To the Right Honourable the Lords in the High-Court of Parliament assembled. The humble Petition of the Parishioners of Ackeliffe in the County Palatine of Durham. April 6. 1642.  
Humbly showeth,  
THat the Petitioners have a long time been destitute of a Conscientious Minister to the great prejudice of their souls, and grief and sorrow of heart, and about the month of June last their Vicar Doctor Carr, who was chaplain to the late Earl of Straford, and Prebend of Durham, died, and about September last, M. Daniel Carwardine was nominated for a clerk to the said vicarage of Ackeliffe by M. Smart senior, Prebend of Durham, according to the customs and Statutes of that cathedral Church, whereby your Petitioners were exceeding joyful in hopes and assurance that their souls should have been committed to the charge of one so able and conscientious, and one whom they in their souls approve of and desire; but the Prebends of the said Church refused to confirm the said M. Carwardine so nominated as aforesaid, whereupon your Lordships were petitioned, and the said custom exactly proved, by the testimonies of Nicholas Hobson about 90. years of age, and Robert King in October last, since which time the great affairs of the kingdom not admitting the full and final determination thereof, M. Smart took institution for the said vicarage himself in favour to your Petitioners, and for preserving his own rights, lest the said Uicaridge should fall into the Lapse: And the Bishop of Durham did write Letters directed to the churchwardens and others, appointing M. Carwardine to officiate in the said Parish as Curate until the business were determined by your Lordships, and thereupon M. Carwardine did enter, and was admitted.  
But so it was that one George Leake who was Curate under Doctor Carr, who daily goeth from alehouse to alehouse, where he continueth drinking whole days and nights, and when he cometh from Church justifieth others to go with him, being a most scandalous, deboist, drunken man, hath violently entered into the said Church, locked up the pulpit-door, broke violently into the said vicarage-house, expelled the said M. Carwardine without any lawful authority, so as your Petitioners are deprived of a godly, learned Preacher, and the said leak, to the great sorrow of your Petitioners, and scandal of Religion doth officiate the place.  
May it therefore please your good Lordships to commiserate the sad condition of your Petitioners, and by an express Order of your lordship's House settle the said M. Carwardine in the vicarage of Ackeliffe, or to appoint the said M. Carwardine to officiate according to the former appointment of the Bishop of Durham, and direction of M. Smart until the full determination of the business before your Lordships, and that the said George Leake may be summoned before your Lordships to answer such his riotous disturbance and other his misdemeanours aforesaid,  
And your Petitioners shall pray, &c.