CHAPTER XI.
After tracing the political history of the Church, and the development of Nonconformity in different directions, I proceed to gather up a number of facts illustrative of the worship and social religious life of England after the Restoration.
I. The injuries done to cathedrals during the Civil Wars were repaired, and such partitions as had been erected to adapt them for Nonconformist use were removed.
Seth Ward, first as Dean, afterwards as Bishop of Exeter, improved the cathedral of that diocese. The same may be said respecting Salisbury, to which he was translated. That cathedral had been kept in repair during the Commonwealth, at whose expense no one knew, for the workmen engaged upon it were wont to reply to inquirers, “They who employ us well pay us—trouble not yourselves to inquire who they are. Whoever they are they do not desire to have their names known.” But Ward increased the beauty of the building, for he paved the cloisters and choir, the latter with black and white marble.[252]
CHURCHES.
Hacket persevered in his labours at Lichfield until the sacred edifice reached its completion. He raised money “by bare-faced begging,” and no gentleman lodged or baited in the City whom he did not visit, that he might solicit contributions towards the object so dear to his heart. North, who says this, also remarks, that the Bishop adorned the choir so “completely and politely,” that he had never seen a “more laudable and well-composed structure.” He also mentions the Cathedral of York as “stately,” only “disgraced by a wooden roof.” Durham too is described by the same pen as most ancient, with the “marks of old ruin;” and of that, and of York Minster, the judge says that “the gentry affect to walk there to see and be seen.”[253] Dr. John Barwick, who, for his loyalty, was first rewarded by the bestowment upon him of the Deanery of Durham, exerted himself vigorously during the short time that he held that office, in the reparation of the cathedral and the prebendal houses.[254] And when removed to the Deanery of St. Paul’s he evinced equal zeal in promoting the restoration of that edifice. The rebuilding of it after the fire was a great undertaking, and called forth the strenuous efforts of Sancroft, who succeeded Barwick in the Deanery. To him, as much as to any one, posterity owes the adoption of Sir Christopher Wren’s design, after abortive attempts had been made to build anew upon the old foundations. Sancroft’s correspondence with the architect indicates his interest in the preparation of the plans; the passing of the Coal Act, by which funds were secured, was promoted by his exertions, and amongst the voluntary subscribers the Dean’s name is conspicuous.[255] The first stone was laid in 1675, and ten years afterwards the edifice had so far advanced that the walls of the choir and side-aisles were completed, and the porticoes and pillars of the dome were finished.
The style of architecture adopted in new ecclesiastical structures was debased Grecian; of which a specimen may be found at Northampton, in All Saints’ Church, with its Ionic columns supporting a balustrade, in the centre of which—symbolical of the worship of royalty—stands the statue of Charles II., who gave towards the building a large quantity of timber. The pencil of Sir Godfrey Kneller was employed upon pictures of Moses and Aaron for the decoration of the altar-piece; there, and in several cathedrals and large churches, remained until of late, hideous examples of the wooden screens and galleries of the period. In connection with this allusion to ecclesiastical carpentry, it is not impertinent to notice that there is a paper in the Record Office, dated February 18th, 1677, thanking Williamson for a new pulpit just erected at Bridekirk, “gilded with gold and silver for its better adornment, and all covered over with a brownish ointment.” The churchwardens ask for a new pulpit-cloth and cushion. Sculptured sepulchres of the same age, now, after a complete revolution in public taste, excite as much ridicule as they then excited admiration; yet long before it was said, “Princes’ images on their tombs do not lie, as they were wont, seeming to pray to Heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks, as if they died of the tooth-ache. They are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their faces.”[256]
CHURCHES.
The ornaments of the church, like its architecture and its sculpture, expressed the taste of the day. An altar “especially adorned, the white marble enclosure curiously and richly carved,”—flowers and garlands, the work of Grinling Gibbons,—purple velvet fringed with gold, with the letters I H S richly embroidered,—sacramental plate valued at £200—these are notable objects which, in the new church of St. James, Westminster, erected at that time, called forth admiring words from the eminent Anglican John Evelyn.[257] They indicate a feeling totally at variance with mediæval Catholicism; and nowhere does it appear that in those days vases of flowers, or painted banners, or other accompaniments of mediæval Ritualism, were in any case employed. On the contrary, a keen jealousy of Romanism extensively prevailed, and it may be discovered very plainly in the following passage, extracted from a contemporary diary:—“The Church of Allhallows, Barking, in London, was presented for innovations, as bowing to the East, and for the picture of the Angel Gabriel over the altar. It came to a trial, Monday, March 1st, and the picture was brought into the Court; and the minister that caused it to be set up submitted to the Court, and the picture must be set up no more, and so the business ends.”[258]
In Articles of Visitation we meet with minute inquiries respecting parish churches; but many of the old fabrics must have been in a miserable condition, if we may judge from complaints made in the diocese of Winchester; it being said that “some in late times were totally ruined and demolished, and those of them still standing were much decayed and out of repair.” The Bishop, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament, united some of the parishes, “for the encouragement of able ministers to undertake the care of them.”[259] The cost expended on the church at Euston, in Suffolk, is mentioned as “most laudable,” in contrast with other Houses of God in that county, which resembled thatched cottages rather than “temples in which to serve the Most High.”[260] Even cathedrals were badly furnished, and in sorry repair. “Are the uncomely forms,” asks the Bishop of Durham, in 1668, “and coarse mats, lately used at the administration of the Holy Communion, for such persons as usually resort thither, without the rails, taken away; and others more comely put in their place, and decently covered, as heretofore hath been accustomed? And are the partitions on each hand of these forms, under the two arches of the church next the said rails, well framed in joiners’ work, and there set up for the better keeping out of the wind and cold, which otherwise do many times molest and annoy the communicant?”[261]
WORSHIP.
It was required that in every parish church there should be a stone font; a comely pulpit, with a decent cloth or cushion; a carpet of silk, or some decent stuff, on the communion-table during service; and a fair cloth for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper; also a cup and flagon of silver, chests for alms and for registers; and it was also ordered that in churches there should be placed the Book of Canons, a Book of Offices for the 30th of January, the 29th of May, and the 5th of November, a copy of Jewel’s Apology well and fairly bound, and a record—in which strange preachers should write their names in the presence of churchwardens. Notwithstanding the careful and repeated inquiries made respecting such matters in Articles of Visitation, it is highly probable that they were often neglected.[262]
II. From the buildings and their furniture we turn to the worship, including its vestments and mode of celebration. Whatever may be the exact meaning of the rubric prefixed to the Order of Morning Prayer, chasubles and other priestly attire used in the second year of King Edward, were not worn after the Restoration, nor did any of the Anglican prelates attempt to enforce their use. Copes, according to the Twenty-fourth Canon, were prescribed to be worn by the principal ministers at the Holy Communion in cathedrals; but in other churches ministers were to read the Divine service, and administer the sacraments, in a decent and comely surplice with sleeves, and wearing University hoods according to their degrees. With such an arrangement the visitation articles of the prelates are in accordance. Croft, Bishop of Hereford, that very low Churchman, took care to express his decided approbation “of a pure white robe on the minister’s shoulders,” emblematical of the purity of heart which became the service.[263]
Wind instruments were, for a time used in some cathedral choirs, but they soon gave place to organs; and the boys failed not to bring “a fair book of the anthem and service, and sometimes the score,” to distinguished strangers.[264]
Baptism was performed according to the Prayer Book, and a public administration of it in the case of those who had passed the age of childhood sometimes attracted considerable notice. The following anecdote on this subject occurs in a letter:—“Mr. John Harrington (whose father was some time since one of the serjeants-at-arms to His Majesty) had his boy baptized in the church; he being about fifteen years old, and not baptized before, and the son of a Nonconformist. To see which the church was fuller than it useth to be at other times; he having God-fathers and God-mothers according to the ceremony of the Church.”[265]
The Lord’s Supper was administered from the table placed by the wall, at the east end of the church, in accordance with Laudian precedents, in spite of the rubrical direction that it “shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel; where morning and evening prayers are appointed to be said.” In some churches, the Communion Service, on non-communion days, was read from the desk, it being alleged, “that it was indecent to go to the altar and back, with the surplice still on, to the homily or sermon”—a reason which implies that the surplice was worn in the pulpit, even by those who read the Communion Service in the desk. Clergymen left the desk, after the second lesson, to baptize in the font at the west end of the church.[266]
WORSHIP.
On special occasions, cathedrals witnessed extraordinary processions—as when Judges, with the Sheriffs and their officers, attended at Assize sermons; or when a Mayor and Aldermen, clothed in municipal robes, with their gold chains, marched or rode thither, through streets of quaint architecture, to celebrate festivals civic or sacred. A Royal visit eclipsed all mere annual pageants; and it is related that when Charles II., in the year 1671, visited the City of Norwich, as the guest of Lord Henry Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, His Majesty went to the grand old Norman temple in the Close—the pride of the City—and was “sung into the church with an anthem; and when he had ended his devotion at the east end of the church, where he kneeled on the hard stone, he went to the Bishop’s palace [then occupied by Reynolds], and was there nobly entertained.”[267]
St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, became the scene of peculiar solemnities. The Feast of St. George was there celebrated in 1662; and the knights elect were constrained to receive their investiture below, in the choir, yet directly under their proper stalls, because of “the great concourse of people which at that time had flocked to Windsor (greedy to behold the glory of that solemnity, which for many years had been intermitted), and rudely forced not only into and filled the lower row of stalls, but taken up almost the whole choir.” Two years afterwards, at the Feast of St. George, there was an anthem, composed for the solemnity, accompanied by the organ and other instrumental music; this was the first time that instrumental music was introduced into the Royal chapel.[268]
Pompous funerals had taken place during the Commonwealth, particularly in Westminster Abbey. Funerals more pompous still occurred in the same national edifice, with a splendour surpassing what might be exhibited elsewhere. Monk, Duke of Albemarle, in 1670, was conveyed “by the King’s orders, with all respect imaginable,” in a long procession; and within the sacred walls the remains were met by the Dean and Prebendaries, who wore copes; and, in connection with the service, offerings were made at the altar.[269]
On Easter Day, at the Royal Chapel, when the Bishop of Rochester preached before the King, and the sacrament followed, “there was perfume burnt before the office began.”[270]
The Restoration brought with it much irreverence in religion. The worship at Lichfield was performed “with more harmony and less huddle” than in any church in England, except in St. Paul’s at a later period;[271] a laudable exception proving a disgraceful rule. Complaints were officially made, by a circular letter in the name of Archbishop Sheldon, respecting the slovenly performance of sacred duties by Deans, Canons, and other dignitaries. Reading the service and administering the sacraments had been neglected by such persons, as if they had been offices beneath their importance, to be performed only by Vicars or petty Canons.[272] Croft, Bishop of Hereford, complains that “such dirty nasty surplices as most of them wear, and especially the singers in cathedrals (where they should be most decent), is rather an imitation of their dirty lives,” and had given his “stomach such a surfeit of them” as that he had almost an aversion to them all; and he adds, “I am confident, had not this decent habit been so indecently abused, it had never been so generally loathed.”[273] And Trelawny, of Bristol, laments, in reference to the united parishes of Elberton and Littleton, “I never saw so ill churches, or such ill parishioners. In one the sacrament has not been administered since the Restoration, in the other very seldom; and all the plate is but a small silver bowl, and that is kept at a Quaker’s house, with my late orders to the contrary.”[274] In Articles of Visitation by the Bishop of Lincoln, it is asked whether churchwardens took care that people should not stand idle, or talk together in the church-porch, or walk in the church-yard during the time of sacred offices, or lean or lay their hats on the communion-table; and whether no minstrels, morrice-dancers, dogs, hawks, or hounds were brought into the church to the disturbance of the congregation.[275]
WORSHIP.
Neglect on the part of ecclesiastical officers was accompanied by irreverence on the part of people in general; in all of which may be traced—beyond the result of certain Puritan extravagances during the Civil War—the effect of educational habits which date as far back as the Reformation, and even earlier still, when worn-out superstitions produced contempt. In some cases during the reign of Charles II. impious frivolity and brutal ignorance are apparent. A curious example of this is furnished in the letter of a Canon Residentiary at York, written February 12th, 1673, and preserved amongst the State Papers:—“On Sundays and holidays (when the young people of the town are afloat), 400 or 500 would walk, talk, and do much worse things, to the great disturbance of Divine service (not to mention other aggravations), that nothing could be heard, though with all, I have used such temper and moderation in it, that nothing hath at any time been done against any of them, further than to urge them either to go in to prayers, or to go out of the church, unless sometimes I have catched at a rude boy’s hat, and kept it till the end of the prayers, and given it him (with a chiding) again. Howbeit, this, it seems, so exasperated the youth of the town, that yesterday (being Shrove Tuesday) they, in time of Divine service, broke open the church doors (which I had caused to be shut), and when (after service ended) I was going to my house, they so affronted and abused me, that Captain Henry Wood, and sundry other officers of the garrison, who were walking in the church, were forced not only to come, but to send for two files of musketeers, to my rescue.” The writer then relates that, after the soldiers had left, the mob attacked his house, broke his windows, and did damage to the extent of £40; and would possibly have set fire to his house, had they not been restrained by the military. The Lord Mayor of the City refused to interfere, as the church-yard was not within his liberty.
REVENUES.
III. Episcopal revenues were unequally distributed.[276] The Bishop of Durham received, in 1670 and afterwards, an annual income of £3,280; previously to which his resources were so limited, that it was computed not more than £1,500 remained after he had paid subsidies and first-fruits. Durham House, in the Strand, had been seized by Queen Elizabeth; although reclaimed by the Bishop upon her death, it never again became the episcopal residence; but Aukland Palace, which used to be to Durham what Croydon used to be to Lambeth, remained in the Bishops’ possession, and furnished an opportunity for the richest hospitalities. Ely Place, where Shakespeare’s “good strawberries” grew in the garden, with its vineyard, meadow, and orchard, had been appropriated to Sir Christopher Hatton by Queen Elizabeth; yet Bishop Laney had possession of the palace, and died there in 1675. The Bishops of Carlisle had long lost Worcester House, in the Strand; and the prelates of Winchester had leased out “their very fair house well repaired” (in Southwark), which had “a large wharf and landing-place,” to occupy a mansion in the suburb of Chelsea.[277] The provincial palaces of the Bishops surpassed those which they had in the Metropolis, and were well-known centres of social attraction and entertainment. Whilst lamentations were poured forth by some over the robbery and spoliation of sees, so that it was said a mean gentleman of £200 in land yearly would not exchange his worldly state and condition with divers Bishops,[278]—Burnet speaks of the extravagance of the class generally, and represents them as a bad pattern “to all the lower dignitaries, who generally took more care of themselves than of the Church.” It is a fact, however, which it would be unjust not to mention, that many of the Bishops were large contributors to the repairs of sacred buildings, and to other ecclesiastical objects. Cosin, for instance, expended the income of the first seven years of his episcopacy in the improvement of property belonging to the see of Durham, and in establishing various charitable foundations.
The see of Bristol was extremely poor, and Hereford yielded only £800 a year.[279] Yet Brian Duppa, after his translation to the see of Winchester, which he held but a year and a half, is reported to have received in fines as much as £50,000. Out of this large amount, however, he remitted £30,000 to his tenants, and expended £16,000 in acts of charity.[280] Morley disposed of almost all his income in benefactions. Sheldon’s gifts were computed at upwards of £66,000.[281]
REVENUES.
Palaces, deaneries, and prebendal houses, like cathedrals and churches, had suffered in the wars. Their reparation, and the business connected with raising funds for the purpose, largely occupied the attention of the restored possessors. Hacket, so successful in the re-edification of his cathedral, failed to complete the re-edification of his palace, and left the work to his successor, who shamefully neglected it; but it should be remembered that the restoration of the palaces at Exeter and Salisbury are amongst the good deeds ascribed to Seth Ward.[282] Sancroft procured an Act of Parliament which enabled him to lease out shops and tenements in St. Paul’s Churchyard, upon condition of expending £2,500, before September 30th, 1673, in building a commodious deanery; and the Privy Council, after noticing, in their minutes, that the houses of the Dean and Prebendaries of Winchester, in the late rebellion, were totally demolished, and the greatest part of two other houses likewise pulled down, and three only left standing on the old foundations, very ruinous and out of repair, gave orders, with a view to facilitate the rebuilding, that there should be a repeal of the clauses in the statutes of the Church “which concern succession in vacant prebends, and the reparation of deans’ and prebends’ houses.”[283] Large demands were made upon Chapter revenues, not only for repairs, but for Royal presents and charities; and some cathedral stalls furnished little emolument to their occupants: so that, speaking of a prebend, Croft of Hereford says, “This thing, though small (worth not above £80 per annum) is the best and only considerable thing in my gift, my bishopric being as wretched in this—to my great discomfort—as in the revenue.”[284] Deans and Canons could not vie with Bishops in hospitality, but the comforts of life were amply provided and enjoyed in snug and cozy abodes, within the limits of the cathedral close: and North mentions the good ale and small beer brewed from South Country malt, and supplied from the Prebend’s cellars to his relative the Judge, when visiting the City of Carlisle.[285]
In the year 1663 it was computed that there were 12,000 church livings, of which 3,000 were impropriate, and 4,165 were sinecures without resident clergymen. Considering the small means possessed by some distinguished clergymen, we are not surprised at the eager applications with which they beset Secretary Williamson, whenever vacancies occurred in ecclesiastical posts of a promising kind. Sometimes bribes were offered to promote success, as appears from a letter written to Williamson by a clergyman named Gregory, who sought a stall in a cathedral. He said he had a friend near the Earl of Clarendon; but, the Earl’s interest failing, he desired the Secretary to procure a grant of the next prebend in either of the places he referred to; and he promised gladly, upon the passing of the seal, to gratify his friend with one hundred pieces. A living in any county, if considerable, would be no less welcome, though the simoniacal oath deterred the writer from anything more than an indefinite engagement. He could answer for it, that his Lordship of Gloucester would give him such a character as showed him deserving of the preferment desired.[286]
REVENUES.
To pass from this shot so skilfully but so illegally fired into the ecclesiastical preserves of the State—whether it brought anything into the hands of this ministerial poacher is not worth inquiry—we light upon other examples, in abundance, of clergymen patiently waiting and eagerly asking for the bestowment of patronage. The Rector of Meonstoke, Hampshire, informed the influential man at head-quarters that he had just fulfilled his course of preaching in the Cathedral Church of Chichester as a minor prophet, which rendered him capable of advancement to a residentiary’s place, if he could obtain an election. There was a place vacant, and he now solicited the Secretary’s interest with the Dean, who was Clerk of the Closet,—as he would not deny such an important personage anything,—and the petitioner was sure that a certain Canon he mentions would agree with the Dean; and both together could overrule the Chapter, which at that time consisted of them and two others. The latter, indeed, were stiffly resolved for a Mr. Sefton, and the Dean had thoughts of the thing for himself; but the writer presumed the Dean would get loose to it when he understood it was below him. Should he, however, continue in such inclination, the petitioner asked that he might be the Dean’s successor. The place would be a preferment to the suppliant Rector, who considered he would not be unacceptable to the Church and City, and it would redeem him from the desolate condition he was in by the death of his dear Betty.[287] Again, Bishop Reynolds appointed Dr. Mylles to be his Chancellor in the diocese of Norwich, by patent under his Episcopal seal dated 13th of September, 1661. The Chancellor requested the Dean and Chapter to confirm the patent, which they refused to do, without assigning any reason for their refusal. He accordingly applied to the King, and prayed that he would be graciously pleased to enforce the needful confirmation of the patent by the proper ecclesiastical authorities. In urging upon His Majesty this petition, Dr. Mylles notices an objection made to him, on the ground of his having been on the side of the Parliament in the late troubles. To remove the objection, he asserts that he had never disobliged any of the King’s friends; that when he discovered Cromwell’s designs, he quitted the army; that he was ejected from the University at Oxford for declining to take the Engagement; that he had served under the Duke of Albemarle, and had helped to bring in the King. This petition was backed by Rushworth, who pleaded, amongst other things, in his client’s favour, that at private meetings, where he thought he might speak without danger, he had not hesitated to contribute counsel and advice towards His Majesty’s restoration, which had produced upon Lord Fairfax, and other considerable persons, a good effect.[288]
To cite another case:—“Most honoured Sir,”—wrote Dr. Fell, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, to Williamson, immediately after the death of Dr. William Fuller, who had been translated from Limerick to Lincoln,—“it is a privilege our people here take to themselves to bestow all bishoprics before the King disposes of them; and they, having, upon the first news of the vacancy of Lincoln, made the Provost to be the successor, went on, in the same method of liberality, to bestow his places; and upon Sunday night one of the most popular Bachelors in Divinity that we have in town came to me upon that errand, signifying his concern on behalf of the Master of Pembroke; and on Monday several others, of other houses, made the same application. I told them all, that first it was very indecent to begin a canvass before a place was actually void, and probably a considerable time would pass before there would be a vacancy; besides, they should consider that Dr. Tully might justly pretend to the place, and, if he did, would not fail of being assisted by his friends.” To move on behalf of Dr. Hall, he goes on to say, might be a great unkindness to him, since he did not appear as a candidate, nor probably would like to have his name brought in question; besides, it would create a competition and disturbance in the University; and therefore he had desired his friends not to proceed in the matter.[289] Dr. Tully, referred to in this letter—an eminent Divine and Controversialist, of whom notice will be taken in our review of the theology of the period—was not an unconcerned spectator of the changes occurring at the time, and the excitement which they produced; and I find amongst the State Papers the following exquisite specimen of the characteristic flattery of the age preserved in a letter which he wrote, on Holy Thursday, to his friend at Court:—“Right Honourable,—Having no way else to express the sense of my greatest obligations to you, I beg you will commiserate so far as to accept this renewal of my heartiest acknowledgments. I hasten to make it, not for fear I should forget your favours (I know that to be next impossibility), but to shun the pain of delay, from the weight and pressure of them. It is some ease to a grateful mind, under such a load of obligations, to air itself in the field where they grow. Most honoured Sir, amongst all the rest of your noble kindnesses to me, I must single that out of the crowd, which made you unkind (I had almost said, unnatural) to yourself, to let me know how much you are my friend. I can but thank you, and tell stories at home and abroad of your goodness to me, and heartily pray for the increase of all honour to you, with a long enjoyment, and the reward at last of a blessed immortality.”[290]
REVENUES.
These well-timed compliments were not in vain; for, though Tully did not obtain any preferment in consequence of the death of the Bishop of Lincoln, he was immediately afterwards promoted to the Deanery of Ripon, upon the death of Dr. John Neile.
Dr. Barlow, a well-known Oxford man, and an eager aspirant for a bishopric, obtained the see of Lincoln, and wrote on the 29th of May, as mentioned already, to his friend, the Secretary, stating that fees, first-fruits, and other charges cost him £1,500 or £2,000 before he could receive a penny from the bishopric. “I was never in debt,” he says, “yet borrow I must, and, to enable me to repay honestly, I mean to stay here (as others I see do in the like case) till a little after Lady-day next. My College and Margaret Lecture I can (without any dispensation) keep, and perform the duties of both till then.”[291]
Amidst the turnings of the preferment-wheel at that time, Dr. Hall, referred to in Vice-Chancellor Fell’s letter, was elected to the Margaret professorship, vacated at length by Barlow’s resignation.
In July of the same year, 1675, another letter reached Whitehall, upon a similar subject. “It is thought here,” wrote Dr. John Wallis, the celebrated Mathematician at Oxford, “that the Bishop of Worcester is either dead, or at least not likely to subsist long, which will give occasion of alterations. If that or any other occasion give you opportunity of doing a kindness to your servant, or my son, I believe His Majesty would be very ready to grant, if we knew what to ask. I have signified to Dr. Conant by his son your good thoughts of him.” We must now terminate these illustrations.
IV. By an easy transition we pass from ecclesiastical revenues to ecclesiastical courts. Both the Archidiaconal and the Consistorial resumed their activity after the Restoration, and before them were brought numerous charges of delinquency, respecting clergymen and laymen. It would be beyond my purpose to enter into the penetralia of these intricate proceedings; it will be sufficient to notice the nature of some of the accusations on which individuals were arraigned, as illustrative of the social life of the period. Yet before doing so I must notice two circumstances, which require more attention than they have received from historians. The first is this:—
ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
By the Act of the 13th Charles II. cap. 12, which restored the jurisdiction of the ordinary Ecclesiastical Courts, but abolished that of the extraordinary High Commission Court, it was expressly provided that there should no longer be any administration of the ex-officio oath, by which persons were compelled to accuse, or to purge themselves of any criminal matter. But as it has been recently remarked, whilst the letter of this enactment seems to have been so far observed, that an accused clergyman or other person, liable to deprivation, could not be obliged to answer on oath as to the truth of the charge,—the spirit of the enactment, in certain other cases, was violated to a great extent. For, in the administration of articles to a defendant in a cause of correction, the practice was to charge the commission of the offence on the ground of public “fame,” without specific evidence, and to require the defendant to answer on oath, who, if he failed to do so, was treated as having admitted the truth of the allegation. Thus, instead of the burden of proving guilt being thrown on the accuser, the burden of establishing innocence seems to have rested on the accused, and he became liable to be called upon to make “canonical purgation;” i.e., “to declare on oath that he was not guilty of the offence, and to produce a certain number of witnesses, as ‘compurgators,’ to swear that they believed his declaration to be true.”[292] This circumstance shows, in what a limited degree the Act of Charles II., restoring the ecclesiastical courts, diminished even oppressive tendencies; how, whilst it altered them in form, it left scope for the exercise of their former spirit, and how they remained instruments of injustice and cruelty, to be used by those who were malignantly or resentfully disposed. At the same time we should carefully weigh the number and the nature of the appeals made from the judgment of the lower to the decision of the higher authority. To this I will presently direct attention.
The second circumstance is that the High Court of Delegates was restored upon the return of Charles II. This court, which had from ancient times received secular appeals, acquired, in the reign of Henry VIII., the power of deciding ecclesiastical appeals from all ordinary ecclesiastical tribunals in England and Wales.[293] It appears that the only court not within its appellate jurisdiction was the Court of High Commission. Cases of doctrine, and cases of discipline, unsatisfactorily litigated in the lower courts, came up before this tribunal of delegates for final review and decision. The constitution of the court was remarkable. Although exercising a supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the lay element preponderated. Of the fifty-one Commissions between 1660 and 1688, two were composed of Bishops and Civilians; eighteen included Bishops, Judges, and Civilians; one contained Peers, Bishops, Judges, and Civilians; eleven of the Commissions were directed to Civilians only, and nineteen to Judges and Civilians.[294] It may be added that soon after the Restoration the use of Latin was resumed in their proceedings. The fact, with regard to the strong infusion of laical power into the constitution of this important court, not only throws an instructive light upon the relations of Church and State, but it proves that for none of the acts of this court, at that time under consideration, whether righteous or unrighteous, are the clergy to be held entirely responsible; with some of them they had nothing whatever to do.
ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
It is to the Parliamentary Returns of the appeals made to the delegates, that we are indebted for the knowledge of the following ecclesiastical causes:—
A clergyman, named Slader, Rector of Birmingham, had been brought before the Court of Arches on an appeal from the Consistory of Lichfield, and finally his case came before the Court of Delegates, by which court he was decreed to be sequestered ab officio suo clericali. He stood charged with having forged letters of orders, with disaffection to the King, with preaching amongst the Quakers, railing in the pulpit at the parishioners, and indulging in swearing, gaming, perjury, and incest. Some of these charges were very scandalous, but to them were added others of a most curious and extraordinary description,—for this man was accused of practising jugglery, of pretending, on one occasion, to cut off his son’s head, and to set it on again, and of “taking money for the sight thereof.” One Dr. Meades was deprived, on an appeal from the Arches, and from the Consistory of Winchester, for non-residence, neglect of duty, allowing the vicarage to fall into decay, and for not having read the Thirty-Nine Articles within the time prescribed by law, after his institution and induction. William Woodward, Rector of Trotterscliffe, Kent, was charged with “having uttered various profane and blasphemous speeches, e.g., that the Lord’s Prayer was not commanded to be used; that the Church of England might as well be called the Church of Rome; that he had attained such perfection that he could not sin; and that one William Francklin, a ropemaker, who had lived with him, was the Christ and Saviour.” Sentence of deprivation was ultimately pronounced in this case.[295] Theophilus Hart, in the diocese of Peterborough, was corrected, punished, and condemned in costs, for not conforming in the exercise of his clerical office: he did not baptize infants with the sign of the cross, he did not catechise the young, and he omitted many parts of the services prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer. Woodward and Hart seem to be the only clergymen during this period who appealed to the delegates in proceedings carried on against false doctrine. One Clewer, Vicar of Croydon, figures in local history as a very disgraceful person; he was tried and burnt in the hand at the Old Bailey for stealing a silver cup. His case came before the Court of Appeal, and the deprivation previously pronounced by the Court of Arches received confirmation.[296]
The laity, as well as the clergy, being subject to the ecclesiastical tribunals, causes relating to the former, after being tried elsewhere, were finally adjudicated by the delegates. One man was proceeded against for having three children unbaptized, and for not receiving the Lord’s Supper; a second, for absence from public worship; a third, for not keeping in repair the chancel of the parish church; and a fourth, for contempt of the law, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in teaching boys without having obtained any faculty or license.[297] Ancient forms of Church discipline sometimes followed conviction. A party, charged in the Consistory Court of Norwich with defamation, was sentenced to do penance in the parish church of Darsham, by repeating, after the minister, words of confession and contrition.[298]
ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
As to the number of appeals there may be reckoned up forty-five during a little more than a century, between the year 1533—the date of the commencement of the ecclesiastical power of the court—and the year 1641, the period of its temporary suppression. There were forty-six between the date of its re-establishment, in 1660, and the year of the Revolution, 1688. This would look as if more dissatisfaction was felt with the judgment of the lower ecclesiastical authority during this twenty-eight years after the Restoration, than during the hundred and eight years before the outbreak of the Parliament struggle with Charles I. Hence it might be inferred that the grievances of ecclesiastical rule increased in the reign of Charles II.; but this would not be a fair deduction, because the High Commission Court, which had been by far the most oppressive tribunal for spiritual causes, and which had been exempted from the supervision of the Court of Delegates, remained no longer in existence; and thereby a large amount of injustice was prevented. Forty-five appeals in twenty-eight years from all the ecclesiastical courts of England and Wales do not form a large number, and would seem to show that trials in ecclesiastical cases must have been much less numerous than when the High Commission existed in full play. Very few cases of appeal touching Dissenters appear in the records of the Court of Delegates. Dissenters, of course, were subject to trouble and annoyance from Archidiaconal and Consistorial authorities, but the main sorrows of Nonconformity, under the last two Stuarts’ reign, arose from the operation of Statute Law, as found in the Uniformity, Conventicle, and Five Mile Acts.
Amongst instances of discipline exercised by Bishops upon the clergy, there occurred one so striking and curious that it deserves particular mention. Dr. Lloyd, who held the see of Peterborough from 1679 to 1685, and was thence transferred to Norwich, seems to have been extraordinarily strict in the discharge of his episcopal functions, and to have visited offending ministers with public punishment. In accordance with his habitual zeal for purity in the faith and morals of the Church, he required the following recantation to be read in his cathedral by the person whose name is mentioned, and whose case is thus described:—“I, Thomas Ashenden, being deeply sensible of the foul dishonour I have done to our most holy religion, and the great scandal I have given by a late profane abuse of the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, which I wrote and caused to be published, do here, in the presence of God, and of His ministers, and of this congregation, most heartily bewail, with unfeigned sorrow, both that notorious offence, and also all my other sins, which betrayed me into it, most humbly begging forgiveness of God, and of his Church, whose heaviest censures I have justly deserved. And as I earnestly desire that none of my brethren (much less our holy function or the Church) may be the worse thought of by any, by reason of my miscarriages, so I do faithfully promise, by God’s grace, to endeavour to behave myself hereafter so religiously in my place and calling, that I may be no more a discredit to them. In which resolution that I may persist, I beg and implore the assistance of all your prayers, and desire withal, that this my retractation and sincere profession of repentance, may be made as public as my crimes have been, that none may be tempted hereafter to do evil by my example.”[299]
NONCONFORMIST PLACES OF WORSHIP.
V. There existed, in different parts of the country, buildings entirely set apart for Nonconformist worship. Some of them were barns and warehouses adapted to the purpose, and in Norwich the refectory and dormitory of the old Blackfriars’ Convent, which, after the Restoration, had been turned into granaries for the City corn, were fitted up by permission of the Court of Mayoralty, for the use of the Presbyterian and Independent Congregationalists: also the old Leather Hall, in Coventry, a gloomy but spacious room, fitted up with galleries, was used for Nonconformist religious service.[300] A large meeting-house was erected in Zoar Street, Southwark, not far from the spot occupied by the summer theatre of Shakespeare, and within that building John Bunyan attracted immense congregations. “If there were but one day’s notice given,” his friend, Charles Doe, remarks, “there would be more people come together to hear him preach than the meeting-house could hold. I have seen, to hear him preach, by my computation, about 1,200 at a morning lecture, by seven o’clock, on a working-day, in the dark winter time. I also computed about 3,000 that came to hear him one Lord’s Day, at London, at a town’s-end meeting-house [in Zoar Street], so that half were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was fain at a back-door to be pulled almost over people to get upstairs to his pulpit.”[301] Mill Hill Chapel, at Leeds, was built during the period of Indulgence, being the first edifice erected by Dissenters “more ecclesiastico with arches.”[302] A meeting-house at Yarmouth is described as measuring fifty-eight feet one way, and sixty feet another, with a gallery quite round close to the pulpit, with six seats in it, one behind the other, and all accommodation possible for the reception of people below.[303] The “fanatic party” at Margate is referred to as building a “conventicle house” when it was illegal to do so, and as making great haste to get it up in spite of His Majesty’s proclamation.[304]
In some cases, so favourably inclined were the parish authorities, that they allowed Nonconformists to meet in the Church. At Southwold, every fourth Sunday, the incumbent and the Dissenting ministers both conducted Divine service under the same roof. The first who came took precedence, and after he had pronounced the Benediction, his neighbour began another service in his own way.
The liberty of using a parish church was also enjoyed by the Nonconformists of Waltham-le-Willows, a small village in Suffolk, and in connection with this arrangement there occurred a ludicrous circumstance. On one occasion when Mr. Salkeld, the Congregational minister, occupied the pulpit, Sir Edmund Bacon, of Redgrave, and Sir William Spring, of Packenham, being greatly scandalized at what they deemed a profanation of the edifice, came, with other country gentlemen, and planted themselves at the church-doors. Sir Edmund wished to compel the minister immediately to desist, but Sir William thought it more seemly to wait until the minister had finished his discourse. A noisy altercation consequently arose in the church-yard between the two gentlemen, when, upon the former becoming outrageously violent, his friend observed, “We read, Sir Edmund, that the devil entered into a herd of swine, and, upon my word, I think he is not got out of the Bacon yet.”[305]
RELIGIOUS STATISTICS.
VI. Perhaps this is as convenient a place as any to inquire into the relative number of Conformists and Nonconformists, towards the end of the period, embraced in this History.
The population of England towards the close of the seventeenth century, has been computed by Lord Macaulay at rather more than five millions.[306] He bases his estimate upon calculations made by King, Lancaster Herald, in 1696; upon returns consulted by William III., and upon conclusions drawn in the preface to the population returns of 1831. I find the estimate of about five millions confirmed by the author of The Happy Future State of England, published in 1688, who states an approximate number as the result of returns reported in a survey made by the Bishops in 1676.[307] Of these five millions and a half, or so, the Conformists formed an immense majority. In the returns which came under William’s eye, and in the report of the Bishops’ survey,—which seems to have been all but identical with them,—the Conformists, above sixteen years of age, in the province of Canterbury are put down at 2,123,362. York yields 353,892, making a total of 2,477,254. Against these are reckoned the following number of Nonconformists above sixteen years of age:—93,151 in the province of Canterbury, and 15,525 in the province of York—forming a gross amount of 108,676. The Conformists to the Nonconformists here are as 22⅘ to 1. The author I have just mentioned represents the Nonconformists as on the decline; and no doubt they were, during the reigns of Charles II. and James II., much fewer than they had been under the Commonwealth; but there is reason to believe, from their subsequent history, they were on the increase before the period of the Revolution. The same writer speaks of them, in the gross, as consisting of artizans and retail traders in corporations,[308] and probably the bulk of them would be found amongst the humbler classes; but it is to be remembered that some county families, including noble ones, to say nothing of old army officers, and rich citizen merchants, continued still within the ranks of Dissent. It is interesting and instructive to ponder the following particulars appended to the returns brought under the notice of William III., and certainly not prepared in any friendly spirit. Many persons left the Church upon the late Indulgence, who before did frequent it. The inquires made (I presume those of 1676 are referred to) caused many to frequent church. Walloons chiefly made up the number of Dissenters in Canterbury, Sandwich, and Dover. Presbyterians were divided; some of them not being wholly Dissenters, but occasionally going to church. A considerable number of Nonconformists belonged to no particular sect. Of those who attended church many did not receive the sacrament. There were in Kent about thirty heretics, called Muggletonians; the rest were Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents, and Quakers, in about equal numbers. The heads and preachers of the several factions had taken a large share in the Great Rebellion.[309]
PREACHING.
I may add that the Papists altogether are reckoned in the same document at 13,856. It was thought that they had increased in consequence of the Indulgence, and that the Jesuits had been very active up to the time of the plot, when they amounted to 1,800. After the excitement created by Oates’ business they are said to have considerably diminished.[310]
VII. The contrasts between Churchmen and Nonconformists already described, suggest another of a corresponding kind. Divine service in the Establishment, especially as conducted in cathedrals, in Royal chapels, and in large churches, would present an imposing appearance, such as never could belong to worship conducted in a conventicle. And a social prestige pertained to the Episcopalian priest, now forfeited by the Nonconformist preacher. Baxter, Owen, and Howe could not but feel the change which had come over their external circumstances since the day when, from high places—Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s, for example—they had addressed ex cathedra the élite of Puritan intelligence and rank.
The form of sermons, whether composed by Anglicans or Puritans, continued after the Restoration to be that which we may call textual, rather than topical, and Sanderson, who survived that crisis, broke up what he had to say upon a text into a perplexing arrangement of divisions and subdivisions; so far he resembled Andrewes, the great preacher of the reign of James I. This practice did not form the peculiarity of a class. It had been borrowed from the schoolmen, and came to be adopted alike by those who were most Protestant and those who were most Catholic. As it was with the teachers, so it was with the taught; the people, no doubt, liked this method, and acquired a habit of threading the mazes of a lengthened homily through all its numerical departments, with an expertness resembling that of modern schoolboys who perform such wonderful evolutions in mental arithmetic. Tastes began to change before the Revolution. Even Dr. Donne, in the beginning of the century, broke somewhat through technical trammels, and indulged in sonorous periods, flowing out into ample paragraphs; and Baxter himself, slave as he often was to scholastic fashions, would often burst into a strain of impassioned rhetoric which carried him page over page without a single break. South may be mentioned as a distinguished instance of departure from the old style, and Bates may be named also as an example, so far, of the same class. Sermons were very long. Some compositions, indeed, bearing that name, but extending to the dimensions of a considerable treatise, were never delivered at all. They were intended to be read, not heard. This was the case with some compositions from the pens of Baxter and Barrow: but anecdotes related respecting the latter Divine, show the enormous length to which he sometimes carried his oral addresses. Once, before he preached in Westminster Abbey, the Dean requested him to be short. He showed the sermon to that dignitary, who, finding it consisted of two parts, requested him to deliver only one of them. Barrow did so, yet that occupied an hour and a half in the delivery. Upon another occasion, he “enlarged” so much, that the vergers who were anxious to show to impatient visitors “the tombs and effigies of the Kings and Queens in wax,” “caused the organ to be struck up against him, and would not give over playing till they had blowd him down.” His Spital sermon lasted three hours and a half; what the Lord Mayor and Aldermen thought of it we do not know; but we are informed that the preacher, when asked if he felt tired, replied, that “he began to be weary of standing so long.”[311] Barrow’s case, no doubt, is an extreme one; but although he exceeded what might be common, it is plain enough from the specimens of pulpit eloquence belonging to that age, that they usually were such as would exhaust the patience of modern congregations.
PREACHING.
An amusing story is related of Barrow’s preaching, soon after the Restoration, at St. Lawrence Jewry. His “aspect pale, meagre, and unpromising, slovenly and carelessly dressed, his collar unbuttoned, and his hair uncombed,” so alarmed the congregation that a spectator declares, “there was such a noise of pattens of serving maids and ordinary women, and of unlocking of pews, and cracking of seats, caused by the younger sort hastily climbing over them, that I thought all the congregation were mad.” An apprentice accosted him when all was over, saying, “Sir, be not dismayed, for I assure you ’twas a good sermon.” When asked what he thought of the congregation running away, Barrow answered—“I thought they did not like me or my sermon, and I have no reason to be angry with them for that.” “But what was your opinion of the apprentice?” “I take him,” replied he, “to be a very civil person, and if I could meet with him I’d present him with a bottle of wine.” Some of the parishioners afterwards called on Dr. Wilkins, the Incumbent, to expostulate with him for allowing one “who looked like a starved Cavalier to preach in his pulpit.” Baxter, happening to be in the Vicar’s house when the parishioners arrived, Wilkins said: “The person you thus despise, I assure you, is a pious man, an eminent scholar, and an excellent preacher, for the truth of the latter, I appeal to Mr. Baxter, here present, who heard the sermon you so vilify, I am sure you believe Mr. Baxter is a competent judge.” Baxter praised the sermon, and the parishioners ended by requesting that Barrow might preach again. But he was not disposed to appear any “more on that stage.”[312]
As to the mode of delivering sermons, some Nonconformists, as well as Churchmen, read from a MS., and Dr. Charnock is described as having used an eye-glass to assist his sight.[313] Of Baxter, it is said in the funeral sermon by his friend and assistant Sylvester—“He was a person wonderful at extemporate preaching, for having once left his notes behind him, he was surprised into extemporate thoughts upon (as I remember) Heb. iv. 15, ‘For we have not an High Priest, &c.’ Whereon he preached to very great satisfaction unto all that heard him; and when he came down from the pulpit, he asked me if I was not tired? I said, With what? He said, With his extemporate discourse. I told him, that had he not declared it, I believe none could have discovered it. His reply to me was, that he thought it very needful for a minister to have a body of divinity in his head.” Clarkson, in his funeral sermon for Dr. Owen, remarks that he seldom used notes. Of Dr. Bates, Howe observes, that faithful to the example and traditions of their Puritan fathers, “his sermons, wherein nothing could be more remote from ramble, he constantly delivered from his memory, and hath sometime told me, with an amicable freedom, that he partly did it, to teach some that were younger to preach without notes.”[314] Bull, however,—in this respect anticipating Addison,—advised young Divines not at first to preach their own sermons, but to provide themselves with the compositions of approved authors, or to read to their congregations either one of the authorized Homilies or a chapter selected from The Whole Duty of Man.[315] The old Puritan practice of taking down sermons continued to be very common; and, if we may notice so trivial a matter as pulpit costume, it is amusing to add an odd story told of a Royal chaplain, who preached before the King at Newmarket, “in a long periwig and holland sleeves, according to the then fashion for gentlemen,” at which His Majesty was so scandalized that he commanded the Chancellor of the University to put in execution the statutes respecting decency in apparel.[316]
SUPERSTITION.
VIII. Superstition still prevailed. Though the zeal for witchfinding diminished, rumours of witchcraft continued in circulation. People in Worcestershire said, that if certain witches had not been taken up, the King would never have returned to England. From Lancashire, a stronghold of the infernal sisterhood, one of the correspondents of the Secretary of State wrote an account of a woman who confessed, that she, and her father and her mother, “each rode on a black cat to Warrington, nine miles off, and that the cats sucked her mother till they sucked blood.” He states, however, that he had “little faith in this, though given on oath.”[317]
Wise and good men, especially Divines and lawyers, clung as firmly as ever to the old belief of the power of necromancy. Baxter pursued his inquiries into the subject; and Sir Matthew Hale, at the Bury Assizes, in March, 1664, observed, touching a witch case, that he made no doubt there were such creatures, and appealed to Scripture in proof of the fact.[318] On that occasion, Sir Thomas Browne, gave it as his opinion, that the parties named in the indictment as sufferers, were really bewitched. It is proper to remember, with respect to such superstitions, that, at that time, things were worse in France than in England. Witchcraft, divination, raising apparitions, and consulting the stars, were so common there in 1679, that a Commission was appointed, called the “Chambre Ardente,” to inquire into such cases.
The Royal touch for curing the King’s Evil was again sought and bestowed. A minute religious ceremonial, almost incredible to us, accompanied the act. His Majesty sat in a chair of state. One of the Clerks of the Closet stood on his right hand, holding as many gold angels, everyone tied to a riband of white silk, as there were patients to be touched. A chaplain read in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Mark from the 14th verse to the end. The chirurgeon presented the diseased; and making three reverences, they knelt down together before the King, the chaplain repeating the words: “They shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall be healed.” His Majesty then touched the cheeks of the persons brought to be cured; after which, the chaplain read the first chapter of John as far as the 15th verse; and, as the words were pronounced, “That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” the King suspended round the neck of each person one of the gold angels, handed to him by the clerk. Other passages of Scripture followed, a prayer was offered, and the ceremony ended with the King’s washing his hands.[319] Numerous were the applications made for the Royal touch, to which, no doubt, the obtaining of a gold angel operated as a motive, no less than the hope of receiving a sovereign cure.
SUPERSTITION.
I add a further illustration of the superstition of the age, not amongst the ignorant, but the educated. Rectors of parishes requested the Secretary of State to procure His Majesty’s touch for parishioners who were troubled with the malady. When Charles II. went to Newmarket, Sir Thomas Browne wrote to Sergeant Knight, and sent certificates for divers afflicted persons who were going from Norwich to be touched by the King. No fewer than 92,107 persons were asserted by the eminent physician, just named, to have passed through this ceremony between the years 1660 and 1683. One woman is said to have been cured of blindness by these wonderful means; and greater marvel still, a man is reported to have been cured of Nonconformity by witnessing the effect of the Royal fingers upon his child!—he expressed his thanks in this method: “Farewell to all Dissenters, and to all Nonconformists; if God can put so much virtue into the King’s hand as to heal my child, I’ll serve that God and that King so long as I live with all thankfulness.” An example of other absurd beliefs is found in a statement made to the Secretary of State, about a salmon which came up to the River Avon, on a Christmas Day. It was represented as being so religious, that it allowed itself to be touched by a staff, whereas at other times it is said, “Salmon are so shy that they endure not the least shadow.” “If any one made a prey of these quiet Christian fish they came to an unfortunate end.”[320]
Samuel Hartlib, in his correspondence with Dr. Worthington, of Cambridge, raised a question respecting angelic apparitions: “For long-bearded, good angels,” he says, “or lady-angels of true light, they do indeed cross all the old records of antiquity, whether Gentile or Jewish, neither Mercury, nor Gabriel, appeared otherwise than in prime of youthful vigour.”[321] The Cambridge scholar inclined to the idea, that angels might appear in long beards, and told his friend a story of a stranger, who knocked at a sick man’s door, and directed him to make use of two red sage leaves, and one blood-wort leaf, steeped in beer for three days,—and to live for a month in fresh country air. “Several circumstances,” he gravely added, “made it probable that he who came was a good angel, and if so, that he appeared as a grave old man, very tall and straight, of a very fresh colour, his hair as white as wool, and his beard broad and very white.” This old man, believed to be an angelic visitant, wore new shoes, tied with black ribbons.[322]