The most noteworthy instance of a man of any eminence in the Church being visited with excommunication during the last two centuries is probably that of Dr. Todd, who was vicar of Penrith in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. He and Bishop Nicolson had a long and bitter quarrel as to the rights of the prelate in local Church affairs. The diocesan at length suspended the vicar ab officio et beneficio, and then excommunicated him. The story throughout is not of a particularly edifying character; Dr. Todd took his punishment very lightly, and afterwards he and the Bishop seem to have been very good friends again.
Still later there are to be found records in various parish registers of ecclesiastical pressure being brought to bear on parishioners. Without any reason being shown in the register, Jane Curry was declared excommunicate, December 10th, 1732, by Hugh Brown, curate of Hayton. At Kirkandrews-on-Esk the churchwardens’ book shows a list of presentments for not bringing children to be baptised; for clandestine marriages, fornication, and contumacy. The parties were either excommunicated, or did penance, in the church on Sunday. One man did his penance in 1711 after having for fornication been excommunicated for thirty years; another man was excommunicated for refusing to be churchwarden. In 1785 two couples were publicly rebuked in church for clandestine marriage, and Sir James Graham, on the application of the curate, Mr. Nichol, ordered all his tenants to pay their fees properly. Clandestine marriages of course deprived the rector or the curate of the fees, hence the landlord’s reproof and caution.
The power of excommunication, which during the time of Charles the First had been chiefly exercised against the Romanists, was at the commencement of the reign of James the Second turned against the Protestant Nonconformists, with, in some districts, results sometimes curious but almost always sad. The names of forty-four persons were set out in the Greystoke register on March 29th, 1685, with this announcement following them: “Were these persons whose names and sirnames are here under written denounced excommunicate for their offences, and other their contumacy in not appearing at Consistorye Court for the reformation of their lives and manners.” Some of the offenders seem to have had only indifferent moral characters, but the majority were Quakers. Quakerism had been spreading for many years in the two counties, and during the time Dr. Gilpin was rector of Greystoke, the Nonconformists, while holding him personally in the deepest respect, gave him some hard puzzles to solve. “Such were their novel phrases and cross questions and answers that the doctor seemed sometimes at a loss what to say to them.” Among those who went over to the Quakers was a noted yeoman in his day—Henry Winder, of Green Close, who was appointed by the “Friends” to be the Receiver of all their collections in Cumberland. He, however, afterwards returned to the Presbyterians, and wrote some noteworthy pamphlets on religious topics. His many quarrels did not help to wear out his frame, for we read: “Feb. 9th, 1716/7 if was buried Henry Winder, sen., of Hutton Soyle; who dyed of a dropsy in the hundredth and first year of his age.”
The registers of Bampton contain many curious entries, especially about people who did not go regularly to church. One, which may be taken as an example of other reports by the churchwardens, reads:—“We have no presentments to make but what has been formerly presented, viz., we have Thomas Braidley and Margret his wife, Richard Simpson, John Hottblacke, and Syth Gibson, quakers, and noe other we have in our parish, but doe duely resort to church, nor any other offence presentable to our knowledge.” In other cases it was further noted that “the parties stand excommunicated.” The churchwardens were evidently strict about enforcing order, and on one occasion reported “William Stephenson for violent beating of John Wilkinson of Shap upon the sabbath and within the churchyard.” In other ways the churchwardens exercised care; and a woman got into trouble with them for acting as a midwife “without licence to the prejudice of several persons.” Again, “Lancelot Hogarth is presented to us by information of Richard Brown for loading corn on the sabbath in time of divine service.” Sometimes the parish clerk had a share in the work; one of these presented. “James Hayes of Banton, for reading two sale notices, without leave on the Sabbath day, one in the church, the other in ye churchyard.”
Possibly even Dissenters were not thought to be entirely bad, so long as they paid their tithes, and in presenting William Simpson once more the Bampton churchwardens vouched that albeit he was a Quaker he was “a very moderate one; tho’ he absent the church yett he payes his tythes.” The Church authorities seem to have carried out their unpleasant duties with a due amount of consideration; there is a tone of sympathy about some of the entries; in others indifference may be noted, as where Richard Simpson and Margaret Braidley (the latter “very old, not able to go abroad, scarcely help herself,”) are presented along with William Wilson, younger, a Dissenter—what sort we know not, but he never comes to church. Although the Howards of Naworth at one time owned the manor of Thornthwaite, and lived at the Hall, the only entry in which the name is found is the following: “We have none to present but who have been formerly presented and doe stand excommunicated, viz., Mr. William Howard and Jane his wife, papists, Richard Simpson and Margret Braidley, widow, quakers, all that we have.”
Although the sentence of excommunication was frequently used by the Nonconformist bodies, in this case the proclamation had no such serious results as followed the sentence in earlier days. Among the records of the Penrith Presbyterian Church are many allusions to excommunication; one instance will suffice to illustrate the rest. In 1818, Robert McCreery, a member of the church, had left the town in company with a woman who was not his wife, but returning three months afterwards, he petitioned to be re-admitted to the Presbyterian Society. Before the formalities could be concluded McCreery seems to have changed his mind and withdrawn his application, and he was therefore declared from the pulpit to be excommunicate.
At Ravenstonedale, in the days of Philip Lord Wharton, there was a ready method of dealing with slanderers and other transgressors. The “town” was governed by twenty-four of the principal inhabitants, called the grand jury, and the oath which they were required to take included a promise that—
“Every person or persons within this lordship which shall be convicted before the grand jury for the time being and by them be found to have offended against any person or persons within this lordship, either by slanderous words or other unlawful speech or report, that the same offender or offenders shall, upon such a Sabbath Day, before the celebration of the general Communion then next following the conviction, and in such manner before the people assembled in the church ... appoint the said offender or offenders in penitent manner to confess their fault, and to ask the party aggrieved forgiveness for the same, upon pain of every such offender or offenders to forfeit to the lord of this manor, so often as they shall contemptuously or obstinately deny or defer to make their reconcilements, 3s. 4d.: and the men in charge of the church not to fail in execution hereof upon pain to forfeit to the lord 12d.”
Though paying 3s. 4d. seems a small punishment, it was a large sum towards the end of the reign of Queen Bess, and would be equal to fully £3 now, while three years after the rule was instituted the fine was doubled. Mr. Nicholls, in a series of lectures which he delivered in the village some twenty-four years ago, remarked:—
“Such a law as this one would expect to be a very wholesome check against slander. There is a tradition that the culprit was compelled to stand up, wrapt in a white sheet, and confess his fault; but, whether this were so or no, the confession must have been a terrible ordeal, and I can understand that the fine was often paid. It would seem that notwithstanding the fine or penalty, the vice was a prevalent one, as its mention is followed by a homily against the sin of slander, in which many passages of Scripture are cleverly and skilfully incorporated.”