[6] Parl. Hist., iii., 1267, 1276.
[7] The Essex Watchmen to the Inhabitants of the said County. London, 1649. This publication, referring to the clause in the agreement, "so it be not compulsory," declared that "this one little parenthesis was the fly in the box of ointment," which made it "an abhorring in the nostrils of every one who is knowingly judicious and pious." The ministers lamented that, in consequence of those five fatal words, heads of families would be prevented from obliging their children and servants to attend public worship; and thus, they said, an inlet was opened for domestic profanity. In their estimation, not to compel people to be religious was to grant them "liberty to apostatize, and cast off the profession of Christianity;" and before concluding their testimony, they denounced toleration as a satanic engine "for demolishing the beauty, yea, the being of religion."
[8] The Act for the abolition and sale is printed in Scobell, p. 16. Date, April 30, 1649. There were surveys and valuations made accordingly, of which some records are preserved in the Lambeth Library. As these surveys are often referred to, the following description of them is given from the Catalogue of the Lambeth MSS.:—
"Surveys of the possessions of bishops, deans, and chapters, and other benefices, were made in pursuance of various ordinances of Parliament during the Commonwealth, by surveyors appointed for that purpose, acting on oath, under instructions given to them, as may be seen in Scobell's Acts and Ordinances, A.D. 1649, p. 19, &c. The original surveys were returned to a registrar appointed by the ordinances, and duplicates or transcripts of them were transferred to the trustees or commissioners nominated for the sale of the possessions, who held their meetings in a house in Broad Street, in the City, where these documents remained until after the Restoration." It was afterwards ordered that these records should be delivered to Juxon, Archbishop of Canterbury, to take care of the same, and by him they were deposited in the Lambeth Library. "Some of them were afterwards sent by his Grace to the bishops and deans and chapters to which they belonged, so that the collection in the Lambeth Library is not complete. What remain are bound up in twenty-one large folio volumes, in alphabetical order, of the different dioceses or counties to which they relate. A minute index to the whole, in one folio volume, exhibits the name of every place surveyed. Besides the above, there are surveys of the possessions of the see of Canterbury kept separate from the possession of the other sees, deans and chapters, &c., with indexes in alphabetical order, which are bound in three volumes; of these the second contains original surveys, as far as folio 73, from thence to the end are copies."
Several interesting extracts from the survey are contained in Lyson's Environs. Take the following as illustrative of the religious affairs of the parish of Walthamstow:—
"The commissioners appointed to enquire into the state of ecclesiastical benefices, in 1650, found by their inquest that the vicarage of Walthamstow was worth £40 per annum, including the tithes and glebe. John Wood was then vicar; he had been put in by the committee of plundered ministers; 'but (says the inquest) he is now questioned for his abilities; and certain articles have been exhibited against him to the committee, and he is disliked by the greater part of the inhabitants, who will not come to church to hear him; whereby there is great distraction in the parish.' The jurors report that it was not known in whom the patronage of the vicarage was vested, it having been long in suit, and then as yet undetermined."—Lyson, iv. 221.
[9] See Bentham's Ely Cathedral, sect. vi.
[10] In the powers for sale of Deans and Chapter lands (passed July 31st, 1649), "rectories, parsonages, and vicarages" are excepted.—Scobell, 69. In connexion with this, however, may be mentioned "an Act" passed, April the 26th, "for settling the rectory or parsonage-house of Burford, Oxon., and some of the glebe land on W. Lenthall, Esq., now Speaker, and his heirs."—Parry, 504.
[11] Scobell, 40. One hundred pounds a year at that time was a large salary. It must have been as good as five hundred now, seeing that Sir Henry Slingsby kept an establishment of thirty servants on £500 per annum.—Brodie's British Empire, iv. 245.
[12] Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, i. 435. Whitelocke, 399.