NONJURORS.
Whether he attended the services at the parish church is matter of controversy. One of his biographers thinks that up to the accession of Queen Anne he enjoyed, in Lord Weymouth’s private chapel, “the privilege of pure services, without alloy of the State prayers;” but it is added, “During his visits to his nephew at Poulshot, or when he was in other places where he could not find any Nonjuring assembly, we may conclude, from what he himself says, that, rather than be debarred the solace of Christian communion, he went to church.”[477] At all events, Ken was distressed at the idea of perpetuating schism; he had no sympathy with the spirit of Hickes; though he allowed excuses for clandestine consecration, he declared his own judgment to be against them; and though his scruples compelled him to retire from his bishopric, he longed earnestly for the reunion of the Church.
Ken survived King William some years, but two of the Nonjuring Prelates, in addition to those already deceased, expired before the Sovereign whose rights they would not acknowledge.
1694–1702.
White, Bishop of Peterborough, died in 1698. Bishop Turner sent to the Dean of St. Paul’s to bury the deceased Bishop in St. Gregory’s churchyard; the Dean had it intimated to him “that any clergyman conformable to the Church and Government might bury him.” “Bishop Turner, who was one that carried up the pall, with thirty or forty more of the Clergy, and some few laymen, attended him from the house where he died, and being come into the churchyard almost as far as the grave, they espied Mr. Standish, one of the Minor Canons, in his surplice, ready to read the office. At the sight of him they immediately made a halt, and, after they had conferred amongst themselves a little while, all the Clergy opened on each side to let the corpse pass along to the grave, and went, every one of them, back again, so that only two or three of the laity stayed to see him interred. It seems the party renounced all manner of communion with any person conformable to the Church and Government.”[478] I have already pointed out that there were two classes of Nonjurors: the practically moderate, represented by Ken and others, even indeed by Dodwell—and the extreme, represented by Hickes; and it is apparent that the persons who attended White’s funeral were of the latter description, and would not in any way hold fellowship with any but their own party.
In the month of November, 1700, the Bishop who attended that funeral followed his episcopal brother into the invisible world. Turner was very poor—“in very needy circumstances,” says Bishop Nicholson, “having a large family, and no support out of the common bank of charity.” He lived in extreme retirement, and was buried in the chancel of Therfield Church, Hertford, where he had once been rector, a single word only being inscribed on the stone which covered his mortal remains, but that word most expressive—Expergiscar.
NONJURORS.
Samuel Pepys, who lost his official appointment upon the accession of William and Mary, and consequently at that time retired into private life, wearied in his last days with cares and jaded with pleasures, sought relief in the duties of religion, and inquired through Nelson for a spiritual adviser. Nelson’s reply to his request throws a curious light upon the circumstances of the Nonjurors’ condition: “After the strictest inquiry, I find none of our Clergy placed in your neighbourhood nearer than Mitcham, where lives one Mr. Higden, a very ingenious person, who married the late Lord Stowell’s sister; but I believe you may have one with greater ease from London, by reason of the conveniency of public conveyances. Our friend, Dean Hickes, is at present at Oxford; but if you will be pleased whenever your occasions require it to send to Mr. Spinckes, who has the honour of being known to you, he will be sure to wait upon you, and take such measures that you may always be supplied whenever you stand in need of such assistance. He lodges at a glazier’s in Winchester Street, near London Wall.”[479]
Pepys died in the summer of 1703, and, in a letter to Dr. Charlett, Hickes described the services he rendered the dying man, and the effect which they produced upon him.
1694–1702.