1663.
Sheldon, as a reward for the great services which he had rendered to the High Church party during the Commonwealth; at the Restoration, and after his preferment to London, was translated to the Archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. The ceremony of his installation was performed with very great pomp.[428]
PROSCRIBED WORSHIP.
In spite of the severity of the law, and the activity of informers, considerable numbers in different parts of the country met for religious worship. It is very common, in the informations sent to Secretary Bennet respecting these assemblies, to find mention made of them as having a revolutionary object. There were, it is reported, daily great Conventicles near Canterbury; and on Whit-Tuesday, June 20th, three hundred persons met in the village of Waltham, in a farm cottage, described as "one Hobday's house." Others heard preaching in a cherry orchard, sitting under trees then rich with ripening fruit; upon leaving the enclosure, it is said, they had with them "fifty or sixty good horses, several portmanteaus," and certain bundles "supposed to contain arms." Liberty thus exercised, frightened intolerant people. Sectaries in the City of Chichester were charged with treating contemptuously the surplice and Prayer Book. Some were imprisoned, and others bound over to the Sessions. The ringleaders promised to be quiet, yet afterwards they interrupted the ministers in worship; in consequence of which, the trained bands marched out to keep guard for a fortnight, at the expiration of which period another company of the same kind was to take their place. Like precautions were adopted at Yarmouth, where two hundred Nonconformists were charged in the Commissary Court with not taking the sacrament.[429] In the City of Norwich, the Deputy-Lieutenant hearing of a meeting in a private house, issued warrants to search for arms. The officers, upon being denied entrance, broke open the doors, and found two or three hundred persons engaged in worship, one hundred of whom were strong men. Their teacher was identified, and all were bound over to the following Sessions. Complaints were made from Lewes that the Sectaries in that town were as numerous as ever. One of the "saints" there happening to die, the clergyman of the parish heard that he was to be buried at night; so when it grew dark, he began carefully to watch, and as the corpse arrived at the churchyard, made his appearance to read the burial service. Upon seeing him, the party retired and took back the body, but they returned in two hours, and again the Incumbent was discerned in the dark, standing by the grave, when they treated him so insolently, that he had to bind several of them over to good behaviour. It was also reported that shops in the town had been kept open in contempt of Christmas Day, although the clergyman had sent orders to close the shutters. "Fair means did no good to these stubborn rascals," said the irritated informant; and his letter is but one specimen out of a great number.[430]
Lucy Hutchinson tells a touching story, relating to the same summer months, to which the earlier of these informations belong. Mr. Palmer, a Nottingham Nonconformist minister, was apprehended, and some others with him, at his own house, by the Mayor for preaching on the Lord's Day, and was put into the town gaol for two or three months. Through a grated window he and his brethren could be seen by the people in the street. One Sunday, as the prisoners were singing a psalm, the passengers stood still by the grated window to listen, and Mr. Palmer went on to preach to the congregation outside, when the Mayor, a renegade Parliament officer, came with officers, and beat the people, and thrust some into confinement.[431]
1663.
The ecclesiastical policy pursued at this time towards the English colonists on the other side of the Atlantic was very different from that adopted at home.
In the instructions given to the Governors of Jamaica, whilst they were enjoined to encourage orthodox ministers of religion, in order that Christianity and Anglican Protestantism might be reverenced and exercised, it was commanded that those colonists who were of different religious opinions should not be obstructed and hindered on such account; that they should be excused from taking the Oath of Supremacy according to the terms required in this country, and that some other mode should be devised for securing their allegiance.[432]
In a Charter granted to the State of Carolina, dated March 24th, 1663, there is a clause of indulgence to be granted to persons who could not conform to the Liturgy, upon condition that they should declare their loyalty, and not scandalize and reproach the Church.[433]