On Easter Day, at the Royal Chapel, when the Bishop of Rochester preached before the King, and the sacrament followed, “there was perfume burnt before the office began.”[270]
The Restoration brought with it much irreverence in religion. The worship at Lichfield was performed “with more harmony and less huddle” than in any church in England, except in St. Paul’s at a later period;[271] a laudable exception proving a disgraceful rule. Complaints were officially made, by a circular letter in the name of Archbishop Sheldon, respecting the slovenly performance of sacred duties by Deans, Canons, and other dignitaries. Reading the service and administering the sacraments had been neglected by such persons, as if they had been offices beneath their importance, to be performed only by Vicars or petty Canons.[272] Croft, Bishop of Hereford, complains that “such dirty nasty surplices as most of them wear, and especially the singers in cathedrals (where they should be most decent), is rather an imitation of their dirty lives,” and had given his “stomach such a surfeit of them” as that he had almost an aversion to them all; and he adds, “I am confident, had not this decent habit been so indecently abused, it had never been so generally loathed.”[273] And Trelawny, of Bristol, laments, in reference to the united parishes of Elberton and Littleton, “I never saw so ill churches, or such ill parishioners. In one the sacrament has not been administered since the Restoration, in the other very seldom; and all the plate is but a small silver bowl, and that is kept at a Quaker’s house, with my late orders to the contrary.”[274] In Articles of Visitation by the Bishop of Lincoln, it is asked whether churchwardens took care that people should not stand idle, or talk together in the church-porch, or walk in the church-yard during the time of sacred offices, or lean or lay their hats on the communion-table; and whether no minstrels, morrice-dancers, dogs, hawks, or hounds were brought into the church to the disturbance of the congregation.[275]
WORSHIP.
Neglect on the part of ecclesiastical officers was accompanied by irreverence on the part of people in general; in all of which may be traced—beyond the result of certain Puritan extravagances during the Civil War—the effect of educational habits which date as far back as the Reformation, and even earlier still, when worn-out superstitions produced contempt. In some cases during the reign of Charles II. impious frivolity and brutal ignorance are apparent. A curious example of this is furnished in the letter of a Canon Residentiary at York, written February 12th, 1673, and preserved amongst the State Papers:—“On Sundays and holidays (when the young people of the town are afloat), 400 or 500 would walk, talk, and do much worse things, to the great disturbance of Divine service (not to mention other aggravations), that nothing could be heard, though with all, I have used such temper and moderation in it, that nothing hath at any time been done against any of them, further than to urge them either to go in to prayers, or to go out of the church, unless sometimes I have catched at a rude boy’s hat, and kept it till the end of the prayers, and given it him (with a chiding) again. Howbeit, this, it seems, so exasperated the youth of the town, that yesterday (being Shrove Tuesday) they, in time of Divine service, broke open the church doors (which I had caused to be shut), and when (after service ended) I was going to my house, they so affronted and abused me, that Captain Henry Wood, and sundry other officers of the garrison, who were walking in the church, were forced not only to come, but to send for two files of musketeers, to my rescue.” The writer then relates that, after the soldiers had left, the mob attacked his house, broke his windows, and did damage to the extent of £40; and would possibly have set fire to his house, had they not been restrained by the military. The Lord Mayor of the City refused to interfere, as the church-yard was not within his liberty.
REVENUES.
III. Episcopal revenues were unequally distributed.[276] The Bishop of Durham received, in 1670 and afterwards, an annual income of £3,280; previously to which his resources were so limited, that it was computed not more than £1,500 remained after he had paid subsidies and first-fruits. Durham House, in the Strand, had been seized by Queen Elizabeth; although reclaimed by the Bishop upon her death, it never again became the episcopal residence; but Aukland Palace, which used to be to Durham what Croydon used to be to Lambeth, remained in the Bishops’ possession, and furnished an opportunity for the richest hospitalities. Ely Place, where Shakespeare’s “good strawberries” grew in the garden, with its vineyard, meadow, and orchard, had been appropriated to Sir Christopher Hatton by Queen Elizabeth; yet Bishop Laney had possession of the palace, and died there in 1675. The Bishops of Carlisle had long lost Worcester House, in the Strand; and the prelates of Winchester had leased out “their very fair house well repaired” (in Southwark), which had “a large wharf and landing-place,” to occupy a mansion in the suburb of Chelsea.[277] The provincial palaces of the Bishops surpassed those which they had in the Metropolis, and were well-known centres of social attraction and entertainment. Whilst lamentations were poured forth by some over the robbery and spoliation of sees, so that it was said a mean gentleman of £200 in land yearly would not exchange his worldly state and condition with divers Bishops,[278]—Burnet speaks of the extravagance of the class generally, and represents them as a bad pattern “to all the lower dignitaries, who generally took more care of themselves than of the Church.” It is a fact, however, which it would be unjust not to mention, that many of the Bishops were large contributors to the repairs of sacred buildings, and to other ecclesiastical objects. Cosin, for instance, expended the income of the first seven years of his episcopacy in the improvement of property belonging to the see of Durham, and in establishing various charitable foundations.
The see of Bristol was extremely poor, and Hereford yielded only £800 a year.[279] Yet Brian Duppa, after his translation to the see of Winchester, which he held but a year and a half, is reported to have received in fines as much as £50,000. Out of this large amount, however, he remitted £30,000 to his tenants, and expended £16,000 in acts of charity.[280] Morley disposed of almost all his income in benefactions. Sheldon’s gifts were computed at upwards of £66,000.[281]
REVENUES.
Palaces, deaneries, and prebendal houses, like cathedrals and churches, had suffered in the wars. Their reparation, and the business connected with raising funds for the purpose, largely occupied the attention of the restored possessors. Hacket, so successful in the re-edification of his cathedral, failed to complete the re-edification of his palace, and left the work to his successor, who shamefully neglected it; but it should be remembered that the restoration of the palaces at Exeter and Salisbury are amongst the good deeds ascribed to Seth Ward.[282] Sancroft procured an Act of Parliament which enabled him to lease out shops and tenements in St. Paul’s Churchyard, upon condition of expending £2,500, before September 30th, 1673, in building a commodious deanery; and the Privy Council, after noticing, in their minutes, that the houses of the Dean and Prebendaries of Winchester, in the late rebellion, were totally demolished, and the greatest part of two other houses likewise pulled down, and three only left standing on the old foundations, very ruinous and out of repair, gave orders, with a view to facilitate the rebuilding, that there should be a repeal of the clauses in the statutes of the Church “which concern succession in vacant prebends, and the reparation of deans’ and prebends’ houses.”[283] Large demands were made upon Chapter revenues, not only for repairs, but for Royal presents and charities; and some cathedral stalls furnished little emolument to their occupants: so that, speaking of a prebend, Croft of Hereford says, “This thing, though small (worth not above £80 per annum) is the best and only considerable thing in my gift, my bishopric being as wretched in this—to my great discomfort—as in the revenue.”[284] Deans and Canons could not vie with Bishops in hospitality, but the comforts of life were amply provided and enjoyed in snug and cozy abodes, within the limits of the cathedral close: and North mentions the good ale and small beer brewed from South Country malt, and supplied from the Prebend’s cellars to his relative the Judge, when visiting the City of Carlisle.[285]
In the year 1663 it was computed that there were 12,000 church livings, of which 3,000 were impropriate, and 4,165 were sinecures without resident clergymen. Considering the small means possessed by some distinguished clergymen, we are not surprised at the eager applications with which they beset Secretary Williamson, whenever vacancies occurred in ecclesiastical posts of a promising kind. Sometimes bribes were offered to promote success, as appears from a letter written to Williamson by a clergyman named Gregory, who sought a stall in a cathedral. He said he had a friend near the Earl of Clarendon; but, the Earl’s interest failing, he desired the Secretary to procure a grant of the next prebend in either of the places he referred to; and he promised gladly, upon the passing of the seal, to gratify his friend with one hundred pieces. A living in any county, if considerable, would be no less welcome, though the simoniacal oath deterred the writer from anything more than an indefinite engagement. He could answer for it, that his Lordship of Gloucester would give him such a character as showed him deserving of the preferment desired.[286]