CHAPTER XVI.
1643.
The Long Parliament, almost from the beginning, took ecclesiastical affairs entirely into its own hands. It assumed control over church property, not, indeed, touching the rights of Puritan patrons, but interfering to a large extent with those advowsons and presentations which belonged to High Churchmen.
As time rolled on, and especially when the war began, not only rights of this description which had belonged to Royalists were forfeited entirely; but we may state in passing, that a wholesale sequestration of property followed, it being then enacted that the estates real and personal of Bishops, Deans and Chapters, and other persons, who had either taken up arms against the Parliament, or contributed aid or assistance to such as did, should be seized, and employed for the benefit of the Commonwealth.[480] Such nets swept within their meshes an abundance of spoil. Ecclesiastical corporations and Royalist nobles, squires, and clergymen, suffered the deprivation not only of their ancient privileges, but of their property and possessions. One forfeiture in particular may be mentioned, illustrative of the control which Parliament assumed over the benefices of the Church. An ordinance appeared commanding the Archbishop of Canterbury to collate to benefices such persons, and such persons only, as were nominated by Parliament.[481] For disobedience to this ordinance he was the following month wholly suspended from the duties and privileges of his office. The temporalities of the archbishopric were claimed by the High Court of Parliament, which ordered that Edward Corbet, a Puritan clergyman, whom Laud had refused to collate, should be by the Vicar General inducted to the living of Chartham, in Kent, a benefice in the Archbishop's gift. The revenues of Deans and Chapters were collected and administered by committees, who paid such sums to such persons for such purposes as Parliament might appoint. The system of pew-rents adopted in some places, like everything else in the Church of England, now came under Parliamentary control. Numerous benefices had been vacated through the death or the ejection of incumbents. How were the vacancies to be filled up? In some instances returned refugees, who had suffered in the days of Laud, were instituted to the vacant benefices.[482] Scotch Divines, and ministers of other Protestant Churches, were also declared eligible for appointment. At the same time Episcopal ordinations were not nullified, and the validity of all Presbyterian ordinations, as a matter of course, was acknowledged by a Presbyterian Parliament.
Committees for Ecclesiastical Affairs.
The Committees for scandalous ministers had early in 1643 been followed by a Committee for plundered ministers, that title being used to designate clergymen who had been ejected from their livings by the Royal army. The Committee for plundered ministers provided them with relief; and the instruction given to this body directed their attention to malignant clergymen, holding benefices in and about town, whose benefices after being sequestered might be appropriated to ministers of a different character. As the plundered were thus put in the place of the scandalous, the Committee for the plundered took cognizance of what had previously been submitted to the Committee for the scandalous. In July they received power to consider cases of scandal apart from charges of malignity, and to dismiss those whose characters would not bear examination. On the 6th of September the Commons ordered the Deputy-Lieutenants and the Committees of Parliament, or any five or more of their number, to take the examinations of witnesses against any ministers who were scandalous in life or doctrine, and also against any who had of late deserted their cures or assisted the forces raised against Parliament.[483]
1643.
This order, upon being examined, shews that subordinate authorities were appointed to co-operate with the superior one—that they were commissioned to discharge magisterial functions in the provinces by collecting evidence, which they were required to transmit to the Committee sitting in London. It is also obvious that this parent Committee itself stood in the same relation to Parliament as other Committees, and that its business was to communicate information to the House, not to exercise any independent control. A very notable puritan phenomenon is this often-vilified body, with its manifold provincial ramifications. Persons may fairly object to Parliament men being invested with such ecclesiastical powers, and they may also consistently complain of the innovations made by such an arrangement upon the ancient ecclesiastical system of England; but nobody can charge this Committee with setting to work in an unbusiness-like manner, or with acting in an arbitrary and impulsive way. No sinecurists—anything but idle—toiling day by day, and that for several hours together, they did their work from beginning to end by line and rule. No committee ever proceeded with more order and with greater regularity. They had definite principles of action, and they carefully followed them. The minutes which they kept, with the signatures of the chairmen, are still extant,[484] and speak for themselves.
Therein we see how one day they resolved to report to the House the conclusions at which they had arrived, and the course which they recommended to be pursued; and how, another day, they finally declared what should be done "by virtue of an order of both Houses."
Dipping into these records, we find the Committee resolving upon the augmentation of poor livings. For example, £8 payable to Ussher, Bishop of Carlisle, out of the impropriate tithes of Allhallows, Cumberland, and the further annual sum of £20, out of the impropriate tithes forfeited by a delinquent, are granted, March 3rd, 1646, for the purpose of increasing the stipend of such minister as the Committee should approve to officiate in the church of Allhallows. A grant of £40, out of a Papist's impropriation, is made on the 15th of July, 1646, for the maintenance of a minister to a chapelry in Lancashire, subject to the approbation of the Divines appointed by ordinance of Parliament for examination of ministers in that county. The incomes of several vicarages are noticed as augmented by grants out of forfeited revenues. Grants also appear for weekly lectures by assistant ministers; for instance, at Tamworth, "by reason of the largeness of parish, and the concourse thereto from other places." A petition to the Committee for sequestration which met at Goldsmiths' Hall is reported as coming from the parish of Benton, and from two contiguous chapelries, complaining that there was but one minister for all those places, and that he was a reader and an alehouse keeper; and also stating that, by reason of the corruption of Episcopacy, only £10 a year out of the glebe lands and tithes had been paid to a curate, who, on account of his poverty, was constrained to keep an alehouse.
Tithes.
1644.
Tithes, of course, were payable when harvest came. Each rector would, as of old, have the right of sending an agent among the corn shocks, that he might affix to every tenth some twig or other sign of ecclesiastical appropriation. But the revolution at the commencement of the civil wars had thrown into jeopardy such ecclesiastical claims. Not only could the farmer then, as always, expose the rector to damage and loss, but he could also successfully resist the setting out and appropriation altogether. Greater hazard still, perhaps, attached to the demand "of rates for tithes;" and altogether it is plain that the distress of the clergy must in some cases have been very great.[485] Consequently, on the 8th of November, 1644, Parliament issued an ordinance stating, that there remained not any such compulsory means for recovery of tithes by ecclesiastical proceedings as before had been the case; and the remedy now provided was to make complaint to two justices of the peace, who were authorized to summon the person complained of, and after examination on oath, to adjudge the case with costs; a method which, at least for its simplicity and summariness, presented a striking contrast to all previous modes of procedure in ecclesiastical or civil courts. In case of non-payment, distraint might be made by order of the justices, and if there remained nothing available for that purpose, the defaulter could be committed to prison.[486] The city of London was exempted from the operation of the ordinance, an exemption afterwards repealed. We may add that vicars probably would be exposed to special inconvenience in collecting their small tithes, whilst their incomes, even when fully paid, would in many cases be very inconsiderable. Hence, on turning over the Parliament Journals, we find orders given for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to consider how poor vicarages and cures could be raised to a competent maintenance out of Cathedral revenues and impropriate parsonages.
We may further observe that in the Norwich Corporation Records there are numerous entries illustrating the ways in which local Committees co-operated with the Committee at Westminster, for uniting parishes, enquiring into cathedral revenues, and supporting city clergymen.
The House however was not content to leave all the details of ecclesiastical business even to their own farreaching and laborious Commissioners, but Argus-eyed, and Briareus-handed, looked into and managed almost everything itself.[487]
Church and Parliament.
Although Parliament claimed the absolute right to control benefices, there were some things needful for the induction of clergymen which could not be comprehended within the range of Parliamentary functions. Ministers already accredited, having received Episcopal or Presbyterian orders, found no difficulty in the way of collation; but what method was to be pursued relative to ministerial candidates still unordained? To meet this difficulty the Westminster Assembly recommended the temporary appointment of committees for the ordination of ministers—only their temporary appointment—for whenever Presbyterianism should be fully established, then the Church would of course do all things after a Presbyterian fashion. Yet not without difficulty did the Divines reach a conclusion on this subject, as the Independents and Presbyterians differed to some extent respecting the nature of ordination.
1644.
Church and Parliament.
The entire control of Church temporalities centred in Parliament.[488] The arrangement had great inconvenience. How such a scheme (had it continued) would have worked in the long run, may be conjectured from the contests inevitably arising, whenever the civil and sacred authorities have come into such close connexion. The quarrels of Hildebrand and Henry IV. are but conspicuous, perhaps extreme illustrations, of what naturally results from an intimate alliance of two such powers as Church and State when guided by different impulses. Only so long as sympathy prevailed between the two bodies at Westminster could coincident authority continue. The moment that any change of feeling arose between them, their co-operation would be at an end. The temporary rules which were adopted with regard to ordination were the same as those established with a view to permanence the year following.[489] They required candidates to take the covenant, to undergo an examination in religion and learning, and to prove a call to the ministry. If the candidate happened to be deficient in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, he had severer tests applied to his knowledge of logic and philosophy. But the machine did not always work smoothly. For example, the Committee for plundered ministers sequestered a Mr. Leader, vicar of the parish of Thaxted, in Essex, and settled in his room a Mr. Hall. The patroness, Lady Maynard, would not present Mr. Hall, and preferred to appoint a Mr. Croxon, a man represented as notorious for drunkenness and profanity. Articles accordingly were exhibited against the latter, in consequence of which Croxon was sequestered. Lady Maynard being allowed again to nominate, the well-affected parishioners protested against the concession of that privilege. The Commissioners, however, stood by her ladyship's rights as patroness, and she now recommended another person of the same name as before. But on his being submitted to the Assembly, they would not sanction his appointment. Three times they declined, and the Lords approved of the refusal, yet after all, in some clandestine way, the candidate obtained an order for induction. This person, whom the Divines pronounced the most troublesome they ever had to do with, came to Thaxted Church, and insisted upon preaching. The sequestrators stood at the door of the desk to prevent his doing so; but the mayor and churchwarden espoused his cause, as did also the rabble of the parish. The latter assaulted the sequestrators, tore their hair, rent their neck-bands, and seized their hats and cloaks. "Let them alone," said the mayor, "and let the women decide the case." This fray in the parish church ended in the commitment of parson, mayor, and town-clerk to prison, "whence they were released on submission." This case gives us a curious insight into the local church politics of those days.[490]
