Launcelot Andrews (1605-1609) then ruled the diocese until he was transferred to Ely.
He was followed by Samuel Harsnett (1609-1619), who was an opponent of the Calvinistic attitude of thought. The records of his visitations ask some pertinent questions, which show how the Cathedral Church itself was being served. He inquires, "Have not many of the vicars and lay vicars been absent for months together? Is the choir sufficiently furnished, and are the boys properly instructed? What has become of the copes and vestments? Who is responsible for the custody of them and of the books? Are there not ale-houses in the close? Why are all these things not amended since the last visitation?" This was the state of affairs in the cathedral church of the diocese at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and during the two hundred years that followed there is but little improvement to remark. Certainly in George Carleton's (1619-1628) and in Richard Montagu's day (1628-1638) there was not much change, for the latter asks in every parish "whether communicants 'meekly kneel,' or whether they stand or sit at
the time of reception: Whether the Holy Table is profaned at any time by persons sitting upon it, casting hats or cloaks upon it, writing or casting up accounts or any other indecent usuage."[39] And in consequence the archbishop desired to restore some sense of order and decency to the minds of both the clergy and laity by replacing the altars in their proper positions again. He asks, therefore, Bishop Brian Duppa (1638-1641), in the questions put during the first visitation of parish churches, "Is your communion-table, or altar, strong, fair and decent? Is it set according to the practice of the ancient Church,—upon an ascent at the east end of the chancel, with the ends of it north and south? Is it compassed in with a handsome rail to keep it from profanation according to an order made in the metropolical visitation?"[40]
During the episcopate of Henry King (1642-1670) the diocese was a theatre of rebellion and civil war. Chichester was taken on December 29th, 1642, by Waller and the Parliamentary soldiers after a siege of eight days. Bishop King repaired, after the Restoration, the wrecked cathedral and the episcopal palace, but this appears to be all that is known of him.
Peter Gunning (1670-1675) was the first Bishop of Chichester appointed after the Restoration. He had suffered for the tenacity with which he clung to his principles during the period of the Rebellion. Having been ejected from a fellowship at Cambridge, he came to London, and there, with no little audacity, he ministered and taught as a loyalist and Churchman.
But Ralph Brideoake (1675-1678) watched the political and ecclesiastical weathercocks, and feathered his nest. He had been "Chaplain to Speaker Lenthall, who gave him the rich living of Witney, near Oxford, where we are told he 'preached twice every Lord's Day, and in the evening catechised the youth in his own house; outvying in labour and vigilancy any of the godly brethren in those parts.' In 1659 he was made one of the 'triers,' yet immediately after the Restoration he was rapidly promoted to a canonry at Windsor, to the Deanery of Salisbury, and finally to the
Bishopric of Chichester."[41] Though Bishop Henry King had endeavoured to restore the cathedral and the buildings of the precincts, these still were in a state of extreme dilapidation, for Bishop Brideoake's record of his visitation shows that the towers, windows, and cloisters had not yet been repaired.
Guy Carleton (1678-1685) was a Royalist bishop of a most consistent type. On two occasions he had been turned out of a cure by the Parliamentary "triers" for his opinions; but in his eighty-second year he came from the see of Bristol to Chichester.
Another Royalist, who as a soldier had supported the cause of Charles I., occupied the see after Carleton. This was John Lake (1685-1689). He was one of those seven bishops who protested against James's Declaration of Indulgence.
Simon Patrick (1689), Robert Grove (1691), John Williams (1696), Thomas Manningham (1709), Thomas Bowers (1722), and Edward Waddington (1724) served in the episcopate successively.