London in the Time of the Stuarts

by Walter Besant

A single example of the religious dissensions of the time will doubtless stand for many more. I have before me a pamphlet written by the Rev. J. Dodd, which originally appeared in the English Historical Review (Spottiswoode, 1895), on the troubles of St. Botolph, Aldgate, during this period. To quote Mr. Dodd’s own words, “it is a fairly complete picture of the state of discord, and probably had many a parallel throughout England.”

In 1642 the then Vicar, a follower of Laud, one Thomas Swadlin, was deprived of his living and sent to Newgate. After his departure the living was held by a succession of obscure preachers, probably of Puritanic views, till 1654, when Laurence Wise, the last of them, either died or resigned. In August of that year, by popular election, one John Mackarness, a clergyman in Anglican orders, was appointed. Cromwell, however, intervened, and a Presbyterian, Zachary Crofton, was appointed in his place. Crofton was an Irishman who had been in arms against the King; he was then pastor, first of Newcastle-under-Lyne, next of Winbury, in Cheshire. He refused to take the oath to the Government of 1649 “without King or House of Lords,” and lost his living. In London he obtained the church of St. James’s, Garlickhithe. Here he made himself known as a hot-headed controversialist, and by no means a friend of Cromwell, who, however, nominated him to St. Botolph’s.

Crofton went, therefore, to St. Botolph’s, and found a congenial field for a fighting man. He was himself a Presbyterian; the afternoon lecturer was one John Simpson, who had also, like Crofton, been in the Army, and was now an Independent and an Anabaptist. Crofton alienated some of the former sect by attempting to revive “disception” in his church—that is to say, he forbade unworthy persons from approaching the Lord’s Table. He enraged the Anabaptists by the importance which he attached to the baptism of infants. He also desired to catechise the children, and printed a short catechism for them. Simpson held that you might as well buy rattles or hobby horses for children as catechisms. Crofton began by refusing to recognise Simpson as afternoon lecturer; the parishioners petitioned Cromwell to allow him one lecture in the church on the Lord’s Day and one in the week. This was granted, and Crofton had to give way.

Then occurred a charge which Crofton always denied, but which was brought up against him continually. A certain maid-servant accused him of chastising her with a rod in an improper manner. Afterwards she swore that she had been bribed to bring the accusation.

In 1657 Crofton sent a letter to John Simpson; he was going to take possession of his own pulpit, and Simpson might commence an action as soon as he pleased. Simpson, however, complained to the Council of State, and an order was granted him to preach in the afternoon. Accordingly on Sunday, Crofton being in the pulpit and surrounded by his friends, John Simpson and his party entered the church and presented the order. It was addressed to Grafton, not Crofton. “This order is not for me,” said the Vicar; whereupon the Simpson party retired, beaten for once. The Council of State again interfered and Crofton had to submit. He took revenge by charging Simpson’s three principal friends with brawling in church. They were acquitted; he made a public protest in the church. John Simpson then began to preach against infant baptism; Crofton charged him with heresy and demanded of him a defence of his position. Simpson preserved silence. But he took other steps. He charged Crofton with being a declared enemy to the Government and with preaching sedition and insurrection. Crofton refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Court. He published a pamphlet, however, in which he defended himself and told a pretty story of parish dissensions and persecutions. After this came the whirlwind. Cromwell died. Crofton went into the country just before the Cheshire rising, and was charged with preaching to the rebels; from this he cleared himself. He then threw himself into the politics of the time, strongly advocating a free Parliament; he preached at St. Peter’s, Cornhill, for the restoration of Charles the Second; meantime John Simpson had vanished and the magnanimous Crofton preached a sermon on peace. He lost his church at the Restoration; he was consigned to the Tower for a twelvemonth; he went down into Cheshire and turned cheese-factor; he was again arrested for sowing sedition; he went back to London and started a grocer’s shop; under the pressure of the Five Mile Act he left London and took a farm at Little Barford in Bedfordshire; after the Plague he returned to London and set up a school in Aldgate; it was here that he preached a course of sermons in St. James’s, Duke’s Place, which he afterwards published under the title of “The Saints’ Care for Church Communion.” He died just before Christmas 1672, and his body lies buried in the churchyard of his old parish.

This story illustrates the feverish unrest of the time: the parish divided into furious parties; one clergyman preaching infant baptism; the other preaching that it was as idle to give the child a catechism as a rattle; calumniations and recriminations of the vilest kind; the Restoration; ejections; an attempt to earn a living by making cheese, by farming, by keeping a shop, by keeping a school. A strange story of a strange time!

As a part of the religious aspect of the City one must not omit the desecration of St. Paul’s, which, during the twenty years 1640–1660, was carried out in a manner so resolute and thorough as to show the deliberate intention of giving the citizens, who still gloried in their venerable Cathedral, a lesson in the revolution of religious thought.

The Cathedral, as Dean Milman says, was, under the Puritans, a vast useless pile, the lair of old superstition and idolatry. It would have been pulled down but for the trouble and the expense. The Parliament, however, did what they could to procure its destruction; there was a sum of £17,000 lying in the chambers of the City which remained out of the subscriptions for repairing the church. This was seized. There had also been erected round the tower a scaffolding of wood which was taken down and sold for £174, the whole being given to Colonel Jefferson’s regiment for arrears of pay. When the scaffolding was taken away, part of the roof of the south transept fell in. Whereupon the Mayor and Aldermen represented the necessity of getting more water into the City, and begged the lead that covered the roof towards the pipes for carrying the water.

In 1642 the removal of crucifixes and other superstitious objects was ordered. In the same year all the copes belonging to the Cathedral were burned. In 1645 the silver plate of St. Paul’s was sold, and the money spent in providing artillery.

The Cathedral, according to the story, was offered by Cromwell to the Jews, who refused to buy it. The east end was walled off for the congregation of the lecturer, Cornelius Burgess. Inigo’s portico was let out in small shops to sempstresses and hucksters, with chambers above and stairs leading to them. The body of the church became a cavalry barrack and stable. Paul’s Cross was pulled down.