The three Archbishops of York before the Revolution were not men who exerted much influence. Dr. Accepted Frewen was enthroned on the 11th of October, 1660, and afterwards enjoyed, for twelve months, the revenues of the see of Lichfield, during which period it remained without an occupant. Before his Archiepiscopal career, which proved equally brief and uneventful—for he died on the 28th of March, 1664—he acquired the reputation of being a good scholar, and a great orator; but none of his works were ever published, except a Latin oration, and a few verses on the death of Prince Henry.[715] He was succeeded by Dr. Sterne, who, though in other respects not a remarkable person, furnishes, from the accounts given of him, material for a more extended notice than his predecessor has received. Being educated at Cambridge, and made Master of Jesus College, he, for his loyalty, and for conveying the College plate to Charles I. at York, with other Royalists, was imprisoned, and otherwise treated with great cruelty. In a letter, which he wrote at the time, he gives an account of his sufferings, and, as it indicates his temper, as well as expresses the bitter recollections of Puritanism, which he carried with him into his Episcopate, it will be well to give an extract from it:—"This is now the fourteenth month of my imprisonment," he says,—"nineteen weeks in the Tower, thirty weeks in the Lord Peter's House, ten days in the ships, and seven weeks here in Ely House. The very dry fees and rents of these several prisons have amounted to above £100, besides diet and all other charges, which have been various and excessive, as in prisons is usual. For the better enabling me to maintain myself in prison, and my family at home, they have seized upon all my means which they can lay their hands on. At my living near Cambridge, they have not only taken the whole crop, that is in a manner the whole benefit of the living (for the rest is very little), but plundered and sold whatever goods of mine they found there, even to the poultry in the yard, allowing me not so much as to pay for his dinner that served the Cure. They have robbed also the child that is yet unborn, of the clothes it should be wrapped in. But, upon my wife's address to the Committee at Cambridge, they had so much humanity as to make the sequestrators (though with much ado) restore them to her again. They have also forbidden our College tenants (all within their verge) to pay us any rents (for the better upholding of learning and the nurseries thereof). If I have anything else that escapes their fingers, it is in such fingers out of which I cannot get it; and that also I owe to the same goodness of the times. So that if my friends' love had not made my credit better than it deserves to be, and supplied my occasions, I should have kept but an hungry and cold house both here and at home. And all this while I have never been so much as spoken withal, or called either to give or receive an account why I am here. Nor is anything laid to my charge (not so much as the general crime of being a malignant), no, not in the warrant for my commitment. What hath been wanting in human justice, hath been (I praise God) supplied by Divine mercy. Health of body, and patience and cheerfulness of mind, I have not wanted, no, not on shipboard, where we lay (the first night) without anything under, or over us, but the bare decks and the clothes on our backs; and, after we had some of us got beds, were not able (when it rained) to lie dry in them; and, when it was fair weather, were sweltered with heat, and stifled with our own breaths: there being of us in that one small Ipswich coal-ship (so low built, too, that we could not walk, nor stand upright in it) within one or two of threescore; whereof six Knights, and eight Doctors in Divinity, and divers gentlemen of very good worth, that would have been sorry to have seen their servants (nay, their dogs) no better accommodated. Yet, among all that company, I do not remember that I saw one sad or dejected countenance all the while, so strong is God, when we are weakest."[716] Having been domestic chaplain to Archbishop Laud, Sterne attended him to the scaffold, and afterwards lived in obscurity until the Restoration, after which the King made him Bishop of Carlisle, in the year 1660, and in 1664 transferred him to York, where he died in 1683.[717]

Burnet represents Sterne as "a sour, ill-tempered man," minding chiefly the enriching of his family; as being suspected of Popery, "because he was more than ordinarily compliant in all things to the Court;" and as very zealous for the Duke of York.[718] Another authority affirms that Sterne was greatly respected, and generally lamented; that all his clergy commemorated his sweet condescensions, his free communications, faithful counsels, exemplary temperance, cheerful hospitality, and bountiful charity.[719] It may seem difficult to reconcile these opposite statements; yet, when it is considered, that the first of these authorities would describe Sterne as he appeared to people whom he disliked, and the second as he appeared to people whom he loved, it only follows that the Archbishop showed himself an exceedingly disagreeable man to such as belonged to the opposite party, and quite as pleasant a man to those who belonged to his own. I may notice, that he wrote a Book on Logic, assisted in Walton's Polyglot Bible, and is one amongst other persons to whom, without satisfactory evidence, has been ascribed the authorship of the Whole Duty of Man.[720]

Sterne was succeeded in the Northern primacy, by Dr. John Dolben, Bishop of Rochester, who died at Bishopthorpe in 1686, and whose consecration sermon was preached by South—scanty pieces of information to put together; but really there is as little interest in his life, as there is of importance in his administration. His biography, by Le Neve, consists in a notice of his being an Ensign in the Royalist Army at Marston Moor, in an enumeration of his preferments, and of the Episcopal consecrations in which he took part,—and in the mention of one or two sermons, which he preached on public occasions.[721] Burnet describes him as "a man of more spirit than discretion, and an excellent preacher; but of a free conversation, which laid him open to much censure in a vicious Court."[722]

None of the Welsh Bishops require notice, except that of St. Asaph. This see, after being held by George Griffith, who died in 1668, was bestowed upon Henry Glemham, who died in 1670, when Dr. Isaac Barrow, a High Anglican Churchman, was translated to it from the Isle of Man. Of that singular and inhospitable place he had been consecrated prelate in 1663, and many works of charity and piety are ascribed to him during his seven years' episcopate. The people had no chimnies, and fixed bushes in the entrance to their huts, which they called making a door; and, amidst all this misery, Barrow strove to introduce temporal comforts together with spiritual blessings. At St. Asaph he pursued the same, benevolent career as in the Isle of Man, improving his cathedral and his palace, and also building almshouses.

Barrow was uncle to the celebrated Divine of the same name, but he does not appear to have possessed any of the ability, or much of the learning of his nephew; and it is a singular instance of contrast between the two, that, whereas the Master of Trinity has obtained an undying renown for Protestantism by his treatise on the Pope's supremacy, the prelate has been brought into an equivocal position by the inscription on his monument in St. Asaph Cathedral, where he was buried in 1680: "Orate pro conservo vestro, ut inveniat misericordiam in die Domini." He was succeeded by William Lloyd, a distinguished man, who can be more advantageously described when we reach the story of the Seven Bishops in 1688.[723]

The most unworthy Bishop in this reign was Thomas Wood, who, on the death of Hacket, in 1671, received the see of Lichfield and Coventry. His elevation is attributed to the interest of the infamous Duchess of Cleveland, whose favour he secured by contriving a match between his niece and ward, a rich heiress, and the Duke of Southampton, the Duchess' son. There appears to have been some hesitation respecting this exercise of patronage even in the mind of Charles himself;[724] and the result of it confirmed the worst apprehensions of Wood's unfitness for the Episcopal office, for he entirely neglected his duties, and constantly lived out of his diocese. The money which he received from the heirs of his predecessor to help him in building a palace, he appropriated to his own purposes; and, under the pretence of preparing for the erection, cut down a quantity of timber, which he sold, putting the proceeds of the sale into his own pocket. His scandalous conduct incurred suspension—a rare circumstance indeed in the history of the Episcopal bench: and the form of his suspension is preserved in Sancroft's Register, amongst the Lambeth Archives. From this suspension the delinquent was relieved in 1686, although no improvement took place in his conduct.[725]

The prelates whom I have noticed were consecrated a few of them before the Civil Wars, some of them shortly after the Restoration, all of them a considerable time before Sheldon's death in 1677. The study of their characters, therefore, throws light upon the administration of Church affairs up to the year just mentioned. There are, moreover, two other Bishops, consecrated within three years before Sheldon's death, who claim a passing notice. The Episcopal influence of the first was brief, that of the second lengthened and somewhat peculiar. The first is Dr. Ralph Brideoake, who had been chaplain in the Earl of Derby's family, and had witnessed the heroism of the Countess during the siege of Latham House; but made of different material from her Ladyship, he submitted to the times, held the Vicarage of Witney in Oxfordshire, and of St. Bartholomew by the Royal Exchange, under the Commonwealth. Notwithstanding his having so far complied with the existing powers as to accept the office of a Commissioner for trial and approbation of ministers, he obtained at the Restoration, by another form of subserviency, first, the Living of Standish in Lancashire; next, the Deanery of Salisbury; and at last, in 1674, the Bishopric of Chichester, holding with it in commendam a Canonry at Windsor. There, in 1678, he died and was buried.[726] The second of these two Bishops was Dr. William Lloyd, who matriculated at Cambridge, and was successively Vicar of Battersea in Surrey, Chaplain to the English Merchants' Factory at Portugal, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. He attained to the Episcopal Bench in 1675, first presiding over the see of Llandaff; then being translated in 1679 to the see of Peterborough, and in 1685 being translated to Norwich. All which I can say of his character is that he is praised by Salmon, the admiring biographer of the Bishops after the Restoration.[727]

Such is the substance of what I have been able to gather respecting the lives and characters of the Caroline prelates. They were far from being all alike. Charges are brought against them as a class, which individuals amongst them do not deserve. They were not all of the same disposition, although they all identified themselves with the same system. The reader will have noticed that facts prove Sheldon, Ward, Morley, and Cosin to have been more or less what Anglicans would esteem strict disciplinarians—what Nonconformists, and others beside them, will more justly pronounce religious persecutors; and what we know of Hacket, Wren, and Gunning, will show that they held principles adapted to make them like those of their brethren who have just been named. It should be remembered, however, that prelates had no longer the power they once possessed. They could not do what their predecessors had done before the Restoration; for the High Commission Court was abolished, the ex officio oath could no longer be administered, and certain penalties once inflicted could be repeated no more. All the Bishops now mentioned suffered in the Civil Wars: yet Hacket retained the living of Cheam throughout the troubles; Ward took his degree at Oxford, and became president of Trinity College before the Restoration; and Gunning's ministry as an Episcopalian was winked at by Oliver Cromwell. Wilkins, Reynolds, Pearson, Croft, Laney, and Earl were more or less indulgent to Puritan clergymen within the Church, and not so unfriendly to those outside, as some others were;—and it may be mentioned, that the first three held academic or ecclesiastical preferment under the Commonwealth; and the last three were compelled to sacrifice emolument and endure hardship. Passing over the worst or the least known of the Bench, what shall be said of the best and most renowned? They were men of ability, of learning, of unimpeachable morals, hospitable and kind, orthodox and devout; but is there one amongst them to whom posterity can point as possessing, in an eminent degree, the true Episcopal faculty,—the gift of spiritual overseership, of a deep insight into Christ's truth, into God's providence, and into men's souls? Is there one who excelled in folding the sheep which were lost?—one who struck the world's conscience, making it feel how awful goodness is? Richard Baxter was far from perfect, nor did he possess qualifications adapted to the administration of a diocese; but had he accepted the mitre which he refused, would he have found sitting by his side an equal in spiritual power?

We have now reached a point where it is wise to inquire into the state of the clergy after the Restoration. It is seen what sort of men the diocesans were; we ought to inquire what sort of men ministered in their dioceses. Publications of the day bear witness to the fact, often overlooked, that there were clergy in the Establishment whose sympathies leaned towards Puritanism.[728] The Bishop of Bristol had much trouble with a person of this description, a Prebendary of the cathedral, who describes the conduct of his diocesan in the following manner:—"He citeth me afresh on pains of suspension; and tells me, at my appearance, that I was a saucy, proud fellow; of a Presbyterian hypocritical heart; upbraiding my preaching, praying, speech, face, and whole ministry, very opprobriously, before all the people."[729] Complaints occur of conforming Nonconformists, as wearing neither girdle nor cassock, being à la mode and in querpo divinus—as setting up miserable readers to make the Liturgy contemptible, and as engaging for an hour in extempore prayer. They preached over, it is alleged, "the old one's notes," full of cant about "indwelling, soul-saving, and heart-supporting;" they "affected a mortified countenance," and "set the Sabbath above holidays," and "a pure heart above the surplice," and were men "overflowing with the milk and honey of doctrine, instead of the inculcation of honesty and obedience and good works."[730]

From these and other circumstances it appears that the Act of Uniformity did by no means accomplish all its purposes. Some were Conformists only in name. The fact is, that whilst the Act drove out all the best and most eminent of the Puritan class, there still were many, of a pliable nature, who having opposed Episcopacy, and sworn to the Covenant, and adopted the Directory, were content to nestle under the wings of the Anglican Church, as soon as she arose, like a Phœnix out of its ashes.

The miserable condition of some of the clergy holding country benefices or cures became the subject of satirical remark. In a style of badinage, which aimed at being clever, one author speaks of a clergyman as trying to "weather out his melancholy by retiring into the little hole over the oven, called his study (contrived there, I suppose, to save firing); a pretty little vatican, the whole furniture whereof is a German system, a Geneva Bible, and concordance of the same; a budget of old stitched sermons, some broken girths, with two or three yards of whipcord behind the door, and a saw and hammer to prevent dilapidations."[731] Of course no reliance can be placed on such a trenchant description; but it shows the way in which clergymen were talked of. With gravity, and apparent truthfulness, it is stated elsewhere that clergymen sprung from the humbler ranks; and it is mentioned, as a novelty, and a subject for congratulation, that a few of aristocratic birth had entered holy orders. At the same time, it is affirmed, that an attorney, a shopkeeper, and a common artizan would hardly change their worldly condition with ordinary pastors.[732]

Many men, episcopally ordained, acted as chaplains. They conducted family worship, morning and evening; in some cases read and expounded, and prayed before dinner.[733] The satirist, already quoted, asks, "Shall we trust them in some good gentlemen's houses, there to perform holy things? With all my heart, so that they may not be called down from their studies to say grace to every health; that they may have a little better wages than the cook or butler; as also, that there be a groom in the house, besides the chaplain: (for sometimes into the ten pounds a year they crowd the looking after a couple of geldings); and that he may not be sent from table picking his teeth, and sighing, with his hat under his arm, whilst the knight and my lady eat up the tarts and chickens. It might be also convenient if he were suffered to speak now and then in the parlour, besides at grace and prayer-time; and that my cousin Abigail and he sit not too near one another at meals."[734] The spirit of the writer is apparent; it is not such as to inspire our sympathy, or secure our confidence; but if some of the clergy at the time had not been very ignominiously treated, surely no one would have hazarded the caricature.

The ignorance of the clergy was a topic for abundant abuse. Those, it is said, who could spout a few Greek and Latin words for the benefit of the squire, pitched their discourses so as to accommodate themselves to the fine clothes, and abundance of ribbons, in the highest seats of the Church, instead of seeking to instruct those who had to mind the plough and mend the hedge. Cities and Corporations furnished "ten or twelve-pound-men," whose parts and education were no more than sufficient for reading the Lessons, after twice conning them over. "An unlearned rout of contemptible people" rushed into holy orders, just to read the prayers, although they understood "very little more than a hollow pipe made of tin or wainscot."[735] Bad taste in the composition of sermons is also attributed to the clergy, for which they are unmercifully ridiculed. Many of the examples, however, are taken from the preaching of the most fanatical amongst the Puritans.

Men cannot buy books without money; and of the scantiness of clerical libraries at that time there can be no question. Much more trustworthy, and deserving of attention than some of the particulars just supplied, is the anecdote of Tenison,—that he had, in his parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, "thirty or forty young men in orders, either governors to young gentlemen, or chaplains to noblemen," who, being reproved by him "for frequenting taverns or coffee-houses, told him they would study or employ their time better if they had books." Hence originated the foundation of the Tenison Library.[736]

Between the poor rural clergy, with equally indigent chaplains and curates on the one hand, and the richly-beneficed and dignified members of the order on the other, a broad distinction must be drawn in point of attainments and eloquence, if not in point of original ability. In London, in the Universities, and in the high places of the Church, there were men, especially towards the close of the period under our review, who for scholastic learning, and ministerial capacity, were illustrious ornaments of their sacred profession. Many pages of this history bear witness to that fact. Still, the contempt in which the clergy were too generally held is admitted by those who, at the time, sought to make the best of the subject. Writers who vilified the Church were answered by writers who vindicated it. Paper wars, fierce and prolonged, were waged in a spirit which leaves little to choose between the combatants. Those who appeared as defenders of the accused, denied the unqualified application of the charges which they could not deny altogether. They triumphantly cited the admissions extorted from adversaries, that the clergy of the land had considerably improved, and that it was a "sign of nothing but perfect madness, ignorance, and stupidity, not to acknowledge that the present Church of England affords as considerable scholars, and as solid and eloquent preachers, as are anywhere to be found in the whole Christian world."[737] They contended that the illiteracy and bad taste complained of were by no means so common as their assailants alleged; and that, as to the latter accusation, it fell chiefly upon the Puritan remnant. They complained, as bitterly as those on the other side, of the poverty of clergymen, and their inability to purchase books; and then they urged, as reasons for the contempt in which they were held, not only straitened circumstances and a humble condition, but the calumnies of their enemies; the origin of these calumnies being distributed amongst Libertines, Jesuits, and Nonconformists,[738] and the want of discipline in the Church being also loudly lamented.[739]

In connection with these illustrations I may observe that Articles of Visitation in those days throw light on clerical costume, if a word or two may be added on so trifling a matter. Amongst other things the 78th Canon is recognized as obligatory, and churchwardens are solemnly asked, "Doth your parson, vicar, or curate usually wear such apparel as is prescribed by the canon, that is to say, a gown with a standing collar, and wide sleeves strait at the hands, and a square cap; or doth he go at any time abroad in his doublet and hose without coat or cassock, or doth he use to wear any light coloured stockings? doth he wear any coife, and wrought night-caps, or only plain night-caps of silk, satin, or velvet? and in his journeying, doth he usually wear a cloak with sleeves, commonly called the priest's cloak without guards, welts, long buttons or cuts?"[740]

That which has been said relates to the circumstances, the education, the preaching, and the habits of clergymen. What estimate is to be formed of their religious and moral character? It is a common vice to pass sweeping censures on a whole party. Most people fall into it when speaking of opponents, and protest against it when speaking of friends. Wishing to avoid that fault I would first say, undoubtedly many clergymen might be found at that time who were most exemplary in their lives, and two distinguished instances of the High Anglican type may be cited in proof. Ken was successively Incumbent of Little Easton, Brightstone, and East Woodhay. The purity of his life, the devoutness of his temper, the eloquence of his preaching, and his assiduous discharge of ministerial duties, are amongst the cherished memories of the English Church. With him his neighbour, Isaac Milles, the simple-hearted Rector of Highclere, is worthy of being associated. For nine-and-thirty years, on an income of £100 per annum, this worthy minister of Christ laboured for the welfare of his rural flock. Filled with the charity which thinketh no evil, "he would often rise up and leave the company rather than hear even a bad man reproached behind his back." So hospitable was he, "that he used to be much displeased, if any poor person was sent from his house without tasting a cup of his ale;" and "he turned a perfect beggar in order to get from others something to supply their wants." He walked "every day in the week to read the service in the parish church," and was "a constant visitant by the bedside of the sick and dying."[741]

But there is another side to the picture—pamphleteers accused the clergy not only of ignorance, and of fanaticism, but also of immorality. This charge is but faintly touched in the particular controversy just reported; but a writer, at an earlier period, who fiercely assails the ministers of the Establishment, declares how the Church resents the scandalous profaneness of many of her sons; and reproaches the reverend in function, who were shameful in life, those who were disorderly in holy orders, and who, bound to walk circumspectly, reel notwithstanding, having their conversation in the ale-house as well as in heaven. He proceeds in the name of the Church to complain of unconscionable simony, and of encroaching pluralities; saying, "Lately you were thought incapable of one living, now three, four, or five cannot suffice you;" and the whole is wound up by charges of non-residence, whereupon the writer inveighs, in most violent terms, against the employment of curates.[742]

Such testimony must be taken only for what it is worth. But it seems incredible that, without a substratum of facts, any one would make these bold assertions. Other writers of the period speak of the clergy in terms which give a mean opinion of their religious character. Philip Henry states of many who conformed, that, since they did so, from unblamable, orderly, pious men, they became exceedingly dissolute and profane.[743] Burnet alludes to the luxury and sloth of dignitaries "who generally took more care of themselves than of the Church."[744] Pepys records, that there "was much discourse about the bad state of the Church," and how the clergy were "come to be men of no worth in the world."[745] The King himself laid at their door the blame of the spread of Nonconformity; for "they thought of nothing but to get good benefices, and to keep a good table."[746] It was deemed necessary in Articles of Visitation to inquire whether the clergy resorted to taverns, or gave themselves to drinking, or riot, or played at unlawful games.[747] The rush of parish ministers out of London during the plague testifies to a want of devotedness and self-sacrifice; and the awful dissoluteness of public manners, looked at in connection with all circumstances, indicates not merely the failure of a faithful ministry in some cases, but the consequence of a careless and inefficient one in many more. Poverty and dependence, or even want of learning, will not account for all the clerical humiliation in the time of Charles II. A half-starved curé with love for his parishioners, and a ragged friar of true sanctity, had a far different social standing on the Continent, from many Protestant curates and chaplains at that time in England.

END OF THIRD VOLUME.