Charles, whilst remaining at Oxford, had amongst the Episcopal clergy other staunch friends residing elsewhere. Of this number was John Barwick, a Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge,[479] who acted as chaplain to Bishop Morton during the civil wars, and who continued with him as long as he remained in Durham House. This he did, his biographer tells us, for the express purpose of being serviceable to the King; concealing himself there "as in a great wood," carrying on a private correspondence betwixt London and Oxford, conveying, on the one hand, to the loyalists his Majesty's orders and commands, and, on the other hand, to his royal master, what he could pick up of the "designs and endeavours of the rebels." Resolving to tell no lies, but rather "with silence to answer all captious and ensnaring questions," he yet clandestinely wrote and received letters in cypher, the key to which he carefully kept. The letters were slid in by stealth, amidst pedlar's wares, and carried to and fro, "as it were through a lattice, and enveloped in mist." He employed adventurous women to disperse everywhere, among friends and foes, books favourable to the Royal cause; such emissaries trudging on foot, receiving the books from bargemen on the Thames, and distributing them wherever they had opportunity. Letters were sometimes sewed in the covers of volumes, and secret marks were given to notify their insertion. When the Royal cause became desperate, and the King was shut up "as in a net within the walls of Oxford," he continued to write to Barwick to do what he could, especially by securing, through favour of the Parliamentary authorities, those individuals for his personal attendants, upon whose faithfulness his Majesty could depend. These notices, extracted from "Barwick's Life"—not, on the whole, a very trustworthy book, though accurate enough, no doubt, in reference to his contrivances and intrigues in favour of the King—throw an interesting light upon a great deal which was clandestinely going on at the time in the royal service.
CHAPTER XVI.
1643.
The Long Parliament, almost from the beginning, took ecclesiastical affairs entirely into its own hands. It assumed control over church property, not, indeed, touching the rights of Puritan patrons, but interfering to a large extent with those advowsons and presentations which belonged to High Churchmen.
As time rolled on, and especially when the war began, not only rights of this description which had belonged to Royalists were forfeited entirely; but we may state in passing, that a wholesale sequestration of property followed, it being then enacted that the estates real and personal of Bishops, Deans and Chapters, and other persons, who had either taken up arms against the Parliament, or contributed aid or assistance to such as did, should be seized, and employed for the benefit of the Commonwealth.[480] Such nets swept within their meshes an abundance of spoil. Ecclesiastical corporations and Royalist nobles, squires, and clergymen, suffered the deprivation not only of their ancient privileges, but of their property and possessions. One forfeiture in particular may be mentioned, illustrative of the control which Parliament assumed over the benefices of the Church. An ordinance appeared commanding the Archbishop of Canterbury to collate to benefices such persons, and such persons only, as were nominated by Parliament.[481] For disobedience to this ordinance he was the following month wholly suspended from the duties and privileges of his office. The temporalities of the archbishopric were claimed by the High Court of Parliament, which ordered that Edward Corbet, a Puritan clergyman, whom Laud had refused to collate, should be by the Vicar General inducted to the living of Chartham, in Kent, a benefice in the Archbishop's gift. The revenues of Deans and Chapters were collected and administered by committees, who paid such sums to such persons for such purposes as Parliament might appoint. The system of pew-rents adopted in some places, like everything else in the Church of England, now came under Parliamentary control. Numerous benefices had been vacated through the death or the ejection of incumbents. How were the vacancies to be filled up? In some instances returned refugees, who had suffered in the days of Laud, were instituted to the vacant benefices.[482] Scotch Divines, and ministers of other Protestant Churches, were also declared eligible for appointment. At the same time Episcopal ordinations were not nullified, and the validity of all Presbyterian ordinations, as a matter of course, was acknowledged by a Presbyterian Parliament.
Committees for Ecclesiastical Affairs.
The Committees for scandalous ministers had early in 1643 been followed by a Committee for plundered ministers, that title being used to designate clergymen who had been ejected from their livings by the Royal army. The Committee for plundered ministers provided them with relief; and the instruction given to this body directed their attention to malignant clergymen, holding benefices in and about town, whose benefices after being sequestered might be appropriated to ministers of a different character. As the plundered were thus put in the place of the scandalous, the Committee for the plundered took cognizance of what had previously been submitted to the Committee for the scandalous. In July they received power to consider cases of scandal apart from charges of malignity, and to dismiss those whose characters would not bear examination. On the 6th of September the Commons ordered the Deputy-Lieutenants and the Committees of Parliament, or any five or more of their number, to take the examinations of witnesses against any ministers who were scandalous in life or doctrine, and also against any who had of late deserted their cures or assisted the forces raised against Parliament.[483]