[344] He speaks (1079) of the Upper House expunging some parts of that subscription which had been annexed to the Bill. I find no trace of this.
[345] It is curious that in one particular, uniformity exists beyond the direction of the Prayer Book.
Lathbury says: "Both by rubrical and canonical authority, the table may be placed in the body of the Church or in the chancel."—Hist. of Con., 303. Yet the practice is to place it near the wall at the east end.
[346] Essays. On Unity and Of Church Controversies.
[347] Forster, iii., 209–240; Own Time, i. 164.
[348] Noble's Regicides, ii. 31.
[349] Orme's Life of Baxter, 454.
[350] Isaiah xvi. 4.
[351] Holmes' Annals of America, and Orme's Life of Baxter, 454.
Sir Walter Scott has adopted the romantic story of the Indian War in his Peveril of the Peak, but he has confounded Whalley with Gough. Cooper has also used the story in one of his novels.
[352] The Book was so hastily printed, that the proofs were not carefully compared with the written copy attached to the Act. At Chichester there are two of these uncorrected copies. The third or sealed copy is the one which passed through the hands of the Commissioners, and is altered by their pens. The alterations are found to be chiefly corrections of errors arising from a hasty copying of the MS. Book for the press.
There does not appear to have been much care taken with the reprints, even after the "Sealed Books" were distributed. An edition dated 1669, perpetuates most of the errors of the printed copy of 1662. For this information I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Swainson. See further on this subject in Appendix.
[353] Own Times, i. 185.
[354] Life of Philip Henry, 100. See also Calamy's Defence of Moderate Nonconformists, vol. ii. 357.
[355] Sir Edward Coke, in his Institutes, part ii., says that the "word Ordinary signifieth a Bishop, or he, or they, that have ordinary jurisdiction, and is derived ab ordine."
[356] Dated the 17th of August, 1662. Kennets Historical Register, 743.
[357] In this form—"Ego A. B. prætensas meas ordinationis literas, a quibusdam Presbyteris olim obtentas iam penitus renuncio, et demitto pro vanis," &c.—Life of P. Henry, 97.
[358] Life, 98, et seq.
[359] Ibid., 11.
[360] Stanford's Life of Alleine, 199; Calamy's Account, 558.
[361] Rogers' Life of Howe, 105, 118.
[362] "Some of the hungry expectants were bold enough to anticipate the period of ejection, relying on the Incumbents' ultimately failing to qualify: and that even the chicanery of the law was used to prevent their recovery of profits which had actually accrued during their incumbency. Mr. Meadows (Incumbent of Ousden), had as his patron one of kindred opinions, who sympathized with his own feelings; and, accordingly, it appears by his accounts, that he was allowed to receive the year's revenue up to Michaelmas, 1662."—Suffolk Bartholomeans, by Taylor, 49.
[363] Calamy's Account, 557; Continuation, 336.
[364] Calamy's Continuation, 143.
[365] State Papers, May 14th.
[366] State Papers, 1661–2.
[367] Truth and Loyalty Vindicated, 1662.
[368] Harl. Misc., vii. If the author of this tract was not a Romanist he had strong Romanist sympathies.
[369] A Compleat Collection of Farewell Sermons, 142; Pepys' Diary, i. 313.
[370] Farewell Sermons, 115.
[371] Patrick MSS. xliv. 11.
[372] Stanford's Joseph Alleine, 200.
[373] Calamy speaks of his holding this living in conjunction with Kingston.—Account, 279.
[374] Farewell Sermons, 447.
[375] State Papers, August 22, 1662.
[376] Fox's Journal, ii. 7.
[377] "The eight years, from the death of Angélique Arnauld, in 1661, to the peace of the Church in 1669, were the agony of Port Royal."—Beard's Port Royal, i. 344.
[378] Farewell Sermons, etc., 174, 187.
[379] Palmer's Nonconformist Memorial, i. 366.
[380] "A liberal attention to the convenience of the late Incumbent must have been shown by Mr. Meadows's successor, as we find so late as July 8, 1665, 'a note of things yet left at the parsonage.'" Mr. Meadows was Incumbent of Ousden, Suffolk. Suffolk Bartholomeans, by Taylor, 50.
[381] October, 1662, Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 577.
[382] Baxter informs us that he had resolved not to meddle in such business any more, but says in the margin, "If I should at length recite the story of this business, and what peremptory promises they had, and how all was turned to their rebuke and scorn, it would more increase the reader's astonishment."—Life and Times, ii. 429.
[383] Newcome notices the petition in his Diary, as if an unsuccessful attempt had been made to present it before the 28th. "August 28.—I was sent for to the ministers to Mr. Greene's. We perused Mr. Heyricke's letter, whereby we understand that last Lord's Day was a very sad and doleful day in London, in that ministers preached not; none but Mr. Blackmore, Mr. Crofton, and Dr. Manton between the Tower and Westminster, the Bishops having provided readers or preachers for every place. And the ministers in the dark waited with their petition on Monday, and could not get it delivered, and came away more dissatisfied than they went; and what the issue of all this will be the Lord only knows. I rose afore seven; we despatched duty. And the ministers came in again, and we discoursed of matters, and got things done about the petitions. Mr. Alsley dined with me and Mr. Haworth, we having a venison pasty. After dinner, Mr. James Lightbourne was with me an hour or more. I wrote letters to London, and then went to bowls; but, as if it was not a time for me to take recreation in, I had no freedom of spirit by a little accident about Mr. Constantine."—Newcome's Diary, 115.
The following entry indicates the interference of the King with the operation of the Act:—"Nov., 1662.—The King to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford. They are to forbear execution of any sentence against Thomas Severne, for not having subscribed to the Act of Uniformity before his Bishop, though presented doing so before the University, until the will of Parliament in such cases is more distinctly known."—Ent. Book x. 7. Cal. Dom., 1661–1662, 578.
[384] Clarendon's Continuation, 1081–1082.
[385] It is difficult to harmonize satisfactorily the accounts of conferences and councils given by Burnet, Clarendon, and Bishop Parker. The former two speak of the conferences occurring before St. Bartholomew's Day. The last of these authorities gives a petition from the ministers presented on the 27th, and a debate upon it in Council on the 28th, agreeing, to a considerable extent, with Clarendon's statements. Clarendon says nothing of a petition and a Council after St. Bartholomew's Day, but leaves us to conclude all thought of indulgence was dropped beforehand. In this respect we know he is wrong, probably the matter of indulgence was frequently debated in Council. Compare Clarendon, 1081; Burnet, i. 191; with Parker in Kennet's Register, 753.
[386] These illustrations are gathered from the newspapers of the day.
[387] State Papers. This letter is dated March 2, 1663. It is anonymous; the reason for ascribing it to Hook will appear further on.
[388] Joseph Alleine's Life, by Stanford, 204. There is a glowing account in the Mercurius Publicus, of an Episcopal service at St. Mary's, on the 25th, when the church was so full that people fainted with heat, and "the Mayor and Aldermen were all in their formalities, and not a man in all the church had his hat on, either at service or sermon."
[389] Ashmole's Order of the Garter, 176.
[390] Tour in Derbyshire, 1662. Browne's Works, i. 30. "At Buxton," he says, "we had the luck to meet with a sermon, which we could not have done in half-a-year before, by relation. I think there is a true Chapel of Ease indeed here, for they hardly ever go to Church," p. 34. Calamy gives the name of Mr. John Jackson as ejected from Buxton, but supplies no account of him.—Account, 204.
[391] They occur at the end of the list for each county.
[392] See Ryle's account of Gurnal, prefixed to the new edition of his works.
[393] State Papers. Dom., 1663, March 2. Letter from William Hook.
[394] For instances, see Palmer, i. 223, ii. 71.
[395] Appendix to Second Report of the Royal Commission on Ritual, p. 616. The articles of the Bishops there printed are from the collection in the Bodleian Library.
[396] Appendix to second report of the Royal Commission on Ritual, pp. 601, 602.
[397] Ibid., 607, 611.
[398] Ibid., 619.
[399] They are published in the same Appendix, 624, et seq.
[400] The authorities for these statements are Calamy's Account and Continuation, Kennet's Register, Hunter's Life of Heywood, and Aspland's History of Nonconformity in Duckinfield. I could add more instances. No doubt there were several which cannot now be ascertained.
[401] Irenicum, republished in 1662.
[402] Lord King's Life of Locke, 7, 8, 9.
[403] State Papers, Cal. Dom. Sept. 14 and Sept. 29, 1662.
[404] Ibid., Oct. 31, 1662.
[405] This reported number should be borne in mind in connection with others already stated.
[406] State Papers, Cal., Dom., 1661–1662, 531, 567, 594.
[407] Cal. Dom., 1662, Jan. 31.
[408] Ibid., 1662, Oct. 10, Nov. 24.
[409] The following illustrations of the extent of persecution in the autumn of 1662 are extracted from State Papers under date:—
"Committed by Sir J. Robinson, Knt. and Bart., Lord Mayor, being taken at an unlawful assembly, and denying to take the Oath of Allegiance, dated 2nd November, 1662." [Names given. All males.]
"Committed by Sir R. Browne, Knt. and Bart., for being unlawfully assembled together contrary to the laws, etc., the same day." [Other names.]
"Anabaptists and Quakers, taken at unlawful meetings, and committed by the Court, for refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance, and some of them fined."
[Eleven names, all males.]
"Committed by His Grace, the Duke of Albemarle, General of His Majesty's forces, for assembling unlawfully together, contrary to a late Act of Parliament, 28th October, 1662."
[Sixty-three names, all males, six under the heading "Quakers."]
"Committed 3rd November, 1662, for refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance."
[Three males.]
"Committed for being at a private meeting in Wheeler's Street, dated 9th November, 1662."
[Three names.]
"Committed for being at an unlawful assembly in Spitalfields; dated 16th November, 1662."
[Three names.]
"Committed by John Smith, Esq., being taken in the house of the said Mary Winch, upon pretence of a religious worship, and own no King but King Jesus and own themselves to be Fifth Monarchy men. Dated 23rd November, 1662."
These extracts have appeared in the Baptist Magazine. In others the names of females occur.
[410] Kennet, 849.
[411] Baxter's Life and Times, ii. 430.
[412] History of his Own Time, i. 193.
[413] See on this subject, Burnet's History of his Own Time, i. 194; Lingard, xi. 220; and Butler's Memoirs, iii. 44.
[414] See the Lords' Journals, February 23, 25, 27, 28. "After St. Bartholomew's Day, the Dissenters, seeing both Court and Parliament was so much set against them, had much consultation together what to do. Many were for going over to Holland, and settling there with their ministers; others proposed New England, and the other plantations."—Burnet, i. 193.
[415] Clarendon cannot be relieved from a charge of duplicity in this business.
[416] See Lister's Life of Clarendon, iii. 232, compared with Clarendon's Continuation, 1129. The story is there wrongly dated. So it is in Parl. Hist., iv. 311.
[417] Continuation, 1131.
[418] Under date April 21, 1663, there is a petition from Samuel Wilson, who was seized in the Downs for ignorantly receiving a seditious letter from Hook, a minister, which came wrapped up in a bundle of books. This person, Mrs. Green, in the Calendar of State Papers, 1663, suggests, is the writer of the remarkable letter here referred to. No doubt of it. The letter is dated March 2, 1663, addressed to Mr. Davenport, who was colleague with Hook at New Haven, in New England. On Hook's return from America to England he became a minister at Exmouth, and afterwards Master of the Savoy and Chaplain to Cromwell.—Palmer's Nonconformist Memorial.
[419] This writer attributes depression in trade to the Act of Uniformity, and blames the Presbyterians for being ready to meet the Prelates half way, and swallow the Liturgy.
[420] Baxter's Life and Times, ii. 433.
[421] See Commons' Journals, 1663, February 27, March 16.
[422] Parl. Hist., iv. 263–5.
[423] The Bill against Papists was committed March 17th; that against Dissenters May 23rd. Several debates, amendments, and divisions took place. At the beginning of July the Bills were carried up to the Lords. The Bill against Sectaries was committed by the Upper House, July 22nd, and there the matter ended. Parliament was prorogued on the 27th.
[424] Lords' Journals, July 25, 27.
[425] Lords' Journals, July 27, 1663. A curious incident occurred during their sittings. The Bill for the better observance of the Sabbath was lost off the table, and could not be found. The like had never occurred before, and "every Lord was called by name, and those present did make their purgation, and the assistants likewise did particularly clear themselves." It was the last day of the session. The Bills to receive the Royal assent had been taken out of a bag, and opened on the table; but this Bill disappeared, and consequently did not receive le Roy le veult.
[426] Walton's Lives, 424–427. He had left a list of ministers under his eye designed for discipline, but when he saw death approaching, he burnt the paper, and said he would die in peace.—Conformists' Plea for Nonconformity, 35.
[427] Works, vi. 443.
[428] 31st August, 1663. Evelyn's Diary, i. 399.
[429] State Papers, Dom., Charles II., June 20, Sept. 22, Oct. 12. I may add that a very affecting illustration of the sufferings of an ejected minister through trial and imprisonment for preaching in some retired place after the Act of Uniformity, is to be found in Stanford's Joseph Alleine, chapters x. and xi.
[430] State Papers, Nov. 9, Dec. 31.
[431] Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, 391.
[432] Anderson's Hist. of the Colonial Church, ii. 286.
[433] Ibid., 316-318.
[434] Anderson's Hist. of the Colonial Church, ii. 342.
[435] The letters in the State Paper Office, from which all these particulars are taken, are abridged in the Calendar for 1663. Any one wishing to investigate the subject should study these letters in connection with Drake's Eboracum and Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete.
[436] Amongst the papers which belonged to the Secretary of State, and which are now preserved in the Record Office, is an informer's notebook belonging to this period. As it is a curiosity, and as it contains allusions to well-known characters, I will give a few extracts in the Appendix.
[437] These are all local traditions.
[438] Aspland's History of the Old Nonconformists in Duckinfield. Like stories are told of Bradley Wood near Newton Abbot, and of Collier's Wood in Gloucestershire. Places of worship erected or publicly used during times of indulgence or connivance, will be noticed in the next Volume.
[439] Life of Owen by Orme.
[440] Nelson's Life of Bull, 253. Other examples of the ejected having married rich wives may be found in Kennet, 910. John Tombes writing to Williamson, mentions a book on the anvil entitled, Theocratia, or a Treatise of the Kingdom of God, to show that no claim of coercive jurisdiction, either inferior or co-ordinate to the King, is warranted by any ecclesiastical rulers, or by any office or power in the kingdom of Christ in its militant state.... The Bishop of Winchester, he goes on to say, has put him in hopes of a brotherhood at the Savoy. Also has had hope from the Lord Keeper of a place at Rochester in Bishop Warner's Hospital.—State Papers, 1668, May 8. Tombes was a Baptist and therefore could not hold a living, but in other respects he seems to have been a Conformist.
[441] Kennet, 905, 906, 908.
[442] Life by Rogers, 130, 140.
[443] Palmer's Nonconformist Memorial, i. 352.
[444] Life and Times, iii. 142.
[445] Palmer, ii. 503.
[446] Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 580.
[447] See Commons' Journals, April 27, 28; May 12, 14, 16.
[448] 16 Car. II., cap. iv.
[449] Hist., 1115.
[450] State Papers, Dom. Charles II., 1664, June 20.
[451] Ibid., June 24.
[452] State Papers, 1664, Sept. 30, Nov. 18, Sept. 5, June 2.
[453] Broadmead Records (Hanserd Knollys Society), 76.
[454] State Papers, 1665, July 3 and 15.
[455] Clarendon, 1130.
[456] Eccles. Hist., ii. 89.
[457] Cardwell's Synodalia, ii. 680, et seq.
[458] Collier, ii. 893.
[459] Parry's Parliaments and Councils, 551.
[460] Dated July 7, 1665; Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 582. Note in Cardwell's Documentary Annals, ii. 321.
[461] In Notes and Queries may be found a curious and interesting collection of predictions of the Plague and Fire of London. See Choice Notes—History, 236. "In delving among what may be termed the popular religious literature of the latter end of the Commonwealth, and early part of the reign of Charles, we become aware of the existence of a kind of nightmare, which the public of that age were evidently labouring under—a strong and vivid impression that some terrible calamity was impending over the metropolis."
[462] State Papers, Dom. Charles II. London, August 14, 1665. See also November 11.
[463] Thucydides, ii. 54.
[464] Dom. Charles II., 1665, July 6. It is interesting to observe that, as in late visitations of cholera, sanitary regulations were adopted. Amongst other things it may be noticed that the Bishop of London would not consecrate any ground unless a perpetuity of the same might be first obtained—graves were dug deep, and churchyards were covered with lime.—Calendar, 1665–6, Pref. xiii.
[465] Dom. Charles II., 1665, August 15.
[466] Ibid., July 22.
[467] Dom. Charles II., August 19.
[468] "It is said, my Lord of London hath sent to those pastors that have quitted their flocks, by reason of these times, that if they return not speedily, others will be put into their places."—Ellis' Letters, vol. iv.
[469] Neal, iv. 403. The returns dated 1665 from Exeter, St. David's, and Bristol, are among the Tenison MSS. (Lambeth); also the Bishop of Exeter's (Seth Ward's) certificate of the hospitals, and almshouses, pluralists, lecturers, schoolmasters, physicians, and Nonconformists in his diocese.
[470] Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 583.
[471] Autobiography of Patrick, Bishop of Ely, 52.