The Dean of Worcester here referred to was Dr. Hickes. A little more than a fortnight before Lloyd’s letter was written, the Dean drew up a protest against his own ejectment, addressed to the Sub-Dean and Prebendaries, idly declaring the appointment of a successor to be illegal, and as idly calling upon them to defend the rights of the dispossessed. This protesting ended in smoke. Hickes and Wagstaffe, as well as Lloyd, had to succumb; so had Frampton of Gloucester, and White of Peterborough. Sancroft yielded only to a legal process; and at last, on Midsummer eve, between seven and eight o’clock, accompanied by the steward of his household and three other friends, he entered a boat at Lambeth ferry, which conveyed the little party to the Temple stairs, where the deprived Primate sought shelter for a few days in Palsgrave Court. One imagines, as amidst the lengthening shadows on the waters that same night he left for ever the towers of the familiar palace, he would cast “one longing, lingering look behind.” But history preserves a more touching picture of the departure of Ken from the city of Wells.
1691.
After he had from his pastoral chair in the Cathedral asserted his Canonical right to remain Bishop of the Diocese, he passed through the gardens and crossed the drawbridge over the moat, whilst old and young crowded round him to ask his blessing and say farewell. “Mild, complacent, yet dignified,” remarks the Layman who writes his life, “on retiring with a peaceful conscience from opulence and station to dependence and poverty, as the morning sun shone on the turreted chapel, we naturally imagine he may have shed only one tear, when looking back on those interesting scenes. Perhaps his eye might have rested on the pale faces of some of the poor old men and women who had partaken their Sunday dinner so often, and heard his discourse in the old hall.”[206]
Dr. Beveridge, who will be more particularly noticed hereafter, was offered the See of Bath and Wells; but he was threatened by the Nonjurors, in case he should accept the offer, with the fate of schismatical usurpers, like Gregory and George of Cappadocia, who invaded the See of Alexandria, upon the deposition of the orthodox Athanasius.
NONJURORS EJECTED.
A rumour went abroad that the Archdeacon of Colchester had accepted a mitre, in consequence of which friends pestered him with letters for his suspected act, and turned against him his reputation for learning and loyalty. Dr. Lowth prematurely addressed him under an Episcopal title, and expostulated with him in the following terms:—
“May it please your Lordship,
“You must be sensible in what great reputation all well-minded, learned, and judicious men, have had your laborious performances upon the Laws and Canons of the Church. But notwithstanding, since you have accepted a nomination to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, of which See Dr. Ken is the Canonical proprietor; and having not been removed by his brethren, the Bishops, something more is required of you, whereby its comportment with those Church Laws may appear, so frequently forbidding two Bishops to be in one city. It is well known what separations the same practice hath bred in God’s Church, as also that her decision hath still been against you. If, then, the same return, the guilt and schism of it must be laid at your door, unless you can produce such ground for the present practice, whereof not only yourself but the Ancient Church hath heretofore been ignorant. These are the sentiments of many, who have formerly been your just admirers, and desire that you will give them no occasion of taking new measures concerning you, and particularly of him, who, notwithstanding he may no longer—upon the account of your present promotion—write himself your brother, yet will always remain
“Yours, in the faith and discipline
of the Ancient Church.”[207]