the "great high place"—
where in earlier days the prince-bishop, whose worldly franchises invested him with a faint shadow of sovereign power, bearing alike the sword and the pastoral staff, "looked down," as Dr. Freeman says, "from his fortified height, on a flock which he had to guard no less against worldly than against ghostly foes."
There is a wide-spread belief among the people of Rivington that Pilkington was the first Protestant bishop appointed by Queen Elizabeth, but this is undoubtedly an error. Parker had been appointed to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury in the preceding year, and many other vacant sees had also been filled up, but those of York and Durham had been purposely kept open for a year, in the hope that the former holders—Heath and Tunstall—would conform.
Nothing, perhaps, more forcibly illustrates the sturdy independence and inflexible determination of the old Lancashire divine than his uncompromising resistance to the unjust attempt made by Elizabeth to appropriate to her own use, or that of some of her favourites, a portion of the temporalities of his bishopric. The revenues of the Cathedral church of Durham had attracted the cupidity of the sordid minions of the Court, who were anxious to enlarge their hereditary estates by the seizure of the Church's lands, and, at their instigation, the Queen, following the example of her father, Henry VIII., on Pilkington's nomination, had excepted out of the restitution several valuable manors and estates, a procedure that the newly-enthroned prelate, whose manly spirit, disdaining the slavish obsequiousness which characterised many of his episcopal brethren, refused to acquiesce in. He at once took measures for the recovery of the detained estates, and prosecuted his claim with so much firmness and energy, that Elizabeth, who was wont to speak of "unfrocking" contumacious bishops, had in the long run to yield, and Pilkington in 1566 had the good fortune to obtain the restoration of the whole of his lands, with the exception of Norhamshire, charged, however, with the payment of an annuity to the crown of £1,020. The bishop was no respecter of persons. If he was ready to brave the displeasure of the Queen in guarding the rights of the Church in his own diocese, he was equally willing to defend her interests elsewhere, and, as we shall hereafter see, did not scruple even to rebuke both a bishop and an archbishop in doing so.
The Church has seldom had a more faithful pastor or zealous administrator than worthy James Pilkington. In the month of October, 1561, the first year of his episcopate, he made a visitation of his diocese, passing through his native county on his way north, and that would appear to have been the occasion on which he addressed a letter of admonition to Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the lamentable state of ecclesiastical affairs in Lancashire, and a deplorable picture his letter presents of the Church at that time. The Archbishop was the patron and rector of the three great parishes of Rochdale, Blackburn, and Whalley, then embracing within their limits a large number of chapelries, the incumbents of which were as ill-paid as their cures were badly served; indeed, the position of the clergy was much worse after the Reformation than before, partly because of the extensive confiscations of parochial property, and partly because they lost many of the fees that had been customarily paid for religious services. William Downham was Bishop of Chester at the time—an easy-going prelate, who was not much troubled with earnest scruples of any kind. The Bishop was negligent, and, as might be expected, his clergy were, for the most part, wanting in earnestness; many of them, too, were miserably poor, lamentably incompetent, sadly ignorant, and some grossly immoral. The Archbishop of York had compounded with the Bishop of Chester for the visitation of the diocese, and that prelate contented himself with simply receiving the visitation fees, which were collected for him by a deputy, alleging, as an excuse for his personal negligence, the difficulty of travelling in the wild parts of Lancashire; while the jocund demeanour of the Bishop of Man, who had taken up his abode in the county away from his own charge, was not likely to induce much veneration for his episcopal office. Two of the Archbishop's parishes—Blackburn and Whalley—were very sorrily supplied, James Hylton, the vicar of the first-named, being obliged eventually to resign on account of his ignorance, negligence, and utter incompetence; whilst George Dobson, the vicar of Whalley, was a cleric of low habits and licentious character, grossly ignorant, unable to read intelligently, and altogether incapable of discharging the duties of his office. The dependent chapelries were in even worse plight; in many, the services were neglectfully performed, and in some not at all, or only on the occasion of the visit of some itinerant preacher. Such was the condition of affairs at the time Pilkington visited his native county. No wonder that so energetic and zealous a worker should have addressed the following letter of complaint to the negligent Archbishop:—
It is to be lamented to see and hear how negligently they say any service, and how seldom. I have heard of a commission for ecclesiastical matters directed to my Lord of York, &c. But because I know not the truth of it, I meddle not. Your cures all, except Rachdale, be as far out of order as the worst in all the country. The old Vicar of Blackburn resigned for a pension, and now livest with Sir John Biron. Whalley hath as ill a vicar as the worst. And there is one come thither that has been deprived or changed his name, and now teacheth school there; of evil to make them worse. If your Grace's officers list, they might amend many things. I speak this for the amendment of the country, and that your Grace's parishes might be better spoken of and ordered. If your Grace would, either yourself or by my Lord of York, amend these things, it were very easy. One little examination or commandment to the contrary would take away all these and more. The Bishop of Man liveth here at ease, and as merry as Pope Joan. The Bishop of Chester hath compounded with my Lord of York for his visitation, and gathered up the money by his servants; but never a word spoken of any visitation or reformation. And that, he saith, he doth of friendship, because he will not trouble the country, nor put them to charge in calling them together. I beseech you, be not weary of well-doing, but with authority and council help to amend that is amiss. Thus after commendations I am boldly to write, wishing good to my country, and furtherance of God's glory. God be merciful to us, and grant ut liberè currat Evangelium. Vale in Christo, Cras profecturus Dunelmum, Volente Deo.
Tuus Ja. Δυνελμεν
Though Pilkington kept his Puritanism well under control, he was uncompromising in the assertion of his Protestant principles, and the boldness with which he proclaimed them not unfrequently provoked the anger of the Papal party. The beautiful spire of St. Paul's Cathedral, the loftiest in the kingdom, which had been restored so recently as the year when Queen Mary ascended the throne, was in 1561 stricken, as was alleged, by lightning[18] and destroyed, together with the bells and the roof of the nave and aisles. The Roman Catholics represented the accident as a judgment of Heaven for the discontinuance of the matins and other services which had used to be performed in the church; whereupon the Bishop preached a sermon at Paul's Cross in which he accepted it as a judgment, but on the sins of London in general, and particularly on the abuses by which the church had formerly been polluted, and concluded by exhorting his hearers "to take the dreadful devastation of the church to be a warning of a greater plague to follow if amendment of life were not had in all estates." His observations were supposed to reflect upon the Papists, who immediately circulated a paper about the city declaring the chief cause of the destruction to be "that the old fathers and the old ways were left, together with blaspheming God in lying sermons preached there, polluting the temple with schismatical service, and destroying and pulling down altars set up by blessed men, and where the sacrifice of the Mass was ministered." Pilkington, in vindication of his sermon, published a tract giving an animated description of the practices that had prevailed, and which is interesting at the present day as pourtraying the curious scenes and incidents of which St Paul's was then the theatre. "No place," he said, "had been more abused than Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of Christ's Gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that God had spared it so long, than that he overthrew it now.... From the top of the spire, at coronations or other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used to throw themselves down by rope, and so killed themselves vainly to please other men's eyes. At the battlement of the steeple, sundry times were used Popish anthems, to call upon their gods, with torch and paper in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollard's Tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormented and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from the roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in their censing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches men commonly complained of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes; and divers had been condemned there by Annas and Caiaphas for Christ's cause. Their images hung on every wall, pillar, and door, with their pilgrimages and worshippings of them; passing over their massing, and many altars, and the rest of their popish service. The south alley was for usury and popery, the north for simony and the horsefair, in the midst of all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, conspiracies. The font for ordinary payments of money as well known to all men as the beggar knows his dish.... So that within and without, above the ground and under, over the roof and beneath, from the top of the steeple and spire down to the low floor, not one spot was free from wickedness."[19]
In his prosperity the Bishop was by no means unmindful of those who had been his associates in adversity. Shortly after his elevation to the Bishopric of Durham, Thomas Lever, the companion of his boyhood, his fellow-collegian at Cambridge and his friend in exile, was collated to a prebendal stall in his cathedral; and his brother, John Lever, was appointed archdeacon of Northumberland, and subsequently became Prebendary of Durham.
In 1567 Pilkington made another visitation of his cathedral, when, doubtless, he felt little or no reluctance in carrying out the instructions of the Queen's Commissioners for the removal of superstitious books and ornaments and effacing idolatrous figures from church plate. It was shortly after this visitation, and while he occupied the see of Durham, that the unhappy enterprise, the "Rising of the North," occurred, when the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland took up arms and proclaimed their design of restoring the old religion. The insurrection was precipitated by the arrest of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, "the most powerful and the most popular man in England," but who, allured by ambition, and animated by a chivalrous feeling for the beautiful but ill-fated Queen of Scots, then the captive of the implacable Elizabeth, formed the intention of effecting her release and then marrying her, a project that eventually proved fatal to his own peace and life. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who were believed to be implicated, were ordered to repair to Court, but, apprehensive of the fate that might await them, Northumberland marched with his vassals to join Westmoreland at Brancepeth Castle; Richard Norton, of Rylstone, had been called to their aid, and a proclamation was issued to those professing the Catholic faith, who in the thinly-inhabited border counties were numerous as well as desperate. Bishop Pilkington, by his energetic zeal in the cause of Protestantism, had made himself particularly obnoxious to the insurgents, and their first efforts were directed against his episcopal stronghold. They entered the city without opposition, and thence proceeded to the Cathedral, where they tore up and trampled under foot the English Bibles and Books of Common Prayer, and then celebrated Mass. The rebels marched under a banner representing the bleeding Saviour—"the banner of the five wounds"—
which was borne by the venerable lord of Rylstone, Richard Norton, a brave old man, whose fate and the fate of his eight sons have been preserved from the oblivion of dry annals, by the legends which a true poet[20] has invested with almost historical reality:—
The revolt was quickly suppressed, and a terrible vengeance followed. Martial law was carried out and the triumph of 1569 was disgraced by fearful executions; an alderman, a priest, and above sixty others were hanged in Durham alone, and many others suffered in every market town between Newcastle and Wetherby, the "reverend grey beard," Richard Norton, and his eight sons being among the number.
The princely house of Neville was entirely ruined, and the immense estates of the castles of Raby and Brancepeth, with the dependent manors, were seized by the Crown. These properties should, by right, have vested in the bishopric, according to the full right of forfeitures for treason and felony within the palatinate, but Elizabeth continued to retain possession on pretence of covering the expenses incurred in suppressing the rebellion. Pilkington claimed the forfeitures in right of his palatinate, and, in support of his claim, brought an action against the Queen for the recovery of the forfeited estates, which he prosecuted with so much vigour and success that nothing but the interposition of Parliament prevented the Sovereign being beaten by a subject in her own courts; the Act decreeing that "the convictions, outlawries, and attainders of Charles, Earl of Westmoreland, and fifty-seven others, attainted of high treason, for open rebellion in the north parts," should be confirmed, and "that her Majesty, her heirs, and successors, should have, for that time, all the lands and goods, which any of the said persons, attainted within the bishopric of Durham, had, against the bishop and his successors, though he claimeth jura regalia, and challengeth all the said forfeitures in right of his church." After the failure of his suit the Bishop, whose health seems to have given way under the anxieties of prolonged litigation, petitioned for liberty to pass the winter in the South, with the hope, perhaps, and the desire of being removed to some other diocese.
On the first alarm of Northumberland and Westmoreland's rising, Pilkington, conscious that his reforming zeal, as well as the fact of his being a married prelate, would be likely to provoke the fury of the insurgents, removed with his family into the South, and there remained until all danger was passed. Fuller says that his two daughters were conveyed away in beggars' clothes to prevent the Papists killing them; there was, however, only one child of the marriage born at the time of the outbreak. His wife, Alice, was a daughter of Sir John Kingsmill, a Hampshire knight, but it is not known with certainty when they were married, the fact having probably been kept secret for some time on account of the strong prejudice that society—Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, acting under the influence of old traditions—had against married priests; for marriage with the clergy was then accounted as hardly respectable, and even the wives of bishops—bishops' women as they were sometimes contemptuously styled—occupied an unpleasant position in the ranks in which their right reverend husbands were accustomed to move.
Elizabeth had a rooted aversion to married priests, and took delight in subjecting them to annoyance and humiliation. It is recorded that in a progress she made into Essex and Suffolk in 1561, the year of Pilkington's appointment to the see of Durham, she expressed high displeasure at finding so many of the clergy married and the cathedrals and colleges so filled with women and children. In consequence she addressed to Archbishop Parker a royal injunction, "that no head or member of any college or cathedral should bring a wife or any other woman into the precincts of it, to abide in the same, on pain of forfeiture of all ecclesiastical promotion," and when the Archbishop ventured to remonstrate with her against the Popish prohibition she replied that she repented having made any married bishops. It was to Parker's own wife that, in a fit of ill-humour, she addressed the ungracious and humiliating remark, when acknowledging the magnificent hospitality with which she had been entertained at the archiepiscopal palace: "Madam, I may not call you; mistress, I am ashamed to call you; and so I know not what to call you; but, howsoever, I thank you."[21]
Pilkington's wife bore him four children, two sons and two daughters, all of whom were born during his occupancy of the see of Durham. The sons, Joshua and Isaac, both died young, and concerning them there is a curious tradition still current in the neighbourhood of Rivington, though possessing no historical value. On the highest point of Wilders Moor, a bleak mountain ridge within the limits of the old forest of Horwich, and about three-quarters of a mile to the south-east of Rivington Pike, are two rude piles of stone known as the Wilder Lads, or, more commonly, the Two Lads, which, according to popular belief, were erected in memory of two unfortunate youths who were "wildered" (i.e. bewildered) and lost in the snow at this place. Baines says (Hist. Lanc.) a tradition prevails in the neighbourhood that the two unfortunate youths lost in the storm, to whose memory these two piles are supposed to be erected, were the sons of Bishop Pilkington, but, he adds, there is no evidence to support this supposition except the coincidence that the bishop had two sons and they both died young. Of the prelate's two daughters, Ruth became the wife of —— Dantze or Dauntesy, of Bucks, a representative probably of the family of that name of West Lavington, in Wiltshire, and Agecroft, in the parish of Prestwich, in Lancashire, and Deborah, baptised at Auckland, October 8th, 1564, who, at the time of her father's decease, was said to be engaged to Sir Thomas Gargrave, Knight, but who married Sir Henry Harrington, of Exton, son of Sir John Harrington by his wife Lucy, daughter of Sir William Sidney, of Penshurst, and had by him a daughter, Anne, who became the wife of Sir Thomas Roper, Knight, who for his military exploits was ennobled by the titles of Baron Bantry and Viscount Baltinglass, and was mother of, with other children, Mary, who became the wife of the wise and witty divine, Dr. Thomas Fuller, the church historian and the author of "England's Worthies"—quaint old Fuller—the "dear, fine, silly, old angel," as Charles Lamb delighted to call him.
Of the three Lancashire reformers, the friends in exile during the Marian persecutions, James Pilkington was the first who finished his work. On the 23rd of January, 1575-6, "the good old Bishop of Durham, a grave and truly reverend man, of great learning and piety, and such frugality of life as well became a modest Christian prelate," entered into his rest. He died at Bishop Auckland, and was buried there in accordance with his expressed desire with "as few Popish ceremonies as may be, or vain cost," but his remains were subsequently transferred to his cathedral at Durham, where a sumptuous monument, bearing a long Latin inscription, was erected to his memory. His "frugality of life"—for the pomp and estate usually observed by the prelates of Durham, prince-bishops of the palatinate see, were not much to his mind—enabled him to accumulate, what in those days was deemed a considerable estate, sufficient to admit of his giving his daughters, when they married, portions equal in amount (£4,000 each, it is said) to those possessed by the Princesses Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, and Eleanor, Duchess of Cumberland, nieces of Henry the Eighth, a circumstance which so greatly excited the jealousy of Queen Elizabeth, who "scorned that a bishop's daughter should equal a princess," that she afterwards took _£_1,000 a year from the see and gave it to the town of Berwick for garrison expenses. Possibly the Queen had not forgotten the courageous manner in which the sturdy Lancashire prelate had asserted the right of the Church to retain her ancient patrimony and the fearlessness with which he had resisted her unconstitutional exercise of the Royal prerogative.
Pilkington's will was proved on the 18th of December, 1576, by his widow and executrix, whom he therein names as "Alice Kingsmill, my now known wife," an expression that tends to confirm the belief that his marriage was, for some time at least, kept secret, though it must have been openly avowed at the time, or shortly after his elevation to the see of Durham, for in his Confutation of an Addition, printed in 1561, the year of his preferment, in his argument against the prevailing prejudice with respect to the marriage of ecclesiastics, he says, "I am sure that many will judge that I speak this to please my wife," an evidence that his own marriage was then generally known.
Though some of his contemporaries might be indolent in the discharge of their episcopal duties, Pilkington himself was a worthy son of the Church, and performed the functions of his office with all diligence and fidelity. "A bishop," he wrote, "is a name of office, labour, and pains, rather than of dignity, ease, wealth, or idleness. The word episcopus is Greek, and signifies a scout-watch, an overlooker, or spy; because he should ever be watching and warning that the devil our enemy do not enter to spoil or destroy." Though he had, while at Geneva, imbibed the principles of Puritanism, he duly conformed to the practices of the Church, from his respect to constituted authority, but all through his episcopate he manifested a strong disposition to deal tenderly with his nonconforming brethren. He was a prolific writer as well as an able and energetic administrator, and his literary productions, which are, for the most part, of a controversial character, are marked by much colloquial force, and a terseness and vigour of language that is strongly indicative of the Lancashire mind. His collected works were reprinted in 1842 by the Parker Society,[22] and include his "Sermon on Bucer and Phagius, 1560;" "Exposition upon the Prophet Haggai, 1560-1562;" "Exposition upon the Prophet Obadiah, 1562;" "The Burning of St. Paul's Church;" "Confutation of an Addition, 1563;" "Answers to Popish Questions, 1563;" "Letter to the Earl of Leicester on behalf of the Refusers of the Habits, 1564;" "De Prædestinatione, tractatus Jacobi Pilkington dum erat studens Cantabrigiæ; Epistola ad Andriam Kingsmill, 1564;" and "Exposition upon certain Chapters of Nehemiah," the last-named work having been published after his death by his friend Foxe, the Martyrologist, in 1585.
In one respect Pilkington may be said to have been in advance of his age. Brought up in a county where the practice of astrology and alchemy extensively prevailed, where the belief in supernatural powers was cherished and preserved long after an improved education had driven it from more civilised communities, and where witchcraft could boast its greatest number of votaries; living at a time, too, when a conjuror was reckoned a necessary official in the household of an Earl of Derby, when bishops gave authority and a form of licensing to their clergy to cast out devils, when Jewell, in a sermon preached before the Queen, could lament "the marvellous increase of witches," and when Elizabeth herself was consulting the English Faust, Dr. Dee, the future Warden of Manchester, as to the most lucky day for her coronation, it is pleasant to find the old Lancashire divine, with all the vigour of his robust intellect, exposing the generally prevailing delusions, and protesting against the casting of horoscopes and the belief in lucky and unlucky days. "What can we say for ourselves," he remarks, "but that we put great superstition in days, when we put openly in calendars and almanacks, and say, These days be unfortunate, and great matters are not to be taken in hand these days, as though we were of God's privy council? But why are they unfortunate? Is God asleep on those days? or doth He not rule the world and all things those days as well as on other days? Is He weary, that He must rest Him in those days? Or doth He give the ruling of those days to some evil spirit or planet? If God gave to stars such power that things cannot prosper on those days, then God is the author of evil. If stars do rule men those days, then man is their servant. But God made man to rule, and not to be ruled; and all creatures should serve him."
Though himself of ancient and honourable lineage, Pilkington had little respect for the "pride of ancestry" or reverence for mere "gentle" descent, as will be seen by the following passage in his writings:—
And to rejoice in ancient blood, what can be more vain? Do we not all come of Adam, our earthly father? And say we not all, "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed, &c."? How can we crack then of our ancient stock, seeing we came all both of one earthly and heavenly Father? If ye mark the common saying, how gentle blood came up, ye shall see how true it is:—
When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman?
Up start the carle, and gathered good,
And thereof came the gentle blood.
And although no nation has anything to rejoice in of themselves, yet England has less than any other. We glory much to be called Britons; but if we consider what a vagabond Brutus was, and what a company he brought with him, there is small cause of glory. For the Saxons, of whom we came also, there is less cause to crack. So that of Brutus we may well be called brutes for our brutish conditions, and of the Saxons saxi, that is, stout and hard-hearted; but if we go up to Cain, Japhet, and such other fathers of us gentiles, we may be ashamed of our ancestors, for of all these we came, that knew no God.
All this is doubtless true, but the converse equally holds good, for however we may affect to despise hereditary rank there can be no doubt that the personal virtues as well as the heroic deeds of ancestors who have signalised themselves in tournament, or on the tented field, tends to inspire a feeling of emulation in the breast of their descendants, and even Pilkington himself was not unmindful of the outward marks of honour, gentility, and family distinction. The great legal luminary, Lord Chief Justice Coke, affirmed that every gentleman must be "arma gerens," and that the best test of gentle blood was the bearing of arms; so we find Pilkington, on his preferment to Durham, showing his regard for hereditary distinctions, as well as his respect for the noble science, by establishing his claim to bear arms, and obtaining from Sir Gilbert Dethick, Garter King, an honourable augmentation—quibus ex antiquo tempore ulebatu. The grant, which bears date February 10, 1561, sets forth that the Reverendus in Christe pater D. Jacobus Pilkenten Theologiæ baccalaureus Dunelmensis Episcopus est ex nobili et antiquâ familiâ ortus gerens arma vel insignia; the hereditary coat—argent, a cross patonce, voided gules—having the addition of a chief vert, thereon three suns or; and examples of this coat may still be seen in the restored picture in Rivington Church, one impaling the arms of the see of Durham and the other those of Kingsmill, the bishop's wife—argent, semée of cross-crosslets fitchée sable, a chevron ermine, between three mill-rinds of the second; a chief ermine.
Of the monument erected to Pilkington's memory in Durham Cathedral scarce a fragment remains, but one of a more enduring character survives to perpetuate his name—the free Grammar School which he founded in his native village, and endowed with lands and rents, situate in the county of Durham, for the "bringing up, teaching, and instructing children and youth in grammar and other good learning, to continue for ever;" the school to be open, as the Queen's patent expressed it, to "all our faithful and liege people, whosoever they bee." The statutes for the government of the school contained many curious directions. The management was vested in six governors, who were "to choose one of the wisest and discreetest among themselves to be spokesman (i.e., president) for the year." The voters had to take an oath before the election, the governors and spokesman at election. The regulations respecting the election of voters and those entitled to vote were carefully laid down, and the oath to be taken by the voters as well as that to be made by the governor-elect is prescribed. The duties of the governors, of the scholars, and of the masters and ushers are also defined, those regulating the conduct of the scholars in regard to their apparel, their pastimes, and their manners at meals being curiously minute, and throwing much light on the school-life of a grammar-school boy, as well as on the habits of the poorer classes of the time. The devotional exercises for early morning, as well as the prayers for midday and evening, and the grace before and after meat are set forth. "After that they have prayed in the morning they shall dress their beds, comb their head, wash their hands, and see their apparel be cleanly; their hose shall not hang about their heels, nor out of their shoes, nor their shoes be torn; for though their apparel need not be costly, yet it is a shame to wear it slovenly; their coats and hosen shall not be costly furnished, cut, graded, nor jagged; no nor torn, slovenly worn, nor ragged; nor caps with feathers or aglets. No kind of staff-dagger nor weapon shall they wear, except a penknife, nor go to the fencing school, but their chief pastime shall be shooting, and that in honest company and small game, or none for money. At meat they shall not be full of talk, but rather hear what their elders and betters say; if they be asked a question they shall reverently take off their cap and answer with as few words as may be; and they shall not eat greedily nor lye on the table slovenly." No doubt these precepts were necessary in an age when there was little disposition to value manners above morals, or to regard pleasantness as better than honesty; and when, if one may judge from the "Bokes of Nurture" and "Curtasy" then in vogue, the hopes-of-England even in the higher ranks were but dirty, ill-mannered, awkward young gawks. It was strictly enjoined that neither the schoolmaster nor usher should serve as curate of the church; the holidays were specified, and the modes of correction particularised. As the school was not intended for rudimentary instruction, none were to be admitted who could not read "except in great need," when the usher should teach it; but "in learning to read much time was not to be spent, for the continual exercise of learning other things should make it perfect." The children were to be taught English grammar, and the usher was to teach them the Latin of every noun and verb, "that by this means he and others that hear may learn what everything is called in Latin, and so be more ready to understand every word what it signifieth in English when they come to construction. As first to begin with Latin words for every part of a man and his apparel; of a house and household stuff, as bedding, kitchen, buttery meats, beasts, herbs, flowers, birds, fishes, with all parts of them; virtues, vices, merchandise, and all occupations, as weavers, tanners, carpenters, ploughers, wheelwrights, tailors, tilers, and shoemakers; and cause them to write every word that belongs to one thing, together in order."
Some interesting particulars respecting the state of Pilkington's school a century after his death are given in a return made to Mr. Christopher Wase, one of the Superior Bedells in Oxford University, who, in the latter half of the seventeenth century had conceived the idea of publishing an account of the whole of the grammar schools in England, with a view of showing whether those foundations were being rightly used or not. The work was never published, but the returns obtained are included in the MS. collection of Mr. Wase, now preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. For the following transcript of that relating to Rivington we are indebted to the industrious research of Mr. J. P. Earwaker, F.S.A. There is no date appended to the return, but it was presumably written in 1673-4:—
Rivington Free Schoole.
Sir,—I received a paper from your office purportinge a designe of a gentleman in Oxon to report the state of the present English ffree schoolis, which paper desires my Answer to and Resolution of Sundry Queries touchinge the free Gramar School of Rivington, which accordinge to desire is done and herewith sent to your office, which you may please to take and represent as followeth.
Imprimis.—The fabrick of the free Gramar School of Rivington in the parish of Bolton was built at the charge and by the appointment of the pious and Learned prelate James Pilkington, Bishopp of Duresme, son of Richard Pilkington of Rivington aforesaid Esqr. who also endowed the said school with lands and Tenements of the clear yearly value of 27li. 14s. 10d., part whereof ariseth out of lands lying in Lancashire viz. 2li. 13s. 4d. The remainder ariseth out of lands scituate and lying in the Bishoprick of Durham. Other accession of revenue by benefactors the school hath none, except with improvement the Governors of the said school successively have made, which amounts not to above 6 or 7 li. per annum.
(2). The said schoole at the humble suite of the said reverend and pious prelate made to Queen Elizabeth of happy memory was founded, created, erected and established by her Royal Grant in the nature of Letters patents (bearinge date the 13th of May in the eighth year of her reigne) by the name of the free Gramar School of Queen Elisabeth in Rovington alias Rivington, whereby one master or teacher and one usher or under teacher are ordained to continue for ever, and also six governors by the name of the governors of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the free Gramar School of Queen Elizabeth in Rovington alias Rivington to bee one body corporate and politick of themselves for ever incorporate and elected by the name of the governors of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the free Gramar School of Queen Elisabeth in Rovington alias Rivington in the county of Lancashire.
(3). The names of the Governors expressly assigned chosen nominated and appointed by the foresaid Grant or Letters patents were Thomas Ashawe, Esq., George Pilkington, Esq., Thomas Shaw, Gentleman, Richard Rivington, John Green, and Ralphe Whittle, yeomen. The names of the Governours now in beinge are Thomas Willoughby, gentleman, John Walker, clark, Thurstan Bradley, George Shaw, Richard Brownlow, and Thomas Rivington, yeomen.
(4). Patron of the said school was the good Bishop himself durante vita, and after his decease, the Master and Seniors of the Colledge of St. John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge for the time being, as also the Bishops of Durham and Chester all which are instructed and authorised by the said Grant in some Cases and with some Limitacons to chuse nominate and appoint who shall succeed in the Governors school Master and Ushers office h. e. when and so often as the Governors of the said school shall faile in and not execute the power and trust committed to them.
(5). To whom of right it belongs to visit I can not say, but 'tis averred by some intelligent persons that it peculiarly appertains to the jurisdiction of the Dutchy of Lancaster and that it is solely subjected to the inspection of the Honourable Chancellor of the Dutchy. Sed de hoc quære.
(6). The school hath not any Exhibition in either of the Universities.
(7). School Masters of the foresaid school I find to have been many, but have not seen or heard of anything printed by any of them, a catalogue of their names you may take as followeth. Mr. Robert Dewhurst, Master of Arts was appointed schoolmaster by the said patron or donor himself. Mr. Hallstead, Mr. Saunders, Mr. Brindle, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Rudall famous, Mr. Bodurda, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Duckworth, Mr. Crook, Mr. ffielden famous, Mr. Breeres, whose successor I was.
(8). Some bookes (and by many tis believed a considerable quantity) were left by the patron or donor to the School. But by one ill means or other how or when is not known they are reduced to a small and inconsiderable number. Neither is there any Library within any Town near adjoining except such as the School near of Bolton can give a more perfect accompt of them I.
John Bradley from Schoolmaster of Rivington. Leave this at the Regesters office in Chester according to desire and direction to bee communicated to whom it concernes.
In later years the trustees obtained from Parliament an Act by which they were enabled to exchange the lands and tenements in Durham for property in the more immediate neighbourhood of the school, and the revenues having largely increased the Charity Commissioners have lately propounded a scheme for the better regulation of the foundation, under the provisions of which the old school has been rebuilt, and is now used for the purposes of an elementary school, and a new grammar school has been erected on the confines of the township.
Such is the story of the school that good Bishop Pilkington launched three centuries ago, and which, through many changes and vicissitudes, has floated down the stream of time to our own day and generation. Well does the generous-hearted founder deserve the niche which Fuller has accorded to him in his gallery of "The Worthies of England." If he gathered wealth he did not forget the Divine injunction, "to do good and to distribute;" he did his best according to his lights to make his surplus wealth available for the benefit of the community to which he belonged. Though "pillared bust" or "storied urn" may no longer mark his resting place, he has himself left a more enduring monument, for
His name will ever be held in honoured remembrance by Lancashire men, who will be ready to say, as Fuller said of another "Lancashire worthy"—Humphrey Chetham—"God send us more such men."
HANDFORTH HALL—THE BRERETONS—SIR WILLIAM BRERETON.
The stranger who perchance for the first time finds himself a worshipper within the ancient church of Cheadle, in Cheshire, may haply have his mind diverted from his devotions by the sight of a curiously-wrought oaken screen which separates an old chantry chapel, at the east end of the aisle, on the south side, from the remaining portions of the church. It is an interesting relic of bygone days, black with age, and carved with many a quaint device, and, withal, of such excellent design and workmanship as to prove that our forefathers were by no means deficient in the higher graces of architecture; the cornice is battered and broken in places, but upon it you may still trace a running figure representing the stem and foliage of the briar, with the figure of a cask or tun, and the letters V and B frequently repeated. In the east window are some fragments of heraldic glass commemorating one of the heroes of Flodden Field, and within the enclosure, placed side by side, is a group of altar tombs of more than passing interest; upon them are the recumbent figures of knights armed cap-à-pie, each with his hands uplifted and conjoined upon his breast as if in supplication. Two of them are of alabaster and of ancient date; whatever there may have been of armorial insignia among their decorations has long since disappeared, but a collar of SS round the neck of each denotes the rank of Esquire of the Body of the Sovereign, and the character of the armour in which they are encased shows that they must have played their parts in the time of that long and bloody struggle between the adherents of the rival Roses which terminated on the Field of Bosworth when the sun of the Plantagenets went down and the flower of English chivalry was destroyed.
The third of these sepulchral memorials, the only one that bears an inscription, is of stone, and perpetuates the name of the last scion of an illustrious house. The verger, if encouraged, will recount, with delight, the valorous deeds of—
and tell you that the grim warriors graven in stone represent some of the earlier lords of Handforth, one of the manors within the parish; that this old chantry was their burial place; and that the letters with the briar and the tun that have attracted your attention are the initials and the punning rebus of Sir Urian Brereton, who, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, of pious memory, acquired the Handforth estate by his marriage with the heiress of that name; "buylded" or rather rebuilt the "haulle" there, and erected the curious piece of carpentry in Cheadle Church for the greater sanctity of the place where repose the remains of his wife's progenitors. Within that little enclosure the gathered ashes of long centuries rest; there many a warlike Honford and many a valorous Brereton sleep in peace; but tabard and helm, sword and buckler, have disappeared, and scarce a relic remains to remind us of their daring and their prowess, or even to perpetuate their names, for—