No. VI.—Vol. I., p. 282.

The number of the ejected is a vexed question. We possess at present unsatisfactory data; and I fear that we shall never obtain such a knowledge of facts as will enable us to reach a precise conclusion. The Ecclesiastical Registers of the country might seem to afford great hope of being sufficient to decide the controversy; but, to say nothing of the labour of searching them, unfortunately when the work has been begun, in some cases, from the imperfection of the records, it has yielded little or no fruit.

Some years ago I attempted searching the records of the See of London, in St. Paul’s Cathedral; but from the state of the records at that time the attempt proved unsuccessful.

The friendly kindness of the Dean of Chichester, and Canon Swainson, afforded me every facility for examining the Archives in the Cathedral. The latter assisted me in examining the Registers; to our disappointment they were found defective for 1662. But as this Work was passing through the press, Canon Swainson communicated to me some valuable information, which will be subjoined to this note. At present our conclusions must rest upon the lists of names which have been published by Calamy and Palmer; and upon such general statements as are furnished by writers who were living at the time when the ejectment took place.

Calamy, in his second volume, undertakes to give an “Account of the ministers who were ejected or silenced after the Restoration of King Charles II.” In his second, and two following volumes, he includes ministers, lecturers, masters and fellows of colleges, and schoolmasters. Palmer, in his Nonconformist Memorial, describes those whom he registers as “Ejected or silenced after the Restoration, particularly by the Act of Uniformity.” These important distinctions are often overlooked; and it is imagined that all the names collected together, are the names of clergymen who were removed from their livings on Bartholomew’s Day. Such an imagination is contradicted by facts. In agreement with the indication given on the title pages of our two principal authorities, we discover in these biographical sketches a number of incumbents who were displaced before the Uniformity Act was passed, most of them in consequence of Episcopalian clergymen having returned to claim their sequestered livings. Cases of this kind appear in the present History. Those ministers who thus lost their benefices clearly ought to be arranged in a class by themselves. Having set them aside, there remain others who, according to all accounts, did not forfeit their emoluments through the operation of the new Act. They consisted of such clergymen as, through Episcopal connivance, or from some other cause, continued to hold their benefices; they were comparatively few in number, and the benefices of most were of inconsiderable value. We are then to add another class, described as simple candidates for the ministry, who therefore possessed no livings from which they could be driven. Also we must separate the cases of persons who, though mentioned amongst the ejected, did not quit the Church until after St. Bartholomew’s Day; some of whom were not ministers in the Establishment at that time. The exceptional cases of the last three kinds, such as were connived at, such as were only candidates, and such as did not quit the Church until afterwards, so far as I can see, are altogether below fifty. I may have overlooked some.

What would be the total number of the persons who, although included in the general list of sufferers, did not surrender their incumbencies on St. Bartholomew’s Day, I am at a loss to determine. The information given in many cases is so incomplete, that it does not show when and how the persons mentioned were removed. In more than five hundred instances bare names occur, and in many more so little is added as to be next to nothing. Most of the persons named were probably in some way or other losers for conscience’ sake; but I am not aware of any means by which all those among them who left the Establishment before the 24th of August of 1662, can be separated from those who were ejected on that day.

If we refer to general statements, we find Baxter saying, in his Petition for Peace presented to the Bishops with the proposed reformation of the Liturgy, at the Savoy Conference, “Some hundreds of able, holy, faithful ministers, are of late cast out.”[615] He also speaks in the Rejoinder of “several hundreds.”[616] These statements were made in 1661, more than a year before the Uniformity Act came into operation. Taking the indefinite several hundreds at the lowest reasonable computation, and remembering, that during the intermediate year more Nonconformists would be “cast out,” we can scarcely reckon the ejected, before St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1662, at less than six hundred. Hook’s letter written in the month of March, 1663, alludes to the number of the ejected on St. Bartholomew’s Day as 1,600, and says “as many had been removed before.” This, no doubt, is an exaggeration; but it would seem to suggest, at least, that the number previously removed bore a large proportion to the number ultimately ejected. To the six hundred, or so, ejected before the Uniformity Act came into effect, let there be added two or three hundred more,—which would be a very large allowance for such exceptional cases as I have indicated, and for the great uncertainty respecting the five hundred bare names in the lists of “the ejected and silenced,”—and we thus reach a total of some eight or nine hundred, who may be admitted to have suffered more or less in consequence of the Restoration, but who must not be considered as undergoing ejectment on Bartholomew’s Day. The last and the longest list of sufferers, before and upon the 24th of August, 1662, put all together, is that furnished by Palmer, amounting to 2,231,—a list evidently prepared with much care. He mentions a MS. “Index eorum Theologorum Aliorumque No. 2,257, qui propter Legem Uniformitatis, Aug. 24, A. D. 1662, ab Ecclesia Anglicana secesserunt.” Calamy’s entire list reckons 2,190. Making the largest allowable deduction for those deprived before Bartholomew’s Day—that of nine hundred as just suggested—then the number of those who were deprived on that day would amount to about 1,200. I do not see how more than that number could have been then displaced. I am induced to believe there were scarcely so many.

But whilst the distinctions and abatements which I have just made are demanded with a view to some accurate conclusion, it is to be borne in mind that the whole body of Nonconformist ministers, including the ejected, the candidates for the ministry, and all who had been accustomed in any way to preach the Gospel, were silenced by the Act. They could no longer any of them preach in a place of public worship. Therefore if we include the silenced, I should think that Baxter is rather under than above the mark in saying, “When Bartholomew Day came, about one thousand eight hundred, or two thousand ministers were silenced and cast out.”—Life and Times, ii. 385. After all, no bare statistics, no enumeration of figures, can ever represent the amount of trial, sorrow, and loss inflicted upon conscientious men at that lamentable era in our ecclesiastical history.

Palmer, following Calamy, gives a large number of names of clergymen who “afterwards conformed.” It may be inferred that amongst these were not a few who passed through considerable conflict of mind before they did so.

What was the exact number of the clergy just after the Act of Uniformity I cannot ascertain. Chamberlayne says, in his Present State of England, ed. 1692, that there were 9,700 rectors and vicars, besides dignitaries and curates—p. 189. In another place, he says:—“The whole number of the clergy of England are in all, first, two archbishops, twenty-four bishops, twenty-six deans of cathedral and collegiate churches, 576 prebendaries, 9,653 rectors and vicars, and about so many more, with curates, and others in Holy Orders.”—Part ii., 19. But this estimate must be greatly in excess of the actual number.

The communication from Dr. Swainson is as follows:—

“Let me inform you that I have found a book in our muniment-room which to a certain extent supplies the place of the Episcopal Registers of Henry King, who was restored to his see with the Restoration. The Registers, you know, are reported as lost. This book is the book of subscriptions to the three articles of the 36th Canon, and the declaration against the Solemn League and Covenant. With the assistance of a friend I have analysed the former, and the enclosed paper contains the result. But I must notice that it gives no intimation as to the number of clergymen who returned to the livings from which they were banished during the Commonwealth, nor of the Presbyterians and others who were then ejected from their homes; it only gives the livings into which new incumbents were installed; and I think you will agree with me that the number is very small. At the same time my attention has been drawn to the large number of ordinations of deacons in the first two years after the book commences. My impression is that a Presbyterian or Independent minister in legal possession of a living might retain it by the Act of Uniformity, if he accepted deacon’s orders. Thus we should have in the first three years twenty-three more vacancies than in the last three of the period before us; and in the first three years one hundred and eight men ordained deacons, in the last three fourteen or fifteen. I infer that, of these one hundred and eight a large proportion conformed and retained their preferment. My friend notices a large ordination in 1673. Eighteen priests and sixteen deacons on Trinity Sunday; eight priests and eleven deacons in Advent.” The enclosed paper states, “The book of subscriptions commences on 2nd November, 1662, and the last subscription is dated on 22nd September, 1678, thus it includes a period of sixteen years. I have no reason to suppose that it is imperfect. On analysing it, the subscriptions describe, that the subscriber is about to be admitted (1) to some rectory, vicarage, or cure of souls; (2) to a prebend or dignity in the cathedral; (3) to ‘Presbyteratus ordinen;’ (4) to deacon’s orders. There are a few who are about to be licensed to preach, and about four in the sixteen years who come to qualify themselves to keep school. The number of vacancies in rectories, vicarages, and places with cure of souls thus indicated in the several years are:—

November 1,1662to October 31,166319
„„166426
„„166514
„„166616
„„166718
„„166820
„„166912
„„167010
„„167120
„„167213
„„167316
„„167416
„„16759
„„16768
„„167715
„„167813

making a total of 245 in 16 years, or an average of 15¼ per annum.

“The number of vacancies in the first three years is thus fifty-nine; in the last three, thirty-six. Taking the last figures as representing the number from ordinary causes, we have an overplus of twenty-three due to extraordinary causes, i.e., nonconformity, in the first three years. The number of men ordained deacons in the first three years was one hundred and seven; in the last three years, fifteen. Therefore the overplus of ninety-two ordained in the first three years was due to extraordinary causes; the question is what these causes were?

“N.B.—Eighty-three men were ordained priests during the same first three years. The number of benefices in the diocese of Chichester is now (1869) 330.”