As the crown retained in its own hands the appointment of the custos and all the antient revenues of the Temple Church, it ought to have provided for the support of the officiating ministers, as did the Hospitallers of Saint John.
“The chardges of the fellowshyppe,” says the MS. account of the Temple written in the reign of Hen. VIII., “towards the salary or mete and drink of the priests, is none; for they are found by my lord of Saint John’s, and they that are of the fellowshyppe of the house are chardged with nothing to the priests, saving that they have eighteen offring days in the yeare, so that the chardge of each of them is xviiid.”[607]
In the reign of James the First, the custos, Dr. Micklethwaite, put forward certain unheard-of claims and pretensions, which led to a rupture between him and the two societies. The Masters of the bench of the society of the Inner Temple, taking umbrage at his proceedings, deprived the doctor of his place at the dinner-table, and “willed him to forbear the hall till he was sent for.” In 8 Car. I., A. D. 1633, the doctor presented a petition to the king, in which he claims precedence within the Temple “according to auncient custome, he being master of the house,” and complains that “his place in the hall is denyed him and his dyett, which place the Master of the Temple hath ever had both before the profession of the lawe kept in the Temple and ever since, whensoever he came into the hall. That tythes are not payde him, whereas by pattent he is to have omnes et omnimodas decimas.... That they denye all ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Master of the Temple, who is appointed by the king’s majesty master and warden of the house ad regendum, gubernandum, et officiendum domum et ecclesiam,” &c. The doctor goes into a long list of grievances showing the little authority that he possessed in the Temple, that he was not summoned to the deliberations of the houses, and he complains that “they will give him no consideracion in the Inner House for his supernumerarie sermons in the forenoon, nor for his sermons in the afternoon,” and that the officers of the Inner Temple are commanded to disrespect the Master of the Temple when he comes to the hall.
The short answer to the doctor’s complaint is, that the custos of the church never had any of the things which the doctor claimed to be entitled to, and it was not in the power of the crown to give them to him.
The antient custos being, as before mentioned, a priest of the order of the Temple, and afterwards of the order of the Hospital, was a perfect slave to his temporal superiors, and could be deprived of his post, be condemned to a diet of bread and water, and be perpetually imprisoned, without appeal to any power, civil or ecclesiastical, unless he could cause his complaints to be brought to the ear of the pope. Dr. Micklethwaite quite misunderstood his position in the Temple, and it was well for him that the masters of the benches no longer exercised the despotic power of the antient master and chapter, or he would certainly have been condemned to the penitential cell in the church, and would not have been the first custos placed in that unenviable retreat.[608]
The petition was referred to the lords of the council, and afterwards to Noy, the attorney-general, and in the mean time the doctor locked up the church and took away the keys. The societies ordered fresh keys to be made, and the church to be set open. Noy, to settle all differences, appointed to meet the contending parties in the church, and then alluding to the pretensions of the doctor, he declared that if he were visitor he would proceed against him tanquam elatus et superbus.
In the end the doctor got nothing by his petition.
In the time of the Commonwealth, after Dr. Micklethwaite’s death, Oliver Cromwell sent to inquire into the duties and emoluments of the post of “Master of the Temple,” as appears from the following letter:—
“From his highness I was commanded to speake with you for resolution and satisfaction in theise following particulers—
“1. Whether the Master of the Temple be to be putt in him by way of presentation, or how?