The Church and the People.

"Three strangers blaze amidst the bonfire's revel:
The Pope, and the Pretender, and the Devil.
Three strangers hate our faith and faith's defender:
The Devil, and the Pope, and the Pretender.
The strangers will be strangers long, we hope:
The Devil, and the Pretender, and the Pope.
Thus in three rhymes three strangers dance the hay,
And he that chooses to dance after them may."

We now come to a class of items chiefly connected with ecclesiastical control over matters both secular and religious—instances of the exercise of power by the Church for the punishment of offenders against her discipline. Every reader of history is acquainted with the force and effect of excommunication in the middle ages. By a sentence of excommunication, both greater and less, the victims were excluded from the right of Christian burial, from bringing or maintaining actions, from becoming attorneys or jurymen, and were rendered incapable of becoming witnesses in any cause. Long before the Reformation the frequency and abuse of this ecclesiastical weapon proved both a scandal and a disadvantage to the Church, by bringing the practice in some degree into contempt; and in the thirteenth century many applications were made to the king complaining of the resistance of excommunicated offenders who defied the utmost that the Church could do to reduce them to submission. In 1289, John, vicar of Feckenham, was excommunicated by Godfrey, Bishop of Worcester, who appealed in the same manner for secular aid. When the nation reformed its religion, the power of excommunication was still retained by the Church, and is in force even to the present day, although modified by the 53rd of George III, chap. 127, which restricts the maximum term of imprisonment in all such cases to six months. (See more on this subject under the head of St. Nicholas' parish.) Obstinately refusing to attend divine service in the parish church, incontinency, contumacy in not appearing when cited in the Consistory Court, brawling, and scolding—these were the principal offences for the punishment of which the Church most frequently put forth her power, as also on Quakers and Popish recusants.

I am sorry to be compelled to state that the first example occurring in these rolls is that of a female scold. In 1614, Margaret, wife of John Bache, of Chaddesley, was presented to the Sessions as "a comon skould and a sower of strife and disorder amongste her neyghboures, and hath bynn presented for a skoulde at the leete houlden for the manour of Chadsley, and for misbehavyng her tonge towards her mother-in-law at a vysytacon (visitation) at Bromsgrove, April 29, 1603, and was excommunicated therefore." In 1617, one Elinor Nichols was presented "as a great scold and mischief maker, who is said to have been excommunicated and had never applied to make her peace with the Church." The usual mode of punishing this class of offenders was, however, by the cucking-stool. A valued correspondent, in commenting upon the details of the gum-stool, or cucking-stool, and other punishments mentioned at pages 110 and 111 of "Worcester in Olden Times" (in which an engraving is given of a curious instrument of torture still hanging on the wall of Worcester Guildhall), says—

"The gum-stool is evidently the cucking-stool, though it never occurred to me that Cooking Street was really Cucking Street, and had had its name spelt Cucken in old maps, as you state. The term cuckold-stool is inaccurate, as this punishment is for scolding to the common nuisance of the neighbourhood, and has no reference to conjugal infidelity. The cucking-stool is the legal punishment of the criminal offence of scolding; and if a woman had been indicted and convicted of this offence at the last Assizes, the learned judge must have sentenced her to the cucking-stool. The common scold (Communis Rixatrix)—for the law confines it to the feminine gender—is a public nuisance to her neighbourhood, and may be indicted for the offence, and upon conviction punished by being placed on a certain engine of correction called the trebucket, or cucking-stool; and she may be convicted without setting forth the particulars in the indictment, though the offence must be set forth in technical words and with convenient certainty; and the indictment must conclude not only against the peace but to the common nuisance of her majesty's liege subjects. It is not necessary to give in evidence the particular expressions used: it is sufficient to prove generally that the defendant is always scolding. The skimmington is a mock procession got up in derision of a woman who has beaten her husband. You will find it in Hudibras. When a boy, I saw a skimmington, and in it a man dressed in woman's clothes, who rode on horseback behind a stuffed figure of a man, carrying a ladle, with which the supposed woman kept beating the stuffed figure about the head. This, too, has no reference to conjugal infidelity. But in Wilts and Berks there is a mock procession that does relate to conjugal infidelity; but this is called a 'Woosset,' which is pronounced 'Oosset'. It is a rough band followed by a person bearing a long pole, with a cross-bar across it, on which is placed a shirt, and at the top of the pole is a horse's skull with a pair of bull's horns attached to it. This I have also seen. I have omitted to mention that cucking-stools were of two kinds—the one fixed, the other moveable. That mentioned in 'Worcester in the Olden Times' (p. 110), must have been of the latter kind. A lithograph of each is in No. 1 of the Magazine of the Wilts Archæological Society. The bridle for scolds still exists in several places; there is one in the Ashmolœan Museum at Oxford; another was in the magistrates' room at Shrewsbury, but has been stolen within the last few years; one is figured in one of the volumes of the Penny Magazine, under the title 'Obsolete Punishments,' and another in Plott's 'Staffordshire;' but it is very remarkable that though so commonly seen, these bridles, called 'Branks,' are nowhere mentioned in our law books, though cucking-stools always are whenever the offence of scolding is treated of or referred to."

But to return to ecclesiastical matters. In the year 1620, Robert Lucy, of Droitwich, was ordered to appear before the Sessions Court "for killinge of fleshe this Lent." By the statutes 2nd and 3rd Edward VI, chap. 19, and 5th Elizabeth, chap. 5 (an act for maintenance of the navy), the eating of flesh in Lent is prohibited under penalties; but I know of no statute which inflicts any penalty on butchers for killing in Lent.

The Sessions rolls contain some sad pictures of clerical misbehaviour in the seventeenth century—a period when the clergy, as a body, had become a plebeian class, when (as Macaulay assures us) "for one who made the figure of a gentleman, ten were mere menial servants," many of the ejected ministers during the domination of the Puritans obtaining bread and shelter only by attaching themselves to the households of royalist gentlemen. The truth of the observation (see Blount's "Reformation"), that "an indigent church makes a corrupt and canting clergy," is apparent from the history of those times. In 1628, articles were exhibited against the Rev. Henry Hunt, of Defford, "that he is a malicious and contentious person and useth scandalous speeches without regard to time or place, but even in the church, sometimes before and sometimes after divine service, hath been known to break out into violent swearing before he came forth of the pulpit, taunting and reviling Rd. Damanne, and throwing stones at him in the field to provoke him to strike him, and threatening to make him so poor with suits that he should be glad to sell his mortuary for 2d.;" also that he swore falsely at Worcester Assizes. "His mortuary" here evidently means the amount of property that he would die worth. In some parishes a sum of 10s. is still payable to the rectors or vicars on the death of each householder in the parish who dies worth £40. This is called "a mortuary." The Rev. William Hollington, of Alvechurch, was in 1641 reported as "a frequenter of alehouses, where he spendeth much time both day and night, as well upon the Saboth as other week dayes in idle and riotous company, in excessive drinking, and is a causer of much drunkenness by procuring and persuading and enforcing others to the drinking of whole cupes. He hath often drawn idle company to his own house, where they have sent for much ale, and there abusefully have spent in drunkness, quarrelling, and fighting. He is greatly defamed of incontinensie with his neighbours' wives, and one of them hath confest he did attempt her chastity, affirminge him to be as bad as Bankes his predecessor, who to prevent punishment for his unchast and incestuous living run away. That he dayley frequenteth houses much suspected of lewdnes, often accompanied with a dangerous armed Papist of idle behaviour, and assisted by him hath in the open street given out rayling and threatning words against his neighbours, calling them knaves and partisans, and hath affirmed they were not Papists that rebelled in Ireland, and that Papists were noe rebbles but honester men than Protestants. He hath been a hindrance of the taking of the protestation, and doth omit the words in the reading of the remonstrance 'and have cutt all theire throates,' to the end to obscure from the people the greatness of the danger the House of Commons was in as it is conceived in favour of the other side. A constable coming to him in execution of his office to deliver the protestations of such as were then and there present to take it, he gave him many reproachful wordes, calling him knave, blockhead, loggerhead. He is a curser and swearer, a nefarious pintious lyer, and a contentious person. He stirred up and mayntained many shutes (suits) and much trouble in the neighbourhood, hath sided and counselled with the old churchwarden to the detayning of goods and money due to the church, and threatned aney that durst question it. He hath laboured to hinder justice and to countenance delinquents, is a quarreller and fighter. He advised and aided in stealing away a widdowes daughter, the only child of his neer neighbour, not above fourteen years old, and marying her to John Price, a rude boy of idle behaviour, and noe good cloths to his back, though the friends of the girl could have made her portion £200, and hath never been heard to put up one prayer either for the Parliament or for distressed Protestants in the kingdom of Irelande except on particular times, and then it was with the limitation 'if soe that they be of the same religion as wee are on.'"

It is difficult adequately to estimate the injurious effects to society of such examples set on the part of the clergy. The judicious Hooker observes that "the examples of clergy and great men are important, as being seen afar off, like cities set on the tops of hills; but mean men's actions are not greatly inquired into except by those who live at the next door."

During the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II, as may be expected, the religious disputes and ill-feeling existing between the Established Church and the various sects that snarled and whined and canted in the racy language of the time, are fully exhibited in these records, of which I shall give some instances. In 1654, Edward Sheldon and Nicholas Hill deposed "that upon the 20th day of August the deponents were objecting against one Mr. Spilsbury, who desired to be minister of Bromsgrove, that he had a low voyce; one Humphrey Potter then answered that if he had a low voice he had a true voice; unto which Mr. Joseph Amige, now minister of Bromsgrove (as these deponents conceiveth) answered and sayd, 'Soe have I;' unto whom the said Potter replied, 'Noe, for you have tould lies in the pulpit,' or words to that effect." Here is another curious specimen of the times: In 1656 the jury presented that Thomas Goslinge, late of Bredon, yeoman, on the 11th November, 1656, at Bredon, of purpose to defame, disgrace, and provoke one Richard Beeston, a pious and godly minister and preacher of the word of God, and to disturb the peace, certain false, seditious, scandalous, and provoking English words did put into meeter or verse, and the same as a libell did openly, maliciously, and of purpose to provoke and disgrace the said Richard Beeston, in the presence and hearing of divers honeste people of the commonwealth of Englande, with a loud voice did saye and singe—that is to saye:

"Here comes Mr. Beeston,
The man wee nere wiston,
As high as the pulpitt topp;
And to his disgrace,
With his impudent face,
To reape another man's cropp."

Roger of Wendover tells of a party, who profanely interrupted divine service, being made to dance in the churchyard for twelve months, without the power of stopping their limbs. But it seems that the fear of supernatural punishment did not deter the brawlers of the seventeenth century. When Dr. Thomas (afterwards Bishop of Worcester) was vicar of Loughern, about the year 1644, a party of Parliament horse went to that place, and inquired whether that popish priest, Mr. Thomas, was still there, and whether he continued reading the liturgy and praying for the Queen; one of them adding, that he would go to church next Sunday, and if Mr. Thomas persevered in praying for that drab of the w—— of Babylon he would certainly pistol him. That good man, however, was not to be intimidated: he performed the usual service, and while praying for the Queen, one of the soldiers, who sat in the next pew to him, snatched the book out of his hand and threw it at his head. The preacher bore it with composure, but the soldier, it is said, was instantly seized with such compunction that his comrades were forced to carry him away. At the Midsummer Sessions of 1660 a deposition was made, that "on the 17th of June, being ye last Saboth daye, Jeremiah Hewes, servant of Mr. Bishops of Lindridge, spoke of Mr. Giles base lascivious words, for he said yt he preached in ye church nothing but lyes, and furthermore he called him ould munkke (monk) and he said ye ould monkke preached in ye forenoon, and his sunn, ye yonge munkker, did endeavour to mend it in ye afternoone; and he said he would never heere him preach again, for if he were in ye church he would goe forthe. Mr. Gyles gave a tuch concerning maypoles—what rudnes is ust (used) to be abought such games, and he wisht he had his beard to make him a flaye (?) yt he might be one of ye fore leaders; and furthermore, my brother Edward tould him yt these words did deserve ye good behaviour (recognizance to keep the peace); and he said again he did not care for never a justice's warrant in ye countie, for he saith they are all turncootes." In 1665, Edward Mutchett, of Norton-juxta-Bredon, informed against Richard Hunt, that he heard him say in his prayers "Downe with this King of Babylon, this Poperye, and this idolatrous wayes as is now sett upp, and that they may not touch Thy anointed."

The Quakers of the seventeenth century, it is pretty well known, were not the mild and gentle beings who compose the ranks of the Friends in the nineteenth. They could rail and brawl in public, would persist in following their trades on a Sunday, and their resistance to the "powers that be" was of a much more active character than that which induces a modern Friend to allow a rate-collector to seize on his tables and chairs. The Quakers met with severer treatment during the Commonwealth than any other sect of Christians. We trace them obscurely under the denomination of "Seekers," their distinguishing principle being the doctrine of an inward light. George Fox, their founder, having bade some of the justices who committed him to jail to tremble at the word of the Lord, gave rise to the term "Quakers." In this city and county they were apparently pursued with great severity after the restoration of "Church and King," which undoubtedly had the usual effect of considerably sharpening their asperity towards the established faith. In the city, they were prevented entering their meeting-house (in Friar Street), and accordingly preached in the open air, while soldiers were paid for watching them. George Fox himself was confined in Worcester jail. In an ancient library at Kingsnorton School, there are treatises against the then recently propounded notions of the Quakers. The subjoined extract will show that maypoles and long hair were not the only troubles the poor vicar of that parish had to contend against. It is taken from "Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers," vol. ii, chap. iii, p. 60, under date 1657. "Jane Hicks, of Chadwitch, was sent to prison at Worcester for some offence which the priest of King's Norton took at her speaking to him." The same writer also states that at another time she was sent to Worcester for disturbing at Bromsgrove church, and that she was placed four times in the stocks—once for a whole night and part of two days. The woman would thus seem to have been a notorious disturber; and doubtless her "speaking" to the "priest" was in the church at the time of worship—a very common custom with the Friends of that day. Viewed in this light the vicar's conduct was proper, and was a necessary precaution against unseemly interruptions. The books of the above-named library, thus viewed, become interesting to us. They are evidence in the great Quaker battle, and no doubt poor Jane Hicks was stirred up with wrath by hearing some of the arguments out of this storehouse hurled at her then noisy sect. When John Bissell, also in 1657, refused to pay the "priest" ten shillings tithe, and had "goods taken from him worth £1. 5s.," no doubt these identical volumes were at hand ready to pour forth their artillery against the poor Quaker.[3] In the County Rolls for 1662 is "A calendar of the prisoners called Quakers: Rd. Payton, convicted de premunire; Edwd. Hall, convicted for words spoken in open court, fined £5, and committed till payed; Henry Gibbs, Wm. Collins, Wm. Webb, Robert Baylis, Rd. Walker alias Weaver, Jos. Walker, Rd. Bennet, Wm. Eades, Stephen Pitway, committed the 2nd of January, 1662, for having lately assembled themselves under the pretence of joyning in a religious worship, to the great endangering of the publique peace and safetye, and to the terrour of the people in severall places of this county." In 1666 the following Quakers were "taken at a conventicle and committed by Thomas Wilde, Esq.:" Wm. Pitt, Richard Fydo, Abra. Roberts, Rich. Lewis, Edward Lewis, Edward Staunton, John Wright, Alexander Berdslye, Tho. Fitrale, and John Hoskins. Next year (1667) the gaoler's list of prisoners then in gaol included the following:

[3] This notice of Kingsnorton Library is taken from an article in "Aris's Birmingham Gazette."

"Thomas Payton, late of Dudley, taylor, a p'fessed Quaker, taken at a conventicle of Quakers in the said towne of Dudley, a place much infested with Quakers and disorderlie p'sons, and comitted to ye gaole 10th July, xiiii Caroli, and being a stubborn and incorigible p'son, was at ye next Sessions following tendred the oathe of allegiance, which he refused to take, was indicted, and convicted of premunire. Thomas Feckenham, another leader of the same sect, was likewise apprehended about three years since, and tendred ye oathe of allegiance, and beinge still obstinate and p'verse, hath been continued a prisoner, but with some liberty now and then extended towards him, which kindness hath not as yet wrought any conformitie or submission in him. John Jenkins and William Bardoe, Quakers, excommunicated in ye consistory of Hereford, and taken by a writ De Excom. Capiend. about a year since. John Roberts, of Droitwich, p'fessed Quaker, for using his trade and calling on ye Sunday or Lord's Day, was likewise presented and excommunicated a year ago. John Tombs, of Droitwich, for the like offence, and for refusing to permit the sacred ordinance of Baptism to be administered to his children, likewise excommunicated, and taken up by the like writ. Job Allibone and William Hodges, for the same offence and refusing to come to church. All which persons soe committed are, by the overmuch indulgence of the late sheriff, under-sheriff, and gaoler, permitted to goe at liberty about their occasions, which we consider doth encourage them to persist in their contemptuous and incorrigible behaviour; and they are not to be found in prison unless for about an houre or a night once in six or eight weeks time."

This report of the state of Quakerism, it seems, was occasioned by a request from the Government that the magistrates should inquire into the subject, and furnish the names of the Quakers then in prison, and whether they were ringleaders or had been seduced into the commission of offence by others. In the chapter on the records of St. Helen's church, Worcester, in the earlier part of this work, it will be observed that the penalties paid by Quakers were converted into a charitable fund for the poor.

The William Pardoe, mentioned above, was probably the individual who was said to have been the pastor of a Baptist congregation at Worcester, where he continued in jail nearly seven years, and died in this city in 1692. A MS. account of his labours, travellings, and writings, was said to have been at Leominster not many years ago. Is it still in existence? Mr. Pardoe was excommunicated, and was buried in a garden at Lowesmoor, near Worcester, where his body, with that of his wife, was discovered some forty or fifty years ago while digging for the purpose of building. The bodies were not disturbed, and a stone was erected to their memory. I am not aware that this still remains.

We now arrive at something more stirring, and may have an interesting peep at a conventicle of "Fifth Monarchy Men" at Oldbury. This sect of religionists had for their distinguishing tenet a belief in the establishment of a fifth universal monarchy, of which Christ was to be the head; while the "saints," under his personal sovereignty, should possess the earth. They appeared in England towards the close of the Protectorate; and in 1660, a few months after the Restoration, they broke out into a serious tumult in London under their leader Venner; many of them lost their lives, some killed by the military, and others executed. In the country the sect continued for some years later. At the concluding Worcestershire Sessions of 1667, one William Cardale deposed that on the 1st of September in that year he took his wife to Oldbury to see her sister, Edward Nightingale's wife, who was lying-in; and after dinner, he being inclined to fall asleep, his brother-in-law asked him to go for a walk; they accordingly went to Oldbury chapel, which they found full of people. After a psalm had been led, the preacher, who was a stranger to him, "made a very strange prayer, praying neither for king, queen, royal familie, nor clergie," and a still stranger sermon followed, from the text "Thy kingdom come," "his doctrine beinge, that Christ hath a kingdome of rewarde for his sufferinge and workinge servants, which in his good time he would possess them, and we ought to pray for;" and he attempted to prove, from the Revelations, Daniel, and other mystical writings, that the aforesaid kingdom was to be on earth. "On the preacher proposing to show when this kingdom was to come, an alarm of soldiers was given, a horse was soon got ready for him, and throwing off his gown and perriwig, he appeared in a grey coat, and speedily worked his way through the crowd and made off." A soldier, named William Perrott, deposed that by command of his officer, Major Wilde, he with others was sent to apprehend this preacher, whose name was Steele, alias Fraser, a Nonconformist; and on arriving at Oldbury chapel they found about 2000 persons there. When the preacher had disappeared, Perrott with two others secured the doors of the chapel; shortly after which some of the congregation "looked out of the windows to see whether any more soldiers appeared, and observing none, they presently swore that three or four were not able to keepe so manye prisoners. Forthwith thereupon they broke open the doors upon us, and layd hold upon my haire, my pistolls, and cloake, and gave me severall blowes upon my head and bodye, and likewise of those soldiers that were present with me. They alsoe forced one of my pistolls out of my hande, and alsoe broake Mr. Hambden's man's pistoll about our heads. After the rest of our partye of horse appeared, most of them runn from us. Some few were took. Alsoe I observed a great many of benches as I supposed newly set upp about ye chapel to receive ye company." What became of the unfortunate prophesier of the coming kingdom doth not appear.

In the year 1669, Thomas Willmot, vicar of Bromsgrove, laid an information at the Sessions to the effect that, "being ready to attend his duty at the funeral of Jane, the wife of John Eckols, was by a tumult of Anabaptists affronted and disturbed whilst I was reading the service. They no sooner came to the grave but irreverently threw the corps thereinto, and having their hats on their heads, immediately, contrary to the orders of the Church, without the least respect to the service of the same, and without either clerk or sexton, with their feete caste in the mold and covered the corps. Amongst which tumult there was one Henry Waldron, who entring into the belman's house without his leave, took away his spade, wherewith John Price, contrary to all civility and decency, notwithstanding he was checked by the minister, with his head covered, persisted to throwe the mold in the aforesaid grave."

The last instance of open disaffection to the church service which is worth a place in this record occurs in 1692, when an information was laid against Michael Bisset, of Feckenham. It appeared that Richard Bond and one Foster having publicly praised a sermon delivered in Feckenham church by a parson named Millard, Bissett swore by God's wounds (a common oath in those days) "That there was never a true word in the same sermon, and that it was all nought and false, and that it would have been a good deede to have sett him downe out of the pulpit with a bowe and bolte (meaning the said preacher), and that he could go down in the meadows and hear as good a sermon under a hedge." Bolt is a short arrow shot from a cross-bow. Hence the saying, "A fool's bolt is soon shot." There are several specimens of these bows and bolts at Goodrich Castle.

The Toleration Act of William III gave immunity to all Protestant Dissenters, except those who denied the Trinity, from the penal laws to which they had been subjected. In the Sessions' order book, date 1696, is a "Mem. That the persons under-named in open Court of Sessions did take the oaths mentioned and appointed to be taken in and by an Act made Anno primo Willi et Marie, entitled 'An Act for abrogating of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and appointing other oaths;' and also made and subscribed the declaration appointed to be made and subscribed in and by an Act made Anno 25 Caroli Secundi, entitled 'An Act for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish recusants,' according to an Act made Annis 7 et Willi tertii Regis, entitled 'An Act requiring the practicers of the law to take the oaths and subscribe the declarations therein mentioned.'" The following are the names of the subscribers in this county:

  • John Soley, Esq.
  • Charles Cocks, Esq.
  • Richard Nanfan,
  • Henry Toye,
  • Thomas Parker,
  • Joshua Bradley,
  • Richard Cowcher,
  • John Yarranton,
  • Richard Teynton,
  • John Ffownes,
  • Edwyn Eyre,
  • Robert Bird,
  • Thomas Partington,
  • Samuel Grove,
  • Thomas Hayward,
  • Thomas Hart,
  • William Cardale,
  • Epaphroditus Bagnall,
  • William Hart,
  • Richard Norbury,
  • Henry Hodges,
  • Richard Herbert,
  • Thomas Oliver,
  • Edmund Rose,
Gent.
22 Maii, 1696.
  • Samuel Hunt,
  • Edward Walker, Advocate,
  • John Price,
  • William Bowkey,
  • Henry Philpott,
  • Edward Hallen,
  • Thomas Millward,
  • Edward Dyson,
  • Godman Atwood,
  • Anthony Ashfield,
  • James Gilbert,
  • John Morris,
  • Robert Parr,
  • Henry Prescott,
  • Edward Walker, jun.,
  • James Nash,
Gent.
Die eadem—the same time the persons under-named subscribed the association:
  • Richard Norbury,
  • Anthony Ashfield,
  • James Gilbert,
  • John Morris,
  • Robert Parr,
  • Henry Prescott,
  • Edward Walker, jun.
  • Godman Atwood,
  • Thomas Milward,
  • Edward Hallen,
  • Henry Philpott,
  • John Price,
  • Edward Walker, Advocate,
  • William Bowkey,
  • Samuel Hunt,
Gent.

An explanation is necessary with regard to "signing the association," as stated above. In Harris's Life of William III, p. 143, under the date of 1688, it is stated that after the arrival of the gentlemen of Somerset and Dorsetshire, at Exeter, "Sir Edward Seymour asked Dr. Burnet 'Why they had not got an association, without which they were only a rope of sand, and none would think themselves bound to stick to them.' The Doctor told him 'It was for want of a man of his authority and credit to support such an advice.'" He then proposed it to the Prince, who, with the Earl of Shrewsbury and all present, approved the motion. Accordingly the Doctor did urge an association, containing "a solemn engagement firmly to adhere together in pursuance of the ends of the Prince's declaration, and in defence thereof, and never to depart from it till the religion, laws, and liberties of the people should be secured by a free Parliament; and if any attempt should be made on the person of the Prince, that it should be revenged on all by whom any such attempt should be made." This association was speedily signed there and in other places, particularly by many in the University of Oxford. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and the principal gentlemen of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, met at Worcester, and declared for the Prince of Orange, when Sir Walter Blount and the Sheriff of Worcestershire were sent prisoners to Ludlow Castle. The declaration, I presume, continued to be signed for several subsequent years.

In the Summer Sessions of the same year "the persons under-named did take the oaths and made and subscribed the declaration of 30 Car. II:"

The persons next following did take the oaths and subscribe the declaration of 25 Car. II:

The persons under-named did sign the Association:

And divers others put the roll.

The only remaining noticeable item affecting Nonconformity is an order made in or about the year 1716, "that an indenture of apprenticeship made between John Cookes and his master, Samuel Gill, be discharged and set aside, it appearing to this court that the master gave his said apprentice imoderate correccon and alsoe employing him in another trade, viz., plateing of gunn barrells and obligeing him to goe to the Presbyterian meeting." It may be stated, in concluding this chapter, that the law enforcing attendance at the parish church on Sunday was not abolished till 1846. Other notes on Nonconformity will be found in this volume.