine Service, our good people be not disturbed, letted, or dis
couraged from any lawfuU recreation ; such as dauucing, either men or women,
archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other harmlesse recreation, or from
having of may-games, Whitsoh ales, and Morris dances, and the setting up of
may-poles, and other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and
convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine Service; and that
women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it,

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 135
the more I was inclined to it. But when I heard them call my
father Puritan, it did much to cure and aUenate me from
them; for I considered that my father's exercise of reading
Scripture was better than theirs, and would surely be better
thought of by all men at the last, and I considered what it was
that he and others were thus derided. When I heard them
speak scornfully of others as Puritans whom I never knew, I
was at first apt to believe all the lies and slanders wherewith
they loaded them. But when I heard my own father so re
proached, and perceived the drunkards were the forwardest in
the reproach, I perceived that it was mere maUce ; for my father
according to their old custom. And, withal, we doe here account stUl as pro
hibited aU unlawful games to be used upon Sundayes onely, as heare and buU-
baitings, interludes, and at all times, in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited,
bowUng. And Ukewise we baire from this benefite and liberty, all such knowne
recusants, either men or women, as -wUl abstaine from coming to church or
Divine Service, that -will not first come to church and serve God : prohibiting in
Uke sort the said recreations to any that, though conforming in reUgion, are not
present in the Church at the service of God before their going to the said recre
ations. Our pleasure like-wise is, that they to whom it belongeth in ofBioe shall
present and sharply punish all such as, in abuse of this our liberty, will use these
exercises before the end of all Divine Service for that day. And we like-wise
stradghtly command, that every person shall resort to his o-wne parish church to
heare Divine Service, and each parish by itselfe to use the said recreation after
Di-piue Service. Prohibiting Ukewise any offensive weapons to be carried or used
in the said time of recreations ; and ova pleasure is, that this our Declaration
shall be pubUshed, by order from the Bishop of the Diocesse, through aU the
parish churches, and that both our Judges of our circuit and our Justices of our
Peace be informed thereof. Given at our mannotir of Greenwich the foure and
twentieth day of May, iu the sixteenth yeare of our reigne of England, France,
and Ireland, and of Scotland the one and fiftieth. Now out of a Uke pious care
for the service of God, and for suppressing of any humours that oppose trueth,
and for the ease, comfort, and recreation, of our well-deserving people, wee doe
ratifie and pubUsh this our blessed Father's Declaration ; the rather because of
late, in some counties of our kingdome, we find that, under pretence of taking
away abuses, there hath beene a generall forbidding not onely of ordinary meet
ings, but of Feaats of the Dedication of Churchea, commonly called wakes. Now
our expresse wiU and pleasure is, that these feasts, with others, shaU be observed,
and that our Justices of the Peace in their severall divisions shaU looke to it ;
both that aU disorders there may be prevented or punished, and that aU neigh
bourhood and freedome, with mianlike and lawfuU exercises, bee used. And we
farther command our Justices of Assize in their severaU circuits, to see that no
man doe trouble or molest any of our loyall and duetiful people in and for their
lawfuU recreations, having first done their duties to God, and continuing in obe
dience to us and our lawes. And of this wee command all our Judges, Justices
ofthe Peace, as weU within the Uberties as without. Majors, BayUffSs, Constables,

136 A Book about Clergy.

never scrupled Common Prayer or ceremonies, nor spake against
bishops, nor ever so much as prayed but by a book of form,
being not even acquainted vrith any that did otherwise ; but
only for reading Scripture and the life to come, he was reviled
commonly by the name of Puritan, precisian, and hypocrite;
and so were the godly, conformable ministers that lived anywhere
in the county near us, not only by our neighbours, but by the
common talk of the vulgar rabble of all about us. By this ex
perience I was fully convinced that godly people were the best,
and those that despised them and lived in sin and pleasure were
a malignant, unhappy sort of people ; and this kept me out of
and other officers, to take notice of, and to see observed, as they tender our dis
pleasure. And wee farther will, that publication of this our command bee made
by order from the bishops through all the parish churches of their severaU
dioceses respectively. Given at our palace of Westminster the eighteenth day of
October, in the ninth year of our reign. God save the King.'
How the publication of this foolish manifesto incensed the Puritans whilst it
increased their numbers tind influence in the country, how the declaration was
regarded by a large section of the king's subjects as a -violation of common decency
as well as a sin against religion, how the affront of its utterance rankled in the
bosoms of those against whom it was levelled, may be inferred from the action of
the Long Parliament, which ordered that the ofi'ensive proclamation should be
pubUcly burnt by the hangman,' ' Die Veneris, 5 Mail, 1643. It is this day
ordered,' runs the broadside by which the public were informed of the ParUament's
retaliation of the king's insult to his Puritan subjects, ' by the Lords and Commons
in Parliament, that the Booke concerning the enjoyning and toUerating of
sports on the Lord's Day, be forthwith burned by the Hangman in Cheapside,
and other usuall places ; and to this purpose, the Sheriff's of London and Middle
sex respectively are hereby required to be assistant to the effectual! execution of
this order, and see the said Booke burnt accordingly. And aU persons who have
any of the said books in their hands are hereby required forthwith to deUver them
to one of the Sheriffes of London, to be burnt accordingly to this order.
' John Beo-wne, Cler. Pari.
Heney Essynge, Cler. P. D. Com.
' The Sheriffes of London and Middlesex have assigned Wednesday next, the
lOth of this instant May, at twelve of the o'clock, for the putting in execution of
the aforesaid ordinance ; and, therefore, doe require all persons that have any of
the bookes therein mentioned to bring tbem in by that time, that they may be
burned accordingly. — John Langham, Thomas Andeewes. London: printed for
Thomas UnderhUl, in Great Woodstreet, May 9, 1643.' Close on this pubUc
burning of the odious declaration followed the deaths of the king who had
published it, and the primate who had caused its publication. On January 10,
1644^5, Laud's head rolled from the axe into the sawdust on Tower Hill, juat five
yeara before Charles suffered penal death at WhitehaU.

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 137
their company, except now and then, when the love of sports
and play enticed me.'
Further light is thrown on the Sunday usages of fairly
decent people in the earlier half of the seventeenth century by
the way in which writers against Puritaniam relate, as pre
posterous and almost incredible instances of Sabbatarian ex
travagance, matters of demeanour or opinion that are nowadays
the ordinary features of the peaceful EngUsh Sunday. ' I adde
what I myself heard,' says Peter Heylyn, in his elaborate
defence of Sunday sports (1636) ' at Sergeant's Inne in Fleet
Street, about five years since, That temporall death was at this
day to be inflicted, by the law of God, on the Sabbath-breaker ;
on Jiim who on the Lord's Day did the workes of his daily
calling. With a grave application, unto my masters of the law,
that if they did their ordinarie workes on the Sabbath day, in
taking fees and giving counsell, they should consider what they
did deserve by the law of God.' To Peter Heylyn — the clever,
courtly, scholarly priest, enjoying Laud's affectionate confidence
and Charles's personal regard — it seemed that the preacher
was faat ripening for the restraints of Bedlam who could tell a
congregation of ancient lawyers that they did ill in receiving
their clients and earning fees on the Lord's Day. That, though
the courts were closed, the barristers of Charles the First's
London busied themselves on Sunday vrith their clients and
chamber business, I took occasion to show in my ' Book About
Lawyers,' on the authority of D'Ewes, who tells ua how, with
the exception of Mr. Henley, a newly-admitted clerk, who set
his face against such an ' atheistical profanation of God's own
holy day,' the six clerks used to sit ' in their studies moat part
of the Sundays in the afternoon, to take their fees and do office-
business, many of their under- clerks following their profane
ekample.' Serjeants and outer barristers, crown-lawyers and
scriveners, acted in like manner ; and the divine who ventured
to reprove them, did so at the risk of being caUed a fanatic and
mad Puritan by dignified members of the sacred profession.
To Heylyn's modern readers, his other instances of prepos
terous Puritanism are far less marveUous than they were to the
historian of the Sabbath. Scarcely thinking that he wiU be
believed, he teUs us of fanatics ' that wiU not suffer either Baked

138 A Book about Clergy.
or Eost to be made readie for their dinners on the Sabbath-day,
lest by so doing they should eate and drinke their owne damna
tion ;' of some that on a Sunday ' will not sell a pint of wine,
or the like commoditie ; though wine was made by God, not
only for man's often infirmities, but to make glad his heart, and
refresh his spirits ; and therefore no less requisite on the Lord's
Day than any other ; ' and of some two or three maid-servants,
* who, though they were content to dresse their meat upon the
Sabbath, yet by no meanes could be perswaded either to wash
their dishes or make cleane their kitchen.' A wilder case of
fanatical darkness yet remains to be told. 'But,'- says the
narrator, with equal astonishment and grief, ' that which most
of all affects me, is. That a gentlewoman, at whose house I lay
in Leicester, the last Northerne Progresse, anno 1634, expressed
a great desire to see the King and Queene, who were then both
there. And when I proffered her my service, to satisfy that
loyall longing, she thanked me, but refused the favour, because
it was a Sabbath day. Unto so strange a bondage are the
people brought, that, as I before said, a greater never was im
posed on the Jewes themselves, what time the consciences of
that people were pinned most closely on the sleeves of the
Scribes and Pharisees.'
The triumph of Puritanism terminated the long and disas
trous controversy concerning the manner in which Christians
should keep the Lord's Day. The parliament put an end to
the Sunday sports, and its divines instructed their fiocks to
withdraw themselves as completely as possible from scenes of
worldly pleasure on the day which it was their duty to spend
in prayer, charitable works, religious study, and common wor
ship. And when the regime of the saints came to an end, the
cavaliers, who restored episcopacy and consigned the noncon
forming ministers to miserable poverty, did not venture on
another republication of the 'Book of Sports.' The Prayer-
book and its ceremonies were revived ; but there was no attempt
on the part of the chief restorers to bring about an universal
re-institution of the profane practices of the medieval Sunday.
Maypoles were replanted on Charles's return from exile ; and
long after his death — even down to times within the memory
of Uving men — many of our rural parishes retained vestiges of

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 139

their old Sunday sports, in social gatherings at churchyard
corners and games upon the turf of commons ; but in spite of
local demonstrations against new ways and corresponding en
deavours to re-introduce discarded fashions, the English Sunday
of the eighteenth century was in most of its social characteristics
identical vrith the Sunday of the Commonwealth Period. In
fact the modem Sunday, with its quietude and peacefulness,
with its general abstinence from open pleasure and almost
univeraal forbearance from needless labour, with its orderliness
in places of worship and its precise decorum in the public ways,
is one of the valuable legacies that have come to us from the
Puritanism of old time.
' It is not enough,' Eobert Nelson observes in his ' Com
panion to the Festivals and Feasts of the Church of England,'
' that we rest from the works of our calUng, but our time must
be employed in all such religious exercises as tend to the glory
of God, and the salvation of our souls. We must regularly
frequent the worship of God in the pubUc assemblies, join in
the prayers of the church, hear his holy word, receive the
blessed sacrament when administered, and contribute to the
relief of the poor, if there be any collection for their support.
In private, we ought to enlarge our ordinary devotions, and to
make the subject of them chiefly to consist in thanksgivings
for works of Creation and Eedemption ; vrithal, recollecting all
those particular mercies we have received from the bounty of
heaven through the whole course of our Uves ; to improve our
knowledge by reading and meditating upon divine subjects; to
instruct our children and families ; to risit the sick and the
poor, comforting them by seasonable assistance; and if we
converse with our friends and neighbours, to season our dis
course with prudent and profitable hints for the advancement
of piety ; and to take care that no sourness or moroseness
mingle with our serious frame of mind.' Eobert Nelson makes
no reflections upon the nice and excessive scrupulosity of devout
persons who refrain superstitiously on the Lord's Day from
needful labour, — i. e. such labour as worldly men might think
convenient to the Sabbath. Nor does he urge on his readers
the propriety of closing the Sunday vrith a game of quoits or
pitch-bar. On the contrary, this high-church layman of the

140 A Book about Clergy.
Eestoration period insists that the Sunday should be spent just
as the Elizabethan Puritans spent it, — just as Eichard Baxter's
Puritanical father spent it at Eaton Constantine; and the terms in
which he states this riew are such as would have been derided
as sheer Puritanical cant in the times when prelates were elo
quent about the beneficial influence of Sunday wakes, and so
conscientious a parish priest as George Herbert was of opinion
that a model country parson could not close the Lord's Day
better than by giving or being present at a supper-party.*
But, though the Eestoration adopted the Commonwealth
Sunday, so far as its purely social characteristics are concerned/
it would be a mistake to suppose that the restorers cordially
approved the tone of the restful day, which they forbore, on
political grounds, to deprive of the peacefulness which the
saints had imparted to it. On the contrary, the ' society' ofthe
period — the world of fashion and wealth in town and in the
country — adhered as far as possible to the Sunday usages of
Charles the First's ascendancy. Well pleased to see his tenants
and peasantry gather round the restored Maypole, and dance to
the music of a fiddle on the Lord's Day, and cautiously encour
aging his people to ' keep up their old Sunday customs,' the
typical Church-and-State squire of Charles the Second's rpign
continued to regard the Sabbath afternoon and evening as a time
specially provided for social hilarity — for dancing and suppers,
for cards and wine. In the chief reception-room of his manor-
house the honest gentleman on Sunday evening waa uaually
surrounded by his boon companions who, drinking confusion to
hypocrites and success to the present company, alternately cursed
Noll's memory, and swore, that the nonconformists would sooner
or later bring the country to ruin.
And what the squire did in his hall, the king did in his
palace, where Sunday evening, beyond every other time of the
week, was the occasion when courtiers of both sexes crowded its
* 'At night,' says Herbert, of his mode! pastor, ' he thinks it a very fit time,
both suitable to the joy of the day, and without hinderance to pubUcke duties,
either to entertaine some of his friends, or to be entertained of them ; where he
takes occasion to discourse of such things as are profitable and pleasant, and to
raise up their minds to apprehend God's good blessing to our Church and State ;
that order is kept in the one and peace in the other without disturbance or inter
ruption of publick divine oflaces.'

Part IV. — Old Ways and New Fashions. 141
galleries and flocked to the royal presence. Every reading
Englishman knows Evelyn's description of Charles the Second's
court on the last Sunday evening of the monarch's life, — a piece
of history which Mr. E. M. Ward has adequately illustrated in a
noble picture. ' I can never forget,' says the diarist in a
journal which represents the feelings of his old age, when it was
actually penned from old memoranda, rather than the sentiments
which the recorded events occasioned at the time of their
occurrence, ' the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming,
and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God (it
being Sunday evening), which this day se'ennight I waa witness
of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth,
Cleveland, and Mazarine, &c., &c., a French boy singing love-
songs, in that glorious gaUery, whilst about twenty of the great
courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large
table, a bank of at least 2000 gold before them : upon which two
gentlemen who were with me made reflections with astonishment.
Six days after was all in the dust.'
I suspect that Evelyn was far less shocked at this scene than
he imagined himself to have been, when he reflected on it, after
the king's death had changed the gay spectacle into a solemn and
appalling lesson. I doubt not that, writing in his old age and
the following century, when Eobert Nelson's notions respecting
Sunday had been generally accepted by persons of quality, the
diarist was much more sensible of the profanity of the revel than
he was when taking part in it. Very Ukely his friends may
have expressed disapprobation at the dissoluteness ofthe company
and the magnitude of the gamblers' stake, but it is not credible
that they were shocked at finding their sovereign the centre ofa
glittering throng on a Sunday evening. Charles was merely
spending the time in his customary way, — the way in which he
was well known to spend it, and in which every world-loving
nobleman, every opulent and world-loving Londoner, was wont
to pass the Sabbath evening according to his means. Had
Evelyn really disapproved of such practices in 1685, he would
not have voluntarily presented himself before his sovereign when
the court was in' full enjoyment of the Sunday evening's festival.

1 42 A Book about Clergy.

PART v.- RELIGION UNDER THE
COMMONWEALTH.

CHAPTEE L

RESULTS OP PURITANISM ON THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE
PRESENT GENERATION.
SO far as their poUtical principles and theological views are
concerned, the Friends maintain that they are to-day
exactly what they were two centuries since; and though the
strictest members of their society may perhaps have departed in
certain subtleties farther than they are aware from the doctrines
of their famous founder, it cannot be questioned that the
Quakers, with no written code of articles of faith, have adhered
more cloaely to their original tenets than any other body of
religious aeparatista who proceeded from the spiritual agitations
immediately consequent on our severance from the Church of
Eome. In polity they are as much the enemies of war and
priestly domination as they were when the Leicestershire en
thusiast proclaimed the uselessness and unscriptural nature of a
clergy set apart for the spiritual guidance of their fellow-crea
tures, and would not permit his disciples to speak of our parish
churches by any more respectful appellation than 'steeple-
houses.' In theology they have shown themselves tenaciously
conservative of their predecessors' opinions concerning 'the
perceptible, presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit in
the hearts of the obedient,' although many of their present
orthodox leaders, pointing to the unscriptural error and secession

Part V — Religion under the Commonwealth. 143
of the American Hicksites, do not hesitate to say that, in so far
as it encouraged beUevers to exalt the 'universal and saving
Ught ' as a guide unto salvation above the written word of the
gospel, George Fox's teaching possessed a share of human
faUibiUty, and must be held largely accountable for those
'secessions through Deistical tendencies' which have in these
later days reduced the numbers and afflicted the hearts of the
faithful. But though they still teach that each believer must
be his ovm priest, and that no man can do aught for his neigh
bour's spiritual guidance beyond such services of sympathy and
instruction as may help him to find the Ught which shines for
the iUumination of every believer, — and though they maintain
vrithout abatement their disapproval of war, state churches,
slavery, oaths, and capital punishment, — the successors of
Barclay and Penn have recently laid aside so many of the out
ward badges and formal peculiarities of their sect, that the
Quakerism which moved the derision of our grandfathers may
be described as an affair of the past.
Even so late as ten years since, the annual meeting of the
Friends changed the appearance ofthe London thoroughfares
by the number of drab-clothed men and hugely-bonneted women
who assembled from the provinces for conference with their
companions in beUef ; but at present the broad brims, long coats,
square-toed shoes, and other articles of old-world Quaker garb,
have been so generaUy relinquished by the society, that the ap
pearance of a Friend dressed in the mode of the Quakers of John
Joseph Gurney's date attracts almost as much attention in Oxford
Street or Cheapside as a Hindu costume. In other respects, the
Friends of the new differ noticeably from the Friends of the old
school. Though some of them adhere to the old forms of
address, the majority have discontinued the eccentric use of
'thou' and 'thee,' which only the other day waa one of tbe
universal peculiarities of their party, and no longer hold it
reprehensible to call the days of the week by names of Pagan
origin. In like manner, with respect to diversions and pursuits,
they manifest such a disposition to conform to the ways ofthe
world that it would not greatly astonish me to hear that
a Quaker had won the Derby, or undertaken to manage an
opera-house. That these changes in matters affecting none of

144 A Book about Clergy.
the vital principles of Quakerism seem to me to be an affair for
congratulation, on the part of society as well as the sect, it is
needless to remark; but whilst regarding them as alterations
which promise benefit to the general public, by removing induce
ments to ridicule the action of devout persons, and strengthen
the particular fraternity by putting an end to profitless distinc
tions that somewhat diminished its salutary influence, I notice
vrith a kind of regret the disappearance of customs which varied
the uniformity of English manners, and were interesting reUcs
of the style and ways of seventeenth-century Puritanism.
At a period when old-world Quakerism may be said to have
recently expired, and Friends of the new school have Uberated
themselves from the trammels of traditional usages, vrithout
surrendering any of the points for which they have contended
for more than two hundred years, Mr. WilUam Tallack has
recently given us a brief and ably-written memoir * of George
Fox's life and services, prefacing the strictly biographic part
of his volume with a statement of the past achievements and
present position of the Society, of which he is a conspicuous
member. Both in the personal memoir and the historic survey,
the author exhibits abundant knowledge and perfect freedom
from prejudice ; but the feature of his book which distinguishes
it from other volumes on the same subject, is its careful demon
stration that ' George Fox was rather the organizer, or com
pleting agent, than the founder of Quakerism;' that his doc
trines were taken mainly from the Baptists, vrith whom he
associated intimately in the first years of his ministry; and
that the peculiarities of opinion and practice — which in these
later times have given distinctiveness to the Friends — are
clearly referable to the same source.
To students who have considered minutely the religious
agitations which resulted in, attended, and followed the Eeforma
tion, there is, of course, nothing novel in this assertion of the
origin of the principles and usages of Quakerism ; but whilst
the parentage of George Fox's system has been strangely over
looked by his numerous biographers, the nature of his labours
* ' George Fox, the Friends, and the Early Baptists : hy WiUiam Tallack ;' —
a modest and exceUent littie book, which I cordially commend to the notice of
students.

Part V. — Eeligion under the Convmonwealth. 145
has been even more strangely misapprehended by the great
body of educated Englishmen who keep Hooker'a 'Eccleaiastical
Polity ' in their libraries, but seem more disposed to commend
than to peruse it. Though Hooker died in the first year of the
seventeenth century, and forty-seven years before George Fox
commenced his public ministrations, he had observed attentively
the demeanour of the Separatists, who were the religious pro
genitors of the Friends of Charles the Second's reign. The
exaltation of the inner light above the doctrines of churches,
and even above the statements of Scripture, which was a pro
minent feature of Fox's theology, and in recent times has occa
sioned the Friends much perplexity and misfortune, was noticed
by the author of the ' Ecclesiastical Polity ' as a distinguishing
feature of those early enthusiasts, concerning whom he writes in
his preface : ' Wherefore, that things might again be brought to
the ancient integrity which Jesus Christ by his word requireth,
they began to control the ministers of the Gospel for attri
buting so much force and virtue unto the Scriptures of God
read; whereas the truth was, that when the Word is said to
engender faith in the heart, and to convert the soul of man, or
to work any such spiritual divine effect, these speeches are not
thereunto applicable, as it is read or preached, but as it is
engrafted in us by the power of the Holy Ghost, assuring the
eyes of our understandiog, and so revealing the mysteries of
God, according to that which Jeremiah promised before should
be, saying, " I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will
write it in their hearts." '
Whilst these Elizabethan zealots thus asserted the primary
doctrine of the Foxian Friends, they anticipated the abhorrence
which those pious enthusiasts expressed for usages that had any
savour of earnest enjoyment, or indicated forbearance towards
Pagan superstitions: 'Where they found men, in diet, attire,
furniture of houses, or any other way, observers of civility and
decent order, such they reproved as being carnally and earthly
minded.' They rendered themselves conspicuous in law courts
by declining to be swom witnesses, and opposed the interests
of government by 'forbidding oaths, the necessary means of
judicial trial, because Christ hath said, "Swear not at aU.'"
Eaising their voices against the sinfulness of personal display,
VOL. IL ^

146 A Book about Clergy.
these men were noticeable for the meanness of their attire and
avoidance of terms borrowed from heathen mythology. ' They
so much affected to cross the ordinary custom in everythiing,
that when other men's use was to put on better attire, they
would be sure to show themselves openly abroad in worse.
The ordinary names of the days in the week, they thought
it a kind of profaneness to use, and therefore accustomed themr
selves to make no other distinction than by numbers, — " the
first," " second," " third day." ' That he alluded to only a few
of their many peculiarities. Hooker intimates in the passage
where, speaking of their novelties of doctrine and discipline, he
observes, 'When they and their Bibles were alone together,
what strange fantastical opinion at any time entered into their
heads, their use was to think that the Spirit taught it them.
And forasmuch as they were of the same suit with those of
whom the Apostle speaketh, saying, " They are still learning,
but never attain to the knowledge of truth," it was no marvel
to see them every day broach some new thing not heard of
before, which restless levity they did interpret to be their going
on to spiritual perfection, and proceeding from faith to faith.' .
From the holders of these peculiar views came the General
Baptists and Particular Baptists of James the First's time, from
whom the Foxian Friends took most of their eccentric rules
of manner and nearly all their characteristic opinions. >
Notvrithstanding their great material prosperity and abun
dance of intellectual power, their perfect discipline and mission
ary zeal, the Friends are weak in number. With justice, they
tell us that their influence is far greater than the fewness oftheir
old members and the paucity of their new converts would lead a
superficial observer to think ; and Mr. Tallack may be justified
in intimating that they regard their present position with
complacency, and are consoled for the thinness of their congre
gations by a sincere conviction that — by the agency of schools
whose pupils seldom become Quakers, and preachers who fail to
make converts — they do ' as much for the present and eventual
advantage of the great body of the people (as to moral an^
intellectual progress), as' the whole of the Anglican Church has
ever done with its enormous revenues. State patronage, and ten
or fifteen millions of feal and nominal adherents.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 147
In spirit and design, the Quaker is a missionary church ; but
converts to its peculiar tenets are not the fruit that springs from
the seed which it Uterally scatters on the hearts of men.
' In the Eastern district,' Mr. Tallack records, ' the Quaker ranks
are now becoming smaller and smaller. For instance, their
congregations at Norwich and Ipswich, notvrithstanding they
have contained some of the most influential and worthy persons
in the ricinity, have for years been sadly dwindling. Thus, Nor-
vrich, which about forty years ago contained five hundred
Friends, has now barely forty.' Whilst George Fox's disciples
have thus dwindled to two score persons in the stronghold of
Quakerism, where Mrs. Opie penned her moral tales after ceasing
to write novels, and John Joseph Gurney swayed the deliberations
of the faithful, the Friends have lost ground in other parts of
the United Kingdom, so that at the present time their total
number ' in Great Britain and Ireland barely amounts to 15,000
(far fewer than could be contained in the Agricultural Hall at
Islington).' But notwithstanding his conviction that the vitality of a
church depends less on the number than the individual excellence
of its members, even Mr. Tallack will admit that, should the
numerical decadence of Quakerism progress at the rate which it
has maintained during the last thirty years, the time cannot be
far distant when his church, through want of adherents, vrill
vanish from the number of our religious organizations. Whatever
may be his spiritual quaUty, the last surviving Friend will not
of himself constitute a church. But I am far from anticip^ing
a speedy extinction of George Fox's association. Holding that
ita recent numerical decay has been mainly due to the pecuU
arities which the new Friends have decided to relinquish, I am
iiicUned to think that ere long it vriU receive large accessions of
adherents from the ranks of those who, whilst concurring with
the vital principles of Quakerism, have been withheld from
joining the society by considerations which, through the opera
tion of recent reforms, have ceased to exist. Should this pre
diction, however, be falsified by the utter dissolution of the
Quaker church, the Friends will not pass away without baring
seen the partial or complete triumph of most of their distinctive
doctrines.

148 A Book about Clergy.

Eegarded as the most thorough and uncompromising kind
of seventeenth-century Puritanism, the Society of Friends may
be largely credited with the successes of the religious movement
which, whether for good or evil, has reformed England in ac
cordance with Puritan doctrine. Prelacy, indeed, surrives and
flourishes ; but apart from the ecclesiastical system which it strove
to demolish, Puritanism has accomplished its most important
ends. How much the England of to-day is the England that
Puritans wished her to become cannot be seen until we compare
the England ofthe seventeenth century with the England of this
present time ; but when that comparison has been made it. is
apparent how completely Puritanism has vanquished its enemies
on some of those very points where its success seemed least
probable. Episcopacy remains ; but the church has conformed to the
Puritanic sentiment of the nation. The calm, decorous EngUsh
Sunday, vrith its abstinence from labour and worldly diversion,
is the product of Puritan doctrine ; and from no class of living
Englishmen do its essentially Puritanical requirements meet
with heartier compliance than from the lineal and official suc
cessors of the Cavaliers and Churchmen who maintained that
the Lord's Day should be kept as a weekly .Carnival. At a
time when persons of every degi-ee and both sexes habitually
garnished their utterances with revolting imprecations, the
Puritans exclaimed against the wickedness of profane speech ;
and though their protest against conversational profanity roused
the 'derision of courtiers and grand ladies, the modem repre
sentatives of those same courtiers and fine ladies have agreed to
adopt the Puritan style as an important element of good breed
ing. When it was the fashion with fine people to encumber
their verbal communications with extravagant metaphors and
insincere professions, the Puritans offended them by declaring
that simple language was the best vehicle for honest thoughts ;
and though the wits of the period were furious about the in
solence of the boorish malignants who ventured to criticise the
manners of their social superiors, English gentlemen have
adopted the criticism as an unassailable canon of taste. Prynne
lost his ears for denouncing the immoralities of the stage ; but
after a lapse of generations public taste has indorsed the

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 149
a,nimadversions for which the Puritan barrister paid so heavy a
penalty, and no theatrical manager of our own time would dare
to restore the abuses which the ' Histriomastyx ' eventually swept
away. Our women, it is true, have neither adopted the Quaker
costume nor relinquished the garnitures and fashions which were
a scandal to austere precisians ; but the male descendants of the
old Cavaliers have long since adopted the sober garb and coiffure
which gained for the Puritan reformers their reputation of
'sadness,' and their nickname of Eoundheads. And whilst,
with respect to such trifling matters as fall vrithin the prdvince
of the tailor's craft and hairdresser's business, our most frivolous
men of fashion have become zealous precisians, the more im
portant principles of the old Puritans are finding large favour
amongst all classes of the people. Their views respecting
slavery, unpalatable still to a few of ua, have triumphed in both
hemiapheres. Oaths are still administered in our courts of
justice, but our most enlightened legislators have come to the
conclusion that the practice is prejudicial to public morals and
a hindrance to justice. War is still the business and deUght
of a large proportion of civilised men : but, even in this period
of vast standing armies and iron fleets, the Friends have grounds
for asserting that their doctrines concerning the sinfulness and
inexpedience of war were never more acceptelble to or influential
over the rulers and masses of mankind than at the present time.
Whilst most persons admit that war is neither glorious in itself
nor desirable for its own sake, few persons decline to regard it
as a terrible eril, arising from the sinfulness of man's nature.
And whilst the Quaker doctrine of the sinfulness of war has thus
gained the almost universal acquiescence of thoughtful minds,
it is no less generaUy conceded, even by the apologists of warfare,
that one of the first duties of statesmanship is to diminish the
temptations to martial strife and the occasions when, under
iexisting circumstances, an appeal to force becomes the only
practicable mode of settling differences of opinion. The Peace
Congresses are derided, but the influence of their doctrines on
the policy of nations ia more powerful than the men of war
are aware. Should, therefore, the Quaker Church pass away to-morrow,
it would not perish without having witnessed the partial or

150 A Book about Clergy.
complete triumph of several of the most important of the prin
ciples which George Fox adopted from the Baptists, and for
which his followers have resolutely contended. Before Quakerisin
laid aside its quaint garb and modes of speech, it witnessed the
defeat of the erils against which those peculiarities were a
protest. Puritanism has not been vanquished by the world, but
has fairly overcome society ; and amongst the forces of the
victorious side in the long and obstinate conflict, no party
rendered greater or more enduring service than George Fox's
band of resolute disciples.

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 151

CHAPTEE II,
ROYAL SUPREMACY,
THEOUGHOUT the long conflict between episcopacy and
Puritanism — a conflict which comprises the most momen
tous and exciting incidents of our ecclesiastical history, from
Elizabeth's accession to Charles the First's Fall — the crown gave
an unwavering and enthusiastic support to the cause of prelacy.
Ay more, believing that ita own interests would be greatly
advanced by the triumph, and proportionately injured by the
defeat, of episcopacy, it regarded with acrimonious hostility every.
party or person that ventured to oppose or question the authority
of bishops; and, by a process of reasoning less logical than
natural, it maintained that disapprobation of a particular ecclesi
astical system necessarily, involved disaffection to the throne.
It being assumed as unassailable axioms of political science that
the sovereign would be powerful and glorious in proportion as
the national Church enjoyed the confidence and affection of the
people, and that no ecclesiastical polity could conduce so much
as the episcopal .aystem to the strength and efficiency of the
Church, it did not need to be demonstrated that the opponent of
episcopacy was at war with the Church whose well-being de
pended on government by bishops, and was an enemy of the
sovereign whose brightest honour and majesty resulted from
his official connection with the Church of which he was supreme
governor.* * At its first origination, no less than now, the Royal Supremacy meant the
Supremacy of the English law, of which the sovereign was the chief represent
ative; but in the sixteenth century, when the crown exercised in aU public
matters a personal authority, which has been either modified or extinguished by
recent constitutional amendments, or the steady action of constitutional prin
ciples, the sovereign's sway over religion and the spirituality was necessarily a
more personal government than it became in course of time. Henry the Eighth,

152 A Book about Clergy.
To appreciate the considerations which induced Elizabeth,
James, and Charles to espouse the cause of prelatic rule, and to
fight for it with an enthusiasm which made them altogether
misapprehend the nature and aims of its antagonists, — the
student must remember that, throughout the ninety years

Edward the Sixth, and Mary, were titular as weU as actual governors of the
Church. The last-named sovereign relincjuished the title of Supreme Head of
the Church: a title which EUzabeth, on the ParUament ofi'ering it to her, de
clined to accept, though, as a Protestant sovereign, she had neither the inclination
nor the ability to decline the responsibiUties and powers of the office with which
the title had previously gone. Edward the Sixth's article of ' Civil Magistrates '
says, — ' The king of England is supreme head in earth next under Christ of the
Church of England and Ireland,' the object of this declaration of a politico-^
reUgious principle being pointed to by the next words of the article, — ' The Bishop
of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.' The prudential con
siderations which determined Elizabeth to decline the titular distinction of the
Eoyal Supremacy, which she asserted yith characteristic -vigour and arrogance,
are reflected in the language of the Thirty-seventh Article, which recognised her
authority over the Church in apologetic terms,—' The Queen's Majesty hath the
chief power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions, unto whom the
chief government of aU Estates of this Realm, whether they be Eccleaiastical or
Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any
Foreign jurisdiction. Where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief govern
ment, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended,
we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God's word or of the Sacra
ments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our
Queen do most plainly testify ; but that only prerogative, which we see to have
been given always to aU godly Princes in the holy Scriptures by God Himself;
that is, that they should rule aU estates and degrees committed to their charge by
God, whether they be Eccleaiaatioal or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword
the stubborn and evil-doers.' Thus, whilst EUzabeth refrained from inviting
ridicule and provoking resentment by the use of a title, which, when borne by a
woman, waa calculated to offend slanderous folk, who would have seen nothing to
object to in its assumption by a king, the Thirty-seventh Article — forbearing to
use the words 'supreme head,' and jealously defining her ecclesiastical preroga
tives — speaks of her 'chief government.' It has been recendy asserted, by a
very able writer on Ecclesiastical History, that no English sovereign since Mary's
time has home the title of Supreme Head of the Church ; and that, though some of
Mary's successors may have actuaUy exercised all the powers of supreme govern
ors, no one of them has been Head of the EngUsh Church : statements which, it
must be admitted, are somewhat at variance with Charles the Second's declaration,
printed in the book of Common Prayer, in which the title and office of Supreme
Governor of the Church are said to be enjoyed by him, — ' Being by God's Ordin
ance, according to our juat Titie, Defender of the Faith and Supreme Govemour
ofthe Church, within these our Dominions,' are the opening words of his MEyesty's
Declaration, which contains this concise assertion of the Royal Headship of the
Church, ' We are Supreme Govemour of the Church of England.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 153
between Mary's death and the triumph of Puritanism, in
contending for the authority of bishops and those ecclesiastical
interests which were supposed to be identical with or insepar
able from the interests of episcopacy, the sovereign was actuated
by personal and selfish, no less forcibly and profoundly than by
devout or patriotic motives. By strengthening the church, and
resisting all who ventured to oppose ita discipUne, the sovereign
was seeking strength for himself, and asserting the pririleges of
that Eoyal supremacy vvhich Mr. Disraeli recently designated the .
brightest jewel in the Engliah crown, but which has, in these
later generations, been ao modified and changed by the develop
ment of constitutional principles and the influence of legislation,
that it is scarcely recognisable as the same prerogative which
invested Henry the Eighth with the powers of a pontiff in his
own dominions, and almost justified James the First's insolent
boast that he was king of his subjects' souls no less than of their
bodies. It is not my intention to insinuate that in doing battle for
episcopacy the three Engliah aovereigns, who occupy the interval
between our last Catholic monarch and the Commonwealth, were
infiuenced altogether or mainly by jealous concern for their
official dignities and privileges. Nor do I suggest that, had it
not been for the Eoyal supremacy and their personal interest to
guard its pririleges against the encroachments of the populace
as well as of the Pope, they would have been lukewarm for the
Church or favourably inclined towards Puritanism, On the
contrary, I doubt not that they were all three so sincerely
attached to the principles of prelatic government, that, — if the
Eeformation, instead of endowing the crown vrith ecclesiastical
supremacy, had put the headship ofthe national church upon an
Anglican patriarch who owed the crown no spiritual allegiance, — ^
they would have still been cordial approvers of episcopacy. In
deed, the episcopal system was ao precisely in harmony with the
principles and provisions of feudal government that it is difficult
to conceive how any person of the Elizabethan period, who had
been reared under feudal traditions and under circumstances
Ukely to inspire him with respect for those traditions, could be
otherwise than heartily episcopaUan,
The feudal system placed the supreme command of the state

154 A Booh about Clergy.

in the hands of a solitary chief, who was the source of all secular
dignity and power, and to whom all persons in their various
degrees owed allegiance. Eepresenting his majesty and admin
istering his power in their respective shires and districts, the
great nobles governed their dependents vrith a rule that was
identical in principle and aims with the authority by which they
were themselves controlled: and subject to the classes — whd
ruling those beneath were ruledby those above them, so that the
entire community of subordinate rulers obeyed harmoniously the
will ofthe supreme director j — came the populace who, without
being admitted to participate in the delights and dignities of
governing, were deemed sufficiently fortunate in being permitted
to obey the behests of their superiors. This was the theory of
sound government in the feudal ages, — a single supreme ruler
at the head, a docile populace at the base, ofthe social structure:
betwixt the monarch and the populace, a series of nobles,
magistrates, and minor authorities, each grade of whom derived
its powers directly or indirectly from the sovereign who directly
or indirectly governed aU.
The same gradations of authority from a supreme ruler to a
multitude having no, or but few, governmental pririleges, were
discernible in the ecclesiastical system of medieval Christendona;
and, though there were, of course, many points of historical and
political difference between the secular dignities and ecclesias
tical offices, the analogy between them was so general and striking
that, to every thoughtful observer of hierarchical order and feudal
government, the places of the former seemed to derive counten-'
ance from, and afford sanction to, the magistracies of the latter.
What the barons were in the state, the bishops were in the
Church ; there was enough resemblance between the powers of
lay-judges and the functions of clerical commissaries to remind
the social spectator of the general harmony between church and
state : the sheriff and the archdeacon were, in some respects,
corresponding offices : the spiritual authority of a rector in his
parish was analogous to the temporal power of a territorial
squire within the limits of his manor. Consequently had
episcopacy been a new device, begotten by the agitations ofa
revolutionary period, its general consonance with feudalism
would have commended it to our ancestors of the reform period,

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 155
aa thoroughly practical and suited to the requirements of society.
When, therefore, it ia remembered that, in addition to its har
mony with the secular government of the epoch, episcopacy
possessed the sanction of ancient usage, and had been our mode
of ecclesiastical government from the earUest date of our
Christian story, no reader will find difficulty in believing that
Elizabeth and her two nearest successors on the throne of Eng
land were conscientiously persuaded that prelatic rule was the
only hierarchical system compatible with a sound and vigorous
administration of secular affairs. It should, moreover, be
bome in mind that nearly every consideration, which disposed
the feudal mind to regard episcopacy with favour, roused its
repugnance to presbytery, which was nothing else than an appli
cation of republican principles to spiritual interests and eccle
siastical discipline.
But notwithstanding the general harmony of the two systems,
the ecclesiastical government and secular authority of CathoUc
England seldom co-operated amicably for any considerable time,
for whilst they always represented more or less conflicting
interests, they obeyed different masters. Even in the periods of
our CathoUc history when the Papal supremacy was weak, the
national priests professed nothing stronger than a qualified
aUegiance to the secular power. The layman's first duty was to
his sovereign; the priest's paramount obligations were to the
Church. By ' the Church ' he might mean the pope, his primate,
his bishop, the clerical order, the general spiritual interests of
Christian persons; but it never meant his sovereign or his
sovereign's realm. Even when he laboured most enthusiastically
in the serrice of his king and for the benefit of his country, his
zeal for hia sovereign was lukewarm in comparison with his
devotion to his chief ecclesiastical commander, and his patriotism
was of far thinner texture and paler complexion than the
layman's love of country. Hence arose the contiuual jealousies
and conflicts which embittered the relations and diaturbed the
intercourae ofthe spirituality and ruling laity of feudal England.
So long as the occupant of the throne could command the co
operation of the clergy, his labour was easy and his life plea
sant; but in critical and troublous times the spirituality for
the attainment of their peculiar ends were vexatiously apt to

1.56 A Booh about Clergy.

stand aloof from the sovereign, who was powerless to control their
movements. Sometimes the Church opposed the Sovereign on
just and humane grounds : but quite as often its opposition was
dictated by selfish policy, or pique, or some other worldly
motive. However strong, therefore, his pious admiration of
the Church, and however fervent his superstitious devotion, the
medieval king regarded with more of fear than of affection the
vast army of ecclesiastics who, constituting an imperium in
imperio, cherished for him no loyalty that would not disappear
at the nod of spiritual authority, and who were likely enough
at his next moment of embarrassment to turn upon him an^
work his discomfiture.
The Eeformation afforded the crown a long vrished-for
opportunity to as.sert its supremacy over the Church, and
thereby bring the two consonant and harmonious systems of
government — episcopacy and feudalism — under the control of
a single will; and the alacrity and completeness with which
Henry availed himself of this opportunity occasioned the Uve;
liest satisfaction to the majority of his subjects. Eegarded as
a political change, this royal assumption of ecclesiastical supre
macy was in the highest degree acceptable to that large section
of our ancestors, who, though Catholic in every matter of
dogma, were scarcely less jealous of the Pope's political en
croachments than the Lollards were indignant at his spiritual
pretensions. The modern EngUshman is prone to think that
Henry's conduct in thus seizing the headship of the Church
was not without a savour of absolute profanity, and that it must
have seemed a monstrous act of desecration to most of the pious
folk who accommodated themselves to the usurpation. But with
out entering on the question whether the despotic layman was
guilty of an outrage on Christian law, I have no hesitation in
saying that no one step — of all those diverse revolutionary acts
to which we apply the term ' Eeformation ' — was more generally
and heartily approved of by our ancestors of the sixteenth cen
tury than this change which put an end to the system of double
government that had repeatedly brought the nation to calamity
and humiliation. The prevailing sentiment of the period, even
amongst orthodox Catholics, was that the Bishop of Eome was a
very unfit person to be the political head of the English Church,

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 157

and that of all official persons the sovereign of England was the
Only person who could be trusted to govern that Church alike for
its own advantage and the welfare of the EngUah people. What
interest had the Pope in restraining the licentiousnesa and
amending the errors of the clergy of a country which was to
him a foreign and remote land? But to the sovereign of
^England it was a matter of the highest moment that the
National Church should be thoroughly efficient and in every
respect conducive to the health of his people. To whose hands,
than those of England's sovereign, would it be more safe to
ientrust the powers of an ecclesiastical patriarch ? Patriotism,
love of order, shrewd common sense, all commended the deter
mination that henceforth the king of England's realm should
be the pope of England's Church.
At the present time, when the royal supremacy means
nothing more than a political arrangement and a constitutional
principle — an arrangement which empowers the queen's respon
sible ministers to select new bishops and distribute a large
amount of ecclesiastical patronage ; a constitutional principle,
which submits clerical opinion to secular tribunals, and eccle
siastical interests to a parliament chiefly composed of laymen —
it is difficult to realize the strictly personal sense in which our
ancestors of the sixteenth century wished their sovereign to be
a veritable Engliah pope, ruling his spirituaUty with a strong
hand, reforming abuses, introducing new practices, and giving
utterance to decisions on matters of faith. An insular pope of
this kind was Henry the Eighth, who, with the approval of his
subjects, either with or without the sanction of convocation,
published edicts and ordinances for the government of his
Church, put forth new articles of belief, and on his own per
sonal authority did far more for the guidance and determina
tion of reUgious opinions than any pope of Eome would have
ventured to do. At this day, English people are frequently
seen to smile at an allusion to our queen's supremacy over the
Church, as though it were some pleasant legal fiction, which,
though it may once upon a time have served a useful purpose,
belongs to the same order of fabrications as the imaginary
transactions of Mr. John Doe and Mr. Eichard Eoe. But the
Eeformers of three centuries since had no intention that the

158 A Booh about Clergy.
royal supremacy should be regarded as a constitutional plea
santry, — no anticipation of the day when the sovereign would
discharge the functions of his chief government of the Church
by means of cabinet ministers, judicial committees, and parlia
ment. Their wish was that the sovereign should be a personal
pontiff, — a prying, meddling, dictatorial pontiff. How Edward
the Sixth was trained to regard himself as the Pope's successor
vrithin his realm we know from the language in which his
divines addressed him and spoke of him in his presence, when
his youthful mind waa being fashioned by them for the proper
discharge ofhis kingly duties. ' Consider,' said Latimer, the least
servile of court preachers, addressing a congregation assembled
inthe banqueting-hall of Westminster Palace, 'also the presence
of the Kynges Maiestie Gods highe vycare in earth, hauyng a
respect to his personag, ye ought to haue it, and consider that
he is goddes hygh minister, and yet alloweth you all to be par
takers with hym of ye heryng of gods word,' By language such
aa thia, from the lips of a preacher little given to the utterance
of flattery and formal courtesies, the twelve years' old boy was
educated to think of himself aa God's high ricar on earth, —
the actual representative of divinity to his people, Edward's
early death deprived the world of the full fruits that otherwise
would have resulted from this training; but when the chief
government of all estates of this realm had devolve'd on a Pro
testant queen, England saw that, though she prudently refrained
from styling herself head of the Church, she was far from re
garding herself as disqualified by her sex for the taak of ruling
her clergy with personal despotism. Instead of taking her
ecclesiastical poUcy from her bishops, Elizabeth marked out
the line which they were to take; and on the appearance of
a disposition in them tb disregard her orders, she was not slow
to tell them that she was their mistress, — that they disobeyed
her at peril of dismissal from their places, — that she who had
frocked them could unfrock them. When her primate Grindal
differed from her with respect to prophesyings, and declined to
issue orders for their suppression, she sent her commands to the
prelates without his assistance, and suspended him from his
office until he had humbled himself and submitted to her im
perious spirit.

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 159

Though James the First had not been trained from youth
upwards to regard himself as God's vicar on earth, in matters
spiritual as well as temporal, he had not been many days on
the throne of England before he was firmly resolved that his
royal supremacy should be no bare assertion of a constitutional
principle, but a personal protectorate of the religion of his
realm. Cordially detesting Presbytery, he no less heartily
approved of Episcopacy ; and at the Hampton Court Conference
he declared with instructive frankness why he loved the one
and hated the other. Episcopacy conjoined with royal supre
macy enjoyed his favour, because it enhaiiced the splendour
and power of the regal office, making him a real king, master
of his subjects' souls as well as their bodies, whereas the sove
reign who had not the same kind of spiritual dominion over his
people was only half a king. On the other hand he loathed the
Presbyterian system, because it inflated social nobodies vrith
self-esteem, and encouraged them to be insolent to their rulers.
He averred that Presbytery * agreed with monarchy as well as
God and the devil,' that at their Presbytery any obscure ' Jack
and Tom, Will and Dick, might meet and at their leisure cen
sure him and his council,' Giving vent to his wrath with Jack
and Tom, he exclaimed to the Puritan dirines, ' Therefore, pray
stay one seven years before you demand that of me!, and if then
you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipe stuffed, I vrill
perhaps hearken to you ; for let that government be up, and I
am sure I shall be kept in breath; but till you find I grow
lazy, pray let that alone, I remember how they used the poor
lady my mother in Scotland, and me in my minority,' Turn
ing from the Puritan divines to the bishops, he added, ' My
lords, I inay thank you that these Puritans plead for my supre
macy ; for if once you are out and they in' place, I know what
would come of my supremacy, for No bishop, no king.' It is
needless to remind most readers that in undertaking to preside
personally at this conference, James claimed for himself by
virtue of his supremacy the right to act as the spiritual chief of
his people, no less than as the political head of the Church.
His tone, when it was innocent of abusivenesa and buffoonery,
affected the air of a grave theologian, profoundly veraed in the
learning and subtleties of controversialists ; and far from re-

160 A Booh about Clergy.

senting his dictatorial loquaciousness as an attempt on the part
of a layman to encroach on the functions of spirituality, the
prelates applauded the wisdom and Christian temper of his
utterances. Overcome by his emotions, the primate exclaimed,
' Undoubtedly your majesty speaks by the special assistance of
God's spirit;' and the fashion arose to speak of a garrulous
pedant as the British Solomon.
Were this work a history of Puritanism, I should take occa
sion to relieve the Presbyterian party and other Puritans of the
imputation of deep-rooted and universal antagonism to the royal
supremacy, which the Episcopalians sedulously fixed upon them.
I should show that, in times when religion had no third alter
native beyond a choice between the supremacy of the Pope and
the supremacy of the crown, i.e. the government of a foreign
potentate or the government of national law, men were favour
able to the latter in proportion as they were hostile to the
former ; and that, whilst the ordinary Englishman's detestation
of the Pope was the measure of hia friendliness to the spiritual
prerogatives of the crown, the Engliah Puritans were necessarily
quite as affectionately disposed as the English High Churchmen
to the royal supremacy. The purposes of these volumes, how
ever, merely require us on this point to state that, from Eliza
beth's accession to Charles's fall, the crown resented every
attack on Episcopacy as an offence against its choicest prero
gatives, and that Charles the First was even lesa able than
James and Elizabeth to distinguish between dislike of prelacy
and disaffection towards the throne.
That Charles was upon the whole a religious and conscien
tious man I regard as a fact discernible to impartial students,
notwithstanding the immorality of much of his conduct, and in
spite of the obscuring clouds of misrepresentation with which
rancorous enemies and impious flatterers have darkened a never
brilliant character. That he was genuinely attached to the
doctrines of the Church of England, and that the prevailing
mood of his narrow mind was a desire to do his duty in the
exalted state of Ufe, to which he had been called without having
been naturally qualified for it, I am satisfied : but, though I
credit him with a sincere belief, that in exalting the Episcopacy
and persecuting the Puritans he was only doing his duty to

Part V. — -Religion under the Commonwealth. 161
God and his people, I hold it to be a matter of certainty that
insolent pride in his spiritual prerogative, and jealousy for its
lustre, were the lights which enabled him to take this view of
his kingly responsibilities.
That he exercised this prerogative tyrannically and vindic
tively, that he exercised it with results alike calamitous to his
people and to himself, is almost universally admitted by the
present generation : but whilst recognising the foolishness of
his policy, and detecting the cruelty and miserable resentments
which too frequently animated him in his suicidal course, cha
ritable judges of hia conduct, who can make fair allowances for
the difficulties which he waa called upon to encounter and for
the influences to which he waa exposed, forbear to condemn
him severely for errors which any ordinary mortal, tried and
tempted as he was, would inevitably have perpetrated. For
the resoluteness with which he fought for hia miataken notions
of right, whilst no one condemns, most persons enthusiastically
admire him. The dignity of his last days and death mollifies
those who, from certain points of view, regard him with abhor
rence and disdain. But in proportion as truth-loving English
men are disposed to render justice to a fame which has suffered
less from the slander of enmity than from the profane commend-
ationa of clerical adulatora, they are shocked by the duplicity
and untruthfulness, the subterfuges, evasions, sheer falsehoods,
to which he had recourse for. the attainment of what he thought
his lawful ends.
For Charles's astounding untruthfulness, moreover the cir
cumstances of his career, and the view which he had been trained
to take of his relations to his subjects, offer an apology, of which
he should be allowed the fuU benefit, MoraUsts concede that
there are circumstances which sanction breaches of verbal engage
ments, and justify the employment of falsehood. It ia almost
universally admitted, that a promise is not binding on its utterer
unless it has been made freely and without unlawful pressure.
The promiae which a man, who has fallen amongst robbers,
makes to preserve his life or recover his liberty, he may dis
regard when it has served his purpose. In like manner, to
preserve ourselves from the violence of dangerous maniacs, or
protect them from their own insane desires, it is not questioned
VOL, II, M

162 A Booh about Clergy.
that we may have recourse to any kind of artifice, to every form
of deceit. Their condition is such that we are under no obli
gation to deal truthfully with them ; ay, more, their condition
is such that it, may be our duty to tell them what is untrue.
In Charles's opinion, his rebellious subjects were both robbers
and madmen. They were robbers bent on depriving him by
force of his kingly rights; they were madmen vrhose minds
Satan had so thoroughly disordered, that they could not re
cognize in him the Lord's vicegerent on earth, and therefore a
being accountable to no earthly tribunal. He had fallen
amongst thieves : clearly promises made under compulsion to
armed thieves were not binding. He was dealing with mad
men, for whose safety, no less than his own, he was bound to
effect by fraud all such needful measures as he could not ac
complish without deceit. To some it may seem scarcely cre
dible that Charles took this riew of his rebellious aubjecta and
his obligations to them ; but the fact will appear less marvellous
when they reflect, that the king was one of those ordinary men
who are precisely what schoolmasters and circumstances make
them, and that he had been trained from boyhood in delusive
theories, which had completely deranged hia intellect, ao far as
its power of judging between himaelf and his rebellious subjects
was concerned. Moreover, Charles was far from being the only
Englishman to take this startling view. On the contrary, the
entire body of its assumptions, inferences, and conclusions, was
deemed one great mass of political and politico-religious truths
by the majority of his adherents. Egregiously absurd though
it appears to the ordinary intelligence of the nineteenth cen
tury, it constituted a large part of the doctrine which was dis
tributed to the people from the royalist pulpits of Charles the
First's England,

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 16i

CHAPTEE III
THE BREWING OF A STORM.
AFTEE a calm survey of the literature with which thi
Puritans strove to discredit the orthodox Churchmen, ane
the zealous Conformists declared their abhorrence of the pre
cisians, the impartial critic does not hesitate to say that botl
parties are alike chargeable with faults of violence, bad taste
and injustice. From Elizabeth's accession till the close of th
seventeenth century the controversy was carried on with mutua
ferocity, and the intemperate publications which it evoke(
from the partisans of both sides abound with instructiv
evidence how Christians and fellow-countrymen can hate on
another. Archbishop Parker described the Puritans as 'schismatics
belUe-gods, deceivers, flatterers, fools, such as have been un
learnedUe brought up in profane occupations ; puffed up ii
arrogancie of themselves, chargeable to vanities of assertions; o
whom it is feared that they make post-haste to be anabaptist
and libertines, gone out from ua, but belike never of us ; differ
ing not much from Donatists, shrinking and refusing minister
of London ; disturbers, factious, wilful entanglers, and encum
berers of the consciences of their hearers ; girdera, nippers
acoffers, biters, snappers at superiors ; having the spirit of ironj
smelling of Donatiatrie, or of Papistrie, Eogatianes, Circum
cellians, and Pelagians,' Whitgift remarked of them, 'tha
when they walked in the streets they hung down their head
and looked austerely, and in company they sighed much, an(
seldom or never laughed,' Dugdale was pleased to record o
them ' a viperous brood, miserably infecting these kingdoms

164 A Booh about Clergy.
they pretended to promote religion and a purer reformation ;
but rapine, spoil, and the destruction of civil government, were
the woeful effects of those pretences ; they were of their father
the devil, and his works they would do,'
That the vulgar ribaldry, which qualified the writings of
the more violent Puritan pamphleteers, afforded some counten
ance and appearance of fairness to Parker's account of their
sect, readers may ascertain on referring to the tracts of Martin
Marprelate, In one of his outpourings of indecent abuse,"
Martin, addressing the conforming clergy, remarked, 'Eight
reverend and terrible priests, my clergy, masters of the confo-
cation or conspiration-house, whether fickers, paltripolitans, or
others of the holy league of subscription — right poisoned, per
secuting, terrible priests, my learned masters, your government,
your cause is anti-Christian, your cause is desperate, your grounds
are ridiculous — Martin understands all your knavery, you are in
tolerable withstanders of the Eeformation, enemies of the gospd,
and most covetous, wretched, and Popish priests,' Whilst a
club of Separatists, writing under cover of a nom-de-plurke,
could apeak thus indecently of the national clergy, graver and
more courageous men, who did not shrink from the peril of
avowing their publicationa against the new religious settlement,
used language which was all the more calculated to rouse popu
lar aversion to episcopacy, because ita terms, though surcharged
with animosity and disdain, did not altogether misbeseem
scholarly and pious men. Beginning with these heats the con
troversy, which brought so many rash men to undeserved
calamity, so ma.ny honest families to destitution and shame,
grew in fierceness and intemperance until the zealots of either
party had persuaded themselves that the mildest and most
charitable of their opponents were miscreants of an atrocious
type. I am not aware of any literature more absolutely dis
creditable to authors, professing to write in behalf of the in
terests of religion, than some of the abusive, foul, scandalous
pamplileta, in which the Prelatists of the one part, and the
anti-Episcopalians of the other part, exchanged defiance, ca
lumny, and spiteful suggestion. To give an exact notion of
the coarseness and repulsive scurrility with which Bastwick, and
men of his temper, sometimes inveighed against prelates and

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 165
the entire clerical order, I should have to transcribe from their
works passages which would render this book unfit for circu
lation amongst gentlewomen. The . remembrance of their
virulence and abusiveness lessens our commiseration for the
sufferings inflicted on them at pillories and whipping-posts,
and would totally extinguish it, were not the recollection of
their miademeanoura attended with a memory of equally flag
rant excesaea committed by the men who corrected them with
.finea, atripes, and barbarous mutilations.
Appearing at a time when this contention, after raging for
two generations, was approaching its hottest fury, and had
drawn within its contrary currents all classes of the community,
the ecclesiastic, who, more than any other member of his pro
fession, determined Charles the First's religious policy, should
have studiously refrained from all speeches and actions that were
calculated to stimulate the passions of the contendents and
aggravate the heats of the controversy. Had he been a sagacious
and thoroughly capable man — sufficient for the exigencies of
an arduous office in extremely perilous times — Laud, whilst
ruling hia clergy with a firm hand and fearleasly protecting the
rights of the Church, would have forborne to constitute himself
the leader of any one party ; and, instead of exasperating the
Puritana by opposition which could work no aubatantial good to
the Establishment, would have striven to conciliate them by dis
charging the functions of his place with exact fairness and free
dom from paaaion. But Laud was by no means the man to
perform this difficult task. The Anglican Church in Charles
the First's reign had urgent need of exceptionally great men to
control and direct its forces; but, though he had sufficient
learning, much zeal, and a conscientious desire to do his duty
to God and the State, Laud was very far from being an excep
tionally great man. From some points of view he might be
called a contemptibly little man. He waa not a bad one. I
differ altogether from those 'writers who insist that malevolence
and cruelty were chief elements ofhis moral nature. It appears
to me that the whole significance of his story is lost to thoae
who cannot aee that his worst errors were due to intellectual in
capacity rather than to wickedness. With a nervous and
excitable temperament, he threw himself into a fight from which

166 A Booh about Clergy,
he should as far as possible have held himself aloof — a fight
that he should have watched from a high ground, and, on the
first signa of exhauation in the combatants, should have en
deavoured to terminate by leading the belligerents to a com
promise. Under the influence of the personal heata con
sequent on his participation in the fatal conflict, he said and
did things which were malignant and barbarous; but these
exceptional exhibitions of noxious qualities point rather to the
evil of which conscientious and kindly persons are capable
than to the chief characteristics and ruling forces of hia nature.
He waa vain and arrogant, aa men holding placea higher than
their abilities very often are ; he was petulant, and occasionally
resentful, aa partisans are apt to be ; like many pious men he
had strong superstitious tendencies, which resulted in his fondr
ness for ceremonial observances that were abhorrent to th^
Puritans. But when all his faults of irritability, vindictiveness,
vanity, insolence, and superstition, have been taken into account,,
and rated at their highest, he must be credited with more than
an ordinary amount of amiability, devoutness, and goodness of
purpose. At the present time, when there is a growing disposition in
the national mind to render justice to all the conspicuous actors
in the troubles of the seventeenth century, Laud auffera far less
from the extravagances of his vituperators than from the
excesses of the injudicious, and in places almost impious, adu
lators, who require that he should be commended as a consum
mate statesman, extolled as a Christian philanthropist, and
glorified as a martyr for the true faith. Exaggeration provokes
contradiction ; and they are not the least generous of our species
who are moved by a spirit of antagonism to put unjust censures
on the characters whom they are dictatorially ordered to treat
with injustice in the direction of praise. But in spite of the
doubts which cover many points of Laud's career, in spite of
the confusions arising from the fervour, the malice, and the
sheer dishonesty of his bitterest assailants, in spite of the
irritating absurdities and fanciful fabrications of his injurious
eulogists, it is not difficult to separate the good of his nature
from the evil, and to see that the former predominated over the
latter.

Part V. — Religion under the Commomvealth. 167
Often and justly it has been remarked of Charles the First,
that had he been a constitutional monarch in quiet times, ruling
a country in which the power of the crown was exactly and
clearly defined, he would have been a prosperous and useful
sovereign, and might have earned a splendid fame for sagacity
and goodness. With equal justice a similar judgment may be
passed on Charles's unfortunate primate. Had he ruled the
Church in a tranquil period, when religious life was more dis
posed to sloth than dangerous activity, and when there was no
embarrassing inclination in the people to resist ecclesiastical
authority, the very same qualities which brought him to the
scaffold would have earned for him the applause and gratitude
of his country. The energy, the restlessness, the busybodyism,
which, in an age of vehement contention, made him do harm
and provoke animosities in every direction, would have been
eminently serviceable to the Church in serene and slumberous
days — would have had on the entire machinery of the hierarchi
cal system the same effect that judicious friction and lubri
cation produce on the various parts of a complicated piece of
mechanism. They would have felicitously corrected the clerical
tendency to sloth, and guarded the church from rust and
decay. To his misfortune and the injury of our land he rose to
eminence at a time, when all hia distinctive, and some of his
best, qualities rendered him an especially unfit person for the
high posts to which he was lifted ; and of all those qualities,
perhaps, "the most hurtful were his delight in uniformity and
love of external orderlineaa. There ia a type of ecclesiastics who
are prone to exaggerate the value of unity of design and out
ward order. To attain the former they aacrifice the vital forces
of a true church ; to preserve the latter they drive their congre
gations into rebellion. Like those martinets of the army who
prize perfection of drUl above patriotism and soldierly devotion
to duty, and worry their men into insubordination and hatred
of the service by vexatious rules about pipeclay and straps,
these Churchmen are preciaians on matters of external form and
ceremonial detail, aa though the spirit were of small moment
in comparison with the modes of service. And of these hierarchs
Laud was an extreme specimen.

168 A Book about Clergy.
Prudence and the interests of reUgion required that, whil&t
steadily maintaining the dignity ofthe clergy and the authority
of the Church, he should have held the balance evenly between
the contending parties ; should have taken no needless notice of
the squabbles of the factions; should have borne a courteous
front to Nonconformists ; and, so as to prevent their increase,
should have winked at local demonstrations of Puritanical feel
ing and trivial offences against the canons. Such a moderate
course, however, was impossible to the primate, who — in his
government of the college of which he had been president, in
hia management of the aees to which he was successively pre
ferred, in his control of the university of which he was chancellor,
and in the direction of his archiepiacopal province — made out
ward orderlineaa and exact obedience to rules the first objects of
his discipline. His ideal of a perfect state was a society whose
members moved with universal precision in compliance with
the commands of authority. His ideal of a perfect national
church was one that enjoyed the support of the entire nation,
and was so administered that its clergy and laity observed its
rules with the regularity of clock-work in their various spheres,
like a well-drilled army, obedient to a supreme will. He prayed
for the time to come, when, throughout the land, the ecclesiastics
of each order would wear precisely the same vestments ; when
priests would read the appointed services at the same hours, in
the same time, with one voice, with one uniform series of bow
ings and genuflexions. For the sake of uniformity he wished
that the communion-table of every parish church should be put
in one way against the east wall, should be placed on a platform
raised above the floor of the chancel, should be surrounded with
rails ; and that harmony of design ahould be discernible in the
furniture of every place of worship. To promote the decency
and comeliness which gratify the eye, he encouraged incumbents
and churchwardens to return to some of those modes of decorating
churches, which the Eeformers had for"bidden or discountenanced,
and which he knew to be offensive to many of the clergy and a
considerable proportion of the laity. It would be unfair to re
present that this outward orderliness was all at which the inno
vator aimed. He believed that it would have definite results
on the minds and tempers of men of all classes, and that it

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 169
would train the populace to unity of opinion; and, whilst
prizing it highly for itself, he valued it yet more for what it
would effect.
This ideal ofa national church was peculiar neither to himself
nor to a small coterie of ecclesiasties ; and the means by which he
sought to reform the church into accordance with his ideal were
cordially approved by a large proportion of the fastidious aristo
cracy and the superstitioua vulgar. The feudal theory of govern
ment was decidedly in their favour, and his views were counten
anced by the traditions and practices ofthe Catholic system which
was still beloved by many who avowed abhorrence of the Pope,
The assthetic sense of the country went heartily with Laud, whose
innovations were loudly extolled by good society as wholesome
corrections of the irregularities which had occasioned scandal
and provoked reproof in Elizabeth's reign, but had survived all
the measures which had in former time been taken for their
amendment. Such men as George Herbert and Nicholas Ferrar
— whose natural gentleness and aubmissiveness fitted them to
be the placid disciples of an authoritative church, whilst their
refinement and delicacy revolted at the violence and noisy rude
ness of the sectaries — were filled with joy at the growth of
Laudian theories.
As he grew in dignity and power. Laud became more
arrogant and disdainful to his opponents. That he would have
been less willing to irritate, and more anxious to conciliate them,
had he known their number and influence, no one can question
who, with the page of history before him, sees how the primate's
policy is so far accountable for the civil war and ita results to
monarchy and episcopacy, that the conflict may be fairly called
the bishops' war. Whilst courtiers applauded him, and the
rulers of the church imitated him, and people of fashion cried
him thanks, he roused amongst the majority ofthe inferior gentry,
the commercial classes, and the yeomanry, the resentments which
brought king and primate to the scaffold, disestablished the
cathedrals, exalted Presbytery on the ruins of Prelacy, and drove
the royal house into exile. When we remember how he goaded,
mocked, insulted the great party which after long endurance of
vexatious persecution wreaked its vengeance on their con
temptuous oppressors in so terrible a manner, we are reminded

170 A Booh about Clergy.

of the fearlessness with which children walk on the edges of
yawning precipices, or play tricks with gunpowder, all un-
conscious of the danger they approach and' the destruction'
which they risk.
But for awhile the Laudian clergy and laity had an appear
ance of grounds for congratulating themselves on the success of
their chief's restoration of discipline. In aome particulars the
movement unquestionably resulted in good, Eeviving the taste
for ecclesiastical architecture, it stirred patrons and parsons to
renovate the churches which in spite of the ordinances for their
proper maintenance and repair had fallen in aome parts of the
country into scandalous dilapidation,* Alike in the capital and
other Cathedral cities, in provincial market-towns and rural
villages, were audible the hammers of masons and carpenters
employed on restoring places of worship, Eeligion became
fashionable ; and the social status of the clergy visibly improved.
Men of gentle birth and good estate more frequently deigned-^,
* Heylyn's biography gives us a charaoterietio picture of his activity aa a
church-restorer at Alresford. ' Into this living he ' [i.e. Heylyn) ' was no sooner
instituted and inducted, but he took care for the service of God to be constantly
performed by reading the Common Prayers in his church every morning, that
gave great satisfaction to the parish, being a populous market-town ; and for the
Communion-table, where the blessed sacrament ia consecrated, he ordered that it
should be placed according to ancient custom, at the east end of the church, and
railed about decently, to prevent base and profane usages ; and where the chancel
wanted anything of repairs, or the church itself, both to be amended. Having
thus showed his care first for the House of God to set it in good order, the next
work followed, was to make his own dwelling-house a fit and convenient habitation j
that to the old building lie added a new one, whifh was far more graceful, and
made thereto a cliappel next- to the dining-room, that was beautified and adorned
with silk-hangings about the altar; iu which chappel himself or his curate read
morning and evening prayers to the family; calling on hi? labourers and work-folk,
for he was seldom without them while he lived, saying that he loved the music bf
the workman's hammer.' In the same way, on settling in the same period at
Little Gidding, Huntingdonshire, Nicholas (Deacon) Ferrar — that gentiest of
Laudian High Churchmen — renovated the parish church, and provided his
manorial house with a chapel, wherein to perform daily services to the numerous'
members ofthe devout,industrious, and orderly household, which was stigWatized
by its traducers aa an Arminian nunnery. ' Many workmen having been employed
near two years,' says the deacon's biographer, 'both the house and church were
in tolerable repair, yet, with respect to the church, Mrs. Fen-ar was not well
satisfied. She, therefore, new floored and wainacotted it throughout. She pro
vided also two new suits of furniture for the reading-desk, pulpit, communion-'
table ; one for the week-days, and the other for Sundays and other festivals. The

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 171

to enter the clerical profession. Incumbents were more fre
quently put into commisaiona of peace; and the increaae of esteem
for the clergy was visible in the comparative alacrity with which
gentlewomen condescended to become the wives of such beneficed
clergymen as * condescended to matrimony,'
Whilst they rebuilt the steeples and outer walls of their
churches, the Laudian patrons and rectors decorated the temples
with the pictures in glass or on canvas, with the sculptures in wood
and stone, which often gave great offence to worshippers who, in
stead of openly exclaiming against such Popish mawmetries,
nursed their wrath againat the time when their bite should accom
pany their bark. The clergy of the prevailing school introduced
new modes of reading the common-prayer, and were distinguish
able from the Puritan clergy by the genuflexions, and prostrations,
and bowings to the east by which they endeavoured to enhance
the effectivenesa of the liturgy. The communion-tables were very
generally removed to the eastern walls, against which they were
put ' altar-wise ' within rails, and so retained until the par-
fumiture for week-days was of green cloth, with suitable cuahiona and carpets.
'That for feativals was of rich, blue cloth, -R'ith cushions of the aame, decorated
with lace and fringe of silver. The pulpit was fixed ou the north, and the reading-
desk over against it, on the south side of the church, and both on the same level ;
it being thought improper that a higher place should be appointed for preaching
than that which was allotted for prayer. A new font waa also pro-vided, the leg,
laver, and cover, all of braaa, handsomely and expensively wrought and carved ;
with a large brass lectern, or pUlar and eagle of brass for the Bible. The font
waa placed by the pulpit, and the lectern by the reading-deak. The half-pace, or
elevated floor, on which the communion-table stood at the end of the chancel, with
the stalls on each side, was covered with tafi'ety and cushions of the finest tapestry
and blue aiUt. The space behind the communion-table, under the east window,
was elegantly wainscotted, and adorned with the Ten Commandments, the Lord's
Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, engraved on four beautiful tablets of brass gilt. The
communion-table itself was furnished -with a silver paten, a silver chalice, and
silver candlesticks, with large wax candles in them. Many other candles of the
same sort were set up in every part of the church, and on all the pillars of the
stalls. And these were not for the purposes of superstition, but for real use ;
which, for great part of the year, the fixed hours for prayer made necessary for
morning and evening service. Mrs. Ferrar, also, taking great delight in church
music, buUt a gallery at the bottom of the church for the organ. Thus was the
church decently furnished, and ever after kept elegantly neat and clean.' For
particulara about this interesting faraUy, the Ferrars of Gidding Hall, the reader
should refer to Deacon N. Ferrar's ' Life,' — ' Cambridge in the Seventeenth Cen
tury. Part I. Nicholas Ferrar ' (MacmiUan) ; and to that scurrilous and lying
tract, ' The Arminian Nunnery' (1641).

172 A Booh about Clergy.

liamentarian reformers brought them back to their former
positions at the entrance of the chancel or in the nave, Sun
day-afternoon aermons were prohibited, and the laity were
instructed to show their gratitude to heaven and their attach
ment to the church by spending the later part of the Lord's
Day in games, dancing, and feasting. Even in rural districts
incense was burnt freely in the churches; and to those who
disapproved of the innovations it appeared that the church was
bent on undoing the Eeformation and restoring the Catholic
system. This opinion was held alike by moderate Puritans and
thoughtful CathoUcs, When Laud asked a lady of fashion, one of
the Earl of Devonshire's daughters, why she had gone over to
Eome, she answered pithily, 'It is chiefly because I hate to
travel in a crowd ; ' and on Laud pretending not to catch the
meaning ofthe reply, ahe added, 'I perceive your grace and
many others are making haste to Eome ; and therefore, to prevent
my being crowded, I have gone before you,' Eegarding the
Laudian movement from another point of view. Lord Falkland
declared .that the primate had ' brought in superstition and
scandal under the titles of reverence and decency, and defiled
the church by adorning the churches,' Even the high-church
Heylyn was constrained to admit that Laud ' attempted more
alterations in the church in one year, than a prudent man would
have done in a great many,'
Laud had an abundance of warnings and intimations of the
offence which his innovations gave to his opponents, — of the
rancorous ill-will which they were stirring up againat Prelacy
and the Establishment, But his temper and mental narrowness
caused him to despise the warnings, and think lightly of his
adversaries. With a smile he remarked that he was prepared
for a certain amount of opposition, and knew how to deal with
it. Schismatics, contumacious troublers of the church, rash
contemners of authority were malefactors of no novel sort. They
were in the church what thieves and other vulgar criminals
were in the state ; and it was the spiritual magistrate's duty to
chastise and subdue them. To what other end was the spiritual
magistrate armed with such swords — as i-ods and whips for bare
backs, knives for slitting noses and cropping ears, hot irons for
branding cheeks ; the power to ruin industrious families with

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 173
fines ; the right to throw noisy, prating fellows, like Leighton
and Prynne, into dungeons? And whilst the primate spoke
thus confidently, society wore such a superficial appearance of
general acquiescence in the movement, that its promoters mis
taking silence for consent could congratulate themselves on their
success.

174 A Booh about Clergy.

CHAPTEE IV,
THE STOEM BURSTS,
THE election of members to serve in the Long ParUament
announced to the most careless observers of public events
that the days of trouble and vengeance, ao long foretold by
aagacious politiciana, had actually arrived. When it waa aeen
how generally the conatituenciea had rejected the court-candi
dates, and aelected repreaentativea who were known to look with
disapprobation on the Laudian innovators, and to regard the
Star Chamber with abhorrence, the courtiers and High-church
clergy knew that matters would not flow smoothly with the
king and the spokesmen of the nation. But they were far from
imagining all the evils which were fast coming upon them.
Unaware of the extent to which they had sinned against public
opinion, they could neither appreciate the crisis nor anticipate
the events of the revolution, which, in the course of a few short
years, would sweep away the throne and church, the bishops
and the temporal peers. Though the court party had found
little favour with the electors, it was seen that the constituencies
had chosen men of honourable lineage and good estates, respected
in their various neighbourhoods for their intelligence and virtue
— men who were grave conformers to the established religion,
and supporters of Episcopal government. It could not be ima
gined that such men would prove dangerous to the atate and
implacably hoatile to the Church,
Like the rest of his famous narrative of the Eebellion,
Clarendon's account of the Long Parliament is thickly studded
with unjust insinuations, glaring inaccuracies, and impudent
untruths; but he says rightly of the temper and character of
the Englishmen who composed it, ' As to their religion, they
were all members of the Established Church, and almost to a

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 175
man for Episcopal government. Though they were undevoted
enough to the court, they had all imaginable duty for the king,
and affection for the government estabUshed by law or ancient
custom ; and without doubt the majority of that body were per
sons of gravity and wisdom, who, being possessed of great and
plentiful fortunes, had no mind to break the peace of the king
dom, or to make any considerable alterations in the government
of the Church or State,' From the haste which these English
gentlemen made to reform the abuses of the Church, the reso
lution which they showed to effect their purpose, and the faciUty
with which they passed from their original design to a policy of
destruction, the reader may see how profoundly and fiercely
they had been incensed by religious innovations, which they had
patiently endured until it was in their power to abate them.
The Long Parliament was opened November Srd, 1640; and
on the following Sunday, all its members received the Sacra
ment in Westminster Abbey from Bishop Williams, Dean of
Weatminater; but, whilst thus demonstrating their concurrence
in the doctrine of the Anglican Church, they signified their
disapprobation of Laudian noveltiea by requiring that the sacred
bread and wine should be administered to them at a com
munion-table placed in the body of the church, instead of at
the rails which had been put round the altar-like table. On
November 6th, 1640, a Grand Committee of Eeligion, consisting
of the whole house, was appointed under the chairmanship of
Mr, White, an able lawyer and member for Southwark, to in
quire into the immoralities of the clergy — a committee which
gave rise to the various sub-committees and provincial com
missions that bestirred themselves with memorable effect to
correct the insolences and vices of clerical delinquents, and to
eject from their preferments such incumbents as were imprudent
enough to espouse the royal -cause and oppose the revolutionary
measures of the Parliament.
From the appointment of the Grand Committee, measure
followed measure for the alteration of the ecclesiastical ar
rangements of the country, and for the humiliation of the
bishops, until, in the brief course of a few years, Episcopacy had
been abolished and the cathedrals disestablished. It had not
completed the first nine months of its existence when the Parli-

176 A Book about Clergy.

ament, by a measure ¦*" to which Charles reluctantly accorded
his assent, deprived the consistorial courts of those coercive
powers which had been employed aa instruments of Episcopal
vengeance on pious people, who, whilst conforming in all im
portant matters to the lawful requirements of the Church, had
resisted or spoken against the Laudian innovations. On Febru
ary 14th, 1642, Charles gave his assent to the actt which expelled
the biahopa from Parliament, and deprived them of all their
secular power through the years that intervened between the
passing of thia meaaure of radical reform and the revival of
Episcopacy on Charles the Second's restoration. Eesolutions

* This act provided ' that no archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, chanceUor,
or ofBcial, nor commissary, of any archbishop, biahop, or vicar-general, or any
other apiritual or ecclesiastical officer, shaU by any grant, license, or commiaaion
from the king, his heirs or successor.'!, after the Ist of August, 1641, award,
impose, or inflict any pain, penalty, fine, amercement, imprisonment, or other
corporal punishment, upon any of the king's subjects, for any contempt, misde
meanour, crime, matter or thing whatsoever, belonging to the spiritual or eccle
siastical jurisdiction, or aball ex-officio tender or administer to any person any
corporal oath, to make any presentment of any crime, or to confess or accuae
himself of any crime, offence, delinquency, or misdemeanour, whereby he or she
may be liable to any punishment whatsoever, under penalty of treble charges, and
lOOZ. to him or them who shall first demand or sue for the same.'
+ Here are the words of this memorable enactment : — ' Whereas bishops and
other persons in holy orders ought not to be entangled with secular juriadiction,
the office of the ministry being of such great importance tbat it wiU take up the
whole man. And for that it is found by long experience, tbat their intPi-meddUng
with secular jurisdictions hath occasioned great mischiefs and scandals both to
church and state, his majesty, out of his religious care of the church and souls of
his people, is graciously pleaaed that it be enacted, and by authority of this
present parliament be it enacted, that no archbishop or bishop, or other person
that now is or hereafter shall be in holy orders, shall at any time after the 15th
day of February, in the year of our Lord 164'2, have any seat or place, suff'rage or
vote, or use or execute any power or authority, in the parliaments of this realm,
nor shall be of the privy council of his majesty, his heirs or successors, or justices
of the peace of oyer and terminer or jail-delivery, or execute any temporal autho
rity, by virtue of any commission ; but shall be wholly disabled, and be incapable
to have, receive, use, or execute, any of the aaid offices, places, powers, autho
rities, and things aforesaid. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid,
that all acts from and after the said ISth of Ftbruary, which shall be done or
executed by any archbishop or bishop, or other persfins whatsoever in holy orders,
and aU and every suff'rage or voice given or delivered by them or any of them, or
other thing done by them or any of them, contrary to the purport and true
meaning of this act, shaU be utterly void to aU intents, constructions, and
purposes.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 177
hostile to prelacy, cathedral establishments, clerical privileges
and practices, were voted by the House of Commons with large
majorities in rapid succession; and, though some of them
stopped short of becoming law, they helped to familiarize Parli-
ment and the country with thoughts of clerical despoliation and
ecclesiastical change, and to create a public feeling which
speedily enabled the legislature to deprive the bishops and con
fiscate the property of the cathedrals. In neither House of Parli
ament had the prelates any important body of cordial supporters;
for, whilst the Commons had learnt to detest them for their
acts of persecution, the upper chamber disdained them as up
starts of plebeian birth, who presumed to arrogate to themselvea
equality with the ancient nobiUty of the country. It was
observed, that when episcopal interests were under consideration
their warmest defenders would leave the house for purposes of
social enjoyment. 'They who hate bishops,' Lord Falkland
remarked, ' hate them worse than the devil ; and they who love
them, do not love them as well as their dinner.' Whatever
friendliness towards the bishops had animated any section
of the Commons, before the actual commencement of the Civil
War, ceased altogether to be operative in the deliberations of
the popular assembly, so soon as the king had withdrawn from
his capital and appealed to arms ; and by the time the Eoyaliata
had aeen the futility of offering further reaiatance to the Parlia
mentarian forcea, there was no power in the legislature capable
of mitigating the severities of the ' Ordinances for aboUshing
Archbishops and Biahopa, and providing for the payment of the
juat and neceaaary debts of the kingdom, into which the same
has been drawn by a war, mainly promoted by, and in favour
of, the said archbishops, bishops, and other their adherents and
dependents.' The execution of Charles was followed speedily by the final
blow to the ancient hierarchical system of the nation, when, to
provide yet more completely for the debts and pecuniary needs
of the country, the Commons decided, — 'That from and after
the 29th day of March, 'in the year 1649, the name, title, dig
nity, function and office of Dean, Sub-dean, Dean and Chapter,
Archdeacon, Prior, Chancellour, Chaunter, Sub-chaunter, Trea
surer, Sub-treasurer, Succentor, Sacrist, Prebend, Canon, Canon
VOL. IL N

1 78 A Book about Clergy.
resident or non-resident. Petty Canon, Vicar Choral, Choirester,
Old Vicars and New, and all other titles and offices of, and
belonging to any cathedral, or collegiate church, or chapel, in
England and Wales, lower of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Isles of
Guernsey and Jersey, shall be, and are, by the authority afore
said, wholly abolished and taken away.' As for the estates of
the ecclesiastical corporations thus suppressed, the act vested
them in trusteea who were empowered to sell them. Not con
tent with abolishing the offices, confiscating the property, and
reducing the authorities and subordinate place-holders of these
ecclesiastical corporations from affluence to comparative penury,
the more zealous Eeformers wished to pull dovm the cathedrals
and sell their stones and bricks, as material for building. Be
lieving that most of these magnificent churches in no degree
furthered the interests of religion, and that the preservation of
their structures would tend to keep superstition alive, they re
commended that no time should be lost in treating them as
many superb minsters, and hundreds of less superb chapels, had
been dealt with at or since the dissolution of the monasteries.
It was even referred to a ParUamentary Committee to decide,
' What cathedrals are fit to stand, and what to be pulled down ;
and how such aa shall be pulled down may be applied to the
payment of the public faith.' In aupport of this barbarous
proposal for the wholesale demolition of the noblest works of
Gothic architecture — a proposal that emanated from men who
cared nothing for art, but much for what they considered the vital
concerns of reUgion — it was urged, that unless 'the neats were
destroyed the birds would return to them.' And in the ' Suffer
ings of the Clergy,' Dr. Walker, with manifest malevolence and
questionable veracity, asserts that the more violent Dissentera of
Queen Anne'a time used to declare that the great error of the
Puritans in their hour of triumph waa their neglect to destroy
the cathedrals.But, though the Puritans forbore to destroy utterly the dis
used churches, no steps were taken during the Commonwealth
to repair the injuries which the cathedrals sustained during the
Ciril War, alike from the EoyaUst and Parliamentarian troops,
or to preserve them from decay ; and when the bishops regained
possession of them, after the Eestoration, the sacred fabrics had

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 179
fallen into a miserable condition of dirt and dilapidation. Of
nearly every cathedral town, which during the war had been
a centre of military operations, the chief church had been used
for the purposes of the belligerents, as a fort, a magazine for
ammunition, a atable for troopera' horaes, or a place of drill in
foul weather. Both parties in the conflict seem to have been
equally ready to deal with sacred edifices thus profanely ; and
the neglect of years following on the violences of the war, and
on the methodical despoliation effected by the Parliamentarian
agents, furnished the Episcopal clergy of the Eestoration period
with acceptable grounds for inveighing indignantly against the
manner in which the rebels had defiled holy places. Bishop
Hacket's biographer. Dr. Thomas Plume, speaks with mingled
pathos and horror of the way in which horses were stabled be
neath the roof, and fed at the high altar of St. Paul's Cathedral.*
And the same writer, giving a graphic picture of the state in
which Bishop Hacket found Lichfield Cathedral at the opening
of Charles the Second's actual reign, remarks, — ' Therein before
the wars had been a most beautiful and comely cathedral church,
which the bishop, at his first coming, found moat desolate, and
ruined almost to the ground; the roof of stone, the timber,
lead, iron, glass, stalls, organs, utensils of rich value, all were
embezzled; 2000 shot of great ordinance and 1500 granadoes
discharged against it, which had quite battered down the spire,
and most of the fabrick ; ao that the old man took not so much
comfort in his new promotion as he found sorrow and pity in
himaelf to see his cathedral church thus lying in the dust ; so
that the very next morning, after his lordship's arrival, he set
his own coach-horses on work, together with other teems, to
carry away the rubbish ; which pile having cleared, he procured
artizans of all sorts to begin the new pile, and before his death
set up a compleat church again, better than ever it was before :
the whole roof from one end to the other, of a vast length re
paired with stone .... This rare building was finished in
eight years.'
* 'In those doleful days that waa done in St. Paul's which Selymus threatened
to St. Peter's at Rome— to stable his horaes in the church and feed them at the
high altar; whereupon our Doctor was very confident their reigne grew ripe
apace, and not long after hapned the death of OUver.' — Plume's Life of Hacket.

180 A Book about Clergy.
Of the manner in which clerical historians of the Eestoration
period and the following century generally speak of the silence
and desolation of the cathedrals under the Commonwealth, some
characteristic illustrations may be found in the * Sufferings of
the Clergy,' the author of which intemperate falsification of
history says, — ' Thus were the early structures of our ancestors
(distinguished among all the nations of the earth for their de
votion) and the memorable monuments of their piety defaced
and profaned ; the patrimony of the Church solemnly set apart,
and consecrated to God with such grievous execrations on those
who should alienate them ; and devoted to the honour of Christ
and His holy religion sacrilegiously torn from the Church, and
applied to the vilest purposes of a most execrable rebeUion ; th^
daily sacrifice of morning and evening prayers throughout the
several dioceses of the kingdom made to cease ; the continual
fountains, from which such constant supplies flowed to many
thousands of the poor, stopped up.'
It is almost needless to observe that so far as this language
is applicable to the Puritans who disestablished the cathedrals
in the seventeenth century, it may be applied to the Eeformers
of an earlier time who dissolved the monasteries, and, having
pulled down scores of monastic churches, converted some into
dwelUng-houses, whilst they left others to the piety of subsequent
ages to transmute into farm-buildinga ; and that, far from being
injured by ecclesiastical changes which attended or followed
from the struggle between Charles the First and the Long Par
liament, the poorer classes of the country derived more succour
from clerical munificence during the Commonwealth than they
had received from the same source at any time since the Ee
formation.

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 181

CHAPTEE V.
SCANDALOUS AND PLUNDERED CLERGY.
DUEING the Civil War there was no ecclesiastical government
in regular and uniform operation thoughout the country.
Until the abolition of Episcopacy had been finally and au
thoritatively declared, the government by biahopa, modified by
parliamentary ordinances and controlled by parliamentary
committees, was presumed to exist even in those parts of the
land where no prelate had any practical power. And whilst the
prelatic rule had been actually extinguished, though nominally
retained, in localities where the authority of Parliament was
paramount, it had also become weak or totally inoperative in
quarters which continued to declare allegiance to the crown.
Ecclesiastical discipline disappearing before the exigencies and
demoralising influences of the war, the incumbents and inferior
clergy of the loyal districts were left very much to their own
devices, and were at liberty to perform aa much or as little of
their appointed duties aa they thought fit. The majority of
the cavalier clergy, ao long as they retained their preferments,
I doubt not, discharged their official duties as exactly and con
scientiously as they had been wont to perform them before the
commencement ofthe civil disturbances ; but it is also certain that
not a few of them took advantage of the Ucense of the times to
neglect their pariahes, and to expend their energies on the plea^
sures of hilarious company and field-sports. On the other hand,
in those towns and rural parishes where Parliament was supreme,
the Divine service of the churches was distinguished by numer
ous irregularities and novelties, characteristic of the disorder
and temper of the period.
Wherever the Parliament held sway fasts were rigidly
observed, and public prayers were frequent. The Irish insur-

182 A Book about Clergy.
rection and massacre had moved the Parliament to recommend
the king to appoiat a monthly fast, which the pubUc should
keep with prayerful humiliation so long as the grievous con
dition of the country should seem to indicate that England was
an especial object of Divine displeasure ; and to this reasonable
and devout suggestion Charlea had appointed (January 1641)
that the last Wednesday of every month should be strictly
observed as a national fast. On the actual commencement of
the civil conflict, the Parliament ordered that this, fast should
be kept with increased rigour ; an order which, seeming to re
flect on the king's appeal to arms as though it were an additional
crime againat heaven, resulted in a royal order for the discont
tinuance of the fast, and a general inclination of the Eoyalists
to convert the monthly fast into a monthly festival. After the
Wednesday monthly fast had been for a considerable time ne
glected by the Eoyalists, and kept with a suggestive ostentation
of severity by the Puritans, the king (October 5th, 1643)
published the foUovring proclamation, — 'When a general fast
was first propounded to us in contemplation of the miseries of
our kingdom in Ireland, we readily consented to it. But when
we observe what ill use has been made of these public meetings,
in pulpits, in prayers, and in the sermons of many seditious
lecturers, to stir up and continue the rebellion raised against us
within this kingdom, we thought fit to command that such a
hypocritical fast, to the dishonour of God and slander of true
religion, be no longer continued and countenanced by our au
thority ; and yet we being desirous to express our own humiUation
and the humiliation of our people for our own sins and the sins
of the nation, are resolved to continue a monthly fast, but not on
the day formerly appointed by us. But we do expressly charge
and command that in all churches and chapels, &c., there be a
solemn fast religiously observed on the second Friday in every
month, with pubUc prayers and preaching where it may be had,
that as one man we may pour out our prayers to God, for the
continuance of His gracious presence and blessing upon us, and
for estabUshing a happy peace; for which purpose we have
caused devout forms of prayer to be composed and printed, and
intend to disperse them, that they may be used in aU parts of
our kingdom.' Whereupon there were two rival monthly fasts

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 183

- -the one being kept by the ParUamentarians, whilst the other
was observed by Eoyalists. Every man proclaimed his political
opinions by his selection of the one or the other day for hunger
and humiliation ; and whereas the fasters on the second Friday
of every month prayed for the defeat of the rebel forces, the
fasters on the last Wednesday of every month implored with
equal earnestness that the Eoyalists might be brought to peni
tence or destruction.
In London, where the monthly fast was rigidly observed by
all classes, a fashion arose of having public prayers in one or
other of the churches at an early hour of every morning. The
practice originated in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen, Milk
Street, where the minister, Mr. Case, finding himself embarrassed
on every Lord's Day by the number of solicitations that he
would offer up special prayers in behalf of particular persons
serving in Essex's army, determined to perform a morning's
service, of an hour's duration, on every day of the week ; of
which service one half should consist of prayers for Parliament
arian soldiers, and the other half should take the form of a
seasonable sermon to the congregation. After a month's trial,
which demonstrated its popularity, this service was removed to
another church, whence, after another month of crowded attend
ances, it was transferred to a. third church. The morning
lecture or ' exercise ' soon became a conspicuous feature of the
religious life of the metropolis ; and, on the termination of the
war, when the object of its institution no longer existed, it waa
continued as a casuistical lecture till Charles the Second's
restoration. Various eminent preachers took part in the delivery
of these daily discourses, which were published in several
volumes, under the name of 'Morning Exercises.' In a modified
form, this lecture was retained by the successors of the ejected
ministers ao late as the middle of the last century.
Whilst our forefathers fasted once a month, to win their
Creator'a favour and show abhorrence of their opponents, the
pulpits filled the country with the clamour of political contro
versy. Though the time was fast approaching when the clergy
gradually ceased to discharge those educational functions which
are nowadays performed by anonymous journalists and magazine
writera, the preachers of the English Church were still regarded

184 A Book about Clergy.
as the official instructors of the people on all affairs of national
interest, and especially on all matters pertaining to the govern
ment of the realm. Alike in the cities and the rural districts, the
congregations expected their clergy to declare the path which
conscientious Englishmen ought to take amidst the troubles of
a period rife with dissensions and perplexities ; and, whilst re
serving their right of private judgment and of open opposition
to official doctrine, they were greatly influenced by the political
manifestoes and arguments of the pulpit-orators; not less
guided, perhaps, by such spoken instruction than ordinary
citizena of the preaent time are controUed by the exhortations
and reasonings of the press.
These facts must be borne in mind by the reader when he
considers the harsh and summary methods which each of the con
tending parties adopted to silence hostile preachers. The clergy
were the chief newsmen and public commentators on news. At
a time when the only newspapers were meagre and irreg^ilarly
distributed sheets of vague and inaccurate intelligence, sermons
delivered in parish churches exercised on the ordinary population
of the country an influence analogous to the influence of our
public journals; and the same considerations which impel
governments to limit or destroy the freedom of the preaa, decided
governments in past time \,o interfere with the freedom of the
pulpit. In a period of intestine commotions and urgent perils
no government would be accused of illiberality or despotic ex
cess that, for the maintenance of social order and the protection
of the paramount interests of a commonwealth, should imprison
the editors and close the offices of newspapers which embarrassed
its action and defeated its policy by passionate misstatements
and inflammatory appeals to the malcontent populace. On the
contrary, at moments of exceptional danger, even in the opinion
of the most enthusiastic champions of the press, the government
would be deemed guilty of contemptible weakness and grave
crime which should forbear to exact from the chief directors and
promoters of public discuaaion the same respect and submission
that it required from all other constituents of the state. When,
therefore, we read of Cavalier soldiers silencing exemplary Puritan
ministers, and of Parliamentarian authorities driving meritorious
Caroline rectors from their Uvings, we must regard the sufferers'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 185
on either aide as silenced political lecturers rather than as
ejected preachers of the peaceful gospel ; and, whilst commiser
ating them for the hardships which befell them, we must re
member that their counterparts in modern society — conscientious
proprietors and editors of opposition journals — would, as a matter
of course, be just as arbitrarily and severely dealt with by in
jured authority at the present time in Uke trying emergencies.
When the various Parliamentarian Committees for inquiring
into the scandalous immoralities of the clergy commenced their
labours, they bestirred themselves chiefly in setting aside the
devices and practices of the Laudian innovators, in providing
efficient ministers for pariahes where Divine service was alto
gether, or almost entirely, disused through non-residence or
non-appointment of clergy, and in bringing to punishment the
numerous clerical delinquenta, whose lives were not(Jtiously dis
cordant with their sacred vocation. Though partisan scribes,
with alternate ignorance and dishonesty, have ventured to deny
that these clerical black sheep had any existence aave in the
imaginations of the malignant calumniators of the Church, all
the more candid and reputable historians of the EoyaUst party
have admitted that amongst the inferior clergy, more especially
amongst the inferior clergy of the rural neighbourhoods, there
prevailed an amount of open and diaguating vice, which called
loudly for correction. The social characteristics of the age, the
incidental admissions of contemporary delineators of society,
the reluctant avowals of grave historians, the exact narrations of
sworn eye-witnesses of the enormities which they describe, fur-
niah a maas of testimony which leaves no room for uncertainty
respecting the condition of our less scrupulous and efficient
clergy during Eichard Baxter's boyhood and manly prime.
' We lived in a country,' Baxter wrote of his birthplace in Shrop
shire, ' that had but Uttle preaching at all. In the viUage
where I was born there were four readers successively in six
years' time, ignorant men, and two of them immoral in their
lives, who were all my schoolmasters. In the village where my
father lived, there was a reader of about eighty years of age
that never preached, and had two churches about twenty miles
distant ; his eyesight failmg him, he said Common Prayer with
out a book ; but for the reading of the psalms and chapters, he

186 A Book about Clergy.

got a common thresher and day-labourer one year, and a taylor
another year (for the clerk could not read well) ; and at last he
had a kinsman of his own (the excellentest stage-player in all
the country, and a good gamester and good fellow), that got
orders and supplied one of his places. After him another young
kinsman, that could write and read, got orders;* and at the
same time another neighbour's son that had been a while at
school turned minister, and who would needs go further than
the rest, ventured to preach (and after got a living in Stafford
shire) ; and, when he had been a preacher about twelve or six
teen years, he was fain to give over, it being discovered that his
orders were forged by the first ingenious stage-player. After
him another neighbour's son took orders, when he had been
awhile an attorney's clerk and a common drunkard, and tipled
himself int» so great poverty that he had no other way to live.
It was feared that he and more of them came by their orders the
same way with the afore-mentioned person. These were the school
masters of my youth (except two of them) ; who read Common
Prayer on Sundays and holy-days, and taught achool, and tipled
on the week-days, and whipt the boys when they were drunk,
so that we changed them very oft. Within a few miles about
us, were near a dozen more ministers that were near eighty
year old a-piece, and never preached; poor ignorant readers,
and most of them of scandalous lives ; only three or four con
stant, competent preachers lived near ua, and thoae (though
conformable all save one) were the common marks of the people's
* The EUzabethafi bishops, and the prelates of our first James and first
Charles, occasionally conferred holy orders on candidates whose want of learning
was extreme ; and sometimes, if not usually, such candidates achieved their am
bition without ha-ving undergone any 'biahop's examination:' their only ere-
dentials of fitness for the divine office, and only certificates of accurate culture,
being 'the good words' of those who recommended them to the notice of the
prelate who laid hands ou them. Of Morton, bishop of Durham, the Uterary
author of the famous ' Book of Sports,' it is observed by his autobiographer, as a
conclusive proof of episcopal conscientiousness, ' He never ordained any for
priests and deacons (which he commonly did at the foure ordinations) but such
aa were graduatea in the university (or otherwiae well qualified in good learning).
And for a tryall of their parts, he always appointed a set time to examine them in
university learning, but chiefly in points of di-vinity; and in this he was very
exact, by making them answer syUogiatically, according to their abilities. And
he trusted not hia own chaplains in this sacred business, though otherwise very
able and learned divines.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 187
obloquy and reproach, and any that had but gone to hear them,
when he had no preaching at horae, was made the derision of
the vulgar rabble, under the odious name of a Puritane.'
On the outbreak of the Civil War, it devolved on the ParUa
ment to legialate for the entire body of the clergy, in the Parlia
mentarian quartera of the country, as well as to abate the evils
of non-residence and pluralism, reform Laudian abuses, and
correct the ecclesiastics who offended flagrantly against religion
and morals. So aoon as Charles, by withdrawing from the
capital, and levying forces for the subjugation of the national
assembly, had relinquished the constitutional control of the
realm, it appeared to the members of that assembly that they
had, rather through the sovereign's retirement from his lawful
office than by their own usurpation, become responsible for the
security of the country. Under circumstances known to every
Englishman they had become the ipso facto government of the
country ; and they claimed from the nation the same allegiance
and submission which were due to the king, in whose name
they determined to wield the supreme power, or such part of
the supreme power, aa they could command. Henceforth, for a
clergyman to preach against their authority and urge the popu
lace to resist them became almost the same treasonable offence
that it would have been, before the actual commencement of
hostilities, for the same clergyman to declaim against the king
and exhort the people to dethrone him. Of course, to those
who maintain that the Parliament had no legal or justifiable
status in the conflict, its assumption that it had a claim to the
support or tacit acquiescence of the priesthood is a preposterous
absurdity. But, even by those who cherish respect for the ex
ploded theories of non-resistance and the unlawfulness of re
bellion, it will be allowed that, having undertaken to carry on
the government of the country, the leaders of the Parliament
would have courted defeat and deserved obloquy had they
forborne to assert their authority over the pulpits.
Nor waa it by preaching alone that the Eoyaliat clergy aided
the king's cause, and embarrassed the enemies of prelacy and
despotism. On Sundays and the days of monthly fasting they
stimulated the loyalty of their hearers, and confirmed their con
gregations in suspicion and abhorrence of the Parliament, by

A Book about Clergy.

sermons which displayed, in piteous terms, the wrongs of the
sovereign, and, attributing the moat nefarious motives to the
directors of the rebellion, aimed at proring that the Council of
Westminster was no lawful Parliament, but a mere com
bination of plunderers, bent on enriching themselves by the
destruction of the monarchy, the despoliation of the Church,
and the impoverishment of the community. The effect of such
declarations from the parochial pulpits on the credulous multi
tude was very great; but the EoyaUst incumbents were still
more successful in fostering sympathy for the crown and hatred
of the usurpers by domestic gossip and fire-side agitatiom At
every festive meeting — in the squire's hall or the yeoman's par
lour, over the table of a church-ale or round the foot of a may
pole — the rector, the vicar, the curate, the men of cloth and
apeech, deplored the hardships of the timea, groaned over the
burdena of new taxes, predicted the speedy arrival of worse erils
than the calamities of civil war, and boldly attributed all the
troubles of the crisis to the impious politicians who had driven
the king from his capital, and were bent on driring him from
his realm. Yet further. The EoyaUst clergy, distributed over the
country, and so placed that they could hold unobtrusive com
munication with one another, proved themselves most valuable
auxiliaries to the royal cauae, as cautious, intelligent, and trust
worthy agents for the transmission of intelligence. Wherever
the Parliamentarian forces appeared, their movements were ac
curately reported to the king's advisers, and the Cavaliers in
every part of the country, by the parochial priests. When the
king, or any leader of the king's party, wished to disseminate
encouraging news amongst the Eoyalists of distant parts, or to
prepare the Cavaliers of a particular locality for the occurrence
of events likely to affect the subsequent course of the struggle,
he had only to confide his information to a clerical confederate,
and forthwith it travelled throughout the land, or to the special
district which it was designed to influence. The intercommu
nication which the Cavaliers in the different parts ofthe country
maintained throughout the war, to the great benefit of their
party and the corresponding disadvantage of their antagoniats,
was mainly effected by clerical agency ; and in the covert ope-

Part V. — -Religion under the Commonwealth. 189
rations of the CavaUers from the beginning of the contest to its
close, and further onwards till the restoration of Charles the
Second, no class of partisans exceeded the zeal and craft of the
numerous divines who, like Heylyn* and Allestree, repeatedly
imperilled their lives in the secret service of the crown. From
the results which flowed from thia clerical support of Charles
the First — the strength which it brought to the royal forces,
the embarrassments which it occasioned the Parliament- —the
* From the time when he gained Charles the First's favour by the prompti
tude with which he read the ' Histriomastyx,' and marked out its objectionable
passages for the guidance of its author's prosecutors, until his death in 1663,
Heylyn was actively engaged in ecclesiastical politics and secret counaela. Of
the dangers he encountered and the disguises he assumed much is said in his
biography, which throws light on the doings of the clerical politicians of the
Commonwealth period. ' So that,' says the biographer, ' being no longer able to
maintain himself and his family in Oxford, he sent hia wife to London, to get
what money she could amongst her relationa : himaelf went out of Oxford, a.d.
1645, walking as a poor traveller throughout the country, and disguised both in
his name and habit : he sometimes went under the name of Barker ; at other
times he took the name of Harding, by which he was well known among his
friends, aud not discovered by his enemies. His habit changed from that of a
priest to a layman, and in the likeness usually of an honest countryman, or else
of a poor decayed gentleman, as indeed he was.' Having reached Winchester
without falUng into the hands of the Parliamentarian agents, who were on hia
track, Heylyn ' settled himself, wife and eldest daughter, in the houae of a right
honest man, one Mr. Lizard, -with whom they tabled a good while, where he had
a comfortable time of breathing and rest after hia former troubles .... Eut
those halcyon days quickly vanished, aa seldom prosperity continues so long as
adversity ; for that town and castle, especially, which was thought strong enough
to resist a greater force than came against it, were both treacherously delivered
up to the hands of their enemies in those days ; and now every houae was full of
soldiers quartered amongst them. Poor Dr. Heylyn was in more danger than
ever, had not Mr. Lizard taken care of him as hia dearest guest, and hid him iu
a private room, as Providence ordained to save hia Ufe : which room formerly was
supposed to bs made for the hiding of Seminary priests and Jesuits, because the
houae heretofore belonged to a Papist family ; and indeed it was so cunningly
contrived, that there was no door to be seen, nor entring into it, but behind an
old bed's head ; and if the bed had not been there, the door was so neatly made
like the other waintscot of the chamber, that it was impossible for a stranger to
find it out. In which room, instead of a Papist, a right Protestant doctor, who
was a professed enemy both to Popery and Puritanism, was now secured from
the rage and violence of the soldiers, who sought after him with no less eagerness
than if he had been a heretic, followed by the Spanish Inquisition, when the good
man was in the very next room to them, adjoining to the dining chamber, where
he would hear aU their viUany and mirth, their gaming at cards and dice : for
those idle Purdanes spent their time only in riot and pleasure at home, and when
they went abroad would tread the maze near the town. He took this opportunity

190 A Book about Clergy.
reader may form some conception of the far greater difficulties
which would have accrued to Henry the Eighth from the oppo
sition of the regular clergy, had he refrained from dissolving
the religious associations, whose members, in case of a civil
war between the Papal Catholics and national Churchmen,
would have fortified their abbeys and colleges in the Pope's
serrice, and would have used all their wealth and influence to
make their sovereign once more the spiritual vassal ofthe pontiff.
on the market-day to put on his travelling-robes, with a long staff' in his hand,
and so walked out of the town confidently, -with the country crowd, bidding adieu
to the little room, that he left for the next distressed gentleman : in the mean
while his wife and daughter he intrusted to Mr. Lizard's care, his faithful friend.
But now he must again travel to seek his Fortune, which proved more kind td
him than she did before : yet he met with a hard adventure not many miles from
Winchester, where aome straggling soldiers lighting upon him and catching hold
of his hand, felt a ring under his glove, which through haste of his escape he
forgot to pull off; which no aooner discovered, but they roughly awore he was
some runaway Cavalier. The ring being hard to get off, the poor Doctor -wiUingly
helped them : in which time came galloping by some of the parUament's scouts,
who said to their fellow-soldiera, " Look to youraelves, the Cavaliers are coming T'
At which words being affrighted, they took that Uttle money that was in his
pocket, and so rid without further search ; and he, good man, soon jogged ou to
the next friend's house, with some pieces of gold that he had hid in his high
shoes, which, if the rogues had not been so hastily frighted away, would have
been undoubtedly found, and might have cost him his life by further suspicions
of him. At what friend's house he waa now secured from danger, though I have
heard him named, indeed I have forgot; but from thence he travelled to Dr.
Kingamill, a loyal person of great worth and ancient family, where he continued,
and sent for his wife and daughter from Winchester to him ; and from thence re
moved to Minster Level (Oxfordshire), the pleasant seat of his elder brother, in
the year 1648, which he farmed for his nephew. Colonel Heylyn, for six years.
Being deprived of his eccleaiastical preferments, he must think of some honest
way for livelihood.'
Eichard Allestree waa another of the Oxford clergy who, in days when a
clergyman was seldom a sluggish and lukewarm politician, rendered important
services to his party, as a secret agent and communicator of intelUgence between
the scattered aaaociationa of Cavaliera. Of the part which AUeatree played in
bringing about the restoration. Bishop FeU says, ' After several difficult journeys
successfully performed, in the winter before his majesty's happy restoration, he
was sent over into Flanders; from whence returning with a party of soldiers, who
waited for him, the rebel's spy, who was employed by them in his majesty's court,
having given notice of his dispatch, and described particularly his person and
habit. Eut notwithstanding tiiis diUgence of the rebels, Mr. AUeatree had so
much presence of mind as to rescue his letters and shift them into a faithful hand,
and took care of them.' AUestree waa taken to London and thrown into Lambeth
House, whence he was liberated by time-serving watchers of events, who lived to
see him become Provost of Eton.

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 191
The Eoyalists demanded from the clergy the same submis
siveness and co-operation which the Parliamentarian authorities
required from the occupants of parochial pulpits. Wherever
the king's power was supreme, summary and harsh punish
ments were dealt out to incumbents and assistant-curates who
had either sided with the Parliament or exhibited any inclination
to Puritanism, The rector who had forborne to read the royal
proclamations to his congregation, or who, in compliance with
parliamentary orders had removed the communion-table from
the east end to the middle of his church, was deemed a traitor.
If the king's soldiers caught him, he was cast into prison,
although his neglect to read the king's proclamations might
have resulted only from fear of the Parliament's vengeance, and
though his reversal of Laudian innovationa might have pro
ceeded from the neceaaity of the moment. Whether a captive
in the banda of the Eoyaliats, or a fugitive from their vengeance,
he waa deprived of his preferment, and his house was plundered
by Cavalier soldiers. Hundreds of clerical families were thus
reduced to absolute beggary ; and, flying to London, they gave
such deplorable accounts of their condition as induced the
Parliament (December 31, 1642) to appoint a committee to
devise means ' for the relief of such godly and well-affected
ministers as have been plundered : and what malignant clergy
men have benefices in and about the town, whose benefices
being sequestered, may be supplied by others who may receive
their profits.' The state of the entire clerical body, at this
time, was one of extreme anxiety and general hardship. From
the action of the Eoyalists who silenced and ejected the Puritan
incumbents, and the operation of the committees who deprived
the Cavalier clergy, distress rapidly increased within the eccle
siastical order; and those of the beneficed clergy who had
hitherto escaped injury, or even derived material profit from
the revolutionary occurrences, had reason to fear for the per
manency of their good fortune.
That the committee for plundered ministera,^ — or as the
Cavalier satirists preferred to designate it, the ' committee for
plundering ministers,' — stimulated the various parUamentary
and local committees for amending religious scandals to deal
more severely than heretofore with contumacious and disorderly

192 A Book about Clergy.
clergymen, is certain ; but the eridence of facta is altogether
opposed to the partisan historians of Clarendon's school, who
charge those committees with gross and almost invariable in
justice, and represent that the clergy ejected by the parlia
mentary inquiaitora — or rather ejected by the Parliament on
the recommendation of its inquisitors — were for the most part
pious and honourable persons, whose sole offence waa loyalty to
their sovereign. To say nothing of the improbability that English
gentlemen would perpetrate the enormities imputed to these
committees by the EoyaUst scribes, the testimony of moderate
men of both parties in the conflict justifies the proceedings of
the ejectors. Fuller, Kennet, Baxter, Eachard, concur in the
opinion that many of the displaced clergy were scandalously
vicious. Fuller declares 'Ahat several of the offences of the
clergy were ao foul, that it ia a shame to report them, crying to
justice for punishment.' Baxter, with more preciseness, records
' that in all the countries where he was acquainted, six to one at
least, if not many more, that were sequestered by the committees,
were by the oaths of witnesses proved insufficient or scandalous,
or especially guilty of drunkenness and swearing.' Moreover,
it may be fairly advanced in behalf of the committees, that, in
many ofthe cases where they exercised an excess of severity, and
seem to have been actuated by resentment, they were provoked
inordinately by the insolent language and defiant bearing of the
clergy under trial.
To counteract the clamours and false reports which the
Eoyalists raised against the numerous ejectiona of acandalous
clergy, Mr. White drew up a brief memoir of a hundred in
stances of the kinds of misconduct for which these clergy had
been evicted; and this justificatory statement was printed by
order ofthe Committee of Eeligion (Nov. 17, 1643) under the
title of ' The First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests,
Made and Admitted Into Benefices by the Prelates, in Whose
Hands the Ordination of Ministers and the Government of the
Church hath been.' P''or his familiar appellation of ' the
centurist ' Mr. White was indebted to this characteristic pub
lication, which, interesting on many grounds, is especially note
worthy for the evidence which it affords that the Parliamen
tarians not only deemed themselves justified in silencing

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 193
miniaters who resisted their authority, but were also confident
that public opinion would hold them to be justified in so doing.
Several of the priests mentioned in the ' First Century ' were
abominable offenders against common decency; but not content
to rest the justice of their punishment on their flagrant sins
against temperance, chastity, and reverence for God's name, the
compiler in nearly every ease finishes up the catalogue of their
crimes vrith a statement that they were malignant talkers against
the Parliament. One of the most revolting cases of clerical iniquity men
tioned in the hundred instances, is the case of an Essex rector,
who was proved on conclusive eridence to have perpetrated
a series of disgusting enormities, that may not be minutely
set forth on a page intended for general circulation. This
wretch's conduct, apart from his political excesses, would have
justified a far severer punishment than social degradation and
dismiaaal from office ; and yet the Centurist — strengthening his
case perhaps to contemporary readers, but greatly weakening
it to the student of the present date — goes on to say that the
said delinquent was a ' forward maintainor and practiser of the
late illegal innovations, and hath expressed great malignancy
against the Parliament, affirming, "That they sate to make
lawes by authoritie, and brake them without authoritie, which
waa mere hypocrisy." And in his pulpit spake against the pre
sent defensive warre, proteating that now when " every child
lift up his sword to abed innocent blood, it waa high time for
him to lift up his voyce Uke a trumpet," And did read in his
church declarations set out in his Majestie's name, but refused
to reade any declarations of Parliament, and at Christmas was
12 moneth having appointed a communion, and all things were
ready for it, and the parishioners prepared, he turned his backe
and went away, refusing to deliver it, because the surplice was
not there. And falsely affirmed " that the Parliament gathered
great summes of money to enrich their own purses," '
Another misdemeanant, of a milder and comparatively
agreeable sort — the statement of whose contumacious proceed
ings it is difficult to read without a smile — was the Eev.
Cuthbert Dale, rector of Kettleburgh, Suffolk, whose living the
Parliament had sequestered, ' for that he was a constant observer
VOL. IL 0

194 A Book about Clergy.
of late illegall innovations in the worship of God, and prevented
and troubled hia parishioners in the Ecclesiastical Courts for
not comming up to the rails to receive the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper, and not observing other of the said Innovations,
and is a common swearer and cursor, and in his sermons hath
maintained, " That the angells did mediate for the children of
God, and that men might drinke one pot for necessityj a second
for recreation, and a third for good-fellowship ; and that it is
not the blood of Christ that takes away sinne before God, but
it is repentance and tears that washes away sinnes," and hath
read the " Book of Sports" on the Lord's Day, and hath slighted
and neglected the monethly fast, and suffered his servants to
worke thereupon ; and seeing a stranger in church put on his
hat * in sermon time, he openly then called him, " Sawcy,
unmannerly downe," and bid the churchwardens take notice of
him, and the next Lord's Day tooke occasion in his sermon
againe to speake of him being then absent, and to call him
Lobb, Sawcy Goose, Idiot, a Wigeon, a Cuckoo, saying he was
a scabbed sheep, a stragler, and none of his flock ; and is a
common ale-house and tavern-haunter, and hath been often
drunk, and frequently in his pulpit upbraideth his parishioners,
calling them Knaves, Devills, Easkalls, Eogues, and Villains,
using other opprobrious speeches against them, and in one of
his sermona affirmed, " That he hoped that the late Lord Cooke
was in hell, for maintaining prohibitions," and hath been very
negligent in his cure, oft absenting himaelf for many weekes
together, and learing the same in his absence to very scandalous
curates, and hath wholly deserted hia said cure for above nine
weekes last past, and hath expressed great maUgnancy against
the ParUament.'
* The reader of a former page of this work does not need to be told, that in
Charles the First's time to sit in church -with one's hat on waa not the same sign
of irreverence that it is at the present day. Old-fashioned folk, even in towns,
stiU continued to wear their hats in church. That a country rector should
venture thus to upbraid au otherwise unoffending worshipper for keeping hia hat
on his head under the roof of a rural church, is a proof, however, that the good
people in and near Eettieburgh had generally adopted the new fashion of sitting
uncovered in the Lord's house. Mr. Cuthbert Dale was an eccentric and impulsive
gentieman, but he would scarcely have inveighed violently against an ancient
usage which the good society of his neighbourhood still countenanced.

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 195
The proceedings of a local court of inquisitors, acting on
authority derived from the Committee of Eeligion, were often
attended with ludicrous incidents. The clergy who appeared
to answer to the charges preferred against them frequently
raised the laughter of their rustic auditors by maliciously
holding up to ridicule the deficient learning of their judges,
who were for the most part such deputy-lieutenants and magis
trates of the locality as adhered to the cause of the Parliament.
Occasionally the evidence, given by humble and untaught
persons, was trivial and irrelevant to the articles of indictment ;
and the friends of the ejected incumbents were not slow to make
the most of the trivialities and irrelevanciea, as though they
comprised all the evidence against the deprived parsons. Thus
stories floated into circulation that one rector had lost his
living because he had walked in his garden on a Sunday morn
ing, that a second had been deprived because his hound killed
a hare on the Lord's Day, that a third was declared scandalous
because he had eaten too much custard at a supper. In the
high-church days of Queen Anne, when it was the fashion to
declare that the ministers ejected in 1662 had suffered no worse
than the Episcopalian clergy who were deprived during the civil
war. Dr. Walker turned theae piquant anecdotes to account in
his ' Sufferings of the Clergy.' ' But I cannot forbear,' wrote
the doctor, ' preventing myself by producing an incident or two
at present of the trifling and ridiculoua things that were alleged
against some of them. In Cumberland a gentleman was
avowedly ejected for hunting. The crime against another was
" Walking in his garden on a Sunday morning,'' And against
a third was alleged the fault of his servant, which it was
impossible for him to have prevented, A reverend clergyman
of Gloucestershire had this accusation against them, " That he
coursed a hare on the Sabbath-day, which was no other than
hia grey-hounda pursuing, and kilUng an hare that accidentally
came before, them .... A clergyman suffering his children to
play at cards for pins hath helped, it ia affirmed, to make up
one of the cfimea againat him ; and it ia said that the Eeverend
Mr. Lionel Playters of Ugshall, in Suffolk, was accused of
" eating custard after a scandalous manner;" not that he was,
as I suppose, accused in these words ; but probably something

196 A Booh about Clergy.
in hia eating was produced in countenance of some matter
alleged against him.'
In his special memoir of this Mr. Playters, Dr, Walker shows
precisely that, if the sequestrators had no other grounds of
complaint against this scandalous eater of custard, they at least
had sure proof that he was a violent politician and implacable
enemy of the Parliament, ' He was,' says the narrator of
clerical sufferings, ' the son of Sir Thomas Playters of Satterly,
knt., and baronet, which honour he afterwards enjoyed himself,
on the death of his elder brother Sir William Playters , ,, .
June 20, 1644, articles were exhibited against him before the
sequestrators under the Earl of Manchester; the aubatance of
which, as entered in the proceedings of those investigators, was
hia observing the rules and orders prescribed by the Church,
preaching up submiasion to his Majesty, inveighing earnestly
against the rebellion, refusing the covenant, keeping company
with one who afterwards, as 'twas asserted, went to the Cavalier
Popish army, and saying that he had a parcel of hemp to sell,
and hoped it would bear a good price ; because, if the times
continued, a great many would want hanging : and that rather
than fail, he would give it to the king to hang up the Eound
heads. I have also been informed, that one chief article against
him (which waa ao much insisted upon before the sequestrators,
that it was looked upon as a prime cause of his ejectment) was,
his eating custard in a very scandalous manner, of which, it
seems, he was a very great lover. But if they had ao Uttle
conacience aa to turn him out for this, 'tis certain they had
more wit than to avow it, and let it stand upon record : For
I do not find anything of it in that extract of the original
article against him, which I have received from another
hand.' Unscrupulous in covering the deprived clergy with adulation,
Dr. Walker is no less reckless in what he says to the discredit of
their successors, ' Two of Mr, Tyllot's successors at Depden in
Suffolk,' the partisan records, 'were illiterate mechanics, as
appears from the Parish Eegister-Book, where they under their
hands left lasting monuments of their insufficiency by writing
nonsense and false grammar, as often as they had occasion to write
at all. The Lady Eden's coachman (whose name was Ongue)

Part V. — Religion Under the Commonwealth. 197
succeeded to the sequestered living of Keldon in Essex : and it
may be he was the coachman (though 'tis not impossible, that
two of that employment might go into the pulpit, as well as the
coach-box, in those days, and no doubt, drove on furiously) who
preached sometimes at Hampstead in Hertfordshire.' From
this sample the reader may judge of the fairness with which Dr,
Walker writes of the national clergy who after the Eestoration
either joined the Episcopalian establishment and became mem
bers of his own order, or resigned their preferments from con
scientious scruples,
Dr, Edmund Calamy's reply to Dr. Walker's ' Sufferings of
the Clergy ' aids the inquirer not a little in his attempts to form
an impartial estimate of the politico-religious delinquents
ejected by the parliamentary Committees of Eeligion, and throws
much light on the condition of the Anglican clergy in Charles
the First's time. Concerning Mr. Belton of Mexbrough — a
choice specimen of the clerical roisterers of Caroline England, in
whose favour Dr. Walker refrains from speaking anything
definite, although he has included him inthe list of ecclesiastical
sufferers from the Puritanical persecution — the author of
' Church and Dissenters compared ' remarks, ' His Uving was
reckoned but at £10. per annum, besides a dinner on the Lord's
Day ; which was too much for him, unless he had been better.
For he was infamous for his impudence and impiety, and pro
moting prophaneness among the loose gentry. About fifteen of
them entered into a fraternity, and chose him for their ghostly
father ; and being a aingle man, he spent moat of his time at
their houses, making them sport with his scurrilous profane
wit. He was such a rake, that the whole country rang of him
his pranks.' In the pages of the same learned and reverend writer,
appears another clerical black sheep of the same sort, — Mr.
Francis of Staunton in Nottinghamshire, a gentleman who had
the free run of several country-houses, in which he played the
part of buffoon by turns to the quality in the dining-room and
to the menials in the servants' hall. ' He waa a drunken,
prophane wretch,' says Calamy, who tells farther how this
caasock-wearing scapegrace ' one Sunday in the evening, in the
summer-season, called at the house of a certain baronet in his

198 A Booh about Clergy.
return from Grantham Market to Staunton. He happened to
come in when the servants were at supper in the hall. They
desired him to sit down with them, which he did. When aupper
was ended, they desired him also to return thanks : which he did
in these words, ' The Lord be blessed for all His gifts,
The Devil be hang'd for all his shifts.'
' Methinks a number of such worthies as these,' adds the pious
Calamy,' would not much have recommended any caUse in
Christendom,' Mr, Ven of Otterton in Devonshire, commended by Dr,
Walker as a worthy man, had a keen appetite for good liquor,
and sometimes drank more than prudence allowed. But
though he waa now and then fined by a magistrate or reproved
by his graver brethren for inebriety, he retained the respect of
his political allies by the fervour with which he denounced
Puritans and Parliamentarians. ' When Mr. Duke,' says Dr.
Calamy, ' attended to receive the sacrament, though he was his
patron, yet without any warning or exception before, Mr. Ven
told him at the table, he could not administer the sacrament to a
rebel ; and yet his house was a garrison for the king, and he was
a very pious and peaceable gentleman, that meddled little with
the affairs of those times.'
Amongst wits whose humour found expreasion in comical
exaggerationa and grotesque lies, Mr. Charles Churchill, the
ejected pastor of Feniton, had neither superior nor equal
throughout Devonshire, He ' waa a man,' says Calamy, ' of a
lying tongue, that was continually talking of jocular lies, to
ridicule religion and religious men. Insomuch that his own
wife would say, you must not believe my husband : for he uses
to tell his lies to make noblemen laugh. He was much
addicted to prophane jeerings and mocking at holy things. Once
when he was riding along by a Puritan's door, and found he was
at family prayer, he said he prayed so heartily that he was in
bodily fear his horse would have fallen down on his knees.
And he was so much given to drunkenness that he had debauched
the greatest part of the gentlemen and farmers in the parish,
who had the greatest deliverance in the world when he was

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 199
turned out, and succeeded by so excellent a person, and ao good
and exemplary a Christian as Mr. Hieron.'
Another of the eccentric persons whom Dr. Walker includes
amongst his sufferers under the Puritan persecution waa Levis,
the miserable vicar of Brandeston in Suffolk, who was tried for
necromancy, and executed at Bury as a wizard. ' He had been
vicar of thia liring fifty years,' says Dr. Walker, ' and was
executed with about sixty more, for being a wizard, at Bury in
this county. But a neighbour Justice of the Peace, and a Doctor
of Divinity, who both knew him very well, altogether acquit him
of that crime, as far as they could judge; and did verily believe
the truth of it is, he was a contentious man, and made his
parishioners very uneasy, and they were glad to take the oppor
tunity of thoae wicked times and get him hanged, rather than
not get rid of him ; so that matter hath been represented to me.
If this be the true state of the case, and the party were glad of
any occasion, not only to sequester but also to hang up the clergy
ofthe Establishment, there cannot be any question made, but
that Mr. Levis doth moat justly claim a place in the list : but if
any who live nearer to the place or have any other opportunities
of searching to the bottom of this story than I have, can discover
the contrary, I shall most gladly discard him, and readily joyn in
acknowledging the justice of his sentence.' From the terms in
which he conditionally acquits this luckless vicar of necromantic
guilt, it is clear that the sapient author of the ' Sufferings ofthe
Clergy,' writing in the last year of Queen Anne, had not
relinquished belief in witchcraft and the black art.
In judging the men and actions of a time when aged
clergymen and senile ladies could be solemnly tried and bru
tally murdered by process of law for unholy dealings with Satan,
it is impoasible to make too much aUowance for the ignorance of
the period and for the immorality that usually attends gross su
perstition and mental blindness.
Of the wide difference between the England of to-day and
the England ofthe aeventeenth century the reader must not be
unmindful, when considering the faults and virtues, the merited
punishments and the undeserved sufferings of the so-called
' scandalous clergy,' who for a while fiUed the prisons of London
to overflowing, and of whose companions in misery Clarendon

200 A Booh about Clergy.
wrote, ' Not only all the priaons about London were quickly
filled with persons of honour and great reputation for sobriety and
integrity to their countiea, but new prisons were made for their
reception, and of which was a new and barbarous invention ;
very many persons of very good quality^ both of the clergy and
laity were committed to prison on board the ships of the river
Thames, where they were kept under decks, and no friend
suffered to come to them, by which toany lost their lives.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 201

CHAPTEE VI.
CHURCH SERVICE UNDER ASSEMBLERS AND TRIERS.
TO supply the place of Convocation, an institution which had
perished for the time. Parliament created the Assembly,
consisting of thirty laymen and one hundred and thirty- one
clerical persona,* who were invited to meet on July 1st, 1643,
at Westminster, in King Henry the Seventh's Chapel, to deli
berate on the religious concerns of the country, and to assist
the Parliament with counsel on questions of ecclesiastical polity.
Amongst the laymen summoned to thia council were ten peers
of great influence and character, and several commoners of
brilliant parts and extraordinary learning, John Selden, the
two Vanes, John Glynne, White the Centurist, Bulstrode White-
locke, Oliver St, John, John Pym, John Maynard, and Matthew
Hale, had seats in the Parliament's Convocation, which, from
the time of its flrst meeting in 1643 till its separation in 1652,
exercised a beneficial, though inadequate, influence on the re
ligious action of the people.
The Aasemblers — as the members of this mushroom convo
cation were called — had a difficult part assigned to them in
days when spiritual authorities were held in no high esteem ;
* Amongst these ecclesiastical persons were several staunch Royalists, somS
high dignitaries of the Church, and several who became bishops after the Restor
ation. Archbiahop Usher, Bishop Prideaux, Bishop Bro-wnrigge, Drs. Sanderson,
Morley, and Hammond, were iu the original Ust of Assemblers, or rather, of
di-rinea invited to assemble. ' Their first Ust,' says Sir John Birkenhead, ' was
sprinkled -with some names of honour (Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Morley, Dr. Ham
mond, &o.) ; but theae divines were too worthy to mix -with such aoandaloua mi
nisters, and would not assemble without the royal call. Nay, the first list had
one archbishop, one bishop, and an half (Bishop Brownrigge was then but elect) ;
but now their assembly, as philosophers think the world, consists of atoms, petty
small Levites, whose parts are not discernible.'

202 A Booh about Clergy.
and the Cavalier aatiriata were never weary of ridiculing their
conduct and exaggerating their dissensions. In Sir John
Birkenhead's 'Assembly-man,' written in the year 1647, the
reader may see the way in which these religious councillors
were derided by the Episcopalians. That some of them were
learned men and personages of the highest distinction, the author
of this pungent satire could not deny ; but he represents that
these Assemblers of superior quality only attended the Assembly
for the sake of diverting themselves with the ignorance and bad
manners of the Puritan clergy, who affected the dignity of pro
found legislators, and far exceeded the bishops in arrogance.
' Mr. Selden,' says the pamphleteer, ' risits them, aa Persians
use to see wild asses fight ; when the Commons have tired him
with their new law, these brethren refresh him with their mad
gospel. They lately were graveled betwixt Jerusalem and
Jericho ; they knew not the distance betwixt these two places ;
one cried twenty miles, another ten ; it was concluded seven for
thia reaaon, " That fiah was brought from Jericho to Jerusalem
Market." Mr. Selden smiled, and said, " Perhaps the fish was
salt fish,'' and so stopped their mouths,'*
The grossness of the reverend Assembler's appetite; his
meanness in feeding himself cheaply at threepenny ordinaries,f
when he dined at his own cost, and gorging himself with food at
tables where he was a free guest ; the grotesque waya in which he
clothed himself and dressed his hair ; the violence and occasional

* That Selden was au effective speaker in the Assembly, and sometimes wor
ried the reverend aasemblers with his superior scholarship, we know from White-
locke, who says that he ( Selden) would sometimes say, in a warm discuasion on
a Biblical queation, ' Perhaps in your littie pocket Bible with gilt leaves the
translation may be thus : but the Greek and Hebrew signifies thus and thus !'
f A shiUing dinner in Victorian London — such a dinner as clerks and
students of narrow means get at cheap dining-rooms — is the modem equivalent
of the threepenny dinner of CaroUne London. ' The Assembler's diet,' says Sir
John Birkenhead, 'is strangely different; for he dines wretchedly on dry bread
at Westminster, four Assemblers for thirteen pence : but this sharpens and whets
him for supper, when he feeds gratis with his city landlord, to whom he brings a
huge stomach and news : for which crammed capons cram him.' Bread being
the chief ingredient of the threepenny dinner, the Assemblers are described as
dining on that alone; but the reader must not infer from the satire that they had
no meat. Master Poorest and Master Needham, the curates of ' The Curates'
Conference ' (I64I), dine at a threepenny ordinary, and converse about their fare

Part V. — Religion under the Comm,onwealth. 203
indelicacy of hia pulpit eloquence ; the badness of his taste in psal
mody, — are matters on which Sir John Birkenhead writes with
more warmth than veracity. ' His shortest things are hia hair
and hia cloak,' says the Assembly-man's delineator ; ' his hair is
cut to the figure of three ; two high cliffs run up his temples,
whose cape of shorn hair shoots down his forehead, with creeks
indented, where his eyes ride at anchor. Had this false prophet
been carried with Habakkuk, the angel had caught fast hold of
his ears, and led him as he leads his auditory. His eyes are
part of his tithe at Easter, which he boils at each sermon ; he
has two mouths, his nose is one, for he speaks through both ; his
hands are not in his gloves, but his gloves in his hands ; for
betwixt sweatings (that is, sermons) he handles little else except
his dear mammon. His gown, I mean his cloak, reaches but
his pockets. When he rides - in that manner, with a hood on
his shoulders, and a hat above both, is he not then his own man
of sin with a triple crown? You would swear some honest
carpenter dressed him, and made him the tunnel of a country
chimney. His doublet and hose are of dark blue, a grain
deeper than pure Coventry ; but of late he is in black, since the
loyal clergy were persecuted into colours. His two longest
things are his nails and his prayers,'
To the people for whose immediate benefit they deliberated,
and also to the student endeavouring to realize the religious life
of our ancestors under the Commonwealth, the most important
act of the Assemblers was the publication of the ' Directory for

thus: — 'Mr. P. What say you. Master Needham: how strong are yon? WiU
you go and show me that pretty banqueting-house for curates ? I mean, the
threepenny ordinary, for I can go no higher. Mr. N. I wUl, with all my heart, for
I am almost at the same ebb. But let us hope better : things will not always
ride in this rack .... Mr. F  but now let us leave off diacourae and
fall to our commona. What a pretty modicum I have here 1 Sure this ordinary-
keeper has been cook or souUion in a college ! How dexterously the fellow plays
the logician in dividing the meat ! It is an exceUent place, sure, to learn abati-
nence by. I promise you, I will visit this houae, as my stock holds out. It is
just one degree above dining with Duke Humphrey. It ia good as preservative
against surfeits." The fee to the waiter at a threepenny ordinary waa one farthing
— a twelfth ofthe sum spent on food. Thus the four Assemblers paid thirteen
pence — a shiUing for dinners and a penny for attendance. At the present time
the customary fee to the waiter, upon a shiUing dinner, is a penny — also the
twelfth of the sum spent on refreshments.

204 A Booh about Clergy.
Public Worship,' which, by the aame Parliamentary ordinance
(January Srd, 1644) that aboUshed the Book of Common Prayer,
became the rule for the conduct of those extemporaneous prayers
and comparatively informal services which constituted the
public worship, rendered by our forefathers to the Almighty
during the interval between the overthrow and revival of the
Episcopal system. Having thus suppressed the Prayer-book,
and put the 'Directory' in its place, the ParUament, in the course
of the following summer (August, 23rd, 1645) called in all
copies of the Common Prayer, and forbade its use 'in any
church, chapel, or place of public worship, or in any private
place or family, under penalty of 51. forthe first offence, lOl. for
the second, and for the third a year's imprisonment.' The or
dinance further provided, that 'such ministers aa ahould not
observe the ' Directory ' in all exercises of public worship should
forfeit 40s. ; and they who, with a design to bring the ' Directory '
into contempt, or to raise opposition to it, should preach, write,
or print, anything in derogation of it, should forfeit a sum of
money not under 51., nor more than 50^., to be given to the
poor,' To correct the practice of bowing towards the east on first
entering the church-^ a usage in which the Laudian High-
church clergy had sedulously trained their congregations — the
' Directory ' enjoined, — ' Let all enter the assembly, not irreve
rently, but in a grave and seemly manner, taking their seats or
places without adoration, or bowing themselves to one place or
other. The congregation being assembled, the minister, after
solemne calling on them to the worshipping of the great name
of God, is to begin with prayer,' This prehminary exercise was
known as first prayer ; and, after giving general directions for
its tenor and purport, the 'Directory' left the minister to
choose his own words for the extemporaneous supplication. The
minister is enjoined to pray aloud to God as the mouth-piece of
the congregation, 'humbly beseeching him for pardon, assist
ance, and acceptance, in the whole service then to bee performed,
and for a blessing on that particular portion of His word then
to be read; and all in the name and mediation of the Lord
Jesus Christ.'
To do away with the noisy restlessness which prevailed in

Part V. — Religion under the Commo'nwealth. 205

congregations of olden time, and especially to put down the
fashion which simple folk had contracted of rising and rendering
feudal obeisance to their social superiors, when the latter joined
a congregation after the commencement of service, the ' Direc
tory ' ordained, — ' The pubUc worship being begun, the people
are wholly to attend upon it, forbearing to reade anything, ex
cept what the minister is then reading or citing ; and abstain
ing much more from all private whisperings, conferences,
salutations, or doing reverence to any persons present or coming
in ; as also from all gazing, sleeping, and other indecent be
haviour, which may disturb the minister or people, or hinder
themselvea or others in the service of God.'
After ' First Prayer ' came the ' Public Eeading,' concerning
which part ofthe service the ' Directory ' obaerved, — 'How large
a portion aball be read at once is left to the wisdom of the
miniater. But it is convenient that ordinarily the chapter of
each Testament bee read at every meeting, and sometimes more,
where the chapters be short, or the coherence of matter re
quireth it .... When the miniater who readeth, shall judge it
necessary to expound any part of what ia read, let it not bee
done until the whole chapter, or psalme bee ended ; and regard
is always to be had unto the time, that neither preaching or
other ordinance bee straitned or rendered tedious, which rule is
to be obaerved in all other publique performancea.'
After ' reading ' the congregation aung a paalm, or portion of
a paalm ; and then the minister appointed to preach delivered
the ' Second Prayer,' which was the grand supplicatory effort of
the service. This oration, it was directed, should confess private
and public sins, should bewail the wickedness of human nature,
and acknowledge the special frailties of every sort of mankind ;
should fervently petition for Ught, guidance, and all the quali
ties of Christian health. 'We judge this,' remarks the 'Direc
tory,' ' to be a convenient order in the ordinary publique prayers ;
yet so, aa the miniater may deferre (aa in prudence he ahall think
meet) some part of these petitions till after his sermon, or offer
up to God some of the thanksgivings, hereafter appointed, in
hia prayer before his sermon.'
The sermon followed the ' Second Prayer,' and the preacher
might either sermonize or postilUze. Occasionally there was a

206 A Booh about Clergy.
second sermon. The ' Directory ' even contemplated occasions
when there would be a third sermon in a single serrice, ' Whei'e,'
says the ' Directory,' ' there are more ministers in a congregation
than one, and they of different gifts, each may more especially
apply himself to doctrine or exhortation according to the gift
wherein he most excelleth, and as they shall agree between
themselves,' Sermon was followed by a third prayer uttered by the
minister as the mouthpiece of the congregation. In second
prayer the orator was required to pray for Henrietta Maria, the
religious education of the Prince of Wales, and the welfare of
other important personages and institutions, and particularly
'to pray for all in authority, especially for the King's Majesty,
that God would make him rich in blessings, both in his person
and government, establish his throne in reUgion and righteous-
nesse, save him from evill counsell, and make him a blessed and
glorious instrument for the conservation and propagation of the
gospell, for the encouragement and protection of them that doe
well, the terrour of all that doe evill, and the great good of the
whole church, and of all hia kingdome,' Giving further rules
for prayer, the 'Directory' remarks, 'And whereas, at the ad~
ministration of the sacraments, the holding publique fasts and
dayes of thanksgiving, and other speciall occasions, which may
afford matter of speciall petitions and thanksgivings : It is
requisite to expresse somewhat in our publique prayers (as at
this time, it is our duty to pray for a blessing on the Assembly
of Divines, the armies by land and sea, for the defence of the
King, Parliament, and Kingdome) every minister ia herein to
apply himaelfe in his prayer before, so after hia sermon, to
those occasions ; but for a manner, he is left at liberty as God
shall direct and enable him in piety and wisdome to discharge
hia duty,' Third prayer waa followed by another exerciae of
psalmody, after which the congregation was usually dismissed,
' The prayer ended,' says the ' Directory,' ' let a paalme be sung,
if with conveniency it may be done. After which (unlesse some
other ordinance of Christ that concerneth the congregation at
that time be to follow) let the minister dismisse the congrega
tion with a solemne blessing,'
With respect to the sacrament of baptism, the ' Directory'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 207

enjoined, ' Nor is it to be administered in private places or
privately, but in the place of publique worship, and in the face
of the congregation, where the people may most conveniently
see and heare ; and not in the places where Fonts in the Time
of Popery were unfitly and superstitiously placed,' In its in
junctions for the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, the ' Directory ' observes, ' After this exhortation, warn
ing, and inritation, the table being before decently covered, and
so conveniently placed, that the communicants may orderly
sit ahout it, or at it.* The minister is to begin the action
with sanctifying and blessing the elements of Bread and Wine
set before him.'
An altogether erroneous notion prevails that throughout the
Commonwealth -period marriages were never or seldom so
lemnized in the churches. Neither under the assemblers nor
during the ascendency of Cromwell's triers did usage accord
with this misconception. The ' Directory,' providing for the
solemnization of matrimony in places of worship, enjoined,
' After the purpose or contract of marriage hath been thus pub
lished, the marriage is not to be long deferred. Therefore,
the minister, having had convenient warning, and nothing being
objected to hinder it, is publiquely to solemnise it in the place

* In his ' Life of Hooker,' Isaak Walton gives the following picture of a com
pany of Puritan worshippers recei-ving the sacred bread and wine : — 'But it so
fell out, that about the aaid third or fourth year of the Long Parliament, the
then present parson of Bourne was sequestered — you may guess why — and a
Genevan minister put into his good living. Thia, and other like aequestrations,
made the clerk express himself in a wonder and say, " They had sequestered ao
many good men, that he doubted if his good master, Mr. Hooker, had Uved till
now, they would have sequestered him too." Il was not long before this in
truding minister had made a party in and about the said parish, that were de
sirous to receive the sacrament as in Geneva : to which end the day was appointed
for a select company, and forma and stools set about the altar, or communion
table, for them to sit and eat and drink ; but when they went about work there
was a want of some joint-stools, which the minister sent the clerk to fetch, and
then to fetch cushions — but not to kneel upon. When the clerk saw them begin
to sit down, he began to wonder; but the minister bade him " cease wondering,
and lock the church door." To whom he repUed, " Pray take you the keys, and
lock me out. I -will never come more into this church ; for all men will say my
Maater Hooker was a good man, and a good scholar, and I am sure it waa not
used to be thus in his days." And report says, the old man went presently home
and died. I do not say he died immediately, but -within a few days after.'

208 A Booh about Clergy.
appointed by authority for publique worship, before a compe
tent number of credible witnesses, at some convenient houre of
the day, at any time of the year, except on a day of publique
humiliation. And we advise that it be not on the Lord's
Day.' The appointed service consisted of a solemn prayer by the
officiating minister, an extempore declaration by the same per
son ofthe enda of marriage, and an exhortation to the bride and
bridegroom, followed by joining of hands (without the use of
the ring) and an exchange of promises. * .After solemn charg
ing of the persons to be married, before the Great God, who
searcheth all hearts, and to whom they must give a strict
account at the last day, that if either of them know any cause,
by precontract or otherwise, why they may not lawfully proceed
to marriage, that they now discover it. The minister (if
no impediment be acknowledged) shall cause, first, the man to
take the woman by the right hand, saying these words, — " I, M.,
doe take thee N., to be my married vrife, and doe in the pre
sence of God, and before this congregation, promise and cove
nant to be a loving and faithful husband unto thee, untill God
shall separate us by death." Then the woman shall take the
man by the right hand, and say these words, — " I, iV., doe take
thee, M., to be my married husband, and I, doe, in the presence
of God, and before this congregation, promise and covenant to
be a loving, faithful, and obedient wife unto thee, untill God
shall separate us by death." Then, without any further cere
mony, the minister shall, in the face of the congregation, pro
nounce them to be husband and wife, according to God's
ordinance ; and so conclude the action vrith prayer to this
effect,' Amongst other pradent enactments for the government of
the country, the Barebones parliament ordained, ' That after
the 29th of September, 1653, all persons who shall agree to be
married within the Commonwealth of England, shall deliver
in their names and places of abode, with the names of their
parents, guardians, and overseers, to the registrar of the parish
where each party lives, who ahall publish the banns in thie
church or chapel three several Lord's Days, after the morning
serrice; or else in the market-place three several weeks sue-

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 209
cessively, between the hours of eleven and two, on a market-
day, if the party desire it. The registrar shall make out a
certificate of the due performance of one or the other, at the
request of the parties concerned, without which they shall not
proceed to marriage. It is further enacted, that all persons
intending to marry shall come before some justices of the
peace, within the county, city, or town corporate, where pub
lication has been made, as aforesaid, with this certificate, and
with sufficient proof of the consent of the parents, if either
party be under age, and then the marriage ahall proceed in this
manner : — The man to be married shall take the woman by
the hand, and distinctly pronounce these words, " I, A. B., do
here in the presence of God, the searcher of all hearts, take
thee, G. D., for my wedded wife ; and do also, in the presence of
God, and before these witneaaea, promise to be to thee a loving
and faithful husband," Then the woman, taking the man by
the hand, shall plainly and distinctly pronounce these words,
" I, C. D., do here in the presence of God, the searcher of all
hearts, take thee, A. B., for my wedded husband ; and do also
in the presence of God, and before these witnesses, promise to
be to thee a loving, faithful, and obedient wife." After this
the Justice may, and shall, declare the said man and woman to
be from henceforth husband and wife ; and from and after such
consent so expressed, and such declaration made of the same
(as to the form of marriage), it shaU be good and effectual in
law ; and no other marriage whatsoever, within the Common
wealth of England, shaU be held or accounted a marriage,
according to the law of England.'
The Protector's parhament confirmed this Act in the year
1656, with the exception of the clause, ' That no other mar
riage whatsoever within the Commonwealth of England shall
be held or accounted a legal marriage,' Thus, for about three
years, all persons marrying were compelled to be married before
the ciril magistrate ; but during this period it was customary
for the bride and bridegroom to be twice married,— once before
the ciril magistrate for the sake of legal sanction, and again for
peace of conscience, by the minister. During this period no law
prohibited the solemnization of marriage in churches ; and with
the exception of this brief space, civil marriage, or lay-marriage,
VOL, IL ^

210 A Booh about Clergy.
aa it waa called, was not compulsory. From 1656, until the
revival of episcopal rule, the law of marriage was in its present
atate — lay-marriages by the civil magistrate being vaUd ; but
other customary solemnisations of matrimony being equally
recognized by law. Several instances have been given in this
work of marriages performed during the Eepublic in accordance
with the ritual of the Common Prayer. Even the Eev. Mr.
Marshall, the assembler, married his daughter to her husband
with book and ring, at a time when the Prayer Book waa pro
hibited and the use of the ring was condemned as superstitious.
It is, moreover, especially noteworthy, that alike by the
' Directory,' and the subsequent Acts of Pariament, woman was
Uberated during the Commonwealth from the servile necessity
of promising to serve her husband. She engaged to be his
obedient wife, without undertaking to be his slave.*
With respect to sacred sepulture, the ' Directory' enjoined :
' When any person departeth this life, let the dead body, upon
the day of buriall, be decently attended from the house to the
place appointed to publique buriall, and there immediately
interred, without any ceremony. And because the customs of
kneeling down, and praying by, or towards the dead corpse,
and other such usages, in the place where it lies, before it be
carried to the buriall, are superstitions ; and for that praying,
reading, singing, both in going to, and at the grave, have been
grossly absurd, and in no way beneficial to the dead, and have
proved many ways hurtfutl to the living, there let such things
be laid aside. Howbeit, we judge it very convenient, that the
Christian friends which accompany the dead body to the place
appointed for publique buriall,do apply themselves to meditations
and conferences suitable to the occasion ; and that the minister,
as upon other occasions, so at this time, if he be present, may
put them in remembrance of their duty. That this shall not
extend to deny any civili respects or differences at the buriall,
suitable to the rank and condition of the party deceased while
he was living.' An ordinary funeral in the Commonwealth was
* For a sample of the manner in which the EpiscopaUan clergy wrote and
ripoke against the civil marriages of the Commonwealth, the reader is referred to
' 'u^xTiksix Vx/iixn, Christ at the Wedding,' by Dr. (Biahop) Ganden, the author
of the famous political fiction, Elxm BxnXixn.

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 211
conducted very much in the way in which the Quakers continue
to inter their dead : but people being, for the most part,
strongly disposed to adhere to old customs of interment, there
was no inclination on the part of authority, during the inter
regnum, to hinder peaceable persons from burying their dead in
accordance with discontinued and even prohibited practices.
Of the manner in which psalmody was usually conducted
and practised in our churches during the same period, the
reader may form an accurate notion from the following passage
of the ' Directory ' : ' In singing of psalmes, the voice is to be
tunably and gravely ordered ; but the chief care must be to
sing with understanding and vrith grace in the heart, making
melody unto the Lord. That the whole congregation may
joyne herein, every one that can reade ia to have a psalme book,
and all others, not disabled by age or otherwise, are to be
exhorted to read. But for the present, where many in the
congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or
some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling
officers, doe reade the psalme, line by line, before the singing
thereof.'* Of the labour and consequent exhaustion which the church
service of the Commonwealth period entailed on conscientious
and zealous ministers, a riew is obtained in Dr. Edmund
Calaniy's 'Life of the Eev. John Howe, court-chaplain to
Eichard CromweU.' ' I shan't,' says the biographer, ' easily
forget the account he once gave me in private conversation, of
the great pains he' (i.e. Howe) 'took among them' (i.e. the
congregation at Torrington, Devonshire) ' without any help or
assistance, on the PubUck Fasts, which, in those days, returned
* RidicuUng the psalmody of the Puritans in the ' Assembly-Man,' Sir John
Birkenhead says, ' He tore the Uturgy, because, forsooth, it shackled his spirit ;
he would be a devil without a circle ; and now, if he aee the Book of Common
Prayer, the fire does it next, as sure aa the bishops were burnt who compUed it.
Yet he has mercy on Hopkins and Sternhold, because their metres are sung
without authority (no statute, canon, or injunction at all); only, Uke himself,
first crept into private houses, and then into churches. Mr. Eoua (i. e. Francis
Rous, Presbyterian Provost of Eton CoUege) moved those metres to be seques
tered, and his o-wn rhymes to enjoy the sequestration ; but was refused, because
John Hopkins was as ancient aa John Calvin : beaidea, when Rous stood forth
for trial, Robin Wisdom was found the better poet.'

212 A Booh about Clergy.
pretty frequently, and were generally kept with very great
solemnity. He told me it was upon such occasions, his common
way, to begin about nine in the morning, with a prayer for
about a quarter of an hour, in which he begged a blessing on
the work of the day; and afterwards read and expounded a
chapter or psalm, in which he spent about three quarters of an
hour ; then prayed for about an hour, preached for another hour,
and prayed for about half an hour. After this, he retired, and
took some little refreshment for about a quarter of an hour or
more (the people singing all the while), and then came again
into the pulpit, and prayed for another hour, and gave them
another sermon of about half an hour's length ; and so concluded
the service of the day, at about four o'clock in the evening, with
about half an hour or more in prayer ; a sort of serrice that
few could have gone through, without inexpressible weariness
to themselves and their auditors.'
The same biographer, describing the zeal with which Baxter
laboured at Kidderminster, both before the civil war and
during the Commonwealth, says : ' Before the civil war he
preached twice every Lord's Day, but afterwards but once, and
once every Thursday, besides occasional sermons. Every
Thursday evening, those of his neighbours that had inclination
and opportunity, met him at his house. One of them repeated
the sermon, and afterwards they proposed any doubt about it,
or any other case of conscience which he resolved. He then
caused sometimes one, and sometimes another of them to pray ;
and sometimes prayed with them himself, and so the meeting
broke up with singing a psalm. Once a-week some of the
younger sort, who were not fit to pray in so great an assembly
met among themselvea privately, spending three houra in prayer.
Every Saturday night, they met at aome of their houaes, to
repeat the last Lord's Day's sermon, and to pray and prepare
themselvea for the day following. Once in a few weeks, there
was a day of humiliation kept, upon one particular occasion or
another. Once in a few weeks, every religious woman that was
safely delivered, instead of the old gossippings, if she were able,
kept a day of thanksgiring with some of her neighbours about
her, praising God and singing psalms and soberly feasting
together. Two days every week he and his assistant took

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 213
fourteen families between them for private catechising and
conference .... His whole afternoons on Mondays and
Tuesdays were this way employed. Every first Wednesday of
the month he had a meeting for parish discipline ; and every
first Thursday of the month was a meeting held of neighbour
ing ministers for discipUne and disputation ; in which disputa
tions he was generally moderator, taking pains to prepare a
vrritten determination of the question to be debated.'
That the pulpit oratory of the Commonwealth period was
acceptable to the congregations we know from records of the
delight which the people found in listening to the discourses of
their preachers : that the best of it was of a high order of
ecclesiastical eloquence we learn from the printed sermons of
Baxter, Fuller, Howe, and other eminent divines who were
silenced at the Eestoration, or continued to be popular
preachers under episcopal goverhment. But the CavaUers of
the seventeenth and the high churchmen of the following
century, delighted to exaggerate the grotesque extravagance of
a few indiscreet pulpiteers of the puritan churches, and to
represent that they were fair specimens of the puritan school,
Dr, Walker tells with glee and derision, ' There was a sermon
licensed and printed in 1645, in which ia this triumph: "Oh,
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious, and his mercy
endureth for ever; who remembered ua at Nazeby, for hia
mercy endureth for ever ; who remembered us in Pembroke
shire, for his mercy, &c. ; who remembered us at Lincoln,, for
his mercy, &c, ; who remembered us at Bristol, for his mercy,
&c," "Honourable patriots, Christ is gone out with hia
triumphing army, conquering and to conquer : and if you want
arms, or money, or horse for their accommodation, God is the
great Landlord of Heaven and earth. Art thou then God's
tenants ? and dost owe Him knight's serrice and plough service :
and doth He want thine horse and shaU He not have it?" saith
Mr. Teesdale to the Commons.'
In the same spirit describing the oratory of the typical
assembly-man. Sir John Birkenhead wrote : ' To do him right,
commonly he wears a pair of good lungs, whereby he turns the
church into a belfry : for his clapper makes such a din, that ye
cannot hear the cymbals for the tinkling. If his pulpit be

214 A Book about Clergy.
large, he walks his round, and speaks as from a garrison ; his
own neck is palisaded with a ruff. When he first enters his
prayer before sermon, he winks and gasps, and gasps and vrinks,
as if he prepared to preach in another world. He seems in a
slumber, then in a dream, then rambles awhile, at last he sounds
forth, and then throws so much dirt and nonsense towards
heaven, as he durst not offer to a member of parliament. Now,
because Scripture bids him not to curse the king in his thought,
he does it in his pulpit, by word of mouth; though Heaven
strike him dumb in the act, as it did Hill at Cambridge, who,
while he prayed, " Depose him, 0 Lord, who would depose us,"
was made the dumb devil.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 215

CHAPTEE VII.
EPISCOPALIANS UNDER THE PROTECTOR.
IF the number of the clergy ejected by the Parliamentary
Committees be computed at fifteen hundred, I am disposed
to think it would not be greatly understated. Computed at
anything over two thousand it would be exaggerated. The
great majority of the Commonwealth ministers were divines
who, like Baxter, had received ordination from the bishops;
and of this large body of epiacopally ordained clergy an over
whelming majority were strongly attached to prelatic rule,
and, throughout the period of its abeyance, longed for its re
vival no less fervently than the Catholic party in Edward the
Sixth's priesthood longed for the re-establishment of the Papal
doctrines and system. Of the clergy who entered the sacred
ministry between the abolition of Prelacy and its re-establish
ment after the Eestoration, under the ascendancy Of the As
semblers or the subsequent regime of the triers, many, like
Bishop Bull and Bishop Stillingfleet,* in addition to the creden
tials openly conferred upon them, received clandestine ordin
ation from the ejected prelates, who continued, after their
deposition, to discharge privately the functions of the Episco-
* 'Here' (i. e. at Sutton), says StiUingfleet's biographer (1735), 'therefore,
he first took upon him the charge of a parish, and which ought not to be for
gotten, he did not oUmb up by the way of those days of confusion and disorder,
but entered at the right door by meana of episcopal ordination. For he had well
considered who they were that our Saviour had commissioned to ordain labourers
for His vineyard, as he professes himself (Pref. to his Ordination Sermon at
St. Peter's) he even thus received episcopal orders, and followed the directions of
an exceUent biahop of our church, the truly pious and reverend Dr. Brownrigg,
the ejected bishop of Exon. For by him it waa that Mr. StUUngfleet was sepa
rated to the work of the ministry.'

216 A Booh about Clergy.

pacy for the benefit of the depressed church, and the satisfaction
of the cavalier nobility and gentry. As to the number of the
young clergy who thus received Episcopal ordination in secret
violation of law, which they regarded as in no way binding on
themselves, it is impossible either to speak positively or make
any plausible conjecture ; but it certainly was not small in the
earlier days of the Commonwealth, before the ranks of the dis
possessed prelates had been reduced by death, and whilst the
bishops retained the bodily vigour and zeal requisite for so pain
ful and hazardous a performance of their duty.
On the termination of the civil contest, when Parliament
had re-established discipline in the universities, and had no im
mediate cause to fear the oppositon of the Eoyalists, there was
no disposition on the part ofthe authorities to deal harshly with
the Episcopalians. Those of the clergy who had been shut up
in jails or floating prisons were liberated ; and no fresh steps
were taken to apprehend or harass the divines who had exerted
themselves conspicuously in the king's behalf. Like the minis
ters ejected in 1662, the dispossessed clergy bestirred themselves
to make the best of adverse circumstances. Many of them found
entertainment in the houaes of the CavaUer aristocracy and
gentry, and repaid the hospitality of their patrons by acting as
private chaplains, tutors, aecretariea, land-stewards. The former
dignitaries of disestablished cathedrals and deprived incumbents
were secured from absolute penury by the small and often ir
regularly-paid pensions allotted to them by Parliament, but
they usually had other means of subsistence, apart from the
contributions of the wealthy laymen of their party. The ex
pelled bishops in many cases received allowances from the public
purse. Some of the sUenced hierarchy applied for the means
of maintaining their families to agriculture, commerce, petty
trade ; others became authors by profession and political agents
in the paid service of employers plotting for the restoration of
monarchy. But a considerable proportion of the scandalous, or
so-called scandalous, divines, after losing their preferments, en
dured privations on which, even at this distance of time, it is
impossible to reflect without lively regret. The most luckless
of them died the slow death of the starvation which is not called
starvation ; and their widows and children were left to swell

Part V. — Religion under the Comnnonwealth. 217
that mass of clerical misery which resulted in our modern system
of Life Assurance.
No long time elapsed after the Parliamentary visitation of
Oxford, ere a considerable proportion of the expelled EoyaUst
clergy and scholars returned to the university ; where, under the
government of the Puritans, learning and discipline flourished,
to the keen chagrin of the Cavaliers, in a manner that contrasted
strongly againat their decay during Charles's reign. The num
ber of students steadily increased, and their general zeal for
learning bore fruits which even Clarendon was compelled to re
cognise. ' It might,' he says, after noticing the Parliamentary
visitation of Oxford, ' reasonably be concluded, that this wild
and barbarous depopulation would extirpate all that learning,
religion, and loyalty, which had so eminently flourished there ;
and that the succeeding ill-husbandry and unskilful cultivation
would have made it fruitful in Ignorance, Profanation, Atheism,
and Eebellion ; but, by God's wonderful blessing, the goodness
and richness of that soil could not be made barren by all that
stupidity and ignorance. It choaked the weeds, and would not
suffer the poisonous seeds, which were sown with industry
enough, to spring up ; but after several tyrannical governments,
mutually succeeding each other, and with the same malice and
perverseness endeavoured to extinguish all good literature and
allegiance, it yielded a harvest of extraordinary good and sound
knowledge in all parts of learning ; and many who were vrickedly
introduced, applied themselves to the study of good learning,
and the practice of rirtue, and had inclination to that duty
and obedience which they had never been taught ; so that when
it pleased God to bring King Charles II, back to the throne,
he found that university (not to undervalue the other, which
had nobly likewise rejected the ill infusions which had been in
dustriously poured into it) abounding in excellent learning, and
devoted to duty and obedience, little inferior to what it waa
before its desolation ; which is a lively instance of God's mercy
and purpose, for ever so to provide for his church, that the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it,'
WhUst learning flourished in the univeraitiea under the
Commonwealth, the Cavalier clergy and scholars found shelter
in those ancient seminaries of the Church ; but it was at Oxford

218 A Book about Clergy.
— the last city in which the martyr-king had maintained courtly
splendour and a show of regal power — the place which had been
hia chief stronghold and the seat of his government during the
war, and whither the brave men and fair women of the cavaUer
party had congregated in brilliant force whilst the civU struggle
was in progress — that the wealthier of the silenced ecclesiastics
and disguised EpiscopaUan clergy assembled in greater number
than at any other spot in the kingdom. Coffee-houses* came into
fashion at Oxford during the Commonwealth : and, at the coffee-
rooms frequented by the loyal scholars, Cromwell was denounced,
and the king's health drunk in language of which the Protector.
was duly informed, though he prudently feigned to know no
thing about it. At Oxford the services of church ¦!¦ were secretly
* ' The first coffee-house in Oxford waa opened in the year 1650, by Jacob, a
Jew, at the Angel, in the parish of St. Peter in the East ; and there it was by
some, who delighted in novelties, drunk. When he left Oxford, he sold it in old
Southampton Buildings in Holborne, neare London, and was living there 1671.
In the year 1654 Cirenea Jobson, a, Jew and Jacobite, borne near Mount Libanus,
sold coffey in Oxon, in the houses between Edmund Hall and Queen's College
Comer. In this year (1655) Arth. Tilly ard, apothecary and great RoyaUst, sold
coffey pubUclyin his house against All Souls' Coll. He was encouraged so to do
by some RoyaUsts now Uving in Oxon, and by others, who esteemed themselves
either virtuosi or wits : of which the chiefest number were of Alls. CoU., as Peter
Pett, Thorn. MOUngton, Tim. Baldwin, Christopher Wren, George Castie, Will.
Bull, &e. There were others also, as Job. Lampshire, a physician, lately ejected
from New College, who was sometimes the natural droll of the company ; the
two Wrens, sojourned iu Oxon, Matthew and Thomas Wren, sons of Dr. Wren
bishop of Ely, &c. This coffey-house continued tiU his majestie's return, and
after ; and then they became more frequent, and had an excise set upon coffey.'
— Anthony i Wood.
t In his memoir of John FeU, bishop of Oxford, Salmon says : — ' He was the
son of Dr. Samuel Fell, the suffering dean of Christ Church, born at SunningweU
near Abingdon, in Berks, or at Longworth, educated chiefly at the Free-school of
Tame, in Oxfordshire, made student of Christ Church at eleven years old ¦ anno
1636 he took degrees in arts, that of master in 1643 ; carried arms for the king
in the garrison of Oxford, and was afterwards an ensign. He was in orders when
the Visitation of 1648 dispossessed him of his studentship. He kept still in
Oxford tUl the Restoration, sometimes in the lodgings of his brother-in-law Mr
Thomas WUUs, in Canterbury Quadrangle; sometimes at his house against
Merton College Church. Here he performed his ofSce of a priest amongst the
distressed loyaUsts who came to him. On the Eestoration he was installed
Canon of Christ Church, in the room of Ralph Button, ejected; was created ¦
Doctor of Divinity, Chaplain in Ordinary to the King, and Dean of Christ Church
In the deanery he succeeded Dr. Morley, who had but just time to restore the
surviving members ejected 1649.'

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 219
performed in college-rooms by clergymen robed in surplices;
and from Oxford, whilst Puritanism ruled in the schools, pro
ceeded the influences which kept alive the hopes of the Episco
palian clergy throughout the land.
Of the CavaUer clergy 'and scholars, who resided chiefly
or frequently at Oxford in the interval between Charles the
First's death and his son's return from the Continent, several
were habitual guests at Minster Lovel, and subsequently at
Lacies Court, Abingdon, where Peter Heylyn, notwithstanding
his loss of lucrative preferment and the exaction of the Gold
smiths' Hall commissioners, remained so rich a man that he
could support his family with dignity, and entertain liberally
his numerous Cavalier acquaintance who resided in or near
Oxford. ' And yet,' says Heylyn's biographer, ' He had several
divertisements by company, which continually resorted to his
house; for having (God be thanked) his temporal estate
cleared from sequestration, by his composition with the com
missioners at Goldsmiths' Hall, and this eatate which he farmed
besides, he was able to keep a good house, and relieve his poor
brethren, as himself had found relief from others' charity. Thus
his house was the sanctuary of sequestred men, turned out of
their Uvings, and of several ejected feUows out of Oxford, more
particularly of some worthy persons which I can name, as Dr.
AlUbone, Mr. Levite, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Ashwell, who would
stay for two or three months at his house, or any other
acquaintance that were suffering men, he cheerfully received
them, and vrith a hearty welcome might tarry as long aa they
pleased  In the year 1633, he removed to Lacies Court
in Abingdon, which seat he bought for the pleasantness of its
situation, standing next the fields, and not distant above five
miles from Oxford, where he might be furnished with books at
his pleasure, either from the booksellers' shops or the Bodleian
Library,' Throughout the Commonwealth the Episcopalian clergy were
treated by the successive authorities with as much toleration as
was deemed consistent with the safety of the atate and the
stability of government. So long as they conformed outwardly
to the requirements of power, or rather so long as they did not
openly defy it, they were allowed a measure of freedom which

220 A Book about Clergy.

the enthusiastic prelatists never thought of exhibiting to
opponents. Forbidden to read the Book of Common Prayer to
their congregationa, they repeated its forms by heart with as
much closeness as their hearers would permit. It was known
that they used the prohibited services in their own houses, at
the bedsides of their loyal parishioners, at the private baptisms
of the children of Cavalier gentry ; but so long as they refrained
from open defiance of public law and local opinion, they were
not punished for disobedience. Even of the more violent
prelatical clergy, whose political action had caused their ejection
from preferments, several were allowed to retain benefices, rich
enough to keep them in comfort. Hacket, though he bad
repeatedly provoked the resentment of Parliament, was suffered
to reside on his Uving of Cheam. Sanderson lost his Eegius
Professorship, but continued to hold his rural benefice of
Boothby Pannell, in Lincolnshire, where, says Dr. Calamy, he
'lived unmolested after the wars, tho' he connived at the
parishioners following their sports on the Lord's Day, as
formerly, when thay had a wicked license for it.' The writer
adds, 'The same person tells me, he was present in 1656, when
the doctor married a couple by the Common Prayer Book, read
the confession, and absolution &c., many of the gentry being
present,' Though it was not even suspected that he waa the
author of the Icon Basilik^, Gauden waa known to have been a
violent loyaliat and writer againat the Parliament ; and yet he
was auffered to continue in possession of the valuable living of
Booking, in Essex.
Cromwell's policy towards the Episcopalians affords a
paraUel to the policy which Elizabeth, in the earUer years of her
reign, observed to the' Catholics. From the moment when he
first rose to the chief power till the stormless and serene * hour
* The story of Cromwell expiring at a moment when nature was convulsed
by a storm of indescribable violence, is one of those picturesque fictions which it
is almost impossible to discredit, after they have attained universal acceptance as
veracious history. Most probably, by the mcyority of readers, this graphic and
highly sensational untruth wUl be as firmly beUeved in coming, aa it has been in
past, time. It is, however, certain that no hurricane waa raging over London
-when the Protector's soul was liberated from his body. Says Anthony k Wood
in his 'Autobiography:' — 'a.d. 1658. Aug. 30, Monday, a terrible raging wind
hapned, which did much hurt. Dennis Bond, a great OUvarian and Anti-

Part V. — Religion under the Commonwealth. 221
in which he breathed his last breath, the Protector was the con
sistent friend of religious toleration ; and so far as the prelatic
Eoyalists would allow him to do so, he gave them the full benefit
of his generosity to all the various reUgious parties from whom
he differed in opinion. Excepted from toleration by the letter of
the law,* the Episcopalians enjoyed by its lenient application
the fullest practicable measure of tolerance. The use of the
Common Prayer waa forbidden even in private houaes, but it
waa not the Protector's design to enforce the prohibition or to
interfere with the private devotions of any Protestants who
demeaned themselves with orderliness, and refrained from con
spiring to upset his government. Conniving at the assemblies
of Episcopalians who congregated for worship in meeting-rooms,
he permitted EoyaUst preachers — who had either been bishops
under the late king, or were known expectants of mitres on the
monarchist, died on that day, and then the devil took Bond for Oliver's appear
ance. Sept. 3. OUver Cromwell, the Protector, died. This I set downe, because
some -writers tell us that he was hurried away by the devil in the wind before
mentioned. Sept. 6. Eichard CromweU, his son, was proclaimed protector at
Oxon, at the usual placea where kings have been proclaimed. While he was
proclaiming before S. Marie's church-dore' (at Oxford), 'the mayor, recorder,
town-clerk, &o., accompanied by Col. Unton Croke and his troopers, were pelted
with carrot and turnip-tops, by yong scholars and others who stood at a distance.'
With respect to this storm Hearne says, ' Which they make to have happened
upon Sept. 3, upon which day likewise the Earl of Clarendon (by mistake) fixes
the wind.'
* The Protector's religious poUcy waa declared in the foUowing three of the
articles 'For the Government of the Commonwealth:' — 'Art. 35. That the
Christian reUgion contained in the Scriptures be held forth, and recommended
as the public profession of the nations, and that as soon as may be, a provision
less subject to contention, and more certain than the present, be made for the
maintenance of ministers ; and that till suoh provision be made, the present
maintenance continue. Art. 36. That none be compelled to conform to the
public reUgion by penalties or otherwise; but that endeavours be used to win
them by sound doctrine, and the example of a good conversation. Art. 37. That
such as profess faith in God by Jeans Christ, though differing in judgment from
the doctrine, worship, or discipline, pubUcly held forth, ahaU not be restrained
from, but shaU be protected in, the profession ofthe faith and exercise of their
reUgion, so as they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury of others, and to the
actual disturbance of the public peace on their parts : provided this liberty be
not extended to Popery or Prelacy, or to such as under a profession of Christ
hold forth and practise Ucentiousnesa.' The liberty, however, waa, to a great
degree, extended to Prelacy, and would have been still further extended to it had
the Prelatists acted prudentiy and quietiy.

222 A Book about Clergy.
restoration of the exiled prince — to occupy pulpits in the
capital. Such men as Hall (the future bishop of Chester)
Wilde, Pearson, and Bishop Brownrigge recovered their liberty
of preaching. Archbishop Usher was empowered to perform
the duty of preacher at Lincoln's Inn ; and other dirines of less
ability, but greater will and capacity to embarrass the govern
ment, found themselves free to instruct their fiocks. That
Cromwell did not consistently and fully carry out his Uberal
intentions to the bishops and their followers was due to their
provocations and violence; and whatever severe measures he
took for their humiliation and repression, were no consequences
of spiritual intolerance, but steps taken in self-defence and for
the preservation of order.
In his ' Panegyrical Narrative of the life, sickness, and death
of George, by Dirine Providence, Lord Bishop of Derry,' Dr,
Mossom gives us a gUmpse of a EoyaUst divine's labours, and of
an Episcopalian congregation under the Protectorate : ' Our first
meeting waa in the Fiery Furnace ofthe churchea peraecutions ;
(and of those things I may speak the more knowingly. Quorum,
magna pars fui, as having had a great share vrith him in those
sufferings), though indeed such was tbe power of Dirine Provi
dence, restraining the fury of those flames, that they scorched
not his garments, nor a hair of his head perished; notwith
standing he stood in the face of the then prevailing factions,
and was daily threatened with surprise and imprisonment. For
some years, he hovered, sometimes preaching in the country,
and sometimes in the city, sometimes in private and sometimes
in public, aa he found opportunity offered to promote piety and
persuade loyalty. At length Divine Providence receives the dove
into the ark ; an house is prorided near Fleet Street in London,
and in the house an vTBguov, an upper room, is prepared, after
the manner of primitive devotion, which upper room becomes an
oratory, fitted for the preaching of the word, and administering
the sacraments, with constant use of the PubUck Liturgy of the
church. . , , And now the shepherd which kept this flock
even in the midst of wolves, amidst all the variety of state-con
fusions, instructing, supporting, and encouraging, by precept,
by pattern, by prayer,— it was Dr. George Wilde, afterwards by
Divine Providence, Lord Bishop of Derry,'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 223

PART VL-BEFORE AND AFTER THE
RESTORATION.

CHAPTEE I,
ic6n basilike.

FEOM the date of Charles the First's execution till the fall
of Eichard Cromwell, various influences combined to
strengthen the hands of the Eoyalists and prepare the nation
for the recall of the exiled prince and the re-establishment of
Episcopalian monarchy. Time softened the recollections of the
errors and crimes of the martyred sovereign, the grievances of
whose rule lost their appearance of enormity in proportion aa
death reduced the ranks, and years mitigated the resentments,
of the individuals who had suffered most acutely from them.
All the circumstances which favour the growth of poUtical
oppositions acted propitiously for the hopes of the Cavaliers,
The high-handed justice which the Protector exhibited to the
numerous sects and factions into which the country was divided,
and the unvarying resoluteness with which he controlled the
rival parties, created implacable enemies to his despotism in
each of the several politico-religious combinations, whose in
tolerance of opposition and lust of authority would have been
satisfied by nothing lesa than supreme sway. The very means
by which he raised the nation's credit throughout Europe occa
sioned domestic discontents, more detrimental to his popularity
than the brilliant successes of his rule were conducive to the
stability of his government. Every successive year that wit
nessed an extension of his authority, aggravated the troubles

224 A Book about Clergy.
and irritations of the numerous and influential class of persons
whose social prosperity, depending on the frivolous pleasures of
the wealthy and dissipated, endured depression, almost amount
ing to extinction, from a rSgime which discountenanced luxu
rious tastes and put a firm rein on vicious prodigality. And
whilst the country, year by year, saw less to condemn in the
conduct of the late king, and more to fret against in the actions
of his successors in the government, the Episcopalian clergy
never ceased to agitate for the re-establishment of constitutional
and prelatic monarchy in the person of the prince whom they
regarded as the lawful king of Great Britain,
But of all the numerous influences which operated in behalf
of the House of Stuart, none was more fruitful in result than a
little book which emanated from the pen of a comparatively
obscure Essex clergyman at a time when the fortunes of the
royal family appeared to many observers to have fallen irre
coverably, Charles was a prisoner in the Isle of Wight, and
his troublous career was fast approaching its hideous end, when
Dr, John Gauden — a clerical politician, who sided with the
ecclesiastical Eeformers at the opening of the Long Parliament,
who would fain have sat in the Assembly to which he just
missed an invitation, and who waa not slow to seek Oliver
Cromwell's favour aa soon as the Protector's star was in the
ascendant — conceived the daring project of rousing the nation's
sympathy for the captive king by putting forth a comprehensive
picture of his sufferings and actions, which, whilst palliating all
the worst features of his miarule with apecious apologies, should
exhibit him to the admiring world as a model of Christian
dignity, gentleness, and rectitude. The work should be in the
form of an autobiographic memoir, touching lightly on the
principal events of the late troubles, and comprising a series of
prayerful utterances, which readers ahould be induced to receive
aa supplications which the injured monarch had actually poured
forth at the footstool of Omnipotence. If a spurious memoir of
this singular design could be widely circulated, it would prove
an admirable instrument for convincing the king's subjects
that, instead of being the relentleaa tyrant and odious dissembler
which hia enemies declared hirn to be, he was an exceptionally
generous, merciful, and conscientious man, — capable of erring

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 225
through misapprehension, or inadvertence, or defective judg
ment, but utterly incapable of any sin against human or Divine
law that would justify his subjects in withdrawing their affection
and confidence from him.
When aU the circumstances of the case are taken into con
sideration, it is sufficiently astonishing that a private clergyman,
of no great importance in his profession or in society, having no
great weight with the EoyaUst leaders, and no personal know
ledge whatever ofthe sovereign, should have imagined himself
quaUfied to produce a portrait of the monarch's character, a
presentment of his most secret thoughts, a personal apology for
his conduct at each of the most critical stages of his conflict
with the people. But the matter becomes less marvellous when
a survey is taken of the literary conditions and fashions of the
revolutionary period. The excitements and requirements of
society during the progreas of the civil war had stimulated in
an unprecedented manner the inventiveness of the political
scribes, whose efforts to disseminate true and false intelUgence
amongst the adherents of their respective parties resulted in a
hasty and inordinately vicious literature, which in due course
gave birth to modern journaliam. It was the period of
' Diumals ' and ' Mercuries ' — printed newsletters, abounding
with such falsifications of truth, or impudent inventions, as
appeared likely to serve the ends of the parties in whose service
the DiurnaUsts plied their unacrupuloua, and too often venal,
pens. It was an age of spurious manifestoes, and proclamations
of which the proclaimers had never authorised a line. The
producers of this mendacious literature did things which, in
calmer times, they would not have dared even to imagine ; and
of them all, the boldest and most successful was John Gauden,
minister of Booking, Essex, under the Puritans, — successively
Bishop of Exeter and Bishop of Worcester, under Charles the
Second, A restless, keen-witted, ambitious man, he had sided
with the Parliamentarians whilst it seemed safe to co-operate
with them and till they began to suspect his honesty. After
the Parliament had shown its determination to proceed to ex
tremities against the king, the minister of Booking, finding
himself avoided by the Assemblers, became an enthusiastic
monarchist, and carrying out his design for a spurious auto-
VOL. II. Q

226 A Book about Clergy.

biography of the king, rendered to the royal cause a service the
value of which it is impossible to overrate.
Unfamiliar though he was vrith courts, and totally wanting
in personal knowledge of the king, Gauden was admirably
qualified to perform the daring and delicate task which he
accomplished with such consummate tact and ability. Had he
been reared in the atmosphere and under the traditions of
nobility, he could not have displayed that considerateness for
popular sentiinent, that poUtic respect for what may be termed
fireside prejudices, which contributed largely to the success of
his fabrication. Personal acquaintanceship with Charles would
have only fettered the hand and weakened the nerve of the
clever apologist. Far more serviceable to the scribe, than any
intimacy with the sovereign could have been, was his exact
knowledge of the intelligence and temper of Eoyalists and
moderate Parliamentarians, He knew precisely what the
homely cavalier squire, the royalist parson, the conservative
yeoman, delighted to think of the unfortunate king, — what
excuses for his errors, what allowances for his indiscretions, what
compassionate sentiments for his fallen estate, were current ar
guments in the homes of ordinary English folk. And working
on this knowledge, he produced a piece of literary portraiture
which accorded precisely with their most favourable conceptions
of their sovereign's character, and flattered their self-love by
showing that what they had always declared of their monarch
was exactly what he professed of himself. Commencing with
the calling of the Long Parliament, and closing with the royal
captive's meditations in Carisbrook Castle, the reriew made the
king say, think, feel, exactly what his most judicious supporters
had endeavoured to believe that he must have said, thought, felt,
at each of the critical occaaiona brought under consideration.
When the work had been completed, it was submitted to Charles,
who, after conquering his repugnance to take part in a scheme
that was alike hypocritical and ignoble, consented to adopt the
book as his own justificatory appeal to the loyalty of his people.
The views ascribed to him were agreeable to his own views of
his past conduct ; the estimate of his character was flattering to
his self-esteem, and congruent with his notions of personal
dignity ; the prayers put upon his lips were either just Such

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 227
supplications as he had uttered or ought to have uttered. So
the royal leave was given for the publication of the spurious
production. Had the Icon Basilike appeared without delay, it would
probably have saved Charles's life, though it is scarcely possible
that it would have restored him to his throne ; but published
immediately after his death, it caused a sensation that had no
precedent in literary annals, and was a chief influence in the
many forces that put the crown on his son's head. In addition
to all the interest which belongs to works by royal authors, it
possessed the charm and solemn authority of the last testament
deliberately uttered on the grave's brink by a inonarch whoae
violent death had filled men'a hearts with horror and compas
sion. In a single year it passed through fifty editions. Trans
lators reproduced it in every European tongue; and whilst it
caused the wide world to marvel at the piety, the moderation,
the grandeur of the murdered prince, it made thousands of
Englishmen, who had hitherto been on the aide of the ParUa
ment, relent towards the miserable monarch, and entertain
repugnance for his murderers, 'It is not easy,' says Hume,
' to conceive the general compassion excited towards the king
by the publishing, at so critical a juncture, a work so full of
piety, meekness, and humanity. Many have not scrupled to
ascribe to that book the subsequent restoration of the royal
family, Milton compares its effects to those which were
wrought on the tumultuous Eomans by Antony's reading to them
the vrill of Csesar,' A highly critical public, put on its guard
against the pretensions of the work, would doubtless have
detected its clerical source, in the prominence which it gives to
the affairs of the Church, to the king's admiration of episcopacy,
and to hia commiaeration for the sufferings of his loyal clergy.
But the readers who went mad about the Icon were not
critical. So long as the Commonwealth endured, Gauden kept his
authorship of the ' Icon Basilike ' a profound secret to himself
and the few faithful persona who were cognisant of ita history.
That the secret was withheld from the world ia not wonderful,
for every sharer in it was strongly concerned in preserving to
the king's memory and cause the credit which they had derived

228 A Book about Clergy.
from the successful fraud. Dr. Wordsworth, Master of Trinity,
Cambridge — who went to the grave stoutly declaring in the
teeth of conclusive evidence that Bishop Gauden was a shame-
leaa cheat, and that Charles was the actual author of the
spurious memoir — maintained that, if Gauden had actually
composed the work, he would have revealed the fact to Crom
well at the time when he sought to ingratiate himself vrith the
Protector. But Gauden was too prudent a man of the world
to sell for a good living to Cromwell the intelligence which, if
preserved from public knowledge, would earn him a mitre on
the re-establishment of the Stuart dynasty. That Cromwell
would have gladly availed himself of the information to damage
the Eoyalists, no one can question; that he would have re
warded Gauden liberally for the revelation, is not impossible ;
though it is far more probable that the Protector would have
conceived repugnance to and abhorrence of the crafty priest and
false scribe, whose successful forgery had done the Stuarts a
service which no exposure of the forger could undo. That
Milton — one of the few critical readers of the 'Icon,' and one
of the first impugners of its authenticity— would have rubbed
his hands with glee on learning that Charles Stuart's book
was the fabrication of a pamphleteering parson, is certain.
It is moreover credible that, had Gauden been satisfied of the
stability of Oliver's government, and been hopeful that in case
of the Protector's death there would be no restoration of the
Stuarts, he would have sold his secret to the Cromwellian party.
But like the majority of sagacious Englishmen, he foresaw the
restoration, and believed that it would occur much sooner than
1660. Under these circumstances, Gauden was under no
temptation to perpetrate a folly which the EoyaUsts on their
return to power would have resented as an act of perfidy to
their party, and have punished as an abominable crime against
their king,*
* A Uterary controversy ceases to be interesting so soon as its questions have
been conclusively answered: protracted after its reasonable termination, it
becomes tedious ; but Dr. Wordsworth's tracts in defence of King Charles's titie
to the authorship of the ' Icon BasiUke,' written after the memoir had been
conclusively shown to be the work of Bishop Gauden's pen, deserve attention,
aa Uluatrations of the difficulty which vigorous minds may experience in free
ing themselves from erroneous views, and as demonstrations how a strong

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 229
On the Eestoration, Gauden was rewarded with a mitre.
Apart from his authorship of the ' Icon,' he had rendered the
Stuarts no service which would not have been amply repaid
by the gift of a good living, a prebendal stall, or a poor deanery.
As it was, on the recommendation of those who knew his great
title to consideration, he was appointed to the impoverished
bishopric of Exeter, — at that time failing to yield its occupant
a greater income than six or seven hundred pounds a-year.
Gauden had been assured that the income would not be less
than lOOOL a-year ; but on reaching his diocese he found the
episcopal palace unfit for habitation, and was assured that the
see would not give a larger revenue than 5001. a-year. He was
cruelly disappointed, and furious at the slight put upon him.
His pen had restored the monarchy and re-established the
Church ; and now, in the distribution of preferments, whilst
men who had rendered the royal cause no important service
were loaded with wealth and honour, he was banished to a dis
trict remote from the capital, and told to support himself as he
best could on a beggarly 500^ a-year. Nothing in clerical
and subtle intellect may exhibit admirable ingenuity in defending a hopeless
cause, and yet lack the power to discern the hopelessness ofthe cause and the
worthlessness of the defence. Of Dr. Wordsworth's fairness, a good specimen ia
afibrded in his frank and full statement of the following part of Gauden's case:
— ' But again, to whom, I ask, did Gauden fearlessly prefer this extraordinary
claim ? To those very individuals who, of all men that can be thought of, were
the best qualified, and the most bound in duty to examine into, and to denounce
the detection ofhis claim, if it were not well grounded-^ to the king's two sons ;
to the Earl of Clarendon, the great, the good, the faithful, the wise, and deeply
attached minister ofthe martyred king; and to the Earl of Bristol: perhaps
also, in some degree, to Sir Edward Nicholas,— men, in abiUty and opportunities
for the discovery of the truth in this question, very littie, if at all, inferior to
Clarendon himself. Again, to whom did Gauden refer as vouchers of what he
said ? Were his pretensions involved in mysticism and obscurity, as would befit
a matter that could not bear the Ught, but must be kept huddled in a comer ?
He appeals to Duppa, the tutor of King Charles the Second, the faithful at
tendant and counseUor of King Charles the First— him, with whom that prince
had, perhaps, more intercourse during his troubles than with any other bishop;
to Morley ; and, lastiy, to the good and truly noble Marquess of Hertford. This
third witness, indeed, waa recently dead ; but he had left friends behind him, of
whom we are to suppose iiiquiries might be made, and who could hardly fail to .
know his sentiments and declarations on a subject which had been, to an extra
ordinary degree, the topic of every tongue and matter of interest to all hearts.
Surely the whole of thia can denote nothing but the confidence of truth. What
further could have been done that Gauden has neglected ? . , . , But, it is not

230 A Book about Clergy.

biography is at the same time more droll and revolting than
the alternate violence and meanness, the covert menaces and the
wheedling entreatiea, with which he wrote to Clarendon — by
turns suing for and demanding more honour, more power, more
money. He had a wife and children, — for their sakes he im
plored for something better than the barren see of Exeter. He
was master of a great secret, the revelation of which might even
yet do the King irreparable mischief; and in consideration lof
his fidelity he must have more money.*
In one of hia letters to Lord Clarendon, Bishop Gauden
wrote from Exeter thus : — ' All I desire is an augment of 500L
per annum, yf it cannot bee at present had in a commendam ;
yet possible the King's favour to me will not grudg mee this
pension out of the first-fruits and tenths of this diocesse, till I
bee removed or otherwayes provided for ; nor will your Lordship
merely the wickedness of Gauden, if his claim were a false one. Can anything,
upon ihat supposition, be equal to its/o%.' Is it possible that so much senseless
fatuity and determined dishonesty should meet in the same indi-vidual? To
what incredible suppositions are we not reduced, if his claim was not true? How
was it possible that he should escape detection ? Did he hope that Clarendon
would never inquire of Duppa, or of Morley? Did he expect to gain his point
before their answers could arrive ? And after, would he be content to make up
his choice for the bad part, and care nothing about the rest ? Or, are we to
suppose that, in making this claim, he was wholly abandoned by all self-posses
sion and self-control ; morally and intellectually deranged ; reason and con
science, for the time being, utterly overwhelmed and loat, through the furioua
passions of pride, envy, avarice, and ambition ? ' And yet, in the face of these
facts ; in spite of the recognition of Gauden's claim by those who must have
known its falseness if it were false ; in spite of the bishopric which Gauden re
ceived from the crown iu express recognition of his service ; and in the total
absence of positive testimony that Charles originated a single Une of the book ;
Dr. Wordsworth comes to the conclusion that the bishop was the immeasurably
-(ricked fool, which he must have been had he claimed the authorship of the
' Ic6n ' -without having -written it. And the Doctor arrives at thia concluaion on
the strength ofa number of wild conjectures, tri-rial hypotheses, verbal discre
pancies, and unimportant contradictions; the like of which might be brouglit
together by any ingenious casuist to prove that Walter Scott never wrote a Une
of the ' Waverley Novels.'
* The clergy of post-restoration times were bold beggars for preferment, but
I know of none more vehement, coarse, and grasping, than the prelate who said,
' Give me a better bishopric for having fabricated anjl uttered a stupendous po
litical lie !' Here is a characteristic story of clergymen running after preferment,
told by the biographer of ' The Right Honorable and Right Reverend Dr. Henry
Compton, late Lord Bishop of London,' the prelate who, before entering the
clerical order ofthe church militant, had been a cornet in a cavalry regiment.

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 231

startle at this motion, or wave the presenting it to hys Majesty,
yf you please to consider the pretentions I may have beyond any
of my calUng, not as te merit but duty performed to the Eoyall
Family ; true I once presumed your Lordship had fully known
that arcanum, for soe Dr. Morley told mee at the King's firat
coming, when he aaaured mee the greatnes of that service waa
such, that I might have any preferment I desired. This conscious
ness of your Lordship (as I supposed) and Dr, Morley made mee
confident my affaires would be carried on to some proportion of
what I had done, and he thought deaerved. Hence my ailence
of it to your Lordship; as to the King and Duke of York,
whom before I came away, I acquainted with it, when I saw
myselfe not so much considered in my present disposure aa I
did hope I ahould have beene ; vvhat aenae- their royall goodnes
hath of it is best to be expressed by themselfes, nor doe I doubt
but I shall by your Lordship's favour find the fruits as to some-
' There is a story,' says the biographer, ' which I have heard pretty well attested,
though I will not avouch for it, that his lordship's brother. Sir Francis Compton,
lieutenant-collonel to Oxford's regiment, quartering for some time in the country
of Hertford, within the diocess of London, and having contracted an esteem for
a neighbouring clergyman, who sometime kept him company ; it happened that
another minister thereabouts was taken so dangerously ill, that there was no hope
of his recovery. He was possessed of a good living, upon which his neighbour
immediately had his cue, and applying to Sir Francis for a letter in his behalf to
the bishop, he readily granted it, aud heartily recommended him to his lordship.
The breath -was no sooner out of the good man's body but he rid away for
London, put up his horse, and going to a cofiee-house in Aldersgate Street, near
London House, to refresh hiraself before he went to wait upon my lord bishop,
he there found a clergyman, to whom in discourse he discovered where he was
going, and about what afi'air ; who, thereupon, taking his leave, immediately went
to the bishop, and putting him in mind of former promises, that he should have
the first li-sdng, worth hia acceptance, that became vacant, he told hia lordahip
suoh an one was so. The good bishop immediately gave him his word he should
have it. He was no sooner gone, but the other clergyman came with Sir Francis's
letter. When the bishop had read it, he told him he waa heartUy aorry he could
not comply with his brother's recommendation in his behalf, and the more
because it was the first time that he had asked such a favour of him, for he had
already disposed of the li-ving. The clergyman was much surprised, and teUing
his lordship "that the man was but that minute dead, when he rid away for
London with aU the expedition he could ; and that he tarried nowhere but for a
very short space at a cofi'ee-house hard by to refresh himself, where there was a
clergyman to whom he told the business he was upon:" the bishop advised him
to keep hia own counael better for the future, for he had given the Uving to that
very person.'

232 A Book about Clergy.

thing extraordinary, since the service was soe ; not as to what
was known to the world under my name, in order to vindicate
the Crowne and the Church, but what goes under the late
blessed King's name, the Eixm, or Portraiture of hys Majesty,
in hys solitudes and sufferings. This book and figure was
wholy and only my i/nvention, making, and design, in order
to vindicate the King's wisdome, honor and piety. My wife,
indeed, was conscious to it, and had a hand in disguising the
letters of that copy which I sent to the King in the Isle of
Wight, by the favour of the late Marquise of Hertford, which
was delivered to the King by the now Bishop of Winchester ;
hys Majesty graciously accepted, owned and adopted it as hys
sense and genius ; not only with great approbation, but admi
ration ; hee kept it with hym, and though his cruel murtherers
went on to perfect hys martyrdome, yet God preserved and
prospered this book to revive hys honor and redeeme hys
Majesty's name from that grave of contempt and abhorrence
and infamy, in which they agreed to bury hym. WTien it came
out, just upon the King's death : Good God ! what shame, rage,
and despite filled hys murtherers ! What comfort hys friends !
How many enemies did it convert I How many hearts did it
mollify and melt ! What devotions it raysed to hys posterity,
as children of such a father ! What preparations it made in
all men's minds for this happy restouration, and which I hope
shall not prove my affliction I In a word, it was an army, and
did vanquish more than any sword could. My Lord, every
good subject conceived hopes of restouration ; meditated reveng,
and reparation ; your Lordship and all good subjects with hys
Majesty enjoy the reall and now ripe fruits of that plant ; 0
let mee not wither ! who was the author, and ventured wife,
children, estate, liberty, life, and all but my soule, in soe great an
achievement, which hath filled England, and all the world, with
the glory of it. I did lately present my faith in it to the Duke
of York, and by hym to the King : both of them were pleased
to give me credit and owne it as a rare service in those horrors
of times. Thus I played this best card in my hand something
too late ; else I might have sped as well as Dr, Eeynolds and
some others; but I did not lay it as a ground of ambition,'
nor use it as a ladder, thinking myselfe secure in the just valew

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 233
of Dr. Morley, who I waa sure knew it, and told me your
Lordship did soe too ; who I believe intended mee something at
least competent, though less convenient in this preferment. 'All
that I desire is that your Lordship would make that good,
which I think you designed.'
However disgusted and wearied they may have been by
Gauden's importunities, Charles the Second, the Duke of York,
aud Clarendon could not deny that he had strong claims on
the crown. The restored king was so disposed to satisfy the
aggrieved suitor that on Bishop Duppa's death he actually
promised him the bishopric of Winchester; but Clarendon,
who bore the literary prelate no good will, intervened between
him and the king's munificent purpose, so that Gauden had the
mortification of seeing IJr. Morley advanced to Winchester,
whilst he was only promoted to the inferior see of Worcester,
vacated by Morley. His translation from Exeter to Worcester
was a great change for the better ; but he had possessed the
richer see barely half-a-year, when he died— as his enemies
avowed, of a heart broken by mortification at missing his
promised preferment to Winchester.

234 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE II.
THE CHURCH POLITICAL.
THE romantic portraiture of Charles the First, which was
' wholy and only the invention, making, and design ' of a
literary clergyman who knew the king only by report, produced
a greater effect on the fortunes of England than any single
piece of veritable history wrought by a conscientious pen. It
trained our forefathers to regard the insolent, scornful, stam
mering Stuart as a man of princely nature and incomparable
goodness, whoae worat fault waa excessive zeal for the religious
welfare ofhis subjects, and whose life had been 'taken away by
the hands of bloody and cruel men.' The imaginary portrait
has been reproduced aa an exactly truthful picture by every
writer on the troubles of England in the seventeenth century,
who has regarded Charles's policy with the slightest degree of
approbation; and its influence is discernible in the pages of
the comparatively few historians who have held up hia conduct
to reprobation, and vindicated the patriotism and dutifulness of
his destroyers. Had Protestantism permitted the creation of a new saint,
Charles would unquestionably have been canonized. In her
inability to glorify him as Saint Charles, the Church lost no
time in declaring him a martyr for the Christian faith : and the
Book of Common Prayer was forthwith enriched with a special
service to his honour, which applied to the faulty man, some of
the moat muaical and pathetic passages of Holy Writ, that were
prophetic of the sufferings and sacrifice of the Blessed Saviour.
Though it is but the other day that we removed that form from
the collection of beautiful services, which it had disfigured for
two centuries, it seems almost incredible that the pious rulers

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 235

of the re-estabUshed Church were so blinded by political passion
as not to see the shocking and hurtful nature of the extravagant
adulation which it offered to the memory of an imperfect king.
Nor is it less difficult to realize the intellectual and moral con
dition of the devout laity of the seventeenth century, who found
nothing impious in the theory of divine government, which
taught them to regard Charles's death as an act of sacred
justice, whereby the heavily displeased God had punished a
wicked people, and at the same time as a national crime for
which the Deity was so likely to visit again and again with
terrible chastisements the descendants of its perpetrators,
and the descendants of all Englishmen contemporary with its
perpetrators, that it behoved them on each anniveraary of the
day of blood to pray passionately : ' But, 0 gracious God, when
thou makest inquisition for blood, lay not the guilt of this
innocent blood (the shedding whereof nothing but the blood of
thy Son can expiate), lay it not to the charge of the people of
this land : nor let it ever be required of us, or our posterity.'
Thirty years had not passed since the authoritative publica
tion of this penitential avowal of the unspeakable wickedness of
the rebellion which deprived Charles of his crown and life, when
another rebellion, in which the nobles and clergy of the land
co-operated no less cordially than men of inferior degree, drove
from our land the son of the martyred sovereign who, just forty
years earlier, had fallen before 'the unnatural rebellion, usurpa
tion, and tyranny of ungodly and cruel men.' To reconcile
their consciences to their departure from the principles of
Passive Obedience and Non-Eesistance, the chief promoters of
and participators in this second rebellion devised an ingenious
fiction that James the Second had abdicated his throne, and
that in consequence of his voluntary retirement from the kingly
office they were free, and indeed in duty bound, to look out for
another ruler, to whom they might swear and render allegiance
' until the times ahould alter.' So far aa it contributed to the
success of the revolution, this baseless assumption that the
monarch had voluntarily relinquished his office may be com
mended as a justifiable and politic effort of imagination. It
served the purpose of the revolutionists with thousands of simple
folk who, but for the seasonable use of some such specious piece

236 A Book about Clergy.
of political cant, would have remained obstinately faithful to
the martyred king's son — who had not thought of withdrawing
even from his capital until the revolution was an accomplished
fact : who, on retiring from the ground where he could not for
the moment remain, declared by act and word that his with
drawal was no abdication : and who, far from affording the
slightest countenance to the pleasant fiction of an abdication
and a vacant throne, resisted by arms the revolution in which
he was assumed to have acquiesced. The second rebellion
succeeded : and forthwith the Church, retaining the service of
humiliation for Charles the First's martyrdom and the service of
thanksgiving for the restoration of the house of Stuart, ordered
the people to give thanks once a year in the churches for the
revolution which, by bringing in His Majesty King William,
had wrought the ' deliverance of our Church and Nation from
Popish tyranny and arbitrary power.'
In accordance with the spirit which caused our ancestors to
discover a resemblance between Charles the First and the
Sacred Eedeemer of the human race, and animated them to
denounce the iniquity of the rebellion which resulted in the
Stuart's dethronement and death, the Eestoration pulpits
resounded with the servile doctrines of Pasaive Obedience and
Non-Eeaistance, — those doctrines the enunciation of which was
powerless alike to save Charles's head from the axe, and secure
to James the allegiance of his alarmed and incensed subjects.
By Charlea the Firat Dr. Manwaring had been rewarded with a
bishopric for preaching that ' the king is not bound to observe
the laws of the realm concerning his subjects' rights and liberties,
but that his royal will and pleasure, in imposing taxes without
consent of Parliament, doth oblige the subjects' conscience on
pain of eternal damnation.' For the sermon, in which this
declaration was made in the king's presence, Manwaring was
sentenced by the House of Lords to pay a fine of a thousand
pounds, to apologise publicly at the bars of both houses of
parliament, and to endure imprisonment during the Lords'
pleasure. The peers further declared that he was incapable
of holding any ecclesiastical dignity. But to show his con
tempt for parliament, and to encourage other pulpiteers to
imitate so exceUent an example of clerical servility, Charles

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 237
lost no time in giving Dr. Manwaring a free pardon and a
rich benefice, and in due course a bishopric. So soon as the
Eestoration had been effected, Manwaring's notions of a con
stitutional sovereign's right to do whatever he pleased with his
subjects' persons and property were caught up and repeated by
every glib hunter after preferment, who hoped to float into the
higher places of the hierarchy on the waves of politico-religious
prejudice and fashion.
The Caroline sermon in assertion of the sovereign's supe
riority to law, and in denial of the subject's right to resist the
despotic excesses of a wicked monarch, has by this time become
a clerical curiosity at which the general readers of this work
will like to glance. As a young bachelor of arts, when it was
the prevailing fashion to .flatter Cromwell, Eobert South had
composed a Latin poem in glorification of the Protector who
had just made peace with the Dutch ; but on the re-establish
ment of the Anglican Church, the young clergyman, who
had received episcopal ordination in the year preceding that of
Charles the Second's return, ranged himself with the high-
church politicians, and preached Non-Eesistance and Passive
Obedience, as boldly and loudly as any rising pulpiteer of the
day. Preaching in London on the text, ' If it be possible, as
much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,' he took
occasion to say, ' Now the foundation of the lavriulness of war
in all the forementioned cases is, because whatsoever a man has
a lawful right to possess or enjoy, he has by conaequence a right
to use all those means which are absolutely necessary 'to the
possession or enjoyment of that thing. You vrill say now,
that, according to this doctrine, when the prince encroaches on
his subjects' bodies, estates, or religion, they may lawfully resist
or oppose him. This objection brings in the resolution of the
first particular case proposed by us to be discussed, which is,
whether it bq lawfiil for subjects in any case to make war upon
the magistrate? My answer to it is in the negative: and
the reason is, because the subject has resigned up all right
of resistance into the hands of the prince and governor. And
for this we must observe, that as every man has naturaUy a
right to resist any one that shall annoy him in his lawful
enjoyments, so he has a general, natural right, by which he

238 A Book about Clergy.
is master of all the particular rights of his nature, so as to
retain them or recede from them, and give them away as he
pleases. Now when a man consents to be a subject, and to
acknowledge any one for his governor, he does by that very
act invest him with aU the necessary means to be a governor :
the chief of which is a yielding and parting with that natural
right of resisting him upon any occasion whatsoever. And
every man consents to have such an one his governor, from
whom he covenants to receive protection, and to whom he
does not actually declare a non-subjection. This being laid
down, it follows, that it is not more natural for a man to
resist another particular man, who would deprive him of his
rights, than it is natural for him not to resist his prince
upon the same occasions. Forasmuch as by a superior and
general right of nature, he has parted with this particular
right of resistance : and consequently, having given his prince
the propriety of it, he cannot any more use it unless his
prince should surrender it back to him again : which here
is not supposed,' It was, however, supposed in the case of
James the Second, by the devisers of the fiction of a royal
abdication, which imaginary abdication was construed aa a
real act by which James had surrendered back to his subjects
that right of resisting him, of which they had been imagined
to have divested themselves for his benefit.
On another occasion, preaching on the text, ' Woe to him
that buildeth a town with blood,' South addressed a crowded
congregation thus; — 'Whosoever sheds man's blood ought by
man to have hia blood shed. A judgment made up of all the
justice and equity that it is possible for reason and religion to
infuae into a law. But now the execution of this law being upon
no grounds of reason to be committed to every private hand, God
has found it necessary to deposit it only in the hands of his
vicegerents, whom he intrusts and deputes as his lieutenants in
the government and protection of the several societies of man
kind ; and so both to ennoble and guard their sceptres, by
appropriating to the same hands the use ofthe sword of justice
too. From which it follows that the law has not the same aspect
upon sovereign princes that it has upon the rest of men ; nor
that the sword can, by any mortal power, be authorised against

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 239
the life of him to whom the sole use of it is by divine right
ascribed. Upon which account, if it so fall out that a prince
invades either the estate or life of a subject, that law which
draws the sword of justice upon the life of any private person
doing the same things, has no power or efficacy at all to do the
same execution upon the supreme magistrate whose supremacy,
allowing him neither equal nor superior, renders all legal acts of
punishment or coercion upon him (the nature of which is still to
descend) utterly impossible.'
In this same sermon on bloodshed, the preacher speaking of
the rebellion said, 'As for that' (i. e, bloodshed)' which is
public, it is as certain, that he who takes away a man's life in
war, commenced upon an unjust cause, and without just author
ity, is as truly a murderer as he that enters his neighbour's house,
and then stabs him within his own walla. And as for the late
war, upon the account of all laws, both of God and man,
whether we respect the cause for which it was raised, which waa
the removal of grievances where there were none, or the persons
that carried it on who were subjects armed against their prince,
it waa in all the parts and circumstances of it, a perfect, open,
and most bare-faced rebellion. For not all the Calvins, Bezas,
Knoxes, Buchanans, or Parseus's in Christendom, with all their
principles of anarchy and democracy, so studiously maintained
in their respective writings, can by any solid reason make out
the lawfulness of subjects taking arms against their prince. For
if government be the effect and product of reason, it is impossible
for disobedience to found itself upon reason ; and therefore our
rebels found it necessary to balk and decry this, and to fetch a
warrant for all their villainies from ecstasy and inspiration.
But besides, if we translate the whole matter from the merit of
the cause to that of the person, no people under heaven had
less ground to complain of, much less to fight against, their
prince, than the English then had, who at that time swimmed
in a fuU enjoyment of aU things but a thankful mind: ho
prince's reign baring ever put subjects into a condition so like
that of princes, aa the peaceable part of the reign of King
Charles the First : which indeed was the true cauae that made
them kick at the breasts that fed them, and strike at that royal

240 A Book about Clergy.
oak under whose shadow they enjoyed so much ease, plenty, and
prosperity.' While South demonstrated that no sort of misrule, no excess
of revolting iniquity in a royal chief, would justify subjects in
freeing themselves from his tyranny, inferior and less discreet
clergymen perverting the words of Scripture, with adulation alike
serrile and blasphemous, ventured to teach that Charles the
Second was a deity. A characteristic specimen of this appalling
kind of pulpit sycophancy may be found in, ' The Divine
Original and the Supreme Divinity of Kings, no Defensative
against Death: a Sermon Preached the 22 February 168 —
Before the Eight Worshipful the Fellowship of Merchants
Adventurers of England, residing at Dordrecht, upon the occasion
of the decease of our late most Gracious Sovereign Charles II of
Ever Blessed Memorie. By Aug. Frezer, M. A. St. Edmund's
Hall, Oxon.' The text of the sermon was, ' I have said ye are
gods, and all of you children of the most High ; But ye shall die
like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, 0 God,
judge the earth, for then thou shalt inherit all nations.' The
opening sentence of the discourse was, — ' If a sparrow which is
sold for less than a farthing, or (which is of less consideration
than a sparrow) if a hair of our heads falls not to the ground
without the direction of our Heavenly Father, then certainly
the death of kings, who are not only the Image of God after amore
excellent manner than other men, hut Gods themselves, does not
happen but by an extraordinary appointment.'
Perhaps the two most noticeable qualities of the sermons,
delivered by the inferior preachers ofthe Eestoration period, are
their abusiveness towards persona and political parties, and their
comical redundancy of Greek and Latin words. I could name
sermons of this period in which a Greek or Latin phrase is
dragged in for the adornment of every paragraph. But even
more characteristic ofthe period than this shallow pedantry,* is
* In the ' Spectator,' No. 331, Addison notices with apt ridicvile the same
fashion in the unlearned or insincere clergy of his day, who were wont to pepper
their sermons -with Latin words, in order to pass themselves ofi' as unusually
learned divines on their rustic auditors. ' I have heard,' says the Essayist, ' of a
couple of preachers in a country town, who endeavoured which should outshine
one another, and draw together the greatest congregation. One of them being
weU versed in the fathers, used to quote every now aud then a Latin sentence to

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 241
the rancorous malignity with which the pulpiteers of the Non-
Eeaistance school assailed those whom they suspected of differing
from them in opinion. ' Our English pulpits,' says Fuller, with
unaffected quaintness and right feeling, ' for these last eighteen
years have had in them too much criminal anger venting by
snapping and snarling on both sides. But if ye bite and devour
one another, saith the apostle. Gal. v, 15, take heed ye be not
devoured of one another. Think not that our sermons must be
silent, if not satirical, as if divinity did not avoid smooth subjects
enough, to be insisted on in this juncture of time. Let us try
our skill whether we cannot preach without any dog-letter, or
biting word ; the art ia half learned by intending and wholly by
serious endeavouring of it,'
Of the riolence with which the less discreet and polite of the
Eestoration divines used to inveigh against their political ad
versaries from the pulpit, the reader may form some conception
his Uliterate hearers, who, it seems, found themselves so edified by it, that they
flocked in greater numbers to this learned man than to his rival. The other,
finding his congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what
was the occasion, resolved to give his parish a. little Latin in turn : but being
unacquainted with any of the fathers, he digested into his sermons the whole
book of Quee Genus, adding, however, such expUoations to it as he thought might
be fit for the benefit of his people. He afterwards entered up " As in priesenti,"
which he converted in the same manner to the use of his parishioners. This, iu
a very littie time, thickened his audience, filled his church, aud routed hia anta
gonist.' Very deUcately and pungently, also, does Addison satirize the politico-
reUgious agitators of hia time, and the use made of that old and almost worn-out
cry of ' The Church in Danger !' In ' The Freeholder,' No 7, he says :— ' When
a leading man, therefore, begina to grow apprehensive for the Church, you may
be' sure that he is either in danger of losing « place, or in despair of getting one.
It is pleasant, on these occasions, to aee a notorioua profiigate seized with a con
cern for hia religion, and converting his spleen into zeal. These narrow and
selfish -views have ao great an influence on this city, that, among those who call
themselvea the landed interest, there are several of my fellow-freeholders who
always fancy the Church in danger upon the rising of Bank-atock. But the
standing absurdities, without the beUef of which no man is reckoned a staunch
Churchman, are, that there is a Calves'-head Club, for which (by the way) the
same pious Tory has made suitable hymns and devotions; that there is a confe
deracy among the greatest part of the prelates to destroy Episcopacy ; and that
all who talk against Popery are Presbyterians in their hearts. The emissaries
of the party are so diUgent in spreading ridiculous fictions of thia kind, that at
present, if we may credit common report, there are several remote parts ofthe
nation in which it is firmly beUeved that aU the churches of London are shut up,
and that, if any clergyman walks the street in his habit, it is ten to one but he is
knocked down by some sturdy schismatic'
VOL, IL ^

242 A Book about Clergy.
from the indecent abusiveness to which South sank when he
made mention of Cromwell in a sermon delivered (February
22nd, 1684-5) in Westminster Abbey, before a crowded congre
gation of courtiers and people of fashion. ' Who that had
looked,' observed this wittiest and most highly accomplished of
the Eestoration preachers, ' upon Agathocles firat handling clay,
and making pota under his father, and afterwards turning rob
ber, could have thought that from such a condition he should
come to be King of Sicily ? Who that had seen Masaniello, a
poor fiaherman, with hia red cap and hia angle, could have reck
oned it poaaible to see such a pitifuU thing, within a week after,
shining in his cloth of gold, and with a word or a nod absolutely
commanding the whole city of Naples ? And who that had be
held such a bankrupt, beggarly fellow as Cromwell, first enter
ing the Parliament Houae with a threadbare, torn coat, greasy
hat (perhaps neither of them paid for), could have suspected
that, in the apace of so few years, he should, by the murder of
one king and the banishment of another, ascend the throne?'
When a court-chaplain could win the approval of good society,
by railing thus coarsely at the great Protector, cavaUer squires
and their ladies were disposed to think weU of the country par
son who covered Dissentera with contumeUous epithets borrowed
from the bear-garden.
The worahip of Charles was at its hottest enthusiasm when
Bishop Ken, in his ' Hymns on the Festivals,' glorified the
royal martyr with an ode, which compares the Stuart, who had
laid down his life for the Church, to the murdered Edmund, —
' ButwhenillustriousCharleslaiddown, He victim was to Pagan might.
For Church and Realm, hia life and This to apostate Christian spite,
crown.
Heaven Edmund's hymn remembered He was in heat of war subdued,
weU, Blessed Chailes was in cool blood pur-
Saw Charles's triumph far exceU ; sued ;
All his heroic grace admired. He overpowered, by conquest died.
Which now triumphant song inspired. Charlea by mock-form of law was tried ;
He had a martyr's causeless hate,
Edmund by foreign outrage bled, Blessed Charles a malel actor's fate.
The blood of Charles his natives shed ;
King Edmund fell by foes propressed. His virt.ues were to Danes unknown.
King Charles by subjects waa dis- Those of bright Charles obscure to
treaaed : none ;

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 2 A'S

At Edmund numerous darts were fiung. May I in bliss obtain a seat
Charles felt the sharper of the tongue : At our blessed, martyred sovereign's

Both lost their heads : he in the field.
This to the axe was forced to yield.

Charles with the higher throne is
graced.
Next him in heaven is Edmund placed ;
The heart of Charles, whUe Uving here.
Flew hourly to the heavenly sphere :
'Tis now a monumental star.
Bright rays diffusing wide and far.

feet ;
His foes wUl have the same desire.
If penitent, when they expire.
My God, indulge them when they die.
To be as near blessed Charles as I.
'TwUl super-effluent joys create
To see his foes in happy state ;
His tears in life on them he spent.
He '11 sing a hymn at their ascent :
They'll God adore, who made their
crime
The occasion of their bliss sublime.'

In the same strain is the EoyaUst bishop's hymn to be aung
' On the 29 th of May, being the day of the King'a Eestoration,'
of which effort of the sacred muse the following verses are a
favourable speciraen, —

' The regal Une were then exiled,
And all who loyal were re-viled ;
Pastors were of their flocks deprived.
New errors broached and old revived :
AU faithful souls their Uvea bemoaned,
And under peraecution groaned.
Cursed sacrilege the Church devoured.
Strange cant God's worship overpow
ered;
Temples and altars down were cast,
ReUgion gasping out its last ;
The mourners Uttle hope descried
Their flowing tears should e'er be dried.
But God, who in the needful time
Extracts a blessing out of crime.
Turned even the weapons of our foes
To instruments of our repose :
On this glad day knocked ofi' our chains.
For which we offer grateful atraina.
Our king exUed waa now reatored,
God -with true worahip waa adored,
FaUen templea built, the shut unlocked.
The pioua to our altars flocked.

The loyal sufferers were relieved.
And priests their portions due retiieved.
The Church and State seemed both to
have
A resurrection from the grave ;
The mourners wiped away their tear.
Their joy reached the supernal sphere ;
And all the angels with them joined.
By Heaven in Albion's guard combined.
Full praise to Thee, great God, we sing,
For laws, deliverance, church, and king ;
The hearts of the rebeUious band
Were all in Thy almighty hand :
The turn was wrought by Thee alone,
All praise to Thy propitious throne.

Lord, on Thy goodness we rely,
With gracious aids the land supply.
Apostate spirits all restrain,
May tares ne'er choke the heavenly
grain !
May no relapse excite Thy hate.
And mortal prove to Church and State ! '

244 A Book about Clergy.
Of the average merit of Bishop Ken's poetical effusions the
foregoing lines are much juster examples than his 'Morning
Hymn ' and ' Evening Hymn,' which are so greatly superior to
the bulk of his wretched versifications that it is difficult to be
lieve that he was their real author.

P^'^^ ^I- — Before and after the Restoration. 245

CHAPTEE IIL
A FOLIO OF PORTRAITS.
IN an earUer part of this work we had occasion to remark on
the richness and brightness of clerical dress in medieval
society, on the brilliance of the colours and the costliness of the
silks and furs,* with which the wealthier ecclesiastics decorated
themselves in the centuries when the affluent members of the
community lavished upon personal adornments the greater part
of their superfluous means.
It is certain that the ciril troubles of the fifteenth century,
by impoverishing the clerical, together with every other, class
of society, tended to diminish very perceptibly the external
splendour of spiritual persons, who may, moreover, have been
induced to abate something of their long-used magnificence
and sumptuousness out of deference to Lollard sentiment, which
continued to influence society for the better after political Lol
lardy had been utterly extinguished. Nor, whilst endeavouring
to realize the outward bearing and habiliments of the medieval
eccleaiaatics, must we fail to remember that, though a consider
able proportion of them could afford to wear fur and silk, the
majority of the beneficed clergy and the entire body of stipendi
ary curates, in every generation of the feudal period, endured
a degree of indigence that compelled them to exercise the most
* In Edward the Third's time it was ordered, ' That the clerks which have a
degree in a church, cathedral, coUegial, or in schools, and the king's clerks which
have such an estate that requires fur, do and use according to the constitution of
the same ; and all other clerks which have above two hundred marks rent per
annum, use and do as knights of the same rent ; and other clerks under that
rent, use as requires of an hundred-pound rent ; and that all those, as well
knights as clerks, which by this ordinance may use fur in winter, by the same
manner may use it in the summer.' — Eot. 37 Ed. Ill,

246 A Book about Clergy.
stringent economy in their personal expenditure, and to be con
tent with raiment of a cheap and modest kind.
But, whatever the effect of Lollardy and the civil wars in
lowering the luxury and brightness of clerical costume in the
fifteenth century, it cannot be doubted that, throughout the
earlier part of his reign, Henry the Eighth's clergy were as
bravely clad as the EngUsh clergy of any previous time since
the coming of the ostentatious Normans. Partly from motives
of policy, but chiefly to gratify one of the strongest passions of
his lordly nature, Wolsey exhibited in his dress, retinue, and
equipments, a determination to surpass the splendour of the
secular nobles, whose envy he roused by his exorbitant power
and insufferable arrogance ; and the example of the most power
ful and splendid ecclesiastic, who had swayed the fortunes of
the country since the fall of Becket, had a notable effect on all
the grades of the clergy in making them vie with each other in
luxury and display. England had never witnessed a wealthier
or more gorgeous body of sacerdotal persons than the array of
dig-nitariea and monastic residents whom the Eeformation stripped
of their revenues and influence, reducing them from the eatate of
a peculiarly fortunate and dangerously dominant claaa to a con
dition of helplessness, indigence, and insecurity. Ejected from
their peaceful colleges, and compelled to support life on small pen
sions, many of the deprived monks had neither the disposition
nor the meana to play the part of ecclesiastical fops. Nor were
the monks the only ecclesiastics who were prejudicially affected
by the suppression of the religious houses. It being part of
Henry's policy to provide for deprived regulars by inducting
them into small livings, in order that they might be more inti
mately blended by fortune and labour vrith the secular priests,
and that the funds set apart for the maintenance of dispossessed
monks might be rendered available for other uses, it was not
long before the seculars found unprecedented difficulty in acquir
ing better preferments, or such small livings as incumbents had
hitherto been accustomed to hold together with more lucrative
benefices. Thus, whUst the monks were despoiled and depressed,
the seculars were grievously affected by a sudden increase in the
number of candidates for the offices for which they had hereto
fore been the chief applicants.

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 247
But no sooner had the clerical order rallied from the shock
and impoverishment consequent on Henry's ecclesiastical
changes, than its more fortunate members provoked the anger
of severe censors by their indulgence in delicate and costly
apparel. Velvet gowns were again frequently seen on the
backs of prosperous priests, some of whom were even guilty of
the effeminacy of wearing velvet shoes and slippers. 'Such
men,' exclaimed honest Latimer, ' are more fit to dance the
morria-dance, than to be permitted to preach.' The clergy of
whom Maater Latimer spake thus disdainfully were the clerical
fops of Edward the Sixth's cathedral tovms. The restoration of
the Papacy by Edward's successor stimulated the vanity of these
fancifully attired priests, of whom Strype records : ' The priests,
especially the better aort of them, took much care about the
habit and apparel they wore. They went about in aide-sweeping
gowns, with great wide sleeves, four-cornered caps, and smooth
smirk faces.' The four-cornered or geometrical cap — of which
sufficient notice has been taken elsewhere — waa univeraaUy
reaumed by those of the Marian clergy who, after laying it
aside together with other badges of orthodoxy in Edward's time,
determined like prudent men to accommodate themselves to the
wishes of the Catholic queen.
Even more noticeable as marks or badges of party were
the modes in which the clergy ofthe Eeformation period dressed
their hair, when authority left them at liberty to select their
own ways of arranging it. After the tonsure had been for
bidden or disused, as a sign of superstition and Papistry, whUst
the High-church clergy cut their locks close, and shaved their
cheeks as smooth as apples, the ministers of Genevan proclivities
wore long hair and grew beards. Others of the clergy, occupy
ing the middle ground between the extreme schools of eccle
siastical opinion, sometimes showed their liberality and disregard
for trifles by removing or wearing beard, whiskers, and even
moustaches, according as the humour took them to be more or
less hairy. In my foUo of clerical portraits I have the pictures
of several eminent divines, whose moustaches lead me to infer that
throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, from
the days of Elizabeth to the end of Charles the Second's time,
clergymen wore moustaches much more generaUy than most

248 A Book about Clergy.
people suppose. For instance, my engraving of Lancelot
Andrewes, bishop of Winchester (who died A.D. 1626, in the
71st year of his age), represents the prelate as wearing mous
taches and a small peaked beard. Archbishop Usher,* who
entered holy orders in the reign of Elizabeth and died during
the Commonwealth, in my portrait of him, wears black gown
and scarf, circular ruff, black skull-cap with the wearer's locks
coming out from beneath it, and moustaches. Archbishop
Leighton, who died in 1684,'|' is also depicted in my likeness of
him with moustaches, which are rendered especially conspicuous
by the closeness and cleanness vrith which his cheeks and chin
have been shaved. Thus we have three chief ecclesiastics, a
prelate and two primates — each of them marking one of three
* This primate saw Charles the First's execution from the roof of Lady Peter
borough's house, near Charing Cross. ' Divers of the Countess's gentlemen and
servants,' says my authority, ' got upon the leads of the house, from whence they
could see plainly what was acting at WhitehaU. As soon as his majesty came
upon the scaffold, some of the household carae aud told my lord primate of it,
and askt him if he would aee the king once more before he was put to death.
My lord was at first un-wiUing, but was at last persuaded to go up, aa well out of
a desire to see his majesty once again, aa alao curiosity, since he could scarce
beUeve what they told him unleaa he saw it. When he came upon the leads, the
king was in his speech : the lord primate stood stiU and said nothing, but
sighed, and Ufting up his hands and eyes (full of tears) towards heaven, seemed
to pray earnestly ; but when his majesty had done speaking, and had pulled off
hia cloak and doublet, and stood stripped in his waistcoat, and that the villains
in vizards began to put up his hair, the good bishop, no longer able to endure so
dismal a aight, and being fuU of grief and horror for that most -wicked fact now
ready to be executed, grew pale and began to faint : so that, if he had not been
observed by his own servant and some others that stood near him (who there
upon supported him), he had swooned away. So they presentiy carried him
down and laid him on his bed, where he used those powerful weapons which God
has left His people in such afSictiona, -viz. prayers and tears.'
t Leighton's death occurred in an inn, in accordance with his often expressed
wish that he should expire away from home and friends, and in a tavern. ' He
considered,' says Mr. Jerment, ' such a place aa suitable to the character of the
Christian pilgrim, to whom the world is an inn, a place of accommodation by the
way, not his home ; and that the spiritual sojourner steps with propriety from an
inn to his Father's house. Leighton thought, also, that the care and concern of
friends were apt to entangle and discompose the dying saint j and that the un
feeling attendance of strangers weaned the heart from the world, and smoothed
the passage to heaven. Our author obtained his wish: for he died at the Bell
Inn, in Warwick Lane ; and none of his near relations were present during his
last iUness. If he had not the consolation to see hia nearest relation, a beloved
sister, the feelings of both were spared the agony of a final adieu.'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 249
grand divisions of the seventeenth century ; the Elizabethan,
the Laudian, and the Eestoration period, — and each of them
wearing moustaches.
The ordinary costume of the Episcopalian clergy of the
seventeenth century was fixed at the opening of James the First's
reign by the 74th canon, which enjoins ' That the archbishops and
bishops shall not intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their
degrees. Likewise all deans, masters of colleges, archdeacons,
and prebendaries, in cathedral and collegiate churches, (being
priests or deacons), doctors in divinity, law, and physic, bachelors
in dirinity, masters of arts, and bachelors of law, having any
ecclesiastical living, shall usually wear gowns vrith standing
collars, and sleeves strait at the hands, or wide sleeves, as is used
in the universities, vrith hoods or tippets of silk or sarcenet, and
square caps. And that all other ministers admitted or to be
admitted into that function shall also usually wear the like
apparel as is aforesaid, except tippets only. We do further in
like manner ordain. That all the said ecclesiastical persons above
mentioned shall usually wear in their journeys cloaks with sleeves,
commonly called priests' cloaks, without guards, welts, long
buttons, or cuts. And no ecclesiastical person shall wear any
coif or wrought high-cap, but only plain night-caps of black
silk, satin, or velvet. In all which particulars concerning the
apparel here prescribed, our meaning is not to attribute any
holiness or special worthiness to the said garments, but for
decency, grarity, and order, aa is before specified. In private
houses, and in their studies, the said persons ecclesiastical may
use any comely and scholarUke apparel, provided it be not cut
or pinkt : and that in public they go not in their doublets and
hose, without coats or cassocks ; and that they wear not any
light-coloured stockings. Likewise poor beneficed men and
curates (not being able to provide themselves long gowns) may
go in short gowns of the fashion aforesaid,'
In accordance with the letter of thia canon, but with greater
sumptuousness than it contemplated, the rector waa dressed,
concerning whom Maater Pooreat, in the ' Curates' Conference,'
(1641), remarked, — ' He weareth cassocks of damask and plush,
good beavers, and silk stockings ; can play well at tables, or gleek ;
can hunt well and bowl very skilfully; is deeply experienced in

250 A Book about Clergy.

racy canary, and can relish a cup of right claret; and so
passeth time away,'
Disposed though he was to preserve the ancient pomps of
the Church, and endowed though he was with a vain man's love
of whatever ostentatious ways promised to magnify his import
ance to ordinary people. Archbishop Laud was commendably
simple in his dress, and never omitted to rebuke the clergy who
appeared before him in raiment that misbeseemed their calUng
and means. At a visitation in Essex, during his tenure ofthe see
of London, he sharply rated a clergyman who, to use FuUer's
words, ' appeared before him very gallant in habit.' To give
point to his reproof the prelate drew attention to the contrast
between his own sober costume and the clothes of the foppish
priest. ' My Lord,' retorted the unabashed offender, ' you have
better clothes at home, and I have worse,' Like Laud, Bishop
Hacket preferred simple to sumptuous attire, both for himself
and the clergy whom he governed, 'His apparel,' says Dr,
Plume, ' was ever plain, not morose or careless, but would never
endure to be costly on himself, either in habit or diet, often
quoting that of St, Austin, "Profecto depretiosa veste erubesco."
He was as much ashamed of a rich garment as others of a poor
one, and thought that they were fitter for a Eoman Consul than
a Christian Prsesul, and accordingly never put on a silk cassock
but at a great festival, or a wedding of some near friend;
holding that a glittering prelate without inward ornaments was
but the paraphrase of a painted wall.'
So that the reader, unfamiliar with old portraits, 'may reaUze
the outward characteristics of clerical dress in times before and
after the Eestoration, from EUzabeth's day to Queen Anne's
period, I will put before him briefly the more noteworthy points
ofthe costumes preserved in my folio of ecclesiastical portraitures.
Bearded and moustached Andrewes (Elizabethan Bishop of
Winchester) used to wear a frilled collar, i. e. the ruff or band
that had not begun to droop or fall into the fashion of the bands
worn by Charles the First's courtiers; and a geometrical cap
with rounded corners, — a head-covering which was a kind of
practical compromise between the High-churchman's sharply-
cornered square cap, and the Puritan's rounded bonnet. The
portrait of Archbishop Williams, which forms the frontispiece

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 251
of Hacket's ' Scrinia Eesecrata,' presents the primate wearing a
ruff round his neck, and on his head a broad-brimmed. Quaker
like hat, — doubtless the hat which he wore while presiding,
as Lord-keeper, in the Court of Chancery, Though Hacket
lived in 1670, at which time the younger clergy, as well as the
'junior bar,' had generally adopted falling bands — corruptly
.designated band-strings — he appears in his picture wearing a
short, stiffly-plaited frill-collar of an Elizabethan fashion, and
the canonical black night-cap, which, after the Eestoration, was
gradually diacarded in favour of the wig, WilUams wears
neither whiakera nor beard, nor any indication of mouataches ;
but the hair of his head appears beneath his skull-cap. Heylyn,
who Uved to see the Eestoration and to die in his old quarters
at Weatminater, atands before me in gown, cassock, black skull
cap, at the backward edge of which his curls are visible, and a
plain round collar neatly folded over his canonical vest. Closely
shorn like Heylyn, Dr. Hammond, the Oxonian doctor, ap
pears in cap and gown ; and he wears a large plain collar,
reaching almost to the curve of the shoulder on either side, and
lying in front along the collar-bone, — a collar which may be
regarded as one of the intermediate types that serve to estabUsh
a connexion in millinery between the early falling band and
the banda of the later Eeatoration clergy, Biahop Ken aur-
vived to the reign of Queen Anne, but, like Chief- Juatice Hale,
who stoutly refused to adopt the Eestoration fopperies of wig
and bands, the amiable prelate continued to wear the canonical
skull-cap to the end of his days, in preference to the flowing
wig, which had become the mode for all kinds of social digni
taries, as well as for men of fashion. The Bishop of Bath and
WeUs, however, wore bands, — that are excellent illustrations of
how the string-band came from the falling coUar ; they pro
tected the collar of the biahop's vest, put a white line round his
neck, and dropped in broad rectangular shape about three inches
beneath his chin. Mouataches-wearing Leighton wears hia hair
long over the eara, and short over the forehead, and his band is
the large plain collar of the aeventeenth century, falling behind
and at the sides as weU as at the front, and cut square under
the chin. Usher, tiU the time of his death under the Common
wealth, wore the circular ruff and the black coif-cap, from be-

252 A Book about Clergy.
neath which the locks of the moustaches-wearing primate
peeped out.
During the Commonwealth the clergy relinquished the
canonical dress, — some with gladness, because they disUked
everything that reminded them of episcopal government ; and
some reluctantly at the instigation of prudence, which enjoined
them to lay aside the square cap and cassock, which had been,
objects of ridicule to the populace. But not content vrith
giving up these features of their old costume, which had gone
out of fashion, the loyal clergy — i. e. the deprived ministers and
those of the officiating clergy whose hearts were with the Cava
liers, and who entertained no fear of assemblers or triers —
contracted a habit of wearing bright colours, averring that
they thus disguised themselves in laical garb in order to escape
the obloquy which, in the days of hypocritical misrule, attached
to members of the sacred profession. ' Thus,' says Dr. Gauden,
in the ' Ecclesiae Anglicanse Suapiria,' bewailing the contempt
into which the clergy had fallen, ' while the aoulder looks big,
and glories to be seen in his arms, as the ensigns of his well-paid
profession ; while wary lawyers keep as grave and wise men to
their robes and gowns, as badges of their calling, which is their
honour and gain too ; whUe the ciril fraternities and com
panies of trades own their vests and liveries, onely the poor
ministers of England study with great artifice to disguise them
selves, as manifestly, and not a little ashamed of their order and
function, and this not only in highways and markets, but even
in their very churches and pulpits, and they had rather appear
as Lawyers, Physitians, Troopers, Graziers, yea, mechanicks,
apprentices, and serving-men, than in such a colour, garment,
garb, and fashion, as best becomes (in my judgment) grave
scholars and venerable preachers ; so great ia the damp and
discountenance they are sensible of, when they come among
Laymen, being always loth, and oft afraid to be taken for
ministers, lest they be openly disgraced, jeered, and contemned ;
this makes many leave off their wearing black, when they have
cause enough to be in mourning.' Noticing this same tendency
of the EoyaUst clergy to lay aside black and wear colours. Sir
John Birkenhead, in ' The Assembly-man,' says of his typical
assembler, ' Hia doublet and hoae are of dark blue, a grain

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 253

deeper than pure Coventry, but of late he is in black, since the
loyal clergy were persecuted into colours.' Whilst the Cavalier
clergy thus indicated their political principles by wearing
colours, on the plea that by clothing themselves in black they
would draw upon themselves the insults everywhere showered
on the clerical order, the ministers of the other party generally
clothed themselves in black, and, instead of experiencing any
discomfort from social disesteem of ' the cloth,' were more
cordially received by the gentry, and more affectionately re
garded by the congregations, than the parochial clergy of Eng
land had ever been since the Eeformation.
Slowly following in the wake of the fashion which brought
in wigs and long faUing bands — a fashion which the legal pro
fession was aa alow to adopt as it has been resolute in maintain
ing it— the clergy of this Eestoration period laid aside the
canonical night-cap in favour of false hair, and substituted
string-bands for the round or dropping collars of the Common
wealth time and earUer days of Charles the Second. TiUotson
was one of the first Anglican divines to wear a peruke in the
pulpit ; and the ecclesiastics of this period on rising to prelatic
office assumed the long-flowing wig, which bishops relinquished
within the memory of the present generation. Stillingfleet and
Bull, who received episcopal ordination during the Common-.
wealth, Atterbury and TiUotson, are all represented in their
portraits adorned vrith flowing curls of borrowed hair. But
apart from their relinquishment of the black skull-cap, the
Anglican clergy persevered in obedience to the seventy-fourth
canon, till the middle of the eighteenth century, — or at least
till several years had elapsed since the death of Queen Anne,
The 'Spectator' of Oct, 20, 1714, describes a young clergy
man, walking about London in the canonical costume, and
speaks of him as deeming himself 'but half-equipped with a
gown and cassock for his pubUc appearance, if he hath not the
additional ornament of a scarf of the firat magnitude.' After
an almoat total discontinuance by their order of the canonical
garb for about a century, some of our parochial clergy — who,
if not in all cases High-churchmen, are favourably disposed to
canonical rule and ancient discipline — ordinarily wear waist
coats resembling the cassock, and coats with standing collars

254 A Book about Clergy.
fashioned somewhat after the model of the discarded ecclesias
tical dress, I am not aware that any of our clergy show
themselves in society, wearing ' plain night-caps of black silk,
satin, or velvet ; ' but there is a grovring disposition on the part
of our parish-priests to make habitual use of the four-cornered
cap, which a few years since was seldom worn by any class of
persons except resident members of the universities, collegiate
clergy, and schoolboys receiring instruction in ancient semi
naries, or in modern academies affecting collegiate style and
usages.

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 255

CHAPTEE IV.
POOR CURATES.
FEOM the time when the stipendiary clerks, in common
with all other Ul-paid labourers, demanded higher wages
after the Black Death, to the indignation of Archbishop Islip,
who, upbraiding them for their unholy appetite for worldly
gain, ordered them to desist from seeking the just remuneration
of their services, down to the present day of benevolent asso
ciations for supplying indigent clergymen with the cast-off
clothing of more fortunate gentlemen, the sufferings of the
least prosperous and least exalted members of the clerical order
have been a favourite topic of compassionate discourse with
persons of tender natures, and with those less humane critics
of society who are more apt to deplore than quick to alleviate
the distresses of their fellow-creatures.
That the sorrows of our poor curates are neither imaginary
nor trivial is admitted even by those who have so many diffi
culties of their own to contend against, and so many troubles
in their private affairs to thinli about, that they have neither
time to bewail nor means to mitigate the afflictions of their
neighbours; and I should be sorry to say aught that would
check the currents of sympathy and aid which steadily flow
towards such fit objects of Christian commisseration. But,
notwithstanding the vast amount of penury which embitters the
lives and wastes the energies of a large number of clerical
persons, I am of opinion that the present generation is happy
beyond all previous periods of our ecclesiastical history since
the Eeformation, in its comparative freedom from grinding
poverty in the lowest grades of the hierarchy.
It is certain that the Eeformation affected prejudiciaUy the

256 A Book about Clergy.
inferior clergy, by leaving them at liberty to contract imprudent
marriages at a time when ecclesiastical persons, holding the
richest benefices and chief offices of the Church, could seldom
improve their worldly fortunes by matrimonial alliances. Even
in these days of prudence and calculating forethought, when the
consequences and responsibilities of marriage are more loudly
proclaimed than its delights and honours, the poor are found
far more eager for the costly privileges of wedlock than the
rich, to whom the maintenance of offspring would cause neither
difficulty nor concern. And in the sixteenth century, when no
Malthus had taught young lovers that marriage without means
was a crime without a valid excuse, the stipendiary curates and
incumbents of miserably poor benefices hastened to burden
themselves with wives and children, whilst the superior and
more affluent ecclesiastics held themselves aloof from marriage,
as an estate bordering on sinfulness, to which they could not
condescend without loss of dignity and hoUness. The conse
quence, as we remarked in an earlier section of this work, was
the production of a large number of clerical families, whose
daily experiences differed very Uttle from the daUy experiences
of the peasantry.
Before the middle of the seventeenth century the sufferings
of the stipendiary curates had become so extreme, that their dis
content broke out in angry denunciations of the beneficed clergy,
and in vague proposals for an organized attempt on their part
to obtain a more liberal share of the wealth of the Church.
Exclaiming against the avarice and cruelty of pluralist rectors,
Master Poorest, in 'The Curates' Conference,' (1641), observed,
' They deal with us as they do with their flocks — I mean their
pariahionera ; for they starve their souls and pinch our bodies.'
Whereto Master Needham responded, ' I wonder how these life-
parsons would do, should there be but once a general consent of
all the curates to forbear to preach or read prayers but for one
three weeks, or a month only ; how they would be forced to ride
for it, and yet all in vain : for how can one person supply two
places at one time twenty miles distant ? ' But before the afflicted
curates could put their threat in force, the political convulsions,
which proved so disastrous to the prelates and other dignified
clergy, afforded stipendiary priests a larger measure of good

Part VL — Before and after the Restoration. 257

fortune than they could have obtained by the most feUcitous
co-operative movement.
Taking vigorous measures to correct the abuses of pluralism
the Long ParUament insisted, that the services of the Church
should be performed with an approach to efficiency in every
place of worship, to which was attached an ecclesiastical re
venue sufficient for the maintenance of a minister; and that
all incompetent and scandalously negligent incumbents should
be deprived of their cures, so that their placea might forth
with be filled by able and hardworking men. Whatever in
justice attended the summary execution of its ecclesiastical
poUcy, there can be no doubt that the Parliament, by its
wholesale evictions of peccant miniaters and redistribution of
ecclesiastical patronage, affected most beneficially a large num
ber of the particular clerical class to which the Poorests and
the Needhams belonged, and would have continued to belong to
the last, had not a social revolution given them preferments.
But though the sufferings of hundreds of curates were thus
alleviated at the expense of a somewhat smaller number of
ejected incumbents — whose wretched families helped to swell
that doleful flood of clerical misery of which we have already
spoken at length — the poverty of curates continued to afflict
humane observers and menace society with serious disaster.
A century later the same grievances, which had roused the
resentful murmurs of the Laudian curates, inspired the stipendi
ary priests of Georgian England with sentiments of bitter
hostUity against the incumbents whom they served for paltry
remunerations. George the Third had not been six years on
the throne when Lloyd undertook the advocacy of the curates'
hopeless cause ; and in ' The Curate, a Poem : Inscribed to all
the Curates in England and Wales,' poured a torrent of angry
abuse and unjust satire on the rich rectors, whom he regarded
as chiefly accountable for the miseries of their professional in
feriors. That this indiscreet patron waa not qualified to render
effectual service to his unfortunate clients is apparent from the
following specimen of his verse, —
' Behold Nugoso I wriggling, shuffling on,
A mere Church-puppet, an automaton
VOL. II. S

258 A Book about Clergy.
In orders : note its tripping, mincing pace.
Religion creams and raanties in its face I
Is all religiou from the top to toe !
But milUnera and barbers made it so.
It wears religion in the modish way.
It brushes, starches, combs it every day :
For our prim Doctor is but such a saint
As aign-post daubers o'er a shop-door paint ;
An efSgy, a reverend bust, whose head
Is but a perriwig, and bronzed lead ;
Whose orthodoxy lies in outward things.
In beavers, cassocks, gowns, bands, gloves and rings:
It shows its learning by its doctor's hood.
And proves its goodness, — 'cause ita cloaths are good;
Preaches (nor thinks Invention frames the Ue)
Its Christmas-sermon on a Christmas-pye,
Orthodox pudding next, and in the rear
(Salvation thrown aside) a good New Year.
Search but the North, the South, the West, the East
Of thia great town, you '11 find this Pastry Priest.
Yet shaU this ape of Form, this Fashion's Fool,
Pretend to keep an Apostolic school ;
Shall dare with insolent, Rectorial Pride,
Ita curate, spite of aU his -virtues, chide.
And soofang, cry, — " You ne'er can find the way
To heaven 1" "Why?" " Your stockings are too gay,
Your wig is not quite orthodoxly curled,
To hope for favour in another world ;
Your cassock ia too maty, and your gown
Is for the Court of Justice much too brown.
Your band is not half starched enough — your hat
Too fiercely cooked, — the Aposties wore them fiat.
Pray in your coat, too ! — worse than aU the rest !
God 's not at home, sir, if the Priest 's undrest.
Mend and reform — in cloaths — for no one goes
To heaven's gay court except canonic beaux !
It chatters, pratties, snivels, whines, and cants.
More tedious than a world of aunts." '
Whatever may have been the shortcomings of worldly rec
tors in the middle of the last century, so feeble and unmannerly
a satirist as the author of ' The Curate ' was not the censor to
whip them into better sense and greater kindliness.
Fifty years and rather more had passed since the publication
of ' Lloyd's Metrical Plea for Curates,' when the destitiition of
a large number of the inferior clergy was urged upon the atten
tion of the benevolent public in another poem, entitled ' The
Curate.' That very many of the unbeneficed clergy of the

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 259
period were enduring sharp and humiliating privation is demon
strated by the pathetic statements of the seventy-eight necessi
tous curates who applied for a portion of the ludicrously
inaufficient fund of 800?., which Dr. Taylor and Mr. W. Middle-
ton provided for the relief of extremely indigent clergymen.
One of the candidates for aid from this source was a Cumber
land pastor, who had entered the fifty-fourth year of his age
without obtaining a larger income than 251. per annum for the
maintenance of himself and hia ten children. But, though the
distressed curates sorely needed an eloquent patron to stir society
in their behalf, he was not found in the anonymous author of 'The
Curate : a Poem' (1810), who described the homely humiliations
and distresses of the necessitous priests with a sprightliness and
occasional pungency, nowhere present in Lloyd's abusive satire,
but, like Lloyd, fell into the error of railing at the affluent in
cumbents and dignitaries. Perhaps the lamest and faintest
lines in the poem are the following verses, which are, however,
more noteworthy than the stronger paaaages of the work, because
they remind us of some of the features of a state of clerical
society which, though it fiourished less than half a century since,
has completely passed away, —
' Say ye, whom tow'ring mitres please. At Weymouth, Chelt'nham, Bath, and
With sacred ore and pillowed ease ; Brighton :
Say, whora no cares nor wants appal. Who Uving raise the world's compas-
The sleek incumbents of a stall ; sion.
Say, whom the pointer leads to game. Or die despised as men of fashion ;
With Aaron's vest and Nimrod's fame ; FopUngs, whom vanity profanes
Who Fox's Martyrs leave to your fiocks. With hats amorphous, aprons, canes ;
And fly yourselves to martyr fox ; Say all, whose pampered bodies thrive
Say, brothers of the Church— who crop By curates, doom'd to starve alive :
Its harvest rich, and " sink the shop," What penance, pilgrimage, denial,
Tame guUa, that girls and gamblers Can equal Slender's Christian trial ?'
light on.
Against the charges of indolence, worldUness, and selfish
greed, thus recklessly preferred against the beneficed, by the vi
tuperative defenders of the unbeneficed clergy, any reader of
AngUcan biography could produce a long array of characteristic
caaes in which affluent incumbents and powerful dignitaries
have displayed the most deUcate and generous consideration for
the wants and feeUngs of their curates and subordinate dergy.

260 A Book about Clergy.

like Bishop Bull, of whom Nelson narrates that he did not pre
sume to discharge the functions of a friendly censor to hia curates
until he had first solicited them to point out to him in brotherly
love whatever they found amiss in his conduct, 'For aome
time,' says George Bull's biographer, 'before his coming to
Avening, he had made use of a curate to assist him in his paro
chial duties . , , . He preached once every Lord's Day, and
read the prayers frequently himself the other part of the day,
when his curate preached. He chose to divide, after this manner,
the publick administrations, that the people might not entertain
a mean opinion of his curates, as if they were not qualified for
the duties of the pulpit .... There was one use, indeed, he
made of a curate, which will appear surprising because I believe
seldom or never practised, and that was to admonish him of
his faults ; the proposal was from himself, that they might agree
from that time to tell one another freely, in love and privacy,
what they observed amiss in each other. It is certain thjs
might help to regulate the conduct of his own life ; but it had
this peculiar advantage, that it gave him a handle without
offence with anything that appeared wrong in his curate, for,
when the liberty was mutual, neither of them could be blamed
for the use of it.'
The poor curate and the poor governess are companions in
affliction — the unfortunate relations of good society ; for whom
we all wish a brighter lot, though, in certain cases, it is difficult
to state precisely why they deserve it. The fashionable novel
puts them side by aide ; and in dealing with their wrongs, and
appealing to society to take ateps for the ameUoration of their
hapless condition, it has recourse to the same arts of exaggeration
and plaintive misstatement. The typical poor governess isi
always depicted by her enthusiastic champions as a lady of sin
gular beauty and goodness, sprung from gentle parents and a
noble ancestry, possessing every feminine accomplishment, and
greatly excelling in intellect and style her insolent and oppres
sive employers. In the same way the fanciful delineators of
the poor curate represent that he is gentle by birth as well as
by profession ; that he has had the expensive training of a public
school and aristocratic college ; that the large sum lavished oil
his education did not exceed the outlay requisite for the pro-

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 261
duction of a scholarly and efficient priest ; and that, whereas his
rectors are often mere prosperous and ill-bred dullards, he is a
model of the thoughtful, zealous, and eloquent clergyman — gra
cious in manner, and endowed with noble presence. To persons
of ordinary good sense there is no need to demonstrate the
general inaccuracy of this fictitious portraiture, and to show
that, whereas the majority of our well-born and highly-educated
curates soon gain preferment, either through the influence of
friends or by their personal merit, our poor curates — i.e. the
clergy who remain curates till their later years — have, for the
most part, been drawn from the less affluent grades of the middle
class, have been educated at comparatively small cost at provin
cial schools and inferior colleges, and, so far as concerns their
extraction, training, and natural parts, are in no way superior to
the gentlemen who, in the other liberal professions and reputable
callings, begin and end their careers in industrious penury. To
estimate rightly the fortune of these infelicitous clergymen we
should not contrast them against the successful members oftheir
own profeasion, but compare them with the respectable but im-
successful members of other professions— the surgeons and
soUcitors, who, through want of capital and other advantages in
early life, continue in very humble and subordinate positions to
the end of their days ; the officers of the army and navy, who
are found in middle age on half-pay, and burdened with neces
sitous families ; the barristers, who, after vain struggles for
position at the bar, retire from the Inns of Court, and aeek their
sustenance in humbler fields of employment ; the merchants,
who fail without dishonour, and sink to be clerks on salaries far
beneath an ordinary curate's stipend; the schoolmasters, who,
through no misconduct or moral defect, drop to be ushers ; the
authors and artists — honourable and good men, some of them
richer in learning and insight than their early and prosperous
competitors — who arrive at old age without distinction, office,
or bare security from want.
Compared with the other learned and liberal professions, the
Church will, I think, be found to have a amaUer proportion of
necessitous members, than any other calling to which the gen
tlemen of our time have recourse for subsistence. And in spite
of the great deal, the far too much, that we hear of clerical

262 . A Book about Clergy.
poverty, and the miserable prospects of the young clergy who
have neither private wealth nor powerful connexions, I am dis
posed to think that no profesaion surpasses the clerical vocation
in affording young men of average intelligence, pleasant man
ners, and honest life, the means of attaining material prosperity.
Unsustained by money, or strong friends, the young barrister
has no career open to him at all. The same may be said, with
limitations and reserves, of officers in the army and navy. The
civil service offers modest maintenances, but very few bright
chances, to the young men who are admitted to it. Compared
with impecunious surgeons and young solicitors who have no
capital the poor curate is found to possess many advantages.
The conditions of his office are favourable to economy and
prudent demeanour. He has fewer inducements to carry his
expenditure beyond his narrow means than the young lawyer or
young doctor, for whose indigence society has no consideration.
He is more readily received into close intercourse by wealthy
families, and has many more chances than the impecunious
layman of enriching himself by marriage.
The real hardship of the poor curate's position is seen in the
rule which denies him power to lay aside his orders and retire
from the clerical profession, when he has conceived a repugnance
to it or has reason to beUeve that it is a calling in which he is
never Ukely to succeed. Of course this prohibition does not now-
a-days always act as an absolute bar to voluntary relinquishment
of the sacerdotal office. Most of us know men who, though they
received episcopal ordination in their youth, have so completely
withdrawn themselves from the ways and freed themselves from
the style of clergy, that no one ever thinks of them as reverend
and ecclesiastical persons. It baa recently been decided that a
clergyman may enter an Inn of Court and compete for the
honours of the law ; and some years since I had the pleasure of
knowing an excellent gentleman, a pawnbroker of London, who
had starved for yeara on a perpetual curacy in Norfolk, before
he threw up his wretched preferment, and sinking his dignity,
provided for his numerous family, and won the means of exercis
ing munificent charity to the poor of his metropolitan neighbour
hood, in a department of trade which few poor curates would
like to enter. But though it may be avoided, the rule operates

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 263
as a powerful restraint on the poor curates who would like to be
rid of their orders, and to be working under brighter auspices in
some secular industry. The rule also has injurious results on
the few adventurous priests who, disregarding it, divest them
selves as far as possible of their priestly character. In this
respect the poor curate is at a decided disadvantage. The lay
man who has failedin one vocation is at liberty to seek another :
but the poor curate is bound by tyrannical usage, and not obso
lete law, to the service, in which he can never hope to prosper.

264 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE V.
DOMESTIC CHAPLAINS.
THE curates are still with us ; but England long since saw the
last of those humble domestic chaplains whose precursors
in the seventeenth century provoked the anger of bishops and the
scorn of satirists by the sycophancy with which they complied
vrith the caprice and courted the favour of their patrons. Our
nobles, indeed, in compUance with feudal usage, still retain
ecclesiastics, who discharge an uncertain amount of spiritual
duty for the benefit of their employers and their employers'
famiUes ; but the well-beneficed rector, who holds the honour
able and almost sinecure post of domestic chaplain to a peer of
the present day, corresponds in nothing but official title to the
ordained clerk who was found in almost every squire's manor-
house two centuries since, — and who, besides saying graces
daily at his entertainer's table, and reading prayers periodically
in the hall of his patron's residence, rendered in return for
board, lodging, and a trifling salary, a variety of services which,
though they implied no such personal abasement as many
modern writers have erroneously imagined, were such services
as no member of a liberal profession would now-a-days perform
for any employer, however exalted.
The fashion, which prorided a considerable proportion of
the poorer clergy with shelter and maintenance beneath the
roofs of the inferior landed gentry, had its origin in feudal
times, when priests were permitted to bestir themselves in
industries that have for several generations been regarded as
derogatory to the sacerdotal character, and when every noble
man found employment in his estabUshments or on his estates
for several clerical persons. What was the number of eccle
siastics thus retained by the secular nobles and gentry at any

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 265
time of the feudal period I would not venture even to conjec
ture ; but their number must have been considerable, when the
laity were for the most part devoid of scholastic culture, and
when few persons outside the clerical order were sufficiently
educated to perform the literary work that now-a-days devolves
on the landed proprietor's bailiff, steward, and attorney. The
knight or squire of the fourteenth or fifteenth century found
himself in continual need of a trusted domestic counsellor who
could cast accounts, had a smattering of law, and possessed the
slender amount of learning requisite for the economy of an im
portant estate ; and this adviser was almost always found in the
person of an ecclesiastic, who, whilst discharging the secular
functions for which he was especially retained, neither omitted
to fulfil the higher duties of the priest, nor failed to command
the respect due to his sacred character.
The Eeformation certainly did not diminish, — I am dis
posed to think that it must have greatly increased, — the
number of these menial clergy. Many, perhaps a majority, of
the ejected monks were for a time more or less regularly em
ployed as domestic chaplaina in gentle houaeholds, where they
earned honourably many material comforts to which they had
been long accustomed, and which they would have ceased to
enjoy had they lived in idleness on their small pensions. Drawn
from the superior families of the land the regular clergy were,
as we have seen, the aristocratic membera of the ecclesiastical
order : and on the dissolution of their colleges, not a few of
thera returned to the castles and halls in which they had been
born, and became the guests of kinsmen with whom they had
played in boyhood. And many a monk, who thus found ahelter
in his first home or a tranquil refuge within a cousin's walla,
made ample recompense for seasonable hospitality by teaching
his entertainer's sons their Latin primer, and practising in his
host's garden and orchard the scientific horticulture, the secrets
of which he had mastered in the grounds around the old
abbey. Though the domestic chaplains of past time were frequently,
if not usually, without benefices, very many of them were in
cumbents of small livings in the immediate neighbourhood of
their patrons' residences, — livings which, in the days when

266 A Booh about Clergy.
husbandry was comparatively unproductive, and a great deal of
what is now exuberant soil had never been brought under the
plough, yielded a very scanty support, or even lesa than a bare
maintenance for an officiating clergyman. It frequently hap
pened that a squire, who wished to secure the services of an
efficient pastor for his household and neighbours, Uved in a
parish of which the tithes were inaufficient for the incumbent's
reasonable wants : in which case the proprietor, when he was
also patron of the living, would induce an eligible clergyman to
accept the poor preferment by offering him a home at the hall, to
gether with the usual perquisites of a domestic chaplaincy. Cases
no doubt also occurred where a griping patron, more anxious to
secure a secretary and steward on cheap terms than to attach an
efficient priest to a small living, forbore to give his chaplain a
salary, in consideration of the emoluments of the ecclesiastical
preferment which went with the chaplaincy. But frequent though
such cases of parsimony were, I have no hesitation in saying
that the numerous clerical holders of small benefices, who
received board and lodging in the mansions of the squirearchy,
were far more often indebted for their comfortable quarters to
the generous inclination of their hosts to befriend poor clergy
and provide for the spiritual welfare of their dependants. In
other localities this friendly feeling towards the cloth resulted
in the fashion which affluent laymen observed almost to the
preaent time, of inviting their parochial clergy to dine with
them on Sundays.
But whether he was beneficed or unprovided with a living,
the domestic chaplain waa required to make himself useful in
various secular ways within hia patron's bounds. He kept the
squire's accounts, wrote his letters, taught his children, superin
tended the men-servants, and, if he had a knowledge of horti
culture, pruned the fruit-trees and laid out the beds of the
garden. Instead of regarding himself aa the equal of his em
ployer, he, in some caaes, modestly sat beneath the aalt at the
common table, and bore himself deferentially to the quality who
occupied the higher places at the weU-furnished board. But it
would be a mistake to suppose that his activity in secular, and
what would now-a-days be thought menial work, was incom
patible with the dignity of an EUzabethan clergyman, or that

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 267
his formal respectfulness to his social superiors was not distinct
from servile obsequiousness. To understand his position and
demeanour, my readers must bear in mind that domestic serrice
of the higher kind — 'gentle service,' as our ancestors termed
it — was positively honourable, in the days when gentlemen were
waited upon at table and abroad by gentlemen, when the
liveried attendants of great men were the cadets of noble houses,
and when a younger son deemed it no dishonour to wear hia
elder brother's Uvery and serve him on bended knee. Even ao
late as the concluding years of Elizabeth's reign, though gentle
service had lost much of its ancient prestige and lustre, and the
sons of mere yeomen and tenant-farmers were forcing their way
into the higher departments of domestic employment, a gentle
man neither lost nor tarnished his gentility by becoming the
servant of a nobleman or simple knight. And even to the end
of the seventeenth century, notwithstanding the violence of the
rude shocks which feudalism had sustained, notvrithstanding the
total abolition of many of its practices and theories, society con
tinued to be so far influenced by feudal traditions that gentle
men of honour and high spirit habitually did many things
which would now-a-days be deemed servile, and the word
servant had a very different signification from that which
attaches to it in the present generation. When the Elizabethan
domestic chaplain sat at a great squire's table immediately
below the salt, he uauaUy saw beneath him servants who were
of gentle birth, or at least of a social extraction, much superior
to that of the menial dependants of our own time.
In EUzabethan England, and still more generally during the
yeara between Charles the First's accession and the fall of episco-
pafiy, the bishops regarded the numerous class of private chaplaina
with strong disfavour,— averring thatthe poaition of a clergyman
housed in a squire's mansion was seldom compatible with the
dignity of the sacerdotal office : that he habituaUy performed
taaka which caused the other membera of the family and the
ordinary risitors ofthe house to think lightly ofthe pastor's titie
to reverence : that when he had a benefice, the duties of his
chaplaincy caused him to neglect his cure : that when waiting
for preferment he was more anxious to conciliate his patron, for
the sake of advancement to the next vacant living to which the

268 A Booh about Clergy.
squire had the right of appointing, than to discharge with
fearlessness the spiritual functions of his partly sacred and partly
secular post. The poets, dramatists, and pamphleteers of the
seventeenth century, support the charges of sycophancy and
moral laxity preferred against the chaplains by the prelates who,
I doubt not, had aubatantially just grounds for their disappro
bation of the menial clergy, though it is certain that their
antagonism to the private chaplains was aggravated by the
difficulty which prelatic authority experienced in controlling
priests, who, enjoying the protection of powerful laymen, lived
in a certain sense beyond the reach of ecclesiastical discipline.
It not unfrequently happened that to annoy the rector of his
parish, with whom he had quarrelled, a squire would incite his
chaplain to embarrass the incumbent in the discharge of his
parochial duties, and to put upon him vexations and affronts
similar to those which the parochial clergy of the fourteenth
century endured from the mendicant brothers.
One of the earliest and most effective denouncers of the
menial clergy was Bishop Hall, who gives a forcible and painful
picture of their position in the halls of disdainful employers.
The typical chaplain of HaU's satire was required to take his
turn at waiting at table with the other servants, and to sleep in
a truckle-bed, near the superior couch of his pupil, the patron's
son, whom he might not even chastise for his childish faults until
the boy's mother had prescribed the exact number of cuts with
the rod that his misconduct deserved. The bishop writes thus :—
¦ A gentle squire would gladly intertaine
Into his house some trencher-ohaplaine ;
Some wiUing man, that might instruct his sons.
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed.
Whiles his yong maister lieth ore his head.
Second, that he do, on no default.
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change hia trencher twice.
Fourth, that he uae all common courteaies ;
Sit bare at meales, and one halfe rise and wait.
Last, that he never his yong master beat.
But must ask his mother to define.
How many jerkes she would his breech should line.
All these observed, he should contented bee,
To give five markes and winter Uverye.'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 269
After the wont of satirists. Bishop Hall puts an extreme
case as a specimen of the ordinary experiences of the menial
clergy, and then exaggerates its worst features so as to heighten
their repulsiveness : and, bad though it is, the bishop's instance
of the servile degradation of the clerical class who Uved in the
homes of gentry, becomes even more extravagant and revolting
than the painter designed it to be to those who fail to realize
the conditions and results of gentle service in Elizabethan
England. A clerical tutor would now-a-days regard it as an
indignity if he were asked to share a bedroom with his youthful
pupil; but under Elizabeth, when gentlemen ofhigh rank would
on a pinch sleep together in the aame bed, and every collegian
(Soph or B.A.) at Oxford and Cambridge had at night hia ' chum,'
or chamber companion, in the person of a junior undergraduate,
sleeping on a truckle-bed at his side, a chaplain-tutor might
occupy the same sleeping apartment with his pupil and yet
think himself treated like a person of worth. Bishop Hall
would have discerned nothing unseemly in such an arrangement,
so long as the tutor enjoyed the superior bed and the youngster
lay on the truckle couch. Usually the EUzabethan chaplain was
allowed to sit above the salt ; but, even in houses where he was
placed below it, his position did not imply that he was to be
ranked with such persons as had no better birth or breeding
than our present domestic servitors. In Lincoln's Inn Hall,
where certainly no affront is ever put on the Church, the
chaplain does not sit at the benchers' or chief table, but has hia
chair in the first mess of the Senior barristers, or second table,
i. e. immediately below the salt. That Biahop Hall's ' trencher-
chaplaine' was allowed a second clean plate at his meal is
evidence that the repast was served to him with more decency
than usually marked the dinners of common folk in the seven
teenth century. In being required to sit bare at table, whilst
the quality above the salt wore their hats and bonnets, he was
only expected to observe one of 'those common courtesies ' which
all gentle servants were accustomed to render to their hosts and
hosts' guests. It certainly was not usual for the domestic
chaplain to take a tum at waiting on the sitters at the high
table, during the former or latter half of the banquet ; but when
this service was put upon him in a great man's banqueting-

270 A Book about Clergy.
hall, he anyhow co-operated with servants of gentle degree, who
were not domestic servants in the modern sense of the term.
The stipulation which denied him the privilege of birching his
pupil according to the everlasting fitness of things, and to his
heart's content, was an ignominious curtailment ofhis pedagogic
rights for which I suggest no apology. The salary offered for
his services was ridiculously small; but the chaplain, it must
be remembered, took service not so much for a salary as for
' tbe advantages of a desirable home : ' and, though he seldom
received more in money from his entertainer than ten pounds
a-year, he sooner or later obtained in recompence for poorly-
paid work a living that provided for his old age.
The strongest witness against the general tone and morality
of the menial clergy of James the First's and Charles the First's
England is George Herbert, who enjoyed peculiarly good opportu
nities for watching their demeanour in the houses of great peo
ple, and must have often observed in them the faults which he
urged them to avoid in the following grave passage of ' The
Country Parson : ' — ' Those that live in noble houses are called
chaplains, whose duty and obligation being the same to the house
they live in, as a parson to his parish, in describing the one
(which is indeed the bent of my discourse) the other will be
manifest. Let not chaplains think themselves so free as many
of them do, and because they have different names, think their
office different. Doubtless they are parsons of the families they
live in, and are entertained to that end, either by an open, or
implicit covenant. Before they are in orders, they may be
received for companions, or discoursers ; but after a man is once
a minister, he cannot agree to come into any house, where he
shall not exercise what he is, unless he forsake the plough and
look back. Wherefore they are not to be over-submissive, and
base, but to keep up with the Lord and Lady of the house, and
to preserve a boldness with them and all, even so far as reproof '
to their very face, when occasion calls, but seasonably and
discreetly,' Touching satirically on the position and treatment, of do
mestic chaplains in the houses of the Eestoration gentry, Dr,
Eachardi in ' The Contempt of the Clergy Considered,' observes,
' Or, shall we trust them in some good gentlemen's houses, there

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 271
to perform holy things ? with all my heart : so that they may
not be called down from their studies to say grace to every
health : that they may have a Uttle better wages than the cook
or butler: as also that there may be a groom in thte house,
besides the chaplain : (for sometimes to the ten pounds a-year
they crowd the looking after a couple of geldings) : and that he
may not be sent from the table, picking his teeth, and sighing
with his hat under his arm, whilst the knight and my lady
eat up the tarts and chickens : it may be also convenient, if he
were suffered to speak now and then in the parlour, besides at
grace and prayer-time : and that my cousin Abigail ahd he sit
not too near one another at meals : nor be presented together to
the little vicarage. All this, sir, must be thought of; for in
good earnest, a person at all thoughtful of himself and con
science, had much better chuse to live with nothing but beans
and pease pottage (ao that he may have the command of his
thoughts and time) than to have second and third couraea, and
to obey the unreasonable humours of some families.' Eeaders
do not need to be reminded of the bold and effective, but very
unjustifiable use, which Macaulay in hia famous third chapter '
made of Eachard's satire on the inferior clergy of his day,
dealing with the humorist's malicious suggestions and sprightly
exaggerations as though they were the data of dry historic
record, and as though ita sarcasms, instead of being directed at
exceptional abuses, were airaed at evils everywhere apparent in
the nature and status of the clerical order. The witty and not
over-scrupulous Master of Catherine HaU had the fairness
and pmdence to state that his droll caricature of the private
chaplains of his day had special reference to ministers ' obeying
the unreasonable humours of some families ; ' but Macaulay
leads his readers to infer that the sUghts put upon menial clergy
in these exceptional famUies were a sample of the indignities
generaUy offered to their chaplains by the Caroline nobility and
gentry. Describing the quality and tone of the private chaplains who
fawned upon powerful patrons a century after Herbert adminis
tered his cautious and temperate rebuke to the characteristic
sycophancy of their class,— and almost seventy years after the
pubUcation of Dr, Eachard's famous satire— the author of ' The

272 A Book about Clergy.
Contempt ofthe Clergy considered' (1739) says, ' When I was
at Bath last year, I was invited by a gentleman who lodged in the
same house to go and spend a month with him at his seat in
Somersetshire, I readily accepted his invitation, and went with
him. We came thither on a Friday night, and on the Sunday
morning I was preparing to go to church, which I always look
upon as a decent compUment to my auperrisors, who have been
pleased to make the Christian religion a national establishment :
but my friend took me out to walk in his park, and shew me
the beauties of his situation. The next Sunday he contrived
some other amusement to hinder our going to church. There
was indeed a clergyman in the house, who had quite laid aside
his sacerdotal character, but acted in several capacities as valet-
de-chambre, butler, game-keeper, pot-companion, butt and
buffoon, who never read prayers, or so much as said grace in the
family whilst I was in it. Nay, don't laugh : whatever my own
sentiments or practice may be, yet you must own my character
is consistent ; I am all of a piece : my sentiments and practice
agree, and I have a much better opinion of a man that pretends
¦ to no aort of principles than I can have of one whose practice} is
a direct contrary to his profession. The next Sunday my
curiosity led me to church, whilst my friend stayed at home to
settle an account with his bailiff: where I had the pleasure of
hearing a very plain, rational diacourae, delivered vrith a decent
warmth and manly authority. After serrice, suing me in a
very obliging manner to dine with him, which I excused, but
took half an hour's walk with him in his garden before dinner,
and quickly found him to be a very learned, well-bred, reUgious
man ; but one that was resolved to support his sacred character,
and not prostitute the dignity of his function, nor his superior
understanding to the vanity and contempt of ignorance and folly.
This was sufficient to exclude him from all the social comforts of
the neighbourhood, whilst a dirty wretch, who seemed to Uve in
defiance of virtue, decency, and good manners, and clean linen,
was in a good measure the first minister and director ofthe family,
always mentioned with the famUiar appellation of honest Harry.'
Speaking of the disadvantage at which a conscientious
clergyman was often placed by his virtues when venturing on
intercourse with untaught and unworthy gentry, the same

Part VI. — Before arid after the Restoration. 273
satirical writer of free thoughts about men and manners ob
serves, — ' If the esquire happen to be wrong-headed, illiterate,
sottish, or profane, what can the poor parson do ? Can there
be agreement betvrixt virtue and vice ? any communion betwixt
light and darkness ? If they should ever descend ao low as to
inrite the poor vicar from his solitude, aoup-maigre, and
match-light, to make one of a party of froUc and madness ; and
he should refuse the invitation, or come awkwardly to it ; if he
should refuse to go to the utmost stretch of intemperance, or
disrelish the many ungracious jokes which are always cracked
over the doctor ; it gives a sort of check to the merriment, and
throws a damp upon the spirits of the good company; they
immediately treat him with that indifference and contempt (if
not vrith rudeness and ill manners) as may sufficiently dis
courage him from ever venturing among them again. From
that moment he has a mark of contempt put upon him, as a
sour, morose, ill-natured fellow.'

VOL, II,

274 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE VL
HONOUR AND CONTEMPT OF THE CLERGY,
READEES of the preceding chapters do not require to be
aaaured in thia late page that one of the immediate effects
of the Eeformation was a very great diminution of the dignity
and social influence of the clerical order. The regulars were
the aristocratic section of the national hierarchy ; and by the
revolution which dissolved the colleges of these superior clergy,
and having confiscated their estates turned them adrift on the
world to subsist on small annuities, or reduced them into the
ranks of the inadequately beneficed seculars, the priesthood lost
its personal connexions with the highest families of the land,
and found itself hated and despised by the members of those
powerful and patrician classes, in which the rupture with Eome
and subsequent ecclesiastical changes had been most productive
of humiliation and pecuniary loss.
The Catholic aristocracy, who before the Eeformation had
looked down upon the parochial clergy as a plebeian class,
entertained no disposition to regard them more favourably,
when they added the sin of heresy to the disqualifications of
ignoble lineage. Again, the Protestant aristocracy — many of
whom had been impelled to join the ranks ofthe reforraers by a
desire to deprive the ecclesiastics of their excessive wealth and
power — were sharers in the disdain which the Catholic gentry
cherished for the plebeian seculars, and were not likely to coun
tenance any policy that promised to reinvest the clerical order
with dangerous influence and inordinate riches. Thus despised
on the one hand by the aristocracy, who disdained their domestic
humility and abhorred their heresy, and coldly regarded on the
other hand by the aristocracy, who, whilst openly defending the

Part VL — Before and after the Restoration. 275

new reUgious doctrine, secretly chuckled over the impoverish
ment and social abasement of its official teachers, the reformed
clergy had to endure for many days the scornful animosity of
their fervent foes and the diadainful pity of their lukewarm
frienda. Stripped of its finest endowments the clerical profession
ceased, to a great extent, to be a vocation suitable to well-born
and ambitious youth. Whilst the younger sons of the superior
Catholic families never for a moment thought of taking orders
and becoming candidates for the modest preferments of what
they deemed an heretical establishment, the younger sons of the
higher Protestant gentry were seldom drawn within the lines of
a clergy whose most fortunate members, beneath the episcopal
grade, were very needy and humble persons in comparison with
the abbots and regular priests of past time.
Moreover, whilst the reformed church was loathed by the
Catholics as an unspeakably wicked contrivance, it was dis
trusted and Ughtly esteemed by its Elizabethan supporters as a
novelty, an experiment, a compromise which might work well,
but very probably would prove a failure. Eeflecting with pious
pride and gratitude on the unbroken line of our episcopal ordi
nations, the Anglican churchman of the present day in his eccle
siastical retrospect passes lightly over the convulsions of the
Eeformation period, and refusea to regard his church as severed
from the Holy Catholic organization. To his mind, the six
teenth century, instead of witnessing the creation or establish
ment of his church, beheld only its reformation, — and by
'reformation' he means a process that, without touching the
spiritual foundations or everlasting truths of the Church,
merely relieved it of certain superficial errors and imperfections,
which will in tirae be removed from all other parts of the
sacred and universal Church of which the Anglican eatabUah-
ment is an inseparable portion. Whether he is right in this
view it is my purpose neither to affirm nor inquire ; but they
err greatly who imagine that any numerous section of the
reformers of the sixteenth century took the same view of the
grand religious revolt againat the Papacy, Alike by the ma
jority of. those who opposed, and the majority of those who
promoted it, the movement known as ' the Eeformation ' was
regarded as a movement that aimed at the destruction of an

276 A Book about Clergy.
old church and the creation of a new one. The ecclesiastical
directors of the change were careful to preserve the chain of
episcopal connexion between the Protestant clergy and Catholic
hierarchy; but in thus jealously maintaining the Apostolic
succession, and providing that no enemy of the reformed body
should be justified in denying its descent from the Catholic
church, the AngUcan bishops took thought for a matter in
which, however important it was to the clerical mind, the laity
felt scarcely any concern. And when the revolution was per
fected, our ancestors of the laity, alike Protestant and Catholic,
concurred in regarding the ecclesiastical settlement, which was
one of its chief results, as a new thing.
Yet, further; — besides its newness, the reformed church
laboured under the disadvantage of apparent instability. Long
after Elizabeth had ascended the throne, it was only a minority
of her subjects who were strongly confident or cordially hopeful
that the Church would endure. Whilst the Catholics regarded
it as a new offence against the Almighty, who would not suffer
Himself to be raocked by it for any long tirae, the Puritans de
nounced it as a compromise between superstition and truth,
which would speedily pass away and leave room for a purely
evangelical structure. Nor were its most resolute upholders
at all sanguine that it would endure. Was it credible, they
asked, that so fair a ship would outlive the hurricane caused by
two mighty winds blowing from directly opposite points ofthe
compass ? Henry the Eighth had found himself corapelled to
make change after change in his ecclesiastical polity. Edward
the Sixth's church had been swept away by the Marian re
action. Would Elizabeth's church be more durable ? At any
moment she might fall by the assassin's knife or natural death ;
in which case the Catholics would regain the ascendancy, — and
the fate of the new church would fulfil the prophecies of
Eome and Geneva,
So long as the Church had the appearance of newness and
instability, and had no funds for the enrichment ofan ambitious
hierarchy, the clerical profession had no 'attractions for men of
birth and station, and was adopted by few persons of other
than obscure parentage. Now and then the cadet of a noble
but fallen family took orders in Elizabeth's church; but

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 277
usually the gentle younger sons of her reign preferred to push
their fortunes at the bar, in military service, or in maritime
adventure, and to leave for candidates of inferior condition the
honours of an ecclesiastical system which perhaps would not
outlive a generation. Most of the Queen's bishops and eccle
siastical dignitaries were persons of decidedly humble extrac
tion; and even the best descended of them bore names
unknown in history or to the majority of the people.
The records of a time, rife with animosities amongst
churchraen who abused each other with equal malignity and
violence, might be quoted unjustly to prove that the clergy of the
later part of the sixteenth century were a mere rabble of ignorant
and base-born adventurers. But allowance must be made for
the habit of slander which seeras to have infected every class of
society during the Eeformation period. Bishop Bonner waa
stated to have been the illegitimate son of a dissolute priest, and
to have begotten sons whose birth was as shameful as hia own ;
but whilat it ia doubtful whether he had illegitimate isaue, it is
certain that he was the lawful son of a poor man who lived on
a sraall patch of land in Gloucestershire. Gardyner of Win
chester, Tonstal of Durhara, Oglethorpe of Carlisle, were also
said to have laboured under the stain of shameful birth, at a
time when illegitimacy waa scorned by good aociety far more
than it is now-a-days. If Catholic annalists may be trusted,
the earlier Anglican bishops were a most unsavoury class of
mortals, and the earlier rectors of the reformed church were,
for the most part, illiterate mechanics. According to eminent
bishops of the Elizabethan church, the Puritan divines were
untaught, shallow, dirty fellows. The extravagance and excess
of the abuse, which the divines of the various parties hurled at
their opponents, have the effect of making the cautious reader
put no reliance whatever on the stateraents of the vituperators
when there is the slightest ground for suspecting thera to be
under the influence of personal enmity or factious spite.
Under EUzabeth, episcopacy suffered greatly in popular
esteera from the obschre origin ofthe prelates ; and in the seven
teenth century, when biahopa grew rapidly in power and arro
gance, there is conclusive evidence that they smarted under a
consciousness of their ancestral inferiority to the nobles and

278 A Book about Clergy.
gentlemen who, incensed by their policy, were not slow to
taunt them with their familiar meanness, and to deride them
for being mere upstarts. In the opening days of the Long
Parliaraent, when Lord Brooke put forth his book against the
prelates, and insolently described them as being sprung ' de
fcBce populi — from the dregs of the people,' they were foolish
enough to lose temper and vindicate their gentility by stating
frora what highly respectable yeoraen and shopkeepers they were
descended. Archbishop Williams was as nobly born as ever a
Welshman in North Wales ; had he not proved his gentility by
buying two estates in the principaUty, because they had be
longed to his ancestors ? Bishop Juxon's ' parents had lived
in good fashion, and gave him a large allowance, first in the
University, then in Gray's Inn, where he lived as fashionable as
other gentlemen ; so that the Lord Brooke might question the
parentage of any Inns-of-court-gentleman as his.' In Bishop
Morton's behalf it waa urged by hiraself and his friends that
his father had been Mayor of York: 'so that Lord Brooke
might aa well justly quarrel with the descent of any citizen's sons
in England.' The anceatora of Bishop Cook of Hereford had
lived in the aame house for four hundred years, and some of
them had been sheriffs of the county. Bishop Curl's father had
held the highly respectable office of auditor in the Court of
Wards. Bishop Owen of St. Asaph was cousin, in some degree
or other, to every man in Carnarvon and Anglesea who had
300L a-year. Bishop Goodman derived a larger fortune from
his father than Lord Brooke's father had for the maintenance
of himself and children. Theae rindications of the gentility
of the bishops were put forth at a time when the bishops were
on the point of losing their seats in the House of Peers, ' and
when,' says Fuller, 'the clerk of the ParUament, applying
himself to the prevalent party, in the reading of bills, turned his
back to the bishops, who could not (and it seeras he intended
they should notj distinctly hear anything, as if their consent or
dissent were little concerned therein.'
In his speech on the Liturgy, — adopting the ungenerous tone
with which the nobles of Charles the First's tirae often spoke of
prelates, even whilst consenting to or encouraging the assurap-
tions of prelacy, — Lord Say and Seal taunted Laud with his

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 279
plebeian origin, and the small knowledge which he had of the
great world before his professional elevation, describing him as
'a raan of mean birth, bred up in a college (and that too
frequently falls out to be in a faction), whose narrow com
prehension extended itself no further than to carry on a side in
a college, or canvas for a Proctor's place in the university.'
Whereto the insulted primate, defending hiraself to the public,
replied, — ' This concerns rae indeed, and very nearly ; for I see
his Lordahip reaolvea to rake me up from ray very birth : a way
unuaual for raen well-bred, and little beseeraing a person of
honour ; especially thus to insult upon a fallen fortune. But
yet it concerns me not in my relation to a sectary, unless his
Lordship would possess the world that I was bred in a faction,
and so like enough to prove one. But how my lord is mistaken
in this will plainly appear. First then, it is true, I am a man
of ordinary, but very honest, birth ; and the memory of my
parents savours very well to this day in the town of Eeading,
where I was born. Nor was I so meanly born, as perhaps my
Lord would insinuate, for my father had borne all the offices in
that town, save the Mayoralty, And my immediate predecessor
(whom I am sure my lord himself accounted very worthy of his
place) was meanly born as myself, his father being of the same
trade in Guildford that mine was in Eeading,'
When the best-bom bishops could say no more to the
glorification of their ancestry and immediate parentage than
that they were the sons of respectable and affluent citizens, who
in their day were not without relations having some pretensions
to gentility ; and when the majority of the prelates had still
lesa title to the respect which in the seventeenth century
pertained to none but persona of gentle lineage, it waa felt aUke
by noblea and commonalty that the chiefs of the church had been
fairly described by Lord Brooke, and were very mean persons in
comparison with the peers and ancient gentry whose forefathers'
banners had fluttered in the Crusades, and who were the lords
of castles that had been built in the tiraes of the Norman or
Plantagenet sovereigns. Of the iUiberality and essentially
vulgar insolence which qualified the terms in which the feudal
magnates, during the rapid decay of feudaUsm, declared their
conterapt for the plebeian origin of the most eminent ecclesias-

280 A Book about Clergy.
tics we will say nothing, save that the disdain under which
these superior clergy writhed was neither more ungenerous in
kind nor more violent in expression than the scorn which they
in their turn exhibited to people beneath them in degree and
fashion, — and more especially to the detested Eoundheads.*
- Whilst the bishops of Charlea the Firat's tirae were secretly
conteraned and soraetiraes openly taunted by the aristocracy for
not being gentlemen by birth, the inferior grades of clergy
comprised so large a majority of persona whoae extraction,
though respectable in a certain sense, was devoid of gentility,
that the few young men of good families who entered the sacred
profession were generally thought to derogate from their quality
by associating themselves with the merabers of so lowly a calling.
When George Herbert — a courtier and raan of society, as well
as a gentleraan of noble lineage — proclairaed his purpose to
take holy orders, *a court-friend,' says Walton, urged hira to
relinquish so eccentric a design, on the ground that the clerical
profession was ' too mean an employment, and too much below
his birth, and the excellent abilities and endowments of his
mind.' To which expostulation Herbert replied, ' It hath been
formerly judged that the domestic servants of the King of
Heaven should be of the noblest famiUes on earth. And though
the iniquity of the late times have made clergymen raeanly
valued, and the sacred narae of priest contemptible ; yet I will
labour to raake it honourable, by consecrating aU my learning
and all my poor abiUties to advance the glory of that God that

• In his anawer.to Lord Say's speech. Laud repays in scorn to the Roundheads
the contempt put upon prelacy by bis antagonist : — ' The other is, that there ia
of late a name of scorn faatened upon the brethren of the aeparation, and they
are commonly called Roundheads, from their fashion of cutting close and rounding
oflF their hair : a fashion used in Paganism in the times of their mourning, and
sad occurrences, as these seem to do, putting on, in outward show at least, a sour
look and a more severe carnage than other men. This fashion of rounding the
head, God himself forbids Hia people to practise, the more to -withdraw them
from the superstitions of the GentUes : " Ye shall not round the corners of your
heads." This express text of Scripture troubled the Bro-wnists and the rest ex
tremely ; and therefore this Lord, being a great favourer of theirs, if not one
himself, hath thought upon thia way to eaae their minds, and his own. For it is
no matter for this text, nor for their resembUng heathen idolaters ; they may
round their heads safely, since those things which were before can give no rule
in this.'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 281
gave them ; knowing that I can never do too much for Him,
that hath done so much for me as to make me a Christian.
And I wiU labour to be like my Saviour, by making humility
lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and
meek example of my dear Jesus.' That Herbert made this
reply in the precise words attributed to him by his biographer,
we can all the more readily believe, because of its exact ac
cordance in tone and language with the remark which he makes
on the social disesteem of the clergy, in the twenty-eighth
chapter of 'The Country Parson.' In that chapter, entitled
' The Parson in Contempt,' the gentle priest says, ' The country
parson knows well, that both for the general ignominy which is
cast upon the profession, and much raore for those rules, which
out of his choycest judgraent hee hath resolved to observe, and
which are described in thia book, he raust be deapiaed ; becauae
thia hath been the portion of God his raaster, and of God's
Saints his brethren, and this is foretold, that it ahall be ao atill
"until things be no more." '
By those who follow the old fashion of thinking and speaking
of the church as a thing distinct and separate from the nation, —
a fashion which carae to us from ,the days when the church was
a power, fiouriahing above and beyond the linea of atrictly
national life, rendering obedience and pecuniary tribute to a
foreign governraent, and enjoying a limited exemption frora the
laws of the land, in which it stood without being altogether of
it, — the Eeformation is ordinarily spoken of as a revolution
which deprived ' the Church ' of a large part of its possessions,
and was therefore guilty of despoiling an institution which had
some other title to its property than the general good of the
comraunity. But to those who, refusing to take thia view of
the Church, regard the clerical order as a national institution
created and sustained for the religious welfare, just as the army
is a national institution created and sustained for the defence of
the political interests, ofthe realm, the suppression ofthe regular
clergy and the application of the wealth, which had maintained
them, to other uses, appear precisely analogous to the measures
of retrenchment and reform by which the governing powers of
the country from time to time reduce the army, navy, or civil
service, and direct to other national needs the sums withdrawn

282 A Book about Clergy.
from the expenditure on those services. By those who take
this view — the nineteenth century's view — ofthe Church and its
clergy, it appears that the Church and clergy were no more
plundered by the Eeformation, than the army is plundered when
it is decided to cut down the estimates for its maintenance. In
the sixteenth century our ancestors, after much angry talk and
contention, concluded that the ecclesiastical establishment ought
to be greatly reduced ; that for generations the regular clergy
had done nothing, or very little, for the accoraplishment of the
enda for which the Church had been created ; that the clerical
buainess of the country could be performed efficiently by the
parochial clergy and the ecclesiastics of the cathedrals ; and that
it was desirable to relieve society and the Church of the splendid
burden of the monastic houses. Not, as the popular imagina
tion conceives, because they were more disposed than other men
to bodily sloth, but because they were idle so fair as the religious
interests of the community were concerned, popular satire fixed
upon the monka the reputation for laziness which still clings to
them. As unprofitable and needless raerabers of the eccleaiaatical
force, they were diamissed from the spiritual army on retiring
pensions, or were required to labour in that inferior branch of
the service, which henceforth comprised the entire rank and
file of the clerical estabUshment, That the reforraation was
attended with no harsh raeasures, which in these days would be
unanimously condemned as highly unjust to individuals, I do
not contend; but whatever spoliation of clergy raarked the
revolution was perpetrated neither upon the Church nor the
clerical order, but upon thoae numerous ecclesiastical persons
who, when the nation had no longer a desire to retain thera in
their places, were discharged without due regard to what would
now-a-days be called their vested interests.
But though neither the Church nor the clerical order can be
justly said to have been plundered, and though the injustice of
the change terminated with the lives of the deprived monks,
the suppression of the religious orders and houses lowered the
status of the entire clerical order by depriving it of an enormous
amount of wealth, which, though its possession had pertained to
a section, had conferred lustre on all the members, of the sacred
profession; and for several generations poverty was a prevail-

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 283
ing characteristic of the national clergy, whereas they had pre
viously enjoyed inordinate, though unequally distributed, riches.
The primates and a few of the prelates stUl possessed the means
of living with feudal magnificence,* the abiUty to rival or surpass
the secular nobles in costly ostentation. Here and there a deanery
was lavishly endowed ; and, until they condescended to matri
mony, most of the cathedral clergy could Uve almost as luxuriously
as the less affluent of the suppressed monks, whom they closely
resembled in many of their external circumstances. But for
the raost part, even the richer parochial clergy had barely
sufficient raeans to support themselves with decency and dis
charge the numerous obligations of their offices.
But, poor though they were, the reader is apt to overrate
the indigence of pur clergy under Elizabeth and her two nearest
successors, who regards the smallness of their stipends and
tithal incomes, and forgets that a country parson's glebe did
much more, than it can now effect, to sustain his material pros
perity, and to put him on a footing of pecuniary equality with
his neighbours in times when the yeomanry and inferior gentry
lived chiefly on the produce of their own farms, and had far less
need of cash than their descendants of the present generation.
Again, the customary payments of the clergy, such as Easter-
offerings_ and other comparatively obsolete kinds of tribute,
yielded much raore to the affluence of the old incumbents than
persons are apt to think, who forget how valuable money was in
James the First's reign. Again, the fee-system was in fuU
* The splendour and pomp -with which Archbishop Whitgift appeared in pubUc
astounded foreign CathoUcs who saw it for the firat time, after having been told
that simpUcity and lowlineas were the distinguishing characteriatios of the re
formed hierarchy. ' His train,' says one of Whitgift's biographers, ' sometimes
consisted of one thousand horse. The archbishop, being once at Dover, attended
by five hundred horse, one hundred of which were his own servants, many of
them wearing chains of gold, a person of diatinction then arriving ircm Rome,
greafly wondered to aee an English archbiahop with so splendid a retinue. But
seeing him the foUowing Sabbath in the cathedral of Canterbury, attended by
the above magnificent train, with the dean, prebendaries, and preachers, in their
surplices and scarlet hoods ; and hearing the music of organs, cornets, and sac-
buts, he was seized with admiration, and said, " That the people at Rome were
led in blindness, being made to believe that in England there was neither arch
bishop, nor bishop, nor cathedral, nor any ecclesiastical government : but that all
were pulled do-wn." But he protested that, unless it were in the Pope's chapel,
he never saw a more solemn sight, or heard a more heavenly sound.'

284 A Book about Clergy.
force in the seventeenth century ; and no one who has intiraately
examined the aocial life of the period can doubt that the paro
chial clergy derived considerable emolument frora the sponta
neous generosity of those for whora they performed any of the
special offices ofthe Church. Dr. Plume has recorded, that whilst
Hacket was rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn, he received lavish
gratuities from the wealthier members of his congregation for
the ordinary routine duties of the Church. ' Whilst he lived in
this parish,' says Dr. Plume, ' he would give God thanks he got
a good temporal estate. Parishioners of aU sorts were very kind
and free to hira ; divers lords and gentlemen, several judges and
lawyers of eminent quality, were his constant auditors, whom he
found, like Zenas, honest lawyers, conscientious to God, and
lovers of the Church of Eiigla.nd, and very friendly and bountiful
to their minister ; Sir Julius Csesar never heard him preach but
he would send him a broad piece, and he did the like to others ;
and he would often send a Dean or a Bisjiop a pair of gloves,
because he would not hear God's word gratis.'* In days when
the quality thus showered gifts on a rich pluralist, the country
parson and his stipendiary curate received handsome douceurs
on such occasions as baptisms, weddings, and funerals, in wealthy
families. Against the losses sustained in purse and dignity by the
clerical order from the Eeformation must be put the intellectual
activity which the religious controversies and ecclesiastical
changes occasioned in the clergy, as well as amongst the intelU
gent laity.
The Eevolution found our ecclesiastics grossly ignorant;
* Speaking of the liberality -with which Hacket's friends subscribed for the
repair and renovation of his church. Dr. Plume says, ' Scarce any of the quaUty
dying, but according to ancient piety, at his request left a legacy to that purpose,
which waa laid up in the church cheat . . . . By his perswasions many gave very
liberally; in particular, I remember the pleasantness of Sir Henry Martin, who
at his firat speaking bade his man pay him thirty pounds : when he received it,
becauae he gave him hurable thanks, he bade his man count him five pounds
more for his huinble thanks. About anno '39, having many thousands in stock
and subscription, he went to my lord's grace of Canterbury, to ask his lordship's
leave, that what workmen were willing might indiff'erently be entertained by him,
without being prejudicial to the repair of St. Paul's : but our troubles came on,
and the Long Parliament seized the money gathered for the repair of the
churches, to carry on this war againat King and Church.'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 285
and in the early years of Elizabeth's reign, to supply the
comparatively few places rendered vacant by ejectiona of
Catholic clergy, and the far larger number of livings where the
performance of Divine service had been partially or wholly
neglected by pluraUst incumbents, the bishops were constrained
to ordain and induct to benefices men who had never studied
at either of the universities, or received any academic training
better than the instruction of obscure grammar-schools. The
difficulty of finding scholarly Protestants for the ministerial ser
vice was mainly due to the conscientious objections which many
of the Eeformers entertained against the requirements of the
Elizabethan Church. But, however caused, it was a serious em
barrassment to the prelates who were daily called upon to decide
whether they should let congregationa reraain without curates,
or confer the orders of the Church on coraparatively unlearned
candidates. At St. Paul's Cathedral, Si-quia door was covered with
advertisements for persons quaUfied to discharge the priestly
functions ;* and in London, where EUzabeth's ecclesiastical
policy occasioned at the opening of her reign a larger proportion
of clerical displacements than in quarters remote from the
* Elizabethan advertisements ordinarily began with the first two words of the
old Latin form commencing ' Si quis ;' and one of the doors of old St. Paul's, on
which the Londoners ofthe sixteenth century were wont to paste hand-bUls stating
the requireraents of advertisers, was caUed Si Quis Door. In ' The Girl's Home
Book ' Decker says, ' The first time that you enter into Panics, pass through the
body of the church Uke a porter ; yet preaurae not to fetch ao much aa a whole
turne in the middle aisle; no to oast an eye upon Si Quis doore, pasted and plaii-
tered up with serving-men's supplications.' EUzabeth had not been many years
on the throne, when it waa rumoured that simoniacal patrons, or their wUy agents,
used to hang about this door, and make corrupt bargains for the sale of ecclesi
astical presentations with curates on the look-out for preferment. . The prohi
bitions of simony are conclusive evidence of its existence; but, as I have stated
fully elsewhere, I cannot beUeve that it was greatly prevalent whilst the supply
of clergy was inadequate to the needs of the Church, and when the emoluments
of ordinary livings were not readily marketable, by reason of their insignificance
and the poveri^y ofthe clerical class. Satire, however, magnified the misconduct
of exceptional deUnquents, and created an irapression amongst the populace that
Si Quis AUey was a regular 'Change foriUicit trafiickers in ecclesiastical benefices.
In one of his satires (B. u. Sat. v.) Bishop HaU says : —
' Saw'st thou ever Siquis patched on Paul's Church-door,
To seek some vacant vicarage before ?

286 A Book about Clergy.
centres ofthe Marian persecution, many of the parochial churches
were supplied by priests of the slenderest scholastic attainments.
Of the hundred and sixteen clergymen of the Archdeaconry
of London, in the year 1563, forty-two were almost Latinless,
thirteen had no tincture of classic learning whatever, and four
were 'indocti' — so uniformly ignorant and untrained, that their
tenure of clerical offices was scandalous. Of the other fifty-Seven
ecclesiastics, three were described in the register of the archdea
conry as ' docti latine et groEce,'' twelve as ' docti,' two as ' medio-
criter docti,' and nine as ' latiibi docti ; whilst against the names
of the remaining thirty-one were appended the words, ' latine
mediocriter i/ntelV In the letter in which he communicated
theae facts to Samuel Pepys, in 1696, Edmund — then Domestic
Chaplain of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and subsequently
Bishop of Lincoln — observed, 'If the London clergy were thus
ig-norant, what raust we imagine the country divines were?'
Of course the enemies of the Eeformed Church and vituper-
atora of the new clergy did not fail to reproach them with the
want of learning and gentility, which unqueationably character
ized many of the recently ordained priests. When Dorman
assailed Dean Nowel with scurrilous violence, ridiculing him for
Who wants a Churchman, that can service say.
Read fast and faire his monthly homUey ?
And wed, and bury, and make Christen-soules ?
Come to the left-side Alley of Seint Paules,
Thou servile foole : why could'st thou not repaire
To buy a benefice at Steeple-faire 1
There moughteat thou, for but a slender price,
Advowson thee with some fat benefice.
Or, if thou list not wayt for dead men's ahoon.
Nor pray eche morn th' incumbent's dales wer doon ;
A thousand patrons thither ready bring
Their new fain churches to the chaffering.
Stake three years' stipend : no man asketh more.
Go, take possession of the church-porch doore,
And ring thy bels ; lucke stroken in thy fist.
The parsonage is thine, or ere thou -wist.
Saint Fooles of Gotam mought thy parish bee,
For this thy brave and servUe Symonie.'
Even so early aa EUzabeth's time, griping patrons had discovered that it was
not wrong to sell ' next presentations ' of livings not yet vacant, though it was
simony to sell vacant benefices. Three years' income was no inordinate price
for immediate induction to a good Uving.

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 287

having suddenly risen to the fame of ' a valiant preacher ' frora
the position of 'a raean schoolmaster,' the abusive censor of
the age inveighed in the same strain of rancorous ill manners
against the ' tinkers, cobblers, cowherds, broom-raen, tiddlers,
and- the like,' who had been elevated to pulpits to instruct the
raul titude on the rayateriea of religion. For the sake of the
Church rather than his own farae, the Dean, replying to his
maligner, observed, ' None such are reputed or counted divines
aa you lying slander ua. Indeed, your most cruel murdering of
so many learned men hath forced us, of mere necessity, to sup
ply some sraall cures with honest artificers, exercised in the
scriptures ; not in place of divines, bachelors or doctors, but
instead of Popish Sir John Lack-latins and of all honesty ; instead
of Dr, Dicer, Bachelor Bench-whiatler, Master Card-player, the
usual sciences of your Popish priests ; who continually disputed,
pro et contra, for their forra upon their ale-bench : where you
should wot of thera in all towns and villages ; instead of such
chaplains of lust, raore meet to be tinkers, cowherds, yea, bear-
• wards and swineherds, than ministers in Christ's Church, that
some honest artificers, who, instead of such Popish books as dice
and cards, have travailed in the scripture,'
Butthe period during which unlearned persons^-^, e, persons
who had received no training at the universities or other superior
education — were admitted to ecclesiastical orders in consider
able numbers did not extend over many yeara, Strype assurea us
that the custom of ordaining unscholarly candidates disappeared
so soon as the urgent necessity which justified it had come to an
end. After 1564 orders were seldom conferred on lay-readers;
and, after 1573, it was understood, amongst ordinary persons
desirous of becoming clergy, that their ambition could not be
attained until they had qualified themselves by a proper course
of special study,*
* In his 'Annals of the Reformation' Strype says: — ' So that in this year
(15f)9), and some years following, until the year 1564 inclusive, many ofthe laity,
who were competentiy learned, and of sobriety and good religion, were appointed
to read the service in the churches, by letters of toleration irom the bishops, some
as deacons, some as helpers of the ministry in the word and sacraments ; and
divers, having been made deacons, were adraitted into priests' orders and bene
ficed.' And further in the sarae work, amongst his collections for the year 1 573,
the compiler adds, — 'As for the Bishops of the Church, they did what in them

288 A Book about Clergy.
That, in the course of two generations at moat, the clerical
order was relieved of whatever reproach it had fairly incurred
frora the rudeness and ignorance of a considerable proportion of
its membera we lezra from Dr. Plume, who, in his memoir of
' Hacket and his Times,' obaervea, ' About thia time of King
Charles the First'a reign it was justly said, " Stupor mundi
Clerus Anglicanus;" and whereas, in the beginning of Queen
Elizabeth's Eeformation, Siquis's had been set in St. Paul's, if
any raa.n could understand Greek, there was a deanery for hira ;
if Latine, a good living ; but, in the long reign of Queen Eliza
beth and King James, the clergy of the Eeformed Church of
England grew the most learned of the world ; for, by the rest
lessness of the Eoman prieata, they were trained up to arms from
their youth,' And that Dr, Plume did not exaggerate the
general advancement of clerical learning abundant evidence is
furnished by the controversial literature of the seventeenth cen
tury, and the contributions rendered by ecclesiastics to historical
literature, biography, and poetry.
To Lord Macaulay's graphic and highly-humorous caricature
of the disqualifications and defects of the clerical profession in
Charles the Second's time is mainly attributable the prevalent
and very erroneous impression, that the Eestoration clergy were
less learned and polite, less affluent in scholarship, and less
esteemed in society, than their official precursors in pre-Common-
wealth days. Lord Macaulay's familiarity with the writings of
ecclesiastical authors, and with the extant aermons of the moat
faraoua preachera of the Eeatoration period, compelled him to
render homage to the abilities and attainments of ita learned
lay to take away anything that might justly give off'ence : as in the regulation of
their courts, and in requiring competent learning, and study at one of thu Uni
versities, in those tbat were hereafter to be adraitted into the ministry ; as weU
as for their morals. For before thoae daya, near the beginning of Queen EUza-
beth'a reign, and for aome yeara after, the biahops were fain sometimes to admit
into holy orders laymen, and such aa forraerly had followed trade or husbandry,
and that were but of little learning. Yet if they were sober, and of honest lives,
friends to the reUgion, and could read well, they would ordain them readers or
deacons, to supply smaU cures : very many in those times being wholly vacant.
This was the reason that many times unfit men got into the Church. But this
was complained of; and not -without cause. And the bishops resolved, as much
as they could, to redress this abuse ; refusing henceforth to admit any suoh to
orders unless so qualified as before.'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 289
clergy ; but he insists that, whilst these learned clergy were
few, and resided in the capital or the cathedral cities, the
country rectors and curates were scandalously deficient in cul
ture and boorish in style; that they were for the most part
neither superior in mental endowraents to the inferior gentry
who had never been to college, nor more refined than the coarse
and common yeomanry. To support the earlier part of thia
strange statement he groups together the names of several
erainent ecclesiastics who preached in metropolitan pulpits, or
held cathedral preferments, and he leaves it to be inferred that
they had no part or companionship with the rural divines, and
may not be regarded as in any degree repreaenting the intel
lectual condition of the country clergy of their time.
Careful examination into the clerical biographies of the
seventeenth century, and conscientious consideration of all the
conditions of clerical life in that period, render me certain that
this view is one of the moat fallacious of the many unsound
theories with which Lord Macaulay's raore briUiant than learned
book abounds. In putting it forward, the fascinating historian
erred just as the writer would err who should argue that the
country clergy of our own day are unlettered and dull becauae
the most conspicuous examples of clerical erudition and eloquence
are holders of preferment in the universities, London, or the
other cathedral towns ; forgetting that our bishops and deans,
our learned canons and popular civic preachers, have, for
the most part, rendered service in rural cures ; and that in the
country parishes, whence they were taken to be exalted to the
chief places of the hierarchy, they were surrounded by clerical
neighbours, from whom they differed in no great degree, so far
as culture and natural capacity are concerned. Like the eccle
siastical dignitaries of our own day, many of the exalted clergy
of the Eeatoration epoch held country livings concurrently with
their university and cathedral preferments ; and if Lord Macau
lay had been candid, he would have reminded his readers that
some of the learned and brilliant ecclesiastics, whom he contrasts
against the untaught and boorish clergy of the rural districts,
were themselves country clergymen as well as tovm clergymen,
and that they were frequent, though inconstant, residents on
their country preferments.
VOL. IL ^

290 A Book about Clergy.
In some respects clerical life in the country was far more
congenial to highly-educated clergymen under the Stuarts than
it is at the present time. In the seventeenth century, when
gentle lay families were far more numerous in agricultural dis
tricts than they are nowadays, and when those families were
almost constant residents in their halls and manor-houses, the
country rector of aocial qualities and easy circumstances had ten
agreeable lay neighbours where his successor has one at the
' present time, when the estates of the humbler squires and
gentle yeomani-y have been absorbed by inordinately wealthy
land-owners, who spend rauch oftheir time in London and on the
Continent, pay only brief visits to their various rural seats, and
associate with the clergy of their neighbourhoods far less fami
liarly than the rural knights and esquires of olden tirae consorted
with their clerical friends. In the seventeenth century, ' neigh
bourhood ' was an affair of raore importance than ' county ' to
the home-loving country gentleraan ; and he was accustomed
to draw habitually and frequently to his hall such humbler per
sonages as now enter it only for a state-dinner and a few
formal courtesies. His hospitality was exercised most liberaUy
to the clergy whose conversation enlivened his table, and
accorded with his tone of thought. Even the Puritan land
owners, who abhorred biahops, overfiowed with civility to
parochial ministers.
Throughout that century the rural squires are found court
ing the acquaintance of their ecclesiastical neighbours, and it
merits notice that at the same time the country clergy com
prised a large proportion of the most scholarly and poUte of
their order. Under Elizabeth the learned and gentle Hooker
had preferred the quietude of a country living to the mastership
of the Temple. Hall was for years a Suffolk rector, near that
' most civil town ' of Bury St, Edmund's, before he became a
bishop, Heylyn was a personage of mark amongst the divines
of Charles the First's London, but he was also a rural incura
bent and active country parson. When George Herbert^- the
man of letters and taste, as well as of birth and fashion — took
orders, he retired to a parish in Wiltshire, Nicholas Ferrars,
the deacon, fixed his pious abode in Huntingdonshire. Hacket

Part VI. — Before and aftzr the Restoration. 291
had a London living, and was one of the most popular of metro
politan preachers ; but he had also his rectory of Cheara, where
he resided frequently before the Civil War, and constantly
during the Commonwealth, Gauden was an Essex parson ; and
whatever may have been his demerits, the author of the ' Icon
Basilike ' was certainly no such character as Macaulay's typical
country ricar, Sanderson and Hammond were magnates at
Oxford, and beloved pastors in the country. One of the
brightest and most musical poets of the aeventeenth century
was Herrick, a Devonshire parson, who lost his living in the
Civil diaturbancea, and recovered it at the Eeatoration, These
are namea taken from araongst hundreds that might be adduced
in proof that clergymen of learning and fine taste did not avoid
the country and congregate in the towns of the seventeenth
century, aa Macaulay would have ua believe,
Frora Elizabeth'a acceasion to Jamea the Second's fall, the
English clergy steadily advanced in learning, quality, and
esteem. Under the first James and the first Charles they grew
in power and gentility, whilst they increased in arrogance to,
and unpopularity with, the laity, every aucceeding decade of
those reigns seeing a decided improvement in the culture and
aocial rank of the hierarchy in town and country. The
Eevolution, which swept 'away Episcopacy and suppressed the
cathedral establishments,, increased the influence and raised the
general character of the parochial clergy, by reliering their class
of the black sheep who had disgraced the sacred calling, and by
bringing the incumbents and curates into harmony with the
sentiment and taste of the more respectable and decorous
members of the inferior gentry and the commercial classes.
Favourable, aa we have seen, to learning and discipline at the
universities, the Comraonwealth raised the intellectual status
of ecclesiastical peraons; and on Charles the Second's return
frora exile, he found the pulpits of the parish churchea fiUed by
men far better bom and taught, and far more highly reapected
by the multitude, than the parochial priests of his grandfather's
and father'a timea had be§n. '¦ That the general body of the
Eestoration clergy possessed a fair araount of such learning as
the universities furnished, is demonstrated by Eachard, who,

292 A Book about Clergy.
whilst ridiculing the scholastic ayatem of instruction,* and
showing every disposition to expose and magnify the intellectual
deficiencies of the ordinary priests, does not charge them with
scandalous ignorance of what Oxford and Cambridge profeaaed
to teach. Moreover it must be reraerabered, that though
Eachard speaks disdainfully of the parts and capacities of the
inferior clergy, he is even more derisive ofthe raental character
istics and affectations of the pert Templars and other super
ficially educated laymen who presumed to look down upon
country parsons as an illiterate and brainless class.
But it was not till the revival of Episcopacy, on the return
of Charles the Second, that the clergy realized the good results
of the disasters which had befallen thera in the troubles of
Charles the First'a later years. In the popular reaction towards
monarchy, and all things pertaining to it, the eccleaiastical order
reaped a larger measure of good than any other section of society.
The EoyaUst clergy and Cavalier gentry, the spiritual nobles
and the secular ariatocracy, had been drawn and bound together
* Just as Mr. Robert Lowe has recently urged on our university tutors the
propriety of teaching their pupUs modem history and natural science. Dr.
Eachard, in Charles the Second's time, making efforts for scholastic reform and
a wider diffusion of useful knowledge, was deairous that undergraduates and
schoolboya should be taught arithmetic and geometry, as well as Latin and Greek.
' And first,' he says, ' aa to the ignorance of aome of our clergy : if we would
make a aearch to purpose, we muat go as deep as the very beginnings of edu
cation ; aud, doubtless, raay lay a great part of our misfortunes to the old-
faahioned method and discipline of schooling itself: upon the well ordering of
which, although much of the iraproveraent of our clergy cannot be denied mainly
to depend, yet by reason this is so well kno-wn to yourself, as also that there have
been many of undoubted learning and experience, that have set out their models
to this purpose ; I shall therefore only mention such loas of time and abuse of
youth aa is most remarkable and mischievous, and as could not be conveniently
omitted iu a discourse of this nature, though never so short. And first of aU, it
were certainly worth the considering, whether it be unavoidably necessary to keep
lads to sixteen or seventeen years of age in pure slavery to a few Latin and Greek
words ? Or whether it may not be more convenient, especially if we call to mind
their natural inclinations to ease and idleness, and how hardly they are per
suaded of the excellency of the liberal arts aud sciences, any further than the
smart of the last piece of discipline is fresh in their meraories : whether, I say, it
be not more proper and beneficial to mix those unpleasant tasks and drudgeries,
to aome that in aU probabUity raight not only take much better with them, but
might alao be much easier obtained ? As suppose some part of time was aUotted
them for tiie reading of aome innocent English authors, where they need not go
every Une to a tormenting dictionary, and whereby they might come in a short

Part VL — Before and after the Restoration. 293

by adversity. If Monarchy had its martyr, so had the Church ;
for the sovereign who had perished beneath the headsman's axe
was the chief of the Church, for whose sake he was said, and
not untruly said, to have laid down his life. The wave of
revolution, which swept Strafibrd from the stage, had been
quickly followed by another, which removed Laud from the
storm which he had helped so largely to raise. The convulsion
which suppressed Prelacy had also abolished the House of
Peers. Before the Coramonwealth the Church had been a new
thing, the outgrowth of a few generations of civil disturbance ;
and even in King Charles's London, where the bishops were
all-powerful, and courtiers coquetted with High-church preachers,
it was deemed in good society congruous with patriotism and
high tone to deride the prelates as plebeian upstarts, and to
speak of the Church as a mushroom establishment, and an un
satisfactory compromise between Papistry and Eeform. On the
Eestoration the Church was no longer a novel experiment,
but one of the ancient and venerable institutions which mur
derous and cruel raen had uprooted. On the one hand, it was
time to apprehend common sense, and to begin to judge what is true : for you
shall have lads that are arch-knaves at the nominative case, and that have a
notable quick eye at spying out the verb, who, for want of reading such common
and familiar books, shall understand no more of what is plain and easy than a
well-educated dog or horae. Or suppose they were taught (as they might much
easier be than what is coramonly offered to them) the principles of arithmetic,
geometry, and suoh alluring parts of learning; as these things undoubtedly would
be much more useful, so much more delightful to them, than to be tormented
with a tedious story how Phaeton broke his neck, or how many nuts and apples
Tytirus had for hia supper. For most certainly youths, if handsomely dealt with,
are much inclinable to emulation, and to a very useful esteem of glory, and more
especiaUy if it be the reward of knowledge ; and therefore, if such things were
carefully and discreetly propounded to them, wherein they might not only ear-
nestiy contend amongst themselves, but might also see how far they outskUl the
rest of the world. A lad hereby would think himself high and mighty, and would
certainly take great delight in contemning the next unlearned mortal he meets
-withal. But if instead hereof you diet him with nothing but rules and exceptions,
¦with tiresorae repetitions of Amo 's and Ivxto, 's, setting a day also apart to recite
verbatim all the burdensome task of the foregoing week (which, I ara confident,
is usually as dreadful as an old parliament fast), we must needs beUeve that such
a one thus managed vriU scarce think to prove immortal by such performancea
and accomplishraents aa these.' This passage fi?om ' The Conterapt of the
Clergy' anticipates much of what has been recently said, with greater finish and
amplitude, in reviewa and magazines, in behalf of educational reform in our
grammar-schools aud universities.

294 A Book about Clergy.
averred that Charles the First had died to preserve Episcopacy,
— a sufficient reason why Prelacy should be re-established and
re-endowed. On the other hand, it was stated that the Epi
scopal Church had fallen through devotion to the crown, — a
sufficient reason why the crown should load it with honours and
wealth. So the Elizabethan Church was replaced, to the delight
of the aristocracy and the satisfaction of an overwhelming
majority of the people; and since its restoration no one has
ventured to deride it for its want of antiquity.
Thus re-established more than two centuries since in a nation
that had discovered an urgent need for it whilst trying to exist
without it, the Episcopal Church has flourished to a degree for
which even its enemies cannot account, save on the supposition
that it is congenial to the intellect and temper of the country, and
does upon the whole satisfactorily accompUsh the ends for which
it was created, reformed, and rebuilt. Every political change
which has convulsed the country since the Eestoration has been
productive immediately or indirectly of honour and stability to
a system, imperfect in many respects, but fruitful of beneficent
results, and glorious in its traditions. Every fresh generation
has seen its clergy grow in power, and draw within its lines a
larger proportion of the aristocracy of the land ; and even at
periods when they have incurred reasonable charges of levity,
worldUness, and sloth, the shortcoraings of the raerabers of the
ecclesiastical order have been alight in coraparison with the
faults of the laity. If they have reflected the evils of current
society, they have also exhibited its virtues. Anyhow, they
UAve advanced in knowledge and honour ; and they have also
grown in wealth in a manner which almost justifies the opinion
that, though its Established Church should have no pecuniary
endowraents, the clergy of a wealthy people would not faU to
acquire a liberal share of the riches of the land, so long as no
celibatic rule precluded them frora marriage.

Part VL. — Before and after the Restoration. 295

CHAPTEE VIL
HOSPITALITY AND GAMES.
IN olden tiraes, before increase of wealth and refinement iiau
raised our parochial clergy above the ordinary kind of
affluent or fairly prosperous laity, and rendered them a diatinct
class in the aristocratic order, rural incumbents, in the exercise of
hospitality to their parishioners, were wont to receive as guests
at their parsonages families of a quality far beneath the hum
blest of those who are nowadays admitted to social intercourse
with the wives and children of rectors and vicars. ' The country
parson,' says Herbert, ' owing a debt of charity to the poor,
and of courtesie to his other parishioners, he ao distinguisheth,
that he keeps his money for the poor, and his table for those
that are above alms. Not but that the poor are welcome also
to his table, whom he soraetiraes purposely takes home with
him, setting theru close by hira, and carving for thera, both for
his own huraility and their corafort, who are much cheered with
such friendUness. But since both is to be done, the better
sort invited, and the meaner relieved, he chooseth rather to
give the poor money, which they can better employ to their
own advantage, and suitably to their needs, than so much
given in meat at dinner. Having thus invited some of his
parish, he taketh his times to do the like to the rest ; so that
in the compasse of the year hee hath them all with him, because
country people are veiy observant of such things, and will not be
perswaded, being not invited, they are not hated.' This general
exerciae of hospitality towards parishioners was continued by
the well-to-do rural clergy, so long as the fashion of taking their
tithes in kind, or mating special agreements for the payment of
them in money, rendered it poUtic for the incumbents to main
tain personal relation^ and a show of private friendship with their

296 A Book about Clergy.
tithe-paying parishioners ; and a vestige of it is still seen in
the customary tithe -dinners, which many of the country rectors
prefer to give at village taverns, instead of at their official resi
dences, in which many of the formal guests at tithe-dinners are
nowadays never received on a footing of equality or even of
social friendliness.*
The repast, of which the rector of the seventeenth century
invited his tithe-payers to partake at hia private board, was an
entertainment of homely fare, though cordial welcorae. The
dishes consisted of the solid joints and substantial puddings,
which even the aristocracy of the tirae regarded as the choicest
of food ; and though the principal toasts were drunk in canary,
* In olden time, after no less than before the Reformation, the exercise of
generous, and even la-vish hospitality, was one of the first duties ofthe superior
clergy. Whilst the well-beneficed rector was required to spend a large proportion
ofhis income on tho sustenance of the poorer, and on the social enjoyments of
the richer, of his parishioners, the archbishops and bishops were bound to live
grandly, keep great tables, and scatter bounties whithersoever they went. The
bishops of the present day are far less conspicuous personages in the social system
than their precursors of three centuries ; but relieved of the necessity of exer
cising general and wasteful hospitality to strangers the whole year round, they
have opportunities for amassing private wealth never enjoyed by the prelates of
old time. In his ' Life of Cranmer ' Strype says: — 'For in the year 1541 the'
archbiahop, with the conaent of the other archbiahop and most of the bishops,
and divers other deans and archdeacons, made a constitution for moderating the
fare of their tables ; viz. " That archbishops should not exceed six divers kinds of
fiesh, or as many dishes of fish on fish-days ; a bishop not above five; a dean, or
archdeacon, four; and all under that degree, three. But au archbishop was
allowed at aecond course to have four dishes, a bishop three, and all others two ;
as custards, tarts, fritters, cheese, apples, pears, &c. But if any of the inferior
clergy should entertain any archbiahop, bishop, dean, or archdeacon, or any of
the laity of like degree, as duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron, lord, knight, they
might have such provision as were meet for their degrees : nor was their diet to
be Umited when they should receive an ambassador." It .was ordered also,
" That ofthe greater fish or fowl, aa cranes, swans, turkeya, haddocks, pike, tench,
there should be but one iu a dish; of lesser sorts than they, as capons, pheasants,
conies, woodcocks, but two ; of less sorts still, as of partridges, an archbishop,
three ; a, bishop and other degrees under him, two. The number of the black
birds waa also stinted to six at an archbishop's taWe, and to four for a bishop ;
but of little birds, as larks, snipes, &c., the number was not to exceed twelve."
The object of these measures of retrenchment is expressly stated by the arch
biahop, who providea, " That whatever was spared out of the old housekeeping
should not be pocketed up, but laid out and spent in plain meata for the relief of
poor people." ' Concerning Biahop Parkhurst's hosjitality at Norwich in Queen
Elizabeth's reign, and the consequent irapoveriahmeEjt of the prelate, the same

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 297
the cloth was no sooner removed than the guests looked for no
more delicate drink than sound home-brewed ale and steaming
punch. The conversation turned chiefly on agricultural matters,
the affairs of the parish, and the political interests of the
Church ; and whilst his reverence and the churchwardens ex
changed sentiments on such farailiar topics, their admiring and
less enlightened auditors nodded their heads approvingly over
their tobacco-pipes. That the clergy of the Eestoration Period
were habitual, if not excessive, smokers, and saw no sin in the
delight which comes from the fumes of the aromatic weed, raay
be inferred from the arrangements made for clerical amokers at
Lambeth Palace during Sheldon's primacy. ' It was a practice,'
writes Eachard's biographer, ' I suppose, from time immemorial,
authorteUs: — 'He kept twenty-six men-servants in his house; araong whom were,
besides his secretary and gentleman, a cook, a middle cook, a brewer, a cater,
a baker, a yeoman of the horae, a baiUff, two carters, and divers other inferior
servants, beaidea six maids, six retainers, four poor aged folks maintained in the
house, and three scholars found by htm, one at Oxford, another at Norwich, and
a third at Ipswich .... For some years before his death he retired frora Nor
wich, and lived at his house at Ludham ; where latewardly he retrenched his
famUy for his debt to the queen, yet Uved in some port still. But before that
misfortune his hospitaUty -w'as so notable, that though the proportion of his
yearly revenues was much inferior to others, it gave place to none of his pro
fession and degree. He wa^ not contented to feed the poor at his gate with
fragments and scraps, but hejhadatable set for them; bringing them into his
house, and having aU neceaaaries miniatered unto them for the relief of then-
needs.' If we go from the poor see of Noi-wich to the rich bishopric of Win
chester, we find another Elizabethan prelate living beyond hia means to fulfil the
burdensome obUgations of his place. Bishop Curtess of Winchester died 1585,
and, noticing the inventoiy Jf the prelate's effects, Strype says : — ' In which in
ventory are set down his books (valued 30/.), his parhament robes, one velvet
cuahion embroidered with gold and tasseUed, one silk grograine gown faced with
velvet, a velvet caasock, anotbar grograine gown faced with velvet, a night-gown
of buffin, one cloak Uned witi bayes, one velvet hat laid to pawn, one sUver cup
laid to pawn, two standing cal>s, gUt .... His armour reckoned, viz. six cora-
lets, six head-pieces, twelve Jalivers, ten pikes, ten jacks, ten bows, twelve hal
berds, sheaf-arrows, powder md match, seventeen caps and skuUs .... This
bishop seemed to overUve hs income; afl'eoting good housekeeping and hospi
tality, after the quality of a lU bishop, and so died in great debt to tbe queen.'
Ofthe hospitaUty which Geon e BuU (bishop of St. David's), more than a century
later exercised at Brecknock, on his poor Welsh bishopric, Robert Nelson says :
' His' doors were always throi^ed with the poor and needy, who found comfort
and support from his bounty ; and aU the time he lived at Brecknock, which is a
very poor town, about aixty necesaitous people, truly indigent, were fed with
meat, or aerved with money every Lord'a Day at dinner-time.'

298 A Book about Clergy.
when any guests dined at Lambeth, for the archbishop, when
dinner was over, and after drinking two or three loyal toasts, to
invite some of the company into a withdrawing chamber. The
rest went up with the chaplains into their own room, situated
in the highest tower of the palace, where they amused them
selves with a pipe of tobacco, as honest Wood says, and a sober
glass, till the bell invited the family to prayers.'*
But though our clergy are less ready than the incumbents
of pasb time to entertain humble parishioners, and though they
perhaps display too much of a fastidious disinclination to asso
ciate familiarly with persons who lack the style and culture of
the gentle classes, it must be reraerabered that, instead of being
specially chargeable on this account with arrogance and superci-
liousneaa to their aocial inferiora, or with a peculiar disposition
to check parochial neighbourliness, they have in these respects
only followed the fashion of these later generations, and put
themselves in harmony with the spirit of an epoch in domestic
civilization, which, whilat softening the hard deraarcations of
feudal rank, has broadened the lines which divide politeness
frora rusticity, and education from ignorance.
In their diversions, no less than in their ways of holding
intercourse with the laity, an examination of the records of past
raanners will satisfy the irapartial inquirer, that the clergy have
respected the opinion and reflected the humour of their times
far more than the reckless denouncers of ' the cloth ' are either
aware or likely to adrait. In days when indulgence in field-
sports was universal araongst all grades of fairly prosperous
EngUshraen, and when the exciteraenta of the chase were neither
* The aame writer adds : — 'In Archbishop Potter's time, I am told, this old
custom received sorae small alteration. After the usual toa«ts, that prelate in
vited such of the company as chose it to drink coffse in another room, and imme
diately withdrew. At length Archbishop Seeker nade a very considerable alter
ation in the etiquette of Lambeth; so far, at leist, as regards the matter in
question. He broke through the strange and unjolite practice of distinguishing
one guest from another. He laid aside tbe austeiity ofthe high sacerdotal cha-
racter, as unfit for festivity, aud conversed at his tible with the ease and freedora
of a private gentleman. His constant method cf entertaining his guests was
such as became the Primate of all England, who oight to be at once a pattern of
hospitaUty and an example of sobriety. His m<als were cheerful, aud always
seasoned with discourse equally agreeable and insbuotive to all who were invited.
When the hour of parting arrived, all the company went away together.'

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 299
inconvenient to society nor inordinately expensive to private
persons, clergyraen distinguished themselves in every hunting-
field by the excellence of their horsemanship ; but when con
siderations of social advantage discountenanced the sport which
Somervile termed ' the image of war without its guilt,' and
when enlightened opinion discerned under a novel state of
affairs new grounds for regarding the chase as an unsuitable
pastime for members of the sacred profession, ecclesiastics
gradually ceased to be conspicuous patrons of an amusement
in which they could no longer indulge without injuring their
neighbours, or at least without giring offence to weak brethren.
Whether we find the clergy of old time generally and openly
playing bowls* or foot-ball, — two favourite sports with the
rectors and curates of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, —
or diverting themselvea with games of skill and chance, which
have dropped into neglect or disrepute in the present day, it is
safe for us to infer that such pastimes were deeraed appropriate
to clergy, and that, in having recourse to thera for daily recre
ation, ecclesiastics no raore violated public decorum than the
younger clergy of our time offend against prevailing opinion
when they play in cricket-matches, or indulge in athletic
sports. At the present date many of the ancient diversions
of the EngUsh home aie forbidden to eccleaiastical persons ;
but it is worthy of observation, that nearly every curtail
ment of the tririal pleasures of the dergy in one direction
has been attended vrith a corresponding extension of them
in another. The Victoriaii rector may not play with dice, aave
upon a backgammon-board ; but he haa free leave to provide
himself vrith a billiard-tabW, and try to surpass Eoberts in the

* During his confinement in Clrist Church Deanery, the aged Cranmer was
permitted to amuse hiraself with boVls, whilst his subtle and merciless enemies
were enticing him to abjure ProteStantism. 'In this mean time,' says Foxe,
' whUe the Archbishop waa thua renkining in durance (whom they kept now in
prison almost the space of three years), the doctors and divines of Oxford busied
themselves all that ever they could ftiout Master Cranmer to have him recant,
essaying, by all crafty practises and alurements they might devise, how to bring
their purpose to pass. And to the intat they might win him easUy, they had him
to the Dean's houae of Christjs Churchin the said university; where he lacked no
deUcate fare, played at. tlie bowls, had hiipleasure for walking, and all other things
that might bring him from Christ.'— Fi^ 'Acta and Monuments.'

300 A Book about Clergy.
difficult art of raaking breaks. He is thought to derogate from
his dignity if he drive wooden spheres over the parish bowling-
green, but aociety ia well pleased to see hira play croquet on
his own lawn. He may not keep hounds, but no one thinks
him precluded by official obligation from lavishing money on a
handsome equipage and well-filled stable.
Of the diversions stiU popular with our clergy, cheas ia one
of the very few which ' the cloth ' favoured in old tirae. In
clerical biographies of the Elizabethan period, and the later days
of the seventeenth century, the reader continually comes upon
passages that record in language of sympathy and approval the
prowess of clerical chess-players. But Baxter and other Puritan
divines ofthe Coramonwealth period discerned evil in the game
which prelates and deans, rectors and vicars, had played to their
own delight and with the approbation of beholders from time im-
raeraorial. In ' A Letter from a Minister to a Friend concerning
the Game of Chess' (1680) — a broadside preserved in the Har
leian Miscellany — a conscientious and too scrupulous pastor,
bewailing the faults into which an enthusiastic love of cheaa has
betrayed hira, observes, ' It hath not done with me, when I have
done with it. It hath followed me into my study, into my
pulpit ; when I have (in ray thoughts) been playing at chess :
then I have had, as it were, a chess-board before ray eyes : then
I have been thinking how I might hare obtained the stratagems
of my antagonist, or raake such and such raotions to his disad
vantage ; nay, I have heard of one wlio was playing at chess in
his thoughts (as appeared by his words) when he lay a-dyin^,
, , , It hath wounded my consciencs, and broken my peace, I
have had aad reflections upon it, when I have been raost serious,
I find, if I were now to die, the remembrance of this game would
greatly trouble me, and stare me in the face. I have read in the
life of the famous John Huss, how he was greatly troubled for
his using of this game a Uttle before his death.'
In the ' Christian Directioi,' Baxter, reflecting on the
influence of lawful and not neressarily immoral games, says,
' And when I observe how far thi temper and life of Christ, and
his best servants, was from auch accusations, I avoid them with
the more suapicion. And I se but few but diataate it in
ministers, (even shooting, boriing, and such more healthful

Part VI. — Before and after the Restoration. 301
garaes, to say nothing of these and such others aa fit not the end
of recreation) ; therefore, there is soraewhat in it that nature itself
hath some suspicion of. That student that needeth chess or
cards to please his raind I doubt hath a carnal, empty raind ; if
God, and all his books and aU his friends, cannot suffice for this,
there is some disease in it that should be rather cured than
pleased ; and for the body, it is another kind of exercise that
profits it,'

302 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE VIIL
THE EOYAL TOUCH.
WHEN England broke the chains which had long bound her
to Eorae, devout adherents of the Papacy expected that
the Alraighty would raanifest his displeasure at the revolt by
withdrawing frora English sovereigns the faculty which they had
derived frora Edward the Confessor of curing scrofula by laying
their sacred hands on the nodes and open sores of afflicted per
sons. It was not to be iraagined, urged the zealous CathoUca,
that the monarchs of England would continue to enjoy so
singular a proof of the Divine favour after losing their connexion
with the Pontiff, who was, in fact, the channel through which all
heavenly mercies flowed to the churchea coramitted to hia away.
And history inforras us that, on finding the Protestant sovereigns
no less powerful over struraa than tleir Catholic precursors, many
of the English Papists began to waver in their allegiance to the
old faith, and to think that, aftei all. Protestantism might be in
the right, since the King of kings still deigned to use the heretical
potentates as remedial agents. It is recorded of a certain Popish
recusant, — described by Fuller as ' a stiff Eoman Catholic, —
whose scrofulous trouble had been charmed away by Queen
Elizabeth's hand, that he exc'aimed, ' I perceive now at last, by
plain experience, that the ^communication denounced by the
Pope againat her Majesty i in very deed of none effect, seeing
God hath blessed her witl so great and miraculous a virtue.'
One would like to kr^w precisely what was Elizabeth's esti
raate of the efficacy of her royal touch on strumous diaeaae ¦
how far ahe concurred rith her courtiers in believing that the
imposition of her fingers really wrought the cures attributed to
them, how far she r^arded the theory and usages of her queenly

Part VL — Before and after the Restoration. 303
healings as droll relics of medieval superstition and credulity,
and how far she deemed it reasonable to suppose that she was a
miracle-worker by the same divine grace which, baring exalted
her to, sustained her in, the throne of her forefathers. I am
disposed to think that, when arrogance and self-sufficiency held
mastery over her vigorous intellect, ahe believed heraelf to be
the healer that bishops and statesmen and profeaaors of acience
proclairaed her, and that, when no deleterious influence or mor
bid temper impaired her self-knowledge or dimmed the natural
clearness of her mental vision, she disdained the flatterers who
marvelled at her miracles, and was uneasy under the obligations
which required her to play from time to tirae the part of a
sanctimonious charlatan. It is said that during a progress
through Gloucestershire, when a crowd of scrofulous wretches
pressed rudely upon her, and loudly clamoured for her touch
and gold,* she responded to their importunities by exclaiming,
' Alas, poor people ! I cannot- — I cannot cure you ! It is God
alone that can do it :' words which some have construed as a de
claration of her impotency to do what was required of her,
though they raay have been designed only to direct the minds
of her hearers to the true Healer, in whose hands ahe waa a
mere passive instruraent. The kings of France, who were no
less powerful than the sovereigns of England in driving scrofu
lous taint from languid bd^dies, were accustomed to utter
modestly and devoutly to each peraon on whom they laid heal
ing hands, ' Le roi te touche, l^u te guSrisse.'
A pedant, prone to reapectWery superatition or old- wife's
tale supported by a scrap of LatiV in a foolish book, James the
First was not the man to have aiW doubts respecting the. credi
bility of stories, or the reasonablenVss of a usage which glorified
his kingly office, gratified his self-lovV and rendered the populace
conteraptible. I doubt not that hewas a firm believer in his
power to vanquish the disease whicli baffled the skill of his
physicians, and that, freed from the reWints of social opinion,
* The gold angel which the royal healer gave t\every patient after manipu
lation contributed greatly to the general faith in the Wtive process. The coin
was hung to the patient's neck by a string, that pass^ through a hole punched
in the metal, which was worn as an amulet by the reCipVt— until he was sorely
in need often shillings for his personal expenaes.

304 A Book about Clergy.
he would have easily persuaded hiraself that the fiery death
was the proper punishraent for any malapert and blasphemous
observers who ventured to question the efficacy of his royal
manipulations. Even more interesting to students of our social history than
the political services which we have recently dropped from our
forms of public worship is the following office, which the Church
appointed for use at Eoyal Healings : —
'AT THE HEALING.
' The Gospel.
' Written in the xvi Chapter of St. Mark, beginning at the 14 verse.
' " Jesus appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and cast
in their teeth their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they be
lieved not them which had seen that he was risen from the dead.
And he said unto them. Go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these tokens
shall follow them that believe : In my name they shall cast out
devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they
pmom'^are^rZtZ shall drive away serpents ; and if they drink any
t^^,^^d ZTiZ deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. * They shall
E' ' *"' '^'^ "'""' ^'^y *^^'" ^"'''^^ "" *^* ^''^' '^^ ^^y *^^^ recover.
So when the Loid had spoken unto them he was
received into heaven, and is on tiie right hand of God. And they
went forth and preached everywiere, the Lord working with them,
and confirming the word with aiiracles foUowing.''
' TsB Gospel.
' Written in the I. Chapter o:" St. John, beginning at the first verse.
' " In the beginning wa' the Word, and the Word was with God,
and God was the Word, fhe same was in the beginning with God.
AU things were made by it, and without it was made nothing that
was made. In it was life, and the Life was the Light of men ; and
the Light shined in th' darkness, and the darkness comprehended it
not. There was sentfrom God a man whose name was John. The
same came as a witiess, to bear witness for the Light, that aU men
through him might beUeve. He was not that Light, but was sent to

Part VL — Before and after the Restoration. 305

bear witness of the Light. * That Light was the
true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into ^™S' wtTtT*"
the world. He was in the world, and the world was ^ing^-pon their kmes,
made by mm, and. the world knew him not. He **¦ i'"'^ «'<"<* '*«*¦
came among his cwn, and his own received him
not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to be
made sons of God, even them that beheved on his Name ; which were
born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor yet of the will of
man, but of God. And the same Word became Flesh, and dwelt
among us, and we saw the Glory of it, as the Glory of the only Son of
the begotten Father, ftdl of grace and truth."
' The Pbatees.
' 'Fers. Lord, have mercy upon us.
Eesp. Lord, have mercy upon us.
Vers. Christ, have mercy upon us.
2iesp. Christ, have mercy upon us.
'Fers. Lord, have mercy upon us.
Hesp. Lord, have mercy upon us.
' Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into tempt
ation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
' 'Fers. 0 Lord, save Thy servants,
Jiesp. Which put their trust in Thee. l^me Answers an
'Vers. Send help to them from above, «Lj ct^* beh^.
Besp. And evermore mightily defend them.
Vers. Help us, 0 God our Sariour ;
Mesp. And for the glory of Thy. Name deliver us : be
merciful unto us sinnWs, for Thy Name's
sake. \
Vers. 0 Lord, hear our prayer, \
Resp. And let our cry come unto Thee.
' Almighty God, who art the giver of all health, and the aid of
them that seek to Thee for succour, we call upon Thee for Thy help
and goodness mercifully to be shewed unto these Thy servants, that
they being healed of their infirmity, may give tVanks unto Thee in
Thy holy Church ; through Jesus Christ our Lord.\ Amen.
' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the fellowship ofthe Holy Ghost, be with us aU furthermore. Amen.'
VOL. II. X

306 A Book about Clergy.
This forra of service — transcribed into the present pages
from Sparrow's 'Collection' — was published in 1629-30, and
a sumraary of its provisions appears in John Eushworth's
' Historical Collections,' in the section where the collector pre
sents the reader with one of Charles the First's proclaraations
with respect to the Eoyal Healing : — ' 1630, on the sixth day, of
April, his Majesty caused to be published this proclamation fOr
the better ordering of those who repair to the court for the cure
of the disease called the King's Evil. " Whereas by the Grace
and Blessing of God, the Kings and Queens of this Eealm, for
many ages past, have had the happiness by their sacred touch,
and invocation of the name of God, to cure those who are
afflicted with the disease called the King's Evil : and his now
most Excellent Majesty, in no less measure than any of his
Eoyal Predecessors, hath had good success herein, and in his
most gracious and pious disposition is as ready and willing as
any King or Queen of this Eealm ever was, in any thing to
relieve the distresses and necessities of his good subjects, yet in
his Princely wisdom, foreseeing that in this, as ia all other
things. Order is to be observed, and fit times are necessary to
be appointed for the performing of this great work of charity :
His most Excellent Majesty doth hereby publish and declare his
Eoyal Will and Pleasure to be : That whereas heretofore at the
usual times of p'resenting such persons to his Majesty, for this
purpose, even Easter and Whitsuntide, that from henceforth the
times shall be Easter and Michaelmas, as times more convenient
both for the temperature of the season, and in respect of any
contagion, which may happen in this near access to his Majesty's
Sacred Person, and his Majesty doth accordingly will and com
mand. That from this time of publishing this Proclamation,
none presurae to repair to his Majestie's Royal Court, to be
healed of that disease before the Feast of St. Michael's now next
coming." '
The fear lest the king should be impregnated with disease
through personal contact with his scrofulous patients — a fear
which doubtless occasioned the postponement of the customary
Healings — is a noticeable feature of this proclamation by a
royal miracle-worker, who might have been presumed to be
exempt from such peril at the very moment when the pores of

Part VL.- — Before and after the Restoration. 307
his sacred skin were exhaling a mystic aura destructive of
morbid humour in the bodies of his subjects. Some years
later Charles the Martyr issued another proclamation, still
more strongly expressive of the sense of danger under which he
performed his curative functions to the base and unclean rabble
vrbo crowded to his court twice a-year for relief from physical ail
ment. Here is the official notice, — 'By the King: A Pro
clamation for suspending the time of heaUng the disease called
the King's Evil until Easter next. Whereas the King's most
excellent Majestic, by hia proclamation, dated the first day of
July last, did prescribe the times of his healing the disease,
called the King's Evill, to be Michaelmas and Easter, or within
fourteen days next before, or next after those feasts : Neverthe
less, his Majestic being now informed, that the sicknesse in
creaseth in many parts of the kingdome, and foreseeing the
danger that may redound to his sacred person, by the confluence
of diseased people at this Michaelmas now approaching, hath
thought fit further to suspend all access to his court and pre
sence for heaUng, till Easter next, or fourteen days before or
after the same. And doth therefore strictly charge and com
mand all persons whatsoever, hereby to take knowledge of his
Majestie's Eoyal Will and commandment herein : and that none
presume untill Easter next, or within fourteen days next before,
or next after the said feast, to resort to his Majestie's Court or
Presence for healing, under pain of his Majestie's high dis
pleasure, and to be further punished as shall be meet: His
Majestie's said proclamation of the first of July last, or any
thing therein to the contrary notwithstanding, which never
theless in all other the Directions and Declarations therein ex
pressed. His Majestic willeth and commandeth to be duly and
strictly observed, under the penalties therein mentioned. — Given
at our Court at Oatlands the second day of September, in the
fourteenth year of our reign. God save the King. Imprinted
at London by Eobert Barker, Printer to the King's Most Ex
ceUent Majestje : and by the assigns of John BiU. 1635.'
On the restoration of the Stuarts the royal heaUngs were
resumed and throughout the next half century such multitudes
of people flocked to court forthe benefit of the touch that it cost
the successive sovereigns of that period no little gold, as weU aa

308 A Book about Clergy.
time and trouble, to satisfy the requirements of the credulous
sufferers. The applicants for the cure carae from all parts of
the country, and from all grades of society, — some of them
being of a condition of life which countenanced the suspicion
that they cared more for the raoney than for contact with
royalty ; whUst others were of a rank that would have procured
them access to the sovereign without a surgeon's passport, and
of a degree of education which renders it difficult to believe that
they had implicit faith in the curative power of the king's
hand. On June 23, 1660, Samuel Pepys went with his friend Tom
Guy to Whitehall, to see the restored monarch lay hands on his
struraous subjects : but the sight-seekers missed the object of
their excursion. It rained violently, and whilst the sick people,
who either awaited the king's appearance in the palace-garden,
or expected momentarily to be admitted to his presence in the
banqueting-hall, were drenched with water to the skin, the
king was invisible, and his doors closed to the invalids- and
the attendant crowd. When Pepys and his companion had
gone off home, in despair of beholding the spectacle which
they had come from the city to witness, the king however
(if I read Pepys rightly) received his forlorn patients in the
banqueting-hall, whence he dismissed them, none the better
for the cold and rheumatisra which they had caught whilst
' forced to stand all the morning in the rain in the garden.'
Perhaps under a wrong date (July 6th, 1660), Evelyn, in
his ' Diary," gives the following picture of the manner in which
the raerry monarch distributed charity and health to the
persons selected for hia miraculous treatment: — 'July 6th,
His Majesty began first to touch for the evil! according to
custom, thua : his Majesty sitting under his state in the Ban
queting-house, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought, or
led, up to the throne, where they kneeling, the king strokes
their faces, or cheeks with both his hands at once, at which
instant a chaplain in his formalities says, " He put his hands
upon them, and He healed them." This is said to every one in
particular. When they have all been touched, they come up
again in the same order, and the other chaplain kneeling, and
having angel gold strung on white ribbon On his arra, delivers

Part VL. — Before and after the Restoration. 309
them one by one to his majesty, who puts them about the necks
of the touched as they pass, whilst the first chaplain repeats,
" That is the true Light who came into the world." Then
follows an epistle (aa at firat a gospel) with the Liturgy, prayers
for the sick, with sorae alterations : lastly the blessing : and
then the Lord Chamberlain and the Comptroller of the House
hold bring a basin, ewer, and towel, for his Majesty to wash,'
Evelyn's account helps us to see how the officiating clergy per
forraed ' the office' and presented the sick people to the king,
and is serviceably minute in several particulars, but on one or
two points it bears an appearance of discrepancy to the entry in
Pepys' journal,'^^
To protect the sovereign's pocket from the impositions of
the knaves who, had no precautions been taken against them,
would have applied repeatedly for the king's angelic raoney ; and
to preserve the royal touch from the disrepute of failing to effect
cure in a large majority of the cases submitted to ita influence,
— no applicant for the monarch's manipulations was admitted
to the healing presence unless he presented a certificate from
the minister and churchwardens of his parish that he had not
received the touch on a previous occasion, and also a certificate
from one of the court surgeons or physicians that he was really
a strumous sufferer, and therefore a suitable case for the rairacu
lous treatraent. That economy required the observance of the
first of these regulations, may be seen frora the fact that in
fourteen years Charles the Second touched 92,807 persons, who
drew from the royal exchequer a sum exceeding forty-six thou
sand pounds sterling. Nor were the considerations less cogent
which suggested the propriety of rejecting, from the multitude
of persons who sought the cure, the large proportion of invalids
whose glandular swellings and cutaneous maladies were not the
result of scrofulous corruption. Prudent care for the interests

* If, as I infer from Pepys' words, Charles touched the poor people in tbe
Banqueting-houae on June 33, his flrst public reception of applicants for the
touch took place a fortnight earlier than Evelyn represents. Pepys' words,
' afterward he touched thera in tbe Banqueting. house,' may, however, mean,
'ore a later day 'he touched them,' &c. But, so far as dates are concerned, no
reliance may be put ou Evelyn, who is now and then a month or raore out of the
right time.

310 A Book about Clergy.
of the faculty rendered the physicians and surgeons desirous
that the sovereign's exercise of the healing art should be con
fined vrithin the liraits prescribed by tradition and superstitious'
usage : and the crown was not slow to perceive that its pe
cuniary interests and reputation for miraculous power derived
advantages frora the arrangeraent which invested the chiefs
of the raedical . profeasion with the privilege of selectiflg the
cases for the royal touch. The physicians and surgeons of
the court were instructed to give tickets to none but scrofulous'
cases,* i.e. to none but sufferers whora the king's hand was
likely to benefit : and it is probable that these courtly officials,
adopting a course calculated to benefit the regular practitioners
of raedicine, and, at the same tirae, preserve the glory of the
crown, retained for treatraent by the faculty all grievously
afflicted sufferers, and sent to the sovereign only such cases of
tririal or transient ailraent aa gave promise of steady amend
ment or recovery under the ordinary processes of nature.
On March 30, 1712, Queen Anne laid her hands upon two
hundred scrofulous sufferers, one of whom was Samuel Johnson,
then in his third year and manifesting the earlier symptoms of
the disease, which, in spite of her majesty's merciful conde
scension, accompanied him to the grave. Anne was the last
English sovereign who ventured to exerciae the mfraculous
power attaching to wearers of the English crown : but thirty
years after her death, the young Pretender (following the
example of his cousin Monmouth in the western rebellion)
touched scrofulous casea in Scotland, and, restrained by poverty
from giving them amulets of gold, distributed pieces of silver
money to the patients, who went to their homes, hopeful of
deriving benefit from contact with their crownless king. But
though the rude Gerraan, who succeeded Anne on the British
throne, bluntly refused to assist in perpetuating a ceremony
which he deemed incompatible with kingly honour, and not
devoid of impious presuraption, ' The Office for the Healing '
retained its place in at least four Oxford editions of the Coraraon
* In his ' Diary,' Evelyn says :— ' 1684, 2Sth March, There was ao great a
concourae of people with their children to be touched for the evil, that six or
seven were crushed to death by pressing at the chirurgeoii's door for tickets.'

Part VL. — Before and after the Restoration. 311
Prayer-book, published after the accession of the House of
Hanover. The zeal with which Georgian copies of the Prayer-
book, containing this office, are sought after and bought at
high prices by collectors of curious literature, has induced the
manufacturers of 'choice and rare books' to produce a con
siderable number of spurious specimens of the four editions by
inserting leaves, on which the suppressed form is printed, into
the body of genuine copies of the Prayer-book published in
George the First's time without the obsolete office. Amongst
the few persona fortunate enough to possess a true and honest
specimen of the Georgian Book of Common Prayer, containing
the whole service for the healing, is my friend, Mr. Spencer
Smith, the eminent surgeon.
In social history the presentation of little Sarauel Johnson
to the last of the Stuart sovereigns, for the remedial benefit qf
her Majesty's miraculous touch, is a good boundary-mark be
tween the epoch of superstition and the period of general
scientific enlightenment ; and if Mr. Frith would reproduce on
canvas this interesting scene of Court Life— Anne sitting in her
chamber of state, supported by the gentlewomen of her house
hold, and touching the afflicted persons brought to her footstool
by her chaplains, through a dense throng of curious and watchful
courtiers — he would undertake a task worthy ofhis pencil and
pecuUarly suited to his artistic powers.

312 A Book about Clergy.

CHAPTEE IX,
FAREWELL,

WHEN I began to arrange the nuraerous facts comprised
in these volumes, so that they should illustrate the
social story of our national clergy from medieval to modern
tiraes, I deterrained that, whilst surveying the convulsions and
changes of reUgious opinion and practice in past days, I would,
as far as possible, refrain frora. touching on the various theo-
logic^ questions which occasioned or rose frora those disturb
ances and alterations. Not that I think the lay-writer labours
outside his proper sphere who states his sincere convictions and
reverential judgments on points of faith. Nor that I shrink
from supporting truths and combating errors, for whose main
tenance or exposure the official teachers of religion are the most
appropriate and powerful instruments. But writing vrith a
riew to the entertainment, and, in sorae slight degree, to the
instruction of persons of all denominations, I felt that any
needless declaration of my sentiments on matters pertaining
to creed and controversy would only lessen my chances of
achieving the useful, though comparatively humble, ,aira of my
labour. And save in one or two places, where I felt it right
to guard againat miaconatruction, I have not departed from the
Une of forbearance which I decided to adopt at the opening of
my taak.
With respect to the disquiet and strifes of the religious life
of our own time there are, however, a few reflections which I
may venture to make in bidding my readers farewell.
AUke by thoughtful friends in private discussion, ^nd by
some of the chief public directors of opinion, I am often told
that ihe present generation is remarkable for the numbef and

Part VL. — Before and after the Restoration. 313
alarming characteristics of its religious dissensions, — and that,
whilst fraught with instant danger to the Established Church,
and significant of deep-seated national disease, the conflicts
of existing parties forebode evil to every class of the community
in coraing ages. With sincere respect for the good and vrise
men who take this gloomy view of recent events and increasing
difficulties, I am thankful to say that history appears to me to
contradict their conclusions and to discredit their mournful pre
dictions. From the heart of the feudal period down to the
present day, I know of no time in which our nation was inno
cent of spiritual sloth or strong inclination to religious lethargy,
and at the aarae raoraent free frora ecclesiastical coramotions
and controversial troubles. The struggle between Lollardy and
Orthodoxy in the fourteenth century ; the persecutions of the
Wycliffian innovators ; the aucceasive convulaiona and contests,
revolutions and counter-revolutions, which resulted in the Ee
formation; the fierce and bitter feuds of the Churo-bmen,
Eecusanta, and Nonconformiata of Elizabethan days ; the con
tentions of the divided Episcopalians and the disunited Puritans
of Laudian England ; the mad riot of the sects under the
Commonwealth ; the melancholy and calaraitous battles between
Catholics and Protestants, Churchraen and Dissenters, which dis
figure our religious story from the Eestoration to the time of the
eighteenth century, when for a brief period our nation fell into a
condition of intellectual and spiritual torpor, far raore reraote
from religious health and beneficial beUef than any kind of scep
ticism, — show that ecclesiastical perturbations and religious per
plexities are no new experiences to the English people ; and that
clerical tranquillity and laical docility were not the prevailing
conditions of our national life during the loftiest epochs of
our history. Yet, further, when put in contrast against the
spiritual ferments and commotions of the present earnest, in
quisitive, and deeply reverential age, the religious controversies
and struggles of our ancestors are found to exhibit certain
excesses of vindictive quality and maUgnant hatred from which
we may, in no spirit of Pharisaical pride, thank God for our
comparative, if not total, freedom. We still have reason to
deplore our shortcoraings in respect of brotherly love and decent
fairness to men whose religious convictions rouse our disappro-

314 A Book about Clergy.
bation and provoke our antagonism ; but when corapared with
the periods specially considered in the foregoing pages, the
present generation, while not found wanting in devoutneas
of teraper and eagerness for truth, may be commended for
tolerance and charity. My survey of the social aspects of the
religious life of England in past times has brought rae to this
conclusion, in which I venture to hope that some of my readers
will be sharers.

INDEX.

ABBOTS, authority in the convent
held by, i. 35 ; juriadiction and
powers of,i, 43 ; support of papal au
thority by, i. 55, e* ,se{. ; their position
and influence in the iVliddle Ages, i.
343
Acton, Sir John, an English chronicle's
record of his execution, i. 317 (note)
Acton, Sir Eoger, scene at his execu
tion, i. 311 ; Foxe's account of his
martyrdom, i. 317 {note)
.3i;i&ic, injunction against certain prac
tices in churchea issued by, i. 338,
{note)
Affirmation, in judicial "trials, defended
by the Lollards, i. 145
Agriculture, success of the monks in
the practice of, i. 34
Ailred of Rievesby, his testimony to the
usefulness of the religious women of
remote times, i. 10 (note)
Aisles (aim), in churches, the origin of,
ii. 11
Albigenses, martyrdom, in the reign of
King John, ofmany in England, i.lSl
Albion, work of the prieata sent out by
reUgious communities in, i. 3
Aldeburgh, penance inflicted on two
penitent heretics at, i. 939
Alderman, origin ofthe terra, i. 78
Ales, or feasts, different kinds of, i.
351 ; disrepute into which they have
faUen, i. 359
Alexander IV., Pope, order of Mendi
cant Friars instituted by, i. 131 1
Allestree, Eev. Eichard, his services in
the royal cause during the EebeUion,
i. 190 {note)
Andrewes, Bishop, of Westminster,
costume-portrait of, ii. 350
Angelo, Michael, sculpture elevated by
the genius of, i. 37
Anglo-Saxons, the, a dreamer's vision
of their dispersion before the Nor

mans, i. 10; our imitation, in certain
points, of the reUgious practices of, i.
338 {note)
Animosity, clerical, Ulustrations of, i.
65
Anne, Queen, application of the royal
touch by, ii. 310
Anselm, synodical decree of, i. 90 j hia
warfare against concubinary priests,
i. 349
Archbishops, the degradation of, i. 335;
FuUer on the matter, making, and
mysteries of the pall worn by, ib.
Arches, Court of, derivation of the
narae, i. 340
Architecture, Gothic {see also " Art,
Gothic") period when it chiefly
flourished in England, i. 38 ; interest
taken by the general pubUc of the
13th and 14th centuries in, i. 34 ;
facts Ulustrative of ita rapid progreas
to perfection, i. 35 ; wide field of con
jecture as to the originators, or
teachers, of, ib. ; intellectual powers
brought to the service of, i. 37 ; the
only congenial sphere of activity in
tbe Middle Ages, for raen of high
intellect and refined taste, i. 38 ; ac
tivity iu the study and practice of,
i. 39
Aristocracy, the, growth of the clergy
in the favour of, i. 133 ; gradual
leavening of the clerical order by,
i. 334 ; nuraber of male aud female
clerical members of, i. 337
Art, Gothic {see also " Architecture,
Gothic"), its occult proceaaes com
municated to, and afterwards lost by,
the Freemasons, i. 35 ; publication of
their designs by the artificers of the
first perfect specimens of, i. 37 ; dis
tinguished students of, i. 38
Arundel, Archbishop, pilgrimages to
the shrines of saints approved and

316

Lndex.

defended by, i. 150 {note), and ii. 44;
sense in which tbe word "worship"
was used by,i. 159 ; defence of image-
worship by, i. 160 (note) ; Henry IV.
persuaded to renounce his project of
Church spoliation by, i. 170
Askew, Anne, the martyrdom of, and
of her fellow-victims, i. 311 ; wit
nesses of the burning of, i. 813 ; a
gentleman's alarm at the execution
of, i. 333
Assheton, Eev. WiUiam, originator of
modem Ufe assurance, i. 307 ; the
scheme propounded by, i. 309; ob-
-vious defect in the plan of, ib. ; his
system accepted and applied by the
Mercers' Company, i. 3i3
Assembly, the Westminster, called by
Parliament instead of Convocation,
i. 301 ; Sir John Birkenhead's pic
tures of the members of, ii. 303 ;
Selden's superior scholarship in, ib. ;
pubUcation of the " Directory for
PubUc Worship" by, u. 303
"Assembly-man, the," Sir John Birken
head's ludicrous picture of the ap
pearance, raanners, and diet of, ii.
303, 353 ; description of the oratory
of, u. 313
Atkinson, Margaret, provision for her
funeral feast made by, i. 354 (note) '
Attire, gay, inveighed against by the
author of " The Lantern of Light,"
i. 143 {note)
Augustine, his remarks on the pagan
persecution of the early Christians,
i. 198 {note)
.4ylmer, Bishop of London, two kinds
of women characteristically described
by, i. 369
BACHELOES of Art;, mode of ad
dressing, i. 77
Badby, John, martyrdom of, i. 319
Badge -fagot, worn aa a temporary
stigma, i. 331
Bale, Biahop, deacription of King Ed
ward Vl.'a Irish clergy by, i. 91
{note) ; married in the Catholic time
of Henry VIII.'s reign, i. 351 ; his
first experience of his Irish see, ib.
{note) ; his dramatic achievements,
i. 347 ; extract from the epilogue to
a play by, i. 348
BaUites, the, their opinions and de
manda compared with those of the
Lollards, i. 16i
Bancroft, Archbishop, his remarks on
the objections of the Puritans to the
sacred character of the chancel, ii.

4 ; his fulsome flatteiy of James I.
u. 160
Baptism, the Westminster Assembly's
directions for the celebration of, ii.
306
Barclay, Alexander, picture in " The
Ship of Fools" of the restless and
disordered congregations of his time,
by, ii. 93 {note)
Barnes, Dr., his sermon from the pul
pit of Paul's Cross against the Bishop
of Winchester, ii. 67
Barnes, Lady, Strype's account of the
funeral of, u. 84
Barons, the great, dispersion of the
numerous estates possessed by, i. 30;
their relation to and treatment of
their serfs, i. 33
Bartholomew Fair, a spectacle for Ee
formers on the day of, U. 7 (note)
Bartlet, Isabel, her lamentations for
her husband's arrest punished by a
severe penance, i. 333
Baxter, Eichard, his love affairs an iUus
tration of the social status of clergy
men in the 17th century, i. 387;
sketch of his career, ib. ; wooed and
won by Margaret Charlton, i. 989 ;
his refusal to accept promotion in
the church, ib. ; stipulations insisted
on before agreeing to accept the hand
of his suitor, i. 390; picture of
Sunday in rural parishes by, ii. 133,
et seq. ; his father derided as a Puri
tan for his observance of the Lord's
Day, ib. ; his account of the school
masters of his youth, ii. 185 ; his
labours at Kidderminster, ii. 319
Bayfield, Eichard, accused of heresy,
degradation from the priesthood, and,
martyrdom of, i. 334
Baynham, martyrdom of, i. 933
Bells, Church, Fuller's remarks on a
certain superstitioua uae of,i. 8 (note)
Bells, the Four, canon defining the
times for, ii. 95
Beggar Prieats,see" Mendicant Orders"
Belton, Eev. Mr., a choica 'specimen of
the clerical roysterers ot the time; of
Charles I., ii. 197
Benedict, Al^bot of Wearniouth, glass
first used in England by,'i. 34 (note)
Benefices, English, armed iemohstra-
tion caused by the appointment of
Italian papal nominees to, 1 60
Bible, the, read eagerly audheedfuUy
by the early Eefoi-mers, i. 338
Bicester, wedding, churchiiig, and
burial fees at, i. 103 ^
Bid-ale, the,nature and object o(,i. 351

Lndex.

317

Bigod, Eoger, nuraerous estates pos
sessed by, i. 30
Bilney, the Eev. Thomas, the Nor-wich
martyr, i. 315 ; spurious miracles
attributed to the devil by, i. 163;
Foxe's account of his deatb, i. 316 ;
the martyrdom of, ii. 104
Birkenhead, Sir John, extract frora his
prose satire, " The Assembly-man,"
i. 393 {note)
Bishops, their humUity in the first ages
of our ecclesiastical history, i. 7 ;
authority exerted over the laity by,
ii. 43 ; power against heretical of
fenders confided to, i. 183; the de
gradation of, i. 335 ; style, rank, and
precedence of the -wives of, i. 377,
336 ; their position and infiuence in
the Middle Ages, i. 349 ; shorn of
their power and pri-vUeges by the
Long ParUament, u. 176 ; their li
cense in conferring holy orders, U.
186 (note) ; episcopacy injured, un
der EUzabeth, by the ancestral infe
riority of, u. 977 ; their gentility
-vindicated in reply to the statements
of Lord Brooke, u. 378; insolent
terms in which feudal magnates
expressed their contempt for the
humble origin of, n. 379
Bishops, Anglican, opinion expressed
by CathoUc annalists of, ii. 377
Bishops, the National, their struggles
against the exactions and encroach
ments of Eome, i. 56; injunctions
against frequenting ale-houses issued
hy, i. 93
Bishops in partibus, functions dis
charged by, i. 43
Black Friars, see " Dominicans "
Black Death, the, havoc caused among
the poor and the humbler order of
priests by, i. 104
Blackstone, misrepresentation of cle
rical prosecutions for heresy by, i.
189; his remarks on the repeal of
the law " De Hseretico Combu-
rendo," i. 197
Bonner, Bishop, his exultation at the
degradation of Archbishop Cranmer,
i. 336; revolting cruelty of, i. 338
(note); the obliteration of scripture
texta painted upon church walls
ordered by, n. 9 ; Strype's account
of his treatment in prison, ii. 106
(note) ; slanders directed against him
and other ecclesiastics, U. 877
Boughton, Joan, burnt at Smithfield
for her Wycliffian heresies, i. 303
Bourne, Dr., tumult caused by a ser

mon preached at St. Paul's Cross by,
ii. 58
Box-deska in churchea, the uae of, ii. 16
Bradbourne, Mr. Theophilua, called
to order for his Puritanism, i. 358
Branding, a punishment infiicted ou
penitent heretics, i. 330; conceal
ment of the marks caused by, for
bidden by Longlaud, bishop of Lin
coln, and other bishops, i. 331
Bray, Vicar of, popularity of the pro
verb relating to, ii. 110; Fuller's
mythical narrative of, ii. 109 ; fami
Uar aong relating to, U. Ill; a class
of the clergy satirised under the
name of, ii. J 08
Brooke, Lord, the Bishops incited to
defend their gentiUty by the state
ments of, ii. 378
Buckenham, Dr., a Black Friar, his
reply, by sermons on dice, to Lati
mer's sermons on cards, u. 69
Bull, Eev. George, Bishop of St.
David's, characteristic marriage of,
i. 390 ; Nelson'a account of hia ordi
nation, i. 391 (note) ; curious mani-
featations of Puritan and Quaker
zeal towards, ii. 34 ; the friendly
terms on which he lived with his
curates, ii. 360 ; hia hospitaUty, ii.
¦297 (note)
Burgo, De, John, works lawful and
unlawful on Sunday discriminated
by, n. 131
Burial, the Westminster Assembly's
directions for, ii. 310
Burnet, Bishop, the preaching of, u. 56
Burning, the ordinary fate of heretics,
i. 181
CALAMY, Dr. Edward, his reply to
Dr. Walker's " Sufieringa of the
Clergy," u. 197 ; clerical royaterers
and buffnona deacribed by, ii. 197
Campanology, a few curiosities of, ii.
94 et seq. ; a curious device of, ii. 99
Canons, the, attempts of the Bishops
of th^ Eeformed Church to secure,
in the adrainistration of divine ser
vice, general corapliance with, ii. 31
Canona, see " Clergy, the Eegular"
Cardinal's hat, the, i. 87
Carraelites, the, origin, recognition,
constitution, and institution of,i. 131 ;
belief in the ^sanctity of the scapular
worn by, i. 137
Casuistry, a case of, and the dissensions
resulting from it, i. 186
Catafalco, the, or fexed hearae, purpoae
for which it was uaed at funerals,

318

Lndex.

ii. 87; the epitaphs exhibited on,
U. 88
Catbedrals, period of the erection of
the great English, i. 38 ; colleges of
canons, or secular priests, attached
to, i. 43; significant fact demon
strated by the apecial servicea iu,
i. 117; efl'eot of the preaence of
clerical wives in the closes of, i. 369 ;
the early Lollards usually tried in,
i. 340 ; the sacella, and object for
which they were established in, ii. 1 ;
the rood-lofts of, u. 4; act abolishing
all dignities connected with, ii. 177 ;
barbarous proposal forthe demoUtion
of, ii. 178 ; injuries done during the
Civil War, both by Puritans and
Eoyalists, to, ib. ; desecration and
destruction, during the Coramon
wealth, of, u. 179; Dr. Walker's
lamentation over the sUence and
desolation of, ii. 180
Cathedral Towns, a dreamer's vision of
one, i. 13 ; the majority of their
humbler inhabitants not church
people, i. 117
Cathedrals, Gothic, fraternity to whom
their erection has been ascribed, i.
35 ; reflections inspired by, i. 53
Ceadmon, the cowherd, his sacred
genius fostered in a monastery, i. 3
Cecil, Secretary, diversities of ecclesi
astical practice indicated to Queen
Elizabeth by, ii. 30 (note)
Celibates, remarks on the long conflict
between them and the concubinaries,
i. 347 ; Latin verses eUoited by their
conflicts, i. 349
Chancel, the, care of our ancestors to
maintain the sacredness of, u. 3 ;
origin of the name, ib. ; gradual
encroachment of the laity upon,
n. 3
Chaplains, Domestic, the humble pre
cursors of those of the present day,
U. 964; origin of the custom of main
taining, ib. ; their numbers increased
, by the Eeformation, u. 365 ; incum-
bencies held by, ib. ; various duties
of, u. 966 ; their position regarded
with disapprobation by the bishops,
ii. 967 ; charges preferred by the
prelates against, u. 2fi8 ; Bishop
HaU's satirical picture of, ib. ; con
siderations on the position and treat
ment of, ii. 969 ; George Herbert on
the tone and moraUty of, ii. 970 ; Dr.
Eachard's satire on, ib. ; description
of one, by the author of " Contempt
of tiie Clergy," ii. 279

Charity, ill -directed in the Middle
Ages, i. 15
Charity Dinners, probable origin of,
i. 306
Charles I., iUustrations of clerical life
in time of, i. 380 (note) ; devotion of
the wives of the loyal clergy, during
his struggle -with ParUament, to, i.
389 ; position of a landed gentleman
and justice of peace in the reign of,
i. 988 ; increased power of the clergy
in the time of, i. 356 ; George Her
bert's model country parson in the
reign of, ii. 55 ; injunctions on
preaching disregarded by tbe rural
rectors in time of, ii. 57 ; Sabbata
rianism in the reign of, ii. 133 ; im-
¦wise republication of " The Book of
Sports" by, ib. ; untimely publication
of an unwise proclamation by, ib. ;
his character and poUoy, U. 160 ; re
marks on his insincerity and un
truthfulness, ii. 161 ; monthly fasts
proclaimed during the CivUVSTar by,
ii. 183 ; one of the roystering clergy
of the time of, ii. 197; the "Ic6n
Basilike," unwilUngly adopted as his
justification by, ii. 936 ; the special
service in the Prayer-book in honour
of, U. 234; hia execution vritneased
from the roof of Lady Peterborough's
house. Charing Cross, ii. 348 (note) ;
the mystic power of the royal touch
appUed with fear by, u. 806
Charlea IL, testimony to the efficacy of
the royal touch as appUed by, i. 164
(note) ; the writ " De Hseretico Com-
burendo" abolished in the reign of,
i. 197 ; sermons in the reign of, i.
393 ; Macaulay on the clergy iu the
time of, i. 356 ; establishment of the
Corporation for the Belief of the
Widows and Children of the Clergy
erroneously attributed to, i. 306 ;
allusion to funeral customs in the
reign of, u. 93 ; the Church-and-State
squire of the time of, ii. 140 ; Eve
lyn's picture of a Sunday evening at
the court of, n. 141 ; Bishop Ken's
verses for the day of the restoration
of, U. 343
Charlton, Margaret, her wooing of
Eichard Baxter, i. 289
Chaucer, Geoffrey, comparative dates
¦with reference to the Ufe of, i. 87 ;
.tinctured -with the principles of
LoUardy, i. 75: picture of \ good
parish priest by, i. 96 (nolf); de
scription of the Oxford clrak by,
i. 106 (note) ; description of a' Friar

Lndex.

319

by, i. 130 (note) ; picture of a dis
comfited itinerant friar by, i. 134;
his satirical portrait- of the Pardoner
in the pulpit, i. 135 (note) ; swearers
described by, i. 144; extracts on
swearing fromthe " Shipmanne's Pro
logue " by, ib. (note) ; picture of pU-
grims hy, ii. 43.
Chess, a scrupulous pastor's lament on
account of his devotion to, u. 300;
remarks of Baxter on the game of, ib.
Chicheley, Archbishop, ludicrous blun
der of, i. 108
ChiUingworth, Francis, account of his
interment at Chichester, ii. 89
Choristers, their attendance at funerals
in the tirae of EUzabeth, ii. 85
Christians, Foxe and Augustine on the
persecution of, i. 198 (note)
Chronielers, monkish, a serious omis
sion of, i. 35
Church, the, its condition in England
in the earUer part of the 14th cen
tury, i. 37 ; its beneficial influence
in medieval times, 1. 31 ; the
laity conciliated by its architectural
activity, i. 40; origin of its cor
ruptions, i. 4'7; a difficult problera
for, i. 110 ; its advantages in opening
up a career, ii. 363 ; the charge that
it was plundered at the Eeformation
considered, U. 881
Church of England, see " England,
Church of"
Church, the Medieval, theocratic sen
timents of, i. 50; poUtical divisions
of , i. 53 ; papal and national parties
in, i. 54, et seq. ; aristocratic priest
hood of, i. 70; its difficulties and
weakness demonstrated by the posi
tion of the clergy of the Established
Church, i. 114; points in which it
difi'ered from modem churches, ii.
13; theory respecting eccleaiaatioal
' preferment held by, i. 310; its
aUiance -with the theatre, i. 347
Church, the Eeformed, position and
prospects of the clergy in, i. 394 ; its
instability when first founded, ii. 976 ;
Dean Newel's apology for the ad
mission of certain ilUterate clergy to
the Uvings of, ii. 987 ; period of laxity
of short duration in, ib. ; Strype's
account of the circumstances under
which illiterate men were admitted
into the priesthood of, ib. (note) ; ad
vancement of learning among the
clergy of, n. 988
Churches, magnificent liberaUty of the
Middle Ages in contributing to the

erection of, i. 34 ; fairs held, in the
Middle Ages, in, i. 149 (note) ; faUa-
cioua calculations founded ou the
number, in medieval times, of, i. 336 ;
the object for which, in early times,
buUt, i. 337; enactments of Saxon
law against the abuse and profana
tion of, ib. (note) ; secular uses to
which applied, i. 338 ; used aa courts
of justice, i. 339 ; business of eccle
siastical courts till recentiy performed
in, i. 340 ; origin of the practice of
holding manorial oourta in, i. 341;
markets and bazaars held in, i. 343;
social conditions resulting from the
custom of holding fairs in, i, 343 ;
scene, on the occasion of wakes, or
feasts of dedication, in, i. 344; origin
of the practice of holding continual
bazaars iu, i. 345 ; their devotion to
secular uses not regarded as repre
hensible in the Middle Ages, ib. ;
extract from Strype on the profana
tions practised in, ib. (note); Arch
bishop Stafford's decree respecting
the holding of markets iu, i. 346 ;
meetings for tbe termination of
feuds, in, i. 350; Henry VIII.'s
injunction against the abuse of, i.
353 (note) ; canon forbidding feasts,
banquets, &c., in, i. 355; reverence
of our ancestors for, U. 1 ; interment
iu them a costiy distinction, ii. 10;
the author of " The Book ofthe Fes
tival," on burial in, ii. 11 ; ancient
allusions to pews in,ii. 13 ; furniture
of the chancel of, ii. 14 ; first seated
after the Eeformation, ib. ; Bishop
Corbet's remarks on pews in, ib.
(note) ; stools and seats in, ii. 15 ;
the use of pulpita in, ib. ; Biahop
Kennet's remarks on pulpits and the
other furniture of, ii. 16 (note) ;
preaching, after the Eeformation, in,
ii. 17 ; origin and significance of the
floral adornment of, i. 18 ; use of
incense and candles in, U. 19 ; bad
result of the social use, in former
times, of, ii. 33 ; the clergy and laity
in, ib. tt seq. ; practice of keeping ou
the hat during divine service in, ii.
37 ; custom of uncovering on enter
ing, ii. 39,; disorderliness of the con
gregationa, during the Middle Agns,
in, u. 33
Churches,Medieval,conspicuousadorn- ment of the people's quarter in, ii. 4 ;
mural paintings of, ii. 7 ; restoration
of the pictorial adornments of, n. 8 ;
decoration of the walls with passages

320

Lndex.

of Scripture regarded as an innovation
in, ib. ; furniture of the chancel of,
ii. 13 ; pulpits and sermons in, ii. 16 ;
the floral adornment of. ii. 17 : their
attractions to the people, ii. 90 ; de
meanour aud conduct of the priests
and congregations in, U. 93 ; address
of Latimer to a disorderly congrega
tion in one, ii. 37 (note)
Churches, Urban, attempt to explain
the absence of the poor from the
services of, i. 117
Churches, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon, re
ligious communitiea in, i. 3
Church-ale, the, or Whitsun-ale, the
revels of, i. 353 ; Carew's descriptitm
of the festivities of, i. 353 ; Stubbs
on the application of the raoney
raised by, ib. (note) ; its derivation,
and application of the pecuniary pro
ceeds of, i. 354
Church-bella, funebrious practices with,
ii. 94 ; origin of the cuatora of cele
brating royal birthdays by the rausio
of, n. 96
Church-houses, the nature and purpose
of, i. 354 ; provision in the leaae of
one, i. 355
Church-life, medieval, incidents of, ii.
80 ; Alexander Barclay's picture of,
n. 33
Church-service, the, curious manifeata-
tions of Puritanical zeal against, ii. 38
Churchman, the Anglican, his view of
the Eeformation, ii. 375
Churchmen, orthodox, strict views of
Sunday observance adopted by, i. 147
Churchyards, their social use illustrated
by a passage from " The Spectator,"
i. 359 ; when first used as burying-
grounda, u. 10
Churchhill, Bev. Charlea, a jocular
clergyman of the time of Charles I.,
ii. 198
Cities, European, curious di-rision of
many into districts, i. 137
Civil War, the, devotion of the wives of
the loyal clergy during, i. 388 ; con
sequence of the lapse of ecclesiastical
government during, i. 181 ; rival fasts
during, ii. 183; hardships of the
clergy during, u. 191 ; ludicrous in
cidents in the local courts of inquisi
tors estabUshed during, U. 195; con
dition of the dispossessed clergy on
the termination of, ii. 916 ; political
Uterature of the period of, u. 395
Clarke, Eoger, singular scene ou hia
way to martyrdom at Bury St. Ed
munds, i. 914

Clayton, Sir Thomas, Warden of Merton
CoUege, Anthony k Wood's comical
lamentations over the extortions of
the wife of, i. 995
Clergy, the EngUah, their singular ac
cord with the ariatocracy, i. 115 ;
their influence in the rural diatricts,
i. 118; their irregularities in costume,
and iu the performance of divine
service, in the time of EUzabeth, ii.
99 ; characteristic instances of their
discourtesy and arrogance to oppo
nents, u. 60; the pulpit oratory of,
ii. 63 ; their singular plasticity in the
reigns of Henry VIIL, Edward VI.,
and Elizabeth, to the civil authority,
ii. 100
Clergy, EngUsh CathoUc, their position
in the reigns of Henry VIII. and
Edward VL, u. 101; Queen Mary's
accession hailed with joy by, ii. 109 ;
their conduct on the accession of
Queen EUzabeth, ii. 1 05
Clergy, EngUsh Protestant, their con
duct on the accession of Queen Mary,
U. 103 ; estimate of the number de
prived of their preferments in the
reign of that queen, ib. (note)
Clergy, Irish, their tavern-haunting
habits in King Edward VI.'s time,
i. 91 (note)
Clergy, the, the marriage of, i. 69 ; an-
cient modes of addressing, i. 75;
difficulty of the inquiry respecting the
mental and moral worth of, i. 84;
the character and habita of, i. 85, 88 ;
their character, i. 85 ; failings which
roused WycUffe's indignation against,
i. 93 ; gradual disappearance of the
sporting and tippling members of,
ib. ; change in their tastes and pur
suits, i. 93 ; decrease of their num
ber by the Black Death, i. 104;
opinions as to the inteUectual attain
ments of, i. 106 ; advantages of the
possession of wealth by , i. 110 ; change
produced hy the increase of opulence
among, i. il4; evils resulting fi-om
the poverty of,i. 193 ; injury done by
the Mendicant Friars to, i. 125 ; their
animosity to the stroUing friars, i.
131 ; their altercations with the Men
dicant Friars, i. 134; the auihor of
" The Complaint of the Ploughman's "
remarks on the luxury of the higher
orders of, i. 140 (note) ; their power
in cases of heresy greatiy limited by
an act of Henry VIIL, i. 194 ; effects
of the struggle for ecclesiastical re
form on, i. 941; oiroumstanoes that

Lndex.

321

rendered them uuable to form ad
vantageous matrimonial aUiances in
the time of Elizabeth, i. 959 ; choice
ofa -wife by , i. 96 1 ; iraproveraent of
their social status during and after
the reign of EUzabeth, i. 280 ; Rev.
William Assheton'a plan for forming
a proviaion for the poor widows and
chUdren of, i. 308 ; theory respecting
the condition on which preferraent
is held by, i. 316 ; injunctions issued
by Elizabe'h to, i. 857 ; choice of the
objects of their care and bounty, i.
3J9; the extraction and culture in
the time of Elizabeth of the -B'ives
of, i. 391; an allusion by Clarendon
to the marriages of, ib. ; riae in the
social status of, i. 383 ; feminine
preference for, i. 835; unjust sug
gestions excited by the matrimonial
successes of, i. 33i-) ; attempt to ac
count for the feminine preference
for, i. 330 ; their apparel in the tirae
of EUzabeth, U. 39 ; the bearers, in
Catholic times, at the funerals of,
ii. 90 ; opinions of the laity as to the
obligations of, ii. 108 ; proceedings
ofthe ParUamentary Commission for
inquiring into the scandalous immo- .
ralities of, u. 185 ; hardships suffered
during the CivU War by, u. 191 ;
Addison's satire on certain raerabers
of, u. 340 (note) ; their splendour aud
fall in the reign of Henry VIII., u.
346 ; a badge of party displayed at
the period of the Eeformation by,
ii. 847 ; mouataches worn by certain
repreaentative membera of, u. 948 ;
costume in the 17th century of, U.
849 ; their costume frora the time of
Queen EUzabeth to that of Queen
Anne, ii. 350; their costume diu-ing
the Commonwealth, ii. 353; wigs
and long falling bands used after the
Eestoration by, u. 853 ; a disposition*
to return to canonical costume shown
by, ib. ; effects of the Eeformation on
the inferior orders of, ii. 356 ; occa
sional disadvantage of thoae of up
right character in the I8th century,
ii. 373 ; their dignity and social in
fluence diminished by the Reformat
tion, U. 374; atate of the difTerent
ordera, after the Eeformation, of, ii.
383 ; attractions of the country in
the time of the Stuarts for, ii. 390 ;
Uvings in the country held by the
most learned members of, ib. ; their
advance in learning and in pubUc
estimation, from the time of EUza-
VOL. II.

beth to the accession of James II.,
ii. .391 ; hospitality formerly extended
to their paiishionera by, ii. 295; the
humour of their, faithfully reflected
in their diversions liy, ii. 398 ; the
amusements of, ii. 3u9 ; a favourite
diversion of, u. 300.
Clergy, the, the wives of, their rise in
social esteem, i. 331 ; Macaulay's
strange misapprehension of a pass
age in the works of Swift relating
to, i. 333 ; gradual enhancement of
their rank and dignity, i. 335 ; bene
ficent labours voluntarily overtaken
by, i. 335
Clergy, the married, how their position
was afi'ected by the union of the
priesthood in the time of the Lollard
persecution, i. 350; renouncement of
their priesthood before marriage, i.
351 ; acknowledgraent of their con
jugal bonds on the accession of Ed
ward VI., i. 353 ; malignity of the
Marian persecutors against, ib. ; tes
timony to the worth of their wives in
a tirae of peril, i. 353 ; occasional
selection of their wives by deputy,
i. 261 ; Archbishop WiUiams's disap
proval of, i. 373 ; regarded with dis
favour in the 17th century, i. 873
(note)
Clergy, the Laudian, view of the Fourth
Commandment held by, ii. 186 ; zeal
iu renovating churches displayed by,
ii. 1 70 ; innovations introduced by,
ii. 171
Clergy, the Lollard, viewa relating to
tithes held by, i. 101 (nute)
Clergy, the Medieval, proclamation il
lustrating ihe miUtary character of,
i. 33 (nole); preponderance of, i. 42;
the several orders oi,ib.; the bene
ficed parochial and the unbeneficed
secular members of, i. 43; important
secular offices held by, i. 44 ; usurp.
ation of the functions of the laity by,
i. 45 ; motive for the assumption of
temporal power by, i. 46 ; denuncia
tion of the worthless members of, i.
47 (note) ; apologists for the mundane
pursuits of, i. 49 ; explanation of the
pursuit of aecular eraployraent by,
i. 50 ; the two great political parties
of, i. 54 ; papal extortions from , i .
59 ; cause of their dissatisfaction
with papal encroachraents in the
14th century, ib. ; their opinions and
practice relating to raarriage, i. 63 ;
modes of addressing the difl'erent
orders, and the respect paid to tliem.

322

Lndex.

i. 80 ; the sacerdotal raiment of, i. 86 ;
details of their foppery preserved by
the author of " The Ploughman's
Complaint;,'' i. 85 (note) ; Mr. 'Thorold
Eogers' remarks on the costume of,
i. 88 (note); the incontinence of, i.
89 ; origin of the popular misconcep
tion as to the morality of, i. 90 ; con
dition of tbe lowest class of, i. 108 ;
the intellectual attainments of the
lower claaaes of, i. 107 ; social status
and influence of, i. Ill ; tendency
begot by prosperity among the mem
bers of, i. 113 ; punishraent inflicted
for embracing Judaism by, i. 181 ;
inconsiderate denouncers of their
craft and cruelty, i. 189 ; means by
which they excited the zeal of the
laity against Lollardy, i. 191
Clergy, the Menial, Bishop HaU's satire
on, ii. 308 ; Dr. Eachard's satire on,
and Macaulay's unjust use of it,
ii.. 370 ; remarks by the author of
"Contempt of the Clergy considered,
1739," on, u. 373
Clergy, Parochial or Secular, in what
points they difi'ered from the regular
clergy, i. 43 ; prosecution of secular
business by, i. 45 ; default for which
reproved by WycUfi'e, i. 44; the
author of the "Complaint of the
Ploughman," on the worldly avoca
tions and greed of, i. 45 (-note) ; the
marriage in medieval timea of, i. 63;
manner of addressing, i. 76 ; their
condition during the first centuries
of the Eeformed Church, i. 899 ;
opinion respecting the marriage of,
i. 300 ; their impoverishment iu con
sequence of the disturbances of the
seventeenth century, i. 301 ; various
estimates of tbe number then ejected
from their livings, i. 309
Clergy, the Puritan, external symbols
in the reign of Elizabeth of, ii. 39 ;
their week-day meetings for discus
sion, ii. 40
Clergy, the Eegular, a college, in the
fourteenth century (if, i. 71 ; mode
of addressing, i. 75 ; consequence of
their dispersion after the Eeforma.-
tiou,u. 374; dispensed with at the
Reforraation, n. 388
Clergy, the Royalist, view of warfare
held by one of, i. 53 ; artifice sanc
tioned in the time ofthe Coramon
wealth by, i. 391; license indulged
iu, during the Civil War, by many
of,n. IM ; the " black aheep" among,
u. 185 ; service rendered to the royal

cause by, ii. 187 ; White's memoir of
a hundred instances of the mis
conduct of, ii. 199 ; revolting case of
iniquity in one of, ii. 193 ; ludicrous
charge brought during the Civil War
against, ii. 195 ; Dr. Walker's descrip
tion of the successors to certain-
ejected members of, ii. 196 ; an un
favourable specimen of, ii. 197 ;
Clarendon on the unjust imprison
ment suffered by, ii. 900
Clergy, the superior, their hospitality
iu former times, and rules for the
fare provided by the different orders
of, ii. 996 (note]
Clergy, the. Corporation for the Relief
of the Widows and ChUdren of, — ita
origin, i. 305 ; early revenue of, i. 306
(note) ; its inability to alleviate the
great amount of clerical distress,
i. 307
Clergymen, poor, their marriages with
aristocratic brides, and with the
heiresses of wealthy merchants,
i. 397
Clerk-ale, the, nature aud purpose of,
i. 351; Bishop Pierce's explanation
of, i. 359
Cobbam, Lord, his remarks ou
pUgrimages, i. 151 (note) ; ex
pression of doubt respecting the
existence of purgatory by, i. 156
(note) ; the extreme politico-re
ligious view of, i. 167; his execu
tion, i. 911 ; his double punishment,
!. 917 ; Foxe's account of his death,
i. 918 (note)
Code, the penal, purged of the atro
cious provisions that once disfigured
it, i. 173
Coining, punishment of male and fe
male off'enders for, i. 836 (nole)
Colet, Dean, offends Bishop Fitzjames
by his opposition to bosom sermons,
n. 63
CoUeges, advantages to mankind from
the liberal revenues possessed by,
i. 30 ; their character, as the admin
istrators of property, compared with
that of private owners, i. 91; the
presence of clerical wives regarded
with disapprobation by the celi
bate inmates of, i. 869 ; Parsons,
theJesuit, on the residence of women
in, i. 871 ; Anthony a Wond's comical'
lamentation over the intrusion of
ladies into, i. 394, et seq.
CoUins, the mad lawyer, barbarously
grotesque scene at the execution' of,
i. 394

Lndex.

323

Collier, Jeremy, blunder reapecting the
injunctiona of Queen EUzabeth com
mitted by, i. 356
Common Law, the, conviction of heresy
by, i. 180
Commonwealth, the, condition of the
clergy under, aud the clerical ladies
of, i. 380 ; the Ufe of the Royalists
during, i. 381 ; occasional laxity of
the Presbyterians and Independents
in the time of, i. 883 ; vogue of mar
riage-sermons during the period of,
i. 993; calculations respecting the
number of ministers ejected during,
i. 303 ; our ohligationa for the better
obaervance of Sunday to, i. 358 ; the
Puritan and Prelatical literature of,
ii. 164 ; erroneous idea respecting
the celebration of marriage in the
time of, U. 307 ; the servile condition
from which woman was delivered
during,ii.310; civil raarriage, and mar
riage by the Book of Coramon Prayer,
during, ib. ; the laborious Church
Service in the time of, ii. 811 ; the
pulpit oratory of, ii. 313 ; the Epi
scopalian clergy under, ii. 815 ; young
clergvmen episcopally ordained dur
ing, ii. 316 ; state of learning in the
universities under, ii. 317 ; toleration
accorded to the Episcopal clergy
during, ii. 819; costume ofthe clergy
in the time of, ii. 353
Communion, the Holy, order of Eliza
beth relating to the adminiatration
of, ii. 38 ; un-Chriatian regulation
for the administration of, ii. 31 ;
Westminster Assembly's directions
for the celebration of, ii. 307 ; Isaak
Walton's description of Puritan wor
shippers receiving, ib. (note)
Communities, religious, their pious
labours in early times, i. 1 ; the
number founded by Celtic mission
aries, and the influence on the
Church exercised by, i. 3 ; their
difi'erenoe from the monasteries of
later tiraes, ib. ; meditations inspired
by the incidents attending the plant
ation of, i. 4
Compton, Bishop, remark on intra-
ecclesial interraent by, ii. 13
Congregations, a medieval one, ii. 15 :
turbulence, in the time ot Elizabeth
and Charles 1., of, ii. 83
Constance, Council of, order for the
disposal of the reraains of WycUffe
issued by, i. 303
Cook, Biahop of Hereford, defence of
his gentility, U. 978

Co-operation, the principle of, iUus-
trated hy the early history of the
Church and the monastic system,
i. 14
Corbet, Bishop, remarks on pews in
churches by, ii. 14 (note)
Country Parson, the model, George
Herbert's description of, i. 373
Courtenay, Archbishop, informal raea
sure against the Lollards passed by
the influence of, i. 184 ; penance in
flicted on retracting heretics by,
i. 397
Courts, Spiritual, Diocesan, or Com
missary, manner of proceeding
againat heretics in, i. 186 ; their sen
tences executed by the civil power,
i. 188
Cox, Richard, Bishop of Ely, an old
custom iUustrated by a curious
drawing of the obsequies of, ii. 97
Cranmer, Archbishop, denunciation of
images as objects of worahip by,
i. 161 (note) ; hia degradation from
hia priestly rank, i. 335 ; his second
marriage, i. 951 ; the scene at his
trial, ii. 340 ; reraoval of paintings
from fhewaUs duringhisprimaoy,ii.8;
defence against the ungenerous
judgment of historians ou, ii. 104;
tbe contemporarj' tricks of trade ex
posed by, ii. 870; the artifices by
which his enemies endeavoured to
force him to recant, ii. 399 (note)
Cromwell, Lord, a wise and daring act
of, ii. 4
CromweU, Oliver, apology for the in
sult done by political opponents to
the remains of, i. 308 ; satiric litera
ture of the Eeatoration mialeading
with respect to the social life of
England under, i. 381; a graphic
untruth concerning the death of,
U. 390 (note) ; the religious policy
of, ii. 881 (note) ; dissatisfaction
caused by the strict government of,
ii. 333 ; violent sentiments uttered
by Dr. South against, ii. 843
Cromwell, Eichard, scene at the pro
clamation, in Oxford, , of, U. 831
(note)
Croas, St. Paul's, London, a famous
andimportantpnlpit at, U. 50 ; public
discussion directed by the tone of
the preachers at, n. 51 ; turaulta in
the reign of Queen Mary at, ii. 53
Crosses, the firat erected in England,
i. 6 (note)
Curates, meaning of .the term in the
Middle Ages, i. 43; Ught in which

324

Lndex.

the authority of the Pope was re
garded by. i. 58; WycUfi'e on the
office, duties, and Ufe of, i. 95 {nolf) ;
raanner of addressing thera in the
14th century, 'i. 77 ;¦ charge brought
by WycUfi'e against, i. 85; general
condition of, i. 103; their income
compared with that of agricultural
labourers, i. 103; their treatment by
their ecclesiastical auperiors after
the pestilence of the Black Death,
i. 104; Bishop Islip's order re
specting the payraent of, i. IO.') ;
their condition in tlie time of the
Stuarts, i. 300 ; their ohancea of
preferment in past and in present
tiraes, i. 324; condition of the pre
aent generation of, ii. 365 ; thi-ir con
dition in the 17th centui-y, U. 356 ;
under the Coramonwealth, ii. ib.;
in the time of the Georges, ii. 357 ;
their cauae supported by a poetical
defender, ii. 258 ; frequent kindnesa
of the beneficed clergy to, ii. 359 ;
tlie novelist's typical representation
of, ii. 360 ; the advantagea poaaeaaed
by, ii. 361; the real hardship of
their position, ii. 202; other pro
fessions open to, ih.
" Curates' Conl'erence," the, Harleian
tract, extract illustrative of the con
dition of curates in the tirae of
Charles I. frora, i. 380 (note); extract
on prenohing frora, ii. .'57; Master
Poorest'a description of the Rector
from, ii. 24-1; the condition cf the
stipendiary clergy illuati-ated by a
paaaage frora, ii. 256
Curl, Bishop, defence of hia gentiUty,
ii. 278
Curtess, Bishop, of Winchester, Strype's
notice of the inventory of his eifects,
and of his hospitality, ii. 397 (note)
Cuthbert, Archbishop. See " Synod,
Archbishop Cuthbert's "
DALE, Rev. Cuthbert, Eectoi- of
Kettleborough, Suff'olk, off'ences
charged by the Puritana against,
ii. 193 .
David, St., grotesque story of, i. 7
Daye, John, a tavern-haunting curate,
i. 91 (note)
Dead, the, regard in former times for
reUcs and memorials of, i. 200
Death, the flery, treatment of ecclesi
astics sentenced to, i. 234
Dedication, feasts of. See " Wakea "
Defoe, well-known proverb reproduced
in verse by,*i 1 (note)

De Hseretico Comburendo, a writ issued
by the crown against heretics,!. 180 ;
last cases of the enforcement of,
i. 186 ; abolition of, under Charles
IL, i. 197
Deraagogues, raedieval, i. 124
Devil, the, an unjust and improbable
charge againat, i. 163
Diaconate, the Female, a learned and
thoughtful work on, i. 247
Discipline, conventual, how regarded
by the pioneers ofmonaaticism, i. 6
Dissent, its adherents, i. 116
Dissenters, Protestant, the victiras of
political rather than of re igious
enraity, i. 344
Divines, old Anglican, value of their
writings, u. 66; homely metaphors
indulged in by, ii: 67
Dominicans, the, the founder of, i. 133 ;
their self -proclairaed appointment,
ib. ; different names given to, ib.
" Don," origin and application of the
terra, i. 75; its relation to " dunce,"
i. 81 ; rig'.it of Friars, as regular
clergy, to the title of, i. 129 (note)
" Dons," at Oxford, in the 14th century,
i. 80
Drama, the EngUBh National, its ori
gin, i. 347
Drant, Dr., his defaraatory attack on
Dr. Overton, ii. 60
Dreaa, the author of " .Exceaa of Appa
rel,'' on the EngUsh love of, ii. 79
Duns Scotus, queation concerning the
nationality of, i. 80; origin ofthe
preaent forra of his appellation,
i. 81
EACHAED, Dr., his satire on the in
ferior clergy of his day, and
Macaulay's unjustifiable use of it,
ii. 270 ; reraarks on ecjucatioual re
form by, ii. 292 (note)
Eadgar, remarks, on the veneration
to be shown in churchesi by, i. 338
Ebba, Princess, spiritual cjirectreaa of
a monastery at Coldinghalm, i. 3
Ecclesiastics, overweening pride of the
higher orders of, i. 105 ; their learn
ing and poleraical skill in \he seven
teenth century, i. 108; ^udicrous
blunders, in the l&th and kth cen
turies, of, ib.; treatraent Of those
sentenced to death by fire, i. 334; their
splendid costume laid aside \during
the 15th century, i. 245 \
Eocleaiastica, foreign, their position in
medieval England, i. 60 '
Edward III., ordinance forthe cosyume

Lndex.

325

of clerks and knights in the reign
of, ii. 245 (note)
Edward IV., curious Sabbatarian en
actment, passed in the reign of, U.
131
Edward VI., repeal of the statutes
against heretics in the reign of, i.
1 06 ; domestic character of the mar
ried clergy in the time of, i. 253 ;
injunction on preaching issued by, ii.
54 ; Strype on the evil done by
seditious preaching in the reign of,
ii. 58 (nole) ; injunction on Sunday
observance issued by, ii. Vii; inaer-
tion of the tenth cpmm andraent into
the Litany bj order of, and efl'eot
produced by it, ii. 126 ; Latimer on
the royal supremacy of, ii. 158
Elizabeth, statute in favour of religious
freedom iasued in the first year of
the reign of, i. 196 ; ¦ execution of
heretics in the reign of, 1 96, 341 ;
release of the victiras of religious
persecution on the ascension of, i,
238 (note) ; her accession the death
blow to religious peraecution in Eng
land, i. 341 ; her policy as a Pro
testant sovereign, i. 342 ; her de
licate and difficult position at the
coraraenceraent of her reign, i. 243 ;
honour of raartyrdom unfairly claimed
for CathoUc priests who suffered in
the reign of, i. 244; the hardships
of Protestant Dissenters under the
government of, ib.; her prejudice
against a married , clergy, i. 281 ;
injunction of 1565 issued by, i. 356 ;
injunction on the marriage of the
clergy issued by, i. 357 ; chiiraoter-
istics of domestic service iri the tirae
of, i. 358 ; clergymen ineligible for
favourable matrimonial alliances in
the reign of, i. 859 ; choice of a wife
by a clergyman in the days of, i.
361 ; clerical wives in the time of,
i. 269, 331; improvement iu the
social status of the clergy during the
reign of, i. 380; injunction issued in
the first year of her reign by, i. 317 ;
order againat airaony issued by, i.
383 ; how revels were sustained in
the time of, i. 358; the Puritans, in
their desire to prevent the desecra
tion of Sunday, supported by, i. 356 ;
how her accession was signalized, ii.
7 : Church and congregation in the
reign of, U. 38 ; irregularities of
Puritan and Eitualiatic. clergyraen in
the time of, ii. 39 ; clerical parties
in'the earUer years of the reign of, U.

37 ; steps taken to secure order on
her elevation to the throne, ii. 84
injunction on preaching issued by
coramand of, ib. ; the pulpit regarde 1
with jealousy by, ii. 59 ; funerals
in the first year of the reign of, ii. 83 ;
conduct of the Catholic clergy on the
accession of, ii. 105 ; number of
Papal clergy deprived of their
preferments in the reign of, ii. 106 ;
Sunday profanation in London and
suburbs in the time of, ii. 139 ;
inauspicious influence th.at checked
Sunday obaervance under, ii. 130 ;
causes of her opposition to the
Puritans, ii. ih. ; titular distinction of
the royal supremacy declined by, ii.
183 (note) ; ecclesiastical powers ex
ercised by, ii. 158 ; position of the
Eetorraed Church in the time of, ii.
376; her bishops and other ecclesi
astical dignitaries, ii. 377 ; simony
in the early years of the reign of, ii.
385 (nute) ; conjectures concerning
the application of the royal touch
by, ii. 303 ; her remark to a scrofu
lous crowd in Gloucestershire, ii.
303
Eloquence, Pulpit, the supposed de
cline of, ii. 04
England, era of the triumph of Gothic
architecture in, i. 38 ; communica
tion between distant places, during
the Middle Ages, in, i. 39 ; roads
and hostelries, before the Reforma
tion, in, i. 30 ; facilities for travellinj;
in, i. 31 ; influence, of the Church
and landed proprietors in, i. 33 ;
great number of travelled peraons,
in the Middle Ages, in, i. id.; general
and clerical population, in the 14th
century of, i. 43; clerical parties in,
i. 54; abstraction of capital by Popish
exactions from, i. 59 ; position of
foreign ecclesiastics in, i. 60; poai
tion of the raarried clergy, in
medieval times, in, i. 63 ; raany
exemplary pastors, in the 14th cen
tury, in, i. 95; characteristics, in past
times, of the national clergy of, i.
97; influence of the conventicle in,
i. 119 ; mendicant orders received
with open arras in, i. 184; traffic in
Indulgences in, i. 125; survival of
superstition in, i. 163; efifdCtof tbe
struggle for ecclesiastical reforms in
the priesthood of, i. 241 ; tho spirit
of religioua peraecution atill alive' in,
i. 245 ; probable origin ofthe general
belief concerning the sale of wives

326

Lndex.

in, i. 250 ; extension and consolidu-
tion, by the Lollard persecution, of
the Papal power in, ib.; number of
poor livings in 1733, in, i. 306,
(note) ; preaching in the time of
Elizabeth in, ii. 55 ; Sunday observ
ance, under the Saxons, Danes, and
Normans, in, ii. 113; how Sunday
was passed, under James I. and
Chailea I., in the rural parishes 'of,
ii. 133
England, Medieval, a noteworthy fea
ture of, i. 30 ; the good parish priest
of, i. 96 ; the earnings of farm-
labourers in, i. 103 ; intellectual
condition of the secular or parochial
clergy of, i. 107 ; domestic pilgrim
ages an important source of social
diversion iuj i. 149; the politi co-
rehgious disturbances of, i. 245 ;
number and position of concubinary
priests in, ib. : condition of menial
servants in, i. 858 ; Sabbatarianism
rarely heard of in, i, 345 ; how tbe
people displayed their taste in, ii. 43
England, Church of, control of the
Pope, before the Reforraation, over,
i. 58 ; consequences of Papal supre
macy to, i. 59 ; the plebeian element
in, i. 70 ; ita miniatry now an aristo
cratic vocation, i. 81 ; unequal distri
bution ofthe revenues of, i. 98, et seq.;
present intellectual condition of its
clergy, i. 107; position of its clergy
illustrative of the difficulties ancl
weaknesa of the medieval churchea,
i. 1 14 ; , the weakness of its clergy, i.
115; the working-classes almost en
tirely outside the pale of, i. 116 ; a
journeyman engineer's explanation
of the withdrawal of the poor from,
i. 117; the conventicle, even in
rural parishes, a formidable rival to,
i. 119 ; animosity of able men to tbe
eccleaiastical system of, i. 134 ; how
the audacious designs for its spoli
ation, in the 14th century, were
fomented, i. 167; pluraUsm in, i.
300; injury done to it by the ejection,
in 1662, of Nonconformist ministers
from, i. 304 ; nuraber of poor livings,
and of destitute widows and children
of the clergy in 1733, in, i. 306 ; its
stability increased by clerical mar
riage, i. 33 1 ; one cause of its imper
fect hold on the affections of the
working-classes, i. 334 ; necessity for
stringent censorship in the earlier
generations of, ii. 60 ; the affluence
and magnificence, under Norman

prelates, of, ii. 115; now greatly
leavened by the principles of Puri
tanism, ii. 148 ; the royal supremacy
over, ii. 151 (note) ; king declared by
an article of Edward VI. head of,
ii. 152 (nole) ; state of tbe clergy,
during the Civil Wai-a, of, ii. 185 ;
advancement in knowledge, honour,
and wealth of, ii. 294 ; popular pre
judice against married priests in',
i. 250 ; jealousy and conflicts between
the spirituaUty and ruling laity of,
ii. 155
Englishman, the Marian aud Victorian,
comparative sensibility and powers
of endurance of, i. 171; a theory,
flattering to the self-esteem of,i. 174;
occasional vindictiveness, under the
pretext of duty of, i. 178
Episcopacy, condition of the clergy
during the abeyance of, and matri
monial unions formed by thera,
i. 280, 289, ¦( seq.; not benefited by
tbe ejectment of the Nonconformist
clergy in 1682, i. 304; support given
by the Crown to, U. 181; consider
ations which induced Elizabeth and
the Stuarts to support, ii. 152 ; its
harmony with the forms and officials
of secular governraent, ii. 154;
James tbe Firat's frank avowal of his
reasons for preferring, ii. 159; pro
ceedings of the Long ParUament
against, ii. 175; itsfunctiona privately
exercised during the Commonwealth,
ii. 215 ; Cromwell's policy towards
the adherents of, U. 220; injured,
under EUzabeth, by the social in-
feriority of its bishops, ii. 277
Erasmus, satire on the ignorance and
corruption of tho clergy by, ii. 45;
hia " PUgrim age for ReUgion's Sake,"
ii. 46 ; pictures of ahrine-worahip in
England by, ii. 47
Eremites, Augustinian, the constitution
of, i. 131; their institution by Pope
Alexander IV., i. 133
Estate, real, inordinate possession, by
the monks, of, i. 16
Ethehlreda, Queen, monastery estab
lished in East Anglia by, i.'i
Eustatius, emissary of the \ French
priest, Fulco, storm of disapprobation
raised in England by his dWunei-
ation of Sunday amuseraents,ii. 117 ;
a pious fraud committed by, ii. ; re
ception of the doctrines preached in
York and the North of Englahd tj ,
ii. 118
Evelyn, John, the Diarist, Kis father-

Lndex.

327

in-law's testamentary directions for
his interment, ii. 13; eflbrts to di-
. miuish the frequency of intramural
interments made by, ib.
" Ex Officio," act 3 Henry II., against
the Lollards, the hardships infiicted
by, i. 183 ; security of trial by jury
refused by, i. 184 ; p;rooeedings under,
i. 186 ; act in amendment and enlarge
ment of, i. 193 ; situation for a
martyr's stake directed by, i. 815

FAGOT-BEAEEES, penitential, i.
331
Falsehoods, how to annihilate, i., 113
Fanaticism, religious, the exceaaes of,
i. 191 (note) ; singular manifestation
of,i. 801
Fanaticism, political. Christian for
bearance iu judging of, i. 337; re
raarkable instance of, i. 208
Farra-labourers, in Medieval England,
their earnings compared 'with, the
incomes of curates, i. 103
Fasts, public, the laborious services,
during the Commonwealth, on the
occasion of, ii. Ill
Feasts, orders issued for the sup
pression of, i. 356; favourite argu
raents of the high-ohuroh clergy in
defence of, i. 357
Fees, wedding, churching, and burial,
in the 14th century, i. 103
Fee-systera, condition of the clergy
iraproved by, ii. 383
Fell, Dr. John, afterwards Biahop of
Oxford, raarriage deacribed aa a state
inferior to celibacy by, i. 385; Sal
mon's account of, ii. 318 (note)
FeUow's, Conservative, their grumblings
at the privileges accorded to Heads of
houses in Oxford and Cambridge,
i. 294
Ferrar, Nicholas Deacon, renovation of
the church at Little Gidding, Hunt
ingdonshire, by, ii. 170 (note)
Ferrar, Bishop, tendemeaa manifested
towards his little son by, i. 353 ; ludi
crous charges on which he was com-
mitted to the flames, ib. (mite) ; his
answer to one of the charges-again-t
hira, i. 354; reply oaUed forth by
the Bishop of Winchester's exclama
tion at the scene of his death,
i. 255
Festivals, EeUgious, inconvenience
caused, in CathoUc times, by tbe
nuraber of, i. 349; three classes of,
ii. 119

Feudalism, ita cruelty and inacdence
mitigated by monaatioiam, i. 16
Feuds, congenial meetings for the ter
mination of, i. 350
Fire, the punishment of death by, con
siderations which led persecutors to
the choice of, i. 198; the sufferings
accompanying, i. 324; infiicted on
women for other crimes besides
heresy, i. 336; treatment of eccle
siastics sentenced to, i. 334
Fitzjooelyne, Eeginald, Catholic Arch
bishop of Canterbury, son of a mar
ried bishop, i. 68
Fops, clerical, in the reigns of Edward
VI. and Mary, Strype's description
and Latimer's denunciation of, ii.
347
Forrest, Friar, the martyrdom of,
i. 338
Fortibus, Isabella de, great extent of
property possessed by, i. 30
Foundations, Collegiate, stimulus to
learning affiirded by, i. 31
Fox, George, Founder of the Quakers,
Mr. WiUiara Tallack ou the doctrine
and work of, ii. 144
Foxe, author of' TheBook of Martyrs,"
his testimony respecting the persons
against whom charges of LoUardy
were brought, i. 1 86 ; an instance of
characteristic zeal against heretics
related by, i. 191 (note) ; remarks on
the Pagan persecution of the early
" Christians by, i.l98 ; royal proclama
tion for the suppreasion of irregular
pilgrimages in the reign of Henry
VL, recorded by, i. 803 (note); ac
count of the death of the martyred
Joan Boughton by, i. 303; his re
marks on the dispersion of WycUffe's
remains, i. 304 (nole) ; his account of
the proceedings at the execution of
Anne Askew, i. 311 ; narrative ofthe
death of Thorn aa Bilney by, i. 216 ;
hia account ofthe execution of thirty-
six victims in St. Giles's Field, i.
317; relation of Lord Cobhara and
WiUiara Gardner's death by, i. 318
(note) ; narrative of the execution of
three CathoUcs and three Protestants
from, i. 819 ; his pathetic account of
Dr. Eowland Taylor's journey from
London to the place of execution,
j. 330; deacription of the manner of
branding heretica by, i. 380 ; on the
martyrdom of Eichard Bayfield, a
heretic priest, i. 235; scene of
Cranmer's trial described by, i. 340;
proverb preserved by, ii. 1 (note) ;

328

Lndex.

remarks on the Eood of Grace by,
U. 5
Francis of Assisi, character of the fra
ternity founded by, i. 122
Francis, Rev. Mr., of Staunton, Not
tingham, a clerical roysterer of the
time of Charlea I. ii. 198
Francis, St., Tyndale's remark on the
belief in the mystic property of the
coat worn by, i. 128 (note)
Franciscans, the, humility required of,
i. 122 ; rapid accumulation of wealth
by, i. 125 ; broken up into antago
nistic sects by a case of casuistry,
i. 126; mystic property ascribed to
the old habits of, i. 128
Fratres Majores. See " Dominicans "
Fratres Minores, FratercuU, the ex.
cessive huraility of, i. 122
Fratres Prsedicatorea. See " Domini
cans, early "
Freemasons, the fraternity of, know
ledge communicated by occult agency
to, i. 35
Free-thinkers, their writings little no
ticed by the working-classes, i. 118 -
Frezer, Augustus, M.A., St. Edmund's
Hall, Oxon, characteristic specimen
of pulpit sycophancy exhibited by,
U. 340
Friars, Black. See " Dominicans "
Friars, Grey. See " Franciscans "
Friars, White. See " Carmelites"
Friars, Wandering, ooiTespondence be
tween different parts of England
maintained by, i.31; satiri cal allusions
in the Sompnoure's Tale (Canterbury
Tales) to, i. 34 (note) ; prejudicial
iufluence exercised by, i. 43 ; dis
tinction between tbem and the other
two species of clergy, ib. (note) ; their
coraraercial transactions satirized by
the author of a " Song against the
Friars," i. 45 (note) ; pontifical pre
tensions supported by, i. 55 ; hated
by the parochial clergy, and by the
raonks, i. 63 ; song against, i. 133
(note)
Friends, tbe, maintenance "of political
and theological opinions by, ii. 143 ;
disappearance of the old costumes
and customs of, ii. 148 ; origin of the
principal usages of, ii. 144 ; Tallack's
account of the predecessors of, ii.
145 ; the influence of, ii. 146 ; de
cline oftheir numbers, ii. 147 ; pro
greas of the principles for which
they contend, ii. 149
Fuller, Dr. Thomas, certain monas
teries praised by, i. 68 (note) ; his

animadveraion on those who deny
the efficacy of the royal touch, i. 104
(note) ; remarks on the suppreasion
of the Knights Templars by, i. 168
(note) ; remarks ou the last public
execution for heresy by, i. 197 (note);
his remark on the dispersion of
WycUffe's remains, i. 304; his ob
servations on the matter, making,
and mysteries of the Archbishop's
pall, i. 835 ; last sermon preached
by, i. 393 ; his description of meet
ings for prophesying, ii. 89 ; his re
marks on the violence ofthe aermons
preached at the period of the Re
storation, ii. 341
Funerals, the entertainmentof mourners
at, i. 854 (nole) ; pomp in the Middle
Ages of, ii. 83 ; use of Engliah in
the religious services at, ii. 84;
Protestant ceremonies at, ib. ; at
tendance of choristers at, ii. 85 ;
Bishop Hall on the custom of adorn
ing the coffin with flowers at, ii. 86 ;
hearses, catafalooes, <fec. used at, ib. ;
use of the black paU at, ii. 89 ; ser
mons deUvered in old timea at, ii.
90; denunciation of the obsequious
panegyrics pronounced at, ii. 91 ;\
superstitious attachment to old
usages at, i. 98 ; the passing-bell
at, ii. 94 ; merry peal at the termina
tion of, ii. 96
Fuatigation, a punishment inflicted on
aubraiasive heretics, i. 380
GAMALIN, John, purchase of a copy
of " The Poor Caitiff" by, and sin
gular bequest of it. i. 155
Gardiner, Bishop, of Winchester, de
fence of image-worship by, i. 160
(note)
Gardiner, William, his cruel martyr
dom by Portuguese executioners,
i. 318
Gauden, Dr. John, author of " Icon
BasiUke," toleration of Parliament
extended to, ii. 830 ; iraportant ser
vicea rendered to the royal cauae by,
U. 384; the authorship of \" Icon
Basilike" kept a profound secfet by,
u. 837; Dr. Wordsworth's opinion
of, ii. 328 ; the unsubstantial reward
for his services accorded to, ii 839 ;
letter written to Lord Clarendop by,
ii. 330 ; his preferment to Worcester
aud death, ii. 933 ; his lament bver
the conterapt into which the clergy
had fallen during the Commonwealih,
u. 359

Lndex.

329

Geddes, Jenny, the stool thrown at the
Dean of Edinburgh by, ii. 15
Gerardites, the, the first heretics who
appeared in England, i. 180 ; their
pimishment for tampering with the
orthodoxy of the people, i. 181
Geasler, Hermann, nature of the
homage required by the Swiss gover- "
nor of, i. 150
Gloucester, number of monasteries
formerly in, i. 39 (note)
Godryche, St., the canouized pedlar,
anecdote recorded by Bishop Bale of,
i. 51 (nole)
Goodman, Bishop, his gentility main
tained by, ii. 378
Gospel, the, William Thorpe's objection
to swear by, i. 145
" Great Unwashed," the, a volume of
essays by a journeyman engineer,
cauae of the -withdrawal of the poor
from the services of the Established
Church explained by, i. 117
Gregory X., the Mendicant Orders
partially suppressed by, i. 131
Grindal, Archbishop, promoter, ad
vocate, and defender of prophesyings,
U. 36, 40
Grosthead, Bishop, resolute opponent
of political claims, i. 57 ; his rais
taken patronage of the Mendicant
Orders, i. 184
Gunpowder, the death of raartyrs by,
i. 333

HACKET, Bishop, his timorous re
ticence about his marriage, i. 373 ;
Dr. Plume's apology for the marriage
of, i. 873 ; savage attack by a Par
Uamentarian, in time of prayer, on,
ii. 33 ; faithful adrainistration of duty
by, ib. (note) ; his siraplicity in dress,
ii. 250 ; costume-portrait of, ii. 351 ;
liberality of his congregation, when
Rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn, to,
U. 884
Hale, Chief-Justice, witches sentenced
to death by fire by, i. 836
Hall, Bishop, atory of hia marriage, i.
367 ; moral drawn from the apectacle
of a cock-fight by, ii. 68; meditation
on the uae of flowers at funerals by,
ii. 86; satire on the menial clergy
by, ii. 268 ; satire on the simony of
the time of EUzabeth by, U. 885
(note)
Halstead, Essex, a characteristic church
riot at, ii. 33 (note)
Hammond, Dr., fortunately preserved

from the degradation of wedlock, i.
285 ; costume-portrait of, ii. 251
Harding, Thoraas, Buckingharashire,
narrative of his martyrdom, i. 191
(note); a penance infiicted on, i.
233
Harlow, Sir Eobert, zeal exhibited
in the destruction of St. Paul's and
other crosses by, ii. 50
Healings, Eoyal, service appointed to
be said at, ii. 304 ; proclaraation of
Charlea I. reapecting, ii. 306
Hearse, use of the word in the tirae of
Elizabeth, ii. H6 ; ita raeaning as
eraployed in Shakespeare's Richard
III.,ii. 87
Henry I., his extortionate patronage of
married priests, i. 349; divorced
-wives invited to buy back their hus
bands by, i. 350
Henry II. , severe punishment of the
Gerardites by, i. 181
Henry IV., extensive measures of
church spoliation proposed by the
" Parliamentum Indoetum,' to,i. 169;
persuaded by Archbishop Arundel
to renounce hia purpose, i. 170 ; the
act, " Ex Officio," passed againat the
LoUards in the reign of, i. 183
Henry V. , law concerning heresy passed
in the reign of, i. 193
Henry VI., proclaraation for the sup
pression of irregular pilgrimages
issued by, i. 803 (note)
Henry VIL, poetical picture of the Sun
day life of our ancestors in the reign
of, U. 133
Henry VIIL, alterations in the law of
heresy raade by, i. 193 ; a more li
beral act passed in the 31st year of
the reign of, i. 194; execution of
three Catholics and three Proteat-
anta, by, i. 319 ; injunction issued
against the abuse of churchea by,
i. 853' (note) ; one of hia first acts
for the reforraation of reUgion, ii.
48 ; a quarterly serraon deemed suffi
cient for a parish by, ii. 54 ; injunc
tion to the clergy issued by, n. 90 ;
assumption of the royal supremacy
by. ii. 156 ; ecclesiastical powers ex
ercised by, U. 157 ; prudence exer
cised in the dissolution of reUgious
aaaociationa by, U. 190 ; costurae of
the clergy in the early part of the '
reign of, U. 246 ; prejudicial effect
ofthe suppression of reUgious houaes
on the aubaequent yeara of the
reign of, ib.
Herbert, George, the model country

330

Lndex.

parson according to, i. 273; the
clerical vocation adopted by, i. 374 ;
Isaak Walton's account of his pre
sentation to the living of Bemerton.
ib. (note) ; praise of the honour and
power of the priesthood by, i. 375 ;
Dr. Humphrey Henchman's refer
ence to the part he took at the
funeral of, ii. 90 ; view of the model
pastor's Sunday night by, ii. 140
(note) ; remarks on the tone and
moraUty of the domestic chaplains
ofhis time by, U. 3T0; defence of
his purpose to take holy orders, ii.
280 ; remarks on the hospitality of
the country parson by, ii. 895
Heresy, light in which regarded
by the Churchmen of Catholic
England, i. 177 ; conviction by tbe
common law of, i. 180; the act of
Henry IV. againat, i. 185 ; the aocial
annoyancea of thoae charged with,
i. 188 ; union of the civil and eccle
siastical powers in the prosecution
and punishraent of, ib. ; cordial con
currence of prieata and laity in tbe
persecution of, i. 191,; means by
which the clergy stimulated the
popular fury against, i. 192 ; ira
portant alterations in tbe law of, i.
193 ; just provisions regarding the
prosecution of offences brought before
the Court of Coraraission -for the
trial of persons accused of, i. 195 ;
repeal in the reign of Edward VI. of
statutes against, ib. ; revival, in the
reign of Mary, of the prosecutions
against, ib. ; first definition of the
crime of, i. 196 ; last executinna in
England for, ib.; Thomaa Fuller's
reraarks on the last public execu
tions for, i. 197 (nole); variation in
the treatraent of those conderaned
to death for, i. 216 ; severest punish
ment for the suppression of, i. 233
Heretica, act of Henry V. relating to
juriadiction over, i. 198 ; security of
trial by jury granted by Henry VIIL,
but afterwards refused by Mary, to,
i. 195 : mode of procedure and trial,
by statute of Henry VIIL, against,
ib. (nole) ; powera retained by the
Cro-wn, under .EUzabeth, in the pro
secution of, i. 196 ; reasons that led
to the choice of bui'uing as the pun
ishment of, i. 198 ; preparations for,
and proceedings at, the burning of, .
i. 810 ; sites chosen in London and
the provincea for the execution of,
i. 311 ; the popular notion and legal

puniahment of, i. 316 ; secondary
punishments inflicted by the bishops
on, i. 337 ; penances inflicted on
those who professed penitence, ib. ;
Foxe's account of the manner of
branding, i. 330 ; painful and degrad
ing punishment inflicted on these
who recanted, i. 331 ; charges brought
by Bishop Longland against, i. 333
Heroes, one of the first uses of, i.
340
Herrick, verses on the fioral embellish
ment of churchea at Candlemas by,
U. 18
Heylyn, Dr. Peter, the marital spirit of
the clergy illustrated by, i. 879 ;
affronted by the Biahop of Lincoln
in Westminster Abbey, ii. 60 : the
Fourth Comraandraent expounded
by, ii. 136 (note) ; instances of pre
posterous Puritanism in the opinion
of, ii. 137 ; his activity at Alreaford
aa a church-restorer, i. 170 (note) ;
his opinion of Laud's innovationa, ii.
173 ; his dangerous serv ices in the
royal cause, ii. 189 (note) ; his house
the sanctuary of the sequestrated
Episcopal clergy, ii. 319 ; costume-
portrait of, ii. 331
Hilsey, Bishop, the Eood of Grace
lectured on by, ii. 4
Holy Days, three orders of, u. 119
Holly, the, derivation and signification
of the name, ii. 19 ; explanatiou of
another name given to, ib.
Homes, clerical, the beneficent in
fluence in rural parishes of, i. 338 ;
attendant disadvantages of. i. 334 ;
ministerial activity and labours of
the women of, i. 385
Horailies, the, the style of, ii. 64
Honorius III., the Carmelites recog
nised by, i. 121
Hooker, Eichard, his love-affairs and
matrimonial experiences, i. 208 ; en
tertainment at the Shunamite's
House of, ib. (note) ; his ludicrous
journey to London on horseback, i.
363 ; hia marriage with Joan Church
man, i. 865; visit of two old pupils
to, ib. ; a story told by Waltoh of, i.
367 (note); provision fur his main-
teuauce and education, when a stu
dent, made by Biahop Jewel, i. 3I8 ;
remarks on the exclusively eccleriaa-
tioal character of the chancel in
churches by, ii. 8 ; Isaak Wal^n's
account of his sermona and manner
of preaching, ii. 85 ; held up to odium
by Walter Travera, ii. 60

Lndex.

331

Hooper, Bishop, the cruel martyrdom
of, i. ¦383
Hour-glass, the, its use in the pulpit,
U. 56
Huss, John, singular piece of evidence
brought by hia accusers against, i.
300

TCONOCLASM, injurious to trade, i.
1 161 (nntt)
Icon Basilike, the, character, pur
pose, and success of, ii. 326 ; sensa
tion caused by its publication, and
the effects produced by, ii. 227 ; re
produced by subsequent writers as a
faithful portrait, ii. 334
Images, opinions of the Lollards and
their opponents on the adoration of,
i. 157, et seq. ; Cranmer's denuncia
tion of, i. 161
Image-worship, a characteristic argu
ment of the defenders of, i. 189 ;
Archbishop .irundel's defence of, i.
160 (note)
Incumbents, rich and unmarried,
question respecting an ancient ob
ligation of, i. 380
Indulgences, lucrative traffic in, i. 135
InfallibUity, papal, views held at dif
ferent tiraes regarding, i. 58
Innocent III., the firat Pope who ac
corded favour to the beggar-priests,
i. 131
Innocent IV., a case of casuistry de
cided by, i. 130
Insurance, Life, origin of, i. 378
Interludes. See " Mysteries "
Inventions, new, cases of the success
ful concealraent of, i. 36
Islip, Simon, his complaint as to the
supposed covetousness of the lower
orders of the clergy, i. 105

JACOBINS, Jacobites. See " Domini
cans "
James I., last executions for heresy in
the reign of, i. 196 ; injunctions on
preaching issued in the reign of, ii.
55 ; concessions to the Puritans
made by, ii. 181 ; publication of
" The Book of Sports" by, U. 133;
preference for Episcopacy avowed
by, ii. 159; costume of clergy fixed
by the 74th canon in the reign of,
ii. 249; his probable belief in the
power of healing said to be exer
cised hy kings, ii. 303
James II., ingenious fiction devised

by the promoters of the rebellion
against, ii. 235
James, Dr., one of WycUffe's bio
graphers, hia erroneoua view re
garding the opinion of tlie Reformera
on Purgatory, i. 155 (note)
Jewel, John, Bishop of Salisbury,
the paternal kindness and mu
nificence of his tutor to, i. 817 ;
how the goodness of his early
patrons waa repaid by, i. 318 ; ano
ther benefactor of, ib. ; character
istic anecdote of, ib. ; usury de
nounced by, ii. 77 ; his conduct
before his flight to Frankfort, ii.
104
John, King, execution of heretics in
the reign of, i. 181
John, Sir, ignorainious use of the ap
pellation, i. 78
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, touched for
scrofula by Queen Anne, ii. 310
Jointures, Steeple-house, clerical wives
dependent on. i. 310
Judaisra, punishraent of an English
clergyman for embracing, i. 181
Jury, Trial by, its security refused to
the Lollards, i. 181 ; ita benefit
granted to heretics by Henry VIIL,
but denied by Queen Mary, i. 195
Juxon, Bishop, defence of his genti
lity by, ii. 278

KEN, Biahop, statement reapecting
pluralism in his time by, i. 300
( note) ; glorification of the Eoyal Mar
tyr by, ii. 243 ; verses for the day
of the king's restoration by, u. 343 ;
average raerit of his poetical effu
sions, U. 344 ; costurae-portrait of, ii.
351
Kennet, Bishop, remarks on pulpits,
and other furniture of old churches,
by, ii. 16 (note)
Kerby, singular scene at the martyr.
dom of, i. 313
Kirby, John, erroneous designation in
the " Suffolk TraveUer " by, i. 314
(note)
Knight, a, revolt against ecclesiastical
authority led by, i. 60
Knighton, the Leicester canon, his
estimate of the number of Lollards
in WycUffe'a time, i. 140
KniKhta-Templars, their suppreasion,
and lesson suggested by it, i. 168
Knox, John, the Scottish Reformer,
twice married, i. 353.

332

Lndex.

LAITY, the, uaui-patiqu of the func-
tiona of the priesthood by, i. 45,
48 ; zeal in the persecution of he
retics displayed by, i. 193; their
children deprived of much munifi
cent patronage by the raarriage of
the clergy, i. 319 ; their conduct in
church, ii. 22 ; their docility to of
ficial authority iu the reigns of
Henry VIIL, Mary, and Elizabeth,
ii. 106 ; their estimate of clerical
obligations, ii. 107 ; their disdain for
a particular class of the clergyj
u. 108
Lambert, John, martyr, renouncement
of his priesthood before marriage,
i. 351
Lambeth Palace, .arrangement for cle
rical smokers of the 17th century in,
ii. 397 ; the hospitality of Arch
bishops Potter and Seeker at, ii.
398 (note)
Landowners, the frequent progresses,
iu the Middle Ages, of, i. 30
Lanfranc, interraent in churches for
bidden by, ii. 10
" Lantern of Light," the, its anony
mous author on the vain attire of
men and women in his tirae, i. 143
(note)
Latiraer, Bishop, his belief in the virtue
ofheing a friar, i. 13-j (note); scene
at the raartyrdom of, i. 333 ; the place
where he waa tried, i. 340 ; reraarks
on the restlesaneas of congregations
by, ii. 87 (note); extract frora a
serraon preached before the king by,
ii. 52 (note) ; Foxe's account; of the
excitement caused at Cambridge by
his sermons, " How to play with cer
tain cards," ii. 68 ; the covetousness
and selfishness of London denounced
by, ii. 71 ; charge of indiscretion
brought against, ii. 74; his view of
the royal supremacy over the
church, ii. 158 ; his disdain for
clerical fops, ii. 347
Laud, Archbishop, one of the ecclesi
astical innovations that raade hira
unpopular, i. 841 ; Chief Justice
Eichardson and Baron Denham re
buked by, i. 387 ; letter to tiie Vice-
ChanoeUor of Oxford by, ii. 28 ; af
ternoon preaching silenced by, ii.
57 ; the character and policy of, ii.
165 ; his ideal of a perfect state and
of a perfect national church, ii. ] 68 ;
apt reply by one of the Earl of De
vonshire's daughters to,u. 172; Lord
Falkland's opinion of the raovement

begun by, ib.; his reply to those who
warned him of the consequence of
his innovations, ib. ; hia siraplicity
in dress, ii. 250 ; a foppish priest's
reply to the reproof of, ib.; his reply
to Lord Say and Seal when taunted
for hia humble origin, ii. 378 ; hia
scorn for Eoundheads, ii. 280
Law, Crirainal, now more clement in
ita principlea and deciaions, and the
considerations which led to its
amendraent, i. 178
Law, Courts of, justice adrainistered by
priests in, i. 44
Laymen, ordained, use of this expres
sion juatified, i. -47 (note)
Leighton, Archbiahop, the death of, ii.
248 (note) ; costume-portrait of, ii.
281
Lichfield Cathedral, how desecrated and
destroyed during the wars of the
Commonwealth, ii. 179
Life Aasurance, the originator of, i.
307 ; the scheme proposed by the
Eev. Wm. Assheton, i. 309 ; the pos
sible extension of, i. 310 ; how the
scheme was at first received, i. 311 ;
' reception and application of the plan
by the Mercers' Corapany i. 313;
other companies created for the ap
plication and extension of, i. 313
Life, religioua, reflections on the agi
tation and contests, at the present
tirae of, U. 313
Limitor, the begging, on his rounds,
i. 181 ; Chaucer's deacription of the
house-to-house visiting of, aud Jacke
Upland's reference to, ib.
livings,. Ecclesiastical, offence of the
English clergy at the appointment
of Italian nominees of the Pope to,
i. 60; remarks on the sale of, i.
323
Lloyd, his advocacy of the stipendiary
clergy in " The Curate," a poem, ii.
257
Lollards, the, opinion concerning tithes
held by, i. 101 (tiote) ; the pblitioo-
religious principles of, i. 13r; de
rivation of the name appUed tolthem,
i. 138 ; extracts frora a song -written
against, ib. (nole) ; the name aipUed
to the foUowers of Wycliffe, iAlS9 ;
their rapid increase under the influ
ence of Wycliffe, ib. ; diatinctivk pe-
culiaritiea of, i. 141 ; garraent -fcorn
by their preachers, i. 142 ; reprotiihes
and insults heaped upon, ib. ; their
moderation of speech, and abstinence
from words of imprecation, i. 113 ;

Lndex.

333

their judgment on judicial oaths, i. '
145 ; instrumental music, in divine
service, disapproved of by, i. 146 ;
Sunday strictly observed by, i. 147 ;
reasons for their disapproval of
choral services aa aet forth in " The
Ploughman's Prayer," ib. {note) ; do
mestic pilgrimages disapproved of
hy, 149 ; offence caused by their
manner of conferring alms, i. 151 ;¦
mistaken view respecting the differ
ence between thera and the con
servative churchmen of the 14th
century, i. 158; their operations and
designs, ib. ; tiieir orthodoxy at the
commencement of the movement,
and diversity of sentiment after
wards, i. 154; their beUef in the
doctrine of purgatory, i. 185 ; their
opinions respecting the use of pic
tures and images in divine worship,
i. 187 ; their abhorrence of idol-wor
ship, i. 158 ; their reluctance to dis
believe the rairacles said to be
wrought at shrines, i. 161; their
opiniona respecting spurious mira
cles, i. 162 ; the dialike in which they
were held inoreaaed by their political
discontent, i. 164 ; opinion of them
expressed by the authors of " The
Song against the Lbllards," i. 163 ;
the raoral condition of their perse
cutors, i. 176; light in which tliey
were regarded by tbe contemporary
charapions of orthodoxy, i. 177 ; un
just law, though repealed, enforced
against, i. 182 (note) ; extract from
the preamble of an informal sta
tute against, i. 188 ; meaaurea
taken, in consequence of their in
crease, against, i. 183 ; flagrant
grievances of act passed in the reign
of Henry IV. against, ib. ; security
of trial hy jury refused to, i. 184;
who, in the opinion of liberal
judges, were not, i. 185 ; how their
guilt was established in the Courts
of the Diocesan, i. 187; cruelty of
the clergy in the punishment of, i.
193; annihilation of e.very relic of,
i. 300 (note) ; respect shown for the
tombs of their martyrs by, i. 201 ;
edifying pastimes substituted for
discarded arauseraents by, i. 308 ;
humane intentions ofthe persecutors
of, i. 307 ; twofold execution of, i.
316; martyrdora.in S'. Giles's Field,
of a number of, i. 317 ; their treat
ment merciful compared with that
of the later Reformers, i. 827; lesser

penalties inflicted on those who re
tracted, -ib. ; their persecutors na
tional benefactors, i. 337 ; the place
where they were usuaUy tried, i.
840 ; supported by prelates in their
attempts to discourage pilgrimages,
ii. 44; a doctrine in high favour
¦with, ii. 48; their heterodoxy now
orthodoxy, ii. 48
LoUards' Pit, the, i. 315
LoUardy, the earlier indications of, i.
28 ; the religious sentiraent and po
Utical coramunism of, i. 40 ; at first
auccesafully opposed Ijy the clergy, i.
41 ; Chaucer tinctured with, i. 75 ;
political principles and tendency of,
i. 100, 153 ; condition and culture of
the clergy after the suppreaaion of,
i. 108 ; the adherents and opponents
of, i. 139 ; the moat efficient inatra-
menta in the promotion of, i. 141 ;
renunciation of peraonal decoration
by the female professors of, i. 142 ;
disapprobation of swearing regarded
as an indication of, i. 144 ; at first
only a protest against the corruption
of the clergy, i. 153 ; reform, in the
articles of their faith, by the leaders
of, i. 154 ; the three elements of, i.
165 ; promoted by the teaching of
the Meiidicant Ordera, i. 167 ; few
executions for heresy before the period
of, i. 180 ; first legislative enactments
against, i. 181; -vivid picture of the
doings of the teachers of,-i. 182;
sympathy of the people with the
clergy iu their detestation of, i. 184 ;
the vagueness of the term a source of
injustice to those accused of, i. 185 ;
vexatioua proceedings under the law
againat, i. 186 ; particulars of indict
ment against an adherent of, ib.;
consequences resulting from Wat
Tyler's insurrection to, i. 190; the
priests anxious to be regarded as the
chief promoters of the persecution
against, i. 191 ; ' married priests sus
pected of, i. 281; effects on ecclesi
astical costumes of, u. 348
LoUer, sense in which the term is used
by the author of " The Complaint of
the Ploughman," i. 140
London, sites selected for the execution
of heretics in, i. 211 ; Sunday obser
vance, under Edward VI., in, U. 135 ;
Goason's picture of Sunday profana
tion, 1579, in, U. 139; conspicuous
feature, during the Civil War, of the
reUgious life of, U. 183; royalist
clergy in the priaons of, ii. 3u0;

334

Lndex.

clergy in the archdeaconry of, ii.
286
Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, injunction
to branded penitents issued by, i. 331 ;
charges brought against heretics by,
i. 233 ; letter from him to the Abbot
of Evesham on .the treatment of a
prisoner sent to perpetual penance,
i. 333.
Lord Mayor, the, accommodation pro-
-vided at the burning of a heretic for,
i. 312
Lords, House of, bishops expelled by
Act ofthe Long ParUament from, ii.
176
Louis PhUippe, un-wise and suicidal
act of, i. 308
Levis, Eev. Mr., Vicar of Brandeston,
Suffolk, an eccentric clergyman exe
cuted as a -wizard, ii. 199
Lutterworth Church, pious pUgrimagea
of LoUarda to, i. 205 ; foreign pU-
grims to, i. 206
Lydall, .Dr., Warden of Merton, Anthony
a Wood's coraplaint of the extrava
gance of the wife of, i. 307
MACAULAY, Lord, diaingenuous and
erroneous stateraents on the clergy
of the time of Charlea II. by, i. 356,
280 ; atrange obtiiaeneas manifested
by. i. 323 ; graphic, but untrue, cari
cature of the clergy of the Eestoration
by, i. 288
MandevUle, sarcastic judgment on
women pronounced by, i. 325
Mansfield, Sir Eice, Strype's descrip
tion of the obsequies of, U. 83
Manwaring, Dr., punished by the Lords,
but rewarded by Charles I., for a
sermon preached by him on the abso
lute authority of royalty, ii. 336
Marketa, raedieval, eccleaiastical traf
fickers in, i. 44
Marprelate, Martin, indecent abuse of
the conforming clergy by, u. 164.
Marriage, deUvery of sermons on, i.
289, (note) ; renunciation of their spi
ritual functions by priests before,
i. 251 ; favour accorded by the clergy
of the Reformed Church to, i. 393 ;
the Weatminiater Assembly's direc
tions for the celebration of, u. 308 ;
enactment passed by the Long Par
Uament for the celebration of, u. 907 ;
other acts, laws, aud customs relating
to, u. 309
Marriages, clerical, the poUtical results
of, i. 305 (note); important conse
quences of, i. 331

MarshaU, Dean, a clerical type of the
reigns of Mary and EUzabeth, ii. 106.
Marshall, Eev. Stephen, Puritan Di
vine, Ucense aUowed to his wife and
daughters by, i. 383 ; malicious and
scurrilous narrative of the career of,
ib. (note)
Martyrdom, an honour unfairly clairaed
for the CathoUc priests who suffered
in the reign of EUzabeth, i. 344
Martyrology, is the preaent race of
English -'Capable , of revi-ving the
horrors oil i. 175
Martyrs, deUght of the populace at the
burning of, i. 191 (note) ; supersti
tious affection for the relics of, i. 300 ;
reverence raanifested by the LoUards
for, i. 301 ; proceedings at the execu
tion of, i. 210; various modes of
carrying out the sentence on, i. 316 ;
chains used in the execution of, i.
319 ; raeans used to hasten the death
of, i. 333 ; their sufferings at the
stake, i. 384 ; number put to death
in the reign of Mary, i. 237 (ru>te) ;
many of them relapsed heretics, u. 104
Mary, Queen, a curate of Maidstone iu
the reign of, i. 91 (note) ; revival of
the prosecutions against heresy undi-r,
i. 195 ; comparatively small number
of -victims in the time of, i. 837;
vrives kept by married clergy in the
reign of, i, 261 (note) ; restoration of
papal images in the time of, ii. 6;
observance of Sunday under, u. 27 ;
reUgious tumults at the beginning
of the reign of, u. 53 ; restraints im
posed on Protestant preachers by,
ii. 58 ; Anthony k Wood on the affairs
of the University of Oxford in the
time of, U. 96 (note) ; joyous return
of the Eoman CathoUc clergy to their
old ritual on the accession of, u. 108 ;
fiight of erainent Engliah Proteatants
at the beginning of the reign of, U.
108 (note)
Medicine and Surgery, first practised
in convents, i. 23 !
Mendicant Ordera, the, origiujlcom-
position, rule, and object of, i. 130 ;
conteraporary recognition and; esti
mation of, i. 131 ; formed into four
regiments by Gregory, ib. ; va^ous
denominations of, i. 129 ; received
with open arms in England, i. 124;
their pecuUar prerogatives, audi in
sulting conduct to the parochial
clergy, i. 125 ; Jacke Upland's rCply
to their defence of their extortions,
i. 136; their popularity among the

Lndex.

335

laity, i. 127 ; a pertinent question ad
dressed by Jacke Upland to, i. 128;
remarkable pecuUarities of, i. 129 ;
inconsistent charges made by the
secular clergy against, i. 183 : Jacke
Upland's famous arrangement of, i.
133 ; their altercations with the pa
rochial clergy, i. 184 ; sale of indul
gences, charms, and reUcs by, i.
135 : I effect produced in England
by the teaching of, i. 167
Mercers' Company, the, scheme of Life
Assurance first practically instituted
by, i. 313; Lrfe Aasurance Com
panies that foUowed, i. 313
Middle Ages, the. travelled persons of,
i. 33 ; mental activity of, i. 38 ; or
dained laymen of, i. 49 ; explana
tion of the paucity of learned lay
men in, i. 50 ; significance of titles
in, i. 79 ; characteriatios of society
and of the clergy in, i. 92 ; theory
of society in, i. 113 ; the relation of
different classes of society in mo
dern timea compared with their re
lation in, i. 113 ; rise and objfect of
the Mendicant Orders in, i. 130 ;
swearing in, i. 143 ; Sunday pro
fanation in, i. 148 ; iU-directed cha
rity in,, i. 151; curious expressions
of, i. 189; regsird for the relics of
the dead in, i. 800 ; theory of go
vernment in, ii. 183 ; gradations of
authority in the ecclesiastical sys
tem of, ii. 154
Ministers, origin of tbe Society in Aid
of the Sons of, i. 305 ; first sermon
preached in behalf of, 'tb.
Minorites, the, origin of their designa
tion, i. 133
Minster, the, the school attached to,
i. 34
Miracles, reputed, belief of the Lol-
lar.ls in, i. 163
" Misier," or " Mr.," origin and use of
the terra, i. 78
Monasteries, constitution and func
tions, in the'pre-Dunstan period of,
i. 3 ; the residence of woraen in,
i. 8 ; changes gradually introduced
into tbe constitution and Ufe of,
i. 8 ; what would have been
the consequence of their destruc
tion at the period of their greatest
usefulness, i. 23 ; various and 'vital
functions performed by, ib. ; various
arts and sciences successfully culti
vated in, i. 34 ; the organisation of,
1. 85 ; their revenues, and the dis
tribution of them, i. 78 ; appropria

tion of tithes by, i. 98 ; events that,
in England, suggested the confisca
tion of, i. 169
Monasticism, the pioneers of, i. 6 ;
the origin and fundaraental prin
ciple of, i. 13 ; remarks on the fail
ure and decline of, ib. ; ita peculiar
advantagea in an eleraentary state
of society, i. 18 ; of native growth iu
England, ib. ; the triumph of, i. 16 ;
moral conveyed by the history of ita
rise aud fall, i. 36 ; its independence
of the national bishops, i. 55 ; no
indolent voluptuaries nursed in tbe
early stages of, i. 68
Monks, the daily Ufe and discipline, iu
early times, of, i. 7 ; the loyalty and
devotion of, i. 16 ; testimony to the
character of, i. 17 ; agriculture suc
cessfully practised by, i. 24 ; papal
pretensions supported by, i. 55 ;
their independence of epiacopal au
thority, i. 56 ; raenaced by the de
velopment of raedieval coramuniam,
i. 64 ; popular conceptions of, i. 67 ;
various types of, i. 71; Chaucer's
picture of,- i. 73 (nole); titles by
which addressed, i. 75 ; value set on
donship by, i. 80
Mouraouth, Henry,the London draper,
record of hia intercourse with Wil
liam Tyndale, i. 150
Monseigneur, clerical application of
the term, i. 78
Montague, Bishop, orders for the sup
pression of Puritan lectures issued
by, ii. 40
Morton, Bishop, his chaste and un
blemished life praised by his bio
graphers, i. 373 (note) ; his episco
pal conscientiousness, ii. 186 (note) ;
defence of his gentility by, ii. 278
Museum, the British, a singular trust
unfulfilled by tbe trusteea of, i. 156 ;
literary rubbish in, ii. 65
Music, instruraental, its use in divine
service disapproved of by the Lol
lards, i. 146
Mysteries, the people instructed by,
i. 347

AVE, the church, use to which, in
medieval times, it waa appUed,

N

i. 3
Neology, its doctrines popular among
the higher classes, i. 118
Nonconformists, enlightenment and
zeal of the Established Clergy ac
knowledged by, i. 115 ; found" chiefly
among the lower middle and the

336

Lndex.

working classes, i. 116 ; the old laws
against, i. 144 ; ejection from their
livings in 1662, i. 303
Nonconformity, AngUcan, the origin qf,
U. 37 (note)
Nowell, Dean, his reply to Norman's
scurrilous attack on himself and on
the Engliah Eeformed Clergy, ii. 386
Nunneries, value, aa places of educa
tion, of, i. 34 ; a travelled inmate of,
i. 33 ; Fuller's praise, as excellent
schools for girls of, ib. ; parallel be
tween the women of our paraonagea
and the inmates of, i. 835
Nuns, testimony to the services ren
dered to society by, i. 10 (note) ; their
aocial usages very similar to those of
the secular women of their times,
i. 247
OATHS, number and variety used in
the Middle Ages, i. 143 ; a selec
tion frOra Chaucer's " Canterbury
Tales," of, i. 144
Oaths, judicial, not flrst objected to by
the Quakers, i. 145; viewa of the
early Lollards on, ib.
Obeisance, curious Middle-Age ex
pressions of, i. 160
Orators, pulpit, our ancestors' mode of
expressing their concurrence with,
or dissent from, the -views of, ii. 82 ;
three distinct kinds of, ii. 63 ; ac
ceptability, during the Comraon
wealth of, u. 213
Orchestra, its position in the medieval
church, ii. 4
Order, the Sacerdotal, its power over
the intellect and affections of women,
i. 235
Orders, reUgious, the only authority
acknowledged by, i. 56
Orders, miUtary-reUgious, the sacred
ness of warfare recognised by, i. 51
Ordination,Episcopal,levity with which
sought in Chaucer's time, i. 48
Organs, their introduction into France,
i. 147 (note)
Orthodoxy, sincere, but mistaken, zeal
ofthe champions of, i. 177 ; how the
English girl is educated in the prin
ciples of, i. 331
Oswald of Northumbria, the first cross
in England erected by, i. 6 (note)
Owen, Bishop, of St. Asaph's, defence
of his gentiUty, U. 378
Oxford, Chaucer's description of tho
clerk of, i. 100 (note) ; scene at Eid-
ley, Latimer, and Cranmer's trial in,
i. 340; opposition of town and

gown in, ii. 96; scene at a procla
mation in, ii. 321 (note) ; feuds,
in the early years of Queen Eliza
beth's reign, in, ii. 97 ; curious cir
cumstance that led to the celebra
tion of royal coronations and births,
by the ringing of bells in, ii..98; cof
fee-houses established in, ii. 318
Oxford, the University of, permanent
footing gained by tjhe wives of the
clergy, during the Civil War, in, i.
363; Clarendon's account of the
atate of leiu'ning, during the Com
monwealth, in, ii. 317 ; the church
aervice performed, during the Com-
munwealth, in, ii. 318
PAINTING, recent period of its de
velopment as an art, i. 37
Pall, the Archbishop's, FuUer on the
matter, making, and mysteries of,
i. 335
Pall, the black, how used at funerals,
U. 89
Papacy, causes of the discontent of
the English clergy at the preten
sions and encroachments, i. 57
Paris, Matthew, instance of papal en
croachment related by, i. 57
Parishes, country and city, influence of
the clergy in, i. 118
Parker, Archbishop, description of the
Puritans by, ii. 163
Parkburst, Bishop, his UberaUty to
Oxford students, i.- 318 ; his liberal
hospitality at Norwich, ii. 396 (nole)
Parliament, the I^ong, provision made
for ejected ministers by, i. 303 ;
Laudian innovators blind to the
events indicated by the elections to,
ii. 174 ; Clarendon's account of the
members of, ib. ; the first proceed
ings of, ii. 1 75 ; episcopacy abolished
by, ib.; all cathedral dignitied abo
lished by, ii. 177 ; chief authority
claimed, ¦ on the withdrawal of
Charles I. from London, by, ii.ll87 ;
comraittee,for the relief of plundered
ministers, during the Civil War, ap
pointed by, ii. 191; ludicrous iii-
oidt-nta in the local courts of inqui-
sitors appointed by, ii. 19-0 ; the; Di
rectory for Public Worship authorised
by, u. 304; prudent enactments! re
lating to marriage passed by, n. 208;
vigorous measures to correct the
abuses of pluralism taken by, ii. g57
Parliamentum Indoetum, the, measlire
of church spoUation proposed by, i.
169

Lndex.

33 7

Parochial system, the, origin of, i. 8
Parsonages, English, foreign tourists
surprised by the aspect of, i. 333 ; »
French traveller's erroneous state
ment respecting, i. 833
Parsons, the Jesuit, his proposal re
specting women in prelates' houses
and in colleges, i. 370 ; his observa
tions on the inconvenience caused
by the number of festivals, i. 349
(note); his argument in favour of
revels, i. 357 (note)
Parties, Church, the Papal and Na
tional, i. 65 ; the questions on which
they differed, i. 63
Partisans, poUtical, characteristios of,
i. 346
Partisanship, historical inquiries ren
dered difficult by, i. 84
Passing-bell, the, order of Elizabeth
.relating to the use of, ii. 94 ; Nelson
on the long continuance of the prac
tice of sounding, u. 95 ; recent dis
continuance of, ib. ; Pennant's re
mark on, ii. 96
Patronage, eeclesiastical, lay and cle
rical, disapproval of the Pope's usur
pation, in England, of, i. 59
Patrons, Ecclesiastical, the sale of
livings by, i. 838; disposal of pre
ferments in the gift of, i. 334
Patrons, EngUsh, the Pope's inter
ference witii their rights resented by
the secular clergy, i. 60
Paul's, St., Cathedral, so fiUed, at one
time, -with bazaar furniture, as to
leave no space for a congregation in,
ii. 54 ; advertisements for priests for
merly posted on the door of, ii. 385
Pauper-prieata, how the possession of
wealth is reconcUed to the con
sciences of, i. 136
Pedlars, clerical, satirised hy the author
of " The Song against the Friars," i.
46
Peke, burnt at Ipswich, strange scene
at the martyrdom of, i. 193 (note)
Pembroke, Countess of, epitaph by Ben
Jonaon on the catafalco of, ii. 88
Penance, various kinds of, i. 337; re
tracting Lollards punished with a
curious kind of, i. 338 ; two penitent
heretics at Suffolk forced to submit
to a severe form of, i. 329 ; the per
petual infliction of, i. 333 ; the offer
ing of tapers considered a reaaonable
act of, U. 80
Penance, perpetual, treatment of those
under sentence of, i. 333
Penitents, branded, enjoined not to
VOL. II.

conceal tbe marks of their punish
ment, i. 331
Pepys, Samuel, distribution of mourn
ing-rings at the funeral of, ii. 93
Persecution, the Eighth, female suf-
ferera of, i. 198 (note)
Persecution, the Marian, contradictory
theories to palliate the atrocities of,
i. 171 ; condition necessary in order
to form a correct judgment on,i. 178;
comparatively small number of the
¦victims of, i. 837 ; interest excited by,
i. 338
Persecution, religious, intensified by
ita peculiar motives, i. 175 ; grounds
of our confidence that there wiU be
no future outbreak of, i. 179 ; bene
ficent results of, i. 337 ; fitful and
partial character, in England, of, i.
337 ; how the laity were convinced
of the justice of, i. 838 ; seeds of ro
mantic excitement and apiritual sym
pathy spread by, i. 338; the spirit
that excited it stUl alive in Eng
land, i. 345
Persecutors, clerical, not regarded with
odium in the Middle Ages, i. 190
Pews in churchea, allusions, in the Ute
rature of the 15th century, to, ii. 13 ;
Bishop Corbet's remarks on, ii. 14
(note) ; appUcation of the word, ii.
15
Pierce, Bishop, account of the nature
and etiquette of church ales by, i.
363 ; his -violent opposition to Sun
day-afternoon lectures, i. 57
Pilgrimages, Chaucer's picture of, u.
43 ; WilUam Thorpe's denunciation
of, ii. 43; denoimced by one of
Henry Vlllth's first acts for the pu
rification of reUgion, U. 48
PUgrimages, domestic, an important
source of social diversion in feudal
England, i. 149 ; disapproved of by
Archbiahop Sudbury and others, i.
150 ; Archbishop Arundel'a approval
of, ib. (note) ; Lord Cobbam on the
uselessness of, i. 151 (note)
Pilgrimages, religioua, the beneficial
influence of, i. 32 ,
PUgrims, relics greatiy reverenced hy,
i. 47
"Platform," the, an American poUtical
expreaaion, of English origin, ii. 70
Playters, Eev. L., Uggeahall, Suffolk,
ridiculous charges . brought by the
Sequestrators against, ii. 195
Pleasures, worldly, participation by the
clergy in, i. 93
PltiraUsm, very general in the firat
Z

338

Lndex.

century of the Eeformed Church, i.
300
Pluralists, non-resident, a numerous
class in the 14th century, i. 300 (note)
Plutocrats, Latimer's -vigorous denun
ciation of, ii. 73
Pole, Cardinal^ an inquiry ordered by,
i. 90
Poor, the, faUure of the Church of
England to attract, i. 116 ; supposed
cause of their absence from the ser-
-vices ofthe city established churches,
i. 117 ; cause of their indifference
explained by a journeyman engineer,
ib.
" Poor Caitiff," the, quaint extracts
frora, i. 154 ; purchase of a copy of
it by John Gamalin, and singular
bequest of it. i. 188
Poor Priests, WycUffe's, a new order of
clergy in the 14th century, i. 141;
slandered by the author of "The
Song against the LoUards," i. 148
(note) ; vivid picture of their doings,
i. 188
Pope, the, opinions of the two great
parties concerning the pretensions
and encroachments of, i. 54 ; his
power opposed by the National
Bishops, i. 56 ; arbitrairy comraand
sent to EngUsh bishops by, i. 57 ;
different opinions regarding the au
thority of, i. 58 ; the " dues " of, i.
59 ; interference with the rights of
English patrons by, i. 60; charac
teristic case of revolt against the
authority of, i. 61 ; increase of his
power in England by the Lollard
persecution, i. 350
Postillers, the functions of, ii. 63
Postillizing, nature of, ii.63 (note)
Prayer-book, contradictory services in,
i. 984, 336
Prayers, tbe Westminster Assembly's
directions for, ii. 305
Preachers, the preaent compared with
those of past times, ii. 64
Preaching, inj unctions issued in various
reigna relating to, u. 84; George
Herbert on the art of, ii. 56 (note) ;
its violent and defamatory character
in the firat period ofthe Eeformation,
U. 60 ; different modes of, ii. 63
(note)
Preaching, Sunday-afternoon, objection
of the biahopa to, ii. 57
Preferment, ecclesiastical, a theory of
the Medieval Church respecting, i.
316 ; story of a clergyman disap
pointed of, U. 330 (ho(«)

Prelates, railitary, view of carnal war
fare accepted by, i. 58
Prelates, Parsons the Jesuit's proposal
for the baniahment of women from
the houaes of, i. 370 ; magnificence
displayed after the Eeformation by,
U. 383
Presbyterians, tbe, the royal supremacy
approved of by, ii. 160
Pretender, the Young, the Eoyal
Touch applied to heal disease by,
u. 310
Priesthood, the, ita dress and functions
assuraed by laymen for the sake of
aggrandizement, i. 46 ; iraportance
of its possessing a Uberal share of
the wealth of the comraunity, i. 110 ;
cereraony of degradation from; i.
384; its status lowered by the Eeform
ation, i. 357.
Priests, opinion and practice in Me
dieval England regarding the mar
riage of, i. 63 ; their degradation and
expulsion from the sacerdotal body,
i. 834 ; painful position of the wives
of, i. 348 ; Ulegal marriages of, 1.
351 ; their conduct in church, ii. 33
Priests, celibate, highly commended in
the I7th century, i. 373 (note)
Priests, concubinary, number and po
sition in Medieval England of, i.
348 ; a pitiful petition presented to
the Queen of Henry I. by a proces
sion of, i. 349
Priests, divorced, invited by Henry I.
to buy back their -wives, i. 951
Priests, malignant. White's century of,
U. 199
Priests, parochial or secular, mode of
addressing, i. 77 ; WycUffe's picture
of what they ought to be, i. 95 (note) ;
picture of a good one in the 14th
century, i. 90 ; sotu'ces of their in
come, i. 103
Priests, Eoman CathoUc, the honour
of martyrdom unfairly claimed for
those who auffered in the reign of
Elizabeth, i. 844
Princess, the Deirian, her beneficent
career, i. 3
Principle, the voluntary, a Middle Age
illustration of its successful opera
tion, i. 34
Prioress, the, Chaucer's picture of, i.
74 (note)
Property, the discharge of its obliga
tions hy individuals, i. 18 ; and by
societies, i. 19
Prophesying, in the reign of Elizabeth,
its origin, nature, aud object, ii. 86 ;

Lndex.

339

the Bishop of Lincoln's rules for the
conduct of, ii. 39
.Proprietors, ecclesiastical, opinion re
garding their rights in present and
past times, i. 170
Prosecutions, Consistorial, re-estabUsh-
ment, iu the reign of Queen Marv,
of, i. 195 s ¦* J'
Protestants, ceremonies used at a fu
neral in the time of Elizabeth by,
U. 84
Psalmody, the Westminster Assembly's
directions for, ii. 911
Pulpita, their poUtical use Ulustrated
by a paaaage from Shakspere, ii.
49 ; description of those in use among
our ancestors, ib.; the poUtical teach
ing of, ii. 51 ; a famous and import
ant one, ii. 52 ; censorship of, u. 88 ;
complaints of the decline of the elo
quence of, ii. 64 ; poUtical instruc
tion, during the Civil War, from, U.
183 ; interference with the freedom
of.ii. 184
, Punishment, capital, the results of the
various modes eraployed in the in-
fliation of, i. 199; mode of its in
fliction on women, i. 236
Purgatory, beUef of WycUffe and the
LoUards in, i. 154; Lord Cobham's
expressions of doubt respecting, i.
156 (note)
Puritanism, Dr. Peter Heylyn's notions
of, u. 137 ; the present EngUah Sun
day a valuable legacy of, U. 188 ; its
triumphs largely due to the Society
of Friends, U. 148
Puritans, the, simulacra hated by, i. 157;
an innovation that rendered Laud
unpopular 'with, i. 341 ; their endea
vours to suppress profane festivities
on the Lord's-day, i. 356 ; improved
observance of Sunday to be attri
buted mainly to, i. 358; characteristic
manifestations of their hostiUty to
printed prayers and read aermons,
ii. 33; their points of difference,
under EUzabeth, with High Church
men, u. 130; extravagant doctrines
taught by, ib ; their hopes raised by
certain concessions of James I., U.
131 ; Archbiahop Parker's, Whitgift's
and Dugdale's description of, U. 163 ;
-vulgar ribaldry in the pamphlets
I pubUshed by, u. 164 ; the destmction
of cathedrals by, ii. 180; fasts ob-
. served, during the CivU War, by, u.
188 ; the pulpit eloquence of, u. 213 ;
. their divines judged by EUzabeth's
bishops, ii. 277

QUAKEES, the, not the first to object
to judicial oaths, i. 145. See also
" Friends."
REBELLION, the Great, extension
of our reUgioua Uberties owing to,
i. 388
Eeoantation, various penalties imposed
on heretics after, i. 227
Rectors, the position, in Medieval
England, of, i. 100 ; those of last
century satirised by Lloyd in " The
Curate," a poem, u. 357 ; the repasts
to which, in the 17th century, their
tithe-payers were invited by, U. 396
Eedyug, Dr., his conduct at the mar
tyrdom of Peke, i. 192 (note)
Eeformation, the, ignorance of the
clergy at the epoch of, i. 108 ; origi
nators of the movement which re
sulted in, i. 137 ; the status of the
priesthood lowered by, i. 257; in-
crease of preaching after, U. 17 ; how
the condition of the inferior clergy
was affected by, i. 256 ; dignity aud
influence of the clergy diminished
by, ii. 874; opinion entertained by
the clergy of the 17th century, and
by the AngUcan churchmen of the
present day, respecting, ii. 375 ; the
animosities of reUgious party at the
period of, n. 377; suppression of
religious orders and houses at, U.
382 ; state of the different orders of
the clergy after, u. 283 ; inteUectual
activity of clergy and laity promoted
by, u, 384 ; inferiority of the clergy
inducted into Uvings after, u. 884
Eeformers, early, heedful perusal of
the Bible by, i. 338
Eeformers, later, a great advance in
the tenets of LoUardy made by, i.
154 ; their treatment compared -with
that of the earlier LoUarda, i. 337
Eeformera, WycUffian, oppoaed gene
raUy to the ceUbacy of the prieat-
hood, i. 850
EeUcs, papal, reckless destmction, on
the accession of Elizabeth, of, U. 7
Eeligion, ecclesiastical organization not
identical with, i. Ill
ResponsibUity, sacerdotal, medieval
conception of, i. 316
Eestoration, the, misleading character
of its satirical literature respecting
the aocial Ufe of England under
CromweU, i. 881; the Common
wealth Sunday adopted in great
measure by, ii. 138; circumatanoes
which prepared the nation for, ii.

340

Lndex.

883 ; characteristics of the sermons
of, ii. 340 ; FuUer ou the violence of
the preachers of, ii. 341 ; distinctive
costume of the clergy after, ii. 858 ;
Macaulay's caricature of the defects
of the clergy of, U. 288 ; the Church
placed in a favourable position by,
ii. 399 ; number who flocked to
court, for the benefit of the royal
touch, after, U. 307.
Bevels, Sunday, fallen into disrepute
i. 359
Revenues, monastioal and ecclesias
tical, distribution of, i. 73 ; injurious
inequalities in their distribution, i.
100
Bich and poor, relation, in feudal and
modem times, of, i, 113
Eichardson, Sir Thomas, rebuked by
Laud for interfering with Sunday
wakes, i. 857
Eidley, Bishop, scene at the execution
of, i. 293 ; place where he was tried,
i. 340
Einga, mourning, the distribution, at
funerals, of, ii. 92
Eoads, in England, previous to the
Reformation, i. 30
Eogers, the Eev. John, a married cler
gyman, extract of a letter -written
from Newgate by, U. 253
Eogers, Mr. Thorold, the construction
of Merton College by, i. 39 ; estimate
of the general and ecclesiastical po
pulation of England, in the 14th
century, by, i. 43 ; remarks on the
medieval clergy by, i. 88 (note) ;
statement reapecting Church feea in
the Middle Ages by, i. 103
Eood of Grace, the, at Bexley in Kent,
u. 4
Eood-loft, the, construction and orna
mentation, in medieval churchea, of,
n. 4 ; removal from churchea of, ii. 6
Eougham, Dr., his unseemly alterca
tion -with a condemned heretic at the
stake, i. 313
Roundheads, Laud's explanation of the
appUcation of this term of scorn to
the Puritans, ii. 380
Eowe, Eobert, indicted for a jocose
reraark, i. 238
EoyaUsts, the, the submission and co
operation oif the clergy demanded by,
u. 191
Eoyal Touch, the, its efficacy as a heal
ing power generaUy beUeved in Eng
land, i. 164
Eussel, WilUam, a Lollard, his opinion
on tithes, i. 101 (note)

SABBATAEIANISM, ancient date of,
i. 148 ; early precursors of, U. 117 ;
attempt, by a pious fraud, to pro
mote, ib. ; its reception, in the 13th
century, in the north of England, ii.
118 ; progress in the 14th and 15th
centuries of, U. 120 ; curious enact
ment of Edward IV. in favour of, U.
131 ; state under the Stuarts of, ii.
133
Sabbath. See Sunday.
SaceUa, the, the satirists of feudal
times on the decoration of, ii. 1 (note)
Saints, the number honoured in Catho
lic times, i. 144 (note)
SaUsbury Cathedral, how funds were
raised for the erection of, i. 34 ; art
at the period of the erection of, 1. 37
Sanderson, Dr. (afterwards Bishop),
disturbed by soldiers in the perfomi-
ance of divine service, u. 33 ; device ¦
by which he profited after ejection
from his Linoolnahire living, ii. 78 ;
directions for his ftmeral in his last
testament, u. 93 ; toleration accorded
under the Commonwealth to, ii. 330
Satire, historical inquiries rendered dif
ficult by, i. 84
Saviour's, St., Southwark, sittings of
Commission Court of Surrey held in,
i. 341
Saxons, the, their places of interment,
ii. 10 ; their laws for the observance
of Sunday, U. 113
Scambler, Dr., Bishop of Peterborough,
ordinances for the regulation of di
vine service issued by, ii. 31
Scepticism, Ulustratiou of feminine
leaning to, i. 330
Schools, poor, a tax ou the clergy for
the benefit of, i. 317; instances of
clerical generosity to, ib. ; Parkhurst's
characteristic hospitaUty to, i. 318
Scholars, the, mental activity displayed
in the disputations of, i. 38
Scrivener, John, revolting fanaticism
displayed at the martyrdom of, i. 324
Sculpture, comparatively recent period
at which it flourished, i. 67
" Seigneur," derivation aad meaning of
the term, i. 78
Selden, an effective speaker in the
W'estminster Assembly, u. 303
Sermons, marriage and funeral, i. 393
(note) ; characteristics, before the Ee
formation, of, ii. 16 ; number deU-
vered at various periods after the
Eeformation, ii. 54; length, in the
time of EUzabeth, and the Charleses,
of, ii. 86; the pubUcation of, ii. 65;

Lndex.

341

delivery, on the occasion of funerals,
of, ii. 98
Sermons, bosom, disUke ofthe EngUsh
people to, U. 63
Servant-girls, the marriage of clergy
men, i. 956
Service, gentie, the origin and nature
of, U. 967
Shakespere and his age, i. 839 ; passage
illustrative of the political use of the
pulpit, from, ii. 49
Shaxton, Dr., his discourse at the exe
cution of heretics applauded, i. 318
Shee-schools, Fuller's praise of, i. 33
(riote)
Shrines, national, recreation and enjoy
ment found by our ancestors in pil
grimages to, i. 149 ; agitation against
the worship of, u. 44
Shrouds, the, a covered meeting place
near St. Paul's, u. 54
Simony, order issued by Elizabeth
against, i. 333 ; circumstances which
contributed to the growth of, ib, ; a
beneficial consequence of the open
practice of, i. 338 ; practice under
EUzabeth of, andBishop Hall's satire
on it, u. 385 (note)
" Sir," meaning and use of the term, i.
77, ei seq.
" Sire," use of this designation in the
Middle Ages, i. 76
" Sir John," an opprobrious nickname
for unlearned and disreputable cu
rates, i. 78.
Six Articles, the, provisions of the act
of Henry VIII. for the punishment
of those who rejected, i. 194
Skinner, Bishop, fearless exercise of
his episcopal functions by, i. 891
Smith, Sydney, a famiUar truth urged
by, i. 110
Smithfield, its appearance when pre
pared for the execution of a martyr,
i. 311
Society, a middle-age theory, and its
refutation, respecting, i. 118
Sompnour, the, his ecclesiastical posi
tion, i. 65 (note)
South, Dr., sermons on the doctnne
of passive obedience by, U. 387 ; vio
lent sentiments against the Protector
uttered by, u. 343 , „ ,,
Speed, estimate of the number of Ma
rian martyrs by, i. 237 (note)
Stafford, Archbiahop, decree respecting
markets in churches issued by, i.
OAK
Stake the, the law and custom of pro
ceedings at, i. 110; suitable situation

for, i. 115, 215 ; appearance of mar
tyrs at, i. 335 ; the origin of, i. 336
Stillingfleet, Dr., his episcopal ordina
tion, ii. 315 (note)
Stock, Simon, General of the Carme-
Utes, gratifying assurance given by
the Virgin Mary to, i. 127
Strype, Dr., his estimate of the number
of Marian martyrs, i, 287 (note) ; his
account of tumults at St. Paul's Cross,
u. 83 ; his account of the obsequies
of Sir Eice Mansfield, u. 88 ; his re
cord of the funeral of Lady Barnes,
ii. 84; his description of the funeral
of a Protestant lady in the reign of
Elizabeth, ib.} hia explanation of the
oircumatances under which iUiterate
men for a time were received into
the priesthood of the Church of Eng
land, ii. 387 (note)
Stuarts, the, influences which operated
in favour of the restoration of, ii.
323 ; clerical life in the country
under, u. 290
Styles, John, the charges against, i.
186 ; raanner of proceeding in the
Court of Commissioners against, i.
187
Succession, the ApostoUcal, carefuUy
preserved by the English Reformera,
U. 276
Sudbury, Archbiahop, his disapproval
of pilgrimages, i. 150
Sunday, strJctiy observed by the Lol
lards, i. 147 ; the " Poor Caitiff" on
the universal profanation, in the 14th
century, of, i. l48 ; rarely confounded
with the Jewish Sabbath by our old
Churchraen, i. 345; old injunctions
respecting the observance of, ib.;
how regarded by our ancestors, i.
349 (note) ; attempts of the Puritans
to suppress profane festivities on, i.
356 ; our obUgations to the Common
wealth for the better observance of,
i. 859 ; laws of the Danish and Saxon
periods relating to, u. 113 ; changes
introduced by the Normans in the
keeping of, U. 114; important events
celebrated on, ii. 116 ; decree of the
Common Council of London (18th
century) against labour on, ii. 120 ;
John de Burgo'a discrimination be
tween works lawful and imlawful on,
U. 121 ; poetical picture of EngUsh
life, in the time of Henry VIL, on,
n. 128 ; official declaration, 1837, on
the observance of, n. 123 ; injunction
of Edward VI. against tie profana
tion of, ii. 134 ; Crowley's pictures of

342

Lndex.

the abuses perpetrated on, ii. 125 ;
measure that produced the most last
ing effect on opinion respecting, ii.
126 ; plays, bear-baitings, ,&c., per
mitted under Mary, on, ii. 127 ; the
profanation, in the time of Queen
EUzabeth, of, ii. 128 ; Robert Nelson
on the obaervance of, ii. 139
Superstition, the imraorality and cruelty
developed by, ii. 199
Supremacy, Papal, objections of the
national party of the medieval Eng
Uah clergy to, i. 89
Supremacy, Eoyal, what is meant by,
ii. 151 ; doubtful assertion of an
ecclesiastical writer respecting, ii.
152 (note) ; maintained also by Pres
byterians, ii. 160
Surplice, the, use', in the time of Eliza
beth, of, ii. 29
Sweeting, WilUara, a recanting heretic,
penance infiicted on, i. 238
S-wift, Dean, Macaulay's strange mis
apprehension of a passage in the
works of, i. 392
Swinderby, WUliam, a Lollard, extract
from the judicial indictment against,
i. 101 (note)
Synod, Archbiahop Cuthbert's, decree
concerning musical services issued
by, i. 147 (note)

TAVEEN,tbe,the club-house of Me
dieval England, i. 91 ; the bishops'
injunctions against, i. 93
Taylor, Jeremy, social status of his two
'wives, i. 378 (note)
Taylor, Eowland, the martyrdom of,
i. 314 ; pathetic account of his jour
ney from London to the place of
execution, i. 230
Templars, the, St. Bernard's plea in
behalf of, i. 52
Testwood, Eobert, his detestation of
idol-worship, u. 48
Tewkesbury, John, penance infiicted
on, i. 333
Texta, Scripture, objections of the
CathoUcs, in the time of Edward VL,
to the adornment of church walls with,
U. 8 ; origin of the custom of preach
ing frora, ii. 63 (note)
Thorpe, "WiUiam, the Lollard, dis
dainful and profane exclamation
addressed by Archbishop Arundel to,
i. 143 ; judicial oaths objected to by,
i. 145 ; his opinion on instrumental
music in divine worship, i. 146
(note) ; Archbishop Arundel's remark.

on the efficacy of pUgrimages, to, i.
150 (note); firmneaa, in declaring
againat the auperstitious reverence
for images, manifested by, i. 158 ;
Archbishop Arundel's explanation of
the reasonableness of iraage- worahip
addressed ' to, i,. "160 (note) ; his view
of the marvels wrought at Walsing
ham and at the door of St. Paul's,
i. 162; pUgrimages denounced by,
ii. 43
Tindal, WiUiam. See Tyndale
Tithes, in England, inthe 14th century,
i. 98 ; apparentiy unjust impropria-
tiona of, i. 99 ; juatice of the principle
of impropriation recogmsed by recent
legislation concerning, i. 100 ; ten
dency, in the feudal church, of im
propriations of, ib. ; blasphemous
prooeaa for enforcing payment of, i.
101 ; WycUffe's views relating to, ib.
(note) ; opinions of WycUffe's foUow
ers respecting, i. 166
Titles, significance, in the Middle Ages, ,
of, i. 79
Tombs, excess, in modem times, of,
ii. 10
Touch, tbe Eoyal, general belief, in
England, of its efficacy, i. 164 ; mani
festation, by Protestant kings, of the
¦virtue of, U. 802 ; Conjecture on the
appUcation, by Queen Elizabeth, of
ib. ; Pepys disappointed in his desire
to witness the ceremony of, U. 308 ;
Evelyn a vritnesa of the exercise of,
ib. ; selection of cases for, U. 309 ;
exerciae by Queen Anne and the
Pretender of, ii. 310 ; Prayer-books
-with the service for, ib. ; melancholy
calamity during the appUcation for
tickets for, ib. (note)
Trafford, Sir Edmond, curious sermon,
in the British Museum, on the mar
riage of a daughter of, i. 394 (note)
Transubstantiation, its repudiation
penal by an act of Henry VIII., i. 194
Travel, causes of the taste, in Medieval
England, for, i. 31
TraveUers, in the Middle Ages, their
reminiscences of foreign scenes, i. 33
Truncus, the, and free-wiU offerings in
churches, ii. 16
Tyler, Wat, composition and objects of
the insurgents under, i. 165 ; effects
ofhis insurrection on the Lollards,
i. 190
Tylsworth, revolting exhibition of fana
ticism at the martyrdom of, i. 384
Tyndale, WUliam, an Ulustration of the
limited culture of English priests

Lndex.

343

from, 1. 109 (note) ; remarks on the
behef m_ the virtue of St. Francis's
coat by, 1. 128 (note) ; beUef in pur
gatory retained by, i. 156 ; the mar
tyrdom of, i. 218; the poor exhorted
to, cultivate meekness by, u. 75
TTNIFOEMITY, Act of, ejection of
• „^°°ooiformist ministers under,
1. 304 '
Universities, the, (Oxford and Cam-
bndge,) consequences of theu: over
throw to England, i. 23 ; use of th-e
term " Sir" at, i. 78 ; intmsion of the
Mendicant Orders into. i. 137 ; pro
vision made by Queen EUzabeth for
scholars in, i. 317
Usher, Archbishop, the execution of
Charles I. witnessed hy, U. 348 (note) ;
EDStume-portrait of, u. 351
Usury, denunciations by the old An
gUcan divines of, u. 76 ; change of
clerical opinion respecting justifiable
forms of, ii. 78
YAUGHAN, Eobert, his judgment on
the inferior clergy after the Black
Death, i. 105 (note)
Vaughan, Captain, Bishop Gardiner's
letter, in defence of image-worship,
to, i. 160 (note)
Ven, Eev. Mr., of Otterton, Devonshire,
a clergyman of Charles I.'s time,
U. 198
Vioar of Bray, the, class of the clergy
satirised under the name of, U. 108 ;
popularity ofthe proverb relating to,
u. 110
WAKES, or Feasts of Dedication, the
annual celebration of, i. 343 ; act
of Convocation enjoining the day for,
i, 349 ; a compromise ¦with authority
respecting the celebration of, i. 350 ;
lay judges rebuked by Laud for in
terfering with, i. 357; the present
disrepute of, i. 359
Waldenses, the, opinions respecting the
derivation ofthe name of, i. 188
Wales, North, a funeral custom preva
lent in, u. 86
Walker, Dr., malevolent assertion raade
against the Dissenters of Queen
> Ajnne's tirae by, U. 178 ; absurd
charges brought against Eoyaliat
clergymen during the CivU War, by,
li. 156 ; the aucoeaaors of certain
ejected Royalist clergymen described
by, ii- 195 ; » specimen of Puritan
pulpit eloquence recorded by, ii. 213

Walton, Isaak, Richard Hooker de
scribed by, i. 363 ; his account of
George Herbert's presentation to the
Uving of Bemerton, i. 374 (note);
his description of Puritan worship
pers receiving the Holy Communion.
u. 307 (note)
Warfare, relig;ious and poUtical, fre
quent identity of the interests in
volved ih, i. 307.
Watson, Dr., the congregation which
Ustened at St. Paul's Croaa to a aer-
mon by, U. 53
Wealth, the responsibiUties of, i. 18 ;
ita absti-action from the country
through the pretensioua ofthe Papacy,
i. 59 ; advantagea to the olergv of.
i. 110
Weaver, his estimate of the number
of Marian martyrs, i. 837 (note)
Wentworth, Lord, his demonstrations
of sympathy for a suffering martvr,
i. 318
Weatminater, the Eoyal Palace of, ser
mons preached before Henry 'VIIL
and Edward VI. at, i. 53 (note)
Westmoreland, few monasteries in, i.
39 (note)
Whip ¦with Six Strings, the, a statute
of Henry VIII.'s against heresy, i.
194; its injustice modified by the
provisions of a subsequent measure,
i. 195
White, WilUam, the WycUffian martyr,
his priesthood renounced before mar
riage by, i. 351
White, the Centurist, his memoir of a
hundred instances ofthe misconduct
of EoyaUst clergy, u. 192
White Friars. See Carmelites.
Whitgift, Dr. John, Archbishop, charged
by Elizabeth to restore the discipUne
of the Church, ii. 30 (nute) ; his
splendour and pomp when appearing
in public, ii. 283 (note)
Whitsun-ale. See Church-ale
Whitsuntide, the revels of, i. 383
Wiche, WUliam, an heretical priest,
singular exhibition of fanaticism at
the execution of, i. 301 ; irregular
pilgrimages to the scene of his death
forbidden, i. 308 (noU)
WUde, Dr. George, bishop of Derry,
his labours during the Common
wealth, u. 838
WUliams, Archbiahop, costume-portrait
of, ii. 380; defence ofhis gentility by,
ii.878
Wingham, Kent, sack of the tithe-barn
ofthe " Eoman parson," at, i. 61

344

Lndex.

Wisborough Green, Sussex, pictorial
curiosities in the church of, ii. 8
Wiseman, Dr., hia testimony to the
efficacy of tiie royal touch, i. 164
(note)
Wives, probable origin of the general
beUef on the Continent concerning
the sale in England of, i. 250
Wives, clerical, in the reign of EUza-
teth, i. 259 ; often wooed by deputy,
i. 261; the social status of, i. 977;
recognition of grades among, ib. ;
benefit of aristocratical connexions
to, i. 978; the prodigaUty, ostenta
tion, and extortions of, i. 979 ; in the
time of Charles I. i. 980 («ote); footing
gained in the University of Oxford
by, i. 389
Wolsey,- Cardinal, the splendour of
ecclesiastical ceremonies increased by
the order aud example of, ii. 946
Women, their presence and influence
inthe early monasteries, i. 3; Wy
cUffe on " The Poor Caitiff's " remarks
on the adornment of, i. 148 (note) ;
our ancestors' probable reason for
the use of fire in the execution of, i.
936 ; their weakness for clergymen,
i. 339; occasional leaning to scep
ticism among, i. 330; Uberated,
during the Commonwealth, from a
humiUating obUgation, u. 810.
Wood, Anthony a, his comical descrip
tion of the expulsion of Dean Fell's
wife from the Deanery of Christ
Church, Oxford, i. 384 ; his asperity
against female settlers on Collegiate
foundations, i. 994 ; his arausing
complaint of the extravagance of
Sir Thomas Clayton's wife, i. 895 ;
his account of the origin of the cua -
torn of celebrating royal births and
coronations by the ringing of bells,
u. 96 ; his account of the first coffee
houses in Oxford, ii. 818 (note) ; ex
tracts from his diary relating to the
death of Cromwell, u. 830 (note)
Wood, Mr. Edward, FeUow of Merton
CoUege, the ceremonies at the fune
ral of, ii. 88 ; verses on the death of,
U. 89
Wordsworth, Dr. Charles, Master of
Trinity, his protracted defence of
King Charles I.'s title to the author
ship of "Ic8n Basilike," u. 338 (note);
his opinion concerning Bishop Gau

den's claim to the authorship of, ii.
339
Working-classes, the, reUgious tenden
cies of, i. 117
Worship, meaning of the word as ex
pressive of the respect paid to
images, i. 159
Worship, pubUc, the Westminster As
sembly's directions for the order of,
U. 304
Wright, Mr. Thomas, a song against
the Lollards edited by, i. 188 (note)
Wycliffe, the parochial clergy reproved
by, i. 44 ; the religioua phenomena
of the age of, i. 58 ; the vicea of
curates denounced by, i. 85 (note) ;
statement on the sottishness of the
clergy by, i. 88 ; admission in favour
of the priests by, i. 95 (note) ; sup
ported chiefly by the parochial clergy,
i. 96 ; his opinion on tithes, i. 101
(rtote) ; remarks on the inteUectual
attainments of the clergy by, i. 106 ;
the term "Lollard" appUed to his
humble and pious foUowers, i. 139 ;
increase of his adherents, i. 140;
his poor priests, i. 141 ; remarks on
female adornment by, i. 148 (note) ;
his remarks on those who refused
to aid the suffering and the poor, i.
153 (note) ; change in the designs of
his followers, i. 153 ; hia theological
orthodoxy at the commencement of
his reforming movement, i. 154;
quaint extracts from " "The Poor
Caitiff" by, ib. ; his opinion on the
decoration of churches, i. 157 ; his
influence on the insurrectionary
movements of his time denied by his
defenders, i. 165 ; his views on tithes
and ecclesiastical endowments, i.
166 ; picture of the doings ofhis poor
priests, i. 183 ; the fate of his re
mains, aud the motives which dictated
the dispersion of them, i. 303 ; re
spect of Continental reformers for
his memory, i. 806 ; his heterodoxy
with respect to marriage, i. 350
YOEK Cathedral, extraordinary riot
in, u. 35
ZEAL, fanatical, revolting exhibition
of, i. 834 ; characteristic manifes
tation of, ii. 39 (note)

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