[593] 1646. October the 8th.—On the question in the Lords for passing the ordinance, "the votes were even, so nothing could be resolved on at this time." Only nine earls and five barons were present. October the 9th.—"And the question being put, 'Whether to agree to the said ordinance as it was brought up from the House of Commons?' Audit was agreed to in the affirmative." Seven earls and five barons were present.—Lords' Journals.
[594] Husband's Collection, 922.
[595] Husband, 934.
[596] Printed in Harleian Miscellany, iv. 419.
[597] This information respecting wills is drawn from Sir H. Nicholas' Notitia Historica, 144-205. In the month of November, 1644, an ordinance of Parliament appointed Sir Nathaniel Brent a Presbyterian master or keeper of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, in the room of Dr. Merrick, a Royalist Episcopalian.—Husband, 582.
In the Windsor churchwardens' accounts an instance occurs of money paid in 1651-2 for searching the Prerogative Court for the Countess of Devonshire's will, then lately deceased.—Annals of Windsor, ii. 267.
[598] We shall describe this law in the next volume. It should be noticed that the ordinance of 1646, respecting bishops, said nothing about deans and chapters, or archdeacons. How they were afterwards dealt with will also be seen hereafter.
[599] Scobell, 129.
[600] Ibid., 146.
[601] In September, 1647, the certificate of certain Cheshire justices touching a refusal to pay tithes to a Puritan, Mr. Smith, of Tattenhall, came before the committee. Some Royalist Episcopalians took encouragement, in their refusal, from two petitions of the sequestered clergy to the King and Sir Thomas Fairfax. It is certified, "from the said justices, that they conceive the ordinance of Parliament for payment of tithes cannot be put by them into execution without bloodshed." The Serjeant-at-Arms is commissioned to bring these delinquents "in safe custody to answer their said contempt."—Nonconformity in Cheshire, 472.