Upon this subject and upon the character of the services in many village Churches of the time, I am indebted to a very good authority—MS. reminiscences by the late Mr. Henry Thurnall—for the following: "Neither Whittlesford, Sawston, Great Shelford, Newton, Hauxton, Barrington, or Chishill, had a resident minister." As to the character of the Psalmody practised in the Churches, the same authority says:—At Duxford, John and Thomas H—— performed on two bassoons anything but heavenly music; at Shelford old John M——, the clerk, used to climb up a ladder into a high gallery and there seating himself, often quite alone, and saying "let us sing to the praise and glory of God by singin' the fust four vusses of the 100th psalm, old vusshun';" and he put on his spectacles and read and sung each verse, frequently as a solo accompanying himself on a bass-viol, said to have been made by himself! At W—— old V—— set the tune with a cracked flute, and on one occasion, when reading the 26th verse of the grand 104th Psalm, he said:—"There goes the Ships, and there is that Lufftenant [Leviathan] whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein."
In an extremely interesting book of reminiscences, which may be cordially recommended to the notice of the reader,—"What I Remember," by Adolphus Trollope, brother of the famous novelist, Anthony Trollope—there are some interesting glimpses of a Parish Church and its services in one of the villages in this district at the beginning of this century. The Trollopes were related to the Meetkerkes, of Julians, Rushden, and the entertaining author of "What I remember," was, at the time of Waterloo, the expected heir to Julians, and of Adolphus Meetkerke, Esq., the then head of the family. Young Trollope visited Rushden as a boy and gives us a graphic picture of family life, Church services, and the squire of the village playing the part of Sir Roger de Coverley. The house-keeping at Julians, we are told, was in the hands of "Mrs. Anne," an old maiden sister of the squire, who, though a prim, precise little woman, sometimes came down to breakfast a little late, "to find her brother standing on the hearth-rug, with his prayer-book open in his hand, waiting for her arrival to begin prayers to the assembled household. He had a wonderfully strong rasping voice, the tones of which were rarely modulated under any circumstances. I can hear now his reverberating, 'Five minutes too late again, Mrs. Anne' 'Dearly beloved brethren,' etc.; the change of person addressed, and of subject having been marked by no pause or break whatever, save the sudden kneeling at the head of the breakfast table; while at the conclusion of the short, but never missed prayers, the transition from 'Amen,' to 'William, bring round the brown mare after breakfast,' was equally unmarked by pause for change of voice or manner."
To this is added a glimpse of the villagers assembled in Church under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Skinner. "Whether there was any clerk or not I do not remember," says Mr. Trollope, "but if any such official existed, the performance of his office in Church was not only overlaid but extinguished by the great rough 'view-holloa' sort of voice of my uncle. He never missed going to Church, and never missed a word of the responses, which were given in far louder tones than those of the Vicar. Something of a hymn was always attempted, I remember, by the rustic congregation; with what sort of musical effect may be imagined. * * * * But the singers were so well pleased with the exercise that they were apt to prolong it, as my uncle thought, somewhat unduly, and on such occasions he would cut the performance short with a rasping 'That's enough!' which effectually brought it to an abrupt conclusion. The very short sermon * * * having been brought to an end, my uncle would sing out to the Vicar, as he was descending the pulpit stairs, 'Come up to dinner, Skinner!' and then we all marched out while the rustics, still retaining their places till we were fairly out of the door, made their obeisances as we passed."
In this glimpse we miss the genial face of Sir Roger, but there is nothing in it inconsistent with the village squire of the Spectator, Indeed, Mr. Trollope says of the old squire, "He was a good man too, was old Adolphus Meetkerke; a good landlord, a kindly natured man, a good sportsman, an active magistrate, and a good husband."
He was evidently a regular attendant to his magisterial duties on the Royston Bench, for his clean, linear, and well-written signature turns up frequently in the Royston parish books. The Meetkerkes descended from a famous Dutchman, Sir Adolphus Meetkerke, who was at one time ambassador to England.
Before the Tithe Commutation Act was passed, a very curious piece of work in the harvest field was the paying of the parson by the tithe man going round among the shocks of corn and placing a green bough in every tenth shock, &c., for then the tithe was collected in kind—the tenth shock, hay-cock, calf, lamb, pig, fowl, pigeon, duck, egg, the tenth pound of butter, cheese, and so on through all the products of the land. The inconvenience of this clumsy system was often greatly felt, when a farmer was compelled to delay the carting of his corn simply because the tithe man had not been round to set out the tithe corn, while on the other hand it was obviously impossible for the clergyman to get the work all done at once to suit all parties, and thus when a Commutation Act came it was a great relief alike to the clergyman and the farmers and landowners, and did away with a longstanding cause of strife and litigation, especially in a town like Royston, where a farmer might have tithable produce in several parishes.
Sometimes the tithe owner found an attempt to impose upon him some of the lean kine, and that the tenth of its kind had a way of differing somewhat from the other nine! When, for instance, in the last century, Canon Weston was away in Durham, his curate, at Therfield, on going to Brandish to tithe the ringe-wood, found the woodman over anxious for him to begin counting at a certain spot, where the cutting commenced, but suspecting that the ringes had been cooked a little, the wily curate examined them and found every tenth, from the woodman's way of counting fell upon a very thin ringe! Remonstrances followed and the "tenths" were made up to the same condition of plumpness as the rest, and the curate received the commendation of his superior for so well looking after his affairs!
Since the date to which the foregoing state of things refers, the Established Church has had an awakening which has taken a real hold upon and has been influenced by the laity, and has recognised that it has a mission to the people rather than an official routine, facts which are not without significance in their bearing upon what follows with regard to the town of Royston, and the relative positions of the Church and Dissenting bodies.
A hundred years ago the Nonconformists included most of the wealthy families in the town and neighbourhood. The pulpit at the Old Meeting (Independents) erected in the narrow part of Kneesworth Street in 1706 was occupied at least once a year by Robert Hall, the great Baptist preacher then at Cambridge, who was a not unfrequent visitor at the houses of Edward King Fordham, the banker, and William Nash, the lawyer.