Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 2—The Church of the Commonwealth

by John Stoughton

Hardy.

Dr. Nathaniel Hardy—author of a somewhat famous Exposition of the first epistle of John, and an Episcopalian of the Puritan school—continued to minister in St. Dionysius Backchurch, in Fenchurch Street, one of the buildings destroyed by the Fire of London. He preached a funeral sermon upon the death of Charles I., and annually commemorated "the royal martyrdom." At his "loyal lecture," collections were made on behalf of the deprived clergy;[309] yet, notwithstanding his royalist sentiments, the bold preacher remained unmolested. Some of the episcopal clergy became chaplains, of which we have an interesting example in the life of Dr. Richard Sherlock, uncle of Dr. Wilson, the celebrated Bishop of Sodor and Man. Driven by the troubles of the time to seek shelter in Oxford, he afterwards found refuge in the family of Sir Robert Bradrosse, of Borwick, in Lancashire. There, as we learn from a memoir of him by his eminent kinsman, he proved his ministerial fidelity by rebuking the evils which he witnessed amongst the Royalists, and by expostulating with his patron. "He desired him to consider what injury he did to the distressed Church, for which he always expressed so commendable a zeal. He intimated to him that this was both the cause of her sufferings, and that which made her the scorn of her enemies, that her friends did her more dishonour than they could do her hurt; so that she may truly say, in the words of Zechariah, 'These are the wounds which I received in the house of my friends.'"[310]

There remained a number of Episcopalians who did not conform in any way to the new order of things. They were deprived of their preferments, and it will be our endeavour now to trace their fortunes. We begin with the deprived prelates.

Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, died in the year 1655, after having run a remarkable career. It is said that an entry in a volume now in the Chapter Library at Gloucester corroborates the suspicion of his early leaning to Romanism.[311] As early as the year 1626 he found himself in trouble on account of a sermon he had preached, in which he had asserted the doctrine of the real presence. Perhaps the consciousness of his tendencies led him to wish to have a coadjutor in his episcopal office, and then eventually to resign his bishopric;—a wish which is made apparent in a letter written to him by Archbishop Laud, in the year 1634.[312] When the canons were submitted to the Convocation of 1640, he at first refused to sign them;[313] for which, as Fuller states, he was sent to the Gatehouse, where "he got by his restraint what he never could have gained by his liberty, namely, of one reputed popish, to become for a short time popular, as the only confessor suffering for not subscribing the canons."[314] Nalson says nothing respecting his imprisonment, but only mentions that Goodman refused a second and a third time, and then at last put his hand to the book, declining to say that he did so ex animo. Laud told him that his refusal proved him to be a Papist, or a Socinian, or a sectary. This conclusion he himself denied, but Nalson adds, it "proved true, for he died a Papist."[315]

Ussher.

A contrast to Goodman is found in Ussher. Upon his leaving Oxford, where last we met him, and his proceeding to visit Lady Stradling, at her Castle of St. Donate's, in Glamorganshire, there occurred to this eminent Divine an odd adventure, which indicates what must have been the state of the country and the circumstances of travelling at that period. The Welsh then being in a state of rebellion against English governors—as the ejected Primate of Ireland, with his daughter, were quietly riding along the road, they fell into the hands of some straggling insurgents, who dragged them from their horses, and stripped them of their baggage. Books and MSS. were wantonly strewed about the highway; but the respect in which the Prelate was held appears when we learn, that the neighbours from time to time brought back to him his scattered treasures, so that on their being put together he "found not many wanting."[316] Coming to London he filled the office of preacher at Lincoln's Inn, employing his leisure from public duty upon that wonderful monument of learning, his "Annals of the Old Testament,"—in which he unfolded a system of chronology, since widely adopted in the reformed churches. Cromwell sent for Ussher, and conversed with him upon the promotion of the Protestant religion at home and abroad; at the same time offering him a lease of certain lands pertaining to the see of Armagh. When failure of sight and other infirmities had unfitted the Bishop for preaching any longer, he resigned his office at Lincoln's Inn, and sought in seclusion the consolations of that Gospel which he had faithfully proclaimed. When Cromwell published his ordinance against the Episcopalian clergy, they requested Ussher to employ his influence to mitigate the severity of his Highness's anger.[317] He succeeded at first in obtaining from the Protector a promise that the Episcopalians should be unmolested, if they did but quietly submit to the government of the Commonwealth, a promise which was as much as could be fairly expected; but, during a second interview, Cromwell confessed that his Council had advised him not to grant any indulgence to persons so implacably disaffected as the Episcopalians were, since it might prove very dangerous to the State. Anything which passed between two such men is interesting to posterity; and therefore a further story is preserved, to the effect, that Cromwell—suffering at the time from a boil—remarked to his right reverend visitor, "If this core were once out, I should be soon well." "I doubt the core lies deeper," is the reported reply. "There is a core in the heart which must be taken out, or else it will not be well." "Ah," rejoined the Protector, "so there is indeed." Supposing the story to be true, the self-application of such reproof did no less credit to Cromwell, than its honest administration did to Ussher. Leaving the smoke and bustle of London for the breezy downs and rural scenery of Reigate, the aged scholar there pursued his studies so far as failing strength permitted him; and, there, with a calm mind, joining in prayer with the chaplain of the Countess of Peterborough, he at once ended his days and his sorrows. The Protector ordered a public funeral for the deceased Bishop, and contributed £200 towards the expenses—an order which, whatever might be the extra cost entailed by it upon his relatives, was intended as a mark of honour, and was so regarded by his friends and by the clergy of London. The latter followed the plumed hearse from Somerset House to Westminster Abbey, accompanied by a guard of soldiers and a vast concourse of people. Cromwell permitted the burial service of the Prayer Book to be used on the occasion, a circumstance which appears the more remarkable, when we recollect that it occurred just after the severest of all his measures against the Episcopal Church.[318]

Hall.

The pious Joseph Hall—the English Seneca—after the "hard measure" meted out to him by Parliament, went to live in the hamlet of Heigham, just outside one of the gates of the old city, of which he had been Lord Bishop. There, in a rented house—now the little Elizabethan inn bearing the sign of the Dolphin[319]—he spent the remnant of his days in seclusion and poverty; suffering from strangury and stone; but bearing both his privations and his disease with the patience and magnanimity of Christian faith. His will, after bequeathing his soul to God, directed his body to be interred without any funeral pomp—with this "monition," that he did not hold God's house a meet repository for the bodies of the greatest saints: but his executors, whilst "admiring the lowly mind of the departed," buried him in the chancel of the little church; where the people of the hamlet still behold every Sunday his mural monument in black marble, bearing the figure of a gilt skeleton, which holds in its hand a scroll inscribed with the admonitory words, "Debemus morti, nos, nostraque."

Morton, Bishop of Durham, a man of High Church views, had, in the height of the popular fury against Prelatists, been assailed, as he rode in his coach through the streets; and when some one remarked, "He is a good man," "No matter," the Polyphemus of the mob replied, "he is a Bishop." Eight hundred pounds a year was voted him by Parliament, which, however, as it is reported, was never paid; but he did receive the sum of one thousand pounds, with which he discharged his debts and purchased an annuity. He was turned out of his house in London just before the execution of Charles. Having lived awhile successively with old Royalist friends, including the Earl of Rutland, he travelled up one day to London, and was overtaken and joined on the road, in the friendly fashion of those times, by Sir Christopher Yelverton, who had some share in the humiliation of the Church. Ignorant of his travelling companion, the knight, as their horses ambled on side by side, asked the bishop who he was; the Bishop, having in this respect the advantage of the knight, replied, with a dash of brave Episcopal pride which rose above present humiliation, "I am that old man, the Bishop of Durham, notwithstanding all your votes." To the enquiry whither he went, he replied, "To London, to live a little while, and then die." The incident is worth relating, as a specimen of the kindly English feeling which in many an unknown case tempered party animosities. Sir Christopher entered into friendly discourse with the ejected Bishop, took him home to his seat in Northamptonshire, appointed him tutor to his son, and left his friendship as an heirloom to the pupil—who imbibed his tutor's love for Episcopacy, and in 1659 reverently closed the old man's eyes in his 95th year.[320]