O PRINCETON, N. J. BX 5107 .W9 S6 1883 Smith, I. Gregory 1826-1920. Worcester Shelf. THE DIOCESE OF WORCESTER. When it had taken root, it filled the land." Digitized by the Internel t Archi in 2015 https://archive.org/details/worcesterOOsmit .\iUv» ^ ^ , ■ ♦ Attlobiii\> .nuPktyJf^istmjis •^'^ Wolv«-. " dos^^v Corbet Ayu.,x-^ V^telw"'!^^ Svrviit' .. _. ^TKli^ Bi-je>Jia..ae(^c L 0 Ttys--,E::;s-' t e; r ISc'iHi-iaW "Tod-metcm JStCHEIATpMB Eitoilp.l^* -•^"S .P.-estb.i.-f, -Vvtiug'Iuf. f +HaJlviij»i Slvuibi-idge A MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE xVNNALS OF WORCESTER Euglisli Miles REFERENCE Boujidary of lYe Jiethimati on Diorese Bountlane^ of Pre -Be formation- Deaneriex ^ Jioundai-y RINCE CONSORT, ETC. ETC. ETC. • THE REVERED SUCCESSOR OF THE LONG ROLL OF BISHOPS RECORDED HEREIN, THIS ^iitax^ ol V^t Biattit of Sj^aor centa- ls RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS FAITHFUL SERVANTS, I. GREGORY SMITH, PHIPPS ONSLOW. PREFACE. This sketch of the history of the diocese of Wor- cester is an attempt to combine the individuah"ty of local features with something of a larger prospec- tive, and so to make the history of the diocese illustrative of the history of the Church in England. This diocese is singularly rich in ancient charters and chronicles. The Cartularium Hemingi, for in- stance, is a valuable collection of charters, &c., codified soon after the Conquest. Many of the monastic chronicles have been carefully edited in the Rolls Series. The Prattenton and Habingdon MSS., in the library of the Royal Society of Anti- quaries, are an almost inexhaustible mine of mis- cellaneous information. Mrs. Lawson's excellent little volume ("Records of Upton -on- Severn ") shows what may be done for history on a larger scale by collecting all that can be known about particular parishes. It is unnecessary to enumerate the ordinary books of reference for the history of the diocese, as the works of Thomas, Green, Nash, &c. But we must viii WORCESTER. acknowledge our special obligation to the writings of Professor Stubbs and Mr. Freeman, which supply a clue, without which less expert explorers than they would be lost in the labyrinth of the past. In the fifteenth and following centuries, we have found pre- eminently useful, Strype's " Life of Archbishop Parker," Narcissus Luttrell's " Brief Relation," Bliss's " Reliquiae Hernian^," " Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries," White Kennett's Registry and Chronicle," Lloyd's " Inquiry by Parliament into the Election of 1702," and (in MS.) Mistress Joyce Jefferies' " Diary " in Stanford Court Library;^ "Account of Visitation of Parishes," by order of Cromwell, lent by Rev. Melsup Hill ; ''Census of Province of Canterbury, a.d. 1676"; " Diocese of Worcester," in the Salt Library, Stafford; "Account of Penances in Hanbury Church" ; with some family letters, lent by H. F. Vernon, Esq. Mr. Noake's antiquarian publications, especially his " Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester," have been of continual service. We have had much and valuable assistance from many quarters. More particularly we tender our thanks to the Earl Beauchamp, Lord-Lieutenant of the county; the Bishop of Worcester, Sir F. Win- nington, Bart. ; H. F. Vernon, Esq. ; W. H. Barneby, ' Stanford Court was partially destroyed by fire while these pages were in the press. PREFACE. ix Esq.; the librarians severally of Lambeth Palace, Worcester Cathedral, the Royal Society of Antiqua- ries, the Phillipps Library, Cheltenham, the Salt Library, Stafford, and the Registrars of the diocesan and capitular archives at Worcester, for the loan of books, and for guidance in our researches. Many of the clergy in the diocese have kindly helped us with useful suggestions and otherwise, particularly the Revs. Canon Winnington-Ingram, W. Thorn, T. P. Wadley, W. J. Symonds, E. R. Dowdeswell ; also Bishop Hobhouse, Canon Jones, the Rev. F. S. Lea, the Rev. Leicester J. T. Darwall; and Messrs. J. Noake, W. J. Hopkins, T. Burgess, J. Grainger, J. Nott, W. G. Fritton. We are indebted to the Rev. G. W. Sandford for the index; to the Rev. O. A. Archer for most of the materials for chapters ix.-xii. ; to J. H. Hooper, Esq., for the appendix on the heraldry of the see ; and to the Rev. Professor Stubbs for help, such as no one else could have given. Though the compilation of this " History of the Diocese of Worcester " has been to us a prolonged labour, we cannot but be conscious of many defects in it. If any of our readers will call our attention to faults, which can be corrected, should a second edition be called for, we shall thank them cordially. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE Introduction i I. The Conversion OF THE WicciANS ii II, The Mercian Supremacy 17 III. The Danes and Dunstan 25 IV. The Norman Conquest 37 V. After the Conquest 54 VI. Under the Plantagenets 63 VII. The Baronial Bishops 73 VIII. Papal Usurpations 87 IX . Before the Reformation 98 X. The Dissolution of the Monasteries 140 XI. Edward VI 177 XII. Mary and Elizabeth 196 XIII. Civil Strife 218 XIV. The Restoration 262 XV. The Nonjurors 290 XVI. The Eighteenth Century 308 Appendix A 346 Appendix B 349 Appendix C 350 WORCESTER. INTRODUCTION. The see of Worcester has an importance of its own, in the history both civil and ecclesiastical of England, as a border-see in more senses than one. It was originally co-extensive with the territory of the Hwiccas or Wiccii, a province of Mercia, itself a " March-land," thrust in (it has been well said) like a wedge, between the powerful kingdoms of Northumbria and Wessex. In the days, when England was not yet consolidated under one ruler, it was exposed to the vicissitudes of a debatable land in the midst of contending forces. The boundaries of the province were frequently changed by conquest or itnmigration. Still more emphatically was this a see on the frontier between east and west, until Wales was united to England. The Welsh were rude neighbours. Mercia was the youngest, for many years the weakest, of the Teutonic settlements in England. Even at a later period, after the victories of Offa and Harold, Welsh forays were a frequent anxiety to these western B 2 WORCESTER. counties. The responsibility of defending the marches devolved in part on the bishop, who presided over a district adjoining the lower Severn. More than once a bishop of Worcester, not as bishop, but as having civil authority, had to take his place in repelling the incursions of the wild marauders from the moun- tains. Worcester and Gloucester gained in this way political importance, and were frequently visited by English kings. Gloucester was a place of meeting for the Witan. For similar reasons the diocese has been the scene of many a battle and skirmish in our civil wars ; in the wars of the Roses, for instance, and in the troubles of the sixteenth century. Lying so far westward, it might have been expected to enjoy comparative immunity from the havoc of the Danish invasions ; but their ruthless hordes forced their way from various directions, as the annals of the see testify, even to Worcester and its neighbourhood, ascending the Trent and the Severn in their light craft, according to their custom, so far as these rivers were navigable. From first to last it was a stormy presidency, the charge of this see. Ecclesiastically too, this was a border-see from its position and its origin, and thus a cause of con- tention to the archbishops of northern and southern England. 1 The primacy of Canterbury over England was not expressly defined till the time of Lanfranc, ' Bishop Maidstone, by order of the Archbishop of Canter- bury, excommunicated the Archbishop of York for having a cross borne before him in this diocese, and for blessing the people. INTRODUCTORY. 3 though York, having only three suffragans, naturally held a lower position. The Danish inroads, im- poverishing the see of York, and cutting off Mid- England from the southern metropolis, tightened the connexion between York and Worcester. Several bishops of Worcester were promoted to York, some of them retaining their former preferment. It is curious to observe, that the diocese of Worcester retains to this day many characteristics of a border- land. ^Mercia was an agglomeration of several insig- nificant tribes, Hwiccas and others, who were later than their fellows in reaching our shores. The diocese of Worcester has still a population in which British,^ Saxon and Anglian elements are blended together, and comprises within its limits the mines and factories of the north as well as the pastures, corn- fields, and orchards of southern England. Looking at the map, or arguing from the provincial idioms of Worcestershire, one might almost hesitate whether to call it one of our northern or southern counties. The very configuration of Worcestershire tends to give it a composite character. " Wherever you stand in Worcestershire, you find yourself within a few miles of another shire." Another interesting characteristic, which enhanced not a little the importance of this see in days long past, was the number of its abbeys and priories. The old proverb "As sure as God is in Gloucestershire" is a quaint indication of this exuberance of monks and monasteries. The natural fertility of the valleys of ^ Among the traces of the Britons in this diocese are the names Pendock, Pengethly, Pencraig, Malvern, &c. B 2 4 WORCESTER. the Severn and the Avon was a.n attraction to those who sought in the cloister a Ufe of restful ease. The arduous work of clearing away the vast forests,^ which covered the ground so largely, the "chases" of Malvern, Feckenham, Ombersley, &c., had a charm for men enterprising and adventurous. Even the perilous proximity to the Welsh mountains allured those of a really missionary spirit, longing to plant a garden of God in the wilderness. The vales of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire vied with the great plains of East Angiia in the multitude and grandeur of their conventual institutions. ^ The task of controlling these often mutinous communities, of keeping them in due subordination to the episcopal crosier, and of quieting the quarrels, which were continually arising from their mutual jealousies, was no light one for the bishops of Worcester before the Reformation. Sometimes the bishops seem to have fallen back on the policy of playing one lordly abbot against another, as the only escape from these com- pUcations. In the luxuriant Vale of Evesham, the churches connected with the abbey at Evesham asserted their exemption from episcopal authority. In this respect the old Worcester diocese presents a remarkable contrast to other parts of the king- dom of Mercia. North-western Mercia was sin- gularly bare of monastic foundations, though well ' These forests ga^^e rise to frequent disputes between the crown in the feudal period. 2 The Wiccian monasteries were frequently under the patronage of St. Peter; e.g., Worcester, Gloucester, Bredon, Bath, &c. — Stubbs, " Archoeological Journal," xix. , p. 241. INTRODUCTORY. 5 supplied with collegiate churches, as at Stafford, AVolverhampton, Shrewsbury, &c. The princes of the Wiccii, both personally and through their influence with the kings of Mercia, seem to have favoured monasticism, not only as assisting to civilise and christianise their land, and as an encouragement to study, but also as providing a shelter from the turbulence of the times for those of their own families who needed it. The cathedral at Worcester was originally one of the monastic cathedrals. ^ The rule was, probably, Benedictine, of a lax kind. The title of prior was not used till the Conquest. ^ In the fourteenth century the prior assumed the title of " Lord Prior," with the mitre and other insignia of quasi-episcopal rank. The priors of Worcester were summoned to parlia- ment in the reign of Henry III. with the abbats. But the priory of Worcester had other and better claims to distinction. If the church in Mercia could not boast a Bede, an Alcuin, an Aelfric, or a Boniface, it produced in Worcester priory a school of English histor}^, learned and patriotic, to which we owe, for instance, the valuable chronicle (the " chronicon ex chronicis ") of Florence of Worcester. It is remark- able that a monastery, whose annals are so troublous, should have been so eminent in literature. ' These, often called the "new foundations," might more properly be called "converted." 2 Hysebehrt, who signs himself "Abbot "at the Synod of Clovesho, 805 A.D., was probably of St. Mary's, Worcester. — Stubbs, " Worcester Cathedral," &c., p. 17. 6 WORCESTER. The limits of the diocese have varied considerably at different periods. When first shaped out of the huge diocese of Lichfield, conterminous with the kingdom of Mercia, it comprised Gloucestershire east of Severn, about a third, the southern, part of Warwickshire called " the Feldon " ^ as well as the county of Worcester,^ all this forming the province of the Wiccii. At the Reformation it was reduced to much smaller dimensions, the Gloucestershire portion being sepa- rated from it. In 1836 it was again enlarged by the addition of northern Warwickshire. In its present dimensions, and as it was before the reign of Henry VIII., it is an extensive field of labour for one bishop. Gloucester was, perhaps, the seat of a bishop in the Roman-British Church, subordinate with other sees in " Britannia Secunda " to the archbishop of Caerleon-on-Usk, or, as some have fancied, of Menevia (St. David's). But all this was effaced by the tide of ' The open ground, south-east of the Avon, which severs it from the forest of Arden, a neutral land between the Cornavii and Dornubii of ancient Britain. The parish church of Brailes has been called "the cathedral of the Feldon," from its size and beauty. ^ Except the parishes constituting the deanery of Burford, in the north-western corner of the county, which have belonged to Hereford diocese, perhaps as separated from Worcester dio- cese by the river Teme and the Abberley hills, perhaps as attached to some monastery in the diocese of Hereford, most probably as not being part of the Wiccian principality. The Severn was (lower down) the boundary between the two dio- ceses. Possibly the old forests I ad something to do with diocesan divisions. INTRODUCTORY. 7 Teutonic heathenism sweeping over the land after the departure of the Romans. Gloucester reappears as a centre of missionary exertions in St. Peter's Monas- ter}', founded there 68 1 a.d. by Osric (said to be interred there), prince of the Wiccians, with the concur- rence of Ethelred, king of Mercia, and of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury. Bristol proper was in the Worcester diocese till the reign of Henry VIII., and was then transferred to the new see of Bristol. The southern part of what is now called Bristol was in the diocese of Wells (the Avon being at one time the boundary) till 1836 a.d. The diocese of Worcester, like other western dioceses, cannot vie, architecturally, with the eastern counties of England, which in days gone by had the advantage of greater facilities of communication with the Continent. Nor can it easily match the graceful spires of Northamptonshire, the magnificent towers of Somersetshire. But it has been computed, that of the churches about 250 in number in the county of Worcester five at least take rank as grand edifices, and about sixty as good specimens of architecture. Gloucestershire stands as high, if not higher, in this respect. It is curious how seldom and how slightly the dioceses of Worcester and Hereford, though so near, come into contact, in the ecclesiastical history of England.^ Probably the old antipathy between English and Cymry is mainly the cause. The contrast is remarkable between the stately edifices of the one * The Bishop of Hereford had a house in Worcester. 8 WORCESTER. diocese and the churches, small in proportion to their parochial area, of the other. The preponderance of rectors in Herefordshire, and of vicars in AVorcester- shire, Gloucestershire, and southern Warwickshire, bears witness to the greater number of monasteries in the latter diocese. The bishops of Worcester were well supplied with palaces and manor-houses. Besides the palace^ in Worcester, now occupied by the dean, they had a London house in the Strand, a favourite site in days long past for the houses of great people, between the Temple and the Savoy, country-houses at Alvechurch, Blockley, Hampton (Hampton-Bishop, alias Hampton-Lucy), Kemsey, Wyke or Wick, near Worcester, and, as feudal lords, the castle of Hartle- bury. St. Mary-le-Strand is said to have been one of the appendages of Worcester priory, shortly alter the Conquest, and probably at an older date, when the revenues of the priory and of the bishop were not as yet distinguished. The diocese now comprises (the archdeaconry of Coventry having been detached from the see of Lichfield and added to this see by an order in council, 1836) the two counties of Worcester and Warwick (excepting the deanery of Burford, in the county of Worcester, which is in the diocese of Hereford), together with the parishes of Rowley Regis, Reddall Hill, and Amblecote, in the county of Staf- ' It has been thought that the palace stood originally nearer the cathedral than the present deanery (Green, "History," p. 75), but this is doubtful. INTRODUCTORY. 9 ford, and of Shennington, in the county of Oxford. The see numbers among its bishops tsvo martyrs, four saints, several lord chancellors and lord treasurers, one lord president, one \-ice-president of Wales ; Egwin, Dunstan, Osw ald, Wulfstan, Cantilupe, Gifi'ard, Cobham, Hooper. Bilson, Prideaux. Gauden. Stilling- fleet, Lloyd, Hough, Hurd, 6cc. The present bishop, Henr\- Philpott, who was con- secrated on 25th March, 1S61, is the 102nd occupant of the see. The Bishop of Worcester is ex officio chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbur}-. The see is valued in the king's books at ^1,049. i6s. 3fd., and is worth ;£^5,ooo a year. It can scarcely be repeated too often, while mis- statements are so rife on the origin of what is termed "the Establishment" in England, that the English Church was welded into one organisation through the length and breadth of the land by the efforts of Arch- bishop Theodore in the seventh centur}-, many years before the several kingdoms were united under one king. England had her dioceses before there were counties, her archdeaconries and parishes when coun- ties and manors were beginning to be.^ Xo careful student of history can fail to see this in the rise and progress of the Church in !Mercia- He will see, too, what is often forgotten by factious disputants, how the various endowments of the Church, here as in other parts of England, were not voted by any formal decree The deaneries corresponded to the hundreds. Proctors existed before knights of the shire, convocation as soon as parliament. lO WORCESTER. of the legislature, but were the gifts of individual benefactors, kings, nobles, and others. A right under- standing of these two fundamental facts gives a solid answer to the vague and plausible misrepresentations which sometimes pass unchallenged. WORCESTER. CHAPTER I. THE CONVERSION OF THE WICCIANS. The glimpses which we gain of British Christianity in the region which became in the seventh century the diocese of the Hwiccas, or Wiccii, and under the Normans the diocese of Worcester, are faint and few. Here and there, as at Sedgeberrow, Bredicot, Norton, Malvern, Worcester, Tewkesbury, &c., traces may be discerned of Druidical worship or of Roman camps. Worcester itself, if not a Roman town, seems, at any rate, to have been one of the Roman outposts. There were, apparently, similar fortifications at Kemsey, not far from Worcester, near the " salinse," or salt- works of what is now Droitvvich, and where the little town of Upton spans the Severn. But, after all, little is known positively of the days when a tangled forest stretched from the Malvern beacons to the Severn, with a cluster here and there of wattled huts, and when the ancient Briton in his canoe paddled up and down the stream, " the flood of the Severn Sea," then wider and shallower than it is now. A century after the landing of Julius Caesar the fierce Silures ^ were still unsubdued. There were, perhaps, bishops of Worcester and Gloucester, suffragans of ' Prof. Rhys, in his "Celtic Britain," places the Silures in Monmouthshire, the Dobunni on the east bank of the Severn. 12 WORCESTER. Isca, or Caerleon-on-Usk, in the fifth century,^ when the Roman-British Church, left to itself by the with- drawal of the Ronian legions, was beginning to be the Church of the nation, instead of being the Church of a Roman colony in the island. The signatures of British bishops at the Council of Aries seem to show that their jurisdiction was not, as in Ireland, tribal or patriarchal, but territorial in its character. The growth of Christianity, however, among the Britons was soon checked by the sword of heathen invaders from beyond the German Sea. The famous conference under an oak early in the seventh century between Augustine, with his comrades, and the British clergy, seems to have taken place in the province of the Hwiccas, on the borders of Wessex and Mercia. Some writers place it on the banks of the Severn, some in the forest of Dean, some near Hartlebury, some at Rock, in Shropshire. But it w^as in vain. Nearly a century was to elapse before the reconversion of these western districts : and it came at last, as in northern and central England generally, not from Kent or Wessex, but from Northumbria ; not from an Italian but a Scottish source ; not from Can- terbury or Winchester, but through Lindisfarne, from Ireland and lona. Thus the ancient Church of Britain indirectly and circuitously discharged its debt by christianising and civilising its con- querors. The cloud rising out of the sea came down again in showers to fertilise the land. By ' There is said to have been a cell of Dubiitius at Guy's Cliff, near Warwick. THE CONVERSION OF THE WICCIANS. 1 3 that time the questions in dispute between the British and Latin rituals had been settled by the con- ference at Whitby, a.d. 664 The Mercian Church was happily spared the necessity of joining in the struggle. The materials extant for the early history of the Mid-Anglian, or Mercian, kingdom are scanty indeed. Though in the eighth century it stretched, under Offa, from the Thames to the Humber, from the Fens to the Severn, it was at first merely an aggregation of insignificant tribes ; and, even when it became the most powerful of the kingdoms composing the Hept- archy, the King of Mercia did not assume the title of Bretwalda. The kingdom of Mercia was founded about a century after the landing of Hengist and Horsa ; another century elapsed before it became Christian. The valley of the Severn was opened to the West-Saxons, a.d. 571, by the battle of Deorham. Ceawlin, shortly afterwards, won Gloucester and Cirencester, and forced his way up the Severn to Shrewsbury. But these conquests were not lasting. Penda seized the Severn valley for his Mercian kingdom. But, brave and victorious as he was, Penda was a bloodthirsty pagan. The fury of his warriors was specially directed against monks and clergy, from a superstitious dread of them as wizards, or from an exaggerated notion of the value of their sacred vessels and other treasures. These persecutions pro- voked a deeply-rooted resentment, which kept them back from trying to convert their conquerors. It is a curious illustration of this long-lasting estrangement 14 WORCESTER. that the monk, Florence of Worcester, centuries later, speaks almost in a tone of triumph about the massacre of the monks of Bangor. Christianity came slowly to the Mercians, but it came at last. By the middle of the seventh century almost all England had been christianised afresh, except Mercia. This was the last great stronghold of the worshippers of Thor and AVoden ; and here, under Penda, the old idolatry made its last great struggle for existence. With Cadwallon, a strange ally for a Mercian king, Penda triumphed in a.d. 633 over Eadwine, the Christian king of Northumbria. But this disaster was avenged by the victory of Oswald, at Winwoed, a.d. 635. With the defeat and dt^th. of Penda heathenism expired. His son and successor Peada became a Christian ; and as in those days the conversion of the prince meant the conversion of his people, Mercia within the year pro- fessed Christianity. This rapid, almost instantaneous, conversion of the kingdom was permanent. Mercia never relapsed into heathenism. In Mercia, as in Wessex, the introduction of Chris- tianity was made easier by domestic affinities. The new alliance between Northumbria and Mercia was cemented by the marriage of Peada with the daughter of the Northumbrian king. Peada was baptised at the Northumbrian court by Finian, and thence brought back four priests to evangelise his Mercians. This intimacy with Northumbria influenced not a little the progress of Christianity among the Wiccians. Two Wiccian princes, apparently of Northumbrian extraction, Eanfrith and Eanhere, were baptised THE CONVERSION OF THE WICCIANS. 1 5 A.D. 66 1, and from this we may date the conversion of their principaHty. A monastic cell is said to have been founded at Theocsbury (Tewkesbury) A.D. 675, and one at Deerhurst even before then. Osric, prince of the Wiccians, under the Mercian Ethelred, was, by his name, Northumbrian, and became king of Northumbria early in the next century. Probably this Osric was the founder of St. Peter's, Gloucester, where an effigy bears his name, as well as of the abbey at Bath ; apparently his brother Oswald founded Pershore Abbey, and his sister Cyneburh was the first abbess of Gloucester. !Mercia soon handed on the torch of the Gospel to Sussex. But the kingdom of Mercia was far too extensive for one bishop. Fortunately, many things concurred, reasons of state as well as still higher motives, to facilitate the division of the unwieldy diocese. Oshere, prince of the Wiccians, and Ethelred, king of Mercia, were liberal benefactors to the Church. ^ Oshere wished to have a bishop for his people j Ethel- red approved, and Archbishop Theodore gladly welcomed their co-operation in his great scheme for organising the Church in England.- The Council of Hertford in 673 ordered the diocese to be divided. Opposition came from a quarter whence it was least to be anticipated. Winfrid, bishop of Lichfield, was reluctant to let go any part of his see. He was deposed in 675 ; and in 680 the ecclesiastical parti- tion of Mercia was completed by the Council of Hat- ' Oshere founded monasteries at Ripple and Withington. ' Theodore's new dioceses followed the lines of tribal demarcation. i6 WORCESTER. field. Hilda's famous monastery at Streaneshalh, now Whitby, surrounded by its wild moors and wilder waves, supplied Tatfrith, well qualified by age, holiness, and learning, to be the first bishop of the new see. Thus the connexion between Wiccia and Northumbria was riveted again. The choice of Worcester for the seat of the new bishopric was hardly in accordance with the custom of our English forefathers. Their habit was rather to select rural places for this purpose ; and consequently their bishops were less in danger than their brethren on the Continent, or their own mediaeval successors, of degenerating into great local potentates. But, unlike Lichfield, Worcester had already a church to welcome her first bishop on his arrival. St. Peter's Church, founded a little before this time by Saxulph, bishop of Lichfield, was the centre of a little cluster of clergy at work among the people of Worcester and the neighbourhood. Here were to be the head- quarters of the Wiccian bishops during their mis- sionary campaigns ; and here they lived together as one family, the bishop and his clerks. WORCESTER. 17 CHAPTER 11. THE MERCIAN SUPREMACY. Tatfrith died before his consecration. His imme- diate successors, Bosel and Oftfor, came, as he did, from the cloisters of Hilda's seminary — the light- house, it has been called, of our northern coast — and, like him, were men of piety and learning. Oftfor had had other special opportunities for study, at Rome and under Archbishop Theodore, before becoming bishop. He is said to have left some homilies, which perished in the invasions of the Danes. Both bishops passed away quickly. Bosel, after holding it about ten years, resigned his episcopal office ; a precedent which was followed more than once by Wiccian bishops, Egwine and others. Oftfor, his coadjutor, especially in the itinerant preaching, which then formed a chief part of the bishop's work, was consecrated a.d. 692 by Wilfrid of Hexham, the see of Canterbury being vacant. He died soon after consecration. Egwine, next after Bosel, was a remarkable man. Even in the dimness of a period so remote he stands out prominently as a great and good bishop. Unlike his predecessors, Egwine was a Wiccian by birth, if we may trust his legendary biographers, of noble, if not royal, parentage. One Mercian king intrusted to him the education of his sons ; he was the chosen companion of another, and of Offa, king c i8 WORCESTER. of the East Angles, in the pilgrimage to Rome, which ended in these princes taking monastic vows there. He was an earnest and eloquent preacher ; and there is a story of his being mobbed at Alcester by the rough miners, or quarrymen, whom, like John Wesley centuries afterwards, he went to convert to Christ. In those days the first thought of a devout person in high position was to found a monastery. Egwine wisely chose the lovely vale of Avon for his purpose. There, in 702, 'he founded the monas- ter)-, soon to become the rival of his own see, and one of the grandest among the many magnificent abbeys and priories of western England. Thither he retired, A.D. 714, to end his days in peace; and there he died, three years later, the first abbat of Evesham.^ Probably, when he brought back from the Pope special privileges and immunities for the aggrandise- ment of his abbey, he did not foresee that he was sowing the seeds of discord in years to come between those who should succeed him in the offices of bishop and abbat If it is true that Egwine was at one time accused of grave misdemeanours, but acquitted on appealing to the Pope, it is one instance more how liable men in high places are to misconstruction and misrepresentation. But probably the story arose from some confusion of him with his friend Wilfrid of York. He was subsequently canonised, and the reputed author of several miracles. The other Wiccian bishops during this period were men of less mark. AVilfrith, or Wilfrid, had been * In England, as in Germany, at this time a bishop some- times held also the office of abbat. THE MERCIAN SUPREMACY. 19 chaplain and coadjutor to Egwine, and naturally succeeded his patron in 717. He died in 743, about twelve years after the close of Bede's life and labours. Wilfrid and his successor, Milred, were men of piety ; but Ethelbald, then king of Mercia, was one of those licentious princes who sought to atone for their sins by large donations to the Church. He exempted the churches and monas- teries in his dominion from all taxes, except the triple obligation (''trinoda necessitas ") of contributing to the bridges, national fortresses, and military service. The evil influence of his example on his subjects pro- voked from Boniface, in the midst of his missionary work in Germany, a letter of severe rebuke to the king and his people. The vicious habit of nuns going on pilgrimage to Rome was condemned in the Council of Clovesho, at that time probably under Mercian jurisdiction, a year before Wilfrid's death. Weremund held his office for only two years ; Tilhere, previously abbat of Berkeley, scarcely longer. The name of Heathored, who presided over the see from 781 to 798, is mainly connected with disputes about Church lands and Church privileges. In spite of the tenacity with which he contended for his rights, Offa wrested Bath Abbey from him. By way of capricious compensation, Offa, and Kenulf, his suc- cessor, bestowed many grants on the Wlccian diocese during the episcopate of Tilhere and Heathored. Mercia, beginning to be great under Ethelred, attained the summit of her greatness under Offa. Seventeen counties owned his sway, from the Mersey and the Humber to the Thames and the c 2 20 WORCESTER. Somersetshire Avon, from the Fens to the great dyke which bore his name, midway between Wye and Severn. The time of the Mercian supremacy was not a time favourable to the Church. But Offa seems to have had a partiaUty for the principaUty, of which he had been viceroy before becoming king of the Mercians,^ and, hke his predecessors, he made liberal grants to St. Peter's, Worcester, and other Wiccian monasteries, though sometimes he extorted conces- sions from them. Under him the diocese had rest from the predatory incursions of its neighbours in Wales and Wessex. Probably Offa was actuated by political rather than ecclesiastical motives in raising Lichfield, a.d. 787, to the rank of an archbishopric, for the Archbishop of Canterbury was suspected of intrigues with Charles the Great, and whatever in- creased the importance of Lichfield increased the preponderance of Mercia. It was but a short-lived pre-eminence for the see of Lichfield. In fifteen years the old order was restored by the Council of Clovesho, at which Bishop Deneberht was present,^ A.D. 803. All this time the little family, as it was called, of ecclesiastics by St. Peter's Church, in Worcester, was steadily developing itself. Their church was the ' His name, perhaps, survives in Offchurch, near Leamington. He was also at the Council of Chalchythe, perhaps Chelsea, under King Kenwulf, a.d. 806. St. Kenelm's well (he was founder of Winchcombe Monastery), near the Clent hills, marks the spot where the child Kenelm, son of Kenwulf, is said to have been treacherously murdered. St. Kenelm's shrine, in Winchcombe Abbey, was a favourite resort of pilgrims. THE MERCIAN SUPREMACY. mother church of the diocese. When the parish churches of St. Helen's and St. Alban's were disputing in the eleventh century about precedence and com- parative antiquity, it was decided, that neither had any claim to be called the mother church of Worcester, that title having always belonged to the bishop's church only, all other churches being merely chapels under it. In this, St. Peters, monastery, monks and clerks, regulars and seculars, dwelt together as one community till the middle of the eighth century, under the fatherly presidency of the bishop, or of his delegate. When the Wiccian see was founded, in a.d. 679, there were no monasteries in England exempt from the bishop's control, this exemption being an abuse of later date. Then all were subject to the bishop of their diocese. At Worcester, as elsewhere in similar cases, there was one common fund for the bishop and his chapter, down even to the time of the Norman Conquest, and whatever possessions were granted to him and to them, were common property. St. Peter's society was called a monastery. But the term was then used loosely to include a mixed society of monks and seculars ; and, though the North- umbrian origin of our Wiccian Christianity might favour the idea, that the bishop's chapter at Worcester would consist of monks only, the prepossessions of Theodore, who was probably more concerned than any one in the foundation of the see, must have told in the opposite direction. In 747 the Council of Clovesho, simultaneously with the revival of a stricter monasticism on the Continent, enforced the 22 WORCESTER. Benedictine rule on all professing monks, At the same time the rule of Chrodegang, backed among the Franks by the authority of the emperor best known as Charlemagne, was reducing to order and dis- cipline, under the name of canons, the comparatively irregular associations of unmonastic clerks. From this time, apparently, the composite society at Worcester branched out into two distinct institutions. A monas- tery, in the more precise sense, sprang up under the tutelage of St. Mary, beside St. Peter's, destined, before the lapse of little more than two centuries, to supplant, and eventually to absorb into itself the older institution.! In 760 St. Mary's Church rose, almost on the site of the present cathedral. Thus, till Dunstan, the sister societies grew side by side, not always in a sisterly spirit of union and concord. For some time the older foundation continued, as often happens, to enjoy a prescriptive preference, the Wiccian princes being still laid to rest in its graveyard. Duke Wigferth seems to have buried his wife and children there in 789. But the growing importance of St. Mary's Monastery is perhaps attested in the records of the Council of Clovesho in a d. 805, where the name of Hysebehrt, *' abbat," stands first, the title of prior not being yet in vogue in England. During the seventh and eighth centuries monasteries, in the laxer sense of the word, sprang up in every part of the Wiccian diocese. Some were the creation of Mercian kings, some of Wiccian dukes, some of wealthy thanes. In the last quarter of the seventh ' St. Mary's monastery is first mentioned 743^ under Ethel- burga. THE MERCIAN SUPREMACY. 23 century, Pershore was founded by Oswald, nephew of King Ethelred ; Gloucester, by Osric ; Ripple and Withington, by Oshere. Ethelred was liberal to the Church in his kingdom. Early in the eighth cen- tury Bredon (" Braid-down ") was founded by a cousin of King Ethelbald ; Tewkesbury Abbey {" Theocs- bury"), and a less famous foundation at Sture-in- Usmere, probably Kidderminster (" Chad's-minster were founded rather later ; Deerhurst, by Ethelmund the ealdorman ; and Winchcombe (" Winchelcomb"), by Kenulf, about the beginning of the next century. Offa gave largely to Bredon, Evesham, Bath, West- bury, &c. ; but the Chronicle of Gloucester Abbey speaks of a period of "desolation" from about A.D. 770 to A.D. 800. Sometimes these Mercian monasteries were consti- tuted after the Irish model, an abbess, as at Whitby, presiding over monks and nuns. At first the life of the inmates w^as the life of missionaries ; they were the pioneers of Christianity and civilisation, clearing away forests and draining marshes from Evesham to Peterborough. Soon the monasteries assumed a new phase ; some, for instance, Bredon, Evesham, St. Mary's, Worcester, becoming, like Yarrow and Wearmouth in the north, schools of religious learn- ing; others, as Winchcombe, Onnanford, Withington, Berkeley, being attached each to some powerful family, and providing for the less warlike scions of the family a harbour of refuge, safe from the storms of a troublesome world. Not a few of these Wiccian monasteries lapsed before long to the bishop and his chapter ; for instance, Withington to Bishop 24 WORCESTER. Milred ; Fladbury in the reign of Kenulf ; Bredon A.D. 848 ; Ripple, about fifty years later. Perhaps some, at least, of the number were founded on the condition that, after a certain time, they should be vested in the bishop. WORCESTER. 25 CHAPTER III. THE DANES AND DUNSTAN. The ninth and tenth centuries were a period of con- fusion and distress in the Wiccian diocese, as else- where. Early in the ninth century, the dark cloud of Danish incursions broke over England. The Wiccian see did not escape it. The Severn and the Trent gave the marauders easy access to the heart of the province. The rich valleys of the Avon and the Severn attracted them. Above all, the monasteries, already numerous and opulent, provoked alike their cupidity and their rage. They hated the clergy and the monks as beings endowed with super- natural powers ; they were eager to spoil the holy places of whatever they could find in the way of booty. The Danes left the traces of their devastation be- hind them. The revenues of the church suffered severely from heavy taxations, sometimes to buy oft the Danes, sometimes to levy troops against them. Bishops Eadberht and Aelhune, in the ninth century, granted away Church lands to purchase protection from the Danes. Aelhune built a chapel at Kemsey to celebrate what proved to be only a short respite in he long guerilla warfare with these untiring assail- 26 WORCESTER. ants. St. Peter's, Gloucester, was twice sacked by the Danes before the reign of Edgar, once under Ethelred. Fugitives from the flames of Deerhurst sought a refuge further west in the pathless thickets of Malvern Chase. Danish pirates sacked Bredon Monastery very early in the tenth century. The name of Ravenshill recalls the day when their black flag floated on its crest, while their savage hordes were carrying fire and sword into the cathedral city.^ The Welsh took advantage of the confusion to harass the western frontier. Probably the influx of immi- grants from Wessex into Gloucestershire, in the ninth century, was caused by the pressure of a Danish invasion. The consequences, political and social, of this incessant fighting were very disastrous. Bishop Werefrith, a man of studious habits, ill fitted for the turmoil which raged round him during the greater part of his long episcopate, fled to France A.D. 875. Alfred restored comparative tranquillity to the diocese. Under his sheltering care Were- frith translated the Dialogues of Gregory the Great " into English. Ethelred, son-in-law of Alfred, and governor of Mercia under him, with Ethelflaed, his wife, rebuilt the shattered walls of Worcester ; they were liberal benefactors to the churches there. Alfrick, near Worcester, suggests perhaps the memory ' Tradition tells, how, when a band of piratical Danes were returning to their boats on the Severn, after pillaging Worcester, one of them, lingering behind his fellows, was caught by the citizens coming out of the cathedral and flayed alive, and how his skin was nailed to the door of the cathedral. THE DANES AND DUNSTAN. 27 of Alfred and of his daughter, the " Lady of the Mercians." Under Ethelstane, the illustrious grandson of Alfred, the Wiccian see enjoyed the calm which follows a tempest. Good Bishop Kinewold, a little before the middle of the tenth century, restored the monastery at Evesham, which had been ravaged by the Danes, and, though himself a Benedictine monk, placed secular clerks there. He was commissioned by the king to bear friendly greetings and costly gifts to the famous Benedictine monastery of St. Gall (in Switzerland). It was at the court of Ethelstan that a Norwegian prince was entertained, Hako, who became subsequently the first Christian king of Norway. The Danes were slow to amalgamate with the English. So late as the eve of the Norman Conquest, Danish thegns in Worcestershire are mentioned in a deed of Bishop Ealdred as a distinct class. Not till the time of Canute were they really settlers in the land and though, like Xavier's Indian converts, baptised in crowds, they retained many of the superstitions which they brought to our shores. Few Danes appear in the high places of the Church among the Wiccians. This part of England, unlike the north-eastern coun- ties, never became Danish. The general disorganisation, which was a natural consequence of the protracted struggle with the Danes, loosened the tie which bound the Wiccian bishops to their rightful metropolitan. Aldulf, bishop * Simund, a Dane, became a Church vassal, after serving as a soldier under Leofric of Mercia. 28 WORCESTER. of Worcester, in the last decade of the tenth cen- tury, never made the customary profession of obedi- ence to Canterbury. He was one of four bishops of Worcester, during the later half of the tenth century and the earlier quarter of the eleventh, who were, one after another, raised from Worcester to York, and who held both sees together. The only apparent excuse for the pluralists is, that both sees had been impoverished by Danish depre- dations. Another far more serious result of the Danish disorders was a reaction in favour of monasticism. Men had had enough and too much of licence and irregularity. It was a favourable moment for Dunstan and his adherents to enforce a stricter rule of life on clergy living together, for the most part in separate houses, under rules which varied much in different localities, and which were so lax and so feebly administered as practically to be almost no rule at all. Dunstan was a statesman as well as an eccle- siastical reformer, not exempt, apparently, from that love of power which is the alloy in the fine gold of noble enterprises. Monachism has been a powerful lever for good and evil in the hands of ambitious politicians. Dunstan aimed at forcing the rule of Benedict, then generally accepted in Europe, on all the religious communities in England. But many of the English clergy were married ; and this, though perhaps the greatest, was only one of many obstacles to be surmounted. Dunstan, however, had the influence of the crown with him. Edgar is said to have instituted no less than forty monasteries, in the THE DANES AND DUNSTAN, 29 Strict sense of the word, in various parts of the kingdom. Probably his many and munificent gifts to Worcester Cathedral were partly due to his special regard for Bishops Dunstan and Oswald. Dunstan had also on his side several of the most influential bishops, men as zealous as himself for the monastic revival ; Odo, Ethelwald, and, not least. Oswald, his own immediate successor on the throne of the Wiccian see. Dunstan was scarcely three years at Worcester ; for the latter half of this time he was burdened with the charge of the see of London also. It was too short a time for him to effect his purpose there. But he contrived that his friend and fellow-worker, Oswald, should be appointed in his stead. Oswald was the very man for the emergency. His social position, — he was nephew of one archbishop and cousin of the other — the king's personal liking for him, — he attended Edgar at his coronation and on several other great occasions^ — his force of character, his wit, his tact, his fine presence, his early training, all combined to give him special facilities for what he had to do. Even his Danish extraction told rather for than against him in some quarters. There was something very winning as well as very com- manding about him. His manner w^as conciliatory ; and he used at stated times, like the Pope on Maundy Thursday, to wash the feet of twelve poor men. His long episcopate, stretching over more than thirty years, gave him time to do his work of reform ' His father had been one of Ethelstan's most trusted coun- sellors. 3° WORCESTER. thoroughly. He outlived his colleagues, Dunstan and Ethelwald ; in the estimation of his friends he sur- passed them both, his urbane pertinacity producing larger results than the more desultory efforts of Dunstan. Oswald began his clerical career at Winchester, but was shocked by the worldly habits of the canons there. His uncle, Odo of Canterbury, persuaded him to take the monastic vow, after the usual noviciate, in the abbey of Fleury, on the banks of the Loire, the head-quarters in France of the Benedictine order. He came back to England an ardent champion of monasticism, and was raised to the Wiccian bishopric in 961. Oswald lost no time in setting about his work, and accomplished it in a few years, less by force than by the indirect compulsion of his influence. Instead of using violence, he supplanted and undermined. A new church for the monastery of St. Mary sprang up under his auspices, a little to the north of St. Peter's Church and College, where the cathedral lawn now bounds the chancel of the cathedral on its north- ern side, the site subsequently of the old church of St. Michael's parish. It was a perilous proximity for the older institution. The bishop lost no opportunity in showing his decided preference for St. Mary's, preaching to the crowds who gathered round him from the steps of the churchyard cross, till the church was finished. He impaired the resources of St. Peter's, by granting the estates of the college on leasehold to his own partisans, if not by granting them away altogether. Strong in the patronage of THE DANES AND DUNSTAN. 31 king^ and bishop, St. Mary's soon eclipsed its hitherto powerful neighbours. In less than ten years the unsisterly strife of the rival institutions was over. Winsige, the kirkward of St. Peter's, peaceably handed over the keys, deeds, &c., of his college, and after undergoing the requisite probation of three years at Ramsey, where Oswald's influence was paramount, was duly installed abbat of St. Mary's. The other inmates of St. Peter's were transferred, almost without exception, to St. Mary's;- the canons became monks. In the language of the day, the saint, who bears the keys of paradise, made way for her who keeps the door of heaven. In 983, the new cathedral was com- pleted with its twenty-seven altars, a stately edifice ^ ^ Edgar gave many immunities to the manors belonging jointly to the bishop and the monastery of St. Mary, con- solidating them into the hundred of Oswaldslowe under the bishop's court, which is said to have been held at Low Hill, in the parish of Aston Episcopi (White Ladies' Aston), about four miles east of Worcester. The word Oswaldslowe, or Oswaldslawe, is probably derived from this, not, as has been supposed, from Oswald's law expelling the married clergy. The genuineness of Edgar's charter, a.d. 964, has been ques- tioned ; it was confirmed, however, at the Conquest, and more than once under the Plantagenets. See, further, Hale's ** Regula Prioratus Sanctae Mariae Vigom." Introduction, pp. iv,, &c. ^ Only two of the eighteen failed to sign the episcopal charter A.D. 977. ' Of stone, in all probability. Parts of it, notwithstanding the fire in the next century, remained standing, till they were demolished to make room for Wulfstan's Cathedral. It is not impossible that the crypt under the college-hall, formerly the refectory of the monastery, belongs to this period. 32 WORCESTER. for those days. The monks of Worcester were fond of telling how their saintly bishop exorcised a satanic imp, who was hindering the builders. The bishop was not content with reforming his own cathedral. Westminster, now Westbury-on-Trim, had long been a glaring instance of monastic laxity.^ Here Oswald imposed the triple vow of celibacy, poverty, obedience, introducing twelve monks from Fleury, under his old friend and fellow-student, Germanus. From Westbury he sent out a little band of monks to reorganise Ramsey, in Huntingdonshire. At Winch- combe or Winchelcombe, at Pershore and Evesham, similar changes were effected, regular monks dis- placing secular canons. At Pershore and Evesham Duke Alphere took advantage of the death of Edgar to efface Oswald's reforms. Gloucester was proof against Oswald's endeavours, retaining its secular character till the next century. It was left for one of Oswald's successors, Wulfstan the first, to impose the Benedictine rule there. In A.D. 972 Oswald was promoted, again on Dunstan's suggestion, to the archbishopric of York. But he did not resign Worcester. His presence was needed there to counteract the influence of Duke Alphere : and there he passed most of his time to the last. Two large and important dioceses were not enough to give full scope for a temperament so versatile and ^ The convent of Berkeley claimed it. The Synod of Clovesho, in A.D. 824, pronounced in favour of the claims of Eadbehrt, then bishop. THE DANES AND DUNSTAN. 33 SO exuberant in its activity. Oswald was instrumental in remodelling Ely and St. Alban's. His munificence was equally far-reaching. Mindful of his own youth- ful training, he was a benefactor to Fleury,^ as well as to monasteries, not a few, nearer home. He was a second founder to Ramsey, in an adjoining diocese, as well as to Westbury and other Wiccian monasteries. In 991, he was present, an aged man, at the consecra- tion of the new church, which he had mainly erected, at Ramsey. In the next year he closed his long and laborious episcopate at Worcester, a rare instance of a man indefatigable and uncompromising in enforcing what he considered necessary reforms, without be- coming a target for obloquy and hatred. Soon alleged miracles clustered round his name, and in due time he was enrolled among the saints. When the Empress Maude's troops threatened Worcester, Oswald's relics (they had been enshrined by Aldulf, his successor,) were carried in procession through the streets in the vain hope of averting the danger. When King John lay dying at Worcester, he tried to allay his guilty fears by arranging that his body should be laid between the graves of St. Wulfstan and St. Oswald. The next half-century was a time of storms for this diocese. The Danes were again troublesome during the ten years of Aldulf s episcopate. He was abbat of Medeshamstead (Peterborough) before becoming bishop. In the year before his death, the treacherous massacre of the Danes in England, by order of the feeble and faithless Ethelred, was the signal ' He loved to retire there occasionally for rest and spiritual refreshment amid his many and arduous responsibilities. D 34 WORCESTER. for sanguinary reprisals on their part. As usual in these commotions, the Church revenues were mulcted heavily ; Church vessels were melted to pay the tribute exacted as a fine; Church lands were confiscated. Grave charges of peculation and extortion were alleged by monkish writers against Wulfstan, first of that name, who succeeded Aldulf in a.d. 1003; He is stigmatised in their rhymes as the Reprobate," the robber, the plunderer of the Church. " Nam nimis erravit Dum rebus nos spoliavit." Wulfstan, like his immediate predecessors, held Worcester and York together ; unlike Oswald, he preferred York. He favoured York at the expense of Worcester. So far the monastic accusations were founded on fact. But it must be remembered, that in the general confusion of that period it was not easy to discriminate between the respective interests of the two sees. Still more important is it to remember, that the revenues of the bishop and of the priory of Worcester were not kept distinct till after the Conquest. Till then the monks received their several allowances, like boys at a public school, from the bishop's bailiff. The distress in Wulfstan's time necessitated economy ; and the monks, pinched by these retrenchments, naturally enough, reproached their bishop as the cause. Certainly, Wulfstan was an able and energetic bishop, but the greater renown of his sainted name- sake has thrown him into the shade. Like Oswald, he was of noble birth ; influential at court, a patron of learned men, and an author himself. His "Address to the English,'' a vigorous invective against the vices THE DANES AND DUNSTAN. 35 of his day, marks an era in the growth of our English literature. He wrote homilies under the name of " Lupus." Westbury, after Oswald's death, had re- lapsed into its normal laxity. Wulfstan enforced discipline there again, attaching the monastery as a cell to Worcester Priory. Evesham dates the com- mencement of its greatness from his episcopate. At Gloucester,^ he effected, with. Canute's sanction, the reforms which Oswald had failed to effect, converting the canons there into monks, under Edric, the first abbat. In a tumult which ensued, the people rising against the monks, a nobleman w^as killed. Wulfstan played the part of mediator, in the revolt of the Northumbrians. On the whole, there is good reason for believing that the lavish opprobrium heaped on his name by monkish chroniclers is, if not unmerited, at least far more than he deserved. Leofsin, his successor, was a devout man, but not a man to leave his mark on the see. If he did, it was soon obliterated in the fierce contentions, still of frequent recurrence between Enghsh and Danes. A period of comparative tranquillity ensued under Brihteag, Wulfstan's nephew, raised to the bishop's throne from being abbat of Pershore, a bishop notorious for his nepotism. He was high in the favour of Canute, and was intrusted by him w^ith the office of escorting the Princess Gunhild to Germany, to be married to the Emperor Conrad II. The long strife at last was over between the English and the Danes. The land had rest under the sceptre of Canute. Old ' He showed his care for Gloucester, even after his elevation to York. D 2 36 WORCESTER. churches were repaired, new churches were erected throughout the diocese. It was a time of thanks- giving, such as Wordsworth has described : — " As, when a storm has passed, the birds regain Their cheerfulness, and busily re-trim Their nests, and chant a gratulating hymn To the blue ether and bespangled plain." WORCESTER. 37 CHAPTER IV. THE NORMAN CONQUEST. The three bishops, who successively presided over the Wiccian diocese during the eventful period which led up to the Norman Conquest, were all eminent in different ways. Living, or Lyfing, became bishop here in 1038; his episcopacy lasted little more than six years. But, before being appointed by Harold Harefoot to this see, Living was already of im- portance in the Church and realm, having been abbat of Tavistock, and one of Canute's most con- fidential counsellors. He accompanied that great king to Rome, and thence brought back, if indeed he did not actually compose, the memorable letter in which the Danish conqueror pledged himself to reign henceforth as an English king. Living held, simultaneously with Worcester, the two south-western sees of Crediton and St. German's. The only excuse for this almost unparalleled accumulation of prefer- ments on one man is, that pluralities were common in England at that time. Living was an eloquent preacher, and otherwise popular in this diocese. He preferred this to his other sees. But, shortly after the accession of Hardicanute in 1039, he was accused of having 38 WORCESTER. been an accomplice in the murder of the young prince, Alfred, half-brother to the king; and the see was handed over to his rival, Aelfric of York. How far Living was really concerned in the plot for Alfred's assassination, it is not easy to decide. On his behalf it is urged, that his patriotic devotion to the national cause prejudiced Norman writers like William of Malmesbury against him, and that Aelfric, his accuser, had his own motives of ambition and malice for wishing to see him disgraced. Perhaps it may be taken as showing that Living's share, if any, was slight in the conspiracy against the life of the young prince, that he was restored to his see after paying a fine, or, as his detractors express it, by buying back his preferment. Meanwhile a dire calamity had befallen his cathedral city. The people of Worcester rose in arms, 1041, against the ship- money which was being levied, probably resent- ing the tax all the more because of having been deprived of their bishop, and because of having a stranger placed over them in his stead. The in- furiated mob pursued the two housecarls, officers from the king's body-guard sent by him to enforce the payment of the tax, into the monastery, and killed them there in the dormitory, or one of the upper-chambers.^ Hardicanute was not a king to tolerate defiance of his royal will and plea- sure, nor to stint himself in the gratification of his brutal thirst for blood. He dispatched three • "In solario monasterii." Ricard. de Cirenc, "Chronicon." Contin. iii., 35. Modern writers speak of the Edgar Tower ; but this appears to be an anachronism. THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 39 great earls, Leofric, Siward, Godwin, to take ven- geance. The citizens fled for refuge to the Isle of Beavers, now Bevery, on the Severn. The city was sacked. The flames did not spare even the cathedral. Nearly a half-century had elapsed, for the time was not propitious for church-building, before Living's venerable successor, Wulfstan II., replaced the blackened ruins by the new cathedral, parts of which remain to this day. It was a lawless age. Earl Swegen, or Sweyn, had forcibly abducted the abbess of Leominster. Living compelled the earl to send her back. But he was not equally successful in guarding the revenues of his see from Sweyn, the traitor Edric, and other lordly spoilers. It was a general demoralisation. The nation was exhausted by the long struggle with the Danes. The clergy were, many of them, igno- rant and supine. The influx into many dioceses, if not into this,^ of Lotharingian prelates, tended to denationalise the Church in the eyes of the people. There was generally a languid acquiescence in the lax morality, which sees no harm in nepotism, simony, and sinecures. But events were hastening on to their destined end. The iron hand of a foreign conqueror was in due time to apply a stern but needful remedy to the ailments, civil and eccle- siastical, of the time. Living's successor came, as Living did, from the cloisters on ^ the banks of the Ta\y, and was a still more remarkable personage than Living. ' This part of England was not under Harold. 40 WORCESTER. Ealdred was one of the very foremost statesmen in England under Edward the Confessor. He was, indeed, a type of his age ; such a man as in- evitably rises to the surface, when the waters are disturbed ; a man fitted to be in the front amid the uncertainties and hazards, the startling combinations, the almost daily fluctuations of the transitional period, which heralds still greater changes close at hand. His character is a medley of contradictions and inconsistencies. He was a busy politician ; yet by no means neglectful of his episcopal duties, so far at least as the temporal interests of the Church were concerned. At one time he marched at the head of an army,^ at another he was peacemaker and recon- ciler. More than once he was an ambassador on important business to foreign lands ; and yet he found time to administer vigorously the affairs of three dioceses, Worcester, Hereford, Ramsbury, at once. His versatility has brought upon him the reproach of being a timeserver ; yet he was faithful to his friends and loyal to his sovereign for the time being. In one and the same year he placed the crown on the head of Harold and Harold's implac- able antagonist ; but he did his duty first to the one, and then to the other. His frequent journeyings abroad must have made him somewhat cosmopolitan in his sympathies, and yet he aided Godwin strenu- ously in trying to exclude foreigners from promotion in England. He was called the protector of the see of Worcester; yet he is accused of robbing * In his secular capacity, as one of the landowners. THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 41 Worcester for York : he is said to have recovered Church lands ^ for his see, and to have given them away as largely. It is difficult to trace a career so erratic ; it is still more difficult to appraise it rightly. Ealdred was trained in the same place as his predecessor, Oswald, but under a different system. He began life as a monk at Winchester ; he became abbat of Tavistock, and, through Living's recommen- dation, bishop of this diocese in 1044. Soon after his appointment to Worcester, he negotiated a treaty with Griffith, the Welsh chieftain, at that time a continual cause of alarm to our western frontier. But, as usual in those days, the truce was only for the moment. In 1049 ^^^^ bishop led an unsuccess- ful expedition against Griffith, who, with the help of Irish pirates, defeated the English army. In the same year Ealdred was commissioned by the king to pursue and arrest Harold, who was escaping, by way of Bristol, to Ireland. Ealdred probably was not very zealous in this service ; anyhow, he failed. He was more successful in reconciling the king with Sweyn, who had been outlawed for one of his many deeds of violence. About this time, Ealdred, who seems never to have been slow in accepting any pre- ferment which offered itself, undertook the superin- tendence of Winchcombe Abbey. The king sent him to Germany to arrange with the Emperor Henry III. about the return to England of the young Prince Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, ' The famous Godiva, with others, c^ave lands to the see and priory after the death of her husband, Leofric ; also books to the priory. 42 WORCESTER. who had been sheltered at the court of Hungary. He stayed a year^ at Cologne, enjoying the royal entertainment which he received there, as the repre- sentative of England. On his return he was made bishop of Hereford, in place of Leofgar, v/nom Griffith had killed ; and from 1055 to 1058 he was in charge also of the diocese of Ramsbury during Bishop Herman's absence. In 1058, he consecrated the church of St. Peter's monastery at Gloucester (it had been burnt down), and placed Wulfstan- there over the moiiks. Ealdred appropriated for his see of York some of the lands of the monastery, and re- duced the number of the nionks. When Edvrard the Confessor held his parliament here, near the close of his reign, the regular inmates of the monastery were only two monks with eight boys. His next journey was to Jerusalem. He made his pilgrimage with much pomp and a strong retinue of soldiers, the first English bishop, it is said, who visited the Holy Land : the abbat of Gloucester was in his compan}-, and died on his way to Jerusalem. The travels of this indefatigable prelate were not over yet. The last occasion of his going to foreign parts was in many ways the most remarkable. The royal patronage_, which had done so much for him already, raised him in 1060 to the archbishopric of York. He resigned Hereford, and, in company with the great Northumbrian earl, Tostig, went, as ' Probably the abbat of Evesham administered the see meanwhile. ^ Not the successor of Ealdred in the see, though, like him, a monk of Worcester. THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 43 was not unusual, to Rome, to bring back the arch- bishop's pall from the hands of the Pope himself But his reception there was hardly such, as he had anticipated. Perhaps the fees were inadequate ; cer- tainly, the Pope, Nicholas II., thought himself injured by not having been made a party to Ealdred's prefer- ment. He refused to sanction it. Ealdred left Rome for England without his pall, and under sentence of degradation for holding two benefices together. He had not gone far, when he and his escort were attacked by robbers, such as have made Italy in later times a dangerous place for travellers, and stripped of all that he had with him. Being thus compelled to return to Rome, he renewed his suit to the Pope, and this time not in vain. The English earl supported him manfully, remonstrating against the misgovernment, which permitted such lawlessness almost close to the gates of the city, and threatening retaliation from England, if the English prelate's ap- peal was rejected again. The Pope ratified Ealdred's appointment to York, only stipulating that he must relinquish Worcester. Ealdred, however, was reluctant to abandon his Wiccian see altogether. He used his influence with the Confessor for Wulfstan, one of the Worcester monks, to take his place there, some say, because he was well able to appreciate the simple piety, so unlike his own more worldly versatility; some say, that in so guileless a nature he might find a manageable tool. It has been alleged, that he persuaded the king to subordinate Worcester to York. At any rate, he continued to busy himself in the Wiccian see, 44 WORCESTER. as patron and protector, if nothing more. When Urse,^ the haughty sheriff, menaced the cathedral and monastery by driving his castle-fosse across the monks' burial-ground, and close under the southern wall of the cathedral, Ealdred defied the sacrilegious encroachment with a boldness which would have daunted a less reckless intruder, in the famous words, — " Hightest thou Urse ! Have thou God's curse ! " Nor was Ealdred afraid to rebuke Urse's haughty master when he thought him deserving of rebuke. Ealdred closed his busy life in 1069, dying of grief, it is said, for the havoc and misery which the con- tentions of English, Normans, and Danes had brought on the cathedral city of Worcester. Wulfstan, second Wiccian bishop of that name, succeeded in 1062. He was the son of a War- wickshire thane. I>ong Itchington, an otherwise insignificant village near Coventry, claims the honour of having given birth to this exemplary bishop. He was educated in the monastery of Medeshamstead (Peterborough); but he remained a layman, probably, like George Herbert, from diffidence in his own fit- ness for the ministry, till he was twenty- six years of age ; and his reluctance was then overcome only by the pressing invitation of Bishop Brihteag. He refused a valuable preferment — again one is reminded of the ^ During the latter part of the Confessor's reign, Urse and his brother, Le Despenser, acquired possessions in Worcester- shire. The encouragement given by Edward to these and other Norman barons to settle in England made the Conquest easier. THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 45 " Country Parson " of Bemerton — preferring the se- clusion of the prior}^ at Worcester. But he went out assiduously among the poor, baptising gratuitously, though the evil custom of his day permitted fees to be taken for such ministrations. In 1053, he became prior. Though revered and loved for his consistent piety, he was not othenvise distinguished among his brethren ; and he was distressed even to tears, when their unanimous voice called him to wield the bishop's crozier. Perhaps he recalled the old saying of the Eg}^ptian hermits, recorded by Cassian, that a monk should shun the office of a bishop, as he would the sight of a woman. His evidently unaffected Nolo episcopari " was at length overruled, after some months' hesitation, by the urgent solicitations of others. The choice of the monks was strongly supported by Aelfgar, earl of the province, by both the archbishops, especially by Ealdred, by the Pope's legates, who were at Worcester at that moment, and by Harold himself : it was duly ratified by the Witangemot. Stigand, of Canterbury, was then in the anomalous position of an archbishop without his pallium, perhaps through the influence of the Duke of Normandy at Rome, on the pretext of his being a pluralist. Wulfstan, accordingly, like other bishops in the province of Canterbury during this interregnum, received conse- cration, the legates insisting upon it, from the hands of his friend and patron, Ealdred of York ; but, with his usual straightfonvardness, he made his promise of canonical obedience to Stigand, not allowing any personal considerations to cause him to swerve from 46 WORCESTER. the path of obedience marked out by custom and authority. This vow he renewed to I^nfranc, Stigand's successor. Wulfstan was present at the dedication of the glorious minster, which marks the reign of the Con- fessor, and which afterwards became intimately and peculiarly connected with this diocese. The first thought of the foundation of Westminster Abbey is said to have been suggested to Edward by a hermit in Wulfstan's diocese, one of the many solitaries in Malvern Chase. Wulfstan accompanied Harold to the north of England early in the memorable year 1066, that the influence of his sanctity and homely eloquence might help to attach the rugged Northumbrians to Harold s cause. To the last he was faithful to Harold. But, when the defeat and death of Harold in the disastrous fight near Hastings left no reasonable hope of withstanding the Norman invasion, Wulfstan was among the first to set the example of submission to what could not but be. Even London had given in. Only Edgar the Atheling remained of the old dynasty ; his chances were of no account. It was clearly best for England to acquiesce without more bloodshed. Wulfstan was no timeserver. A timesen er is one, who betrays his principles for selfish ends. A true patriot strives only for what he beheves to be the welfare of his country. With Walter, bishop of Hereford, and others, Wulfstan met at Berkhamstead the Conqueror, fi-esh from the sanguinar}' field of battle, and there promised fealty. William, with his keen insight into character, soon THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 47 learned to appreciate Wulfstan's single-minded fidelity. There is record in Heming's Cartidarmm ^ of a royal gi-ant to the see of Worcester so early as 1067. ^ut troubles were at hand from other quarters. Thomas of Bayeux, one of the many foreign prelates irnported by the Conqueror, succeeded Ealdred, at York. Between him and Wulfstan a controversy arose, the archbishop asserting that Worcester was under his jurisdiction, Wulfstan claiming back from York lands alienated by Ealdred. Pope Alexander II., advised by Hildebrand, his archdeacon, ordered the question to be decided in England. Two councils in 1072 pro- nounced for Canterbury against York ; and Wulfstan regained for his see some of the lands which it had lost.- Another cloud darkened his sky ; he was accused of incompetency on the score of his want of learning, but really, perhaps, on account of his English sympathies. His friends eagerly pressed him to exert himself to avert the danger through the inter- vention of powerful friends. Wulfstan, conscious of innocence,'^ gave himself to prayer. He was acquitted at Westminster. In a few earnest words, he expressed his loyalty to his Church and sovereign, and, in token of his willingness to bow (as the story goes), to the sentence of deposition, he laid down his episcopal staff by the effigy of the king, under whose auspices he had first received it ; the legend adds, that it remained there, so firmly riveted to the ^ Mr. Freeman doubts its authenticity. — "Norman Con- quest," ii., 413 ; v., 579. ^ So did Abbat Serlo'for Gloucester. ^ Florence compares him in guilelessness to a dove. 48 WORCESTER. Stone, that no force could tear it away. Eventually Wulfstan and his opponents became friends ; he visited York and Lichfield to assist in both those places. He and Lanfranc were fellow-workers also at Bristol, in stopping the nefarious exportation of slaves for Ireland from that port. Wulfstan's fidelity to his new king was soon put to the proof. The warlike temper of the age in which his lot was cast forced even so peace-loving a bishop to play the soldier at times. He took an active part, in 1073, in crushing the conspiracy of Roger, earl of Hereford, and other malcontent barons. It was of first importance to guard the passage-of the Severn against the rebels. Wulfstan was effectively aided by Walter de Lacy, whose name survives in a little parish between Bromyard and Hereford, as well as by Urse, the redoubtable sheriff of Worcestershire, too often a rapacious plunderer of the Church, but in this emergency siding heartily with the good bishop. Another leading ecclesiastic took part in the fray, Aegelwig, abbat of Evesham. He had been made abbat at the same time as Wulfstan had been made bishop ; like Wulfstan, he had enjoyed the confidence of Edward, Harold, and William, successively and like Wulfstan, though English by birth and training, he was a firm adherent of the new dynasty. William intrusted him with the control for a time of the abbey of Winchcombe, Godric the abbat being suspected of designs against the Normans ; and, according to the chronicles of his own abbey, Aegelwig was also made by the Conqueror chief judge, or itinerant THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 49 justiciary of seven western and midland shires, Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, Warwick, Hereford, Salop, and Stafford. Aegelwig was of noble family, and still more eminent for prudence in affairs. He steered his course warily through the stormy conflicts which were surging around him j and at his death, eleven years after the Conquest, he left his abbey ^ unimpoverished and unimpaired to his successors. Between this important personage and Wulfstan arose in 1074 one of those weary and vexatious litigations,- which so often marred what should have been the harmonious co-operation of bishop and abbot. The story is told, from very different points of view, in the chronicles of Evesham and ^Vorcester respectively. It has been surmised, that Aegelwig was disappointed at not being made bishop of Wor- cester in Ealdred's place. But he supported Wulfstan cordially in resisting the encroachments of York, their common foe. The particular contention, which sundered, for a time at least, his friendship with Wulfstan, was about the hundred of Oswaldslow. William was away in Normandy. He deputed the Bishop of Coutances, with certain barons, to hear the case for him. Wulfstan proved, by witnesses on oath, that service was due from Evesham Abbey for lands in the Oswaldslow, but he could not obtain a final decision to this effect till six years after, when the case came on again before Remigius, bishop of Lincoln, and others. Their sentence was ratified by * There were then sixty-seven monks there. ^ A very similar dispute occurred somewhat later between Evesham and Pershore Abbeys. E 50 WORCESTER. the provincial witangemot, after the death of Aegelwig, and noted in Domesday Book. Wulfstan was not one to keep up a feud. He and Aegelwig became friends again, as before ; and when Wulfstan formed, what would now be called an association, a brotherhood (sodalitium), or fellowship of his abbats and priors for prayer and mutual aid in serving God and the king, Aelgelwig was one of them. Three at least of the number were Normans, Edward of Pershore, Ralph of Winchcombe, and Serlo, the reformer and restorer of St. Peter's, Gloucester ; an indication, not only that there was nothing factious in this combination, but also that the foreign ecclesi- astics introduced by William I. were, as a rule, worthy of their promotion and desirous to take their place as Englishmen in England. Wulfstan was the man to assist in blending the discordant elements around him. The influence, which his unselfishness and unworldliness exercised even over men as unlike himself as the ambitious Bishop of Coutances, is very remarkable. Under such a bishop the diocese flourished gener- ally, the firm and, on the whole, just sway of the Conqueror giving the opportunity, long sought in vain, for works of piety and benevolence. Wulfstan restored Westbury, a monastery especially connected with the Wiccian see.^ He re-consecrated St. Peter's,^ Glou- ' Bishop Carpenter, in the fifteenth century, styled himself Bishop of Worcester and Westbury. 2 A strange story is told in the "Gloucester Chronicle," how the abbat, Serlo, wrote to William Rufus to warn him of his end, in consequence of a vision seen by one of his monks. THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 51 cester. The priory of Great ^Malvern, on the slope of the Worcestershire beacon, owes its origin to the shrewd advice which he gave to Aldwin, a hermit in the Malvern Chase, that he should serve God at home instead of going to Jerusalem. Urse, probably in one of those fits of remorse, which came over men like him in those wild times, had founded a small monas- tery here, as a dependency of Westminster Abbey, before the death of the Confessor. This was reorgan- ised by the abbat of Westminster, and, with Wulfstan's consent, Aldwin was made the first prior. ^ A missionary spirit, as always where the flame of Christian love burns bright and clear, pervaded the diocese. Three monks from this see, two from Winchcombe, one from Evesham, journeyed together to Durham, to revive monasticism in those northern regions, whence it had made its way to Wiccia. In 1 103, twelve monks from Evesham went to Odensee, at the request of Eric the Good, to found a Benedictine monastery there. In 1084, Wulfstan began a new cathedral, a little to the south-west of Oswald's, which had been grievously damaged when the city was sacked by Hardicanute's emissaries, and by other casualties. In five years it was roofed in. The crypt and other parts, which have lasted to this century, bear their silent witness to the solidity and grandeur of the edifice. But the good bishop was in tears, as he watched with fatherly solicitude the progress of the building, not like the * The churches of Gloucester Abbey and of Great Malvern Prior>' were both built in the very beginning of the twelfth century, and both rebuilt in the middle of the fifteenth. E 2 52 WORCESTER, Jews from Babylon, who mourned because their second temple fell far short of the glory of their first, but, as he said with his usual humility, because, though the new cathedral might be more beautiful, he and his people were far behind their fathers in holiness. With characteristic reverence, he carefully enshrined anew the relics of his predecessor Oswald, while removing the ruins of Oswald's church. Once more the quiet tenor of Wulfstan's episcopate was interrupted by the call to arms, and again AVulfstan proved his loyalty to his king. In 1088, Worcester was attacked by the lords of the marches, who rose in revolt, before William Rufus was well seated on his throne, to assert the privileges of the barons against the rights of the English. The bishop was at his post, encouraging the troops who manned the city walls. The insurgents were repelled. The city with its still unfinished cathedral escaped the misery of being pillaged by the baronial soldiery. One of the last acts of this long episcopate was to hold a diocesan synod in the crypt of the cathedral in 1092. The occasion of the synod being called together was trifling enough, merely a dispute between the parish prints of St. Helen's and St. Alban's, which of these churches was to be accounted the mother church of Worcester. The synod decided, that neither was really the mother church, but the cathedral only. Though not learned himself (his diligent discharge of his episcopal duties must have left him scanty leisure for study), Wulfstan was a patron of learning in others. He did his best to further the great survey of THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 53 the kingdom, the results of which are found in Domes- day Book. It was at his bidding that Heming, the monk of Worcester, carefully and laboriously compiled the valuable collection of charters and other historical documents^ which bears the name of He??ii7igi Carlularium. Wulfstan died in 1095, ^ almost simultaneously with his old friend Roger, bishop of Hereford. He had been bishop thirty-two years ; he was eighty-seven years of age ; he had outlived by many years all the other Old-English bishops ; he was the last surviving bishop of purely English birth. A life so irreproach- able in its integrity, and an episcopate so consistent with itself in its simplicity and holiness, are a worthy conclusion to the Old-English period in the history of our diocese. ' He was canonised a.d. 12 18. 54 WORCESTER. CHAPTER V. AFTER THE CONQUEST. Owing to the comparative isolation of England from the Continent, the bishops here before the Con- quest were, as a rule, bishops of the several tribes, instead of being attached to great cities in ac- cordance with the Roman custom. With the death of Wulfstan, the diocese assumes a new title. The see of the Wiccians becomes the see of Worcester. In other respects, more important than a mere change of name, the diocese commences now a new era. The English Church becomes more familiar with con- tinental usages, and more dependent on Rome. Even before the Conquest much valuable time was lost to the diocese by pilgrimages to the city, which was regarded as the centre of Christendom, the sacred home of apostolic traditions. Even before the Con- quest appeals were made to Rome. But now the intercourse becomes more frequent, the pilgrimages are more continual, the habit of appealing to Rome is more inveterate. Instead of a vague and childlike reverence for the majesty of Rome, as something remote and almost intangible, the Church in England is brought face to face with the overweening pretensions of the papal see ; it has to endure, again and again, the tedious procrastinations of law-suits at Rome, as costly and as wearying as the interminable suits in Chancery AFTER THE CONQUEST. 55 in modern days; it has to resist, again and again, the attempt of Rome to interfere with civil and ecclesias- tical rights in England. It resulted naturally from this closer contact with Rome that the monasteries became more independent of the bishops. Before the Conquest the bishop exercised a considerable control over the monastic comnmnities in his diocese, partly through his in- fluence in the councils of the nation or of the province. ^ After the Conquest they leaned more heavily on the support of Rome, and were proportionately less dis- posed to submit to their bishop. Another result of the increased influence of Rome was the more general cehbacy of the clergy. Before the Conquest they were often married men with families, not- withstanding all the efforts of Dunstan, Oswald, and others. After the Conquest the law of celibacy was enforced more strictly.^ It might have been antici- pated, as another result of the Conquest, that there would be a wide and lasting estrangement between the foreigners, brought over the sea to occupy high places in the Church, and their clergy, the rank and file. Happily, in most instances, the new comers forgot that they were foreigners, and adapted them- selves to their new surroundings. For the most part William selected them well, and substituted them for the native bishops and abbots, not all at once but by degrees, as vacancies occurred. Gradual as it was, it * The lower orders of the clergy had a voice in these councils. — Stubbs, Documents," &c., p. 31. 2 Not till the reign of Henry II. did the married clergy cease altogether. WORCESTER. was complete, the elimination of the Old-English element. In the next generation, there was not a bishop left English by birth. In some respects the change effected by the Con- quest in the state of the Church was for the better. Discipline had been lax. There had been large diversities of ritual in the dioceses severally. The clergy in many cases had been illiterate and indolent. Even the bishops had too often been more busy about the temporal interests of the see than about their higher duties. The Conquest infused new life and vigour into the Church as into the nation. The wise providence of God was shaping all things in due course for the best. In this diocese, though the records are meagre of the actual subjugation of it by the Normans,^ there is an unusual abundance of information as to the condition of the Church financially, when order had been restored and the sovereignty of the Conqueror established. Nearly half the landowners in Wor- cestershire, a smaller proportion in Gloucestershire, were ecclesiastical corporations. In Worcestershire, the chief ecclesiastical landowners were Worcester Priory, Gloucester, Evesham and Pershore Abbeys, Westminster Abbey, with four other English mona- steries not in the diocese, and two monasteries not in England; in Gloucestershire, ten extra-diocesan monasteries, including Westminster, seven continen- tal monasteries, five monasteries in the diocese, and the bishop himself The bishop's tenure was different ' If Chester was the last city to submit to the Normans, prol^ably Worcester was among the last. AFTER THE CONQUEST. 57 in several respects from that of other landowners. The hundred of Oswaldslow, for instance, was exempt even from the ordinary rights of the crown. All this hundred was under the bishop's jurisdiction, though only eight manors, consisting of two hundred and twenty-five hides belonged to him in it ; the other seven manors, containing seventy-five hides, with parts of three manors, amounting to seven hides, for the supply of rations to the monks, being the property of the priory.^ It was the astute policy of the Conqueror, on the old Roman principle of weakening by division ("divide et impera "), to divorce the estates, hitherto held in common, of the bishop and his chapter.^ The priory had also more than ninety hides in other hundreds. It had the patronage of about fifty benefices ; it received pensions (as being the mother church) from some forty more, which were in the gift of other monasteries, as well as from the rectors in the diocese. The appropriation of tithes ^ The chief value of the manors was in the produce of the demesne cultivated by the villains (villani), M'ithout payment. The old Roman saltworks at Droitwich were especially profitable. ^ William II. gave St. Peter's Church, Wolverhampton, with its appurtenances, to Bishop Sampson ; and the bishop, with consent of Henry I., transferred it (perhaps for an equiva- lent) to the priory at Worcester. After several vicissitudes, it passed to the Bishop of Chester. The Conqueror separated also the law-courts, civil and ecclesiastical. Hence arose the question of clerical privilege in Becket's time. ^ Before the Conquest the priory of Worcester received the tithes as well as the pensions from the churches belonging to it; after the Conquest, only the pensions. — Hale's " Regula Prioratus Sanctce Marine Vigorn/' Introduction, pp. 27, 28. 58 WORCESTER. began even before the Conquest. It was an evil precedent. The finances of the priory were flourishing, and the number of the monks had risen to fifty, although the diocese suffered even more than others from the greediness of the invaders. Chief among the spoilers were Urse and his brother, Robert le Despenser, (dispensator regis), Richard "Son of Scrob " and William Fitz Osbern, earl of Herefordshire. Odo, the lordly bishop of Bayeux, abused his near connexion with the king to confiscate property belonging to Evesham. Abbey. The king himself carried off several pounds in weight of gold and silver from the shrines of the English saints in the cathedral. Westminster Abbey continued to bask in royal favour, to the detriment of other monasteries. The royal founder of Westminster had enriched it largely with endowments in this diocese. William, from motives, probably, of a different kind, aggrandised Westminster in the same way at the expense especially of Pershore Abbey. It is no wonder that the monk of Worcester, who records these deeds of rapine, classes the Norman with the Dane, as spoiling the sanctuary. Church-building made great progress as soon as the diocese had regained its tranquillity. The foreign ecclesiastics brought with them a more sumptuous and elaborate style of architecture, of which the diocese is rich in stately specimens; for example, in the crypt and other parts of Worcester Cathedral, and in the naves of Gloucester Cathedral, Tewkesbury,^ Per- ' The rebuilding of Tewkesbury abbey church was com- menced by Robert Fitzhamon, nephew of the Conqueror, AFTER THE CONQUEST. 59 shore, and Great Malvern. The ruins of Deers- hurst are of earlier date, being a simpler and ruder form of romanesque. William Rufus, as usual, kept the see of Worcester vacant, about a year, before appointing a successor to Wulfstan. Lanfranc was dead. The king, no longer restrained by deference for him, cared little for the diocese being left without a chief pastor, so long as the emoluments were his in the meantime. Sampson, a canon of Bayeux, of noble birth, was appointed in 1096. If we may trust Norman panegy- rics, he was learned, eloquent, and munificent ; with the monks of his own day he was by no means a favourite, perhaps as being a foreigner, perhaps as enforcing a stricter discipline than they were accus- tomed to bear. It shows the arbitrary character of his appointment, that he was ordained priest one day, and consecrated bishop the next. He restored canons at Westbury, probably biassed by his own early antece- dents; and it has been supposed that he was a married man, because Thomas of York is spoken of as his " son." In the dispute between Canterbury and York, Sampson took part with the former in insisting that the rival archbishop should promise canonical obedience to Canterbury before receiving the pall. During his episcopate, his cathedral and the church of St. Peter, and the abbat Gerald; it was finished a.d. 1123, twenty years later, by Robert, the "good" earl of Gloucester, illegitimate son of Henry I. and husband of Fitzhamon's daughter. The roof, as probably of Worcester Cathedral, Malvern priory church, and other contemporary buildings in the diocese, was of wood, oak-trees abounding in this locality. 6o WORCESTER. Gloucester, destined in future years to become the cathedral of another diocese, were both damaged by fire,^ probably in some popular commotion arising between the two nationalities not yet fused into one. Four years after the fire at Gloucester, the bishop re-consecrated St. Peter's Church; but the good Abbat Serlo was no longer alive to see his church "hallowed" again. The reign of Henry I. was a time of compromise. Both the bishops who were raised successively to the see of Worcester during his reign were courtiers ; both were men of ability, and otherwise without reproach. Theulf, who was appointed in 1115 after the usual interregnum, was one of the king's chaplains, and a canon of the same cathedral in Normandy as his predecessor of Worcester. Simon, who succeeded Theulf in 1125, was chaplain to the Queen Adeliza, and had come over in her suite from Louvain. Theulf had the assistance of bishops from Wales and Ireland, an unusual conjunction, in the consecration of Tewkesbury abbey church. He died at Hampton Lucy (Hampton Bishop), one of the manor-houses of the see. Simon was enthroned with much pomp. It was a grand ceremony; a contrast to the simplicity and homeliness of the Old-English bishops ; an omen of the approaching luxury and worldly splendour which were the canker of the mediaeval Church. But troubles were at hand. Early in his episcopate the city and cathedral were damaged by one of those disas- Only the roof of Worcester Cathedral was damaged. AFTER THE CONQUEST. 6l trous fires, which occurred so frequently among buildings which consisted chiefly of wood. In the miseries of the civil war, which ensued on the death of Henry I., few parts of the kingdom suffered more than this. As usual, the Welsh took advantage of the confusion to renew their ravages. The city of Worcester was, generally, for Stephen, through habitual jealousy of Gloucester, which sided with Maude through the influence of her half-brother, Robert, the " good " earl of Gloucester. Ecclesiasti- cally, this and the neighbouring dioceses were dis- tracted between the conflicting claims on their allegi- ance. Stephen owed his powers mainly to the clergy and to the Pope ; but he failed to fulfil their expec- tations of him. Bishop Simon kept himself neutral in the fray. His clergy joined with the citizens in welcoming Stephen with open arms in 1039 ;i and yet the cathedral was spared, when the Empress's victorious troops, marching from Gloucester, sacked the city, although Oswald's relics (Wulfstan ~ was not yet in such repute) had been carried in solemn pro- cession to avert the danger. Again, when the Pope's legate, the proud Bishop of Winchester, acting through the Bishop of Hereford, excommunicated the Constable of Gloucester, Earl Milo, for supporting Maude, and laid an interdict on the diocese of Worcester, the Bishop of Worcester was appealed to, and sureties were given to him, Gilbert, abbat of ' Stephen gave a ring, as his oftering in the cathedral. Next day it was restored to him, probably for an equivalent in money. Miracles began at Wulfstan's tomb about A.D. 1200. 62 WORCESTER. Gloucester, afterwards bishop of Hereford, the abbat of Tewkesbury, and the prior of the new Llantony. The bishops emerged all the stronger from this anarchy. In time their efforts to mediate were suc- cessful in placing the young prince, Henry II., on the throne after the death of Stephen. Even during the horrors of the civil war the work of the Church, as it was understood in those days, was making progress. In the very commencement of the strife Bishop Simon consecrated the priory of Llantony, near Gloucester, an offshoot from the Welsh monastery of that name. Near the close of it he consecrated St. Augustine's Monastery at Bristol. Under his episcopate the interior of the chapter-house w^as rebuilt, and two western bays were added to the nave of the cathedral. He consolidated the estates of the see. During his episcopate he consecrated five abbats. He found time, also, to accompany Archbishop Theobald to Rome, and to remodel, once more, the ever-changing constitution of Westbury after the monastic fashion. WORCESTER 63 CHAPTER VL UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS. The new reign brought a special distinction to Wor- cester. The young king and queen were present in Worcester Cathedral, four years after their accession, as if to help the remoter provinces to realise their share in the restoration of peace and order in the land. The king wore his crown during the high mass. During the first half of Henry's long reign a man of more than ordinary eminence presided over the see. Roger, son of Robert, earl of Gloucester, and grandson of Henry Beauclerk, became bishop in 1 1 64, the see having been vacant since the death, in 1 160, of Bishop Alfred, who succeeded John of Pageham, in 1158. Roger owed his appointment to having friends at court, being scarcely of the canonical age, but he proved himself an excellent bishop. His piety and integrity were celebrated beyond the kingdom. He was called by Pope Alexander III. " one of the two lights of England," Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, being the other. One of the great western towers of St. Peter's, Gloucester, fell, as happened not unfrequently to the ponderous Norman towers, while Bishop Roger was officiating there at 64 WORCESTER. mass, but he quietly proceeded to the end of the service, undisturbed by the panic around him. He showed, perhaps, even more resolution in refusing, in spite of a strong pressure from persons in high position, to lay hands on a candidate for the office of bishop whom he believed unworthy. He was firm in his adherence to Becket through the long con- troversy between Becket and the king. An old writer sums up his praises of Bishop Roger by saying that in him the rose, the lily, and the violet were combined. He made it a rule never to bestow patronage on his relatives, quoting a saying of Alexander III. against nepotism, " Dominus episcopis abstulit fiUos ; diabolus dedit nepotes."' Bishop Roger, though an avowed partisan of Becket, retained the king's favour. In 1 1 7 1 he was sent by Henry to Rome, to express the king's remorse for Becket's murder, afid again in 11 78. He died at Tours, in the year following, during his journey home. The quarrel between Henry II. and Becket was part of the great struggle in England at this time : first, of law against the brute force of the barons; next, of law against the pretension of the clergy to exempt themselves from the law of the land and to shelter themselves under the Roman suprem.acy. Law triumphed in the end, but not without a stubborn contest. The clergy generally were far from being what the ministers of Christ should be. The lawless- ness of Stephen's reign had done its demoralising work on them, as well as on the laity. There is a curious instance of the laxity of discipline in UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS. 65 a litigation, otherwise insignificant, during Rogers episcopate, between Worcester Priory and Oseney, near Oxford, about a small place, called Bibery (Bri- beria), in Gloucestershire. It was finally decided, by the arbitration of Bartholomew of Exeter, that the Bishop of Worcester should appoint a cancn there not under twenty years of age, nor of ill repute.^ Foreign ecclesiastics swarmed over the kingdom like locusts. The regular and the secular clergy were continually at variance. A dispute arose about the church of St. Clement, Worcester. The church, an Old-English building, stood on the English side of the Severn ; the parish lay on the Welsh. The priory of Worcester and the priest of All Saints' claimed jurisdiction. Bishop Roger gave sentence in the crypt of the cathedral for the monks, and in their suit with Osbert Fitzhugh. One of those disputes, which were too frequent in the Middle Ages, arose between Roger and the abbat of Westminster about the election of a prior for Great Malvern. Both claimed jurisdiction. The question was settled, as usual, by a compromise. About the same time St. Mary's Church, Westwood, was appropriated by the Norman landowner to the abbey of Fontevraud, Normandy, for a small Bene- dictine nunnery. Another Worcestershire baron, the lord of Dudley Castle, founded a Clugniac ^ priory there. A long-standing feud between the abbey of ' " Viginti annorum, nec publica infamia laborantem." ^ The Clugniac houses in England were mostly French. This priory was a cell under Wenlock. F 66 WORCESTER. Evesham and the Beauchamps, whose baronial castle, like Urse's at Worcester, stood in dangerous vicinit}' to the town, ended about this time in the fortress being demoUshed. King John founded a Premon- stratensian^ monastery at Hales-Owen, for canons from Welbeck Abbey. Alexander de Hales, the famous schoolman, the doctor irrefragabilis," was a native of Hayles, in Gloucestershire, but studied at Paris. He died 1246. Bishop Roger was almost of royal extraction ; Baldwin, who succeeded him, began life as a poor schoolmaster; but having joined the Cistercians, a strict order of reformed Benedictines,^ who were forming colonies in England from Citeaux, the birthplace of the society, he rose to be abbat of Ford, in Devonshire, before being bishop of Wor- cester. Baldwin was a thorough Cistercian, slender in figure, sparing in diet and conversation, patient, studious, and modest. Once, by his episcopal inter- vention, he saved the life of a knight, who for some infraction of the law was being led to the gallows on a Sunday. Within a few years he became archbishop of Canterbury. In company with Giraldus Cambren- sis he went about zealously preaching the Crusades, and, having followed Richard to Palestine, died at Acre, in 11 90, during the siege. The Crusades, and the other foreign wars, in which the fiery spirit of Coeur-de-Lion delighted, were a heavy tax to this ' The Premonstratensians were an order of regular canons. They never became numerous in England. '■^ The Cistexxian foundations were popular in England. UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS. 67 diocese as to others. In the Chronicle of St. Peter's, Gloucester, a story occurs about this date, illustrating the superstitious aversion to the Jews, which in those days, as in our own, often found vent in atrocious cruelties. The Jews at Gloucester were accused of stealing and torturing a Christian boy of that city. Part of Worcester city at this time, like the Ghetto at Rome, was set apart for the Jews as aliens and outcasts. The disastrous and ignominious reign of John was less detrimental to this than to other dioceses. John was partial to Worcester. He visited the cathedral repeatedly during his short and troublous reign. He gave liberally (for him) to the priory, especially in 1207, when he bestowed a hundred marks for the cloisters and offices of the cathedral, which had been much injured by fire a few years before. Here, in one of the last years of his reign, he held a conference with the barons, which paved the "way for Runnimede and the Great Charter. In this cathedral he was buried, by his express desire, with a monk's cowl on his head, between the graves of the sainted Oswald and Wulfstan, 'as if in the hope of gaining admission into paradise through a vicarious sanctity. John had himself been conspicuous in setting an example of devotion to the shrine of the latter, who had been canonised very recently. Possibly, as the lord of Bristol Castle, John was in the habit of looking to Worcester Cathedral, his mother church, with a special reverence. But in a time of such disorder the diocese could not but suffer with England generally. Mauger, F 2 68 WORCESTER. bishop here during the greater part of this unhappy reign, had been physician to Richard L, and could not be well disposed to one who had proved himself so treacherous a brother to that prince; nor, having been himself promoted by Innocent III., could he sym- pathise with John against that pontiff. Manger was one of the bishops who excommunicated John at the Pope's bidding, and laid the kingdom under an interdict.^ This done, he fled to France, and died there in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, the refuge of Becket. John had a perverse and inveterate habit of estranging even those who were willing to take his part. When by his many mis- doings he had exhausted the patience of his subjects, the city of Worcester turned against him, and the priory was plundered in the confusion. Mauger was consecrated at Rome, 1199, by the hands of the Pope himself, who had been so favourably impressed by him as to overlook the illegitimacy, which would otherwise have been an impediment to his preferment. The bishops who pre- ceded him, after Roger, were of slight importance, and foUovved one another with such rapidity, as to suggest that men of very advanced age were pre- ferred for the sake of the fees, thus renewed more frequently. William Northale, or Northall, was consecrated 1186, at the same time and place as the famous St. Hugh, of Lincoln. A dispute arose in 1191 about the consecration of Robert Fitz Ralph, ' Daylesford Monastery, in this diocese, is said to have been exempt. UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS. 69 the bishops of London and Rochester each claiming the right of consecrating him, in the absence of the archbishop : appeal was made to the Pope, who set aside the claims of both prelates and appointed his own legate, the Bishop of Ely. The Pope appears to have interfered again, 1193, in the election of Henry de Soilli, abbat of Glastonbury, in order that a bishop, whom he favoured, might be made abbat of Glastonbury. Bishop Mauger, like most mediaeval bishops, had trouble with his monks. The Chronicle of Evesham records a long litigation between the abbey and the bishop at this time. As visitor, and as con- secrator of each new abbat, Mauger — he is styled " Cardinal " in the Chronicle— claimed jurisdiction, through the prior of Worcester, his deputy, over the churches in the vale of Evesham which were under a dean of their own, "decanus Christianitatis," appointed by the abbot. Innocent III., his sympathy divided between the monks, the hereditary satellites of Rome, and the bishop, his personal friend, pro- crastinated and temporised, the interdict supplying him a good excuse for deferring judgment, j\Iean- time the dispute was complicated by another distinct question. The monks of Evesham in 1195 rebelled against the abbat, Roger Norreys, a man utterly un- worthy of his sacred office. Their complaints, how- ever, were rather of his severity than of his profligacy. Mauger was, probably, not sorry to interpose. He supported the monks. Appeal followed to Rome. There, for one cause or another, the inquiry was stifled, at least for a time. In 12 13 Norreys was 70 WORCESTER. deposed by the legate. Randulf, prior of Worcester, was elected abbat of Evesham. He had already been chosen by the monks bishop of Worcester, but had declined that office in favour of Walter Gray. The priory of Worcester was gaining ground steadily. The monks took advantage of the royal funeral in i2t6, and of the influence of the legate with Earl Pembroke, the guardian of the youthful king, to reclaim the ground, close to the cathedral, which Urse had taken by force and had made part of the enclosure of his castle. They contrived — it was no mean feat of engineering skill for those days — to bring water from Henwick Hill, from St. John's Green, and from beyond Sidbury, to their lavatory adjoining the cloister.! Prior Randulf built a grange at Broadway. The eastern transept of the cathedral was built. The monks were about fifty at this time. The prior acted in the bishop's place, as regarded matters not requiring the episcopal ordination, during the vacancies, which were so frequent and so prolonged between the end of one episcopate and the appoint- ment of a successor. In this century (and again in the fifteenth) several of the great abbeys of this see were enriched by revenues diverted from Welsh churches. A yearly payment of about thirty shillings was made out of the royal revenues by the high sheriff to ^ Disputes were frequent between the city and the monks about the supply of water. During the civil wars in the seventeenth century some of the pipes were torn up and cast for bullets. UNDER THE PLANTAGENETS. 71 an anchorite or recluse at Stoke Prior. But these solitaries were always regarded with suspicion by monastic legislators. By this time the " Sarum Use" had made its way into this diocese.^ A century had passed since the death of Osmund, the compiler. This diocese produced, towards the close of this century, a poem which is almost the only important specimen now extant of the literature of England during this period of transition. Layamon, our Ennius, as he has been called, was a priest in Areley,^ near Stourport, living as a hermit in a rude cell scooped out of the sandstone cliff which overhangs the Severn near Redstone Ferry. His knowledge of Latin and Norman-French enabled him to versify in English, then becoming more and more imbued with French phrases, the metrical chronicle, which Wace had translated from the Historia Britonum," by Geoffry of Monmouth. As history, Layamon's "Brut" is of little value, containing many Welsh legends about Lear, Merlin, and Arthur, already a popular hero in England. But the book is valuable, as indicating the state of our language at that time, and it expresses in rugged but vigorous verse patriotic affection for England. Very early in the reign of Henry- HI. the cathedral was re-dedicated by Bishop Silvester^ (of Evesham) ' S^e "The Consuetudinary of St. Osmund." By Canon Jones. Devizes. 1881. ^ "In patrimonio suo," he says of himself. ^ He Avas consecrated at Perugia. 72 WORCESTER. in honour of St. Mary, St. Peter, and two local saints, Oswald and Wulfstan. It was a grand cere- mony, the king himself being present. At the same tim.e the relics of Wulfstan were moved with much pomp. WORCESTER. 73 CHAPTER VII. THE BARONIAL BISHOPS. William of Blois was one of the many foreign ecclesiastics obtruded into English sees during the long reign of Henry 111.,^ the king, unhappily, lending his aid to the efforts of Rome to de- nationalise the Church in England. The encroach- ments and exactions of Rome set people against religion ; an irreligious spirit was widely prevalent. In 1225, Archbishop Langton summoned the clergy, archdeacons, rural deans, abbats, unless specially excused from attendance, priors, and proctors from churches cathedral, prebendal, monastic, and col- legiate, to deliberate on the reply to be made to the Pope's demands. The monks of Worcester were forced by the legate, much against their will, to choose William of Blois, A.D. 1218. But he proved himself an able and energetic bishop notwithstanding the evil augury of his appointment. In the very next year he called together a diocesan synod, and again ten years later. In the former synod the abbat of Evesham urged his claim to wear a mitre, and to sit next the bishop ; and a dispute between the bishop and the ' Henry III., then only nine years old, was crowned in St. Peter's, Gloucester, a.d. 12 16. 74 WORCESTER. priory of Worcester about St. Helen's parish was set- tled amicably by arbitration. In the latter some useful regulations were passed to enforce discipline in the diocese. The old dispute, which troubled the epis- copate of Roger more than half a century before this, about Great Malvern Priory, revived between William of Blois and the abbat of Westminster. At last the bishop carried his point. The conclusion of the strife was celebrated by a grand banquet, at which he was present, in Great Malvern Priory, on Whitsunday, A.D. 1232. Another litigation arose about this time, between the bishop and his own monks at Worcester. After deposing; with the Pope's consent, the prior for misconduct, the bishop proceeded, as visitor, to appoint William Norman, from Great Malvern Priory, in his stead. The monks refused to receive him. Eventually it was agreed, the Archbishop of Canterbury with others acting as arbitrators, that for the future the bishop should select for prior one of seven names submitted to him by the monks. Some pecuniary compensation for his disappointment was awarded to William Norman. It was agreed also that the offerings of the pilgrims at Wulfstan's shrine should be shared equally by the bishop and the priory ; that the bishop should always give due notice of his visitation ; and that he should come without attendants, whenever he came to visit the priory spiritually, though he might bring one or more secretaries if visiting the priory about temporalities only. In 1225, a grand tournament took place in Wor- cester. The bishop excommunicated all who were THE BARONIAL BISHOPS. 75 any way concerned in it. He was active in im- proving his cathedral. He made a new west front, looking over the Severn ; he built the charnel- house^ {car?iaria, capella car?iarice) near the north porch ; it was endowed by his successor. The bells were recast. Henry HI. kept Christmas here 1232, and Whitsunday 1234 ; he confirmed the grant by which the Earl of Pembroke had restored to the priory the land, close under the south wall of the cathedral., which Urse had wrested from it. William of Blois died in his episcopal manor-house at Alve- church, A.D. 1236. W'alter de Cantilupe was an almost ideal representa- tive of the great feudal prelates of his time. He was of noble origin. He was consecrated by the Pope him- self in 1237, having been ordained deacon and priest in one day ; and he was enthroned with much cere- mony in the presence of the youthful king and queen, the papal legate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a large concourse. Very soon an occasion presented itself to test the courage and resolution which distin- guished him. The Pope commissioned his legate, Otho, to deprive many of the clergy, ostensibly for laxity and supineness, perhaps with a view to make profit out of the vacant benefices. A synod was held in St. Paul's, London, and the new bishop, identifying himself at once with his diocese, stood forward as the champion of the clergy against the Pope. With the same boldness, some twenty years later, he seconded Fulk, bishop of London, in ' Bishop Cantilupe added to it a prison-house for persons claiming the "benefit of clergy." 76 WORCESTER. resisting the extortionate demands of Rustand, the legate, who tried to wring something more out of the English people, already groaning under a heavy burden of taxation. In 1238, a dispute between the bishops of Worcester and Coventry about Dudley was settled by the Pope deciding that the town and churches of Dudley were under the Bishop of Worcester, the castle and monas- tery under the Bishop of Coventry. In 1239, Canti- lupe re-consecrated St. Peter's, Gloucester, which had been seriously damaged by more than one fire in the time of his predecessor. In the same year he re- consecrated four more of the great conventual churches in his diocese, Pershore, Tewkesbury, Winchcombe, Great Malvern. In 1240 he presided over a diocesan synod in Worcester, at which many regulations {con- sfitutiones) were decreed to correct the irregularities, and offences worse than irregularities, which were too common. Cantilupe was diligent and fearless in the adminis- tration of his diocese, and, particularly, in what was the most arduous part of a bishop's duties, the con- trol of the monasteries. A dispute with the abbat of Westminster about Great Malvern Priory, very similar to the dispute about the same priory in the time of Cantilupe's predecessor, was decided in his favour A.D. 1 241, the abbat of Winchcombe supporting the bishop against the prior. Cantilupe had more than one conflict with Peter of Saltmarsh (de Salso Mafisco), a grasping and oppressive baron, near Upton-on- Severn. The monks of Evesham, asserting more and more loudly their independence as their abbey THE BARONIAL BISHOPS. 77 increased in wealth and power, contended with Cantilupe as Aegehvig had contended with Wulfstan, but with more success. The papal commissioners allowed the claim of the churches belonging to the abbey, with one exception, to be exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction. In the fierce and prolonged struggle between Henry and the barons, Cantilupe endeavoured at first to mediate. Finding his efforts fruitless, he espoused the cause of Simon de Montfort with the same ardour with which he had combated the pretensions of the Pope. Simon, with the king, his prisoner, lodged in the bishop's manor-house at Kemsey, just before the battle of Evesham. The bishop himself was present in the camp of the barons, near the bank of the Avon, on the eve before the fight, inciting and encouraging the soldiers with promises of heaven. After the battle the funeral obsequies of the fallen leader of the barons were performed by the monks in their abbey church with much solemnity. Worcester had been sacked in 1263 by the baronial troops; but the cathedral was spared, out of respect probably for the bishop. About this time he began to strengthen the fortifications at Hartlebury, probably with a view to the contingencies of civil war. He was excommuni- cated by the Pope for his share in the resistance to Henry, but was absolved shortly. While the bishop was under the ban, the prior of Worcester, for the first time, was summoned to parliament. Cantilupe died in his manor-house at Blockley, and was interred in Worcester Cathedral. His effigy in the floor of the north-eastern transept marks the spot. 78 WORCESTER. Bishop Cantilupe's lot was cast in a time of civil commotion, rife with the wide-spreading deterioration, which is the ahnost inevitable result of a feeble government and a disaffected people. Gregory IX. made things worse by promising English benefices to the Roman nobles, if they would abet him against the emperor. But there were some hopeful symptoms, broken rays of light amid the gloom. Several chari- table foundations in Worcester belong to this period. St. Oswald's Hospital was founded, in the first in- stance for monks of Worcester afflicted with leprosy, occasioned probably by the want of proper ablutions on their part. St. Oswald's was attached to the priory, and subsequently became a " commandery " ^ for five poor men, two poor women, a master and chaplain, all wearing a quasi-ecclesiastical dress. Another hospital belonging to the priory was founded at Dodderhill, near Droitwich. An old conventual foundation at Whitstane or Wistan, north of Worcester, was remodelled into a small Benedictine nunnery, known popularly as "White Ladies." 2 The Cistercians were planted at Hayles, Gloucestershire, in 1246. The Franciscans, Grey or Minor friars, formed a small colony in St. Helen's parish, and another, under the auspices of Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, in the east of Wor- cester.3 The Beauchamps of Powick planted the Dominicans, black or preaching friars, in the north ' The word has no military significance, but means merely "under a master." - Bishop Gififard endowed it from Aston Episcopi. ^ Friar Street still retains their name. THE BARONIAL BISHOPS. 79 of the city. The Trinitarians, or Redemptorist friars, for the redemption of captives, settled in St Nicholas's parish. The friars of the sack {f?'atres saccati) or penitents, as they called themselves, of Jesus Christ, settled in Worcester about this time, probably in consequence of a decree of the council of Lyons, by which they were expelled from France. They are supposed to be the same as the " bons hommes " {boni homi?ies). The tower of Barton Church, almost the only specimen extant in this district of a ''saddle-back" tower, is probably of this date. It was during Cantilupe's episcopate, that proctors for the parochial clergy- were called to convoca- tion. An agreement was made in 1260, after some litigation, between Prior Dumbleton of Worcester, and the Archbishop of Canterbur}*, that, in case of the see being vacant, the prior should collect the revenues of the see for the archbishop, retaining one-third for the monks and himself Pope Clement IV. appro- priated Cropthorne and Wolverley parsonages to Worcester Priory, in 1268, for necessary repairs, because the priory had suffered much in the recent plague. Nicholas, archdeacon of Ely, the next bishop, was translated in a few months to Winchester. Short as was his tenure of this see, he proved himself a bene- factor to it, giving sixty marks for the construction of the tower. He was a man of political eminence, having been chancellor, lord keeper, and lord trea- surer. Godfrey Giffard^ was one of those lordly prelates, ' The episcopal registers commence in his time. 8o WORCESTER. whose feudal magnificence presents a startling con- trast to the simplicity of the apostolic Church, and whose luxurious pomp paved the way for the re- forms of the sixteenth century. He belonged to a noble ^ family, which had claimed kindred in days past with royalty, but had latterly lost position. He was munificent in building. He adorned the choir of the cathedral with the slender columns which form one of its most graceful characteristics. He completed Cantilupe's work in fortifying Hartle- bury Castle, and rebuilt the church there. He built, besides, magnificent mansions at Wick and Kemsey, and in his own cathedral city, though he preferred Alvechurch as a residence. He took part in paving the streets of Worcester. When he travelled on visitations, or to confirm, or to administer justice, he rode, escorted by a retinue of at least a hundred horsemen, a grievous tax on the monasteries, who ordinarily had to entertain him. The same passion for display, reaching beyond this life, prompted the directions which he gave for his interment. In his lifetime, like the mediseval bishop of the poet, he ordered a costly tomb to be erected close beside St. Oswald's, and, to make room for this, he dis- placed the tomb of one of his predecessors, John of Coutances. Archbishop Winchelsey, however, inter- posed, because the new tomb straightened the choir, and left no room for the mass-priests. Giffard's tomb was placed lower down. By his will he be- ' His armorial bearings were adopted as the arms of the see. (Appendix C.) THE BARONIAL BISHOPS. 8r queathed his mitre, his vestments, and a gold cup to the cathedral. A large expenditure like this necessitated large exactions. Bishop Giffard was in the habit of mulcting offenders heavily in his courts, until forbidden by Archbishop Peckham. The thirty-four years of his episcopate are a long record of almost incessant litigation. A quarrelsome and haughty spirit in- volved him in disputes with almost every one whom he had to do with. An extraordinary force of will carried him through many harassing suits, often to a triumphant issue, in spite of weakly health and in the face of almost overwhelming influences arrayed against him. The bishop came into collision with a will as unbending as his own. Edward 1. claimed the movable goods of Worcester Priory during the vacancy of the see. Giffard promptly placed the priory and the cathedral under the Pope's tutelage for security. The old feud revived about Oswaldslow and the peculiar privileges of the bishop there. He fought the question out unflinchingly with the powerful family of the Beauchamps. He contended with the king — both were fond of field sports — about the hunting in Feckenham Forest, and with the king's son-in-law, Gilbert de Clare, the " Red Earl " of Gloucester, about the hunting in Malvern Chase. He quarrelled with Archbishop Peckham, resenting his visitation as inquisitorial, and as an intrusion on his own prerogatives ; but, after a time, they were reconciled. The monks of Worcester were generally more amenable than the outlying monas- G 82 WORCESTER. teries to their bishop's control, their interests being more identified with his.^ But Giffard had several trials of strength with them. They complained, not unreasonably, that he was squandering on his manor-houses and on his retainers, what belonged rightly to them ; that he sold their lands to pay his own debts ; and that he gave away their best livings as prebends at AVestbury to his own personal favourites. The bishop retorted, that the prior had interfered with his archdeacon in the discharge of his duties ; and that the monks were guilty of dis- respect to himself, their visitor. The bishop did his best to stir up discord in the priory, setting the sacristan against the prior. He also invoked the archbishop's aid. The quarrel was finally settled by the priory paying a considerable sum to the bishop, on condition of his promising to abide by the compact made between the priory and Bishop William of Blois. Bishop Giffard's struggle with the abbot of West- minster, Richard of Ware, a man as unyielding, as arrogant, as tenacious of power, if not as fertile in expedients, as himself, lasted from 1279 to 1283, and was not really brought to a conclusion then. William of Ledbury, prior of Great Malvern, had been deposed, not without cause, by the bishop in his capacity of visitor, and the sub-prior had been appointed in his place. The abbat of Westminster, ' During the interregnum, after Giffard's death, the prior of Worcester made a visitation of other monasteries in the diocese, but was not admitted. In 1395, during a similar vacancy, the prior proved a will in Bristol by his sequestrator-general. THE BARONIAL BISHOPS. 83 claiming exemption from episcopal control for Great Malvern Prior)-, a dependency of Westminster, as subject to Rome only, took up the cause of the ejected prior, and detained in custody the sub-prior, who had imprudently come to him with a few other monks as a deputation from the prior}-. It would be impossible, within the limits of this volume, to narrate in detail all the vicissitudes of the contro- versy. The abbat was strong in the support, secret rather than avowed, of Rome. The bishop did his utmost to undermine his opponents' hopes of papal intervention through his own proctors at Rome, and particularly through the good offices of Hugh of Evesham, who was at once archdeacon in this diocese and one of the cardinals.^ The bishop made use of the rivalry, never dormant, between the great abbeys, and of the traditionary grudge of the Wor- cestershire and Gloucestershire foundations against the favoured abbey, for whose sake they had been despoiled in days gone by, to rouse the abbats of Pershore and Tewkesbury against Westminster. He had recourse to the customary fulminations, excom- municating William of Ledbury, with those of the Malvern monks who sided with him, and all who abetted him in any way, and, finally, placing the priory with all its possessions under an interdict, and sequestrating the revenues. Still the abbat re- mained immovable, defying, with silent contempt, the citations which were sent to him to appear before the bishop. The king was too busy with his Welsh ' He was a skilful physician, and gained the favour of Martin IV. by prescribing for him successfully. G 2 84 WORCESTER. schemes to attend to a quarrel between Worcester ajid Westminster. The archbishop, though disposed to take the part of one of his provincials against the overweening pretensions of Westminster Abbey, was powerless to end the strife without the Pope's inter- position. The neighbouring barons were annoyed by the practical inconvenience of the traffic with the priory and its granges being suspended, but, beyond this, were merely spectators of the fray. At last it was arranged, chiefly through the arbitration of the king's chancellor, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, that the bishop should release the priory, but not the churches belonging to it, from his jurisdiction, receiving the manor of Knightwick for the see. Within a very few years the abbat complained to Rome that the bishop's part of the compact had not been fulfilled. Some thirty years afterwards, in the episcopate of Walter Maidstone, Powick Church was assigned to Great Malvern Priory as compensation. The uneasy temper of the bishop communicated itself to the diocese. In 1292, there was fighting in the cathedral itself between two rival processions. Blood was shed, and the cathedral had to be "reconciled," that is, cleansed with solemn cere- monies from the stain of blood. A ridiculous dispute arose between the rector of St. Nicholas and the scholars of Worcester about tapers. Disputes were frequent in Worcester between the monks and friars. The monks were jealous of these new comers, who were fast ingratiating themselves with the citizens. The sacristan of the priory rescued by force from ■JHE BARONIAL BISHOPS. 85 the friars the corpse of a citizen, as they were bearing it to their place of burial. A very unseemly riot ensued. Archbishop Peckham, who was himself a Franciscan, being appealed to, in the bishop's ab- sence, gave his verdict for the friars. The corpse was exhumed and restored to them. It shows the growing popularity of the friars, that William de Beauchamp, one of a family which had done much for the monasteries, left instructions in his will for his body to be buried by the friars. They bore the corpse through the streets, as if to display their in- fluence. Bishop Giffard himself became a Franciscan. Pope Nicholas IV. was one of them. During his absence from home, Giffard left his diocese in the care of his brother Walter, archbishop of York. He died of a lingering and painful illness. Edward I. was often at AVorcester, almost year by year. He resorted often to Wulfstan's shrine, for the saint's intercession in favour of his military enter- prises. On one occasion, before invading France, he sent his chaplain with offerings to the shrine. A few years before his death he was rowed down the Severn to Kemsey with his queen. St. Wulfstan's Hospital was founded, or refounded, a.d. 1294, in Sidbury, under a master, or " commander.*' Hugh le Despenser held a court here in 1300. A chantry was founded in St. Helen's parish, a.d. 1288, one of the earliest here. The beautiful church of Temple Balsall was built by the Knights Templar (it was one of their preceptories) shortly before the suppression of the order in England in 1308. The priory gained by the confiscation of the estates of 86 WORCESTER. the Templars. The Jews, many of whom had settled in" Worcester, and were by no means in good odour there because of their usuries, were expelled from England durjng Giffard's episcopate. The last of the Crusades coincided nearly with his consecration. The "taxatio," or "valor eccle- siasticus," of Pope Nicholas IV. was made in his time. WORCESTER. 87 CHAPTER VIII. PAPAL USURPATIONS. In the fourteenth century the pretensions of the Papacy in England surpassed themselves. The bishops of Worcester during that period, with scarcely an exception, owed their position more or less directly to Roman influences. On the death of Godfrey Gififard, after a lingering illness, in 1302, the monks chose one of their own community, John of St. Germain's, much to his chagrin. He protested his unwillingness with tears. The archbishop deferred confirming the election. Meanwhile, William of Gainsborough, a Franciscan (the friars were at the summit of their popularity) was consecrated at Rome. He had been selected in the first instance by the king ; but, going to Rome for consecration, he was induced to resign his office, and to receive it afresh from the Pope, Boniface VIII., who had been pleased by the ability and zeal with which he defended in a public disputation the thesis of the papal infallibility. On his return home he was fined by Edward L, indignant at his subserviency to the Pope, and pardoned only after a written retractation. In the same way the appointment of Walter Reynolds, who had been tutor to the young prince, afterwards the ill-starred Edward IL, was first cancelled by the Pope, and then 88 WORCESTER. made again by him, as if for the first time. A few years afterwards he was translated to Canterbury by a papal bull, to make way at Worcester for Walter Maidstone, who had been the king's agent at Rome, and who in that capacity had secured the promise of the see by provision. Thomas Cobham was conse- crated at Avignon after a good deal of intriguing on the part of the papal court. Adam Orleton, already bishop of Hereford, being at Avignon when Cobham died, contrived to get promotion to Worcester, al- though Wulstan Bransford had been elected by the monks and approved by the king. Thomas Hemen- hale, after being prevented from accepting the see of Norwich by Benedict XII., who had promised it to another, was consoled with Worcester. The election by the Worcester monks of their prior, John of Evesham, was set aside by Clement VI. in favour of John Thoresby,^ bishop of St. David's Reginald Brian, John Barnet, and Henry Wakefield all owed their appointment to provisory bulls. It scarcely breaks the long catalogue of papal nominees, that Wulstan Bransford and William of Lynn, the former after being twice elected by the monks, became bishops of Worcester without any apparent interference from Rome or Avignon ; both were in extreme old age.^ Probably it was not considered worth while to disturb an election which, in the nature of things, could only ' Thursby is still a Warwickshire name, and probably Danish. - Bransford was excused attending Parliament on the score of old age and infirmity. William of Lynn died in an apo- plectic fit, as he was mounting his horse, a very few years after his consecration. PAPAL USURPATIONS. 89 be very temporary. A succession of fourteen bishops in a century allows only very few years to each episcopate. This iniquitous plan of promising the reversion of preferment not yet vacant was very lucrative at Rome, not only in regard to bishoprics, but in regard to benefices generally. It was a systematic corruption of the diocese. Men so appointed brought a slur on their holy office from the first. Even the best of them found it difficult, if not impossible, to free themselves afterwards from the thraldom to which they had subjected themselves. Good Bishop Cobham, " the honest clerk," a virtuous and learned man,^ was constrained to send a costly gift to Rome as an apology for not having promoted in the diocese the men, whom the cardinal-deacon had recommended. The frequent combination of civil and ecclesiastical offices in the same person was injurious to the clergy and to the Church generally. Reynolds- and Thoresby were chancellors, Barnet and Wake- field were treasurers of the kingdom. Others were too much implicated in political affairs to be able to give an undistracted attention to their diocese and to their spiritual duties. William of Gainsborough went as ambassador to France about the espousal of the Princess Isabel to the young ' He founded a library at Oxford, over the old Congregation House. * In his episcopate a suffragan bishop "dedicated" {i.e, consecrated) churches at Church Lench and North Piddle. 90 WORCESTER. prince, afterwards Edward 11. , and is said to have been poisoned at Beauvais as he was returning. Adam Orleton was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of "the she-wolf of France" against her husband. He was acquitted but such an accusation implies that he was busy in the politics of the day. Brian and Bransford both enjoyed the confidence of Edward III. Bransford was among the first to be apprised by the king of his naval victory over the French near Sluys, and immediately sent to his archdeacons to order thanksgivings throughout the diocese. Brian had a similar announcement from the Black Prince of the victory of Poitiers. On the other hand, the list of bishops of Worcester in this century shows an appreciation of the learning which is one of the requisites for the office of bishop. Three at least of the number were closely connected with the universities. Cobham graduated in three faculties in three universities ; WilHam of Gains- borough had been a lecturer at Oxford ; William Whitdesey, a learned canonist, had been master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. The ecclesiastics of the day were striving among themselves " who should be greatest." John of Eve- sham, the haughty prior of Worcester in the middle ' The oracular reply, which is either affirmative or negative, is attributed to him : "Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est." He was translated from Hereford to Worcester, and from Worcester to Winchester, being almost the first English bishop Avho was translated so often. Some rhyming satirist, after naming the other two bishops, adds, "Trinus erat Adam ; talem suspendere vadam." PAPAL USURPATIONS. 91 of this century, obtained leave from Clement VI. to wear mitre and ring in the presence of the bishop. Urban V. in 1 363 confirmed this privilege. In the close of the century Wakefield contested the point with the priory of Worcester. Archbishop Courtenay ruled that the ring might be worn in the presence of the bishop, and the mitre without jewels, but not the staff or crozier. About the same time the abbat of Gloucester ^ got permission from Rome to wear the mitre and the ring. William of Gains- borough, the Franciscan, required the prior and monks of Worcester to meet him at Kemsey, on his first arrival as bishop, and to escort him thence in procession to the cathedral. Seven hundred horse- men swelled his train. The bishops of Hereford and Llandaff, the abbats of Evesham, Tewkesbury, and Pershore were there, in honour of the barefooted friar pacing to his cathedral. The monks of Worcester had to bear the expenses of this pageantry. Bishop Wakefield feasted iVrchbishop Courtenay sumptuously. Bishop Maidstone, though active in his diocese, fell into disesteem, because he was too poor to recom- pense those who had exerted themselves for his elevation to the bishopric. No suit, it was often said, however equitable, was likely to succeed at Rome, unless backed by a long purse. Meantime church building went on extensively. Guesten hall, refectory, dormitory, infirmary, library, water-gate, ' Edward II. was royally entertained there in one of his pro- gresses ; he was buried there, and is commemorated in a painted window. 92 WORCESTER. cloisters, belfry, north porch, as well as two western bays in the nave, were added to the cathedral, and a south aisle with cloisters to St. Peter's, Gloucester. Bushley and many other churches were rebuilt or restored. A stone bridge was thrown over the Severn at Worcester, and another bridge at Bransford by Wulstan III., a native of that place. But all these external symptoms of prosperity were, like the hectic tints of autumn, the accompaniment of internal decay. The kingdom which is ^' not of this world" was learning to vie with the perishable glory of the kingdoms of the world; the faith which was to "over- come the world " was itself succumbing to the world ; the fine gold of the apostolic Church, soiled and dimmed by contact with the world, was overlaid with tinsel. A poet of this diocese describes the miseries of England at this time. Some allowance must be made for the moody and saturnine temper of the poet, and for the sombre associations of one who gained his livelihood by singing hymns at fune- rals. Still, the "Vision of Piers Plowman" is the record of an eye-witness. He was, apparently, a clerk in minor orders, dwelling in London ; but his heart was on the Malvern hills. As he stalked up the Strand or Cornhill, with a grim scowl on his face for the lords and ladies, monks and friars in the crowd around him, he composed his uncouth but scathing invective against the vices and follies of his day. His rude verses became popular far and wide ; they expressed the thoughts and feelings of people generally. Probably John Langland did as much in PAPAL USURPATIONS. 93 uae way as John Wiclifte in another, to prepare the way for the Reformation, by exposing the practical corruptions of the Church of Rome. A similar picture of national profligacy is painted by Chaucer, though not in such lurid colouring. Chaucer is a gay and genial Epicurean, like Horace. But he tells the same story as Langland, in a livelier tone, of general carelessness about religion ; he pourtrays the wasteful extravagance of the few, the squalid degradation of the many, the luxury of Church dignitaries, with their huntings and hawkings, the ignorance of the clergy, the greediness and lazi- ness of monks and friars, the demoralising tendency of the miracle-plays, a mistaken pandering to a vulgar craving for sensational buffoonery. This diocese suffered more than others in the pesti- lences which ravaged England again and again during this century. Half the nation died, it is said, in the middle of the century of the ''black death," an ominous name. Bristol, even then a city of considerable im- portance, suffered especially. In 1342 and 1349 an extraordinary number of persons died in Worcester. Bishop Bransford forbade interments in the cathe- dral burying-ground. The dead were to be taken to the burying-ground of St. Oswald's Hospital. In 1350 Evesham Abbey was almost depopulated. In 1 36 1 Bishop Brian died of the plague at Alvechurch. Famine trod on the heels of pestilence. The diocese was reduced to great straits. Even the priory of Worcester, usually so prosperous, had to complain of revenues much diminished by heavy taxes for the foreign wars, and by the conflux of pilgrims demand- 94 WORCESTER. ing hospitality from the monks ; for, till the bridge of Bransford was built, the bridge of Worcester was the only bridge over the Severn between Bridgenorth and Gloucester. It was a time of general disorganisation of military glory abroad, of vice and lawlessness at home. Even holy places were not safe from profanation. Even the prescriptive rights of sanctuary were set at nought. In 1302, the city bailiffs did penance for having violated the sanctuary.^ In 1349, the bailiffs again forced their way into the precincts of the cathedral. A riot ensued : the prior and some of the monks were handled roughly. In 1384, the Church was " reconciled " because of bloodshed there. In 1386, the same lustration had to be performed in the church of Stratford-on-Avon. Happily the cathedral and the priory escaped serious injury when the city was sacked in 140 1 by Owen Glendower's wild moun- taineers, and in the wars of the Roses. In the first year of the century. Archbishop Winchelsey ordered an investigation into the lax discipline of St. Peter's, Gloucester. The visitation articles of Bishop Cobham, in his last year of office, are a significant comment on the state of the clergy and of their flocks. There are the usual queries about pluralists, simony, brawls in churches, sor- cerers, &c. There are questions such as these : do any ' The sanctuary included some adjoining parts of the city as Avell as the precincts of the cathedral. The privileges of sanctuary were unusually large here, and were confirmed h\ Henry IV. PAPAL USURPATIONS. 95 of the rectors, vicars, &c., take money for hearing con- fessions ; make money by traffic or usury ; frequent taverns, plays, nunneries; cause scandal by incon- tinency or inhospitality ? The spiritual character of the clergy is a gauge of the spiritual character of their people. In the midst of all the shame and sorrow of the age there occurs in the episcopal registers a commission to the Bishop of Chichester to bless the holy oil in this diocese. The monks and friars had fallen away from the self-sacrifice of their first' intention. They were a house divided against itself. Each monastery, eagerly intent on its own aggrandisement, was jealous of other institutions of the same kind. Only against the owners of land they combined heartily. The alien priories were a canker, eating away the inde- pendence and patriotism of England, draining her pecuniary resources. Some of these chose their own priors, and administered their own revenues ; others received their priors from abroad, and trans- mitted their money thither. The wrangle between the Popes and the Anti-popes made the complica- tions worse. In the time of Wakefield, the nunnery at Westwood, a favourite school with families of rank in the diocese, was subject to the abbey of Font- Evraud, in France. But the abbess sided with Clement, the Anti-pope. Urban VI. placed the nun- nery under the prior of Worcester, authorising him to appoint the prioress. Edward III. confiscated the possessions of the alien priories for his campaigns in France. Foundations of a more secular character were 96 WORCESTER. superseding the monks and friars. Chantries and guilds sprang up in every part of the diocese. Very early in the century, a chantry was founded by Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, one of a family which in older days, had done much for the monasteries — at Elmley Castle, and another at Elmley Lovett. Soon afterwards, chantries were founded at Ripple and Hartlebury ; later, by the Blounts at Hampton Lovett ; in St. Helen's parish, and in other parishes in Worcester and elsewhere. It was customary for all the guilds in Worcester to go in procession on Corpus Christi Day to the church of the Dominicans, and thence to the cathedral. But forces, inimical to the existing order of things, were at work in the diocese. The Lollards found shelter in Malvern Chase, and in other forests of the diocese ; and their tenets gained many proselytes in the granges or manor-houses on the skirts of the woods. In 1384, Archbishop Courtenay made a special visitation to this diocese because of the prevalence of Lollardism. In 1387, Bishop Wakefield issued a mandate against the Lollards and their preachings. But these were only the first mutterings of the storm which was gathering. When Wicliffe, in his peaceful parsonage at Lutterworth, was quietly finishing his translation of Holy Scripture into the language of the people, when John of Malvern, sacristan of Worcester, was setting off for the Council of Constance, when Bishop Wakefield was leaving directions in his will — it is the oldest will of a bishop of Worcester extant — for his body to be laid in front of the pulpit in the cathedral. PAPAL USL'RPATIONS. 97 little could they imagine the changes which God's providence was preparing for the diocese and the kingdom, which, without impairing her fidelity to the past were, to open to the Church of Christ in this land a new and glorious future. H 98 WORCESTER. CHAPTER IX. BEFORE THE REFORMATION. On the decease of Bishop Wakefield, the administra- tion of the diocese, according to custom, fell into the hands of the prior of Worcester. In 1395 is the record of a will proved before ^'John Chewe, clerk, sequestrator for the prior of Worcester Cathedral," sede vacante.'^ They applied for a licence to elect, and that licence was granted after a year's delay. There is no record of an actual election. Walsingham says that they elected their own prior, John Green, and that the election was afterwards annulled. The election of their own prior was probably rather for the formal assertion of their right, than with any serious expectation, that it would be allowed to stand. Neither the king's licence, nor any proceedings which they may have taken on the receipt of it, had any effect. In 1395, the Pope translated Tideman de Winch- comb from the bishopric of Llandaff to the vacant see. There is some uncertainty about, the antece- dents of the new bishop. It is said that he was a monk of the Cistercian order, that he had been a member of the abbey of Hayles, near Winchcomb, that he had been abbat of Beaulieu. that he had been physician to the king, that he had been a boon com- BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 99 panion in his revelries, and that he was selected for the bishopric at the king's personal request. The latter seems not quite consistent with the licence which had been granted to the prior and convent ; possibly the licence had served the purpose for which it was intended, in the extraction of certain fees from the monastic revenues. Tideman de Winchcomb was a firm friend of Richard, and adhered to him stead- fastly in his adversity. Much to the credit of Henry IV., he appears to have suffered no perse- cution for his loyalty to Richard. On the accession of Henry IV., it is said, he retired to his diocese, and was never seen again at court. He died at Worcester, and was buried there, in 1401, the last prelate interred in the cathedral before the time of Elizabeth. The acts recorded of Tideman are mostly of a formal character. We find him confirming a chantry, founded by Robert Walden, of Warwick, in the church of Tredington, and another, founded by the same benefactor, in the collegiate church at Warwick; receiving a yearly pension of twenty shillings from the prior of Llanthony, in conse- quence of the Pope having appropriated to the priory the three churches of Rayneswick, Prestbury, and St. Owen in Gloucester; and himself appropriating the churches of St. Peter, St. Laurence, and St. Nicholas in Warwick to the collegiate church of that town, reserving a yearly pension of twenty-six shillings and eightpence from the four appropriated churches. A curious illustration of the manners of the times is a deed intrusting to Henry Cambrigge, H 2 lOO WORCESTER. citizen and fishmonger, as a reward for his services, the keeping of the episcopal mansion, situate without the gate of the Temple, London, and, besides other privileges, granting him a piece of ground, on which to build a house, which he was to hold for life, on con- dition of paying a rent of a pound of pepper yearly, repairing all the houses between the gate of the said mansion and the Savoy, and finding the bishop and his successors in herbs, during their residence in town. The election of his successor brought to the front, as usual, the contending claims of the Pope and the cathedral. The royal licence was granted to the prior and convent. Their choice (it is added, by way of inspiration,") fell upon Richard de Clifford, who was dean of York, archdeacon of Canterbury and Middlesex, rector of Hampton, in the county of Warwick, and prebendary of Lincoln. He was also bishop elect of Bath and Wells. It is not quite clear, in what position he stood towards the see of Bath and Wells. It is said, that the king refused to give him the temporalities, because he had accepted the papal provision without his sovereign's consent. His appointment to Worcester was probably intended as a com- promise, of which the Pope availed himself with characteristic subtlety. He did not actually oppose his nomination to the see of Worcester, but trans- lated him from Bath and Wells, as of his own authority, without taking any notice either of the election by the convent, or of the refusal of the king to admit him to the former diocese. Clifford's BEFORE THE REFORMATION. lOI connexion with this diocese was of the slightest kind, chiefly consisting in the demand, which was granted, of a subsidy from the clergy of the diocese of tvvelvepence out of every mark, "according to the true value of their benefices." Clifford himself was not present at the meetings of the clergy which were held at Worcester and Gloucester to grant this subsidy, as he had been sent by King Henry into Germany to treat about a purposed mar- riage between the son of the King of the Romans, and Blanche, the king's eldest daughter. On his return he was duly enthroned, February 4, 1403. A curious letter to the clergy of the diocese is ex- tant, in which he invites them to be present at his enthronisation, and hopes that the ensuing banquet will atone by its abundance of good-will for the poorness of the fare. In 1407. Clifford was trans- lated to London. Neither the king nor the convent appear to have asserted their rights in the selection of a successor. The vacancy was filled, without delay, by the trans- lation, by a papal bull, of Thomas Peverell from Llandaff. The new prelate belonged to a good family in Suffolk, and was a Carmelite friar. He was a courtly prelate, and in favour with the king, who had made him bishop of Ossory in Ireland, before his translation to Llandaff. Though the king was content to receive the appointment from the papal mandate, he would not put the new bishop in possession of the temporahties, till he had solemnly renounced all expressions in the papal bull which might be prejudicial to the royal title. The words I02 WORCESTER. of the instrument are an emphatic protest against papal interference, with the Uberties of England. " Idem episcopus, omnibus et singulis verbis, nobis et coronae nostrse prejudicialibus, in dictis libris bullatis contentis, coram nobis, palam et expresse renuntiavit." ^ Probably the king was the more willing to receive Peverell, as he preserved friendly relations with the court. In 1408, we find him receiving from the king a licence to cut down oak timber to the value of 200 marks in the forest of Feckenham, in order to repair the manor-houses belonging to the bishopric ; in 141 2, as if in return for this favour, he lent the king the same sum in aid of the expenses incurred in asserting his rights in Aquitaine and other foreign parts " alibi in partibus transmarinis," receiving, as security, such portion of the half-tenths, granted by the clergy, as should arise in his own diocese. The acts recorded of him are for the most part of the usual formal character. But he had another and a sterner duty of the episcopal office to perform. The wave of Lollardism had swept over the diocese of Worcester, and in 1409 the bishop was forced to preside over a tribunal assembled in the " carnarie chapel," or charnel- house, for the trial of one Thomas Badby, a tailor, on a charge of open and defiant heresy. He had denied, so the charge ran, that any priest could make the body of Christ sacramentally, or that it was possible to conceive that our Lord at His Last Supper held ' This was done regularly from a.d. 1293. BEFORE THE REFORMATION. IO3 His own body in His hand, and brake and divided it. He added, it was further charged, blasphemy to heresy, asserting that, "if every consecrated host was Christ's body, then there must be in England 20,000 gods." Badby, who seems to have made open profession of his convictions, was, as was inevitable, found guilty, and, after confirmation of the sentence by the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, delivered over to the secular arm, and executed at Smithfield. It shows the re- luctance of good men, even in those days, to perform what they conscientiously believed to be a solemn duty, that both the archbishop and the Prince of Wales (afterwards Henry V.) were eager in pleading with Badby to spare them the dreadful necessity of proceeding to execution, the latter even offering him not only life, but a pension, if he would abjure his error. Another evidence of the spread of Lollardism in the diocese is found in a charge against one John Lacy, vicar of Chesterton in War- wickshire, for " receiving and harbouring " Lord Cobham. Bishop Peverell died in 141 8, at his manor of Hembury, in Gloucestershire, and was buried in the Carmelite church at Oxford. His successor, Philip Morgan, was elected by the prior and convent, after a conge-d'elire from the king, apparently without any interference from the Papacy. He was chancellor of Normandy, and was consecrated, on December 3, 1419, in the cathedral church of Rouen. The diocese had been left vacant for a year, the tem- poralities being put into the hands of David Pryse, canon of Llandaff, and one John Hertland, who, " on WORCESTEK. surrendering their charge,*' were ordered to pay into the king's exchequer forty marks. Little is recorded of Morgan's episcopate. He was one of the six bishops on the privy council during the minority of Henry VI., and, in 1425, was translated to Ely by the Pope. The successor of Morgan was a man of note. Thomas Polton had been prebendary of Sarum, during his tenure of which preferment he had assisted at the Council of Constance, in 1418, and then had been successively promoted to the sees of Hereford and Chichester, from which last preferment the Pope translated him to Worcester. Of his work in the diocese few records remain. As usual, he com- menced his episcopate with a demand for a subsidy from the clergy, of a shilling in the pound, " according to the true value of their livings." He settled a dis- pute between the warden of the college of Stratford- on-Avon, and the master of the guild of Holy Cross, in the same town, by ordering that Holy Cross should pay tithe to the collegiate church, and make certain annual offerings in token of subjection. By a somewhat complicated arrangement he appropriated the church of Olveston, in Gloucestershire, to the prior and con- vent of St. Peter and St. Paul, in Bath, on condition that they should find a priest for a chantry, founded by Sir Walter Hungerford, in the parochial church of Hungerford, at an annual stipend of twelve marks, and should, after the death of Sir Walter Hunger- ford, celebrate his anniversary in the church of Bath, and present 2od. to every monk on the day of celebration. But he did not remain long in the BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 105 diocese. In 1432, he was sent, with the prior of Norwich, as the king's ambassador to the Council of Basle. Every care was taken to make the embassy honourable. He received from the clergy a subsidy of 2d. in the pound, and a promise from the king of a yearly allowance of 500 marks, if the council lasted beyond a year. He received urgent letters of safeguard addressed not only to kings, princes, and dukes, but to all governors of forts, cities, and camps, and even to people, "of every rank and condition," in every country through which he might pass. He was allowed to carry out of the kingdom his silver plate and jewels; to the value of a thousand pounds, and received permission to visit Rome, for a year when the council was dissolved, or if it was prorogued for more than a year. The latter pro- vision, however, was not needed. Polton met with an honourable reception at Basle, being escorted into the town by more than five hundred horsemen, in- cluding representatives of the principal bishops and abbats. But in less than a year he sickened and died and was buried at Basle. His mitre was left by his will to Worcester Cathedral. On the death of Polton, the prior and convent chose Thomas de Bourchier, or Bourgchier, dean of St. Martin's, London, chancellor of the Uni- versity of Oxford, and a descendant of Edward IH. There were two difficulties, however, to be sur- mounted before Bourchier could be consecrated. He was not of the canonical age, and the Pope had already appointed Thomas Brown, then dean of Salisbury. Probably the monks would have had to io6 WORCESTER. give up their nomination, had it not been for the interference of the king, Henry VI., in favour of his kinsman. He wrote to Brown and to the Pope himself, teUing them plainly that, if his royal will was not done in this matter, Brown should never hold any bishopric at all in England. In the end the Pope yielded ; Brown received the bishopric of Rochester, and Bourchier was appointed, by papal bull, to Worcester. His connexion with the diocese was brief He was elected to the bishopric of Ely in the very next year, and the appointment was con- firmed by the Pope. But, for some reason or other, the king refused his consent. At the next vacancy, however, in 1443, he was again elected, and the elec- tion received the royal consent. His after-career, though notable in English history, does not belong to this diocese ; the only act recorded of him as bishop of Worcester is a visitation of St. Wulfstan's Hospital, at which he ordered, that the master should be in priest's orders, that there should be two chaplains, with an allowance of four marks yearly, three yards and a half of cloth for a gown, a chamber, and diet at the master's table. There were to be five poor brethren and two sisters in the house, with a weekly allowance of sevenpence; the granting of all corrodies ^ was strictly forbidden, and, in the absence of the master, the chaplains were to have a weekly allowance of sixpence. ' Corrodies were allowances of meat, drink, and clothing, which were imposed upon convents for the relief of old and decayed servants of their founders. The word originally means a gnawing together. BEFORE THE REFORMATION. lOJ Bourchiers successor, John Carpenter, was ap- pointed by a provisory bull of the Pope, and entered on his duties in the diocese in the spring of 1443. His rule was long and energetic, and distinguished as much by shrewd common sense as by zeal and ardour in his endeavours to reform abuses throughout the diocese. His sturdy common sense showed itself especially in the terms on which he offered certain indulgences, to all who would avail themselves of the opportunity of atoning for their sins, upon very favourable conditions." In 1445, he offered forty days'" indulgence "to all w^ho aided in the reparation of the king's highway between Bristol and Wooton-under-Edge, persons being allowed to avail themselves of the privilege within the lapse of two years." The same indulgence was offered to those who helped to repair the West Bridge, at Gloucester, the king's highway between Worcester and Pershore, especially from Thornton Heath to Lough Mill beside Pershore, the road between Gloucester and Newport, a bridge at Bid- ford, in Warwickshire, and the road between Glou- cester and Bristol. It would have been well if all indulgences had been granted on such sensible conditions. The bishop exhibited that sympathy with suffering, which seems to have been as much a portion of his character as energy and deter- mination, in other indulgences which he issued. In 1445, indulgence was offered to all who should contribute to the support of the widow of Sir John Holt, who had suffered misfortune in the parts of Normandy," probably in the disastrous io8 WORCESTER. war there. In 1463, the usual terms were offered to all subscribers to the hospital at Dunwich, in the diocese of Norwich, probably St. James's Hospital for lepers. A curious entry, June nth, 1466, offers "a forty days' indulgence, available to all future times, to such as should dev^outly say the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, i.e.^ Ave Maria, at the time of the tolling of the great bell, called the bell of Jesus Christ, hanging in the tower of the monastery at Tewkesbury, with a view to the good estate of Brother Robert Nevvent, almoner of that abbey, while he shall live, and for his soul, when he shaU have departed, and for the souls of his parents and benefactors." This indulgence seems another instance of the special favour in which Tewkesbury Abbey was held by the bishops of Worcester at this time. Perhaps, too, Bishop Carpenter, from his affection to his native town of Westbury, devoted particular attention to the Gloucestershire side of his diocese. The bishop probably found it an easier task to repair the decay into which the high roads had fallen, through the drain of peasantry occasioned by the king's war in France, than to make head against the spiritual decay which was creeping over his diocese. But to this task he set himself, with a strong hand and a resolute will. The clergy convicted of offences against the law of celibacy, or of any profligate or riotous living, were to be safely conveyed to his palace," there to be dealt with, doubtless, with stern rebuke and sharp punishment. The prior and con- vent of Worcester, who had alienated from the Church BEFORE THE REFORMATION. I09 a part of the village of Throkmorton/' with difficulty escaped a sentence of excommunication through the intercession of the Archbishop of Canterbury. On further examination of the case, the bishop not only confirmed the acts of the prior, but received Thomas Throkmorton, who was probably the instigator of the business, into his favour, and even made him ''principal officer over his castles, and manors." It needed a strong hand and a wise head to check the corruption of the time. The signs appear plainly in his episcopate of that dying out of the life in the old forms, which made the Reformation necessary. The country clergy were retiring from their livings, either from fear of a stricter discipline, or from having lost faith in their work. The more noble and earnest of the laity, on the other hand, wearied of the inefficiency of their spiritual guides, and offended at the irreve- rence, which desecrated churches and burial grounds, by habitually holding in them fairs and markets, were on every side demanding the privilege of having divine worship in their own homes. But it was difficult for the bishops to sanction this, lest they should be unwillingly contributing to the spread of Lollardism^ or, even, countenancing Lollard assem- blies. In every direction the bishop found diffi- culties in his way, as much from the fervour of the awakening earnestness of the one party as from the sloth and faithlessness of the other. Bishop Carpenter seems to have met the difficulty with great judgment and temper. He evidently per- ceived that it was better to incur the risk of his I lO WORCESTER. episcopal sanction being abused, than that the more earnest of the laity should be altogether alienated from the Church by the exercise of a discipline at once too timid and too strict. In many cases, he granted licences for worship in private houses. His own auditor, William Pyllesden, and Eleanor, his wife, received a licence to have divine -offices in their mansion-house in the city of Worcester, " so that no prejudice accrue to their own parish church." The same licence was granted^ in the same year, 1445, to Thomas Lyttleton, and Johan, his wife, and their servants, the licence to remain in force during the bishop's pleasure ; to Nicholas Poyntz and his wife, and their children also ; to Thomas Rouse, Esq., and his wife, " to have divine service in their oratory within their mansion of Rouse Lench " ; and, in 1450, to " John Clopton, gent.," of Clopton within the parish of Stratford-on-Avon. From the fact of a licence being granted to the bishop's auditor, it may perhaps be inferred, that the bishop himself was not without sympathy for the new order of things and for the spiritual awakening, which was beginning to be. The urgent need of a more fervent preaching was recognised by the good bishop. At his own visitations he was careful that some learned clergyman should " expound the Word of God." A Mr. William Mogys performed this office at visitations at Bristol and Per- shore ; Master Hugh Chesenall, at the inspection of the house of St. Mark, in Bristol ; Master PhiHp Hyett, the subdean, at the visitation of the col- legiate church of Westbury, and Master John Lawern, professor of sacred theology, monk and sacrist of BEFORE THE REFORMATION. Ill the Church, at the visitation of the monastery of Worcester. In the last-named case the text is still preserved, "Qui est, misit me ad vos" ("I AM hath sent me unto you "). A further step was taken, when, in 1448, the bishop granted a licence to "Master John Artoss, A.M., vicar of St. Nicholas, Warwick, to preach and set forth the Word of God, anywhere within the diocese." The bishop, too, appreciated the need of a clergy learned as well as eloquent and earnest. Probably with this view, he added largely to the library belonging to Worcester mon- astery, and endowed it with ^10 annually for the support of a librarian. The rules were framed in a liberal spirit unusual in those days. Admission to the library, which was in the charnel-house, was to be free of charge. It was to be open every day for two hours before and two hours after nine. Great care was to be taken in the preservation of the books. An inventory was to be made, specifying the price of every work. Every new book added to the stock was to be immediately chained and entered in the catalogue, the entry to be copied into the duplicate inventory belonging to the bishop. The list of books was to be annually collated on "the Friday next after the feast of relics," i.e. the next Sunday after St. Michael's Day. If any book was missing through the neglect of the keeper, he was to pay the price of it within a month, or forfeit 40s. above its value. The sacristan of the cathedral, whose zeal in the matter was quickened by the allotment to him of half the fine, was to retain the librarian's stipend, till the book was purchased and the fine paid. 112 WORCESTER. The fabric, too, of the churches in the diocese demanded his care. No stronger instance can be given of the lawlessness and ferocity which had grown over the English people through their long familiarity with violence in the civil wars, than the numerous instances, in which not only church- yards, but churches themselves, had been dese- crated by bloodshedding. The abbey church of Tewkesbury was re-dedicated after its pollution by the blood of those slain there at the great victory of Edward IV., in 147 1. At Northfield and Bisley, the church in the former case, the churchyard in the latter, had to be " reconciled " after blood- shed, apparently in private quarrels. A still more terrible case had occurred at Didbrooke, where some Lancastrian fugitives from the battle of Tewkesbury, who had taken sanctuary within its walls, were ruthlessly put to death. So horrible did the desecration seem to the monks of the adjoining abbey of Hales, that Abbat Whytechurch built in 1478 a new church at his own expense, in place of the one, which had been, as it seemed to him, polluted with a guilt beyond the power of the bishop to remove. Churches polluted by bloodshed might be re-dedicated, but the habitual desecration of the sacred precincts, by holding fairs and markets within them, had taken such deep root among the customs of the country, that the authority of the bishop was in vain. The evil grew to such an excess, that, in the reign of Henry VH., a royal mandate was issued that no inhabitant of the city, or its liberties, should sell, " anie ware or mer- BEFORE THE REFORMATION, chandize at eny feyre time, wtyn (within) the cemytory (i.e. the churchyard) of the cathedral church.'' on pain of being disfranchised. The bishop seems to have thought it advantageous that the smaller monasteries should be merged in the larger establishments. In this he anticipated Henry VIII., whose seizure of the smaller monas- teries, under plea of their inefficiency and want of discipline, as a prelude to the seizure of the whole, has been compared by Blunt, in his " History of the Reformation," to the use of the bristle to prepare the way for the thread. He united the priory of Dodford to the abbey of Halesowen, appro- priated the monastery of Alcester to the abbey of Evesham, with the provision that daily service should be maintained at Alcester by a resident prior and two assistant monks, and annexed the priory of Deerhurst to the abbey of Tewkesbury. In this latter case, provision was made for the per- formance of daily ser\dce by a warden in priest's orders, four other monks, and one secular priest, their stipends to be paid by the monastery of Tewkesbury. Certain pensions also were reserved, 20s. to himself and his successors, a like sum to Worcester Priory, and 6s. 8d. to the Archdeacon of Worcester. These measures may have been justified, as re- arrangements of the monastic system, for pro- moting its more economical and efficient work- ing. It is not so clear on what grounds Carpenter himself felt at liberty to transfer the revenues of parish churches to different monasteries at his own pleasure. Yet, conscientious as he was, he evidenilv I 114 WORCESTER. felt no hesitation in doing so. He appropriated the church of Little Compton to the abbey of Tewkesbury, the parish church of Dursley to the archdeaconry of Gloucester, the church of Oxford to the monastery of Evesham, and the church at Kemsey, with its chapelries of Norton and Stoulton, to his favourite college of Westbury. A more reasonable arrangement, in the opposite direc- tion, was the endowment of the church of Crowle, with the tithes, great and small, of the whole parish. This appears to have been owing, not to the bishop, but to the liberality of the master and brethren of St. Wulfstan's Hospital, to whom the tithes belonged, and who only reserved for themselves " two small manors, the property of the said master and brethren." The appropriation of the chantry of St. Mary in the church of St. Giles, Bredon, to the parochial church was another wise and reasonable act. Chantries continued to be founded by generous benefactors, and " confirmed " by the bishop. In 1400, the chantry of Holy Rood was founded by Thomas Ball in Trinity Church, Bristol, and, in 1476, two others in the parish church of Lechlade, one by John Twynebo, the other, possessing more historic interest, by Cecilia, duchess of York and mother of Edward IV., for three priests to say mass daily. Bishop Carpenter presents himself in strong con- trast to some who preceded and followed him in the see, not merely as a statesman or a courtier, but emphatically as a bishop. It is possible, too, to get a clear glimpse of the man himself through the cloud BEFORE THE REFORMATION. II5 of episcopal acts, which, often, are all that is left on record of the bishops of this period. His figure stands out with a certain grandeur. He was prompt and energetic in action, severe and stern in purpose* possibly hasty and irascible in temper, and apt to act without deliberation on impulses, which seemed to him at the moment on the side of justice. But he was kindly in heart, quick to forgive, and ready to atone for any injustice which he might have committed. As an administrator, he was shrewd and wise, honest and straightforward, and endowed with a large mea- sure of common sense. His kindly heart and simple, affectionate nature were shown in his attachment to his native Westbury, and in wishing to be entitled " Bishop of Worcester and Westbury." Yet he had evidently a keen relish for the magnificence which was associated with his office in those days. It is per- haps characteristic of the man, that his name is asso- ciated with two stately gateways, one at his palace in Hartlebury, the other at the college in his beloved Westbury. The life of such a man must have been saddened by the evil which was creeping over the Church, and the seeming failure of his efforts to contend with it. Yet he had many things to comfort him. Amongst these was his affectionate friendship with William Canynge, the younger, the munificent benefactor of the church of St. Mary Redclifife in Bristol. This man, five times mayor of Bristol, and so wealthy that he could lend his sovereign, Edward IV., 3,000 marks, knelt meekly before the bishop, and was admitted to the humble order of subdeacon. I 2 ii6 WORCESTER. His motive is not clear ; it is said, that it was partly to avoid a second marriage with a lady of the Woodville family, which was being urged upon him by the king. He proceeded to the diaconate and priesthood, was collated to one of the canonries in the college of Westbury, and afterwards was pro- moted to be its dean. " There," says the author of a monograph of his life, to which we are largely indebted, "he spent five years, engaged, among other works of mercy and devotion, in praying for the souls of Richard, duke of York, and his son Edmund, duke of Rutland, both slain at the bloody battle of Wakefield." Bishop Carpenter died in 1476, after an episco])ate of thirty-two years, and was buried in the chapel of Westbury College. His mantle fell on a worthy successor. John Alcock had already been chosen for posts which demanded the highest qualities of a statesman. He had been dean of the collegiate church of St. Stephen's, Westminster, and bishop of Rochester. He was translated to Worcester on the death of Carpenter. His installation at Worcester was accompanied with great splendour. An account of it is still preserved in a MS. belonging to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. County and city joined to do him honour. He entered the town accompanied by a long train of " lords temporal, knights, esquires, and gentlemen," and by a mighty concourse of the city authorities in all their braveries, the Serjeants with their maces, the bailiffs and aldermen with their scarlet gowns. At the north gate they found waiting for BEFORE THE REFORMATION. II 7 them " a suffrygan pontifically habited," the dean and clergy ''richly besegn," with incense and holy water and the cross borne aloft. The procession passed in stately course, the clergy chanting " Te Deum" and "Ave, Regina," along the streets to the cathedral door." There it was met by the prior, with "dyvers prelacy," the abbats and priors of the religious houses, with their monks. By these he was conducted to the high altar, where he was installed. Thence he was led to the vestry, where he consecrated a chalice of "pure and fine gold," presented by one Dan (Dom) John Jod- bury, and with it celebrated mass.^ Then another grand procession escorted him around the cloisters, "syngynge Salve Festa," "to the accustomed station," where he preached on the text, " I am the Good Shepherd." Then came a high mass, and then a great banquet, in the Guesten Hall, "the Fraytour," as it is called in the MS., to all who had taken part in the procession. At the banquet were two curious illustrations of the manners of the time. As if to recognise the share which the poor have in the Church, the " Lords Temporal " had been associated in the procession with a body of thirty poor men in white gowns, with hoods about their necks and the sign of the cross in black upon their breasts. At the feast, these thirty men had a table to themselves, which the bishop served with his own hands, before he sat down at the banquet. Still more curious must have ' Dan was (like Dom) a contracted form of Dominus ; a title of the clergy corresponding to the "Rev." of the present day. ii8 WORCESTER. been the appearance with the ^' first couvre/' of one dressed like a doctor of divinity in a scarlet gown^ who repeated some sort of poem a colacijon made by metre in rhetorical terms " on a triple subject, first, John the Baptist, then John the Evangelist, and, lastly, John, the present bishop. The old chronicler is evidently writing of that which he had seen him- self. Any one who knows the old city can reproduce the procession, as it went with stately tread along the old streets, gleaming with gold and scarlet and rich colours, bright weapons flashing, banners waving, rich jewels glittering, and loud anthems going up heartily from the great multitude, till it reached the gateway, and the shadows of the great tower fell upon it, and the bright vestments stood out all the more clearly against the brown and grey and black of the habits of the monks of different orders, who were crowding at the door, and then the long procession winding through the quiet cloisters, and the whole multi- tude gazing intently upwards, in silence, at the good bishop, as he spoke of Him who called Him- self " the Good Shepherd," and of the ministry committed by Him to His shepherds, till He comes again. Of the episcopate so begun few records are left. He confirmed the foundation of a chantry in the church of Bromsgrove by the widow of Sir Humphrey Stafford, and appropriated, with the injustice of his time, the first and second prebends in the church of Bisley to the college of Stoke, near Clare, in Suffolk, as usual, with certain reservations to himself and his successors. He was also such a BEFORE THE REFORMATION. I 19 benefactor to the abbey of Pershore, that, in their gratitude, he was admitted into their iraternit}' to share in the merit of their prayers, and a mass was estabUshed in perpetuity for his soul and for the souls of his parents. More especially he was interested in the abbey of Little Malvern, A letter of his relates what he has done for them, and admonishes them of the causes through which their house was falling into decay. He speaks solemnly to them of their dissolute living, of the brethren living like laymen, and of their " demeanaunce vagabunde " which had promoted the displeasure of God, and brought "disworship "on the Church. He reminds them that he has repaired their church, and restored their dwelling-house, and that the greater part of the old debt is paid. He exhorts them to live in holy obedience to the discipline of their order, to be careful to main- tain the daily and nightly worship, the servyce of God node dieque devoutly be said and sung," to ob- serve the law of " Chapytre, Cloyster, Fraytor, and Dormitor," never to go out into the field without urgent cause; even then, only after leave obtained of the prior, and in no case without a companion. In return for all which he has done, he asks the recom- pense of a daily mass, to be said for him by one of the brethren, at "Our lady's altar." He was a kind- hearted, courteous prelate, full of earnest devotion and simple piety, with a clear insight into the evils which were endangering the Church, and courage in contending with them. That he combined firmness with quiet humour is evident from his letter to the abbat of Gloucester who, either from insubordination 120 WORCESTER. or economy, was desirous of escaping the usual ceremonial reception of the bishop at his visita- tion. "If the abbat," writes the bishop, "possesses an exemption or privilege not to meet his bishop at his coming with processions and other reverentials, as all the diocese did and as bounden by law," he is to show it at the next visitation. It seems sis if there were two parties in the abbey at the time, for, in a postscript, the bishop thanks the prior, not the abbat, for a cheese which he had sent him. The bishop possessed no mean skill as an archi- tect. His own chapel at Ely, built under his direc- tions, was a witness to his taste, as well as to his liberaUty. In addition to his other offices he was comptroller of the royal works and buildings under Henry VII. He was the author of several devo- tional treatises, one of which, "The Mount of Piety" was printed about the year 1500, shortly before his death. It was probably another proof of the royal favour that he was selected to perform the baptismal ceremony for the young Prince Arthur, at Winchester, while he was bishop of Worcester. It may be, that these instances of royal favour were all the more acceptable to the good bishop from their contrast to the unruliness and licence which characterised some of his own clergy. In 1480, he issued a monition to his clergy, that all "gold, silver, jewels, rings, girdles, and drapery" which had been clandestinely removed from " the statue of the Blessed Virgin in the cathedral should be restored within fifteen days, under pain of excommunication. This monition may refer to BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 12 1 an image, silver-gilt, valued at the large sum £^9- 5S- (some jQs^^ present money), bequeathed to Worcester Cathedral by Archbishop Bourchier. One Nicholas Brome, of Baddesley, appears in the records of the diocese as a continual disturber of the public peace. First, he is recorded as having avenged the death of his father by slaying his murderer, John Herthill, steward of the great Earl of Warwick. The murder was in accordance with the rude justice prevalent at the time. The affair was settled between Brome and Herthill's widow on easy terms. Brome undertook to have masses said for the souls of both the murdered men, while the widow promised to provide bread, wine, and wax, for the priest who officiated at the masses. But Nicholas Brome was brought into worse trouble by his impetuous temper. While he was sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, " coming on a time into his parlour," says Dugdale, he found the parish priest chocking his wife under the chin," and in his wrath slew the offender. This passionate act provoked a fierce outburst of anger both from the king and the Pope. Brome could not obtain a pardon till he had undertaken, by way of expiation, to build the " towre steeple " at Baddesley from the ground, and to buy three new bells for it. He also raised the body of the church ten feet, and built the steeple at Packwood. Thomas, the historian of the bishops of Worcester, sums up Alcock's character in the words, " Vir omnibus bonis ainabilisy A portrait of Alcock, with his patron Edward IV., his queen, and other mem- 122 WORCESTER. bers of the royal family, was to be seen in the east window, either of Little Malvern, or Great Malvern Church. Perhaps the former is most probable, con- sidering all that he had done for the monastery. ^ The successor to Alcock was appointed by a pro- visory bull from Pope Innocent, at the same time that he translated Alcock to Ely. Robert Morton was nephew to John Morton, the archbishop of Canterbury, and was Master of the Rolls in the reign of Edward IV. Nothing is recorded of his episcopate, except that he thought it necessary, in 1496-7, to sue for a pardon from the king, containing a recital of every conceivable crime, from treason and murder downwards, and a remission of all judgments passed upon him, from the sentence of death to forfeiture of goods and chattels. The list of crimes, as well of judgments, is perhaps merely the exuberant phraseology of the legal imagination, and probably for protection against vexatious accu- sations, which might be brought against him, as against other old servants of the Crown, during the reign of Henry VII. Possibly it was intended also to protect the bishop from penalties incurred by his acceptance of the Pope's provisory bull. The pardon is dated March 15, 1496-7, and Morton died in the May following. He died at London, and was buried in the nave of St. Paul's, contrary to his expressed wish that he should be buried in the cemetery of Worcester Cathedral. ' In i486 Alcock was translated by Innocent VIII. to the see of Ely. BEFORE THE REFORMATION, 123 The holders of the see, from this date to the begin- ning of the Reformation, were, without exception, Itahans. The first of them, John de Gighs, or de LiHis, already held many preferments in England. He was rector of Swaffham, in Norfolk, of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, London, and of Laneham, in Suffolk. He was also prebendary of London and Wells, archdeacon of London and Gloucester, and dean of Wells. Probably his chief title to this accumu- lation of benefices was, that he had exerted him- self diligently as the collector in England for the apostolical chamber, and in the other ofifice, which he appears to have held, of selling papal pardons for murder, robbery, adultery, and other crimes. He appears to have been an English Tetzel on a larger scale. He was succeeded, after a year's tenure of his see, by his nephew, Sylvester de Giglis, who held the see till 152 1, in which year he died ^ at Rome, where he had been sent by Henry VIIL to attend the Lateran Council. At his death, Leo X. gave the see to his nephew, Julian de Medici, afterwards Clement VII. He, however, resigned it in a year, apparently fearing an outcry against the pluralities which he held. His successor was Jerome de Ghinuccii or ''de Nugutiis." There is a contradic- tion of authorities about the part which this bishop took in the divorce of Queen Catherine. Thomas asserts that he made himself useful to King Henry VIIL in this matter, and was, in consequence, at his request raised to the rank of cardinal. WiUis, on the other hand, asserts, that he lost the king's favour on account of the opposition which he offered 124 WORCESTER. to the divorce. At all events he was deprived of his see, as a foreigner, by the Act of 1534-5. During all this time the prior and convent were engaged in frequent controversies about manorial privileges, and in assertion of their rights in the election of a bishop. Sometimes they were successful. In 1403, an " inquisition " held before John King, chief justice of the forests, decided in their favour that the foresters of Feckenham had no right of pasturage {repastus), in the manor of the church of Worcester called Shurnake. In the same year a more curious question was decided at Shipston-on- Stour. In feudal times it had been the custom, that, on the death of a vassal, his lord claimed the sur- render of his horse and weapons, as if they were only a loan from the feudal lord, and were to be transferred, if it was his will, to the next tenant. The custom, as is often the case, had survived the state of things in which it originated, and now simply con- sisted in a claim by the lord of the manor, at the death of a tenant, on the best horse in his stable under the title of a heriot. At Shipston-on-Stour, after some rioting occasioned by the assertion of this claim, it was decided by the abbat of Winchcombe, that the prior and convent of Worcester had a right, on the death of a tenant, to the best horse in his stable, and the parson of Tredington to the second best. The monks were not always successful. Some money and plate were left to the monastery by Sir John Beauchamp, of Holt, who had been assisted by the ])rior in his early life. The king's serjeant demanded the articles, and they were removed to London. BEFORE THE REFORMATION'. I 25 The royal claim may have been based upon some right derived from the office which Sir John Beau- champ had held in the king's service, as steward of his household. The monasteries were considered a convenient source from which supplies might be drawn for the royal service in any season of emer- gency, or even to provide for suitors whose claims it was not convenient to satisfy. In 1458 Henry VI. demands that an allowance of meat and drink should be restored to one Richard Hertlebury, a brother of their former prior, who had been grievously maimed in " our warres beyond sea,'" and reduced to poverty. Hertlebury had formerly received some " allowance " from the convent, but, for some cause or other, had been lately *'voyded." In 1459 Henry VI. expresses his thanks for a loan of one hundred marks, which the prior and convent had made him out of "their loyalty and good will" to aid him against the rebels, and to assist in repelling a threatened invasion from France. But the formality of asking for a loan was not always observed. The same indenture acknowledges a sum of ^40 for certain oxen "taken from the prior" for the use of the king, and 66s. 8d. for a horse taken from " Dan John Smethwyke," the cellarer. In 1462 Edward IV. demands that all persons within the precincts of the convent, of the age of sixteen years and upwards, should be assembled, and re- quested to contribute, " according to their several means and good will," to the assistance of the king, "against oure grete adversarie Henry," and his allies from France and Scotland. The "request" appears to have been complied with. Edward put 126 WORCESTER. their loyalty to the test frequently. In the following year came a request for more money for siege opera- tions, and in 1466 a peremptory demand for one hundred marks, to be sent at once, by the bearer, his majesty having " fully determined to set a great navie upon the sea." About 1506 the Prior Mildenham and others had been commissioners for collecting a " benevolence " in the county of Worcester, and had been remiss in paying the money into the royal treasury. But Henry VII. was not a sovereign to be trifled with, nor to permit any money due to him to adhere to the fingers through which it might pass on its w^ay. A very urgent mandate announces his " grete displesur," and summons the defaulters to Westminster, bringing with them the accounts of the collection, and all moneys in their possession. A royal mandate, dated 1436, requires the monks to bear the shrine of St. Oswald in procession, that the rains may cease, which are causing a "piteous destruction of corne upon the earth," adding, "as we are informed it hath been afore this time for the ceasing of such continual rain." During all this time good work was done for the ca- thedral fabric. In 1397 the old stalls of the cathedral choir were set up, which remained until the time of Edward VI. The construction of an aqueduct, from Henwick Hill to the monastery, occasioned a curious series of compacts between the priors and the officials of the city. By deed dating 1407, the city bailiffs and aldermen, for " more worship," had leave to have their maces borne before them through the pre- cincts of the cemetery or sanctuary, and in the parish BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 127 of St. John. In return, the prior and convent received permission to lead their conduit-pipes over the bridge and through such streets and lanes as were convenient. The agreement is said to have been the result of per- sonal investigation by Henry IV. Another agree- ment, in 1432, gives the monastery the privilege of conveying water to their own precincts from the city conduit, on condition of presenting a red rose, the royal badge, to the bailiffs and their successors every year at the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. Yet the settlement appears to have been scarcely considered satisfactory. In 1507 another lengthy agreement was effected between the prior, John Weddesbury, and the bailiffs of the city. The com pact, which purports to be the result of " dyvers loving assemblies and meetings," is evidently a compromise. The prior and convent are to repair the leaden water-pipes within seven days. The bailiffs had encroached on the freehold in their perambulations "against ye key" (quay), and in other, places. The perambulations are to continue, and the bailiffs are to insert such boundary-marks, stakes, or stones, as may be necessary, but the monks are always to be present. Certain matters relating to socage claims by the city, and alleged " purprestures " (encroachments) by the convent in building cer- tain tenements were amicably arranged by mutual concessions. The prior and convent are to be on the same terms with the citizens in any legal pro- ceedings which may arise. If any execution is awarded against the convent, the cellarer's cart is to be attached, " as in old time." Freemen of the 128 WORCESTER. city dwelling in the cemetery of the monastery are to continue in possession of their rights, on condition that they pay all dues and otherwise behave well. If any further dispute should arise, four monks and four citizens are to arrange it by "loving meetings and communications before anything be attempted by law." Just before this, a knotty point of precedence had been settled between Prior Mildenham and Bishop Sylvester Giglis. The prior had denied the right of "Master Doctor Hallesworth," the episcopal vicar- general, to any allotted seat, "place of dewty," in the cathedral, and the matter was referred to the bishop. He answers, that he is informed by credible persons that the chancellor should sit next the prior, and the prior should not usurp the bishop's seat, but sit with his brethren "after ye old custom." But, he adds, he will examine into the matter, when he comes to Worcester. It is a temperate and sensible letter. The uncertainty about the conventual customs is probably owing to his Italian origin. The letter, curiously enough, is signed " Gilbert, bishop of Worcester," as if he had taken an English name — possibly to mitigate English prejudices. Of somewhat earlier date, 1498, was a curious controversy, submitted to the court of Rome, whether the dead in the parish of Claines should be buried in their parish church or in the cathedral. It was decided that Claines should retain the right of burial on payment of 6s. 8d. (a noble) yearly to the prior of Worcester. In 1448 is the earliest mention of an organist BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 129 in the cathedral, in an entry of an allowance made to "Master Daniell, ye kep of ye organs xiii monkes lofes " — that is, loaves of coarse flour, as distinguished from the finer kind used for the prior and his guests. In 1501 is the first mention of a schoolmaster, one Hugh Cratford, for the school which, from the remotest period, had been carried on in the monastery of Worcester. It was the desire of the prior and convent to con- nect the charnel-house and its chapel more closely with the work of the cathedral. In 1459, it re- ceived new grants and a new foundation. The sacristan was to maintain in the charnel-house a chaplain, who was to be a bachelor of divinity. He was to say mass in the chapel, and either to read publicly in the chapel, once or twice a week, a moral lecture on the New Testament, or, at the discretion of the bishop, to deliver a sermon in the cathedral, or at the cross in the churchyard, every Friday. He was also to have the custody of the library and all the books therein. It seems doubtful whether this arrangement was ever carried into effect, or was merged in the endowment given to the library, two years later, by Bishop Carpenter. But the greatest event connected with the cathedral in this period was, undoubtedly, the stately burial of Prince Arthur, in 1502. The body of the dead prince, not in a leaden coffin, but so embalmed with spices and "sweet stufife," that an oaken coffin was sufficient, was removed on St. George's Day, with great pomp, from the castle of Ludlow to the parish church, whence, on St. Mark's Day, the procession set K 130 WORCESTER. forth for Worcester. To every parish church, or rehgious house or order, which met the corpse on the way, or rung their bells, was presented a noble of gold, four torches, and six ^' scutcheons of arms.'"' At Bewdley the procession rested for the night, the body being carried to the chapel. Thence Sir Richard Croft and Sir William Ovedale, steward and comptroller of the prince's household, rode on to Worcester, and ordered the city gates to be shut, until the body should arrive. At the gate fresh torches were delivered to the torch-bearers. The " Order of Friars " from the neighbouring monastery "censed the body," and so it passed on to the town gate. At the gate were waiting the bailiffs and '•' honest men of the citie," all on foot. Ranged on each side of the street were the bishop's chancellor and a multitude of canons in gray amices with rich copes, with curates, secular priests, clerks, and children with surplices in great number, and, adds the eye-witness, " I suppose all the torches in the town." These lined the streets, as close as they could stand, from the town gate to the cathedral. Between the ranks of them the pro- cession went its solemn way, under a bright sun, as the chronicler notes, up what we know as High Street, with the old half-timbered houses on each side, crowded, we may conceive, at every window with the saddened faces of spectators, maidens and mothers weeping in pity for the bright young life so quickly closed, grave and wise men sorrowing that so promising a prince should have passed away, till it came to the cathedral gate. There the body was BEFORE THE REFORMATION. I31 taken from the car, censed by four bishops in rich copes, and conveyed up the choir to the hearse. The hearse was arrayed in all due magnificence, ''the goodlyest and best wrought and garnished that ever I saw,"' writes the chronicler. Around it were eighteen lights, two great standards, fourteen banners and bannerets blazoned with noble bearings, amongst others the Queen's arms, the Queen of Spain's arms, two of Wales, one of Kadwalader, and "icq pencils (pennons) of divers badges." Beneath was a rich cloth of majesty, " well fringed and double rayled," which afterwards became the perquisite of the " officers of arms." Then began the services. At Dirige were nine lessons, after the custom of that church," read by the ecclesiastics in due order of precedence : the first by the abbat of Tewkesbury, the sixth by the prior of Worcester, the seventh by the Bishop .of Chester, the eighth by the Bishop of Salisbury, and the ninth by the Bishop of Worcester. Then began a solemn vigil, '* lords, knights, esquires, gentlemen ushers, officers of arms, yeomen, and many others " all waiting in silence. We seem to walk up the old cathedral aisle, among the shadows cast by the great pillars, in the flickering light of the eighteen great torches, or while the torches themselves paled, and the blazonry on the banners stood out again, as the grey light came stealing in on the strange scene. In the morning, by seven of the clock, were the masses, rendered with all the stately ceremony which the church of Rome understands so well, and the general offerings " for the dead " : a piece of gould and v^ for the masse pennye " was the offering at one. K 2 132 WORCESTER. Then came one of the quaintest ceremonies which the old cathedral can ever have beheld. The em- broidered surcoat, and shield, and sword, and crested helmet of the dead prince were borne up the choir, and the son of Lord Kildare, clad in the prince's own armour and riding the prince's own horse, "richly trapped with a trapper of velvet embrothered {sic) with needlework of the prince's arms," was escorted by the great officers of the prince's household into the midst of the choir, where the abbat of Tewkesbury, as the gospeller, received the horse as an offering; while the rider alighted and was led into the vestry. The chronicler adds, To have seen the weeping when the offringe was done, he had a hard heart that wept not." Then came more offerings and more masses, with "divers and many anthemes" from "all the convent," "at every Kurie Elyeson " an officer at amies, with a loud voice, exclaiming, For Prhice Arthur's soul, and for all Christians' souls ^ Pater ?iosterJ' " Then the corpse, with weeping and sore lamentation, was laid in the grave ; the orisons said by the bishop of Lincolne, also sore weeping. He sett the cross over the chest, and cast holy water and earth thereon. His officer of armes, sore weeping, tooke of his coate of arms, and cast it along over the chest right lament- ably. Then Sir William Ovedale, comptroller of his household, sore weeping and crying, tooke the staffe of his office by both endes, and over his own head broke it, and cast it into the grave. In like wise did the gentlemen ushers their roddes. This was a piteous sight to those who beheld it." Then came a BEFORE THE REFORMATION. great dinner, and a proclamation, that if any man could prove, that any article of food had been taken from him by the prince's servants without payment, he should bring his account to the steward of the late prince, and " be contented." He who should have been the central figure of the pageant, was away. The Italian bishop, who then held the see, was, as usual, absent from his diocese, very probably at Rome. The pageant must have been solemn, indeed, to the citizens who witnessed it. For a great pestilence had fallen on the city, and the households in it were filled with mourning and fear. No offerings were made at the prince's tomb, says the chronicler, from any belong- ing to the city, "because of the sickness that then reigned among them." A more enduring monument of the prince is found in the beautiful chapel, bearing his name, which still remains one of the striking features of the cathedral, with the sculptured ornaments, symbolising the union of the rival houses of York and Lancaster The after-history of the chapel is curious. Inside the chapel, over the altar, was the figure of a dead Christ. This aroused the blind /ury of the iconoclasts under Henry VIIL, and in mutilating the figure of the Saviour they also destroyed much of the beautiful tracery which surrounded it. But Queen Elizabeth was not disposed to tolerate such barbarous proceed- ings, and, at the beginning of her reign, an edict against breaking or defacing of monuments of antiquity set up in churches or other public places for memory, and not superstition," was issued, each 134 WORCESTER. copy signed with her own hands, and dispersed through all her dominions. The apprehensions of the city may have been quickened by the tidings, that the queen was about to pay a visit in person. At once to conceal the damage, and to pay a compliment to the queen, the interior was coated with plastering, and on it were painted the royal arms. In this state it was seen by Abingdon, and described in his "Account of the Cathedral of Worcester." The coat of plaster had the good result of concealing the sculptures which remained from the Puritan devastators, who were content with defacing the painting of the royal arms. The sculptures hidden by the plaster were discovered in after-years by Dean St. John and the historian, Valentine Green. The stately tower of Gloucester Monastery was begun in the abbacy of Thomas Seabrooke, and com- pleted in the reign of Henry VI. The church of St. Michael, at Salwarpe, was enlarged, and the old Norman church replaced by a later structure. Great Malvern priory church was restored and beautified, the work being completed in 1459. The tower of Halesowen Church was probably begun about a.d. 1390, and completed about a.d. 1440. The church of the friars Dominican, in Worcester, extended itself, both in its building and its influence. In 1405 is a curious grant from the corporation of Worcester to the prior, of " a parcel of the stone wall and land of the city" from a "dove-cot tower, granted to them by the space of 100 feet in length direct towards the west." In 1475, ^ chapel BEFORE THE REFORMATION. I35 was erected on the north side of the choir of their church, for the burial of Sir J. Beauchamp. By his will they received amongst other bequests a new organ, and his widow left directions that a tablet of alabaster, representing the birth of our Lord and the three kings of Cologne, should be set in the wall over his body, and an alabaster image of St. John with a chalice in his hand. At Tewkesbury, in 1438, a beautiful chapel was built in the choir by Isabella,' countess of Warwick, over the remains of her first husband, Richard Beauchamp, and dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary the Virgin, and St. Leonard the abbat. In the following year the abbey was enriched by a legacy of 300 marks from the countess, on condition that six monks should be added to the foundation. She also left to the monastery ail the " ornaments of her head and body," jewels, and gold, and precious stones, which were estimated to be of like value ; and she directed that four daily masses should be said in the chapel which she had founded, for her own soul, and for the souls of her ancestors. The countess herself was buried in the abbey. Her grave was discovered and opened in 1875, when it was found that the slab which covered it bore on the side towards her face, as though to meet her gaze on the great awakening day, this simple prayer in- scribed upon it, "Mercy, Lord Jesus." In 1440, the church and priory of St. Mary Magdalene at Goldcliffe were appropriated to the abbey by Henry, duke of Warwick, son of Countess Isabella, who had obtained the patronage from Henry VI. The monks, 136 WORCESTER. in return, were required to offer masses for the souls of the king, Duke Henry of Warwick, the Countess Isabella and all her ancestors, and for the founders and benefactors of the church of Goldcliffe. In 1446, the abbey received two benefactions, forty marks under the will of Sir John Nanfan — whose effigy still appears on the south side of the altar-tomb in Birts- morton Church, that masses might be said for his soul; and, under the will of Henry le Despenser, who died at Hanley Castle and was buried in the choir of the abbey, the appropriation of the church at Scherston, and all the ornaments of his body, to make vest- ments for the monks. In 1476, the abbey was the scene of a magnificent ceremonial at the funeral of the Duchess of Clarence. Her son na d been born on October the 6th in the infirmary of the abbey, seemingly a newly-built room, iit novcB camera iii- Jlrjnarice" baptized on the 7th in the parish church of Tewkesbury, and confirmed on the 8th. His mother died in the following December at Warwick Castle, and her body seems to have remained there till the 4th of January, when it was removed to Tewkesbury. On the night of its arrival a vigil was kept all through the night by the household of the duke. The hearse was then left in the choir for thirty-five days, until at last, on the octave of the purification, it was committed to its last resting-place in the choir, with solemn masses by the lord abbat of Tewkesbury and by the suffragans of the bishops of Worcester and Lincoln, and with a sermon by Peter Weld, a doctor of theology, and a member of the Franciscan friary of Worcester. BEFORE 'i'HE REFORMATION. After the battle of Tewkesbury, four Lancastrian knights had fled from the fatal field and taken refuge in the sanctuary of one of the churches near. Edward himself, his drawn sword in his hand, was about to follow, when the officiating priest, at that moment celebrating mass, stood in the way, and resolutely forbade his entrance till he should promise to pardon the supplicants. Edward, who at times combined the subtlety with the ferocity of the tiger, gave the required promise and confirmed it with an oath. Trusting to this, the fugitives left their refuge. Two days afterwards, the citizens of Tewkesbury were sum- moned by proclamation to witness the execution of the very knights whom Edward had sworn to pardon. The history is as shameful to Edward IV. as it is honourable to the nameless priest, who dared (like Ambrose repelling Theodosius) to confront him in his wrath, and in the very moment of his triumph. It might suggest a splendid subject for an artist. After this Tewkesbury Abbey appears to have increased in wealth and reputation, up to the moment of its fall. It was the habit of the bishops of Wor- cester to enrich it wuth appropriations from all quarters. In 1500, Sylvester Giglis appropriated to it a church in the deanery of Fairford, and five years later added the churches of Wootton-under-Edge and Preston-upon-Stour, certain reservations, in which the interests of the see were not forgotten, being made in every case. In 1404, the guild of the Holy Trinity was estab- lished in Worcester by Henry IV. The chaplaincy, which had been founded in the reign of Edward III., WORCESTER. was slightly altered from its original purpose. A per- petual chantry of three monks was appointed to sing masses for the soul of Henry IV., while the priest of the original foundation was required to assist the parson and curates of the parish church, "because it doth abound in houseling people," as well as to say mass in his own chapel. The priories in this diocese, which were affected by the act of parliament passed at Leicester for the suppression of the alien priories, were Astley, in Worcestershire, Bekeford, Deorhyrst (Deerhurst), Goldcliff, and Newent, in Gloucestershire, and Monk's Kirby, in Warwickshire. Another peculiar feature of the diocese is the number of anchorites at this time. Probably they were attracted by the facilities for making homes for themselves in the soft red sandstone cliffs, which overhang the Severn, as at Redstone, Astley, and the Blackstone Rock, near Bewdley. The vow taken by one of these before Bishop Polton, in 1 43 1, is still extant. The hermit, Richard Spechysley, makes a solemn vow "to God, to hys Blessed Moder Marie, and all the seyntes of Heaven," to keep the " full and hole purpose of chastity," " after the rewle of Seynt Poule." Legacies were left for the main- tenance of these anchorites. Sometimes, however, they preferred quarters less isolated than they could find in the sandstone rocks. An entry, of the fifteenth century, in the books of the prior of Worcester, records an expenditure of ten shillings on bricks, sand, and lime, " for the reparation of the Anckra's house by the charnel-house." BEFORE THE REFORMATION. I39 To this period belong the foundation of the grammar-school of Kinver, the enlargement of the western part of the nave of Gloucester Cathedral, the rebuilding of the church at Cropthorne, as well as great additions to the church of Bishampton. Henry VIL, with his queen, her mother, the Countess of Richmond and the Prince Arthur, whose interment within the walls of the cathedral has been described, paid a visit to Worcester, some time towards the end of the fifteenth century, and were hospitably entertained by the prior and convent. Stephen Gardener, the future bishop of Winchester, was archdeacon of the diocese for thirty-one years, from 1500 to 1 53 1. A still greater man. Cardinal Wolsey himself, was chaplain, as " a boy bachelor," to Sir John Nanfan, probably the first of the name, who actually resided at Birtsmorton Court. The mediaeval altar-tomb, still to be seen in Birtsmorton Church, was erected by the cardinal in memory of his early friend and patron. William of Worcester, the celebrated antiquary and author of the " xA.nnales Regum Anglicorum," who died in 1490, was connected with the diocese, not only by his name, but as born at Bristol in or about 141 5, and as having left notes and plans of the architecture of Redcliffe Church and Bristol Cathedral, the value of which is still recognised by modern students. 140 WORCESTER. CHAPTER X. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. The faults of the monastic system were many and grievous. But, as a rule, the English monasteries were good landlords, bountiful to the poor, hospitable to all comers, and, in some cases, liberal patrons of art and science, especially in architecture. To good Clement Lichfield, the last abbat of Evesham, is owing that "right sumptuous and high square tower of stone," as Leland calls it, still a witness to his munificence and to his architectural genius. The proportions would have been yet more noble, had he not perceived the coming trouble, and hastened to finish his work before it reached its height, lest it should be taken out of his hands and never be completed at all. The monasteries also brought the highest culture within the reach of all who showed an aptitude for learning. John Feckenham was the son of obscure parents, named Homan, in the forest of Feckenham. The monks of Evesham gratified his thirst for learning, and diligently cultivated the gifts which they perceived in him. At the dissolution, he was sent adrift with a pension of 100 florins. But he had become a man of note. He was made secre- THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. I4T tary to Bell, bishop of Worcester, and then to Bonner. He was selected as the champion of the Church of Rome in the great controversies of the day, and, in particular, to meet at Pershore no less formidable an opponent than Bishop Hooper. In Edward VI.'s reign, he was imprisoned for his adherence to Rome. Under Queen Mary he was made dean of St. Paul's and abbat of the revived monastery of Westminster. Elizabeth, on her accession, sought to gain him by tempting offers to the cause of the Reformed Church. He was the only mitred abbat allowed to sit in any of her parliaments. It is said that the archbishopric of Canterbury was pressed upon him, and only offered to Parker on his resolute refusal. This was, perhaps, a requital for good offices which he had done to the Protestants in his day of power, having, it is said, interceded with Queen Mary for the Princess Eliza- beth herself. Feckenham, however, was too important to be left at liberty. On his steadfast refusal of the queen's offers, he was imprisoned, first in the Tower, then in the Marshalsea, and finally in Wisbeck Castle, where he died. His imprisonment seems to have been slight, as befitted one of his kindly nature ; for his last days were occupied with architectural improve- ments in the Tower in which he was imprisoned. A recent writer remarks that the monastic bodies were the great road-makers of the districts in which their property was situated. " The worst result of the dissolution was the rapidity with which the roads went out of repair. It was the interest of the monastic orders, whose property was often scattered, to keep the means of communication open, and, as they 142 WORCESTER. were resident landlords who were consumers of their own and market produce, it was their interest to keep the roads in good repair. In the diary of Prior Moore the diocese possesses a vivid picture of life in the abbeys and monasteries of the time. There is little mark on it of spiritual aims, of devotional aspirations, of monastic asceticism. It is the record of the ordinary employments of a kind-hearted country gentleman, not without literary tastes and intellectual occupations, refined in his habits of life beyond his time, sharing freely in the social pleasures and enjoyments of his neighbours, apparently, without the coarseness which was the great blemish of the social system of his day. Prior Moore seems to have risen from the lowest ranks. His family lived at Grimley, and his name was originally Peers, or Peres. Probably, like Abbat Feckenham, he took the name of Moore from his native place. This was probably the moor in the parish of Lindridge, a manor belonging to the monastery, where the prior sometimes held his court. Apparently, the family were brought to Grimley, and lodged there in the prior's mansion, when their son attained to his prosperity. Some relative was a wine merchant in Bristol, but he may have been set up in his business by the prior himself. The seclusion of the monastery had not hardened the prior's kindly heart against his kindred, or made him neglectful of their claims. His accounts are full ' Thorold Rogers, " History of Agriculture in England," vol. iv. p. 114. THE DISSOLUTION- OF THE MONASTERIES. I43 of presents bestowed with affectionate care for their respective needs. Sums of money given to his father and mother, such as — "to my mother, iiij^ iv*^, to my father and mother before I went to London, iiijs iv'V' alternate with seasonable presents to his kinsfolk. His sister-in-law at Bristol, "when shee was here," receives xx^ ; and his brother has " a tonne of wine," at a cost of ^£5, which looks very much, as if he was setting him up in business. His brother Robert receives a "gowne cloth," and his uncle, Thomas Hartley, a " coote cloth," his cousin Anne has her rent paid, at a cost of ij^ vi'^. Christmas time was not forgotten : " To my pore kinsfolk and servants agaynst this Christmas xvi^ viii'l" "To my father and mother ageynst Crismass iiij^ iv'\" The funeral expenses both of his father and mother were paid by him, the latter with costly liberality. Black and grey friars were paid for " diriges song in their own places and the masses song in ye cathedral church, they having everie place." The clergy of the cathedral church were paid for singing at " dirige and chapter masse." A sumptuous feast was given, con- taining, amongst other items, six sheep, three pigs, and two beeves, "byffs." A dole of xxvi^ viij^ was given to " powr folkes ;" and even the little children were not forgotten, as is testified by "ij^ iv^V' be- stowed upon them. A cross was erected over the grave in Grimley churchyard, and the next year, as usual, obituary services were performed and doles dis- tributed on the anniversary of the funeral. In 1552 we find " Gyfts and charges at my mother's yer's mynde, xxij*^, and ij® iv^." 144 WORCESTER. With Prior Moore the monastic system had not loosened family ties, and yet well-nigh his whole life had been spent within the walls of the monastery. He had taken the final vows, " Shaven in to ye reli- gion," as he expresses it in his diary, at sixteen, probably after probation in the outer offices. He passed through the various grades of office, from the lowest upwards; he was bachelor in 1504, sub-prior under John Weddesbury, prior in 15 18, instituted ("prefixus") to the office by John Bell, a chancellor of the diocese, in the carnary chapel. The diary exhibits him as the easy-going monk, whom the fraternity would regard with affection, and gladly raise, in spite of his lowly origin, to the highest place amongst them. A very small proportion of the prior's time was spent within the monastery. His residence was chiefly in the manor-houses which belonged to him in dif- ferent parts of the county. In 1527, for instance, he spent "the first two weeks of the year at Batten- hall, the next three weeks at Worcester, then five weeks at Crowle, two at Worcester, five at Grimley, one at Crowle, two at Worcester, five at Grimley, one at Crowle, sixteen at Battenhall, seven at Grimley, two at Worcester (including Palm Sunday), two at Ckimley, two at Crowle, one at Worcester (Rogation week), two at Crowle and Worcester, and the last two weeks of the year at Battenhall and Crowle.''^ It seems as if the personal residence of the prior was only expected at the great festivals. In most years, ' Noake's " Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester." the routine of residence was varied by a visit to London, for a month or six weeks. His life at these country residences was the life of an ordinary country gentleman. There is no trace of the asceticism of the convent in his habits and occupations. He takes as lively an interest as a squire of the present day in his parks and fish- pools. He records the cleansing of the ponds, and repairs of the park fences, — even the new shoes which he was obliged to purchase for his servants, in conse- quence of their working in Battenhall pool. He notes, that at one time eight young pike and one bream, at another five hundred eels, were turned, as stores, into the moat at Battenhall, and that the swans upon it, on another occasion, hatched four cygnets. Whether the prior himself was fond of field sports, as some of his order were, is not evident ; but he made careful provision for them on his manors. There are expenses for his " kennell hounds," which he kept for his own use; 6^^ for a "grete horne," for the hunt, — a hunt "on Christmas Day" and, yet more curious, a gift of 2^ "to Nich's Wright to lerne to kyll rotts [rats], crowes, chewks, &c." Then follow gifts to the king's hunt, to a Mr. William Skull for hunting otters, for a coat to the otter-taker, and fees to the "kynge's takers of horses" to drink "with their venison," probably when they came to the manors to collect horses for the king's use. The good prior's sympathy extended to the social amusements of his neighbours. Continual entries occur of gifts of this kind : — " To the maidens of Grimley for singing on May -day." "To Thomas L 146 WORCESTER. Brandon, ye kyng's jogeller, at Grimley, and to his child for tumbhng/' to Grimley Church, ale ; to one William Bennett and his company, for amusing the prior's guests at dinner and supper, at procession time ; for a bonfire at Crowle on St. Thomas's night ; for the tenants of Clyve, in the same place, for playing Robin Hood ; for maidens singing on " Holy rowde day in the morning"; for "six maids who did sing in the morning on St. Philip and Jacob daye " ; to four singing men, craftsmen of Worcester, on St. George's Day. The record is full of genial sympathy with the recreations of the country folk around. A still more valuable token of his liberality was the gift to the parish of Grimley of a new well, to serve three households, at the south end of the parish, "where never was well before." More immediately connected with his ecclesiastical position were the pageants in parishes on the dedi- cation-days of the church. To all of these the prior was a contributor. There are entries of money given " to ye mayden's box of Seynt Mechele," " to ye boxe of ye Showe of St. Peter," " to a box of St. Andros [St. Andrew's] showe on the dedication- day," " Five galands [gallons] of wyne of red and clarett for ye five pageants and other times," and a still more curious entry of money collected for All Saints (Alhaland) Church, at a play held at Henwick Hall, on the eve of St. Thomas's Day, being Sunday, and on St. Thomas's Day itself, on the Monday following. There is little of Benedictine simplicity in his household expenditure. The life, which he led at THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 47 his country houses, was costly and luxurious. He writes of " six mattresses bought at Palmesontyde to ley under fether bedds," of bedclothes of " fyne worke with dog and catte, connys [coneys], and other beasts," " with divers bests and verderers embroidered," that is, with figures in fine needlework, of pillows of down, and ribands of satin for his hat, of drinking- cups " of green byrrel " (beryl), of a standing-cup gilt with cover, weighing 25 ounces, of ale-cups gilt with covers, and quart pots of silver parcel gilt, of rings with amethysts, and great apostle spoons, as they are called, enriched with precious stones. Except for its greater refinement, the life of the prior at his country mansions differed little from the Hfe of the country gentlemen of the higher class, by whom he was surrounded. His diary might have been kept by some Sir Roger de Coverley of the day. As prior he evidently brought the same magnifi- cence into his provisions for the monastery. He is continually buying costly vessels for the altar, and gorgeous vestments for the officiating priests, "a cope of cloth with gold thread in it," or two great candlesticks, for " Jhu's awter," that is, for the altar in Jesus Chapel ; or, desks with eagles, and candle- sticks, one for the choir, and one for the altar, for the reading of the Gospel. His favourite, Grimley Church, is continually receiving presents, — cruets of silver, two great candlesticks, a chasuble and alb, a chalice weighing twenty ounces, a frontal for the high altar, made of " chamblete," two sculptured tabernacles, with images. He pays for the ''scowring" and repairing of the alabaster table of the altar, and L 2 148 WORCESTER. presents the officiating priest with a "grayle," i.e.. graduale, a book containing the office for sprinkh'ng holy water and other portions of the mass, which is to be "well bound." But the most important of his purchases was a new silver mitre, by one John Crancks, a London silversmith, " the ole smyth of London." It was ornamented with precious stones, " five great stones," " eighty-six smaller stones," "twenty-one stones set in gold," forty "medyll" stones, seventy-five small stones, besides three ounces and a quarter of fine pearls, and three ounces of "medull peerle." The weight of silver was ninety-three ounces, and, besides this, there are charges for silk, and thread, and ribands, and embroidery, and a sarcenet lining ; altogether, the cost, including a leather case, was forty-nine pounds, fifteen shillings, an enormous outlay for that period. The prior had literary tastes as well as a love for sumptuous display. He made many additions to the library of the monastery. Some were scarce books. There are entries of "a new mass-book for the altar of Jesus Chapel," a little book called an "annual" for funerals, "noted," i.e., with musical notation ; a processional, two books of the seven sacraments, and one curious entr)', " I redeemed a little portuous [breviary] lying to plegge in Teames [Thames] Street, for 53. 4." Probably the binding was rich, perhaps with jewels ; otherwise it is diffi- cult to understand, how one small book, not new, could have cost a sum equal to ;£25 of our present money. It may have been profusely illuminated. Perhaps the work had belonged to the library, and THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 49 been pledged in season of distress ; perhaps it was merely a chance purchase by the prior. There were also devotional works, the "Speculum Spiritualium,' "a hoolc work of Seynt Austens, in print," the works of St. Jerome, Gregory, and Ambrose. There were books of the rule of Benedict, glosses and commen- taries on Holy Scripture, decrees and decretals, one book of English history, and two legends of English saints. But many of his purchases were law-books, Lyndwood's " Provincial Constitution," " a bucke of lawe called Dominicq. sup. sext.," "a buke of lawe called Henry Boyke," " divers bookes of lawe and Novella To. Andree sup. Decretae, Propositions sup. Cans, et sup. distentionibus," &c. The prior set great store upon these books ; he notes the purchase of a " baggett " of leather to carry them in, of cloth of gold and clasps of silver gilt for the cover of his mass-book and portuas, and the binding in black velvet with silver-gilt clasps of a "portuas" which his predecessor. Prior Weddesbury, had left at Rome, and which had been brought thence to London. His books show cultured taste, and some fondness for literature. The hospitality of the monastery was most liberal. The bailiffs and corporation of the city were frequent guests. Ye balls and all skarlet gowns," that is, the twenty-four principal members of the corporation, dined with the prior on New Year's Eve, at Easter, on Christmas Day after evensong, on St. Thomas's Day, sometimes on a Sunday or after a civic perambu- lation. Nor were the wives of the citizens excluded from an occasional welcome. Once at least, on St. WORCESTER. John's Day, eighteen of the wives of the city magnates were entertained in the monastery. " They drank malmsey, oSey, red wine, rumney, sack, pyment, hippo- eras, claret, and Rhenish wine," accompanied by " wafers." Carol singers, tumbling children, players from Gloucester and Coventry, minstrels, jugglers, and blind harpers, "ye king's jugeler and his blind harper," three of the king's minstrels, with " ye schambulls" (perhaps shawms, or long trumpets), were the entertainment. Guests of the highest rank were received. In 1 5 2 1 the Princess Mary visited Worcester, and made a long stay with the prior. Costly offerings were made by her during her visit ; three guineas in gold when I sang masse on Seynt Wulfstan's Day"; three crowns of gold " in tapurs," two by the princess and one by Lady Salisbury, at the mass at Candlemas ; a crown of gold by the princess on Easter Day. Four years afterwards the princess paid another long visit, arriving in the third week after Christmas, and staying at Worcester and Battenhall with the prior till they went on to visit the bishop at Hartlebury. In the following year she paid another visit to Worcester. Indeed, the prior appears to have been a favourite with royalty, for there is an entry of a present to a messenger of the king, who brought a letter from Queen Anne (Boleyn), to tell him of a princess at Greenwich " born Wednsdey, fift day of Sept., and cristened the Fryday after, whose name is Elizabeth." Another entry notes the birth of Prince Edward, born of Queen Jane at Hampton Court " Oct., 1537. In 1533 ''my lord of Canterbury" spent four days with the prior, when he came to the cathe- THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 151 dral as visitor. His entertainment for the four days cost ;^5. 7s. His ecclesiastical superiors appear to have been conciliated with occasional gifts. The Bishop of London is presented with a horse worth ^5, and a saddle, which cost ^3. Cardinal Wolsey receives, in 1520, a loan, probably a gift, of six horses, with saddles, bridles, harness, and leather halters, towards his journey to Calais "to trete of peasse between ye French king and the emperor." The horses, with their equipment and the expense of conveying them to the cardinal, cost ^^15. 7s. 2d. Master Cromwell" is presented with 53s. 4d. Some ecclesiastical superior receives three fresh salmon, " with stuff to bake them," as if Worcester salmon were appreciated in those days, as in later times. If Prior Moore was the son of poor parents, this familiar inter- course with the noble of the land shows how the monastic system acted as a bridge between classes, and enabled those who had any capacity for rising, to attain to the highest rank. The prior bore his full share in that maintenance of the highways, which was one of the monastic duties. There are charges for making the causeway at " redhull " (Red-hill) cross and the causeway behind the palace, for the maintenance of a cart, for the repairs of the highways about Worcester, for a cart with wheels having iron tires " yernband whelys," at Camden fair, and for five horses bought for the same purpose, with the expenses of their harness and shoeing. A curious expression, that certain work on the highways began on the morrow after " seven sleper day," proves, that the day kept in honour of 152 WORCESTER. the legend of the seven sleepers (July 27th) was observed at Worcester monastery at this date. All the inmates of the monaster}-, in their degree, had their share in these festivities. There are entries of wine from Christmas to New Year's Day ; of a feast with " osey and malmsey wine, spice, and raisins, and saffron cakes," probably for the poor, on Maunday Thursday ; of " masers," or large cups, with single and double bands, from which, as in the loving-cups of city-banquets at the present day, the monks and their guests pledged each other in spiced wine. The greater part of this expenditure was from the various manors belonging to the prior, supplemented from different quarters. Presents of venison, a whole buck, or pasty of red deer, came for the great feasts from the neighbouring abbats of Bordesley or Glou- cester, from Lord Dudley, and from Malvern Chase. New Year's Day brings gifts of all sorts from the tenantry and officials of the monastery, and from personal friends. Some were of great value : " a case to put pennes and ynk in''; '"'a pillow of green and red silke for my pewe " ; and, from the sexton, invariably, a gold ring, sometimes with a diamond, sometimes with a " white head." Other presents were preserves for the Christmas feastings, baskets of ''orreags," i.e. oranges, capons, geese, partridges, a shield of brawn, iarkes, pigs, trout, and grayling, boxes of biscuits and comfits, and, from Wichenford, a hundred "warden" pears. Lady Sandys presents peyr of great ambur beds [beads] of five sets"; from Bordesley comes a " corporas case," a case THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 53 containing a linen cloth to cover the eucharist ; from Stanford, the figure of our Lord ; from Roger Burg, a toothpick garnished with silver gilt ; from Master Colyns a '"fine bonett " ; while the Pakingtons, as ever, firm friends to the Church, present '-rooks from the manor of Hampton. " Another casual income was from the confiscated goods of felons convicted on the manors of the prior}'. From Alston came four ewes and ten lambs from a felon's goods ; from Richard Parker of Hallow, "when he slewe Ric. Taylor," all his goods and cattle, "and detts." The prior was held in honour among the county gentlemen. Thomas Morysse, "ye constabul of the castyll," received on one occasion 3s. 4d. for laying a cushion for him at the sessions. Money and apparel were given in cases of distress. Two shirts were given to "William the Beggar,"' a poor young man ; alms to a monk, of Little iMalvern, and to " Mr. Thomas,'" apparently a doctor, " for healing Dan Singer s disyesse of brekyng owse." The friars, black and gray, received not only alms but dainty fare; "to ye blake friars for their solas [solace], xiid.," while the gray friars receive "four baked pies of lamperus, at the same cost." The prior is liberal to his neighbours. He gives iid., 6d., 8d., to the building of the new tower, or steeple of St. Martin's ; 3s. 4d. to the sexton of Great Malvern, towards the building of ^ the parish church; 5s. to help the prior of Little Malvern, whose chalices had been stolen, to purchase new; 5s. towards building Mon- mouth Church, which had been burned : and nearly 154 WORCESTER. j[^\2 for the gilding and painting of the images in the chapel of Saint Cecilia, and for renevring the tapestry and hangings, " the linnen cloth that covereth ye new gilt front of ye seyd chappell." Medical science was at a low ebb at Worcester at this time. William, the barber, is paid 2s. 6d. on one occasion " for my legg helyng." The same fee is paid to " Marsshe the clockmaker," for " surgery to my arme." Possibly it was thought that any one clever enough to understand the mysteries of the wheels of a clock, might, from analogy, have some insight into the economy of the human body. But when anything more serious was required, " Master Blew^ett, doctor of fysike, of Hereford," was sent for, and his prescriptions made up by "Thomas Poticary," i.e.. Thomas the apothecary. When the prior's ribs were broken, the healing of them was entrusted to Nich's of ye Flete," a prac- titioner from the fleet in London, or an inhabitant of Worcester. His fee for the whole business was only two shillings. If the prior did not trust himself to any of his own monks in illness, it was not for want of receipts in their hands for every imaginable ailment. For gout the sufferer was to sit for an hour and a half with his legs up to the knees in hot grains: then they were to be dried and rubbed before the fire with " sene " (senna ?) and the cure was to be completed by taking the skin of a wild cat and laying the flesh side to the sore. The discipline of the monastery was easy under so jovial a prior. It seems to have been left in the hands of Robert Neckham, the sub-prior, and brother THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 55 Robert Alchurche. The former acted as com- missary in conjunction with " Master Foxford," when the diocese was vacant in 1522, after the resignation of Julius de Medici.^ A glimpse of the opinion which the brethren had of their superior is found in a letter, still extant, from one of the monks. It was probably addressed to Cranmer, as visitor, or to the commissioners. The writer, one John Musard, describes himself as a "pore wreche,'" confined in the monastery prison. He may have been a relative of the Thomas Musard, who was prior in 1456. He has nothing good to say of the prior. His letter must have been written 'in ignorance of the diary kept by Prior Moore, and yet it follows it ^\ith a minuteness almost ludicrous, singling out the chief points in it for a criticism all the more incisive for being so manifestly unintentional. " Your lordships farmery ys downe, your kychyn is downe." If the officer of the commissioners had not propped up the cloister with timber, that would have been down also. The expenditure of twenty marks would scarcely put the monastery in repair. It was never intended, that the prior should lavish large sums on ostentatious banquets to great people, " owr chancelar and byschopes' officers, upon sargeants and aytrines of West- minster hall, upon doct'rs and pr'ctors of the archys with great fees and rewards,'' while the poorer people are left to the alms of the brethren, — "as for almes, ^ The material for the foregoing account of Prior Moore has been taken almost entirely from Mr. Noake's interesting work, "The Cathedral and Monaster}- of Worcester,'" ch. ii. '56 WORCESTER. your convent gyevvyth out of their porcion vi tymes as moch as ever did owr untrue mastyrs." The alms which the convent was bound to give in the prince's name to twelve poor people should not be appropriated to his " kynred and knaves/' nor should his brother and sister and other kindred "and knaves" be in possession of the best farms belonging to the monastery. Such a state of things is an "abusion" which wole greve any cheritable man." Further, the funds of the monastery are spent in continual lawsuits with the neighbouring gentlemen, with his tenants, and with the convent itself, — " ye most pte your sory tytyle " ; an accusation which throws light, not only on the hospitality to proctors of the arches and doctors of the law, but on the liberal purchases of law-books for the library. The three mitres, which the convent possessed, were not sufficient to gratify his personal vanity ; plate was sold to the value of ;£"8o, and a new mitre purchased. The convent funds are drawn upon unfairly to pay the servants of the prior ; " he hath of knaves iiij gentylme, x yemen [yeomen], x grommes [grooms]," the greater part of whose wages is defrayed by the officers of the convent, besides ten " geme," who belong to the convent, but wear his livery, and to whose maintenance he contributes nothing, " he being not charged with oon groot on them." The prior's retinue gives offence. Thirty- three servants are not sufficient for his vanity ; he must have " gentleman-waiters " as well, the payment of whose wages so impoverishes the convent, that the fare of the brethren is pitiably reduced. "Ye pore k'nes as your pour convent hath on the fys the daye THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 157 [probably the fast or fish-day] ywote to God yr Lord- chype dyd know yrof." A greater offence, " the last gryffe," remained. A dispute between the prior and the convent had been ended by a decree of the court of arches, which the prior had sworn a solemn oath to observe, but the conditions of it had never been fulfilled. Musard prays to be removed from , the prison at Worcester, where he is nearly dead with cold in winter, and allowed to spend the rest of his life in the monastery of Westminster. It is the reverse side of the tapestry. A cross-light is thrown on the letter by a chance passage in the diary. Musard wishes it to be understood, that the cause of his imprisonment is simply that he is too honest for his companions, that he has told the truth, either in the lawsuit already mentioned or at some visitation, when it was displeasing to the monastic authorities, — " pore Musards to prison for tellyng trothe." But a passage in the diary notes 6s. 8d. for fetching "Dan John Musard " home, after he had robbed his master of plate and other things. Probably Musard was one of the black sheep, who sought refuge in the monas- tery from the consequences of an evil life. From his own account it seems probable that he had been detected in false accusations by the visitor, and sent to prison ; and that he was endeavouring to escape from it by an appeal to Cromwell's commissioners. Some truth there was in his statements. In 1522 the sacrist, Robert Alvechurch, was made to take an oath that he would render new accounts, not to Prior Moore, but to the bishop or his deputy, and in the upper chamber above the hall within the sacristy of the 158 WORCESTER. church of Worcester. In 1524 Dr. Allen appeared at the monastery as commissary from Cardinal Wolsey, to make a searching inquiry into the monastery, and to carry out measures for the expulsion of all crimi- nous persons (" criminosi "), the censure of all rebel- lious and contradictory persons, and the upholding of all laudable customs. The whole monastic body were summoned to appear in the chapter-house at noon on the 8th of April, and the prior was warned not to permit meanwhile any alienation what- ever, open or occult, of convent property. Probably the visitation was rather to inquire into the property, than into the morals of the community. The sole result appears to have been a tax of four per cent., for the cardinal's benefit, on the monastic income. Probably, too, some inquiry was m.ade into the other ecclesiastical foundations ; for in the August of the same year Wolsey received a bull from the pope, authorising him to suppress the hospital of St. Wulf- stan, with some other small religious houses, and to apply the proceeds to the maintenance of his colleges at Ipswich and Oxford. On the disgrace of the car- dinal, a few years later, Henry took the revenues into his own hands, and kept them there. Another visitation, at which Cranmer himself was present, took place in 1533 or 1534. The results were twofold. The prior and his "family" were obliged to take an oath of allegiance to the "king's majestie" and to "his heyres of his bodie of his most dere and entirely beloved lawful wife queue Anne begotten and to be goten," and to any other heirs " acording to the limitation in the statute made THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 59 for suretie of his succession in the crowne of his reahn." All allegiance to any foreign authority or potentate is absolutely forbidden, and any attempt made to enforce it is to be repudiated as " vaine and adnychilate." There is little need to explain who was aimed at, under the designation of a " foreign potentate." But it was put in still plainer language to the "family" in an Act still preserved in the monastic ledger. In this, they are told plainly, that the oath of allegiance, which they had taken, was simply, that they had accepted Henry VIII. as the head of the Church ; that they had declared that the Bishop of Rome had no claim to the title of universal bishop, nor to be addressed in any other way than as bishop of Rome ; that they had repudiated all obedience to his laws, when opposed to those of Scripture or the Church of England, and all acceptance of his perversions or interpretations of Holy Scripture, unless they were in accordance with the orthodox construction of the Catholic Fathers." The monks, after such plain-speaking, could scarcely allege that they did not understand the full meaning of the oath which they had taken. Another part of the visitation related to the in- ternal discipline of the monastery. Prior Moore did not succeed by his sumptuous entertainment, at a cost of ^5. 7s., in inducing the archbishop to wink at any irregularities. His injunctions corroborate Musard's letter in many important points. Holy Scripture is to be read one hour every day before noon, and the literal sense declared. Many goods and movables had of late been abstracted from the i6o WORCESTER. monastery, and the return of the income of the convent had been made so irregularly, if at all, that most of the inmates were in utter ignorance of its existence. An account, therefore, of these emolu- ments was to be made once a year, so as to be easily understood, and stricter regulations were to be en- 0 forced as to the use of the convent seal and register. The education of the monks, as is plain from Mu- sard's letter, had been neglected ; a grammatical man, " honest and erudite," was to be appointed to instruct them. Musard's complaint about the quality of the food on fish-days seems to have been partly justified, for it is ordered that whole- some food should be provided for all the house ; that the prior should not be austere to his brethren or to the servants ; that two honest men should minister to the sick monks ; that the " refectorarius " should provide linen and other necessaries for the dining-hall at proper times ; certain repairs are to be made at once in the dormitory ; no goods are to be alienated without consent of the majority of the brethren ; and, in settlement of some monastic jealousy, Thomas Sadburie, the cellarer, is to have quiet possession of a stall in the choir. A curious provision is added, that no monk is to commiserate one Thomas Blockley, evidently under punishment for false statements and defamation, 'S'ituperium, scandalum, et denigracionem." Probably Musard may have had some share in the offence and punishment of this Thomas Blockley, and may have appealed to Cromwell, the " Right Worshipfull Mastyer Secretary and honorable Lord Visitor," against some sentence THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. l6l then passed upon him ; unless, indeed, his imprison- ment was the consequence of his dishonesty at Overbury, in 1531. There is' no trace here of immorality or licentious- ness discovered by Cranmer in his visitation. Waste of revenue and unkind treatment of the inferior monks are the worst charges against the monastery in this document. Probably, they were under Prior Moore an unruly set. The new doctrines seem to have crept in among them. As long ago as 1529 Prior Moore had been obliged to denounce one Thomas Fordam, who had given utterance to "pestiferous and damnable doctrines," and had made his escape from the monastery, and was to be arrested wherever found, that he might be punished. Probably the prior was not sorry to escape from his responsibilities, lightly as they sat upon him, to a quiet retreat, espe- cially as he must have discerned the coming storm. His retirement was arranged on favourable terms, with which possibly a present of 53s. 4d. to " Master Cromwell " may have had something to do. He was to have the use of the manor-house of Crowle, and apartments reserved for him in the monaster}', with a sufficiency of wood and fuel, and a modest provision of silver plate, " two ale cups of silver, two goblets of silver, a salt of silver, and twelve silver spoons," with such table and chamber linen as was necessary, and two beds in " the stone chamber " within the monas- tery. One of the monks was to act as his servant and to say mass for him, at the expense of the monastery ; a debt of ;£ioo to be paid to his creditors; the house at Crowle was to be kept in repair, and two M l62 WORCESTER. horses provided for the prior's use. Some provision of money was also made. The manors of Crowle and Grimley were assigned to him ; the house of Crowle was made over to the commissioners, during the prior's life, at a rent of one red rose, and he had a pension of ^£50 a year. The arrangement was effected through R. Jeroyle, probably one of the commissioners, and the payments were to be made through the commissioner, and not directly to the prior ; probably to secure the regular performance of the covenant. In spite of his mismanagement of the monastery, both in its discipline and its revenues, the genial prior lived to the age of nearly four score years and ten in his safe retreat at Crowle. The vivid gUmpse into the economy of Worcester Priory, afforded by the diary of Prior Moore, is evidence that many of the monasteries had de- parted from the intention of their founders. But it must not be taken for granted, that all the monasteries of the period were the abodes of priors, who were little more than luxurious county magnates, or of monks chiefly remarkable for turbulence and discontent. Clement Lichfield at Evesham was the contemporary of Prior Moore at Worcester. Still less must the absolute truth be assumed of all the stories of abominable profligacy discovered by the commissioners in monasteries and convents. Some of these stories had a foundation of truth. The licentiousness which disgraced ordinary English society had crept like the breath of a deadly plague within monastic precincts. But there was THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 63 gross exaggeration. Men like the commissioners of Henry VIII. are apt to find what they seek, especially at the bidding of a tyrant. In most monasteries base spirits would be found, ready to slander and defame the house which had sheltered them. Popular rumours would exaggerate shameful things brought to light, exciting popular opinion on the side of confiscation. But, whatever the monasteries may have done to justify their fate, no excuse can be made for the rapacity which plundered them, nor for the uses to which the plunder was applied. In a remarkable letter, Bishop Latimer, certainly not likely to countenance any dissoluteness or even idleness in the religious orders, supports heartily the prayer of the prior for the maintenance of Great I^Ialvern monaster)'. Latimer begins by thanking Cromwell for his kindness^ to " Master Lucy," "a right good gentleman," and Master Acton, " another of the same sort." He then approaches the real object of his letter, with a deprecation of the anger which he is aware that his request will excite, so unlike his usual bluff frankness, that it is quite clear how he trembled for the conse- quences of crossing the greediness of the king, even in doing a simple act of justice. He prefers the request of "an honest man, the prior of Great ' From the ccrrespondence of Dr. London it seems that Lucy had been put in possession of the friar}' of Thelesford, in Warwickshire, and that the abbey of Hayles, in Gloucester- shire, had been delivered to the custody of Mr. Acton. Probably he was one of the Actons of Churchill. 164 WORCESTER. Malvern in my diocese,"' at that time Thomas Dere- ham, " referring the success of the whole matter to your only approved wisdom and benign goodness in every case, for I know that I do play the fool, but yet, with my foolishness, I somewhat quiet an unquiet man, and mitigate his heaviness, which I am told to do with you, for that I know by experience your goodness, that you will bear with fools in their foolishness," After thus exonerating himself, from the suspicion of instigating a petition which will be angrily refused, he goes on to say that the prior is a humble suitor for the continuance of his house, not for monastic purposes, "natt in monkrye, he maynyth natt so, God forbyd,"' but for any purposes which may seem good to the king, such as teaching, preaching, study with prayer, and liberal hospitality, " ffor to the vertie of hospitality he hathe been grettly inclined from hys begynnynge." He then comes to the only part of his letter which would receive attention, and offers a tempting bribe to the king and to Cromwell himself, in the shape of a large sum of ready money. If " 500 marks to the king's highness, and 200 marks to yourself for your own good will,"' could in any way promote the fulfilment of the prior's wishes, he could manage, with the help of his friends, that they should be forthcoming. He adds, evidently out of the pity of his heart, " the man is old ; a good house- keeper; feedeth many, and that daily, for the country is poor and full of penury." He ends with shy ex- pression of his own earnest desire, that some of the religious houses, at least, might be spared for such purposes : " Alas ! my good lord, shall we nott THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 65 see ij or iij in every shyre changed to such remedye?" Latimer returns at once to his own sledge-hammer style, as soon as he has got away from a subject dis- tasteful both to Cromwell and to his master. " I heard you say once, after you had seen that furious invective of Cardinal Pole, that you would make him eat his own heart, which you have now, I trow, brought to pass, for he must needs now eat his own heart and become as heartless as he is graceless." Our diocese affords three marked instances of the different types of the priors and abbats, who were presiding over the m.onasteries of the day, in the magnificent and worldly prior of Worcester, the learned, refined, and skilful architect at Evesham, and the " the good housekeeper who feedeth many," the prior of Great Malvern. Of Poleworth nunnery, in Warwickshire, the com- missioners give a favourable account. The abbess, "Dame Alice Fitzherbert," of the age of sixty years, is a " very sadde, descrete, and reelyg}'ous woman.'' There are twelve nuns of good report throughout all the country, not one of whom will leave or forsake her habit and her religion. The town is a poor little village of forty-four houses, and never a plough but one." The labourers live chiefly on the convent bounty, as the soil is hard and barren ; the people will very likely desert it, if the nunnery is suppressed, and ''wander and seke for their lyving, as our Lorde Code best knoweth." The nunnery also has its uses as a place of education, where the children of the neighbouring gentry are being brought up " right vertuously," sometimes i66 WORCESTER. to the number of thirty or forty, and even more. Therefore, they advise that this nunnery may not be suppressed. The abbat of Pershore, John Stanewell, was a learned and devout man, who had been prior of Gloucester Hall in Oxford, and was a suffragan bishop under the title of Poletensis. But if a remarkable letter, written by one of his monks, named Richard Beerly, to Cromwell, contains any amount of truth, the internal discipline of the monastery must have been very unsatisfactory. Beerly complains that the monks drink and play at bowls " after collacyon " till ten or twelve o'clock ; that they come to matins at irregular time, some in the middle of the service, some when it is almost done, and then only for fear of punishment ; that some are even drunken, "as dronck as myss," when they appear in the church; that they spend their time playing at cards and dice ; that the rule is not obeyed : that the name of the bishop of Rome is not omitted from the service-books ; that the Word of God is not read, only "lyzeth" and foolish sermons of the fathers, and besides there is one thing, which no man might know but the confessor, *' my gostly fides." He is moved, partly by his conscience, partly by the command of the commissioner, to relate this to Cromwell, and prays him to be allowed to cancel his vow, and " goo owtt of religion." There is something very suspicious about this letter, as if it were written to get favour with the commissioner. But this mattered little. The sen- THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 167 tence had gone forth against good and bad alike, and the commissioners, even the most merciful, saw clearly that the only thing possible was to carry it into execution. In some cases this was done with all consider- ation for the ejected monks and nuns. Some were allowed small pensions, sufficient for their maintenance in the poverty and asceticism consistent with their monastic vows. To some, as is evident from the commissioners' letters, it must have been a great gladness, when the doors were opened, and they were released from a life of which they had long been weary, or for which they had found them- selves utterly unfit. But there must have been much hardship recklessly inflicted, and much undeserved suffering. Fuller writes, that by the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, nearly 10,000 people were sent to seek their fortunes in the wide world. " Some had twenty shillings given them at their ejec- tion and a new gown, which needed to be of strong cloth to last so long as they got another ; " and, again, " I pity not those who had hands and health to work, but surely the grey hairs of some impotent persons deserved compassion, and I am confident such, had they come to the door of the charitable reader hereof, would have had a meal's meal and a night's lodging given them." The process of suppression and plunder went on quietly. At Worcester, Henry Holbech, the prior, became dean of the new cathedral establishment, and five of his monks — Roger Neckham, James Lawerne, Roger Sandford, Humphrey Webbely, and i68 WORCESTER. Richard Lisle — became prebendaries. The new society consisted of a dean, ten prebendaries, ten minor canons, ten lay clerks, ten choristers, two school- masters, forty king's scholars, and some inferior officials. The bishopric of Gloucester was severed from that of Worcester, the abbat of Tewkesbury, John Wake- man, being the first bishop. Bishop Blandford's diary details the gradual process by which the old state of things was changed into the new. "In January, a.d. 1539, the monks of this church put on secular habits, and the priory surrendered. A.D. 1547, on Candlemas Day, no candles were hallowed or borne ; on Ash Wednesday no ashes hal- lowed. A.D. 1548, March 25, being Palm Sunday, no palms hallowed, nor cross borne on Easter Eve, no fire hallowed but the paschal taper and the font. On Easter Day the pix, with the Sacrament in it, was taken out of the sepulchre, they singing, ' Christ is risen,' without procession. On Good Friday no creeping to the Cross. Also on the 20th October was taken away the cup, with the body of Christ, from the high altar of St. Mary's Church, and in other churches and chapels, a.d. 1549. No sepulchre, or service of sepulchre, on Good Friday. On Easter Even no paschal hallowed, nor fire, nor incense, nor font. On the 23rd April was mass, matins, even- song, and all other service in English. All books of Divine Service — viz., mass-books, graduals, pies port, and legends, were brought to the bishop and burnt." Heath, who was then bishop, can scarcely have approved of the holocaust, over which he was called THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 69 on to preside. It is easy to conceive the wonderment and sadness with which the old monks, now pre- bendaries, assisted at services so different from those on which their devotional feelings had been nurtured for so many years, even if only those best affected to the Reformation had been transferred from the monastic to the cathedral bodies. A long inventory is given of the treasures and rich vestments belong- ing to the church and to the monaster}^ all which passed into the hands of the king or of his nobles. It includes the copes, heavy with gold and precious stones — the chalice " of pure and fine gold pre- sented to Bishop Alcock on the day of his installa- tion, weighing forty ounces, " little pryckesong books," the poor blankets and bedding of the monks, even the gardening tools, a stock saw, a pair of iron pincers, a pair of little scissors, an ivory comb, a haye nette with bellis to take ffoxis, vi ffox nets with belhs to take foxis," which were found in a chest at the prior's manor house. Booty of all kinds must have been swept into the royal coffers from the monastery of Worcester. At Evesham great efforts had been made to induce Clement Lichfield to retire. Oppressive burdens had been laid upon him to disgust him with his position. He had paid ;£i4o to the king and ;^ioo to Wolsey for the right of free election ; loo marks had been demanded by the king as a loan, prudently converted into a gift. He was forced to maintain twenty-four of the king's servants at his table, and to provide forage for their horses. Wolsey, as greedy and insolent 170 WOPXESTER. as his royal master, had made him pay 50 marks for a visitation and 20 for protection. In the end he gave up the struggle, and retired on a pension. A young monk, named Hawford, or Harford, or Bal- lard, was put into his place, as a pliant instrument for the surrender of the abbey. He was rewarded v/ith a pension of ^240 a year, and the rectory of Elmley Lovett. Queen Mary afterwards gave him the deanery of Worcester instead of the pension. The townspeople of Evesham had the good taste to recog- nise the beauty of their newly-erected tower, and the public spirit to preserve it. This they effected by bought purchasing it from Sir Philip Hoby, who had it from the king. The abbey itself was pulled down, and the materials were disposed of A letter from Hoby is still extant, in which he asks to be allowed to buy some of the stone. His necessity, he says, which " shall shortly happen in building," will require a great part ; and if he does not obtain it, he adds, " I were lyke in time of my necessitie to be very destitute." There was a good deal of disorder in the demo- lition of the abbey, and Hoby defends himself from any participation in it. " As consernyng the spoyle or waste that ye wrote to me off that hath be done there, I assure you both I and myne be gyltles thereoff, besydes that it did cost me money to persons ffor a long tyme nightly, to weche [watch] and take hede lest any thing should be mysordered there." He also reminds the commissioners that, when they plundered the abbey, there was no lytell spoyle made," and asserts, that he has been watchful THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 171 ever since, that no robbery should take place, and that, if such has occurred, he is desirous that an example should be made of the perpetrators. It is evident, that Hoby himself lay under very grave suspicion. The last sentence has an air of " pro- testing too much." Hoby seems to have been eager for the spoil of monasteries. In addition to Evesham, he had a grant of the nunnery of Fosse, in Lincoln- shire, — "a beggerly poure, ruynose house." Probably he was on the scent of further prey, when he wrote from Germany, where he was English minister to Edward VI., in 1 548, suggesting that something might yet be pared off the bishoprics, and that the canonries offered as tempting a field for plunder as the monas- teries. " The foreign protestants thought our bishops too rich, and recommended him to reduce them, and especially to take away all prebends in England."^ There was no difficulty in procuring the surrender of other monasteries in the diocese. At Pershore, John Stanewell surrendered on a pension of ;£^i6o, and his monks on small annuities. In 1553, nine monks were still alive, who received annuities of ;^6, £ilt or ;^8. The site of the abbey and the manors were conveyed to William and Francis Sheldon, probably a connexion of Ralph Sheldon, a frequent purchaser of the iron, lead, and bell-metal at the abbeys. Richard Whitborne, or Bedyll, at Great Malvern, received a pension of ^66. 13s. 4d. In 1553, five of the monks were living, with pensions of ^6, and ' Hallam: "Hist. England,"!. 130. 172 WORCESTER. two with pensions of ;£"6. 13s. 46. The abbey land was granted to WilHam Pinnocke. The spohation of the monasteries continued long after the seizure of their rents and manors. The letters of the commissioner show, how greedily every scrap of property was hunted up, even to the veriest trifle. Much had been concealed or made away with. The dissolution of the smaller monasteries had sounded a note of warning to the larger houses, of which they had availed themselves. But nothing was too trifling, nothing too sacred, for the clutch of Henry and his courtiers. Poor Prior Moore was harassed, in his retreat at Crowle, to give account of some bedding, which had probably been sold. Some of the property in question was claimed by him under the agreement, by which he retired. But the commis- sioner, one Robert Burgoyne, was not to be baulked. " I showed his chaplain," he writes, " that one of the best beds, with one of the like coverlets, were sold" ; " and," he adds, writing to his superior, John Scuda- more, " I meant them for you." He speaks of a table at Worcester, which he had intended for himself, but which Scudamore's wife had demanded, and which he therefore gives up, though evidently with reluctance. " As for the table at Worcester, which I thought to have hadd home to me, I am right well contented that my mistress, your wife, shall have the same ; nevertheless, I thynk I shall not bye soch anothere for money." The commissioners were equally keen in their search for the lead and bell metal belonging to the monasteries and convents. Latimer was no friend to monasteries, and yet his THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 73 fiery indignation in his first sermon preached before Edward VI. probably expressed the feeHngs of the country. "We of the clergy had too much, but that is taken away, and now we have too little. I know where is a great market-town, with divers hamlets and inhabitants, who do rise yearly of their labour to the value of fifty pounds, and the vicar that serveth (being so great a cure) with but xii or xiv marks by year, so that of his pension he is not able to buy him books or give his neighbour drink, all the great gain goeth another way." Only two things, he adds, keep him from despairing of the future of the church: one is, "that the king's Majesty, when he comes of age, will see a redress of these things so out of frame and the other, *' I believe that the general Accompting Day is at hand, the dreadful Day of Judgment." It may easily be con- ceived, what an effect this sermon must have had on the courtiers, the most corrupt who ever disgraced an English court, who stood around the young king, and who were probably partakers of the shameful pillage which the preacher denounced so passionately. Edward VI. admired this plain-speaking, and re- warded Latimer with;^2o in money. In other places Latimer tells, how " the gentry invaded the profits of the Church, leaving only the title to the incumbent" ; how " chantry priests were put by the patrons into several cures to save their pensions ;" how " many benefices were lent out in fee-farms given to servants for keeping of hounds, hawkes, and horses;" and how "the poor clergy, being kept to some sorry pittances, were forced to put themselves into gentle- 174 WORCESTER. men's houses, and there to serve as clerks of the kitchen, surveyors, receivers," and other offices of the Uke kind. Possibly in consequence of Latimer's orator}', and of his connexion with the diocese, on April 1 6, 1553, a letter was issued by the council to the chancellor of the augmentations " to cause a book to be devised in form of law, licensing the Bishop of Worcester and Gloucester (Hooper) to give to three poor vicarages in his diocese, the parsonages whereof are impropriated to his bishoprick, such augmentation of living towards their better maintenance as he shall think convenient out of the lands of the said see." Evidently some of the council thought that their own consciences might be more at ease, if the good bishop could be induced to repair, at his own expense, some of the cruel injustice, which they themselves had wrought. It is like a well-known definition of charity : "A thinks B ought to help C." Henry YIH. had spared the guilds, though part of their property had been applied to what was now called superstitious uses. Members of the guild had pro- vided, in the event of their decease, that a portion of their estate should pass into the hands of the trading corporation to which they had belonged in life, charged with the obligation of an annual or more frequent mass for the soul of the deceased. Subject to this charge, the officers of the guild were, either at their discretion or according to the limitations of the donor's will, to maintain decayed members of the guild, to edu- cate their children, to portion their daughters, or to give a pittance to their widows. The revenues of the town guilds were the benefit societies of the Middle THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 1 75 Ages, and obviated the necessity of legal relief to^destitution. But that which Henry had not ven- tured to touch, the councillors with whom he had surrounded the throne of his son, " a camarilla from the first, which became more unscrupulous, more treacherous, more rapacious, and more malignant as the boy grew up,"i did not hesitate to seize. In 1547 an Act was passed, which put all "charities and funds destined for the support of arts, anniversaries, and church lights, and all guild lands possessed by frater- nities for the same purposes," at the disposal of the king. The income was nominally to be applied to providing for the poor, augmenting the incomes of vicarages, paying salaries of preachers and providing free schools for the diffusion of learning." In reality, it was intended that the proceeds should fill the pockets of the nobility, gorged with church property, " the most servile, the most rapacious, and the most malignant in the English annals." " We owe the English poor law," says the writer quoted above, " to the greed of the courtiers w^ho surrounded the nonage of Edward VI., the plea for the confiscation having been the ' superstitious use ' with which the guild founder had burdened his benefaction." The Bishop of Worcester (Heath) had the courage to oppose the will, and to brave the anger of Somerset in this matter. On the first decision in the lords the bishops of Hereford and Worcester recorded their votes in the minority against the Bill. It was ^ Thorokl Rogers, "History of Agriculture and Prices in England," vol. iv. pp. 5, 30-6. 176 WORCESTER. probably thought useless to continue the opposition against such a majority. At the last reading the Bishop of Worcester was not in the house. The (juild of the Holy Trinity in Worcester was sup- pressed, and the revenues were confiscated. EDWARD VI. 177 CHAPTER XI. EDWARD VI. It would be difficult to conceive a more striking contrast to the dignified English statesmen and the subtle Italian prelates, to whom the clergy and laity had been so long accustomed, than the plain, down- right son of the Leicestershire yeoman, who had been taught by his father to put his body into his bow," and who carried the spirit of the teaching into every word and action of his life. The story which Fuller tells of his conversion describes the man. He had been cross-bearer at Cambridge, vehement in his loyalty to the Roman faith, and eager in his opposition to the Reformers. But Bilney, the future martyr, discerned the strength of will and thorough honestness which lay at the root of this fierce zeal, and determined to make an effort to enlist him on the side of truth. As Fuller tells the story, Bilney, observing Latimer's zeal, repaired to his chamber, and desired him to hear his con- fession. The hearing whereof, inspired by God's spirit, so wrought upon Latimer, that, of almost a persecutor, he became a zealous promoter of truth." In 1534, Latimer was preaching in the diocese. He was holding disputations at Bristol, with his N 178 WORCESTER. usual zeal, on the subjects which were stirring men's hearts most deeply. As reported by William Burton, then abbat of the Augustinian monastery in that town, his sermons were such as the good abbat would regard with horror, being, in his words, "sysmatike and yronyous" (erroneous). There is, said Latimer, no material fire in the place of torment. Souls in purgatory have no need of our prayers ; rather we have need of theirs. No saints are to be honoured, nor pilgrimages to be made. Nor is the Virgin Mary free from sin. The challenge had been taken up by one Hubberdin (the name is spelt in Burton's letter indifferently, as Huberdyn and Hyberdyn), an Oxford divine and a zealous Romanist, and by other champions residing on the spot. Foxe describes Hubberdin, in language which Latimer himself might have used, as " an old divine of Oxford, a tight painted Pharisey, and a great strayer abroad in all quarters of the realm to deface and impeach the springing of God's holy Gospel." The controversy caused such excitement, " grete stryfe and debate amonge the kynge's subjects," that the attention of Cromwell was called, and reports were sent to him by Burton, as chief of the commissioners, and by John Hylsey, prior of the preaching friars. Both Burton and Hylsey were moderate men, and their reports are made in very cautious language. Hylsey seems to have perceived, that the opinions which Latimer (the name is spelt Latomer and Latymar) was preaching were not odious to those in authority. He is very guarded. He had EDWARD VI. 179 been, he owns, one of those who opposed Lathner in controversy. He had maintained the authority of purgatory, pilgrimages, the worshipping of saints and images, and, (which gives more insight into Latimer's teaching than was gained from Burton's letter) that faith without good works is but dead, and that "ower lady beynge full of grace ys and was \vyttheoutte the spott of synne." But, he goes on to say, they had laboured in vain; the controversy, instead of settling people's minds, had only produced greater confusion, *'browht the people yn greter dyvysyon than they war, as they doe hythertoe contynewe." His own mind had been affected by Latimer's arguments. When he considered them carefully, he perceived that Latimer was contending rather against the abuse of these doctrines than against the doctrines themselves. " I have percevyd that hys mynd ys myche more agenst the abusing off thynges than agenst the thynge hytt selfe." On the whole, he thinks that he was mistaken in his conscientious oppo- sition, and that the best way to promote the peace of the town will be to allow Latimer to speak freely to the people. It is the letter of a fair and impartial judge, impressed by Latimer's discourse, and perplexed between his allegiance to the church of Rome and the imperative claim, with which this new truth, if truth it were, appealed to his conscience. There is a tone in the letter, as if there may have been some slight admixture of more worldly motives, and a shrewd perception how matters were likely to go, and as if he was beginning to trim his sails to that N 2 i3o WORCESTER. breeze of court favour which was hereafter to waft him to the bishopric of Rochester. The letters give a glimpse of the way in which the work of the Reformation was carried on. We see the vehement champions, full of faith in their cause, stepping forward on both sides ; the excitement in the town ; the hum and stir, as in an excited hive of bees, while men talked at the street-corners, and disputed in their ale-houses, and turned their social gatherings into scenes of strife, pierced to the quick by loyalty to the old doctrines, or by conviction of the truth in the new; wise and thoughtful men, as Burton and Hylsey, first entering warmly into the controversy, then standing aside to think, as some earnest words of Latimer struck home, balancing themselves between the parties, watching the tumult in the town, and, for the time at least, coming to the conclu- sion of Gamaliel, " Refrain from these men, and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought ; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye should be found even to fight against God." If Hylsey imagined that Latimer was favoured in high quarters, the events of the next year proved that he had divined aright. In 1534 Latimer was made chaplain to Anne Boleyn, and, by her favour, in the same year bishop of Worcester. His first attention was directed to the condition of the monastery and to the worship conducted in the cathedral. But it was not till 1537, that he took strong measures for the reformation of it by the issue of injunctions, purporting to be the result EDWARD VI. i8i of his visitation. He begins by stating, that the ignorance and negligence of divers persons in the monastery are " intolerable, and not to be suffered " : that the consequence of this is the prevalence of idolatry, and of " many kinds of superstition and other enormities," and the cause of it, the neglect of the permission given by the king, that the Holy Scriptures might be read in the English tongue. It will be noted, that the alleged negligence and enormities refer only to matters of doctrine, and that no mention is made of any relaxation oi morals or licentiousness of conduct. The prior is to provide, at the expense of the monastery, a Bible in English, to be placed, with a chain attached, in the church or cloister or some other place open to the public. Every religious person is to procure at least a New Testament in English before Christmas. There is to be no singing, nor ceremony in the cathedral during the preaching, and all the monks are to listen quietly to the sermon. A lecture of Holy Scripture is to be read every day in English, except on holy days, and to all the inmates of the monastery, unless any have special leave from the prior to be absent. The steward of every monastery is to be a layman. There is to be always a schoolmaster, competent to teach grammar. No layman or woman is to be dis- couraged from reading any good book, in Latin or English. A chapter of Holy Scripture in English is to be read to the prior every day during his dinner and supper, wherever he may be. The monks are to dine together, four at each table> l82 WORCESTER. "fower to one mese," and to have Scripture read in English at the time ; the fragments of the meal are to be distributed among the poor. Alms are to be given in every parish where the monks hold tithes or land, when as ye be persons and proprietaries," and the injunctions are to be read once a month in the chapter-house before all the brethren. Beyond these injunctions, it does not seem that Latimer effected much alteration in the cathedral. The demolition of the images and the elimination of Roman uses from the service did not take place till he had left the diocese. The chief memorial which he has left in the diocese is a service, or antiphon, to be used at the sprinkling of holy water. It is characteristic of the man, that he draws attention to the meaning of the ceremony by the em- phasis on the inner truths, which it represents. He converts what, to many, was probably merely a formal observance, into an earnest prayer, deepened in its solemnity by the gesture, which recalls vividly to mind the great mercy of the Saviour cleansing from all sin. Remember your promise in Baptism, Christ, his mercy and bloodshedding, By whose most holy sprinkling Of all your sins you have free pardoning. It is impossible not to wonder whether Latimer ever availed himself of the liberty to hawke, fish, hunt, or fowl, which was reserved to bishops and priors in their leases. In a lease granted during Latimer's episcopate to John Combes, of Stratford, which included rights of fishery on the Avon, it is EDWARD VI. 183 Stipulated that, when " the said Lord High Bishop is staying at Stratford, he shall have the liberty of fishing, for which a fair allowance " is to be made. But most of the acts recorded of Latimer, as a bishop, were done outside the diocese. He took an active part in the examination of one " Dr. Crenkhe- horne," who had published the details of a pretended vision of the Virgin, in which she announced her in- tention of being worshipped at Ipswich and Willesden, as in old times. He was summoned before the arch- bishop of Canterbury, and the bishops of Worcester and Salisbur)'. To detect the imposture of such a vision, whether the dream of a fanatic or the invention of a knave, would be consistent with the character of Latimer. It is more strange to find him, with the same bishops, taking part in the examination of John Lambert, afterwards a martyr, charged with having asserted that it was sinful to pray to the saints, and, to read that, after Lambert had been once dismissed, "the bisphope of Worcester was most extreme agaynst him, so that he was . sent to warde agyne." " The three bishops could not say- that it was necessary nor needful, but he might not make sure of it, and if he would agree to that, he might have gone bye-and-bye, but he would not." Yet Latimer was consistent. He threw the whole strength of his will into the defence of what he deemed the primitive doctrine of the Church, as contained in the real Church of England, against all comers, from whatever quarter they appeared. His energ}- of protestation against the accretions of falsehood, with which the Church of WORCESTER. Rome had overlaid the truth, had not so concentrated his attention on that one point, as to prevent him from looking round the horizon, and discerning, that there were also dangers approaching from the oppo- site quarter. He set his face as steadfastly against the uprooting of church discipline and church doctrine by the "wild boar" of Protestant fanaticism, as against devouring of the fruits of gospel truth by the "wild beasts of the papal hierarchy. In his last sermon before Edward VI., speaking of Seymour, the lord admiral, who had just been executed for treason, he says, that he has heard that Seymour was a contemner of the book of common prayer, and adds emphatically, " I wish there was no more." Latimer was as unflinching a champion of Church authority as of Gospel truth. He was concerned, while bishop ot Worcester, in a cruel execution. One Dr. Forrest, a friar, had been condemned to be burnt for denying the royal supremacy. There was a celebrated image in Wales called " Darvell Gatheren," i to which people had been in the habit of making pilgrimages, with offerings of cattle and horses and money, in the belief that, if any made an offering to the image, this " Darvell Gatheren " had power " to fetche hym or them that so offers oute of hell when they be dampned." The image appears to have been of gigantic size, and to have represented a man in armour. To cast addi- tional shame and ignominy on Forrest and the image, this was brought to the place of execution, so that they ' Dervel Gadam, a Welsh saint. EDWARD VI. might be burnt together, or perhaps, that Forrest might be burnt to death by the idol itself. On the gallows were inscribed some taunting verses : — David Darvell Gatheren, as saith the Welshmen, Fetched outlawes out of hell, Now he is come with spear and shilde, in harnes to burn at Smithfilde, For in Wales he may not dwell. And Forrest the friar, that obstinate liar, That wilfully shall be dead. In his contumacie [to] the Gospell doth deny The kyng to be supreme head. Latimer was appointed to preach to him in his dying moments. While the poor friar w'as actually hanging in the flames, Latimer taunted him with his belief, and asked him, in what state he was dying. The friar answered with a bold voice, " that if an angel should come down from heaven and teach him any other doctrine than he had received and believed from his youth, he would not believe him," and so died. All this is consistent with the vehemence with which Latimer pressed on the persecution of Lambert, and which evidently excited comment at the time. There is nothing strange that one who was himself a martyr should be so ready in inflicting martyrdom. The temper of those times was not our own. ^len such as Latimer were as stern in inflicting as in enduring suffering. Truth was to them the most precious of all things, and the agony of death in others or in themselves was but a light price to pay for the main- tenance of the truth. It depended on the side which they took, whether their names should be written down in history as heroic martyrs or as savage persecutors. i86 WORCESTER. Henry and Latimer could not long act in har- mony. The six articles gave Latimer an opportunity to retire, of which he at once availed himself, — probably, as was said at the time, not without a sense of relief at having escaped so easily. It is not known why he did not resume his bishopric when Heath was displaced by Edward VI. Fuller, fond of endeavouring to get behind other men's minds, and to work out their reasons from his own consciousness, gives several considerations, which may have weighed with him. It was not, he says, for any want of favour from the king ; nor because his downright sermons had dis- pleased the courtiers nor because he shared in Hooper's dislike to ceremonies. It was rather owing " either to his conscience (at times sharpest in the bluntest of men), because he would not be built on the ruins of another, especially of Heath, one of a meek and moderate nature, or to his age, who, Barzillai like, was superannuate from earthly honours. Alas ! what needed a square cap over the many nightcaps which age had multiplied on his reverend head? Or, because he found himself not so fit for government, better for preaching than ordering ecclesiastical affairs ; or, because he prophetically foresaw that the in- gratitude of the English nation would shorten their happiness and King Edward's life ; and he was loth to come into a place only to go out again." Pro- bably he felt himself fitted for the work of a preacher, rather than of a bishop. John Bell, who succeeded Latimer, was a man of EDWARD VI. 187 some mark. He was a Worcestershire man, and showed his attachment to his native county by founding scholarships at Bailiol college, Oxford, for scholars bom in the diocese of Worcester. He had been archdeacon of Gloucester and preben- dary of Lincoln and Lichfield. He had been chaplain to Henry VI H., and had been frequently sent by him to foreign princes on state affairs. He had done his royal master service in defending the lawful- ness of his divorce from Queen Catherine. He had also been employed in the diocese as vicar general for Sylvester Giglis. He did not remain long in the diocese, as he resigned in 1539, and retired to his estate at Clerkenwell. The only notable event in his episcopate is the creation of the bishopric of Gloucester. Nicholas Heath, his successor, was translated from Rochester, with leave to hold two benefices in Kent for five years, " in commendam "' with his bishopric. In the form of his appointment Edward VL, or his coun- cillors, show distinctly what Somerset and Northum- berland understood by the sovereign being head of the Church, and to what extent they were prepared to press his claims. Heath's licence expresses this in terms, about which there can be no mistake. All spiritual, as well as temporal authority, proceeds solely from the king, as water from a fount, and can only be exercised by his power, and as his delegate. Omnis juris dicendi auctoritas, atque jurisdictio omnis, tam ilia quae ecclesiastica dicitur, quam secularis, a regia potestate, velut a supremo capite et omnium intra nostrum regnum magistratuum fonte et scaturigine i88 WORCESTER. primitus emanaverit." The bishopric is granted to him simply as the king's delegate, "tibi delegare nostra auctoritate regia atque suprema dignaremur." It is added, that even this authority is dependent on the royal pleasure, " ad nostrum beneplacitum duntaxat duraturum." That there may be no misconception of the meaning, as applying simply to acts of temporal authority, or of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, such as proving wills, or holding bishop's courts, the licence actually mentions the power of ordination to the priesthood as conferred upon him by the royal mandate. Power is given, "Ad ordinand' igitur quoscumque intra diocesim Wigorn, ubicumque oriundos, quos moribus et literatura diligenti et rigoroso examine idoneos fore compereris," &c. The plunder of church property went on in the beginning of Edward's reign, not, as under Henry VIII., by a deliberate assertion of royal or national right, but by snatches. Heath was made to give up the manors of Stratford and Hampton-upon-Avon, in Worcestershire, to John Dudley, earl of Warwick, and the lordships of Stoke Episcopi and Hanbury, and the manor of Bibery, in Gloucestershire, to the Duke of Northumberland, for all of which no com- pensation was returned. The house in London was exchanged for the manors and advowson of Grimley and Hallow (which had just been filched from the cathedral property), and the advowson of Newington, in Surrey. But however facile Heath may have been in sub- mitting to be plundered of the property of the Church, his " week and moderate nature " was so thoroughly EDWARD VI. 189 under the control of his conscience, that he did not hesitate to stand up in his place in Parliament in unflinching opposition to those measures of the Reformation which he deemed contrary to the true doctrine, or to the real interests of the Church. In alliance with the Bishop of Hereford he opposed the Bill for "administering the blessed sacrament to all Christian people under both kinds"; in 1568, again with the Bishop of Hereford, he voted against the Bill which authorised the prayer-book of that date ; and in the same year, without the Bishop of Hereford, he opposed the Act for permitting the marriage of the clerg}^ This steadfast opposition must have often provoked the anger of those who intended the licence to be no mere amplification of legal phraseology, but that bishops were to hold their office so long as they retained the favour of the king and of his courtiers. The end came soon. Heath refused to subscribe the new ordinal of 1551 for making bishops and priests, and was committed to prison, and deprived of his bishopric by a court composed of six delegates, three civilians and three common lawyers. But, though his episcopate was short, it was im- portant. The changes in the cathedral already men- tioned were made under his direction, though probably against his will. Still more irreverent must have seemed to him the orders under which, on January loth, 1547, all the images in the cathedral and other parochial churches were destroyed. Nor could it have been pleasant to him to see the interior of the churches in his diocese roughly 1 90 WORCESTER. painted over and adorned with texts of Scripture. In the Church of St. Michael, in Bedwardine, in the city of Worcester, a man was engaged to do this at a charge of 2d. per yard. It must have been a relief to Heath to be relieved of his crosier. Other records of his episcopate exhibit him in work more congenial. The bishop's courts were in full activity, and, as the registers show, were making the authority of the Church felt in social and do- mestic life. In 1545, William Hawford, of Church Lench, had to do penance for incest, one Sunday in his parish church, another in that of Rouselench, and another in that of Abbots' Morton. In the same year, William Marshall, of Hanley Castle, was accused of being a great swearer. He appeared personally in Powick Church, and confessed that he did " sometimes " swear. The bishop, who appears to have taken personal cognisance of the offence, en- joined on him to appear in the church before the parishioners on the Sunday following, and to express his contrition for the scandal which had been occa- sioned by his conduct. The words were prescribed for him. " Neighbours, whereas heretofore I have overmuche used to swear by great oaths ; I am sorry therefor, and I desire you to take no example by me to do the like, but that ye do utterly avoid the same." The bishop made minute inquiries into the condi- tion of the parish churches, with a view to reverence in divine worship. Some of the answers show much slovenliness in many places. At Powick there was no missal, nor a sufficient surplice for the vicar. At EDWARD VI. 191 Broad was the cross in the churchyard was very ruin- ous, and ahiiost prostrate through the neglect of the parishioners. At Astley the rector had no manual. At Kineton the ringing of the bell was neglected " at curfle nother the day bell put, mosibm erat ab antiquo."' At Halford several parishioners had refused to contribute to the stipend of the clerk. At St. Clement's, in Worcester, Morgant Marshall, other- wise Taberer, wife of William Marshall, was often wont to brawl in church during divine service. The churchyard of Broughton Hackel was not enclosed through the neglect of John King, the younger, of that place ; John King, the elder, appeared and took the repair upon himself. At Yardley there was no surplice. Nor were the clergy free from reproach. At Fladbur}' the rector was not in the priesthood, nor did he reside. The rector of Exhall with Wix- ford, one Roger Nedeham, neglected to provide incense, and did not sprinkle holy water before the crucifix in the church, at which the parishioners were offended. The bishop ordered him more than once to be publicly cited (preconizari), and, on his refusal to appear, suspended him from his office, but restored him on his promise to amend. Sometimes the bishop enabled people to be mar- ried without the delay occasioned by the publication of banns. There is no record of this having been done by Heath, but there are entries of it before his time. In 1533, a commission was issued to the rector of Whatcote to solemnise matrimony in face of the church, with one publishing of banns (una edcone bannorum), between William Longe, of the 192 WORCESTER. parish of Blockley, and Grace Emotts, of the parish of Whatcote. A similar commission was issued in the following year to the curate in charge of the collegiate church of Stratford. On the deprivation of Heath, Hooper was brought from Gloucester to this diocese. It was the intention of Edward, or of his councillors, to undo the work of his father, and to re-unite the sees of Gloucester and Worcester, evidently for the revenues, which had been allotted to Gloucester at the dissolution of the monasteries. It was at first intended, that Glou- cester should be an archdeaconry in the diocese of Worcester. But this scheme gave great dissatis- faction ; and Edward probably was unwilling to incur the public shame of so quickly undoing his father's work. The two sees were united, and the bishop was to reside six months in each. Hooper was somewhat peculiar in personal appearance. Tall, thin, grave, and earnest, ascetic in countenance, and with the worn look and stooping figure which characterise habitual sufferers from sciatica, Fuller describes his character in a few graphic touches : — " He was bred in Oxford, and well skilled in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (a little of his would go far in our day), but afterwards travelled over into Switzerland. He seemed to some to have brought Switzerland back with him in his harsh, rough, and unpleasant behaviour, being grave unto rigour, and severe unto surliness. Yet, to speak truth, all Hooper's ill nature consisted in other men's little acquaintance with him. Such as visited him once, condemned him of over-austerity ; who repaired to him twice, only suspected him of the same ; who EDWARD VI. conversed with him constantly not only acquitted him of all moroseness, but commended him for sweetness of manner." "Sweetest nuts have sourest rind." He was very different from Latimer. He had not the racy humour, the genial cordiality, the fund of animal spirits, which were elements in Latimer's popularity. Many, attracted to Latimer by the rough heartiness of his bearing, would be repelled by Hooper's grave austerity. Yet, after reading Fuller's character, it seems probable, that Hooper could not have been " very extreme " against John Lambert, nor could have carried a personal bitterness into an address to Friar Forrest at the stake. His theological opinions are well known. He was one of the champions of the extreme Reformers. He was only persuaded to overcome his reluctance to the episcopal dress by the urgency of the other bishops, to- which, if Fuller is to be trusted, was added a few days' imprisonment, as an intimation of the king's opinion. Fuller tries to account for Hooper accepting two sees. Dunstan, he says, held Worcester and London together. But Hooper was not likely to accept Dunstan as an authority. Pro- bably what weighed with him was, partly the pressure from the court, with a view to the appropriation of the property of the see ; partly, that he did not consider either the extent or the population of the diocese too great to be administered by one man, and that he reckoned, in Fuller's words, "It is not the having two bishoprics together, but the neglecting of one, which is the sin." His tenure of this see was too short to leave o 194 WORCESTER. much record of his work here. It was distinguished by a singular beauty of hoHness in himself and in his household. His house, Foxe tells us, was a pattern of good example, in honest conversation, and in read- ing of the holy Scripture. Nothing was to be seen there of courtly rioting, of courtly luxury or idleness ; no dishonest word, no swearing was ever to be heard. So much of the revenues of the see as could be saved by simplicity and frugality of living was devoted to the poor. " Twice," says Foxe, speaking in his own person, " I was in his house at Worcester, where, in his common hall, I saw a table spread with good store of meat, and beset full of beggars and poor folk ; and, I asking his servants what this meant, they told me that every day their lord and master's manner was, to have to dinner a certain number of poor folk of the city by course, who were served by four at a mess, with hot and wholesome meats ; and when they were served then he himself sat down to dinner, and not before." He was personally characterised by a holy simpli- city. It is not easy to realise, what were his ideas of the authority and office of a bishop. Our records of his work at Worcester are few. A complaint made in Queen Mary's reign accuses him of having carried on with activity the work of demolition in the cathe- dral, "our belles and organs be broken, our altars and chapels are by Hoper [bishop] violated and over- thrown." Bishop Blandford's manuscript again notes briefly, " In all the time of Bishop Hooper were no children confirmed." Hooper may have held opinions about confirmation very different from those of the EDWARD VI. Church. Or this may be owing to the very short time during which he ruled the diocese. His letters patent bear date December 8, 1552, and Heath was re- appointed in July, 1553. The story of Hooper's martyrdom belongs to Gloucester. o 2 196 WORCESTER. CHAPTER XII. MARY AND ELIZABETH. On Hooper's deprivation, Heath was restored to his see, but only for a short time, and was then trans- lated to York. One of the first acts of Mary, who, whatever were her faults, did not share the Tudor greediness for church property, had been to separate Gloucester again from Worcester. After Heath's promotion the see was given to Richard Pates, who had been archdeacon of Winchester and then of Lincoln, and had been employed on foreign embas- sies. There was some hesitation about the appoint- ment, for, though Heath was translated in 1553, the temporalities were not restored till 1555. All this time Worcester, like all other dioceses, was troubled by religious controversies. Even under the quiet rule of Prior Moore, one monk at least had left the monastery after turbulent assertion of heretical opinions. In 151 1, William Smith, or Peynter, of Ombersley, was charged with declaring openly that Paul was not an apostle, and that neither chancellor, nor commissary, nor the particular friar who brought the charge against him, should make him believe it. The heretical words were uttered in the house of Thomas Hull, of Ombersley, and sound like some- thing spoken in the excitement of a drunken squabble. MARY AND ELIZABETH. 197 Perhaps Smith may have belonged to one of the more violent and ignorant sects, which spring up in seasons of religious excitement, and pass away forgotten. But he had not the courage to sustain his conviction, if, indeed, his assertion was anything more than a random word, and was glad to escape the conse- quences by making a public profession of orthodoxy. In 1546, more serious consequences followed to a poor boy, of twelve years of age, named John Davis, nephew of Thomas Johnson, an apothecary of Worcester, who had persisted in reading the Tes- tament, and other religious books, in English. He was horribly treated in a dungeon in the Guildhall, called the peephole ; his endurance was tested by holding his finger in a candle; and he was continually harassed and tormented, even by having a madman put into his cell as his companion. The death of Henry VIII. saved him from some of the conse- quences of his conduct ; but he was arraigned at the assizes, and sentenced to be whipped. From this he was saved by Mr. Bourne, of Battenhall, who took him to his own house and sheltered him awhile. Even kindness was as ineffectual as ill treatment to induce the boy to swerve from his convictions. Bourne, a zealous Catholic, was obliged to dismiss him for fear of his infecting his household with his opinions. The boy found friends ; he survived the Marian persecu- tion, and became a profitable minister in the Church of England.'' The history of the diocese is linked with one of the greatest persecutors and with one of the noblest victims of the Marian period. The story WORCESTER. told by Antony Wood and Fuller, that Bonner was the illegitimate son of a priest, named George Savage, is evidently an idle or malicious tale, probably founded on the fact that Bonner, while bishop of London, showed some anxiety to acquire for that see the Bushley estates, which had been the property of the Savage family. The real history of his parentage was told by Nicholas, Lord Lechmere, when he assured the historian, Strype, that Bonner was born at Hanley, in Worcestershire, the son of one Bonner, a poor, honest man, in a house called Boner's place, belonging to the Lechmeres ; and that his ancestors had put Bonner himself to school. He made good use of the education so bestowed, and of the patronage of the Lechmere family; for in 1529 he was presented by the prior and convent of Wor- cester to the vicarage of Wolverley. It is doubtful whether he took possession of the benefice. When elevated to the see of London, and enjoying royal favour, his thoughts turned to the Severn meadows, with which he had been familar in his youth, and which now belonged to royalty, having been forfeited by the conviction of Sir John Savage for killing Mr. Pawlet in a duel. Bishop Ridley leased Bushley Park to one George Carr, giving to his brother-in-law, George Sheepside, the post of park-keeper and the manor of Redmarley. Thus Ridley wrote in prison : — " Farewell, my dear brother George Shipside, whom I have found ever faithful, trusting and loving, in all my states and conditions, and now in the time of my cross over all other to me most friendly and steadfast, and, that which liketh me best over all things, in MARY AND ELIZABETH. 199 God's cause most nearly." According to our ideas, this leasing of episcopal manors is a perversion of the trust on which the property is held. It was one of the complaints of the bishops of the Reformation, that their predecessors had disposed of nearly all the property of the sees in leases, granted on such ruinous terms as to make it impossible to live ex- cept by holding livings " in commendam." Ridley, however, appears to have had no scruple about this. He made a petition to the queen in his last days, that the leases, which he had granted, might be confirmed, or the money which had been given for them be repaid out of his own goods. His last words were : " There is nothing in all the world that troubleth my con- science (I praise God) this only excepted, and now I hear say, that the bishop, who now occupieth the see, will not allow my grants, but, contrary to all law and conscience, hath taken from them their livings, and will not suffer them to enjoy the same." Bonner could not be pleased to see the rich Bushley meadows pass out of his grasp. A coarse letter, addressed to his cousin, Thomas Shirley, and to his patrons, " the worshipful Richard Lechmere and Roger Lechmere, his brother," informs them of his restoration to his bishopric, and of his determi- nation to regain the Bushley property. " I would that ye did order all things at Rydmarley and Bushley at your pleasure, not suffering Sheepshead or Shipside to be any medler there, or to sell or carry away anything from thence, and I trust, at your coming up now at the Parliament, I shall so handle both the said Sheepshead and the other 20O WORCESTER. Calvesheads, that they shall perceive their sweet shall not be without sour sauce." The virulent letter is characteristic of the writer. It proves, too, that his connexion with the Lechmere family still continued. A change came over the family in the civil war. The same house which was the patron of Bonner was a shelter for Baxter's brother, after his departure from Upton-on-Severn, at the restoration. A Bill, in pursuance of Bonner's threat, was brought into Parliament to make void all leases granted by the married clergy. But it did not become law, and the Carrs remained at Bushley till the end of their lease, in 1652. Bushley was curiously connected with the reformed faith. One Edward Tyndall, brother of William Tyndall the Reformer, lived in the parish at Pull Court, which he held on a lease granted to the abbey of Tewkesbury. Bishop Stokesley, in a letter speaks of him as " Brother to the arch heretic." He appears never to have quarrelled openly with the abbey, of which, indeed, he was the steward. In his will he leaves to the parish priest of Tewkesbury, in addition to his " best bow and bowcase," his books by famous heretical teachers, Calom and Pellican. Again, a Mr. Stratford, of Bushley, married a grand- daughter of Mr. William Tracy, of Toddington, who died under so strong suspicion of heresy, that his body was exhumed and burnt. The families of Tyndall and Ridley, and Carr and Shipside, must have formed a strong party inclined to Protestantism in this corner of the diocese. But the season of persecution passed away from MARY AND ELIZABETH. 20I the diocese. Fuller says, " The Dioceses of Oxford, Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester, under their respective bishops, Robert King, James Brook, Robert Parfew, and Richard Pates, enjoyed much quiet." Possibly in this diocese, the quietness was in part owing to the bishop. He was a learned man, of a peaceable disposition, zealous in the faith, but always against inflicting corporal punishment on such as were opposed to him in religion. On the accession of Elizabeth he was deposed and im- prisoned for a short time, and then went abroad, had a seat at the council of Trent, and died at Louvain. The first of the Elizabethan bishops was a man of considerable influence. Edwin Sandys was descended from the ancient family of the Sandyses, belonging to St. Bees, in Cumberland. He had been master of Catherine Hall and vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge. Perhaps on account of his avowed sympathy with the Reformation, he had been selected by the Duke of Northumberland to preach a sermon before him, when he came to Cambridge after the death of Edward VI., in his unsuccessful attempt to apprehend the Lady Mary. It was a delicate and perilous task ; but Sandys acquitted himself so warily, that no serious consequences followed. He was taken prisoner, however, by the soldiers of Queen Mary, when Northumberland fled. Fuller says : " Dr. Sandys, hearing the bell ring, went, according to his custom and office, attended with the beadles, into the Regent house, and sat down in the chair according to his place. In cometh Master 202 WORCESTER. Mitch, with a rabble of some twenty Papists, some endeavouring to pluck him from the chair, and some the chair from him. The doctor, being a man of metal, grasped his dagger, and probably had despatched some of them, had not Dr. Bell and Dr. Ely the, by their prayers and entreaties, persuaded him to patience." He was then spoiled of his goods, and sent prisoner to London. If he had not been so " wary " in his sermon, worse things would have happened. He was permitted to escape to Germany, where he remained till Mary's death. Honour and promotion were in store for him on his return. He was added to the commission for the revision of the Prayer-book, though, appa- rently, not one of the original members, and, in i559j was appointed to the bishopric of Worcester. The parochial clergy were generally tranquil, not vehement partisans of either side, and disposed to accept, with at least outward acquiescence, whatever charges were imposed by authority. A curious instance is found in the records of Newbold Pacey. The register, which begins in 1554, notes that John Puncheon, the vicar, was there in place of Mr. Hilton, who had to leave the place because he was a protestant and married, and who died three years later in Oxfordshire. Mr. Puncheon was, pre- sumably, well disposed to the Roman party ; never- theless he accepted the order of things under Elizabeth ♦.quietly ; he held the incumbency for forty years, till 1593. But there were other elements of disquiet in the diocese, and with these Sandys soon came into collision. Sandys was "a man of metal," as Fuller MARY AND ELIZABETH. 203 terms it, fiery in temper, and of imprudent readiness with his dagger. His first duty was a visitation as commissary for Archbishop Parker ; this was intended to effect the demolition of the images^ replaced in the cathedral and in some of the parish churches during the reign of Mary. Some of these were burnt by his orders in the cathedral yard, possibly including some of the old images, which may have been hidden from the iconoclastic fury of 1538 and 1548, and brought out again during the reign of Mary. Another unpleasant duty was to eradicate the papal element in the dio- cese, which was strong enough to threaten the stability of the throne. Sandys complains bitterly of the strength of the Roman party. INIany of the county magistrates had not signed the profession of con- formity. Some had gone out of the country to avoid signing ; others had signed with their hands, but not with their hearts, nor with any intention of performing the obligations which it entailed. More severe measures were adopted with the recusants who held office in the Church. Robert Shaw, a pre- bendary, was ordered to be confined within the county of Salop. Two other prebendaries, Thomas Arden and WiUiam Northfolk, hid themselves to avoid having process served upon them. Certain " unlearned and stubborn priests, late of the diocese of Worcester," were put under restraint. Henry Johnson, late parson of Broadmas, was ordered to remain in the county of Hereford ; Robert Shel- merden, in Northamptonshire ; William Burton, in Oxfordshire ; and Henry Saunders, in Warwickshire. WORCESTER. Lawrence Vaux, late warden of the old church, Man- chester, was ordered to remain in Worcestershire. Great care was taken in every county to scatter all the httle groups of disaffected persons likely to form conspiracies. All this w^as necessary, if the peace of the kingdom was to be preserved. But it caused much irri- tation in the diocese against the newly-appointed bishop. His first visitation involved him also in a personal quarrel. The more zealous of the Roman Catholic laity were indignant at the new state of things. It was very grievous to them to see the endowments, given by their ancestors, in the posses- sion of a church which was to them heretical. They were aggrieved by a married clergy holding the monastic revenues, and performing services which, as they believed, could only be entrusted to hands hallowed by a vow of celibacy. " Priests' wives " were objects of their abhorrence ; the word was to them synonymous with the lowest degradation. In the letters of the time there is no feature more dis- tinctly marked than this. Among the leaders of the Roman party in the diocese was Sir John Bourne. He reconciled a firm grasp of church doctrine with a firm grasp on church property. The manor of Bat- tenhill, Prior Moore's favourite manor, had been taken from the Church at the dissolution. Other spoils fell to his lot in the general scramble for plunder. His nephew, Gilbert Bourne, who had been made bishop of Bath and Wells by Queen Mary, held a prebendal stall in the cathedral. He, too, had been noted for the warmth of his attachment MARY AND ELIZABETH. 205 to Rome, and, when preaching at St. Paul's, and asserting that Bonner, under King Edward, had been unjustly deprived, a dagger hurled at him by one of the congregation stuck into a pillar near the pulpit. Sir John, himself, was a man of mark. He was one of the secretaries of state under Queen Mary. He was not altogether unmerciful nor bigoted. He in- terfered to protect the boy Davis, when in trouble for his Bible reading. Sandys recognised his influence in the diocese, and endeavoured to con- ciliate him by courteous invitations to the palace. But at this first visitation he contrived to give him great offence. He had been informed of a stone altar in Bourne's parish church, w^hich he ordered to be pulled down and defaced. Bourne, according to one account, defied the bishop, and caused it to be removed to his own house ; his own story, however, was, that the bishop's command had been complied with, and the stone used for paving the aisle. The result was, on the part of Bourne, a determination to annoy the bishop and the cathedral body in every possible way. He made a complaint against the bishop to the privy council, heaping up random charges of every description. The bishop, he alleged, disputed the legality of Elizabeth's title to the throne ; he had taken ser- vants, whom Bourne had discharged ; he was not in his right senses, having been once " out of his wits for love." Other charges were brought against the dean and chapter. " Petty canons " were allowed to serve cures, " whereby the quire was oftentimes unserved ; they had chosen tailors and 206 WORCESTER. Others for singing-men, who served the dean and chapter, and had no other wages ; the scholars were not always elected gratis ; and divers of the almsmen were men of wealth, and did not reside in the college; they would have pulled down the great leaden steeple, and sold the lead for their own profit, if they had not been prevented by an order from the court ; the bishop would have done the same with the charnel-house, if he had not been prevented by the dean and chapter." But the bitterest accusa- tion was against the wives of the prebendaries. They had persuaded their husbands to melt the organ-pipes into dishes, and to make the case into bedsteads ; they had divided the silver-plate among themselves, and would have done so with the copes and other vestments, if they had not been prevented by the unmarried members of the chapter; they prevented their husbands from using hospitality, and sold the corn allotted to them, not in Worcester, but in the dearest market. All fines, perquisites, and profits of corn, instead of going into the chapter funds, were divided yearly, and spent on finery for the wives ; so that they were known in the town by the splendour of their garments. The indices taken at a later period show that there were some grains of truth in the medley of passionate vituperation, as regarded the dean and chapter. Sandys, however, defended himself with dignity and success. He repudiated the charge of neglect of duty. There had not been, he says, six days since first he came to Worcester but he had fre- quented common prayer, either in his own chapel MARY AND ELIZABETH. 207 or family, or in some church of his diocese; and those six days he had been confined by illness to his chamber. There was neither Sunday nor holiday, saving two only, but he had preached once, if not twice, besides visitations and week-day sermons. His answer was as complete to the other charges. Sir John's son, Antony Bourne, resorted to more vulgar annoyance. One of the prebendaries, Thomas Wilson, afterwards dean of Worcester, was peculiarly obnoxious on account of his extreme opinions. He had been sent as proctor for the dean and chapter to Westminster, in 1562-3; he had there advocated the views of the most thorough-going Protestants ; he had voted for the six articles, to abolish all holy days except those belonging to our Lord and Sundays, to compel the minister to turn his face to the people in the common prayer, to abolish the use of the cross in baptism, to leave the order for kneeling at the Holy Communion to the discretion of the ordinary, to make the sur- plice the only lawful vestment, and to prohibit the use of organs. Antony Bourne insulted Wilson's wife publicly, calling her by the most opprobrious term in his vocabulary, a priest's wife. An affray took place in a boat at the ferry over the Severn, probably at the old gatehouse below the cathedral, in which Antony and his servant grievously insulted Mrs. Airce, the wife of another of the prebendaries, and tore her dress. On one occasion. Sir John was so indignant with a servant of one of the prebendaries, who forgot to take off his cap to him in the street, that he ordered his own man to follow him into a 208 WORCESTER. shop, where he " smote him so that he was in great danger of death." Then Antony Bourne got his sword sharpened at a cutler's, and went to the bishop's palace-gates, asking, " Where be the bishop's boys ? " The bishop's manw^ent out in answer to the challenge, and there would have been a fight in the palace-yard, had it not been prevented by the bishop's bailiff. Bourne was reprimanded by the privy council, and sentenced to a short imprisonment in the Marshalsea. It is said that on this first visitation, Sandys dis- covered great immorality among the city clergy, and even mentioned it in a sermon preached in the cathedral. If true, this accounts for his making a visitation of the diocese on his own responsibility, the year after performing the same office as com- missary for the archbishop. This gave offence to Parker, who wrote an angry letter to Sandys. His grievances are various. Sandys had been over- rigorous in depriving two priests ; he had put the diocese to needless expense by his second visitation ; he had not obliged his clergy to wear a strictly canonical dress ; he had held out temporal induce- ments to get the people to church ; above all, which, probably, was the real sting of the whole letter, he was of a "Germanical nature," by residence in Germany he had contracted German tenets. Sandys replied in a dignified and temperate letter. He had deprived two clergymen, but it was necessity ; the visi- tation was strictly according to laws and injunctions ; it had remedied disorders, and, far from inflicting a tax upon the clergy for his own benefit, he had been jr^2\ out of pocket by it ; as far as he knew, his MARY AND ELIZABETH. 209 clergy dressed decently and soberly, and in accordance with the queen's injunctions ; for the sake of the soul he did not hesitate to feed the body, because without loaves the people did not follow the word ; he spent all his income, and more ; if it were not for God's work he would soon be " at a point," that, in extremity. The allusion to Germany, however, he warmly and emphatically resents, writing, as it were, with his hand upon his dagger; Germany had brought forth as many good natures as England ; some, and here is a home thrust at Parker, "that had been exiles there, had neither been big-hearted nor proud- minded, but in all simplicity had been followers of the kingdom of Christ." The dispute was hot ; but it is to the credit both of Sandys and Parker, that it does not appear to have caused any lasting interrup- tion to their mutual esteem. It did not seem likely, that Sandys would obtain promotion. His ecclesiastical views were rather those of the German than of the English school ; and the latter was in favour with the archbishop and with the queen herself Sandys says that he was nearly de- prived of his bishopric for his opposition to the restoration of crucifixes in churches. But, when the bishopric of London became vacant, in 1570, by the promotion of Grindal to York, the people clamoured for Sandys to be appointed, as " a stirring and stout man," who during his residence m London had made himself very dear to the citizens. Sandys was in doubt whether or not he was desirous to leave Wor- cester. He was not happy in his diocese. The quarrel with Bourne had caused much bitter feeling p 2IO WORCESTER. against him. He writes wearily and sadly, "this small storm," the quarrel with Bourne, " maketh many to shrink." There was no religious earnestness among the county gentlemen ; the continual changes had so unsettled them, that they only studied how to hold their religion, so as to be safe, whatever might occur. They mistrusted the stability of the present state of things. They had used him unfairly in taking his servants for soldiers, and keeping their own servants at home. Nor was his own person safe. Wales, with the border thereof, was "vehemently to be suspected," and in case of a rising, the first attack would be upon him. He wanted a body-guard for himself. The letter indicates a feeling of annoyance with the diocese, and a pressing sense of his insecurity. But he was not desirous of London. His pecuniary position would not be so good. Some new charges of " fees and fruits " had been introduced, with which he was dissatisfied. His reluctance, how- ever, was overcome, and he accepted the bishopric of London, and thence, again following Grindal, passed on to York in 1576. Sandys was of too hasty a temper, and of too obstinate a will, to find much acceptance in a diocese where the old faith had so firm a hold, especially among the leading families. But, even if he was too hot of temper, too emphatically " a man of metal," for managing a diocese which required tact and delicacy, as well as firmness and de- cision, he was a man of singularly holy life. "An excellent and painful preacher," says Fuller, " of a pious and godly life," which increased in old age. MARY AND ELIZABETH. 211 SO that, " by a great and good stride, while he had one foot in the grave he had the other in heaven." There is a letter to Bernard Gilpin, to overcome his reluctance to accept the bishopric of Carlisle, which could only have been written by a devoted man. " If you look on the Church of England with a respective [sic] eye, you cannot with a good conscience refuse the charge imposed upon you :" and the letter concludes with a solemn appeal, '•' I charge you before God, and as you shall answer to God thereon, that, setting all excuses aside, you refuse not to assist your countrie, and do service to God, to the uttermost of your power." His successor in the see was Nicholas Bullingham, a native of Worcester, translated from Lincoln. James Calfhill, dean of Booking and archdeacon of Chichester, had been appointed by the queen, but died before consecration. The translation caused some wonder, as Lincoln was the more important diocese, but Fuller observes that Wor- cester was a lesser and so an easier diocese, and a better one in income, " a warmer seat for his old age." The story of Elizabeth's visit to Wor- cester during his episcopate belongs more to the history of the city than of the diocese. Some part of the honour and expense of enter- taining her fell, as usual, upon the bishop. She was received at first at Hartlebury. On her entry into the city, she went straight to the cathedral, after the usual ceremony of an oration, pronounced in Latin by one Cristopher Fletcher, a scholar of the cathedral school, to which the queen " took a P 2 212 WORCESTER. verry good liking." She received a crimson velvet purse, containing twenty gold pieces, which probably she liked even more. After saying her prayers, she went over the cathedral, and especially ex- amined King John's tomb, and " the chapell and tombe of her dear uncle, the late Prince Arthur." Probably, not only the dean and chapter, but also the citizens of Worcester, had reason to con- gratulate themselves on the foresight which had put Arthur's "chapel in at least a decent and orderly condition for the royal inspection." Thence she went to the bishop's palace, and remained there. On Sunday she attended the cathedral service in state, riding thither in her coach. ''The Earl of Leicester followed with her led palfrey, and the people thronged the streets, crying out, " ' God save your Majestic, God save your Grace,' unto whom she, rysyng, showed herself on both sides the cotche to them, and oftentimes said, ' I thank you ; I thank you all.' " The queen sat in her " traves," or seat, at the end of the chancel next to Prince Arthur's chapel, and Bullingham, as bishop, preached the sermon. The queen remained at the palace till she went to Elmley Bredon. It must have been a costly visit to the bishop. In addition to the queen's suite, he had to entertain no less than four bishops, the bishops of Hereford, Gloucester, Lichfield and Coventry, and Rochester, each bringing a retinue of attend- ants. The excitement caused in the county, even in the little parishes, by the royal visit, is quaintly reproduced by an entry which the loyal MARY AND ELIZABETH. 213 parson of Harrington, in his enthusiasm, thought it right to enter in the parish register : " EHzabeth, the renowned queene of England, came and stayed in the bishop's Palace at Worcester the whole week." One good effect was produced by the visit. Among the preparations was an order that the citizens should clear away all " donghills or myskyns " from their premises, and " whitelyme and colour their houses with comely colours which must have been very desirable, not only for the "comely colours," but for the sweetness and wholesomeness of the town. BuUingham only retained the "warm nest" of his old age for six years. Fuller notes that in the first twenty years of Elizabeth's reign only five bishops died, but seven in the two following years. "Nicholas Bullingham," he adds, " began the breach." BuUingham was succeeded by John Whitgift, then master of Trinity College, Cambridge. His history belongs rather to Canterbury than to Worcester. Here he distinguished himself by an exemplary life, and zealously discharged his duties as a bishop, " preaching every Lord's day in his own cathedral, or in some neighbouring parish church, notwithstanding his important and incessant employments." These employments could scarcely leave him much time for his diocese. He was vice-president of the marches of Wales, which must have given him sufficient occu- pation. He was also appointed to visit the cathedrals of Hereford and Lichfield to redress abuses. His own diocese, too, must have given him trouble. Sir John Russell and Sir Henry Berkeley, like the Capulets and Montagues, came to Worcester, with a 214 WORCESTER. great following of servants and attendants, to the sessions, and nearly broke out into open warfare in the streets. It does credit to the bishop's clever management and kindly temper, that he persuaded the adherents, who numbered 400 or 500, to give up their weapons into the custody of his servants, while the principals came to an open reconciliation, and attended him to the town-hall, " hand-in-hand." Whitgift was succeeded by Edmund Freake, who was translated from Norwich. He had been bishop of Rochester, and, while holding that preferment, had been in Worcester, in attendance on Elizabeth when she paid her visit to Bullingham. He had been successively prebendary of Westminster and archdeacon of Canterbury, prebendary of Windsor, dean of Rochester and afterwards dean of Salisbury. Before his first visitation, in 1585, he issued search- ing inquiries as to the patronage of the benefices, the academical degrees of the incumbents, their residence upon their cures, and the presence in their churches of the Bible required by law. Some of the answers are curious. The vicar of Chorde Honeybourne answers, that he had in his church the Bible of the last translation, authorised by the synod of bishops, in the lesser volume. The curate of Claines answers, that they had not the Bible of the last translation, and that he did not preach in his own church, or elsewhere. The vicar of Feckenham answers, that there was in the parish church '* a fayre Bible of the large volumine and newe translacon ; " " but," he adds, " wheather it be allowed by the Synod of Bishoppes or no, I know not." He was also rector MARY AND ELIZABETH. of Ambersley ; he was not a preacher licensed ; he had been " somtyme " chaplain to Sandys, when bishop of Worcester, at which time he did preach. The conclusion is touching : — "But sithens, by reason of mine age and other infirmities, being altogetheather unable to dooe my former will therein, my sermons have bynne very bryeffe." The property of the Church in the diocese appears to have been badly managed. Whitgift complained that the rent corn of one of his two best manors, Hallow and Grimley, had been granted to Mr. Abingdon, cofferer to Mary, and that he only re- covered possession of the manors by the intercession of friends and payment of ;£soo. The same neglect had impaired the finances of the dean and chapter. Dean Wilson, whatever his merits as a theologian (he belonged to the extreme school of Protestantism), was evidently a reckless manager of the cathedral property. At an inquisition held soon after his death, in 1586, many grievous charges were brought against the chapter. They had taken advantage of the late dean's infirmities to grant unlawful leases to their friends. They had divided the stipend of the dean amongst themselves during the vacancy. They had persuaded the late dean, when almost senseless, to demise to the chapter all the dean's hay and grass, his pulse and provender for his horses, and all his wool, for lives and years, so that the present dean " is not in case to keep house in his deanery, nor to keep his gelding there, having occasion daily to ride and travel on the Church's affairs." Some of the charges were proved. Sir John Bourne 2l6 WORCESTER. had some justification for the charges, which he had brought against the chapter. The plate belonging to the cathedral had been converted, some into vessels for the Holy Communion, other portions into "saltes and cuppes of silver and gwilt for the dean and canons' hospitality." The copes and vestments were partly turned into coverings for the Communion Table, and the rest divided among the dean and prebendaries. There had been much waste in cutting down timber, which should have been for the repairs of the church. The houses of som.e of the prebendaries had been extensively repaired, while the church was suffered to fall into ruin. There was a suspicious disappearance of money from the treasury. Nothing appears to have been done, but the accounts were more strictly kept from that time. Another curious resolution orders, that, when any of the deans or prebendaries went to preach in any of the bene- fices appropriated to the cathedral, they should not receive more than 3s. 4d., if the church was within twenty miles of the cathedral, and 6s. 8d. if it was over twenty, a provision being added, that the churches must not be those of their own livings. Freake died in 1590. The see lay vacant for two years ; at the end of that time Richard Fletcher was appointed to it. He had been dean of Peterborough, and present in that capacity at the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, at Fotheringay Castle. He was then made bishop of Bristol, whence he was translated to this diocese. He held the see till January 1594-5, when he was again translated to London, where he died suddenly two years afterwards. After another MARY AND ELIZABETH. 217 interval of two years, the vacant throne was filled by Thomas Bilson. He came to the see with a great reputation for learning, and was warden of Winchester College at the time of his appointment. He held the see for a little more than a year, when he was translated to Winchester. 2l8 WORCESTER. CHAPTER XIII. CIVIL STRIFE. The opening of the seventeenth century was a time of ominous and sullen waiting, like the stillness of a summer's day when the thundercloud is about to burst. England had been guided by the watchful eye and strong hand of the great Tudor queen. The dread of the Papacy had united the various Protestant sects, acquiescing, however unwillingly, in the supre- macy of the English Church, for the sake of its championship against the common foe. But now this danger seemed less imminent. For the first time in English history the forces of religious and political fanaticism were unrestrained by any pressure from without. The wise counsellors round the throne of Elizabeth had passed away, and been replaced, for the most part, by parasites or profligates. James himself was unconsciously doing all that lay in his power to irritate the nation, by his extravagant ideas of the royal prerogative, his need of money for his favourites, and the cunning avidity which was con- tinually manifesting itself in petty encroachments and tyrannical exactions. Our own diocese shows his eagerness to grasp at church patronage. The Bishops' Registers, from the first year of James I. to the third year of Charles I., contain no record of CIVIL STRIFE. 219 episcopal institution of a canon or prebendary during the whole period. The records of the cathedral for that time merely set forth the patents, the mandates from the king, and the dates of installation, under the title " Collationes Regni." Nash gives an explanation of this, taken from a Notitia," now unfortunately lost, by John Price, who was chancellor of the diocese in 1696, to the effect that reversions of the prebends were granted by royal authority before they became vacant, and therefore, when a vacancy actually occurred, the duty of the dean and chapter was simply to install the person to whom the reversion had been granted. Undistracted by foreign war, harassed, but not coerced into submission by the king's home policy, the nation drifted on to the edge of the tempest which was to overwhelm the whole fabric both of Church and State. The manners of the time are typified by the descrip- tion in Symond's Diary of the rectory at Fladbury and its occupants. It was a "fair old stately parsonage,' with noble windows glowing with coloured glass, and rich with the heraldic bearings of the county families, Vv'hile the rector's wife was content to be seen in the village street with a milk-pail on her head. Wor- cestershire annals present us also with two attractive portraits of county gentlemen nurtured in those days on the principles of churchmanship and loyalty. The one is drawn, unconsciously, by his own pen ; the other is the reluctant testimony of a bitter, and not over-scrupulous, opponent. The diary of Mr. Townshend, of Elmley Lovett, brings the reader into 220 WORCESTER. the presence of a dignified and high-minded gentle- man, plain and downright of speech, but kindly in heart and ready to help, a shrewd magistrate, a keen observer, an earnest churchman and zealous royalist, ready to give up property and life, if necessary, in the cause, and yet without a trace of that coarse railing at his opponents, religious or political, which usually disfigures the literature of the day, whichever side it represents. Sir Ralph Clare, of Kidderminster, was Richard Baxter's chief opponent, the chief hinderer of his work, and the main cause of his removal. Yet even Baxter's virulent pen sets before us a noble and a charming portrait "An old man of great courtship and civility; — very temperate in diet, apparel, and sports ; — seldom would swear louder than ' by his troth ' ; he treated me with personal reverence and respect beyond my deserts, and we communed together wuth love and familiarity." Such men as these were the real strength and stay of Church and State? in Worcester, as in other dioceses. The more repulsive aspects of the time are also represented in the annals of the diocese. Punish- ments were rough and cruel, hastily pronounced and unmercifully executed, rather the result of the hasty and indiscriminate ferocity of fear than of deliberate justice. "The desperate remedies of urendum et secandiwi " as Sir John Harrington called them, were unsparingly applied to all diseases of the body politic. The gallows was in constant use for male offenders. Wretched women were burnt at the stake. There is a pitiful entry in Townshend's Diary concerning one Ursula Corbett, of Defford, who was burnt alive at CIVIL STRIFE. 221 Worcester for poisoning her husband " only married three weeks." A short comment of the kind-hearted writer gives a glimpse of the stern home discipline of the day, as well as of the motive of the crime. " A sad thing when parents force their children to marry against their liking." Men and women were publicly scourged, whipped at the cart's tail through the streets, exposed to painful and ignominious punishments, such as the tumbrel and the pillory, for offences which we should deem venial. Women of loose character, or who had been seduced, were dogged and harried from parish to parish, lest the consequences of their evil doings should add to the parochial burdens. Vagrants were mercilessly flogged and deported to their parishes, as if the very fabric of society could only so be preserved. An entry of 1688 in Alvechurch parish books, recording how two wretched children, aged 14 and 9 respec- tively, were "whipped according to law and sent to their own parishes," is signed by "Rice Jones, Curate." Even such relief as had of necessity to be given was made as shameful as possible to the recipients by compelling them to wear a conspicuous badge, usually a large P, with the initials of the parish. The restriction too, attempted to be placed on the increase of population by the law of Elizabeth, that no one should live in a cottage unless four acres of freehold ground were attached to it, was, at least occasionally, enforced in all its rigour. In 161 2 one William Bench, of Longdon, was "sued to outlawry," because, having a wife and seven small children, he had been allowed by a kind neighbour 222 WORCESTER. to live in "a little sheepcote," probably on the borders of Longdon marsh. During the Commonwealth, the strictness with which the law was administered appears to have been relaxed, for after the Restoration we find the magistrates at quarter sessions complaining of its frequent infringement, and ordering such cottages as had been built without regard to its provisions to be pulled down "as a great grievance." Lusty young people " who had ventured to marry without provision of such a dwelling as the law authorised were told, with a ribald jest, that they "might lie under an oke." Another class of criminals has left frequent traces in the history of the diocese. Witches were persecuted with severity, the records of their trials presenting not uncommonly the strange phenomenon, that the accused, from imbecility, or to escape, even by death, from their tormentors, or from sheer bewilderment and perplexity, or simply through a morbid imagina- tion, freely confessed their guilt. One of the entries in the Townshend Diary tells of four women executed at Worcester in 1644, two confessing and two "obsti- nate." In 1660 is an account of a woman and her daughters, and a man from Kidderminster, who were put to barbarous trials. They were flung into the Severn, when "they would not sinke," but "soared aloft," and were searched for the " teats " which were supposed to be indelible indications of Satanic inter- course, and which are said to have appeared, when the poor wretches were laid upon their backs. From some strange motive the elder daughter made a boast of her supposed powers. " It was well they were CIVIL STRIFE. 223 taken, otherwise the king would never have come backe, as it was he should die within the year as ill a death as they." Another instance of the belief in the power of witchcraft is found in the records of an extraordinary criminal trial. A widow and her two sons had been convicted, on the testimony of one of the sons, of the murder of a man, who shortly after appeared at his home again, and were hanged at Broadway. The record of the execution relates that the mother, being reputed to be a witch and to have so bewitched her sons that they could confess nothing while she lived, was executed first. Mr. Townshend may be taken as a representative of the country gentlemen, accustomed to weigh evidence, and to look with some suspicion on popular rumours. His views about witches are what might be expected. He is staggered by the weight of evi- dence ; he cannot get over the external testimony, or, above all, the confessions of the accused ; and yet, he regards the result with much mistrust, and looks upon the subject as a phenomenon at present in- explicable, but probably capable of explanation. " Many witches and sorcerers executed in Edinburgh for intercourse with the evil spirit, who appeared to them in shape of a Fox." Again, he sums up his account of the Kidderminster witches : Many great charges against them, and little proven." The class of Puritan preachers is fairly represented by Richard Baxter. About his opinions there can be no mistake. Nothing was too extraordinary for his belief. The quaint legend of the " Pied Piper of Hamelin " \vas to him an undoubted instance of Satanic malice. 224 WORCESTER. Nay, the proof was at his own doors. " Many witches," he tells us, "were lately put to death in Suffolk, whereof one,'*' he notes with a little polemical malice, " was an old reading parson." Nearer still to his own home at Kidderminster, — "I have," he writes, *'in my pos- session at this present a flintstone voided by a be- witched child at Evesham." The child, he adds, was freed from its torment \vhen the witch was executed. The existence of witches is to him a help to his belief in immortality, and a sure refutation of the atheist. He can account for Satan's dealings in the matter on logical and philosophical principles. The only thing which perplexes him is the relation in which they stand to the Roman Catholic Church. On this he is be- trayed into occasional inconsistencies. On the one hand, when he wishes to throw discredit on the Papacy, he has a legend of an abbess, to whom the devil was accustomed to bring the host from the altar through the air ; on the other, when he wants proof of the malice of the evil one, he avers that many have been cured by popish spells, pilgrimages, and ex- orcisms. Of the complicity of many of the clergy in the trials of the witches a curious proof is given in the Townshend Diary. ^ In 1660, one Joan Bibbs, of Rus- hock, who had been tied and thrown into a pool as a witch, had the boldness to bring an action against " Mr. Shaw, the parson," and recovered ;^io (lolb.) as compensation. Altogether, from Mr. Shaw and others, ;^2o was received for costs and damages. A more legitimate exercise of ecclesiastical authority in social matters is found in the frequent records of penances and excommunications. These CIVIL STRIFE. 225 were used not only against Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, but as a remedy for smaller social evils, which could scarcely be reached by law. Margaret Bache, was excommunicated in 16 14, not only as a common scold and a sower of strife and sedition among her neighbours, but on the more defi- nite charge of " misbehaving her tongue towards her mother-in-law at a visitation at Bromsgrove." Another use of excommunication is found in the records of the parish of Halesowen, in which, in 16 18, the church- wardens had to pay a fee of i2d. to the apparitor, " when wee was excommunicated for not reparing the church by a set day." The more genial aspects of the time are also repre- sented in its ecclesiastical records. Perambulations of parishes were still obser\-ed, but were losing their religious character and becoming occasions for con- viviality. The entries in the earUer records of money given on these occasions to the poor and prisoners, that they, too, might have share in the parochial festivity, diminish gradually as the tavern expenses increase. One relic of the religious element survives in a charge in the parish of St. John, in Worcester, of 3d. for gospel bushes," that is, for the bushes set up at every place where the Gospel was read. Another feature of the time was the habit of presenting preachers from another parish with a measure of wine ; whether for refreshment and con- viviality in the vestry, or to be taken home, does not appear. The usual gift was a quart of sack. But a bishop was honoured with a more liberal allowance. In the register of St. Michael's, Worcester, it is noted Q 226 WORCESTER. that the bishop of the diocese, on the occasion of his preaching, received a rundlet " of sack, at a cost of I OS., besides one quart of sack and one quart of white wine, apparently for immediate consumption. One of his chaplains was also presented with a " silk girdle," for preaching twice. The Puritan ministers seem to have been as convivial, but coarser in their tastes. In 1642 a Mr. Hackett, seemingly a Parha- mentary preacher, received 2s. 6d. in " wine, beare, and tobacco." In 1630 Mr. Tombes, probably Baxter's inveterate opponent, was presented with " wine and sugar " on his first coming to Worcester. Presents of wine were considered suitable even on days of fasting. In 1637 wine and sugar were given to the minister who preached at the cathedral on the day of humiliation ; and in 1658 a bottle of sack was given to the minister who preached and prayed on the fast day, December 27 th. Ministers appear to have been held in greater respect than lawyers, for a Serjeant Groves, " when he was pleased to give his advice to the parish," received only a quart of cider. The payment of the smaller fees due to the clergy was enforced with strictness and regularity. Pente- costals or Whitsun farthings appear in many parochial accounts. A trace of the original custom, by which they were paid to the mother-church, and not to the parochial clergy, is found in the grant of Henry VIII., which gave the Pentecostals of several parishes in the diocese to the dean and chapter of the cathedral. In some instances these were paid up to a very recent date. An entry of "saddle silver" appears in the CIVIL STRIFE. 227 accounts of St. John's parish. This payment was probably manorial rather than ecclesiastical, for per- mission to pass on horseback through some property belonging to the cathedral body. Other smaller payments to the Church are enumerated in a terrier, 1680, of the ecclesiastical revenues of the parish of Bengeworth : "Imprimis, Easter offerings, i.e.^ three pence a place for all persons whom the law looks upon as communicants; and, moreover, for each householder the smoak penny and the garden penny; for a buriall, six pence ; for christening and churching, six pence ; bees every tenth stock ; pigges every tenth or seventh ; for every cow and calf, six pence ; each milk cow, one penny." There was also pas- turage on the common for one cow, and the tithe, not only of all enclosures, but, specially, of orchards, and flax and hemp. Mention is also made of "howsling pence" in some parochial records. Some payments link the old state of things, which was passing away, with that which was now beginning. ^ At St. Helen's in Worcester the "pye bell" was rung between 12 and i on Christmas day, the passing bell was tolled when prisoners passed by, and the curfew at night. At Norton they rang a muffled peal on the 28th of December, in token of sorrow for the babes of Bethlehem, and an unmuffled peal as a thanks- giving for the escape of the infant Saviour. At Pershore and Evesham the curfew bell was rung at 8 o'clock every evening except Saturday, when it rang at 7. The meaning of the passing bell, as accepted ^ Noake's *' Notes and Queries about Worcestershire." Q 2 228 WORCESTER. at the Reformation, is illustrated by one of the queries in some articles of visitation of 1662, "Doth the parish clerk or sexton take heed to admonish the living, by the tolling of a passing bell for any that are dying, to meditate on their own deaths, and to commend the other's weak condition to the mercy of God?" Many parish churches appear to have been adapting their furniture, and, above all, their Service Books, to the requirements of the new state of things. At St. Michael's, Worcester, in 1593 the old Church Bible was sold for 7s. gd. and the old Communion Book for 3s. 46.., while, " a new fayre English Bible of the last translation authorized in the church," probably the "Bishop's Bible" of 1572, was bought for 16 shillings, and a new Communion Book for 6s. 8d. But the prices of Bibles varied. At St. Andrew's, in Worcester, in 1604, a book of "Cannons for our parson" cost i6d. and a Bible 36s. In this case the old Bible appears to have been sold for ICS. 6d. Other books were added in pro- portion to the means of the parish. An inventory taken in 1680 of the books belonging to the parish of St. Nicholas, Worcester, gives an idea of those most commonly used. In addition to an English Bible, eleven Service Books, and a Book of Homilies, the parish possessed Jewell's works, a book called Musculus, The Whole Duty of Man, four books given by Mr. Griffiths the rector, the Companion to the Altar, the Occasional Offices, a book of Canons, and " a book concerning God and the King" — besides "books for the poor." There is also CIVIL STRIFE. 229 a charge for chains and staples for the books, which appear to have been urgently required, since three copies of the "Whole Duty of Man," given to the church some years previously, had disappeared. "Musculus" was the well-known "Common Places of Christian Religion " by Wolfgang Musculus, which appears to have been a favourite in the diocese. The " Book about God and the King" it is diffi- cult to identif}-. Fox's " Martyrs " appears in some cases. Jewell's works seem to have been not only favourites with the clergy, but positively insisted on by authority. In 16 12 there is an entry in the parish of St. Peter, Worcester, for fees paid by the church- wardens in the Consistory Court, " when they were called there for not buying Jewell's works.'' The furniture of the Communion Tables varied according to the disposition of the clergy and parishioners. In 16 10 the parish of St. Andrew, Worcester, was content to spend 6s. 4^. on a Communion Table with a form : probably for the administration of the elements to seated communi- cants. In 1616 the same parish thought 6c/. sufficient cost for ''three trenchers" for the Communion Table. But it is recorded, offerings were not infrequent of decent furniture, &c.. for the sanctuary." At Evesham in 1610 "Margaret Hay hath given this Communion Table as her widow's mite, desiring all good Christians to imitate her in godly desire and love towards the church, both in life and in death." Many of these offerings disappeared in the days of the Common- wealth. The parish of St. Michael heads an inven- tory of furniture belonging to the Communion Table^ 230 WORCESTER. consisting chiefly of carpets and hangings, one flagon and one pewter pot of three pints, with the note, " All the rest of the parish goods were plundered by Cromwell's soldiers." Probably more than is generally supposed of the beauty and stateliness of the old churches had escaped the violence of the Reformation. The. Puritan mistrust of all beauty, and, worse still, the indifference of a later age, have had quite as much to do with the defacement of parish churches, as the iconoclastic zeal of the Reformers. At Evesham the grand gate- way of the abbey was still standing in 1640, and windows were still glowing with the armorial bearings of the noblest county families. iVttempts were being made to awaken church people to a sense of the beauty and reverence which are the fitting attributes of worship. The beginning of the century found the cathedral body, in spite of the occasional monitions af the bishops, in a state of disorganisation. Many of the prebendaries appear to have evaded their obliga- tions to residence. The Sunday sermons were not always preached, and the discipline of the community was relaxed. Such a state of things was not likely to escape the vigilant eye of Laud. Some " Orders " sent down in 1635 point out clearly the neglect into which the cathedral worship had fallen. Prebendaries are required to be continually resident, " as the statutes of the church require." No man is to be admitted into the choir except he is first approved for his voice and skill in singing. Hoods, square caps, and surplices are to be worn by all the ministers belonging to the church, from the dean CIVIL STRIFE. 231 downwards, whenever they are present at divine service, whether taking part in it or not. The choristers are to be "duly and diHgently catechised, which hath been too much neglected." The church- yard is to be kept in decent order, the bones of the dead not suffered to lie about, but to be decently interred. The " Capella Carnaria," which had been used as a hay-barn, is to be restored to its proper use. Doubtless, Mainwaring, the zealous royalist and churchman, dean at that time, did his utmost to carry out these orders both in their letter and in their spirit. In some respects he even went beyond them, if we may credit the statements made in a petition that was presented to Parliament by the city of Worcester in 1641. The allegations may be gathered from the reply of the dean and chapter. Some appear to have been pure inventions. These the chapter deny with some indignation. " Crosses and images we have set up none, nor are any in the cathe- dral." The deans and prebend[aries] are resident, or punished. Alms are given with due liberality, and in the city. The school is provided with an able master, and the dean knows no one guilty of putting rich men's children into poor scholars' places. No justice of the Church "hath allowed any ale-house within the sanctuary," and no tenant, "using him- self well, hath been turned out of his estate." In other respects they are obliged to bow before the coming storm. An altar-stone, set up by Main- waring, is to be removed and a " convenient table " substituted. The tapers are to be lighted without ceremony, and the reverences moderated, so that 232 WORCESTER. no offence may be given. It has always been their purpose to provide a " fayre new pulpit." On one or two points they make a stand. " The old seats were removed by the king's command, and the new ones erected in their place are costly and convenient. Burials in the church and churchyard must be mode- rated." I'he churchyard has been raised by graves above three feet wdthin the memory of man. The accusation, which seems to have most truth in it, and which is neither denied nor excused, relates to the appropriation of the school buildings. They say that they intended to convert them into a library and a pre- bendal residence. They seem to have got into some quarrel with Bishop Prideaux. The closing sentences of the answer relate to a charge brought against Tomkins, the sub-dean, who protests that he "hath no desire to offend the city " ; that he is " sorry he has lost their love " ; is most anxious to recover it by "all offices of love and courtesie"; and will carry himself with all submission, respect, and humility to the bishop of the diocese. A further conference between the chapter and the corporation gives a clear insight into what the city really wanted. The old seats are to be restored, probably to their original comfort and ugliness ; the right of burial in the church, as well as in the churchyard, is to be recognised on payment of the old fees ; the school is to be returned to the former place ; a yearly stipend of ^40 is to be allotted to the lecturer appointed by the city ; the " offended bishop *' is to have satisfaction and his consent ob- tained to the retractation of the petition ; and Mr. Tomkins " must submit." The case is probably illus- CIVIL STRIFE. trative of the selfishness and prejudice against which the Church had to strive in attempting to restore the beauty of God's house, and the reverence of worsliip. It is not clear why Prideaux took a prominent part against the cathedral clergy. It may have been a yielding to popular clamour, or the petulance and obstinacy of Mr. Tomkins or other members of the body may have forced him to take part against them. It is not safe to give implicit credence to the word " scandalous," which the Puritans apply so freely to the clergy of their time. When Baxter wished to take the place of Mr. Dance as vicar of Kidderminster, he wrote freely of him, not only as a weak and ignorant man, who preached only once a quarter," but as a frequenter of alehouses, some- times drunk." But, when afterwards confronted with Bishop Morley, and aware that he would have to give proof of his assertions, his tone was altered. Accord- ing to the bishop's account, which seems to be un- contradicted, he said then of Dance, that he was a man " of unblameable life and conversation," though not of such parts as would fit him for the care of so great a congregation." These last words reveal the weakness of the parochial clergy of the day. They were not strong in pulpit oratory. Whatever may have been their conscientiousness in the quiet dis- charge of their daily duty, in this they exhibited negligence in some cases, and incapacity in others. This excited the scornful indignation of such men as Richard Baxter in denunciations of " reading parsons." This weak point had been left unguarded. 234 WORCESTER. The work which had been done, coarsely, but vigorously, by the preaching friars, was left untouched by the Reformation. The only effort made in this way had been turned to the advantage of the enemies of the Church. The order of EHzabeth appointing " lecturers " in all cathedral churches might have been used to provide eloquent and enthusiastic preachers, bound to the Church of England with as firm a loyalty as that which held the minor orders to the Church of Rome. But jealousy, as between the regulars and seculars, and, probably, distaste of some of the lecturers appointed under the queen's order, had operated so prejudicially upon the minds of the clergy, that the lecturers appear to have been con- sidered as not only rivals, but even direct opponents, of the clergy.^ Into this work, partly from conviction of its necessity, partly because it was a way of opposing the Church successfully, the Puritan party threw all their strength. A good illustration of their position is found in the will of Mr. Rudge, of Eve- sham, who, in 1640, left money to the churchwardens of Evesham for a lecturer, to preach in the parish church every Sunday afternoon, or some day in the week. The first lecturer was to be appointed by four celebrated Nonconformist ministers of London, and his successors by four of the most " able and painful " ministers of the same city. The appoint- ment by the " Nonconformist ministers," and the re- ference to the churchwardens as holding the keys of ' Compare, for instance, " Master Holdforth " of Woodstock, in Scott's ** Kenilvvorth.'' CIVIL STRIFE. 'the pulpit of the parish church, without any notice to the vicar, are significant of the sort of lectures which Mr. Rudge desired to provide in perpetuity for the town of Evesham. It is evident that Mr. Rudge was of opinion that his lecturer would come into collision with the ruling powers. His will, therefore, provides, that if the lecture should cease in consequence of being " prohibited by authority," or otherwise, the money should go to the poor of the parish. The position thus taken by the Puritans was unwisely accepted by the bishops. Instead of endeavouring to utilise this great force for the service of the Church, they evidently regarded the lecturers as troublesome men, hostile through the very necessity of their position. They soon became so. Many among the lecturers were rude and ignorant men, who attempted to supply the want of cultured eloquence and sound learning by the passionate declamation of a fiery fanaticism. This gives a point to the answer given by the dean and chapter of Worcester to the petition of the corporation of Worcester, so far as it relates to the lecturers. They disclaim any hostility to the lecturers. " No weekly lecture was ever forbidden or discountenanced by us, as the preachers themselves testify," but, they add, " if the lecture in the cathedral may be read by some grave, learned, and godlie man, as is fit, the Church will contribute to it." The lecture here referred to was probably founded by the corporation of Worcester in 16 14 for a lec- turer to preach at the college every Sunday 236 WORCESTER. SO long as it seems good to this house."' By what authority the corporation claimed the power of appointing a preacher in the cathedral church, is not evident. The order of Elizabeth was, that the divinity lecture should be read thrice in the week by some able person at the common charge of the church, "if no spiritual living have been of old time appointed for such purpose." This scarcely co,vers the claim made by the corporation for a lecturer to be appointed and paid by them- selves. The lecture was for years a continual source of strife between the city and the cathedral. In 1636 Thornborough "certifies, that he is less troubled with Noncomformists since Mr. Wheatley of Banbury gave over his lecture at Stratford," and adds that "during this heavy visitation at Worcester" (probably the plague) he had " caused the lecturer to cease." A report of the same year from the same bishop to the Archbishop of Canterbury gives further insight into the position of the lecturers. His majesty's instructions, Thornborough reports, are care- fully observed. There are only two lecturers in the city of Worcester, and these " very comformable," and they shall continue no longer than they are so. The Sunday lecture was once held in the cathedral and removed, because the city would not sufter any prebendary to hold it. It is now held on a Sunday (he says) in one of the parish churches after cate- chising and service, ending before evening prayers in the cathedral. There were difficulties about this arrangement, for the bishop adds, that the afternoon prayers must begin early, and the catechising be CIVIL STRIFE. shortened, and the evening service in the cathedral be put back to a late hour, if space is to be found for the lecture. The Royal injunctions of 1629 provide for decent order in the deliver)- of lectures, that every lecturer should read divine service in his surplice and hood before his lecture, that the preachers should use their gowns, "not cloaks as many do," and that every lecturer appointed by a corporation should have some cure of souls, as soon as it can be procured for him, also declaring it advisable that " catechising by question and answer " should be substituted for the afternoon sermon in countr}^ parishes, ''where and whensoever there is not some great cause apparent to break this ancient and profitable order." In the beginning of the seventeenth century the episcopal throne was occupied by Babington. He was a devout man, in repute as a preacher in the quaint and cumbrous fashion of the day.^ It was popularly believed that he possessed a little book containing only three leaves, which he turned over night and morning. The first leaf was black, to remind him of God's judgment for sin ; the second was red, typifying Christ and His passion ; the third was white, to signify God's mercy through the merits of His Son in His justification. His successor, Parry, was considered a learned divine, and a preacher of unusual excellence. King James L, whatever his faults, could appreciate a ' He published sermons entitled *' Comfortable Notes on the Five Books of Moses." 238 WORCESTER. scholar and an orator, and considered Parry one of the best preachers whom he ever heard. The King of Denmark gave him a more substantial mark of appro- bation in the shape of a valuable ring after a sermon delivered in 1606. Probably the taste of James would rather approve of quaint illustration and subtle theological argument than of fervid stirring appeals to the conscience of his hearers. A far more notable person was his successor in the see. Thornborough has done himself injustice by the fantastic epitaph which he devised for himself. His name is associated rather with the idea of a dreamy alchemist, than with any energy of statesmanship or power of administration. But his alchemical studies, though probably they grew upon him, in his later years, with that fascination which they exercised in those days over the strongest minds, represent only one side of his character. He was esteemed by his contemporaries a wise and fore- seeing politician. Ireland in those days presented a problem well nigh as insoluble as in our own. Thornborough had some experience of this during his tenure of the bishopric of Limerick under Elizabeth. Sir John Harington bears testimony to his ability in this difficult position, to the integrity of his purpose, as well as to the soundness of his judg- ment. " If some others had been so willing to have opened to her majesty the disease of that country and its proper cure, it may be it would not a long time have needed those desperate remedies of secandwn et urendum^ as sharp to the surgeons, oftentimes, as to the patients." Thornborough strove to introduce CIVIL STRIFE. 239 better order into the management of the cathedral, and to reform the neglect which prevailed in the services. An urgent letter, in 1628, to the dean and chapter, reminds them of his former injunctions, im- presses on them the duties of their office, that " hospitality may be kept, and the Church better served than heretofore," and threatens to petition the king, if his monitions are any longer disregarded. It is not recorded whether any reformation followed on this appeal. The cathedral authorities continued to resist episcopal authority, till the great storm broke. The good bishop's foresight was a Cassandra's gift. He was able to forecast the tempest contained in those dark clouds, the edge of which was overspreading the horizon. Some time before his death he told Charles I. that he thought that he should survive the see itself. Many signs of trouble were looming in the diocese. We have also a ghmpse of trouble in his own family. Worcestershire has always been notable for the refuge which its great houses have afforded to sufferers for conscience's sake. Hindlip was to the fugitive Romanists, at the time of the great Plot, what Westwood was to Churchmen in the Rebellion, and Prestwood to Nonconformists at the Restoration. The Gunpowder Plot ended in the discomfiture of the conspirators. But the execution of Father Oldcorn and his associates at Redhill, though for awhile it disheartened the members of their church, in the end stimulated the fanatic zeal of its emissaries. In 1623, Worcester was made a " residence," that is, a station, in which the resident missionary was subject to no local superior. A zealous priest, named Anderson, 240 WORCESTER. was in charge in 1630, and one of his converts was, it is said, a daughter of Thornborough. The name also of one of the bishop's sons is attached to a tale of pretended conversion, ending in his infamous betrayal of the priest who, at his own urgent request, had admitted him to the communion of the Church of Rome, and who suffered in consequence a severe imprisonment. The bishop sought refuge in his alchemical studies, and in dreams of the philosopher's stone, from the political troubles which he foresaw, and from the vexations which were harassing him at home. The only relics of his studies are a work on alchemy, entitled, AiOug QeiopiKoc, and the epitaph, a puzzle for the many antiquaries, on one side, "Denarius Philosophorum, dum spire, spero," on the other, "In uno, 2^, 3^, 4°, 10, non spirans sperabo." A probable explanation is founded on the mystic phraseology of the Pythagorean philosophy. ^ The monad, the point from which all extension proceeds, indicates the first principle ; the duad, or line, as bounded by two points, extension ; the triad, surface, length and breadth; the tetrad the perfect figure; while the decad, or denarius, comprehends all that is neces- sary to perfection. The epitaph may be paraphrased thus : — " The tomb is the way to perfection. While " I live I hope for it in Him Who is the source, the "beginning, the middle, and the end of all, and " Himself perfection. Even when I live no longer, " I shall hope." Or, perhaps, the first line was meant to indicate, that his whole life had been a ' Suggested by the late Rev. O. Fox, M.A,, of Knightwick. CIVIL STRIFE. 241 Striving towards perfection ; the second, that this end could only be attained, when the Perfect One should give the clearer vision in death. Or the aged prelate meant to confess the One God in three persons, the Perfect One, as his hope here and evermore. Bishop Thornborough's successor, Dr. Prideaux, was born, as his epitaph in Bredon Church relates, of an old Devonshire family reduced in circumstances. His father was the owner of a small hereditary estate of some ^2,0 a year, but, as one of a large family, the future bishop had to carve out his own fortune. A tradition of his early life represents him as bitterly disappointed by a failure to obtain the office of parish clerk in the neighbouring village of Ugberrow. He managed to receive an education at Oxford, and there attained the position of Regius Professor of Divinity, and Rector of Exeter College. His theolo- gical views were moderate, leaning to Puritanism, but in his politics he was a zealous royalist. The test of his political principles was not long in coming. The storm was about to burst in all its fury, when he died. It found at Worcester a bishop and a cathe- dral wrangling about many things, but united in the firm bond of a passionate attachment to the throne. Dean Potter, who had succeeded Mainwar- ing in 1636, had already signahsed his loyalty by sending to the king the plate of Queen's College, Oxford, of which he was the head, declaring that he would drink, like Diogenes, out of the hollow of his hand, rather than see his majesty in want. In 1 64 1, the Parliamentary troops, under the Earl 242 WORCESTER. of Essex, entered the town, and the cathedral became a scene of savage profanity and wanton devastation. The fierce fanaticism of the Puritan soldiers was inflamed by the discovery of a number of arms destined for the king's service, secreted in the cathedral precincts by Dean Potter and one of the prebendaries. But the storm blew over. The damage done, though it became a by-word through the country, was limited to petty desecrations, and to tearing in pieces church vestments and books of service. The organ escaped through an accident to a soldier, who was about to find vent for his religious fervour by its destruction. Essex and his troops passed on to Shrewsbury, and a joyous peal of the cathedral bells welcomed the return of their bishop after an absence of eleven weeks. But this was only a lull in the storm, a short and precarious respite. The approach of the Puritan forces, in 1646, was the herald of a more thorough and complete destruction. Townshend records how, on July the 23rd, "many gentlemen" went sadly to the six o'clock morning prayers " in the college " to take farewell of the Church of England service. The organ had been taken down some days before among the taunts of the triumphant Puritans. One of the bystanders, jeering at the man who was taking it down, called out that, if he would wait a little, they would save him the trouble. To which the answer came, not to be so sure of that, for one of the troopers of Essex had already tried his hand and broken his neck in the attempt. Dr. Warmesley and Richard Baxter took occasion of a short cessation of hostilities CIVIL STRIFE. 243 to hold a conference on the abstract question, " Whether there was any difference between a church and any common place," and, after arguing for some hours, parted very good friends, " contrary to what mostly happens among polemical divines." Prideaux is frequently mentioned in the history of the siege, giving wise and moderate counsels, and endeavouring, by prudent concessions, to mitigate the most cruel consequences of the war. But with the capitulation of the city the end came. The canons were driven away and dispersed in all directions. Prideaux retired on a small weekly allowance to the house of a son-in-law at Bredon, where he lived out the brief remainder of his days in cheerful poverty. Traditions lingered long about the good old man. He was met one morning going into the village with something hidden under his cloak, and replied cheerfully, when questioned as to his errand, that he was like an ostrich living upon iron, — the burden being some household utensils which he was selling to purchase food. Dean Holdsworth retired into obscurity, and died of a broken heart, after the murder of the king. The chapter estates were sold for some 3,000. The lead from the steeple, as well as other saleable articles about the cathedral, was sold to the highest bidder. Richard Moore, an independent minister, was put in charge of such services as were performed in the cathedral. The prebendal residences were either rented to the laity, or allotted to "preachers of God's word" of various denominations, and the great wave of Puritan dreariness flowed without a break, without R 2 244 WORCESTER. one emergent island, over the whole diocese of Worcester. It must have been a time of perplexity. Many of the laity, even of those most deeply and fervently attached to the church of their fathers, thought it right not to reject the only spiritual ministrations possible to them, even though these came in an un- palatable form, and deprived of much which they valued highly. Sir Ralph Clare, though a steadfast opponent to Baxter's principles, was accustomed to attend his church once every Sunday, and allowed his family to attend the catechisings and meetings for religious instruction, though he would not come to the Holy Communion unless he could receive it kneeling. Others, in this time of trouble, deemed it a Christian duty to provide that the people should not be left in spiritual destitution, but should be taught somehow, even by intruders into the fold, and in the fashion prescribed by a law which they resented as a tyranny, and detested for the irreverence with which it handled the most holy things. A curious entry in the MS. of Mrs. Joyce Jefferies, residing near the little village of Clifton-upon-Teme, records that, in 1646, the good old lady paid for fourteen weeks a " weekly diet " of three shillings for " 3 preachers at Clifton-on-Team." She adds quaintly, as if her con- science was uneasy, and as if to set herself face to face with her motives for so acting : " I gave it out of my well-meaning to maintain a weekly lecture at Clifton-on-Team." Among the clergy, good men decided the question in different ways, and equally with the approval of their consciences. If to some, in CIVIL STRIFE. after years, it was a proud thing to tell, how they had given up all, and followed David into exile, others could write with equal self-congratulation, that they had "never gone abroad as some others," and had scarcely been absent from their flock from the day when they had become its pastors. jSIany faithful men, such as Archdeacon Hodges, at Ripple, were able to retain their posts all through the Commonwealth. At Shelsley Beauchamp, the rector, Charles Nott, not only continued at his post, but accepted the office of registrar under the Act of 1653. The signature of this " Vicar of Bray " in the register accommodates itself to the time. Up to 1646 he subscribes himself simply "cler.," for " clericus" ; during the Common- wealth he becomes only "pastor"; but immediately on the Restoration he blooms out into the full dignity of " rector." In a curious return, hereafter to be mentioned, he is described as "an able preaching minister." But not to every minister was the choice allowed. Many were ejected from personal jealousies or political rancour, who might have accepted the directory and continued in their charge. Baxter seems to admit this in his willingness, after the Restoration, to re-admit all those who had not been ejected for scandalous living or absolute incapacity. It is not clear what became of the many clergj^men who had either been ejected or who had resigned their parishes for conscience sake. In many cases they remained in the diocese, or lingered about their old parishes, ready to discharge in secret any of the church-offices which might be required at their hands. Dr. Warmestry, though he 246 WORCESTER. resigned his living of Whitchurch, in 1643, remained somewhere in the diocese, and is found in communi- cation with his old opponent, Richard Baxter, respect- ing the Worcestershire agreement. In the diary of Mrs. Joyce Jefferies are entries of offerings paid at the Holy Communion to Mr. Greene, the vicar of Clifton-on-Teme, at Easter, in 1 647-1 648, when a Parliamentary minister was in possession of the living. Two other curious entries point in the same direction. In 1647 there is an entry of the birth of a son to a cousin who resided with her, to which is added, "baptised after the New Directory; God bless him." But in the following year the kindly old lady records, upon the birth of another child, that it was baptised "on St. John's Day" according to the old ritual, at least with godfathers and godmothers, " ould Mrs. Barckly and myself, Joyce Jefferies, were gossips." Perhaps the most curious instance recorded is at Upton-on-Severn, where the ejected minister, Mr. Woodford, and his successor, a Mr. Warren, lived together in the parsonage on the most friendly terms, so that, when Mr. Warren was superseded by the authority of Parliament, the two together offered strenuous opposition to the intruder, till he was put in possession by soldiers fetched from Worcester. Here, too, the ejected minister remained in the neighbourhood ; for the parish register contains entries, inserted after his return, of marriages per- formed by him during his suspension. In many other registers there are entries, as at Fladbury, which indicate that the ejected clergymen continued their ministrations, preserving records of them in their CIVIL STRIFE. 247 private pocket-books, to be inserted when an oppor- tunity should arise. The care of the parish registers depended in great measure on the neighbouring magistrates, or the parochial authorities, and on the obedience which they were inclined to render to the Act of 1653 enjoining the appointment of registrars. In some cases this was altogether neglected. At Elmley Lovett the register contains a note from the clergy- man, on his return after the Restoration, that, ''at the beginning of the late plundering warres and un- happy jarres " he had delivered the book to the care of the churchwardens. They fulfilled their trust by locking the book up in an iron chest, where it lay undisturbed " during the wicked rebellion and usur- pation of the tyrant Cromwell." In other places the registers contain only a few entries during the period, and begin again with a statement of the reason, couched for the most part in very uncomplimentary language. In other places the registrar was regularly appointed and performed his duties with regularity. At Shelsley Beauchamp the old minister was formally appointed registrar by a neighbouring magistrate, one William Jelferies, a cousin of the Joyce Jefferies from whose diary extracts have been already given, and the register is regularly kept throughout. In the neighbouring parish of Clifton-on-Teme there is a total blank from 1647 — 1653, except a few entries afterwards inserted, with a note, that they belonged to the time when the register was " intermitted ; " but whether they were inserted by the vicar or by the Parliamentary minister, a Mr. Filer, cannot be ascer- 248 WORCESTER. tained. In 1653, a registrar, one Roger Pickering, was formally appointed by the magistrate, and the register from that time is kept in perfect order. One of the earliest entries is of a marriage by a justice of the peace. In other parishes, as at St. Martin's, in Worcester, the registrar was appointed by a parish meeting, not, as at Shelsley and Clifton-on-Terae, by a formal act before a magistrate. In this case the registers contain entries of marriages before justices of the peace, as well as of marriages performed by a Mr. Juse, the Puritan minister. It is not easy to ascertain what became of the ejected clergy, or how they were supported till the Restoration. The fifths, which were nominally allowed by Parliament, seem to have been capriciously allotted and irregularly paid. Many found refuge under the roofs of members of the flock, or received contributions from them, till better times came. Some of the most distinguished found a warm welcome in Westwood, under the kindly protection of Lady Dorothy Pakington. That well-known book, The whole Duty of Man," clearly belongs to this period, but whether the diocese can claim it as the work of this estimable lady, is a question almost as undetermined as the authorship of Eikon Basilike. In both cases the point is, whether the handwriting of a MS. may be accepted as a proof of authorship, or only of transcription from an early copy, and of intimate acquaintance with the actual author. Hearne, as is evident from many passages in his diary, was much interested in the question, and found it impossible to satisfy himself In one place CIVIL STRIFE. 249 he transcribes a note from the papers of Bishop Moore of Ely, containing a declaration, made to the bishop by a Mr. Thomas Caulton, vicar of Worksop, to the effect that " Madam Ayre," of Rampton, a daughter of Lady Dorothy Pakington, had shown him a MS. which she said was the origmal of "The whole Duty of Man," and had asserted that her mother was the author of it, but that it had been corrected by Dr. Fell. She also claimed for her mother the authorship of another work entitled "The Decay of Christian Piety." This declaration was made with some solemnity, and evidently considered of much importance, for Moore adds a note, " This I wrote from Mr. Caulton's own mouth, two days before his decease, November 15, 1698.'' Hearne, however, attached litde weight to this seemingly positive evidence, for he adds, " I am in doubt more than ever, she might transcribe and yet not be the author." In another place Hearne writes that Bishop Fell, in 1682, declared that he was the only person in England who knew who was the author of "The whole Duty of Man," and adds that the copy of the fellow work, " The Decay of Christian Piety," in the Bodleian library, is in Dr. Fell's handwriting, but disguised. Hearne, in another place, speaks of a MS. in the handwriting of Arch- bishop Sancroft, and elsewhere gives it as his own opinion that the real author was a Mr. Woodhead. It is difficult to understand why Lady Dorothy Pakington's name was brought so prominently for- ward in connexion with the book, unless she had some share in its production. She may have noted 250 WORCESTER. down with loving care the words of one or another of the GamaUels, at whose feet she sat, during their residence under the shelter of Westwood. Bishop Morley, in his controversy with Baxter, dis- tinctly charges the Puritan preachers with neglect of the Holy Communion, not only' in their private ad- ministrations to the sick and aged, but in the public services of the Church. If Mr. Baxter," he says, speaking of compulsory kneeling during the adminis- tration, "thinks it so great a punishment to be deprived of the Holy Communion, why do they deny it to so many who cannot come to church by reason of lameness or other bodily infirmity ? Why do they suffer so many parishes in England to go without it so many years together when under their charge, as I am credibly informed they have?" Probably the intruding ministers had a difficult task in many parishes, where the greater part of the population would naturally look on their services with contempt and mistrust, and on themselves with personal aversion. Cromwell appears to have been earnest in his desire that no parish in England should be left in spiritual des- titution. A curious record of his care in this matter is still extant in the report of an "Inquisition," appointed in 1653, to inquire into the spiritual condition of parishes, in the county of Worcester. The return only extends to the hundred of Doddingtree. The com- missioners excuse themselves for not extending their inquiries further, on account of the shortness of the time allowed, the badness of the weather, and the great size of the hundreds in the county. The parishes belonging to the diocese included in the report are CIVIL STRIFE. Shrawley, Astley, Doddenham, Hartley, Areley Kings, Shelsley Beauchamp, Shelsley Walsh, Cotheridge, Great Witley, Suckley, and Acton Beauchamp. The reports are business-like and succinct, and have a formal air, as if the commissioners did not look very much below the surface, probably finding the inquisi- torial task not altogether a pleasant one, nor calculated to ensure them a hearty welcome. " Shrawley," for in- stance, " is a parsonage presentative with care of souls, and William Childe is the patron thereof, and John Jordan, an able preaching minister is the present incumbent, and he supplieth the cure thereof, and he receiveth the profits to his own use, and it is worth eighty pounds in the year." Astley is in the gift of John Winford, Esq., and Samuel Bo water, a preaching minister, in chargeth ereof, and the value ;^iio. Doddenham and Knightwick are certified as "fit to be united together." Hartley is valued at ^loo in the gift of John Clent, Esq., with Hr. Thomas Clent incumbent, who being in ill health, allows a Hr. Charles Godwin, an able preaching minister, ^£20 a year to supply his cure. The allowance here made to the curate contrasts favourably with the report upon Cotheridge, which is said to be a parsonage appropriated to William Berkeley and his heirs for ever, the cure being supplied by Theophilus Cooke, who receives the meagre stipend of a year. The only parish given in the list as without a preaching minister is the hamlet of Lulsley. The curate in charge of this, one William Doughty, is said to be not a preaching minister." Hacaulay calculates that, at that period, an official 252 WORCESTER. would be well paid who received a fourth or fifth part of what would now be an adequate stipend. One parish in the diocese may be fairly taken at this time as a model of the highest Puritan ideal of parochial administration under a man of the highest ability and holiness. Richard Baxter held undisturbed rule over Kidderminster. He had received ordination at the hands of Bishop Thornborough, and had been licensed by him to teach a school at Dudley, where he preached his first sermon in the parish church. Thence he went to Bridgnorth as assistant to a Mr. William Madstard, apparently as a preacher, and with full liberty to conduct the services according to his own caprice. He tells us that he often read the Common Prayer before he preached, but never ad- ministered the Lord's Supper, never baptised a child with the sign of the cross, never wore a surplice, and never appeared in a bishop's court. From Bridgnorth he removed to Kidderminster in 1640. The circum- stances under which he undertook the charge were peculiar. Probably Mr. Dance, the vicar, was scarcely sufficient in learning or preaching for that post. He yielded to the storm, and arranged with his parish- ioners by consenting to pay ^do a year to a lecturer, whom they should appoint, whilst he should read the prayers and attend to all other parochial work. Baxter was simply a lecturer appointed by the con- gregation, and independent of the vicar, with right to use the pulpit of the parish church at his own will, but with no pastoral charge beyond that of preaching. But his ministry at that time was not popular. The country, he tells us, was devoted to the king^ and CIVIL STRIFE. scarcely disposed to give a kindly welcome to a minister whose sympathies were with the Parliament. The people, then, as ever, turbulent in disposition, and ready to resent anything like an assertion of authority, were furious at the arbitrary interference of the Puritan party with their rights and privileges. Doubtless the friends of the old vicar were not likely to take a charitable view of Baxter's words and acts, nor to trouble themselves to remove popular mis- apprehensions. He was accused of attempting to put an end to the rough games customary at their annual fair. The anger excited by the order of Parliament to deface the emblems of the Trinity in parish churches, and to pull down the crucifixes in the public places, was vented upon him. Baxter may have been unjustly suspected in both cases, but his political and theological principles were unacceptable to the people in that time of fierce excitement, and he thought it best to fly before the storm, and to withdraw from Kidderminster for a while. For some little time he was at Gloucester and Coventry, under the protection of the Parliamentary forces. He was with them at the siege of Worcester in 1646, and held an amicable disputation with Dr. Warmestry. At the general ejection of the parish clergy- he returned to Kidderminster. According to his own statements, the terms on which he entered on his office were most generous. He says that he declined to take the place of the old vicar, or to turn him out of the vicarage. The living had been sequestrated by the Parliamentary committee, and was offered more than once to him. But he would 254 WORCESTER. only accept a stipend of ^loo a year, which seems to have been paid very irregularly, and the rent of a few rooms ''at the top of another man's house." The rest of the tithes, after deducting legal payments, and an allowance of ^£^40 to the old vicar, were to go to a Mr. Sergeant, who had been appointed " preacher," before Baxter returned. He has left ample and particular details of his ministry. Thoroughly in earnest and utterly self- denying, he imposed an iron rule upon his con- gregation. He preached once every Sunday, and once every Thursday. Every Thursday he held an evening meeting of parishioners, when one of them was called upon to repeat his sermon, — no small effort of memory considering its length and intricacy, — and another to pray, " in order to exercise them." Once a week, also, some of the younger members of the congregation, " who were not fit to pray in so great an assembly," met together and spent three hours in prayer. I'here were also meetings every Saturday night for " repeating the sermon of the former Lord's Day," and to prepare for that which was at hand. Godly women were expected not to make the birth of a child an occasion for merriment and gossiping, but a day of thanks- giving, praising God and singing psalms, yet not without some reasonable measure of sober feasting. In the early part of his ministry he adhered to the old practice of catechising in church, but afterwards two days in every week were devoted to private catechising, he and his assistant taking fourteen families between them. He was ready to baptise CIVIL STRIFE. the children of those who refused to become com- municants ; but, before doing so, he required of the father a confession of his faith, and if there was anything scandalous in his life, a public con- fession " with seeming penitence." If the father of the child was unwilling to assent to these conditions, he waited till the mother could present it; for," he adds, "I rarely found both father and mother so desti- tute of knowledge and faith, as, in a Church sense, to be incapable thereof." The words, "a seeming peni- tence," and " in a Church sense," are worth noting, as showing that Baxter was no mere impetuous zealot, but a man of shrewd common-sense, obliged to be content occasionally with outward compHance. As he was unsparing of his own labour, so his ideas of discipline for his flock were stern and rigid. This is evident, not only from his private letters of admonition, but from his public action. He was not unwilling to call the civil power to his aid. " I had three godly justices of the peace, who, to countenance our discipline, kept their meetings at the same time and place " as his own church meetings. His own council consisted not only of "four ancient godly men," who acted as deacons, but of some twenty of the laity, who attended, "without any pretence of office," to be witnesses, that no injustice was done to Church or sinners, and to overawe the offenders by their presence. Of religious liberty, as understood now, he had very little idea. The power of excom- munication, that is, of excluding the offender from his congregation, and of declining all future responsibility for him, he kept in his own hands. One George WORCESTER. Nichols is told that " he would not meddle with what is called excommunication," but that he should acquaint the Church of his sin and separation, and that he was no longer a member of the Church or of his pastoral charge, and is therefore exhorted to be present at the meeting and profess repentance. But George Nichols had a good deal to say for himself, and was as obstinate in his own way as Baxter himself. His answer to the summons is extant, in the following terse note : — " Sir, — Except Pearshall, your constable, will come to church and acknowledge that he has done me wrong in saying that I was drunk, I shall not appear. So I rest, your servant, George Nichols." Many of Baxter's flock gave him as much trouble as George Nichols. Sir Ralph Clare, while accepting his ministrations as inevitable, and reverencing his private character, was a firm opponent. But the populace forgot their old prejudices and listened to his earnest and practical sermons with rapt attention. The fine old parish church had to be enlarged by the building of five galleries. It is like a page out of the •'Pilgrim's Progress" to listen to Baxter's descriptions of the families, which might be heard singing psalms and repeating sermons by those who passed along the streets on the Lord's Day. In some streets there was not one poor family who did not worship God and call upon His name, and scarcely a family, even in inns and ale-houses, who had not some person who " seemed to be religious." He laments that out of 1, 800 possible communicants he had only gathered a band of some 600, but these were thoroughly in CIVIL STRIFE. 257 earnest, and willing to endure the test of a rigid dis- cipline and a searching inquiry into their private life. His ministry at Kidderminster was eminently successful in winning souls to Christ. The secret lay in a variety of causes. There was the excellence of his preaching, a new thing to Kid- derminster, and brought home by personal intercourse and frequent conferences with every member of his flock. There was the influence of his private life. His people saw him spending himself utterly for them, undertaking hard and unceasing labours on their behalf, even while sufl"ering from constant weakness of health and almost unremitting pain, like the apostle who was " in labours more abundant,'" and yet had " a thorn in the flesh," " the messenger of Satan to buffet him." He was unsparing of such slender means as he possessed. His personal in- come, aided by the jQ6o or £^0, the profit of his books, enabled him to give large alms among the poor, which, as he says simply, much reconciled them to the doctrine w'hich he taught. His own books he distributed freely ; to every poor family which was without one he gave a Bible. The most promising of the children were taken from school and sent to the Universities, where, for eight pounds a year, or ten at the most, by the help of my friends I maintained them." His knowledge of medi- cine was freely exercised in their behalf, till, partly on account of the multitude who came to him,'' partly because," as he says, " the fear of miscuring and doing any one harm, made it an intolerable burden," he procured a " godly, diligent physician " to set up a s WORCESTER. practice in the town. An incidental glimpse is given here of the condition of the times, when a town like Kidderminster could procure the presence of a medical man only by the personal influence of Baxter. One more cause contributed to his success. The weavers could set up their books against the loom, or discuss matters with one another probably as they worked ; to the disparagement of Dance, and of the very indifferent curate to whom the preaching seems to have been committed. " The advantage was, that I came to a people who never had any awakening ministry before, but a few formal, cold services from the curate ; if they had been hardened under a powerful ministry, and been sermon-proof, I should have expected less." Two documents of public interest belong to this period of Baxter's life — the Worcestershire petition and the Worcestershire agreement. The first of these was caused by a petition of officers to the council at W^hitehall in 1652, that the "unequal, troublesome, and contentious way of tithes might be taken away." Baxter discerned in it a purpose to abolish altogether the existence of a settled ministry. Therefore he procured a numerously-signed counter-petition. He speaks of thousands of signatures to a petition to be presented to Parliament by Colonel Bridges and Thomas Foley, setting forth in strong language the importance of the ministry to the spiritual and tem- poral welfare of the country, and the sin and danger which would be incurred by subverting it. This pro- duced an angry reply from George Fox, in a pamphlet entitled "The Threefold Estate of Antichrist." Baxter, CIVIL STRIFE. always eager for controversy, replied with a defence of his petition, which he caused to be distributed to each member of ParHament as he entered the House. But nothing seems to have come of it. The object of the Worcestershire agreement was to form a voluntary association of ministers in the county of Worcester for friendly intercourse, and for the maintenance of discipline in their congregations. It was founded on a peculiar basis. " It was not Episcopal, for it acknowledged no superiority among the ministers. It was not Presbyterian, for it disclaimed the exercise of authority on the part of the associated ministers, and acknowledged the right of the people to ' try and discern' the proceedings of the ministers. It was not Independent, because it recog- nised the right of ministers to act separately from, the people, acknowledged the common parochial boun- daries and accepted the magistrates' aid in certain cases." This scheme, leaving out of sight the ancient landmarks, and substituting nothing more authorita- tive than Baxter's own ideas of what a church ought to be, was characteristic of its author, but scarcely likely to win permanent approval. It attracted some attention at the time. We find Baxter's old opponent, Warmestry, in communication with him on the sub- ject. But it does not appear to have led to any practical results. Disgraceful squabbles took place at parish meetings, when the personal merits of different preachers were debated. Those who were in authority used it unsparingly. Baxter was prevented from preaching an assize sermon at Worcester by an independent s 2 26o WORCESTER. minister, Simon Moore, who had taken possession of the cathedral. The Anabaptists, and the various sects, into which they were continually dividing, were often handled, ot necessity, with unsparing severity. On no sect did the hand of the civil power fall so heavily as on the Quakers. In Worcester diocese, the chief severity was during the Commonwealth. At Evesham they were punished with an almost savage brutality. A cell is shown, twenty-two feet square and six feet high, in which (it is said) they were con- fined for fourteen weeks, the dungeon being never once cleaned out during the time, till the smell be- came so noisome even in the street, that passers-by could not endure to pause there. Their food was bread and water, passed through a hole in the wall four inches wide. In hot days some of the prisoners lay like dead men, their breath being almost stopped, and in cold nights there was neither room nor material to make a fire, nor space to walk in." Female Quakers were thrust with brutal indecency in the stocks and left there in hard frost for a day and night, and then ordered to quit the town. Cromwell and his lieutenant in charge of the county, Major General Berry, did his best to mitigate their sufferings ; some fines were rescinded and some prisoners dis- charged. The Quakers brought this trouble on themselves, by running naked through the streets of towns and villages, and by scarcely suffering a service to be con- ducted without interruption, or a minister to pass by without insult. Baxter was the object of their intense aversion. They came into his church and railed at CIVIL STRIFE. 261 him ; they followed him in ihe streets, howling after him " the day of the Lord is coming, when thou shalt perish as a deceiver." They stood under his window, crying to the people, to take heed of the priests, for they deceived their souls. Their wild threats put him in bodily fear. They came to be regarded as public pests, and were treated accordingly. 262 WORCESTER. CHAPTER XIV. THE RESTORATION. When the Puritan deluge had passed by, there was rejoicing at the cathedral. Townshend, in his MS., records that on August 31, 1660, the first service in the cathedral was performed by Mr. Richard Browne " according to ancient custom," and that on September 2, there was " a very great assembly at morning prayers by six in the morning, and by nine o'clock there appeared at prayers all the gentry, many citizens, and others numerous, and after prayers Dr. Doddeswell, a new prebend [sic], did preach the first sermon." The good old dean had passed away, worn out with persecution, and broken-hearted at the exe- cution of the king. Of the prebendaries only three had survived the hardships of the time, Giles Thorn- borough, Dr. Herbert Croft, and Nathaniel Tomkins, of whom the last had so managed his submission as not only to retain his prebendal stall, but also to be appointed to the two livings of Harvington and Upton-on-Severn, both held simultaneously with his cathedral preferment.^ The new dean, Oliver, was • a learned, devout ' Nathaniel Tomkins was a good musician. It was said of him that he could play better on the organ than on a text. His patron was Bishop Williams, of Lincoln. His father had been organist of the Chapel Royal. THE RESTORATION. 263 man, liberal, at Worcester and elsewhere, almost beyond his means, and in worldly matters successful beyond ordinary expectation, but of a melancholy temperament, and, like many of the best men of the day, saddened by the public troubles. There is a brief record of his death in the Public Intelligencer of the day. "He was strangely desirous to quit the world, though few had such temptations to stay in it." He had hved to see himself head of the college which he was bred in, and his own pupil Lord High Chancellor of England, as well as of the University of Oxford. He was installed on September 12, 1660, and died at Magdalen College, of which he was president, on October 7, 1661. "A good benefactor to his college, to which his two pre- decessors, Wilkinson and Goodwin, who were thrust in by the Parliament and Oliver for their saintship and zeal for the blessed cause^ gave not a farthing, but raked and scraped all that they could get thence, as the rest of the saints then did in the University." On October 27th of the same year, Townshend records another ceremony. Dr. Warmestry, the new denn, was brought into the cathedral precincts with an escort of 100 horse : The clergy stood ready to receive him in the city, and forty king's scholars at the college gates. He alighted at his house, the deanery, put on his robes, and the prebends [sic] and quire met him in the cloisters and sang Te Deum." Dean Warmestry was connected with the city and the diocese. He was a Worcester man by birth, son of a Gervase Warmestry, registrar to the dean and chapter. He had taken part with the royalists 264 WORCESTER. in the last siege, and had friendly debate with Baxter about the holiness of churches during one of the intervals of war. He combined a thorough loyalty to Church and king with some leaning to a wider comprehension in the Church. He had been driven from all his preferments at the rebellion and forced to shelter himself in London. His name is recorded among the signatures to the attempt made by Baxter to found a church on the broadest basis, known as the "Worcestershire Agreement." He also was zealous for the " Propagation of the Gospel," as it was understood in those days. His name occurs in connexion with the baptism of Dandolo, a converted Turk, who attracted much attention at the time, and of whom he published a memoir "with a picture of the said Dandolo in a Turkish habit." His name occurs again in 1664, as baptising at the Savoy a converted Jew, named Isaac Gomer, whose con- version had been of interest in high quarters. The godfathers were Sir Charles Berkley, comptroller to his majesty's household, and William Coventry, Esq., secretary to his highness the Duke of York. The godmother was Lady Carteret, wife of Sir George Carteret, vice-chamberlain of his majesty's household. The names of the godfathers, both apparently be- longing to Worcestershire families, suggest that the conversion was mainly due to Warmestry himself All the zeal, ability, and personal influence of the new dean were needed for his own cathedral. The fabric was well-nigh a wreck. "Hardly ;2^io,ooo," writes Townshend, "will put the fabric in such order as it was before the Civil Wars." There THE RESTORATION. were troubles also in the management of their estates. The records of the cathedral show that the dean and chapter of Worcester had their full share in the difficulties with which, as Clarendon relates, all the cathedrals found themselves face to face at the Restoration. Old church tenants, who had been com- pelled to re-purchase their rights from the Parlia- ment or to sell at any price, expected that they should be recompensed for the conscientious loyalty which had forbidden them to buy the rights of the Church. Those in possession cried out that it would be a gross injustice that they should lose the money which they had disbursed on the faith of the Govern- ment which then was. It was well-nigh impossible to listen to the former claims. The dilapidated fabrics of the cathedrals peremptorily demanded immediate supplies for their repair. The sufferings which had been endured for fidelity to Church and king did not always prevail for mitigation of fines, while "purchasers who offered more money did not fare the worse for the villanies they had committed." Nor could the dean and chapter satisfy many, who had local clamis upon them, by presenting them to the minor offices connected with the cathedral, because, by urgent request or positive mandate of the king, these were given to old royalist soldiers or other sufferers in the cause, whose appeals for com- pensation could not be denied. They were com- pelled to pay many claims which they considered very questionable. Barnabas Oley, the treasurer, has expressed his dissatisfaction in quaint notes ap- pended to many of the items. " Mrs. Smith, who 266 WORCESTER. said that arreres were due to her husband before the warres, ;^5. Mr. Jackman, vicar of Sedgeberrow, which he pretendeth to be due, ^os. Thomas Stallard, for communion wine, unj^aid [as he says] in ye years 1642-3, ^^4. 9s." Even the scholars in the cathedral school brought in sm.all claims, v/hich it was impossible to check. "Given to Ann Williams y* pretended pay due to her son as king's scholar, 7s." The dean and chapter set themselves manfully to their task. They were fortunate in a treasurer, at once an ardent churchman and an energetic man of business. Barnabas Oley had been president of Clare Hall, Cambridge, "which University," says his biographer, " never bred a person of more learning, accompanied with so great modesty, and such an exemplary holiness of life."^ He must also have had some humour and even eccentricity in his character. An increase of income, which he gave out of his own private means to the poor living of Kirkthorp, in Yorkshire, where he was born, was accompanied with the conditions that "the vicar should not smoke tobacco, nor wear a periwig, nor go often to the town of Wakefield." Both before and after the rebellion he was vicar of Great Gransden, in Huntingdonshire, to which parish he was a liberal benefactor. He also for a short time held the archdeaconry of Ely with his other appointments ; this, however, he soon resigned, "on the ground of humility," "as not deeming himself sufficient for so great an office." The energy which he threw into the work of cathedral See, the "Life of George Herbert. THE RESTORATION. 267 restoration is shown by his accounts. They record even an expenditure of 6d. for mats "to keep the stones from bruising." The entries, too, of his per- sonal expenses in journeys undertaken for the pur- chase of materials on the most favourable terms, testify to his activity and to the care with which he husbanded the resources of the cathedral. He had a long tenure of office, retaining his prebendal stall till his death in 1685. One of the first things to engage the attention of the dean and chapter was the replacement of the vessels and other requisites for the Holy Communion. These were provided liberally. Two Common Prayer Books, in folio, cost ;£^. 17s. Qd. A set of " printed song books," for the choir, ;^i2. 15s. 6d. The bishop apparently presented a great Bible, for a fee of 5d. was given to the servant who brought it. A Prayer Book for Tucker, the precentor, cost IIS. j and two books for "ye Communion table," Cushions and furniture for the Comm.union table and chair were purchased at the expenditure of ^56. los., to which must be added ;£2>- 1^- 14 yards of " Kidderminster stuff," and ;£6. 15s. for making up the velvet cloth which "the bishop sent back," possibly some which had been used at his in- stallation, and which he had claimed as his perquisite. Two " silver verges " cost ; " one bason and two flaggons," for the Holy Communion, ;£io7. 9s. 7d; and the gilding of a basin, two flagons, and a can- dlestick, £^6. Probably a "Mr. Baldwin," who repainted the King's Arms, was a zealous loyalist, to whom the task itself was a . sufficient reward, for 268 WORCESTER. we find that he received ^o. os. od., while his ser- vant was rewarded with one shiUing. The accounts prove that contracts, even for works on so grand a scale as this, were unknown in those days. Eleven labourers who "wrought seven days in six, came early and wrought late," received ;^3. 8s. Five pounds were paid to three surgeons who attended a man who was slain, and on another injured by a fall from a cradle in the south aisle, and £i for the funeral of the man killed. Alto- gether, Oley records the sum of ^1,507. 13s. 2d. as having passed through his hands in 1661, and ^1,303. 14s. 5d. in 1662. A few years later the chapter return, in answer to articles in the bishop's visitation, that they had spent above ^6,000 on cathedral repairs: a sum equivalent to some ^30,000 in the present day. This large sum had been raised in various ways. The first step of the dean and chapter had been to borrow ^(^S^o upon their reve- nues. This was supplemented by liberal contribu- tions. Lord Coventry gave ^500, the bishop ^100, while a contribution of ^50 came from Berkshire, through the hands of Fell, the dean of Christ Church. No contributions are recorded from Charles II. The king wrote to the dean and chapter, to " improve " their tenants' rents, so as to spend more on the repairs of the cathedral, and to advance the stipends of the choirmen to ^16 or^2o. The restored chapter showed that they were not forgetful of Thornborough's exhortation to hospi- tality. The audit feast of 1662 was memorable. Men were sent round the city to invite the resi- THE RESTORATION. 269 dents. A man and horse posted about the county to summon Lord Coventry, Sir Rowland Berkeley, and a host of county magnates, among whom stout Sir Ralph Clare was not forgotten. The fare provided was sumptuous. A dozen and a half of " marybones " cost 5s. 8d. ; "braune," and all the charge of him, 8s. ; samphire, 4d. ; twenty-seven stone of beef, jQ-^. 13s. 3d. ; two sheep, £,2 ; one veal, ;£i ; one pork, i8s. There were seventy- eight "beate of coks and partrige," one brace of " pheysants," and "foure quist" or wood-pigeons. There is no entry of sea-fish, except " a lyng and haberdine," probably salted ; but there were perch, tench, salmon, flounders, eels, and " a greene fish." There was also a keg of " sturgin " or caviare, and 6 lb. of " sosingers." This exuberance of hospitality was curtailed on future occasions. A resolution was passed limiting the expenses of the audit feast to ;£"5o, " till the church was out of debt." The importance of keeping up the succession of bishops had been much in the mind of the king and his wisest councillors during his exile. Clarendon's correspondence gives various schemes proposed for providing titular occupants of the sees at the death of the existing prelates. Clarendon was scandalised by the eager rivalry with which the competitors pressed their claims. " If I could help it," he writes, " if the king were at Whitehall to-morrow, he should never prefer any man in the Church that sought it. And I think that I have reason to believe that the king is of the same mind." Especially these jealousies had been excited in regard 270 WORCESTER. to Worcester. It had been destined, most worthily, for the pious and learned Hammond ; but the objection had been raised that "it was not right to raise a Presbyter to so noble a see." Clarendon does not say from whom the objection came, only that " the objector must be of age to remember that he who was last bishop of Worcester was never bishop of any other place." Bishop Kennett, in his note on the passage, alleges that Robert Skinner, then bishop of Oxford, was the objector, and that he had an eye upon W^orcester for himself ; but Kennett is occasionally spiteful. The king would have per- sisted in his purpose, had it not been prevented by the death of Hammond, in the quiet shelter, which he had found at Westwood, on April 25, 1660. Hammond's connexion with the diocese commences with his residence at Westwood in poverty and exile after the murder of the king. His time at West- wood was spent in prayer and study, in defence of the Church and of its doctrines, and, till the Act of 1655 interdicted the clergy from ministerial act, in the duties of his calling, so far as health would allow. After the passing of the Act, he relinquished his ministerial duties, not from fear for himself, but because he would not risk bringing persecution on the friends who had given him a kindly welcome. " Charity for the family where he was made him consent to admit of an expedient which secured all real duties, whilst he for a short time forbore that attendance upon the altar which was the very joy of his life.'' He was seized with a sharp and painful illness on THE RESTORATI.ON. 271 the 4th of April, 1660. On the 20th of April, being Good Friday, he received the Holy Sacrament, and again on Easter Day. On the 25th of April he passed into his rest, with the words on his lips, "Lord, make haste." All through his sufferings he clung to the devotions of the Church which he loved so well. " Let us call upon God, in the voice of His Church," was ever on his lips, when his friends, in his sharp agonies, made ejaculations of their own. If his last prayer was, as is almost certain, for the restoration of the Church and Prayer-book, the answer to it was not long delayed. He was not to see it, but it was a presage of the brighter time close at hand, that the burial-service of the Church, though still under the ban of the law, was used over his grave in the presence not only of clergy and gentry, but of "affectionate multitudes of persons of less quality," in the quiet churchyard of Hampton Lovett. The loss of Hammond was irreparable in some respects. But the diocese was fortunate in the man who was to supply the vacant post. Dr. Morley had not the fervour, the charity, the holiness, to which Hammond had attained. He was a statesman rather than a saint. But he had foresight and decision, tempered by habitual courtesy. He had been a zealous royalist when the cause of royalty seemed lost. He had continued with Charles L so long as any of his chaplains had been permitted to be with him. He had ministered to Lord Capel on the scaffold, and then left England to attend on the exiled king. He was tutor and chaplain to the Duchess of York "as soon as she was owned to be so," and laboured 272 WORCESTER. earnestly for her spiritual welfare. "Always, the day before she received, she made a voluntary confession of what she thought she had offended God in, either by omission or commission, professing her sorrow for it, and promising amendment of it ; and then, kneel ing down, she desired and received absolution in the form prescribed by the Church." He had a keen wit. "What do the Arminians hold?" is said to have been once asked him by a countr>' squire. "The best livings and deaneries in England," was the ready answer. His religious views v/ere slightly tinctured with Calvinism. His reputation stood high for gene- rosity and forbearance under provocation. " Morley will never be the richer for it," said Charles II., a shrewd judge of character, when he promoted him from Worcester to Winchester. One David Morgan, " a sad liver," had been fined for railing in church ; the bishop sent for him and gave him money to pay the fine. " He had better have had him Avhipped," is Townshend's comment. Morley was received with great joy. His recep- tion began, as he passed down the slope of Broadway hill, along what was then a steep and rugged road, and, from the little village at the foot of the hill, threw his first glance over his " noble see," over the " golden vale " of Pershore, over the fair plain in which his work was to be done. His progress was a triumphal march. The clergy flocked to welcome him. "The poor," as the chronicler quaintly ex- presses it, " (the fame of his charity having come sooner than his coach) came in great numbers begging. He gave them his blessing, and (what THE RESTORATION. some of them, perhaps, valued more) his money." " My Lord was no Presbyterian," was the general outcry, because he gave his money so liberally to the poor." At Pershore he was met by " Captain Kite's troop," who saluted him with " a volley of shot." Four miles from Worcester, Sir John Pakington, with a gallant troop of volunteers, formed the escort. At Red Hill, Lord Windsor, the Lord Lieutenant, was waiting with a great company of loyal gentlemen. The procession passed on to the cathedral city: first the clergy, two and two; then "all the Prebends [sic] of Worcester, except," the chronicler notes as a marked exception, " Mr. Reynolds," the son of the Puritan bishop of Norwich ; then Lord Windsor, with the bishop on his right hand ; and then the troops and gentlemen. The day ended with a feast at the palace, worthy the hospitality of a bishop and the generous mind of him who gave it." " In so great and promiscuous a multitude, entertained with so great plenty and affluence of meats and wine, not one person was seen intemperate, or in any way to have passed the bounds of sobriety." The shouts of welcome bad scarcely died out of the ears of the new bishop, when his attention was called to less pleasant matters. The palace was well nigh in ruins, and demanded an immediate outlay of ;^i,ooo. But the duty nearest to his hand was to institute an inquiry into the ecclesiastical position of those who held any charge of souls in the the diocese. The arrangement of the sequestrated livings, and the contending claims to the benefices, might be left to the law. It rested with the bishop T 274 WORCESTER. to ascertain that those who held them, whatever their legal title might be, had been ordained according to the order of the Church. Many of the livings in the diocese were held by men who had either received no ordination at all or only at the hands of Presbyters. One of the first measures of the new bishop was to issue articles of inquiry into the canonical quali- fications of those who held offices in the diocese. The inquiry included not only schoolmasters, but " chirurgeons." In St. Andrew's, Pershore, William Haynes is returned as practising as " chirurgeon," and Jonas Lyte as schoolmaster. Emmanuel Smith, the rector of Hartlebury, produced not only letters of orders, institution, and induction, but a licence from Bishop Thornborough to preach and to practise the medical art. Robert Jennings held the cure of Alston and Washborne in the parish of Overbury. He had received ordination as a deacon from the bishop of Oxford, but beyond that only Presbyterian ordina- tion, ''per 5^ classem presby-terii.''^ He was ^ The words evidently refer to the "classes," or courts, which under the presbyterian model were formed in different districts for administrative purposes. A number of neighbouring parishes, ordinarily between twelve and twenty, formed a "classis." The court consisted of all the ministers belonging to the district and of two or three elders from each parish (Hume, "Hist. Eng.," viii., p. 36). The ordination in this case was probably received from Holland, where the "classes" v/ere usually distinguished by numbers. In Scotland the prac- tice was to use territorial designations, as the presbytery of "Edinburgh" or of " St. Andrews." But it is probable that the numeral system may have been found more convenient in the country districts of England. THE RESTORATION. licensed to serve the cure, but not to preach or administer the sacraments. Robert Mynors, minister of Dormiston, was not in holy orders at all : he was inhibited from exercising any office of the ministry. John Mathewe, minister of St. Laurence, Evesham, alleged Presbyterian ordination : he was inhibited from preaching in Evesham. The inquiry was con- ducted with forbearance and vdih readiness to recog- nise any ordination which could be considered within the limits of the order of the Church. In one parish the bishop found himself face to face with a more able and determined foe. Richard Baxter was still at Kidderminster, and resolute, if it were possible, to retain his post. Many reasons made it equally difficult to permit him to remain or to drive him to depart. His saintly life, his eloquence, the influence which he had gained over his flock, the estimation in which he was held throughout the kingdom by moderate men, rendered interference w^ith him very difficult. There were no obvious reasons to compel his resignation. He had been canonically ordained. Though he had cast in his lot with the Puritan army at the beginning of the war, yet he had grieved bitterly for the murder of the king : " it struck me to the very heart,"' are his own words. He had spoken out his mind bravely, as was his habit, on this matter to Cromwell in the height of his power. He was prepared not merely to submit to the Restoration but to welcome it heartily. The influence which his position gave him he exer- cised honestly on the side of the king. Not only policy, but gratitude, demanded that consideration T 2 276 WORCESTER. should be shown to him. Nor did his ecclesiastical position appear irreconcilably at variance with the Church, if only discipline might be made more elastic, and boundaries more comprehensive. He had a great idea of unity and of submission to authority. He had passionately denounced the "sectaries" in the time of Cromwell. He was ready to accept episcopacy, not only as con- venient, but as the ancient order of the Church. Only it must be a "primitive episcopacy''; and of what consituted a primitive episcopacy he must be the judge. "I am satisfied," he writes, " that the apostles themselves have de jure successors in all that part of the work which is to be perpetuated or continued until now, though not in their extraordinary endowments or privileges." He declines to commit himself to any opinion on the important question, whether bishops have sole power of ordination or only a negative voice. " It would be presumption in me," he alleges, " to speak confidently, where so much has been said on both sides by many learned men." But, whatever authority was given to the bishop, must be exercised, not only nominally, but actually, in conjunction with his Presbyters. "The present pastors of the Church, though but Presbyters, are the true guides of it while the bishops are absent, and true guides, conjunctively with the bishops when they are present." To the king and his councillors Baxter's opinions appeared in no way incompatible with an acceptance of the highest dignities of the Church. They offered him the bishopric of Hereford; but he gave a pe- THE RESTORATION. 277 remptory refusal. Though desirous that a fair pro- portion of bishoprics should be filled by men of his own school, the office had no charms for him. One thing only he desired with all the energy of his pas- sionate nature. He loved Kidderminster. His work had been done there with success. His personal influence was greater there than it would be in any other place. His roots had sunk deep into the rich, tenacious soil. He asked to remain undisturbed. The first difficulty was the anomaly of his position. Dance was still legally vicar of Kidderminster, and could not be removed, except by his own consent. Baxter suggested that some promotion should be offered to the old vicar, some prebend or place of competent profit ; for I dare not mention him to any pastoral charge or place that requires preaching.'' The chancellor offered to provide an income for Dance out of his private purse, till some fitting office should be obtained. A letter to Sir Ralph Clare shows impatience that the plan could not be carried out at once. I am a little out of coun- tenance that, after the discovery of such a desire in his Majesty that Mr. Baxter should be settled at Kidderminster, and my promise to you by the king's direction that Mr. Dance should receive very punc- tually a recompense, by way of rent, upon his or your bills, charged upon my steward, Mr. Baxter hath no good fruit of this his Majesty's good inten- tions towards him, so that he hath too much reason to believe that he is not so frankly dealt with in this matter as he deserves to be." Nothing came of the negotiation. Dance was a kindly-natured man ; 278 WORCESTER. but, considering the unguarded contempt with which Baxter had habitually spoken of him, it was not likely that he should be very eager to effect an accommoda- tion. Sir Ralph Clare and Sir John Pakington were at his back, influencing him in a direction adverse to the chancellor's wishes. Nor would it have shown ordinary prudence to give up his vicarage for a pension dependent on the will of the chancellor and for an indefinite promise of promotion. Probably, too, the Court found that they had no need of Baxter. Nothing came of the attempt to procure for him the vicarage of Kidderminster. Baxter was still eager to continue in his present position on the lowest stipend allowed by law, or even with no stipend at all. The question was, whether his licence should be granted or refused. Thus the whole responsibiUty of his continuance at Kidderminster was cast upon the bishop. At first Morley was willing that he should remain, and made a promise that the licence should be granted ; but he soon changed his mind, and refused to fulfil his promise. Perhaps the influence of Sir Ralph Clare and others had been brought to bear upon him. Probably Baxter showed himself in his worst aspect at the Savoy Conference. His impatient temper, his overbearing dogmatism, his overweening self-confi- dence, his utter want of courtesy, were not likely to conciliate those in authority. Great offence, too, was given by an argument which he employed. The bishops argued, that "whatsoever book enjoineth nothing but what is in itself lawful, and by lawful authority, enjoineth nothing sinful." This proposi- THE RESTORATION. 279 tion was traversed by Baxter with the counter asser- tion that some things not evil in themselves may have accidents so evil, as may make it sin to com- mand them." "Suppose," he argues, "it never so lawful to kneel at Communion ; if it be enforced by penalty, the penalty is an accident of the command, and renders it sinful to be commanded." But the bishops pressed his argument to its logical conclu- sion, as striking at the root of all obedience to lawful authority. This was one of the reasons alleged by Morley for refusing to fulfil his promise. Baxter pleaded his right to his position, the call from the parishioners, and the work done there with accept- ance. Morley answered, that he had been simply an intruder, with no right to his position, either legal or ecclesiastical, and that the responsibihty of the appointment rested entirely with the bishop. " It is the bishop of Worcester, and not Mr. Baxter, that is pastor of Kidderminster, neither did I nor did any other bishop commit to him the care of souls in that or any other parish in the diocese." Then Baxter pleaded the promise made, to which the bishop replied that it had been forfeited when Baxter continued his ministrations, as if in defiance of authority, instead of waiting till the licence should be granted. " I had never promised to give him a licence, if he took it before I gave it him." He alleges, also, that he had discovered in arguments at the Savoy conference, and by a more attentive study of his writings, propositions destructive of all authority, which made it impossible to grant the licence. So ended the connexion of Baxter with the diocese. 28o WORCESTER. It must have terminated a little later, on St. Bartholo- mew's Day. But circumstances gave an appearance of harshness and injustice. There was much bitter- ness between Morley and Baxter at the Savoy con- ference. The bishop refused to admit Baxter to an interview, except in the presence . of Warmestry, foreseeing "what report a man of Mr. Baxter's prin- ciples and temper was like to make of what might pass between us." There was some reason in this precaution. Rigid accuracy is seldom compatible with the dangerous gift of fluency. Baxter's vehement obstinacy, and his perfect confidence that whatever he thought, or said, or did, must be right, exposed him to the danger of unintentional misrepresentation. Bishop Morley was in a false position, driven to justify a course which he knew to be inevitable, by the best arguments, which were available. Baxter's ministry for the future would have been a scene of perpetual strife and insubordination. Sir Ralph Clare did freely tell me [he writes], that if I could conform to the order and ceremonies of the Church, and preach conformity to the people, and labour to set them right, there was no one in England so fit to be there, but if I would not, there was no man so unfit for the place." His parting address to his flock was temperate, advising them " to keep to the public assemblies, and make use of such help as might be had in public, together with their private prayers." Yet he made three exceptions; when the preacher "set himself to make a holy hfe seem odious,'' or "preached heresy," or " was utterly insufficient," such as " alas I they had known to their sorrow " : a parting blow at THE RESTORATION. 281 Dance. He adds a warning " not to take every bitter reflection on themselves or others, occasioned by difference of opinion or interest, to be a sufficient cause to say that the minister preacheth against god- liness, or to withdraw themselves." A still larger elimination of the Puritan element from the diocese was at hand. Calamy gives the names of thirty-two ministers who left their cures in the diocese. But some, as Benjamin Baxter, at Upton, merely gave way to the old incumbents who had been unjustly expelled. Some were men of piety and learning, whose loss was to be deplored, and some were attached to the Church, though they could no longer minister in it. The men of the most tender conscience were the first to go. Thomas Bromwich, of Kempsey, had been over persuaded to take the declaration, but could go no further." He was " a good and quick man, who frequented the parish church with his family, received the Holy Communion, and did all things required by a lay member of the Church of England." Cooper, of Mosely, was a Hebrew scholar, who "read the Masorah and Jewish Commentaries as if they were Latin." Dr. Thomas Hill, of King's Norton, was a holy and learned man, who gave valuable books to the library at Birmingham. Richard Serjeant, of Stone, had been assistant to Baxter, who records of him, " of all the years he assisted me, I know not of any person who was against him, or accused him of doing any- thing amiss." Once, when some of the congregation, who had expected Baxter to preach, left the church when Serjeant entered the pulpit, he was bold enough 282 WORCESTER. to address them with a teUing reproof : " Friends, if you come to hear Mr. Baxter you will be disappointed, for he .is ill ; if you come to hear the Word of God, I am here to preach it." Old friendships were not in every case torn asunder. Spilsbury, of Broms- grove, a man venerable and loving, resumed his old friendship with many of the clergy, especially with Bishop Hall, whose sister he had married. White, the vicar of Kidderminster, preached a funeral sermon for Baldwin, of Chaddesley-Corbett. The son of William Kimberley, of Redmarley, became dean of Bristol. It was not with these ejected ministers as with the clergy ejected in the rebellion. Many had left other trades and occupations, on which they could now fall back. Prestwood, under the Foley family, was, to some of them, a shelter, as Westwood under the Pakingtons had been to the ejected clergy. Benjamin Baxter's old age was tended by the Lechmeres of Severn End. But poverty and distress were often the result of their unflinching obedience to the dictates of a tender conscience. Care was taken that none who were in pos- session of sequestrated livings should be ejected except by process of law, four-fifths of the income being left in the hands of the churchwardens, until the titles of the present incumbents should be legally decided. In general, as at Upton-on-Severn, the intruding ministers departed without appealing to the law. But it was a dilapidated heritage to which their successors returned. " The whole revenue of the Church," says Clarendon, "supposing, which even THE RESTORATION. 283 hardly can be imagined, it should return entirely and immediately, will hardly allow necessaries to the first incumbents by the time the churches are made fit for God's service, and the houses for man's habitation." Bishop Thomas says in a sermon in 1688, "Many rural and parochial churches hold resemblance, both by their structure and their furniture, with barns rather than with temples : windows unglazed and shattered, floors unpaved, depraved with pits ; roofs ungar- nished, even unceiled, with rudeness of profaneness ; walls defaced with gashes, liveried with cobwebs instead of tapestry." The material injuries were not so grievous as the alienated feelings of the parishioners. The closing days of many an aged clergyman coming back to his own people were saddened by the changes which he found. In many caseS; the churchwardens were averse to a restoration of order, which implied trouble, expense, and restraint. The churchwarden of the parish of Inkberrow, about 1699, James Heming, was accused of negligence in his office, " suffering many things in the church to be out of repair." The floor of the church was broken, many seats wanted repair, and were " not convenient for kneeling." The six bells newly cast were lighter than the former by 4 or 5 cwt, by the " diminution and embezzling of the metal." "So that the biggest bell is weak in sound, and cannot be heard in the remote parts of the parish on solemn occasions." The Communion carpet was torn, and there was no linen cloth to cover the elements at the time of the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The table of prohibition of marriages was 284 WORCESTER. wanting, and the locks and keys of the parish-chest defective. The churchyard was not properly fenced, nor decently kept, and much trespass by sheep and kine was permitted. The washing of the minister's surplice four times a year was not provided for, nor timely notice given of buryings and christenings. On one occasion he had "disappointed the receiving of the Communion after harvest" by not providing the bread and wine.^ He had appropriated the wine after celebration. There are other allegations. He neither sends his children nor servants to be catechised. He does not check the irreverence of the parishioners in not kneeling during Divine service. He -is rarely at church at the beginning of service. He is often at the alehouse during afternoon service, instead of coming to church to prevent the loitering and playing of youths. There are other charges of appropriating money left for charitable purposes, and of intruding himself into the office of churchwarden. Heming was deposed from his office, and the mandate to the parishioners to elect a successor was read publicly in church " immediately after the reading of the Nicene Creed." Sometimes the bickerings in the parish came from the other side. Many old incumbents, especially those who had retained their livings by compliance with Puritan ideas, had contracted careless ways, dis- tasteful to the younger members of the flock. There is a curious correspondence, of 1669, between the vicar of Hanbury, and his nephew, registrar of the ' Clearly harvest thanksgivings were customary at the time. THE RESTORATION. bishop's court at Worcester. After some recrimina- tion about other matters, the nephew goes on to the charges of slovenliness in the performance of the service. " If to be covered in the time of Divine service, to sit upon their tailes when Glory to the Father is given, or the Gospel read, — I saw one sit at the Creed, — be not slovenly, I am in fault. . . . The laws of the Church command us to stand at the Creed and Gloria Patri, custom, at the Gospel. If the Gloria Patri be not repeated at the end of every psalm, as the canon directs, the duty cannot be said to be discharged with decency." There is a further charge about " a right canonicall coate," which had been worn on "All Angels' Day." The latter passage proves the habitual observance of the festivals, even in country parishes, where the incumbent was not zealous for the discipline of the Church. The proctors sent from the diocese to the convo- cation of 1 66 1 were Dean Oliver, William Dowdeswell, proctor for the chapter. Archdeacon Hodges, Joseph Crowther, D.D., and Henry Sutton, M.A., proctors for the clergy. The chief weight of repression fell on the Quakers and Anabaptists, and in the case of the latter it was justified by the turbulence of their proceedings. The Quakers were no worse off than in the time of Cromwell. Townshend, in 1661, records that he and another justice of the peace released out of the castle jail of Worcester forty-four Quakers and fourteen Anabaptists, upon their promising to appear at the next jail delivery, and in the mean time to keep the peace. It was not only the refusal of the 286 WORCESTER. Quakers to pay tithes, which were a legal due, enforced by law, but the refusal to take off their hats in a court of justice, their persistence in carrying on their business on Sundays, and their habit of forcing themselves into congregations and proclaim- ing that the clergyman was a lying witness and a false prophet, which brought upon them the sentence of the law and the personal resentment of the magis- trates, whom they defied. Still more insolent were the Anabaptists. In 1669 a troop of them assembled at a funeral at Bromsgrove, interrupted the service, irreverently threw the corpse into the grave, and finished the service with their hats on, in spite of the efforts of the minister. In 1667 there is an account of the Quakers then in Worcester gaol ; but it is added " All which persons so committed are, by the overmuch indulgence of the late sheriff, under-sheriff, and gaoler, permitted to goe at liberty about their occasions, which we consider doth encourage them to persist in their contemptuous and incorrigible behaviour, and they are not to be found in prison unless for about an houre or a night once in six or eight weeks' time." One of the unhappy effects of the Conformity Act was apparent in the number of Nonconformist congre- gations, which it called into existence. The Puritanism which before had been a leaven within the Church, was now embodied in sects, all bitterly hostile to the Church. Two documents are in existence from which some estimate may be formed of the effect produced in the diocese. The first is a return of conventicles in Worcestershire, 1669. It is of THE RESTORATION. 287 little value, being 'fragmentary and imperfect, and evidently intended to depreciate, as far as possible, the Nonconformity which existed. St. Nicholas, Worcester, returns two conventicles, one with a congregation of two hundred every other Sunday, the other with some forty members " of all sortes." Bromsgrove has several conventicles, but with few considerable persons in them. Kington returns two Anabaptist chapels, with congregations of some twenty or thirty of the poorer classes. Pershore has three conventicles; Presbyterians, four or five hundred; In- dependents, thirty or forty ; Quakers, twelve families. But the return is of little value. A far more valuable document is preserved in a census of the diocese, 1676, by order of the bishop of London. Each parish is returned in its rural deanery. The population of the diocese is given as 43,378 ; out of whom are Papists, 727; Nonconformists, 1,533. The deanery of Worcester numbers 6,070 Conformists, against 33 Papists and 229 Nonconformists. In the city parishes the numbers stand 2,594, 24, 150. In ten parishes are neither Papists nor Nonconformists. St. Alban's, Worcester, returns 276, all Conformists; St. Nicholas, with exactly the same number of Con- formists, has 16 Papists and 19 Nonconformists; St. Andrew, the next on the list, has 300 Con- formists, no Papists, and 30 Nonconformists. The largest number of Nonconformists in any Worcester parish is 37, at All Saints, against 459 Conformists, and 3 Papists. At Bromsgrove the return stands, Con- formists, 2,000; Papists, 25; Nonconformists, 300. King's Norton, with 1,058 Conformists, returns 19 288 WORCESTER . Papists, and only 5 Nonconformists. Tardebigge appears to have been a stronghold of the Romanists, as it returns 37 Papists against 278 Conformists and 6 Nonconformists. A.t Alvechurch, in the same deanery, on the other hand, the Nonconformist element was more prominent, numbering 56 mem- bers against 209 Conformists and 3 Papists. Chaddesley Corbett has 28 Papists against 447 Con- formists and 5 Nonconformists. At Kidderminster, the numbers are. Conformists, 1,587; Papists, 8; Nonconformists, 14; as if the inhabitants had taken Baxter's parting advice, and contented themselves with the ministry of the Church. In the Pershore deanery, the centres of Nonconformity were at Eckington, and Holy Cross in Pershore, which return, respectively, 44 and 38 against 104, and 425 Conformists, there being no Papists in either parish. Evesham deanery returns only two Papists in its 18 parishes, one at Littleton and one at Broad- way, the total return being, Conformists, 2,215 ; Papists, 2 ; Nonconformists, 90. Out of the 40 parishes in Kington deanery, 13 return neither Papists nor Nonconformists, and in 28 no Papists, the largest number in any single parish being 9 at Ilmington, and 13 at Brayles, the total being. Conformists, 4,146; Papists, 40; Nonconformists, 144. The Roman Catholics were strong in the Warwick deanery, the numbers being, Conformists, 4,763 ; Papists, 381 ; Nonconformists, no. They seem also to have been scattered over the country. Only four parishes are without them, and these very small and unimportant : Snitterfeld with 173 inhabi- THE RESTORATION. 289 tants, Morton Bagot with 84, Woolferdington with 58, and Kinnerton with only 48. The greatest propor- tion of Roman Catholics to the general population is found at Arrow, where the numbers of Church people, Papists, Nonconformists, are 302, 75, 5 ; at Coughton, 331,67, o; Bidford, 526, 61, 3; Rowington, 171, 26, 4 ; and Tanworth, 400, 30, 16 : while little Norton Lindsey reckons 6 Papists against 68 Conformists and I Nonconformist; and the still smaller Weethley has 7 Papists and 2 Nonconformists against only 37 Conformists. These returns were not absolutely accurate. They would scarcely represent the entire strength of non- conformity. That they were honestly made, and with an approximation to accuracy, may be inferred from a comparison of the return from Kidderminster with Baxter's rough estimate of the population as "about 3,000 persons, of whom 1,800 or more were of age to be communicants." If a margin is left for Nonconformists, who would evade the census, and for inexactness in Baxter's calculations, the results are not very far apart. And so the diocese was at rest for a season, righting itself after the great storm, and preparing for one which was about to break upon it from an unexpected quarter. u 290 WORCESTER. CHAPTER XV, THE NONJURORS. Bishop Morley was succeeded by Gauden, pro- moted from the see of Exeter. It is not within the scope of this history to discuss his claims to' the authorship of "Icon BasiUke." It would have been better for his reputation if his letters to Clarendon with regard to his promotion had been allowed to perish. It is an instance of the injuriousness of preserving a familiar correspondence never intended to go out of the possession of the persons to whom it was addressed. The letters are those of an ambitious and disappointed man. The see of Worcester was given, in his own words, " not without much solicitation." Nor did it satisfy his idea of what was due to him. He had been urging with per- sistence his claim to the rich diocese of Winchester. Nor can it be too much for me if it fits any other man, whom I cannot think giants nor myself a pigmy." Probably all this urgency told against him, if Clarendon was in the same mind as when he wrote that " If he had his will, no preferment should be given to those who sought for it." It must have been a mortification to Gauden, when he was forced to content himself with Worcester, especially if he had ' not only received a promise of Winchester, but had THE NONJURORS. 291 even taken some steps, as if in actual possession. " Notwithstanding it was then a secret," writes Bishop Kennett, " we now know that, in expectation of this translation, the great house on Clapham Common was built, indeed, in the name of his brother. Sir Dennis, but really to be the mansion-house of the bishops of Winchester." Kennett writes of his death, " Dr. John Gauden, the forward bishop of Exeter, being disappointed of the see of Winchester, accepted that of Worcester, but in a hurry of ambition departed the loth September following." He was suspected of having been unduly compliant to the Puritans during the rebellion. Certainly he contrived to retain the living of Booking through the Common- wealth, as Archdeacon Hodges held Ripple. His name appears as preaching before the Parliament, in conjunction with Baxter and Calamy, 1660. Yet this does not account for the bitterness with which Bar- wicke speaks of him as " the false apostate Gauden," "the unhappy blemish and reproach of the sacred order." Certainly his published works give no evidence of having deserted the cause of the Church. The only trace of his episcopate here, characteristic, perhaps, of his vanity and ambition, is found in the arms of his family engraved upon the bishop's mace. His successor, John Earle, was a man of high character, who had been singled out for promotion even before the king's return. Hyde writes in 1659 of the deanery of Westminster as destined for " a person of very known and confessed merits." This Kennett refers to Earle, and the deanery was bestowed upon him immediately after the Restoration, u 2 292 WORCESTER. He had also been chosen to supply the place of any of the bishops or archbishops, prevented from attending the Savoy conference. He had a literary reputation, is credited with having translated into Latin the " Icon BasiUke," and Hooker's " Eccle- siastical Polity," and with the authorship of a clever book of " characters," entitled " Microcosmographia." He was translated to Sarum a year after his appoint- ment here. Bishop Skinner was translated from Oxford to the noble see," on which, according to Kennett, his eye had been for a long time fixed. He was an old man when he came to Worcester, and died after seven years' tenure of the see, at the age of 81. The only thing recorded of him, here, is an attempt to alter the practice of dividing the morning service into two parts. The dean and chapter give their reasons for preferring the old custom as a matter of convenience to the worshippers, and on the ground of rubrical exactness. "We do conceive that this cus- tom is conforme to the rubricke and canons of the Church, as first to the rubric before the litany, wherein it is ordered, that the litany be said or sung after morning prayers, on Sundays, &c., which words do intimate a space between morning prayer and the litany ; second, the old rubric before the communion doth necessarily imply, that there should be a distance of time between the prayers and the communion service, and the new rubric doth not direct otherwise." Bishop Skinner was convinced, and retracted his order for the alteration; — "upon experience of the former [sic] inconvenience did acknowledge his in- THE NONJURORS. advertency, and desire it might be restored to its former com'se." Walter Blandford was also translated from the see of Oxford. He was a man of literary pursuits. A MS. account of the cathedral by him is extant ; and at his death he left books of the value of ;£^o to the cathedral library, to be selected by three of the prebendaries, Dr. Thomas Lamplugh, Mr. Edward Reynolds, and Mr. Barnabas Oley. He died, after ten years' tenure of the see, at the age of 59. He had retained his fellowship at Wadham during the usurpation. His successor was a royalist of a more de- cided stamp. Bishop Fleetwood had been with Charles I, at Edgehill, and rendered good service in carrying off the young princes to a place of safety. He had been rewarded with the rectory of Sutton Coldfield, which even his near relationship to Fleet- wood, the regicide, did not enable him to retain during the Commonwealth. He became tutor to many of the nobility during their exile, especially to Charles and Esme, successively dukes of Richmond. At the Restoration he became provost of King's College, and afterwards bishop of Worcester. He was diligent as to confirmations. He held a confirmation at Evesham, on October 6th, 1676, and at the cathedral at Wor- cester, on March 27th, 1677. The large number pre- sented on those occasions from Naunton, a very small parish, indicate, either that the rite had been neglected for some time, or that the bishop was not strict with regard to age. He died in 1683, after an episcopate of eight years, at the age of 8t. 2Q4 WORCESTER. William Thomas had adhered to the cause of Church and king during the troubles. In 1644, as he was conducting public worship in the village church of his little Welsh parish, some Puritan soldiers interrupted the service, and threatened to pistol him, if he went on reading the prayer-book and praying for the queen. He quietly proceeded with the prayers. One of them snatched away the book, when the name of the queen was mentioned, and threw it at his head. Thomas continued the service with such meekness and simple earnestness, that the soldier was struck with compunction, and his companions were forced to carry him out of the church. During the rebellion, Thomas was reduced to poverty, and maintained himself by keeping a school. At the Restoration he became chaplain to the Duke of York, and accompanied him in one of the sea-fights with the Dutch. In 1665 was made dean of Worcester, and in 1678 was also presented to the bishopric of St. David's. As dean of Worcester he acquired an intimate knowledge of the reforms most needed in the cathedral. One of his first thoughts as bishop was to provide for the more effective rendering of the cathedral service. With the concurrence of dean Hickes, he procured a chapter act, that two prebendaries should be in residence every month, and that two at least should be always present at the Holy Communion. The duty which he enforced on others he was careful in per- forming himself As long as his health would permit, he was unfailing in his attendance at the six o'clock morning service in the cathedral. He was also con- stant in preaching, notwithstanding feeble health and a THE NONJURORS. weak voice. His sermons, though quaint and fantastic, after the fashion of the time, are notable for their unaffected fervour. He ordered that the money usually devoted to the entertainment of the bishop should henceforward be spent in the purchase of books for the cathedral library. Inexpensive himself in his habits, he discharged to the full the duties of hospitality demanded by his station. The gentry of the county found a hearty welcome to his table, he being always of opinion that, in order to amend the morals of the people, the first step was to gain their acquaintance and affection." Sir John Pakington presented him to the living of Hampton Lovett, "that he might enjoy more of his society." It is an illustration of what was thought of pluralities in those days, that Sir John Pakington should have offered, and the dean, being also bishop of St. David's, should have accepted, additional pre- ferment, simply on the plea of social intercourse. He was mindful of hospitality to the poor. Food was provided for the destitute at the palace-door, and pro- visions were sent twice a week to the prisoners in the gaol. When taxed with this profuse hospitality, and with neglecting his own family, his reply was : " No bishop or priest ought to enrich himself or raise his family out of the revenues of the Church : the sacred councils forbade it." One of the prebendaries had been speaking too warmly in a chapter. The dean rebuked him gently with the words, " Brother, brother, God grant you more patience:" to which the reply was, " Mr. Dean, Mr. Dean, God give you more passion." 296 WORCESTER. His latter days were passed in troublous times. Loyalty to Church and king had been characteristic of his early life. His allegiance to the king was to be severely tested, when the two watchwords appeared adverse to each other. If any personal feeling could have alienated him from the cause of royalty, it would have been the treatment which he met with from James II., during that monarch's visit to Worcester. The king had been received with ceremony and loyalty by the corporation and the cathedral clergy. The next morning he performed the office of touching for the king's evil in the cathedral, but in the evening, it being St. Bartholomew's Day, he went in state to the Roman Catholic chapel. The mayor and cor- poration were loyal enough to attend him to tlie door, but no farther. " I think, your Majesty, we have gone almost far enough already," was the bold answer of one of them, when they Avere pressed to enter. The corporation devoted the interval to refreshments " at a neighbouring inn. But the good bishop must have been sad when he saw the king, whom he had loved so well, turning away from the cathedral. Greater vexation was in store for him. The bishop entertained the king on his return from chapel with a costly banquet. When he was about to say the grace at his own table, the king interrupted him with the remark that his own chaplain was present. The bishop retired with tears in his eyes. The king's attendants carried away, as his majesty's perquisite, a piece of cloth valued at ;^2 7, which the bishop had laid down for his Majesty to tread on. THE NONJURORS. 297 The old man's loyalty was proof even against a strain so severe as this. No personal offence could unsettle his allegiance. Yet this allegiance could not interfere with still higher responsibility. He refused to sanction the " Declaration for giving Liberty of Conscience," on the ground that " it was the duty of a bishop to secure his clergy from sins and perils, and not to order them to circulate a paper with which his own conscience was abundantly dissatisfied." On the other hand, he steadfastly refused the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. He writes, " a humble man submits, suspects his own judg- ment with a venerable respect for law. If startled by any constitution in Church and State, he frequently prays, seriously discourses, modestly counsels with others ; if, after all expedients, he remains dissatisfied, if he cannot swim with the stream, he will not trouble the waters." He determined to withdraw peaceably. He prepared to retire to Wolverley. But he was spared the grief of laying down his ofifice. He was stricken with sudden illness on June the 20th, 1689, and died at the palace on the 24th, in the 76th year of a loving and holy life. He had forbidden that his body should be laid within the cathedral walls, for " the church," he said, "is for the living, not for -the dead." His simple grave was dug not in the fellowship of the bishops and deans, who lie beneath the pavement of the cathedral, but in the north-east corner of the cloisters. The epitaph, he wrote for himself " The unworthy dean of Worcester, the more unworthy bishop of St. David's, and the most unworthy bishop of Worcester." His last wish was granted. He had 298 WORCESTER. written to Stillingfleet, to express an earnest hope, that he might be his successor. Stillingfleet was appointed in his stead. Bishop Thomas was fortunate in a dean like-minded with himself. Dr. Hickes was an able and earnest man. He was connected with the diocese as well as with the cathedral, having held the living of Alve- church from 1686 until his deprivation. A specimen of the vigour of his preaching, and of the fearlessness with which he spoke out his mind, is found in a sermon preached in the cathedral in 1684, on the anniversary of the Restoration, and pubHshed at the "joint and earnest" request of the mayor and aldermen. In the preface to his sermon he says, " I never saw more gravity in any public joy, or more universal temperance or sobriety in any public feasting." Dean Hickes was zealous in helping the bishop to secure the constant residence of prebendaries, and their regular attendance at Holy Communion. He promoted the welfare of the Cathedral School. He found a zealous fellow-worker in one of the preben- daries, William Hopkins, a pious and able man. Hopkins was born at Evesham in 1647. At 13 years of age, he was sent to Trinity College, Oxford, and took his M.A. degree before he was 21. In 167 1, he went to Sweden as chaplain to the ambas- sador at the Swedish Court. During his sojourn in Sweden, he applied himself to the study of "the septentrional antiquities," for which he was peculiarly qualified by " the knowledge which he had of the old English-Saxon language, and by his conversation THE NONJURORS. 299 with the Dalecarhans," "whose language," writes Dr. Hickes, " at this day differs but Uttle from the ancient Norwegian and Icelandish, commonly called the Cimbrick or Gothick tongue." He combined great liberality and hospitality with unusual frugality in his personal habits. He declined the deanery of Wor- cester, when Hickes had been deprived. One thing only provoked him to anger. He was indignant " against those who came to the cathedral as to a place of assignation, not to worship God, as was evident from their behaviour, but to profane his worship and sanctuary by such demeanour as the honour of Christianity makes me unwilling to ex- press." The Dean adds, that "some of both sexes were notoriously criminal in this respect," and that he admonished them by messages and letter, either to behave as they ought in a house of prayer, or to absent themselves, even threatening that, if the admonition were disregarded, proceedings would be taken against them in the spiritual courts. The cathedral library, at Hopkins's solicitation, was removed into the chapter-house, — "a large, beau- tiful, lightsome, and spacious room, of easie access to the infirm, and much safer for tender constitutions to spend their time in." He was zealous in raising money to buy books. " He was also wont all my time," says Dean Hickes, "to beg money for it, and, by his acquaintance with London merchants, procured books which were rare in England at easie rates from Italy, Spain, and France, which so offended our good friend, Mr. Robert Scott, of Little Britain, that he was very angry with us, and in his passion 300 WORCESTER. told me he would complain to the king, whose book- seller he had the honour to be." Hopkins left proof of his learning in two polemical works, which passed through two editions. One was entitled " Bertramn or Ratramn, wherein Monsieur Boileau's Version and notes upon Bertramn are con- sidered, and his unfair dealings in both detected." The other, one of the numerous answers to the notorious Samuel Johnson ^ and his notorious book, " Julian the Apostate," entitled "Animadversions on Mr. Johnson's Answer to Jovian."- Some tim.e before his death, he was made master of St. Oswald's hospital : the salary he devoted entirely to the hospital. He died of fever on the i8th of May, in 1700. With so zealous a coadjutor Hickes effected many changes for the better in the King's School. They wrote to the principal of Magdalen Hall that it would be an advantage to the school and to the college if the exhibitioners from Worcester school v/ere selected at a public examination, and they offered, on the part of the chapter, to provide for the examiners during their stay. It was their purpose to petition the king, to reduce the number of king's scholars, that such as were chosen might receive a more sufficient allowance. Samuel Johnson was a political writer at the time of the revolution, whose vehement assertion of extreme republican principles brought on him degradation from the priesthood and a flogging at the cart's tail. He was compensated for hi.> sufferings by William III. (See Macaulay, "Hist. England," ii., 104-108 ; iii., 382.) ^ Neither of these works is preserved in the cathedral library. THE NONJURORS. 301 Another petition was a self-denying request for " a new strict statute, to put it out of our power to grant patents to the inferior members and officers of the Church, than which, though nothing is more customary, yet nothing is more prejudicial to the government, good order, and discipline of such societies." These bold and judicious measures of reform were interrupted by the deprivation of Dean Hickes. Many efforts were made to retain him in the service of the Church. His " most beloved friend," Edmund Bohun, of Westhall Hall, in Suffolk, exerted influence and argument in vain. " About this time Dr. George Hickes, the dean of Worcester, and my most beloved friend, came up to London, and at the request of his relations I laboured hard to satisfye him, but could not, though he said he was most willing to be satisfied. By his order I wrote a short state of the affaire, and stiied it 'An Apolog>" for the Church of England in relation to the Revolution,' which I gave him to read. He said it did not satisfye him." The same paper was afterwards sent to Bancroft with the same result. Bohun adds sadly : " Thus I lost my two best and greatest friends." It would have been well, if to this brave conscien- tiousness Hickes had added the sweet and modest temper of his friend, Mr. Hopkins, or, like Bishop Thomas, had retired " without troubling the waters." But he could not bring himself to this. Before the installation of his successor, Talbot, he boldly affixed a protest to the cathedral door. For this he narrowly escaped severe punishment. An information was ordered to be laid against him by the Attorney 302 WORCESTER. General, and was only allowed to drop through the intervention of Lord Somers. After leaving Worcester, Hickes found shelter, first at Westwood, and then with Kennett, at Ambrosden. He died in obscurity in London. "Strange," it was said at the time, " that he, whose brother had been executed as concerned in Monmouth's rebellion as a Nonconformist minister, should suffer as a champion of the Nonjurors." The enforced leisure, in which the rest of his life was spent, allowed him to compile the " Thesaurus Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium," which still remains a monument of his learning. The clergy of Worcester were a loyal clergy in a pre-eminently loyal county. But in spite of their reverence and affection for their dean and bishop, they were well disposed to listen to the arguments of Lloyd, their future bishop, which were so effectual in bringing over the clergy generally to the new government. A few in the diocese were found to follow the example of their bishop and dean. Their names were Ralph Taylor, rector of Severnstoke ; Joseph Crowther, vice-prebendary and rector of Tre- dington ; Henry Panting, rector of St. Martin's, Wor- cester, and Upton-on-Severn ; John Griffith, rector of St. Nicholas, and minor canon ; Thomas Maurice, curate of Claines, and minor canon ; Thomas Roberts, rector of St. Swithin, and minor canon; Ralph Norrice, vicar of Littleton ; Samuel Sands, rector of Willoughby ; Thomas Beynon, curate of Upton-on-Severn ; Thomas Wilson, rector of Arrow ; Thomas Wilson, jun. ; Thomas Keyt, rector of THE NONJURORS. Binton; John Marsh, vicar of Compton ; John^ Worthington, curate of Offenham, and schoolmaster of Evesham. Of these fourteen four were directly connected with the cathedral, and two with Upton-on-Severn, a living in the gift of the bishop. Most of the others belonged to the Warwickshire side of the diocese, where the Roman Catholic element was strongest. To these names may be added one more, after- wards connected with the diocese. John Gibbs, rector of Gissing, in Norfolk, who had been ejected as a Nonjuror, is said to have taken up his abode in a little chamber over the north porch of Bredon church, his habit being to lie on the stairs leading up to the roodloft, " having a window at his head, so that he could lie on his narrow couch, and see the altar," till his death. With the exception of Hickes, we cannot find among the Nonjurors in this diocese any name, with which to answer Macaulay's challenge, that scarcely one can be named among the Nonjurors qualified to discuss any large question of morals or politics, or Johnson's assertion, that there was only one, Charles Leslie, who could reason. Our own Nonjurors seem to have been distinguished rather for self-will and opposition to authority, than for submissive endurance. John Griffiths, as minor canon, had been suspended for three years for a clandestine marriage with a "Mrs." Beatrice Bromley, under an invalid licence '• without banns thrice asked, to the great dishonour of God, the scandal of the Church, and the unspeak- able grief of the surviving parent of the said Mistress WORCESTER. Beatrice." In the Herbert letters is a curious glimpse of another nonjuring minor canon. Godwin Attwood writes on January 22, 1693, to complain of the audacity of "Parson Roberts, a Nonconformist" Roberts had been sent for to pray with a maid- servant, who lay sick, and to administer to her the Holy Communion. On entering the house he desired all to withdraw, and asked her how she would re- ceive. On her replying, " according to the Church of England as now^ established," he told her that his church was in the right, and, unless she would receive in his way, he would not administer the Holy Sacra- ment. At this some, who had been listening at the door, broke in and desired him to pray with her, which he refused to do, and left the house. On another occasion this same Roberts "and another brother rogue tooke one of their brethren" to be buried, and snatched the prayer-book out of the hand of the parish clergyman, and " buried the Jacobite as they thought fit." On July 29, 1690, Mr. Dowdeswell, of Pull Court, writes to Henry Herbert, to tell him the result of a foray which had been made by order of Lord Shrewsbury, probably in the apprehension of some Jacobite rising, among his nonjuring neighbours. Some were summoned to take " the new oaths and the test." One was sent to the common gaol in con- sequence of " his disrespectful behaviour." The others, on their refusal, were confined at Ledbury, with a file of musketeers for their guard. Some, who were summoned, did not attend, and warrants were issued for their apprehension. Another portion of THE NONJURORS. the letter recounts the seizure of horses, for the most part "very meane carthorses, under the vaUie of ,/J5 apiece." These, apparently, were restored to their owners when the danger of a rising had passed away. But a " saddle nag," (" about fourteen hands and an inch high, and stands fire very well ") was adjudged to be "forfeited," though the commissioners had received no authority appointing them judges. It is added, — "I forgot to mention, that the curate of Upton-on-Severn, having refused the oaths, had been committed to gaol." The "curate" was probably Beynon. Dr. Joseph Crowther was a man of greater note. During the exile of the royal family he had acted as chaplain to the Duke of York, and had officiated at his marriage with Ann Hyde, "in the night between eleven and two, according to the rites of the Church of England." As usual with the chaplains of the Duke, he had obtained quick promotion. Immediately after the Restoration he became Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, chantor and prebendary of St. .Paul's Cathedral, and rector of Tredington. In i66[, he was appointed to a pre- bendal stall in Worcester. This preferment, however,, he resigned in 1680. His other preferments he retained till his death. He was also one of the proctors for the clergy at the Convocation of i66t. He was presented to Tredington before the minister, who had possession during the Rebellion, had left it, so that for two or three Sundays Crowther preached at one end of the church and Durham at the other. Hot, hasty, and obstinate, he yet appears to have X 3o6 WORCESTER. been a genial and kind-hearted man. Tredington was a peculiar living,^ conferring a power of holding an ecclesiastical court once in three years, which Crowther exercised, to the annoyance of the Quakers, several of whom were sent by him to prison. He seems, however, to have had nothing to do with the arrest and committal of George Fox, in Tredington, ^' where," the Quaker account says, " we had a very large and precious meeting " in a barn. From Fox's son-in-law, apprehended at the same time, Crowther heard a home truth scarcely palatable. Being asked on his trial whether it was not reasonable to send Fox to gaol, when the parson of the parish had lost the greater part of the parishioners. Lower boldly answered, I have heard that the priest of the parish comes so seldom to visit his flock, — but once or twice a year to gather tithes,— that it was but charity in George Fox to visit such a forlorn and forsaken flock." Crowther made matters worse by threatening to sue Lower in the Bishop's Court, which only provoked the answer, that the whole parish would be brought in evidence. Crowther visited Fox in prison, and strove to bring him to a better way of thinking. If Crowther in his prosperity meted out hard measure to the Quakers, retribution fell on him in his old age. " In his last days," says Kennett, "he was committed prisoner to the Fleet, in London, by the endeavour of Sir Thomas Draper, because he refused to renew a corps belonging to St. Paul's Cathedral, then in pos- session of Sir Thomas, which the Doctor intended ^ Noake, " Worcester Sects," p. 255, THE NONJURORS. to wear out for the benefit of the said cathedral." Crowther may have been defying some process of law, or the real cause of his imprisonment may have been his political opinions. The Nonjuror whose memory has lingered longest in the diocese was of a different stamp. Thomas Maurice was a kindly, cheerful old man, eloquent and energetic, with pleasant manners and a handsome person, and possessed of property in Upton-on-Severn. He withdrew from his office in the Church, but still lingered under the shadow of the cathedral, attending the daily service, ever gentle and tender, loving to children, kind and genial to the few who came in contact with his quiet life, till, in his great age, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle extinguished the last hope of the exiled family, and the old man's heart \Vas broken. He was carried to the grave in the cloister by six maidens dressed in white, with rosettes of a pattern of his own choosing, and one word, " Miserrimus," was engraven on the stone. Many fanciful and pathetic legends have had their origin in the epitaph, but none perhaps have equalled in real romance the true history of the old man, cherish- ing his dream of allegiance as the one secret of his blameless life, and eager to rest in a nameless grave, if only the stone should witness by one word to his undying loyalty. His injunction was long handed down in the family, " never to be in Worcester with- out making time to go and pay their respects to the stone in the cloister." X 2 3c8 WORCESIRR. CHAPTER XVI. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Some glimpses of the work done in the diocese during this period may be obtained from the legacies left for various kinds of church work. Even in ciiy parishes, a single Sunday sermon was held sufficient by many clergymen for the requirements of their office. Provision for further spiritual instruction was frequently made by private munificence or parochial subsidies. In the accounts of St. Nicholas parish, Worcester, in 1708, is an entry of ^5 paid to the curate for a sermon " every sacramental day, in the afternoon, since Easter last." In an entry of later date, in the parish of St. IVIichael, the parsonage- house was excused from all payments, on condition that the minister should preach a sermon every Good Friday. x\nother entry allots an annual guinea to the clerk for singing a psalm " betw^een the two services "1 every Sunday. A further proof that a sermon on Good Friday n\as not regarded as a duty by the clergyman, is found in the will of Mr. Stephen Ashby, who leaves to the rector of St. Nicholas, Worcester, 20s. for preaching a sermon on Good ^ Probably between the morning prayer and the Holy Com- munion, regarded as distinct services. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 309 Friday, and adds a request that the parishioners of St. Swithin may attend the service, and that the " blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper may be administered, if there shall be a sufficient number of communicants." The daily service was desired by many. In 1746 Edward Moore, of Alvechurch, left money, partly in bread for the poor, partly for the encouragement of daily prayer in Bromsgrove Church. Catechising formed a prominent portion of the church work of the day. In 17 17, Margery Carwardine, of St. John's, Worcester, left £,20, the interest to be spent in Bibles for "the poorer sort of young people every Easter, who have best rehearsed the Catechism in the Lent before." Any money remaining was to be laid out in catechisms for the " poor children who attend the reading school.'" Phineas Jackson, of Bromyard, left the rent of some land to " the young people in the parish of Powick who can best say the Catechism at Lent." At Little Hampton John Martin left, in 1713, a yearly ;^io to ''an orthodox and pious minister" to read prayers, preach and catechise every Sunday in church, and 25 shillings for teaching poor children to read and learn the Church catechism. The same sum was left to the minister of Bengeworth, and a further residue of personal estate to the minister of Hampton. Various sums were left for sermons to be preached on the day of the testator's burial. Mr. Norton, of Claines, 172 1, was careful to provide not only a sermon, but an audience. He left 20s. to the clergy- man who should preach a sermoii on the anniversary of his burial, and 20s. to be given "in twopenny WORCESTER. household bread" to the poor who attend to hear the sermon, and the residue to clothe five poor men of the parish who usually attend church, and who come to hear the sermon. Timothy Nourse, of St. John's, in 1698, and Richard Collies, of Powick, left sums to buy clothing for the poor, on condition that the initials of the testators' names should be attached conspicuously (Mr. Noake says in "yellow cloth") to all the garments. Collies adds that, if these letters were pulled off or damaged, the faulty person " should be incapable of receiving any further benefit from the bequest. The Consistory Courts were active, not only in strictly ecclesiastical matters, but in social offences beyond the domain of civil law. John Blucke has to answer for setting up a gravestone in the church- yard at Fladbury with a " slanderouse, scandalouse, and libelouse " inscription on it. Mary Bent, of Great Witley, is summoned for practising midwifery ; and Deborah Torrent, of Stoulton, for teaching school, without licences. William Osborne, of Rushocke, and " his pretended wife," are summoned to prove their marriage or answer articles for fornication ; while from the same place Joan, the wife of Gerard Palmer, and Judith, his daughter, have to answer not only for absence from the Sacrament {sic) but for sowing dis- cord and defaming their neighbours. At Elmley Castle the wife of Thomas Leonard is excommunicated for not giving public thanks after her delivery. At Wolford John Taylor, the vicar, has to answer arti- cles for non-residence. Churchwardens come from Alcester to certify to the repair of the lichgate ; from THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 3II Aston Canteloe, to the pointing of the steeple ; and from Clent, to the setting up of their clock. From Hadzor, William Yeate is summoned for " carrying mucke with a teeme " on the Lord's Day ; and from Broughton Hackett the churchwardens have to answer a charge of seldom going to church themselves, and neglecting to present those who spend their Sundays at ale-houses. The consequences of excommunication were serious. A woman guilty of incontinence had to attend her parish church at the tolling of the second bell for morning service, with a white sheet over her apparel and a white rod in her hand about an ell long. She was to stand in the porch of the church asking forgive- ness of all who passed by till the end of the second lesson. She was then to be brought into church and placed in the "middle alley" near the reading-desk, where she was to stand through the rest of the service. After the Nicene Creed she was to make humble acknowledgment of her offence, repeating after the minister " with an audible voice " a confession of her sin in plain words and a profession of repentance for the offence against God and for the scandal brought on the Church. " I humbly beg mercy of God and pardon of all good Christians for the same, and hereby promise never to offend in like manner again, but to live soberly and chastly [s/c] to my lives end, and that* God of his infinite mercy may enable me to perform this my solemn resolution. I desire the congregation to pray for me and with me, and to say the Lord's Prayer." This penance was performed in Hanbury Church in 1773. Another offender in the same parish 312 WORCESTER. was sentenced to the same penance in 1760 ; but the citation is endorsed with the word "married," as if the offence was purged by matrimony. Nor was the penalty exacted only from the weaker se\. In 1 73 1, George Tandy performed the same penance for the same offence. In 1730, one George Flower, of Henley-in-Arden, being convicted of the "abominable and detestable sin of false swearing" to obtain a marriage licence for one J. Dunne, of Was- perton, and Damaris Adams, had to perform the same penance three times in three different churches, — in Wasperton Church on November i, in Barford Church on November 8, and in Kinwarton Church on November 15. In the same year, Mary Wilson, of Dodderhill, was ordered to make recantation before the minister and churchwardens of Stoke Prior for defamatory words spoken of one Elizabeth Tinker, of Dodderhill. Excommunication from all the privileges of the Church, even the right of burial, was freely exercised on those who refused to conform to the Church. Two classes appear to have been especially subject to it, the Roman Catholics and the Quakers. There is an entry in the parish books of St. Nicholas, • V/orcester, of 4d. for "a paceboard for the excom- municated persons," on which to fix the list on the *church, and ;^6. los. for the charge of the excom- munication. Roman Catholics were long the subject of unjust suspicions. Perhaps in the diocese of Worcester the feeling may have been the keener from the connexion of the chief conspirators in the Gun- ]:)owder plot with one of the great houses in the THE EIC-HrLLN'TH CENTURY. 3^3 county. They were continually harassed on the slightest pretext. At the least rumour of a Jacobite rising, their houses were subject to domiciliary visits, y their horses taken away, and their persons put under restraint. They were fortunate if they escaped per- sonal injury at the hands of the infuriated mob, whose favourite amusement at any time of excite- ment was to burn the chapels of the Romanists. The impudent fiction of a Romanist plot, invented by Titus Oates, found one victim in the diocese, a priest of holy life, John Wall, who was executed, with all the horrible butchery of those days, for high treason, at Red Hill, on August 22, 1679. He was convicted as a priest remaining in the realm, contrary to the statute of 27 Ehzabeth. The penalties of excommunication may not have troubled the Roman Catholics xtry much during their lives, but they occasioned inconvenience after death. One of the earliest entries in the register book of the Worcester Romanists is of John Gabriel, who had been reconciled to the Church of Rome, but had to remain a week unburied, " because Parson Pye had excom- municated him for being a Catholic." The difficulty could only be got over by taking the body to Mon- mouth. At some date between 1768 and 1778, Father Hornyold, a zealous and courageous priest in charge of the midland district, only escaped appre- hension while saying mass, by exchanging his periwig for a woman's cap and throwing a woman's cloak over his vestments. It is pitiable to read of widows like Ann Heming, a Quakeress, dying in Worcester gaol, in 1672, after 314 WORCESTER. having been imprisoned for above four years for re- fusing to pay tithes, or of a poor woman sent to prison for a few pence demanded for the repair of the parish church. But it is difficult to see what else could have been done. It was impossible to pass over the conduct of such men as Edward Bourne, who could not be content without fixing a paper on the door " of the steeple house at Worcester," denouncing the clergy as "Antichrist's ministers and false prophets, who sought their gain from every quarter." There is an entry in the parish books of St. Helen's, Worcester, in 1683, giving the names of certain poor persons, who had garments purchased for them with the Quaker's money." Probably the epitaph on the tomb of William Walsh, in Areley Kings churchyard, dated November 3, 1702, expresses the dislike and dis- trust with which they were popularly regarded, — "ruinated by three Quakers, three lawyers, and a fanatic to help them." Yet Quakerism seems to have flourished in the diocese in spite of persecution and contempt. Of the turbulence of the Anabaptists in the diocese a notable example is given in a complaint made to the county session in 1669 by Thomas Willmot, the vicar of Bromsgrove, that, while performing the funeral service, he was " affronted and disturbed by a tumult of Anabaptists, who came to the grave, threw the body roughly into it, and with their feete cast in the mold and covered the corps." The leader of the more moderate Baptists during the Rebellion was the celebrated John Tombes of Bewdley, who was engaged in perpetual disputes with no less a champion THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. than Richard Baxter, not entirely to the advantage of the latter. Tombes conformed in the latter part of his life. The society of Baptists, in Worcester, appears to have been founded in 1658, by Thomas Fecknam, They have always been popular in the diocese, and have numbered many eminent preachers among their pastors. The first ' Independent" congregation in Worcester formed itself in 1687 under the pastorate of Mr. Thomas Badland. They seem to have gone on their way in quietness. The credit of the earliest attempt at forming a Sunday School in Worcester is due to St. Nicholas Church, but the first effort in that direc- tion, which seems to have thoroughly succeeded, was made by the "Independents" in 1799, when Mr. Osborn was their minister. Certainly no unnecessary harshness towards Non- conformists or towards Roman Catholics would have been practised by Bishop Stillingfleet. His sympa- thies were with the utmost liberty of opinion and the widest latitude of comprehension consistent with the unity and stability of the Church. Bishop Kennett reckons him with Tillotson and Patrick and Reynolds among those who, while in favour of Presbyterianism, had not scrupled to conform to the law, "for the sake of unity and brotherly love," and for mutual defence against the common enemy, the Church of Rome. As rector of Sutton, in Bedfordshire, he had shown affectionate helpfulness to those who had left their benefices for conscience' sake. One ejected minister he had aided to establish a prosperous school in his own 3i6 WORCESTER. parish, the teaching being committed to a Con- formist ; with another, who had been a fellow-student at St. John's, Cambridge, he maintained kindly inter- course to the end of his life. In the common talk of the day he was associated with Tillotson. Tillotson and Stillingfleet were the two excepted by name from the permission given to Rochester by James, to select Protestant divines, for disputation with the Roman Catholic chaplains belonging to his court. Probably, as Macaulay thinks, Stillingfleet was excepted, not only as a consummate master of theological con- troversy, but from personal offence given in his answer to the papers, containing a summary of the arguments used by the Romanists against Pro- testantism, which James had published as having been found in the strong box of Charles II. after his death. In 1688 we find him as archdeacon of London and dean of St. Paul's, again in conjunction with Tillotson and Patrick, persuading the city clergy at a great meeting to refuse to read the Royal Declaration of Indulgence. He had a place among the commissioners of 1689. His reputation as a fervent and eloquent preacher stood high. He was habitually spoken of as "the Dellarmine of modern controversy," and the highest dignitaries urged their friends to go and hear "the ablest young man to preach the Gospel since the days of the Apostles." He had held preferments of importance. Since he had left his country benefice of Sutton, in Bedfordshire, he had been preacher at the Rolls, rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn, lecturer at the Temple, chaplain in ordinary to the king. THE EIGHTEEN1H CENTURY. 317 and dean of St. Paul's. It seemed a matter of course that he should receive one of the earliest bishoprics vacant in the new reign. The diocese oi Worcester was deemed fortunate when, in 1689, he was appointed to the see. Still higher promotion seemed to be in store for him. Queen Mary pressed for his appointment to the archbishopric of Canter- bury, on the death of Tillotson, as urgently as she was ever known to press for anything. It was pos- sibly owing to the weak state of his health, that her wish was not gratified. He died at Worcester, in 1699, having survived his friend Tillotson only five years. In his own cathedral he strove zealously to take up the work of Bishop Thomas and Dean Hickes, and to compel the prebendaries to a more constant residence, the Chapter Act passed for the purpose having proved void, as inconsistent with their statutes. A MS. in the Lambeth library proves how zealously he strove against the practice, common in those days, and not unknown in our own, of giving bonds of resignation. He asks ''whether it be not a snare to any man's conscience, to be put on taking an oath against all simoniacal con- tracts, when he hath entered into a bond in order to a presentation, which, by canon law abroad and our own ecclesiastical law, hath been judged a simo- niacal contract." In the Bohun Diary is an account, given on the authority of Laurence Eacher, of a conversation between Stillingfleet and King William. The bishop urged the king to make profession of his adherence to constitutional principles in Church and State. The 3iS WORCESTER. king's answer was that " he would build his hope and put his trust in the monarchy or loyall party, though for the present he was forced to do otherwise and to favour the contrary party." The bishop repeated the conversation to the bishop of Norwich, Reynolds, one of the same theological school with himself, and he to many others. It seems scarcely com- patible with the king's intimation of the secrecy in which his real views were to be veiled, that he should have wished the conversation to be repeated. Pos- sibly some resentment, either at the pressure put on him by Stillingfleet at an inconvenient moment or at the want of reticence which divulged the conver- sation, may have had something to do with the choice of Tenison for the archbishopric of Canterbury. Stillingfleet scarcely seems to have taken to heart his predecessor's warning, that a bishop should never use the property of the Church for his own family. In his haste to grant to his son a lease of episcopal property he overlooked the fact that the term for which it had been granted to the occupier, Sir Henry Parker, had not entirely expired. Law- suits followed, which attracted much attention, either from the social position of the parties, or from some subtlety in the legal points which were raised. In the end, after many contradictory decisions, the victory rested with Sir Henry Parker. Bishop Lloyd was an ardent student of unfulfilled prophecy, as Thornborough had been of alchemy. In both cases the fascination of a visionary pursuit was so exaggerated by the ill will of their oppo- nents, as to obscure the fact that they were both THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 319 energetic politicians and able statesmen. Lloyd's political virulence and violent temper made him so many enemies, that they were eager to hurl at him any taunt, and delighted to represent him as a fan- tastic dreamer, half-crazed with his prophetical hal- lucinations and unfit for the common work of life. But it is strange, that Macaulay should represent as " a pious, honest, and learned man, but of slender judgment and half-crazed by his persevering en- deavours to extract from Daniel and the Revelations some information about the Pope and the King of France," the statesman whose clear sense and shrewd knowledge of human nature devised the argument which put the dethronement of James in such a light that, " more than any other man," it was said at the time, he persuaded the clergy to accept the new dynasty with a submissive, though scarcely a hearty, loyalty. It is the more strange, because Lloyd was a stanch adherent of the political party of which Macaulay was an eloquent representative. Lloyd came to Worcester with a reputation for a devotion to a political party. In becoming a bishop he had not ceased to be a partisan, noted, even in those days of bitter party animosity, for his violence, his irritability, and his unscrupulousness. He had thrown himself with all the vehemence of his nature into the controversy about the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales. He had the most perfect col- lection in England of the tracts on the subject. It is not known that he published anything in his own name, apparently exercising a caution incon- 320 WORCESTER. sistent with his ordinary impetuosity. A pamphlet, however, purporting to be by a Dr. Bray, and pro- fessing to contain a "narrative given by the Bishop of Worcester," was believed to have really proceeded from his pen. This is probably referred to in a curious Jacobite MS., preserved in the "Phillips collection," entitled, "An Answer to an Account of the Birth of the Pretended Prince of Wales, as Delivered by the Bishop of Worcester." But the zeal and energy of Lloyd were not likely to exhaust themselves in the collection or even in the writing of pamphlets. He could not refrain from a more active part in the political strife, which raged around him through the length and breadth of the land. In 1701 an address was presented to the king from the -county of Worcester, " signed by some thousands, among whom were the bishops of Oxford and Worcester," assuring his majesty that if the county members did not comply " with his just desires," they would send to the next Parliament such as should. No doubt the Bishop of Worcester was the moving spirit of this address. At the next elec- tion for the county he did all that could be done to make good the boast which it contained. No thought of the holiness of his office prevented him from em- ploying every artifice, from exhausting every influence, legitimate or illegitimate, to prevent the return of Sir John Pakington at the election of 1702. There was some mingling of personal enmity with party zeal. The bishop was made very angry by the alleged com- plicity of Sir John Pakington in the distribution through the diocese of a pamphlet which had been THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 32 1 written against the translation of bishops. Probably it may have contained some personal allusions to the rapidity with which Lloyd had been transferred from St. Asaph's to Lichfield, and from Lichfield to Worcester. It must have been astounding to Sir John Paking- ton, that a house which had been so loyal to the Church in its need, and to which so many of its most eminent prelates and divines had owed so deep a gratitude, should be so soon requited in returning prosperity with such animosity at the hands of the bishop of the diocese. His first step was to appeal to the bishop himself, in a letter remarkable for its calm dignity, which must have brought a blush to the bishop's cheek. It begins with an expression of the " veneration " which the writer had always felt for bishops, and of his persuasion that the present occupant of the see had been led by designing men to conduct which must " lessen his character in the world." He is not conscious of any provocation given, except in the votes, which he had recorded honestly in the House of Commons, according to the best of his judgment, for the service of Church and State. The bishop had not hesitated to assail his character with reckless violence. Not content with making him out to be a drunkard, a lewd person, and guilty of every vice, he had not scrupled to " rake up the ashes of the dead," and to vilify an ancestry incapable of justifying themselves. " If I were in error," he concludes, your lordship surely ought to convince me, before you condemn me." The violence of the bishop had not the effect of Y 322 WORCESTER. hindering the election of Sir John Pakington, who represented the county, with the exception of one Parhament, from the age of nineteen till his death in 1727. But he was not content to vindicate his character in a letter. Lloyd's offence had been so outrageous, that it could not be passed over without exposure. An inquiry, made by order of the House of Commons, revealed, on undoubted evidence, an unscrupulous employment of means so violent and so unjust as to be almost incredible. Welland, curate of Alfrick and Lulsley, and Pountney of Fladbury, produced lists of freeholders which the bishop had sent them, with the names marked as they had voted at the last election, accompanied by directions to use all their influence to induce them to vote on this occasion as Lloyd desired. But this audacious attempt to convert his clergy into electioneering agents was the least of the offences, which were brought home to the bishop in the inquiry. A clergyman named Hodges testified, that the bishop had openly asserted, that Sir John Pakington was a man of iewd life, a drunkard, and a swearer, and had dared to appeal to the memory of the saintly Lady Dorothy, ni order to put a keener edge on his accusations. " He had inherited all the vices of the males of his family, and none of the virtues of the females." Tenants of the see gave evidence that the bishop had told them that, if they voted for Pakington, he would never renew their leases, and that he would set a mark against them for his suc- cessors. Even manorial rights had been used as an engine of oppression against his opponents. Mr. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 323 Richard Wilmot complained, that the servants of the bishop's son had broken open his stable doors, and had taken away a gun, nets, and setting dog, which he had previously received permission to keep upon the episcopal manor. With all this evidence before them, the Parliament had only one course of conduct to pursue. An address was presented from the House of Commons to the Queen, stigmatising Lloyd's behaviour as a malicious, unchristian, and arbitrary proceeding, in high violation of the liberties and privileges of the Commons " and praying that he might be removed from the office of queen's almoner. Mr. Lloyd, the son, was to be prosecuted by the Attorney General, " when his privilege as a Convocation man should have expired." In return for this courtesy an address was sent to the Commons from Convocation, thanking them for " the regard shown to their privileges in the matter of Mr, Lloyd." The prosecution against the son was probably dropped. But the queen, whatever her private wishes may have been, could not avoid complying wTth the request of the Commons, and removing Lloyd from his post at court. This deprivation carried with it no loss of court favour. The Duchess of Marlborough complained to him, in 1705, that the University of Oxford, was bitterly hostile to the Government. Lloyd confessed that they were " generally faulty," but alleged, that some were found who spoke well of King and Government. He mentioned one who had preached a sermon in which the King and the Duke of Marlborough were V 2 324 WORCESTER. spoken of with commendation. The Duchess imme- diately ordered that a good fat doe " should be sent to the preacher, " to be shared with such as were of the same kidney in the University." Lloyd the bishop w^as a different man from Lloyd the political partisan. In his episcopal office he was gentle, earnest, unselfish, and especially courteous and forbearing with Nonconformists. To the Quakers he showed unusual tenderness ; in memory, it is said, of the kindness showai to him during his imprison- ment in the Tower by Richard Davis, a Quaker, *' the only man who visited him in his captivity." The legend is scarcely true, considering the great popularity of the prisoners, and the throng of sympa- thisers of all classes round the Tower gates. Davis may have been one of the deputation of Noncon- formist ministers who had visited the bishop in the Tower, or he may have had private opportunities of assisting Lloyd. But the story sounds as if invented to account for a liberality and courtesy strange in those times. The same wide sympathy expressed itself in a great desire to comprehend foreign Protestants in some sort of union with the Church of England. Macaulay can scarcely have read Lloyd's correspondence on this subject with Archbishop Tenison, when he wrote him down as a half-crazy " fanatic. The letters display a thorough knowledge of the subject, a calm calcula- tion and statesmanlike forecast of the difficulties with which his project w^as surrounded. The most aimed at was some scheme for admitting these Pro- testants into lay communion, " for more may not be THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. hoped for. ' Even then the terms must be such as would not give excuse to any in the Church of England for leaving it, nor prove a stumbling-block to any desirous to come over from the Church of Rome. Another difficulty was the violent and semi- political oratory in which the more fanatic of their preachers indulged. Tenison had suggested that such preachers might be restrained by the temporal authority. Lloyd recognises the necessity of some such provision, but adds, with a shrewd perception of the objection which would be raised against such a measure, " He knows how hard it is for men of their temper to keep within bounds, and thinks they will be opposed against any agreement that will put them under the temporal power of the king or state whose church is aggrieved." The letter closes with a scheme for establishing colonies of French Protestant refugees in cheap parts of the kingdom, such as Carnarvon, or Pembrokeshire, or Carhsle, or some parts of Ireland." He estimates that in such places seven or eight families might be kept for ;^ioo a year. The same generosity and liberality, curiously con- trasting with his irritable temper and passionate self- will, were brought into the general administration of his diocese. The charity called " Lloyd's School " owes its existence to the refusal of the bishop to accept certain estates which had fallen to the see, through the cmel murder of Mrs. Palmer, of Upton Snodsbury, by a gang of ruffians with her own son at their head. The Jacobite party appear to have been strongly 326 WORCESTER. represented in the diocese during Lloyd's episco- pate, especially in the cathedral city. They were not likely to forgive the man whose ingenious argument had brought over the clergy to the new Government, nor to forego any opportunity of retaliation on the bishop who had outrageously insulted a house so honoured by them as Westwood. All through his episcopate the press teemed with the effusions of a host of Jacobite scribblers, in bad prose or viilanous rhyme. Some of these found acceptance at the time. Probably their virulence and malice were sufficient to atone for the absence, not only of real wit or poetical feeling, but even of the ordinary laws of rhyme and metre. The dean and chapter came ni for a large share of ridicule. The old attack on the cathedral services, as attended for purposes other than devotional, is repeated in rude verses, full of polemical bitterness. The ladies, it is declared, " . . . . plainly show by all their actions, They mind not prayer, but men's transactions." AVhile directly service is over, — '* The men in haste to the club-room trot, To smoke a pipe and drink a pott." The satirist gives a sting to his accusation by adding that they drink a pott " of beer, because they are too stingy to treat themselves to wine. A witty writer caricatures the cathedral body in queries, which, in spite of the indelicacy inseparable from the period, are graphic sketches of the peculiari- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 327 ties of the different members. It is asked " whether the bishop of Oxford [Talbot] or his lady be dean of AVorcester?" "whether Dr. Wall be an old man or an old woman, having formerly been seen with a red stocking and a black one ? " " Whether Dr. -Lawton be good for anything out of the library ? " " Whether Sanby be not of the nature of a monkey, his whole delight being in antick actions and mischief" The writer asks of the future archbishop of Canterbury "whether Sir William Daws be more famous for being a knight, baronet, divine, or fine preacher?" Dr. Stapleton is the only one about whose merits there is no question. "Whether Dr. Stapleton be not the fittest of the ten for the place he is in ? " The bishop interfered to prevent the bells of the city churches from being rung in honour of Sache- verell, when he passed through Worcester after being prohibited from preaching. The libels on this occa- sion prove that the authors were moved by virulent personal hatred. The old taunt about the bishop's prophetical studies was not allowed to rest : — " Prophetically peals were denied to men of prayer, Since once, as fame tells, the ringing of bells Made Whittington Lord Mayor. No church, no tower, or steeple, was from his wrath defended. The bells high and low, ad officio, Were doubly now suspended." The concluding stanza is : — " Yet bellfrys, spite of party, and to the Whigs' confusion, Will soon, we have hopes, find clappers and ropes, To ring at the dissolution."' 328 WORCESTER. The same imputation followed Lloyd to the last. Swift, who knew no reverence for age or infirmity, writes of him in his ninetieth year that " he w^ent to the queen and prophesied." The prophecy was, that in four years there would be a war of religion, that the King of France would be a Protestant and fight on their side, and that the Pope would be destroyed. In 1717 the great bell of the cathedral was tolling for Lloyd. He died at Hartlebury, aged ninety, and was buried at Fladbury, where his son was rector. The last entry connected with him in the cathedral is in the ringer's books, " Ringing the great bell for Bishop Lloyd's death every day till he was buried." The consequences of the electioneering quarrel did not affect the bishop alone. William Talbot, who had succeeded to the deanery, was also bishop of Oxford, holding the two preferments in commendam. He was a political associate, probably a personal friend, of Lloyd. His partisanship with Lloyd aroused against him the anger of Sir John Pakington. Some repairs at this tim.e effected in the cathedral were, probably, the consequence of a representation made by Sir John in Parliament, that the dean and chapter were neglecting their duty. The cathedral body exerted themselves for the pre- servation of the fabric. In 1694 the dean and chapter had made an order that no workman should be employed on the cathedral except by order of the treasurer wath the advice of the dean or sub- dean. In 1702 their ideas of expenditure w^ere limited to repairing a portion of the roof and THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 329 sweeping and whitewashing : " the church to be cleaned and whited, and to be swept every Saturday and Monday morning." But in 17 12 extensive alterations were effected, including the erection of the external spires, at a cost of ;^7,ooo. But the funds available were soon exhausted. In 17 13, the chapter were in pecuniary difficulties, and had to borrow ;£g40 to repair portions of the fabric, which were absolutely ruinous. The connexion of Hough with the diocese com- menced some years before his elevation to the episco- pate. In 1678 he had been chaplain to the Duke of Ormond, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1685 had been made prebendary of Worcester. He held this prebend, with the presidentship of Mag- dalen College, till 1690, when he resigned it on being appointed to the see of Oxford. This is not the place to enter into the details of the firm and dig- nified resistance which he made to the attack by James II. on the constitutional liberties of England, in the attempt to force a president on Magdalen College by his own arbitrary mandate, in defiance of the college statutes. It would be natural to suppose that, thus deprived of the income and the duties not only of the presi- dentship but of his fellowship. Hough would have fallen back on the prebend in Worcester. But he appears never to have come near Worcester at the time, since in 1687 he was fined by the chapter for not having kept his term of twenty-one days' resi- dence. His expulsion from Magdalen did not last long. Headstrong and unscrupulous as James was, 330 WORCESTER. he quailed before the coming storm. Hough and the other fellows had been expelled in October, 1687, and the mandate for their restoration is dated October, 1688. His conduct on this memorable occasion, as well as his high repute for learning and holiness, had given him a claim on the new sovereigns for promo- tion. In 1690 he was made bishop of Oxford, still holding the presidentship of Magdalen in comme?ida?Ji. In 1699 he succeeded Lloyd as bishop of Lichfield and Coventry ; and 17 17, again following the same prelate, he became bishop of Worcester. It is said that he had the offer of the archbishopric of Can- terbury on the death of Tenison, but declined it through his modesty. The anecdotes told of Hough all show^ his muni- ficence, his kindly thoughtfulness for others, his humility and courtesy. A shy young curate, in bow- ing with an awkward reverence, had thrown down and broken a favourite weather-glass. The kind- hearted bishop set him at ease with a ready wit. " Do not be uneasy, sir ; I have observed this glass almost daily for upwards of seventy years, but I never knew it so low before." He always kept ;^i,ooo in the house for any emergency, and once, when one of the diocesan charities wanted assistance, and he had promised ;^5oo, his steward made signs to him that he could not find at once so large a sum. " You are right, Harrison," replied the bishop, wilfully misinterpreting the gesture, ";^5oo is not enough ; give them the 1,000 that we have stored away." A poor widow came to ask him to remit part of a THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 33 1 fine which his steward had imposed for the renewal of her lease, and the bishop not only forgave the whole fine, but gave her ;£'ioo to help her to maintain her family. In his letters his loving disposition, quiet habits, and constant holiness of word and thought stand out in every line. But there is scarcely a word in them of his episcopal duties, of anxiety about his clergy, of the state of his diocese. The only pas- sage which affords any evidence that they were written by a bishop, is one which speaks of im- portant duties with a playful earnestness : " The duty of my place obliges me once in three years to visit my diocese, and I have appointed it to begin next month. It is not unlike the circuit of a judge, for I go to my remotest bounds, inquiring into the present state of our affairs, and, if occasion require, exerting the discipline of the Church. Wherever I eome, my brethren meet me, and I am to say some- thing to them, which is called a charge, and being heedfully attended to by them and many others, it becomes me to consider well of it." " I do not much apprehend the fatigue of travelling, but the numerous confirmations are really laborious, and I have many a time been tired in that service when I was many years younger." The letters which he must have written on the business of the diocese are not published. In these letters there is the county gossip of the day, told by a genial old man taking a deep interest in his neighbours' welfare, contented with his life here and looking forward trustfully to the life hereafter, 332 WORCESTER. The old bishop speaks regretfully of the departure of a guest, because it spoils the evening game of quad- rille, and thankfully of a gleam of sunny weather in the autumn, which enabled him to amuse himself with bowls, to the great advantage of his health. On February 14, 1737, he writes to Mrs. Knightley, "You are pleased. Madam, to ask my opinion of inoculating the small-pox, and I must own to you I have been a great stickler for it ever since the time that Lady M. Wortley brought it into England; whole kingdoms practise it universally, and the mothers are the operators with great safety. An English physician tells me he saw the practice of it at Constantinople about forty years, and never heard of more than two that miscarried. Since I lived in this place I have had opportunities of learning something from my own observations. Sir Thomas Lyttelton inoculated his ten children without the help of a doctor. Mr. Nash, a neighbouring gentleman, did the like to eight ; as did Lord Coventry to his three sons, all of whom went through the distemper successfully, and no ill consequence followed; notwithstanding this, the method loses ground, for parents are tender and fearful ; not without hope their children may escape the disease or have it favourably; whereas, in the way of art, should it prove fatal, they could never forgive themselves." In these letters there is not one unkindly word or one line of ill-natured gossip from beginning to end. His one great sorrow was the death of his wife. The anniversary was observed by him as a fast to the end of his life, to the injury of his health. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 333 The handwriting of even his latest letters is beauti- ful. In a letter written in his ninety-second year, he speaks of a severe cold, which had allowed him for a while ''to do nothing but doze away the time in rambling, incoherent thoughts," but adds, " by the mercy of God, I can still say that I am never sick, nor feel any sharp pain.'' Another letter, written just before his death, begins with the "uncommon pleasure" which he felt at good news concerning the family of his friend Lord Digby, and goes on, " I presume to tell your Lordship that my hearing has long failed me ; I am weak and forgetful, having as little inclination to business as ability to perform it ; in other respects I have ease, if it may not more properly be called indolence, to a degree beyond what I durst have thought on, when years began to multiply upon me. I wait contentedly for a de- liverance out of this life into a better, in humble con- fidence, that by the mercy of God, through the merits of His Son, I shall stand at the Resurrection on His right hand, and when you, my Lord, have ended those days that are to come (which I pray may be many and prosperous) as innocently and exemplarily as those that are past, I doubt not of our meeting in that place where the joys are unspeakable and will always endure." The last letter from his pen is dated May 4, 1743. He died the 8th of the same month in the 93rd year of his age and the 53rd of his consecration. The epitaph beneath his stately monument by Roubiliac in our cathedral goes not beyond the truth in extolling the good bishop's munificence and 334 WORCESTER. courtesy, his diligent discharge of his episcopal duties, and his spotless life. Contemporary writers agree in enthusiastic praises. Pope writes of the "noblest trophies," — " Such as on Hough's unsullied mitre shine, And beam, good Digby, from a heart like thine." Lord Lytdeton writes of " good Worcester " in his drooping age," — " He who in youth a tyrant's frown defied, Firm and intrepid on his country's side, Her boldest champion then, and now her mildest guide." By the same pen, in the "Persian Letters," Hough's character is drawn for an ideal bishop. " In the first place he resides constantly in his diocese, and has done so for many years ; he asks nothing of the Court for himself and family ; he hoards up no wealth for his relations, but lays out the revenues of his see in a decent hospitality and a charity void of ostentation. Though he is warmly serious in his profession of religion, he is moderate to all who differ with him ; a friend to virtue under any denomination ; an enemy to vice under any colours. His health and old age are the effects of a temperate Hfe and a quiet conscience. Though he is now some years above four- score, nobody ever thought he lived too long, unless it was out of impatience to succeed him." Even Macaulay, not enthusiastic about bishops, writes : — "A man of eminent virtue and prudence, who, having borne persecution with fortitude, and pros- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 335 perity with meekness, having risen to high honours, and having modestly dedined honours higher still, died in extreme old age, yet in full vigour of mind, more than fifty-six years after this eventful day," — the day of his expulsion from Magdalen. The mantle of Hough's kind-heartedness descended on his successor. Isaac Madox had been clerk of the closet to Queen Caroline, and thence pro- moted successively to the deanery of Wells and the bishopric of St. Asaph's before his appointment to Worcester. He had won some reputation as a controversialist by his Vindication of the Church of England," — a vigorous reply to Neal's History of the Puritans." But his memory in the diocese is chiefly connected with traditions of his liberality. He was a zealous promoter of hospitals, and to him the Infirmary at Worcester owes its origin. The lease of the property belonging to Lloyd's School was renewed by him without any fine. It was also his intention to do a kindly action to his poorer clergy, by allotting every year ;^2oo to the smaller livings, for the recipients to claim a similar sum from the governors of Queen Anne's Bounty. But he only lived one year after this, dying at Hartlebury, September 27, 1759. His successor, James Johnson, came from the see of Gloucester. He had been one of the chaplains of George II., and canon residentiary of St. Paul's. He is said to have been kindly and courteous, always ready with help where it was needed. He left his mark on the bishop's palaces at Hartlebury and Worcester in improvements, said to have cost more 336 WORCESTER. than ;3^5,ooo. He died at Bath in 1774 in conse- quence of a fall from his horse. The episcopate of his successor, the Honourable Brownlow North, was not of long duration. He came to Worcester from Lichfield and Coventry in 1774, and was translated to Winchester in 1781. Short as was his tenure of the see, it was notable for the formation of one of the most important of our diocesan charities. It had been the custom of the choirs of Wor- cester, Hereford, and Gloucester cathedrals to meet together once a year to perform sacred music. Beginning with musical clubs in the three cathedral cities, the meeting gradually developed itself. Dr. Bisse, the chancellor of Hereford, who, in 1724, origi- nated the idea, that a collection should be made at the church door for the orphans of the poorer clergy and members of the respective choirs, speaks, in a sermon, of the original meeting as enjoying a "good and growing report " for some time before that date. The conduct of the meeting rested entirely with the musical members, but it grew rapidly beyond their management. In 1754 it was in some danger of being dropped, but gentlemen of higher rank under- took to act as stewards, and to relieve the choirs from all pecuniary responsibilities. This was resolved upon at Gloucester in 1754, but was first done at the Wor- cester meeting of 1755, the stewards being Dean Waugh and the Honourable Edward Sandys. At this meeting the system was inaugurated of i)rocuring musical talent to assist the local choirs. At first great performers gave their services gratuitously. The THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 337 stewards state that when they were in London in the winter, "in order to induce more company to come to Worcester, they used their endeavours to secure the best performers that could be procured, and succeeded so well that some persons of the greatest eminence in their profession offered to give their assistance for the benefit of the charity, so that they have reason to think, that there will be such musical performances as will give entire satisfaction to all the company, that countenance the charity by their appearance." The charity seems to have been in the minds of the stewards as much as the music. The results were an addition to the collections. But the benefits con- ferred on the poorer clergy were scarcely adequate to their necessities, and the diocese owes a debt of grati- tude to Bishop North for placing the charity on a firmer footing, by founding, in 1778, the society " For the Relief of Distressed Widows and Orphans of Clergymen," which continues to flourish in the three dioceses, in close connexion with the music meetings. The progress of the society will be best noted by a comparison of the collections made at decennial periods. In 1724-25-26, at Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford respectively, the collections were £2>^- Tos., ^48. i8s., and ^49; in 1734-35-36, at Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester, £^2, ^48. los., and;£7o; in 1744-45-46, at Hereford, Gloucester, and Worcester, ^^90, ;^ioi. 8s. 6d., ^100 ; in 1754-55-56, at Gloucester, Worcester, and Here- ford, under the new system of stewards from the county and performers from London, ^187, ;^25i. 9s. 6|d., and ^182 ; in 1763-64-65, at z 338 WORCESTER. Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford, £,2(^2. los., £12^. IIS. 6d., ;^375. 9s. 6d. ; in 1773-74-75, at Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester, ;^503. los., £(i22, 5s. 9d., £^2c^. ICS.; in 1783-84-85, ;^348. i2s. 9d., ^^323. 6s. 6d., ^421. 9s- 6d., at Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester. From that date the collections show no marked increase till 1806, when they rise at Worcester to ^716. iis., and 18 18 to ;£936. 5s. 2d., with £^0 from the sale of the sermon preached on the occasion by the Rev. W. Digby. The royal visit in 1788 pro- duced £602. 7s. ; the collection in 1785 having been £421. 9s. 6d. The successor to North was one of those illus- trious men, whose memory "blossoms in the dust." In simplicity of character, in earnest piety, in the liberality with which the episcopal revenues were dispensed, in the affection and reverence with which men regarded him, the life of Hurd coincides with that of Hough. Both lived to extreme old age, and both refused the archbishopric of Canterbury. Hurd's great learning, elegant scholarship, and holy life had been early recognised. He had been suc- cessively Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, archdeacon of Gloucester, assistant preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and bishop of Lichfield. He had also been Clerk of the Closet, and private tutor to the Prince of Wales. Once, it is said, he met with a poor man, whose frequent attendance at the church he had observed, and asked him why he had been absent of late. On the man replying that he got more good from the plain-speaking of the Metho- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 339 dists, the bishop, with an impulsive generosity which disregarded ecclesiastical order, presented him with a guinea, gave him his blessing, and told him to go wherever he could get most good. One, who was ordained by him to the priesthood, a student from Lady Huntingdon's College at Trevecca, writes of his ordination service, "Never can I forget the serious manner in which the Bishop of Worcester addressed himself to the candidates : his warnings and exhorta- tions were such as well became a governor of the Church, and were truly expressive of that anxious con- cern, which every godly prelate must feel when send- ing forth persons to undertake the pastoral office." Tradition, too, still records the sight, once familiar to the Hartlebury villagers, of the good old bishop walking every Sunday to church, like a patriarch of old, at the head of his household. To his munifi- cence the library at Hartlebury Castle bears abundant witness, while his letters, like those of Hough, testify, not only to the elegance and vigour of his mind,^ but to the sweetness of his temper and the simplicity of his character. Johnson said, " Hurd, sir, is a man whose acquain- tance is a valuable acquisition," though he could not refrain from adding, when he heard of his refusal to accept the archbishopric of Canterbury after the death of Cornwallis, "I am glad he did not go to Lambeth, for, after all, I fear he is a Whig at heart." The opinion of his own diocese may be gathered from anonymous verses on the occasion of the visit of ' Bishop Kurd's handwriting was peculiarly neat and exact, very small, but easily legible. Z 2 340 WORCESTER. George III. (in 1788) to the good bishop at Hartle- bury, and to the Worcester music meeting. About the clergy in general the writer is sarcastic ; the dean is represented as playing at " push-pin " with young ladies and being defeated by them ; and then the poet tells of the enthusiastic loyalty of the crowds : — • How little clergy prigs, unknown to fame, Lost their smart curls, and were consign'd to shame, How many wigs aloft were hurl'd in air. Great bushy wigs which left the doctors bare, E'en Hurd himself had been exposed to view But for the bays which round his temples grew." • A note is added, — " Hurd, the present amiable^ learned, and ingenious bishop of Worcester, who sets indeed a very bright example, as well to his own diocese as to the clergy in general ! " The writer goes on to describe another aspect of the royal visit : — ** Now, while the crowds in ceaseless numbers flow, Ye preachers, loud the Gospel-trumpet blow ; Tell them their sins, of earth's corrupting things, Who is King George before the King of kings ? Now, Rowland H — 11, thy trophies wide display, And give, quite Stentor-like, thy lungs their way. Whate'er thy words or doctrine e'er have been. Thy pulpit-forge and bellows I have seen, Witness'd how far damnation thou could'st throw, And red-hot balls, like Elliot, on the foe." A note says, " Mr. Hill came to Worcester on this occasion, but his congregations were not answerable to his expectations." Bishop Hurd died at Hartlebury in 1788, in the THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 341 eighty-eighth year of his age, having held the see of Worcester for twenty-seven years. Dean Talbot, who had succeeded to Hickes, re- signed the deanery in 17 15 on his appointment to the bishopric of Salisbury. He had held it for some years previously in conjunction with the less valu- able see of Oxford. His successor, Hare, had been chaplain-general to the army in Flanders, under Marlborough. He was afterwards dean of St. Paul's and successively bishop of St. Asaph and of Chiches- ter. His annotated edition of the Hebrew Psalms is evidence that he had claims to promotion. Little is known of his successors, James Stillingfleet and Edmund Martin, except that they were pious and able men. Dr. Waugh, who was made dean in 1751, was unusually learned in civil and in common law,, and assisted Burn in his great work. He was son of the bishop of Carlisle, and chancellor of the diocese, and had been of great service to the king during the siege of that city in 1745. The deanery of Wor- cester was his reward. His successor, Sir Richard Wrottesley, had taken holy orders late in life, having been a Member of Parliament, with a place at the Board of Green Cloth. He only held the deanery for four years, dying in 1769. Valentine Green gives a graphic description of his discovery of the sculptures at the east end of Prince Arthur's Chapel, plastered over ever since 1547, in order to conceal their mutilation at the hands of the Iconoclasts of Henry VHI. But nothing of note was effected till the great restoration of 1866, when, by the zeal and liberality of the county, as well as by 342 WORCESTER. the untiring efforts of the dean and chapter, more than ^60,000 was spent upon the fabric, and the new clock and bells ; the latter work being inau- gurated by one of the minor canons, the Rev. R. Cattley, M.A. The dean and chapter threw themselves into the patriotic movements of the troubled times, with which the present century commenced, with an en- thusiasm which well befitted the cathedral body of the "loyal city." The "domus" fund was frequently drawn upon for the purpose. It was resorted to in 1793 to provide flannel waistcoats for the troops in Flanders, and in 1797 for the widows and orphans of the sailors who had fallen in the battle of Camperdown. Perhaps the zeal of the dean and chapter was quickened by the fact that Sir Richard Onslow, second in command of the English fleet on that day, was a near relative of Arthur Onslow, dean of Worcester at the time. There were subscriptions for the widows and orphans of the soldiers who fell in the expedition to Holland in 1799, of the sailors killed at Copenhagen and Trafalgar. The chapter orders speak of warlike pre- paration even within the cathedral precincts. In 1803 there was a subscription of £'ioo to the county fund for clothing and accoutreing the " loyal volunteers," ^50 to the city subscription for the same purpose, an order for payment of a drummer for the volun- teers of the college precincts, and five guineas to " Sergeant Wheeler " for " training and exercising the men within the college precincts." Like all other cathedral bodies, the dean and THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 343 chapter of Worcester came under the Act passed at the beginning of the present reign. There are now a dean and four canons, while the estates have passed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who allow ;£"4,6oo a year to be divided among the dean and chapter, ;^4,4oo for other salaries and expenses, and ^800 for repairs of the cathedral. John Wesley was fond of preaching in the county tOA\Tis, Evesham being the scene of his first ministry in the diocese, and, spite of some noisy opposition, he met with much success. He often speaks of Worcester in glowing terms. In a letter of March 14, 17 70, he says, "Afterwards I met the society of about a hundred members, all of one heart and one mind, so lovingly and closely united together that I have scarcely seen the like in the kingdom. On the 15th I met the select society. How swiftly has God deepened His work in these. I have seen very few, either in Bristol or in London, who are more clear in their experience." His own chapel was opened in 1772 ; before then he had preached in the old " Riding House " in Diglis, which had been used for teaching soldiers to ride, and for the frequent floggings, which, at that time, were an inevitable part of military discipline. He also speaks of a crowded congregation, when he was allowed to preach in St. Andrew's Church. In many places in the diocese, notably at Stourport, he records the welcome given to him by the clergy. In 1806 the excitement prevalent among the farmers about tithes led to a double murder at Oddingly. Captain Evans, a man of fierce and sullen 344 WORCESTER. temper, a county magistrate, had taken a dislike to the incumbent, the Rev. George Parker. At his instigation some farmers joined in a conspiracy, and hired a carpenter, Heming, of Droitwich, to shoot Parker as he was bringing up the cows from the glebe meadow. After the murder Heming dis- appeared. But in 1830, taking down an old barn, a skeleton was found, which was identified as that of Heming. By the confession of one of the con- federates it appeared, that Evans and others had hired Heming to murder Parker, and had murdered Heming with their own hands, lest he should betray them. Evans, the chief criminal, was dead when the discovery was made, and his accomplices were ac- quitted on the plea that no accessories could be tried on a capital charge unless the principal had been convicted. Worcester diocese, like others, has passed through the period when grand old churches were pulled down by parsimonious churchwardens to save expense to a better season of ungrudging restoration. Kidder- minster, Pershore, Bromsgrove, Malvern, Upton, are notable instances of recent church-restoration in the diocese. What may be in store for the diocese of Wor- cester it would be presumptuous to predict, espe- cially when changes are so rapid, so unexpected, so subversive. But the study of the past inspires hope for the future. The promise of the Saviour is fulfilled. The little band of believers in the days of Tatfrith, Bosel, and Oftfor, is now a great multi- tude, for the history of the diocese shows the THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 345 continuity of the Church through many and startling vicissitudes. The Church of our day is, after all, the Church of Hurd, LaUmer, Alcock, Cobham, Wulfstan, Oswald, Egwine. It is the same Church bom again, as it were, at successive epochs, in each phase of its development, in the seventh, the eleventh, the fifteenth, the nineteenth centuries. God's hand has guided the destinies of His Church in every age, notwithstanding the perversity and self-will which too often mar the best efforts of His servants. May His all-wise, all-loving providence watch over this diocese to the end ! APPENDIX A. Bishops of Worcester. A.D. A.D. BOSEL ... 680 Hejiry de Soilli 1 193 Oftfor . . . 692 John of Coutances 1 196 Egwin ... 69^ Mauger ... 1200 Wilfrid ... 717 Walter Gray 1214 Milred • • • 743 Silvester of Evesham ... 1216 Weremund ••• 775 William of Blois 1218 Tilhere ... 777 Walter Cantilupe 1237 Heathored ... 781 Nicolas of Ely ... 1266 Deneberht ... 798 Godfrey Giffard 1268 Eadberht ... 822 Wm. Gainsborough 1302 Aelhun ... ... 848 Walter Reynolds 1308 Werefrith .. 873 Walter Maidstone J J Ethelhun ... 915 Thomas Cobham 1317 Wilferth ... 922 Adam Orleton ... 1327 Kinewold ... 929 Simon Montacute 1334 Dunstan ... 957 Thomas Hemenhale ... 1337 Oswald ... .. 961 Wulstan Bransford 1339 Aldulf ... 992 John Thoresby ... 1350 Wulfstan ... 1003 Reginald Bryan... 1352 Leofsin ... ... 1016 John Barnet William Whittlesey 1362 Brihteag... ... 1033 1364 Living ... ... 1038 William de Lynn 1368 Ealdred ... 1044 Henry Wakefield 1375 Wulfstan ... 1062 Tideman de Winchcomb 1395 Samson ... ... 1096 Richard Clifford 1401 Theulf ... 1115 Thomas Peverell 1407 Simon ... ... 1125 Philip Morgan ... 1419 John of Pageham ... 1151 Thomas Polton... 1426 Alfred ... 1158 Thomas Bouchier 1435 Roger ... 1 164 John Carpenter... 1444 Baldwin . . . ... 1180 John Alcock 1476 William Northall ... 1186 Robert Morton ... 1487 Robert Fitz Ralph ... 1191 John de Giglis ... 1497 WORCESTER. 347 A.D. Silvester de Giglis ... 1498 Julius de Medici ... 1521 Jerome Ghinucci ... 1522 Hugh Latimer ... .. 1535 John Bell 1539 Nicolas Heath 1543 John Hooper 1552 Richard Pates 1554 Edwin Sandys ... ... 1559 Nicolas BuUingham ... 1571 John Whitgift 1577 Edmund Freke 1584 Richard Fletcher ... 1593 Thomas Bilson ... ... 1596 Ger\-as Babington ... 1597 Henry Parry 1610 John Thornborough ... 1 61 6 John Prideaux ... ... 1641 "George Morley ... ... 1660 John Gauden ... .. 1662 John Earle 1662 Priors of A.D. Winsy, Winsige, or Win- sinus ... ... ... 972 Aethelstan 986 Aethelsige or Aethelsinus x\ethelsin II. Godwin ... Aegelwin ... ... 105 1 St. Wulstan 1062 Aelfstan, brother of St. Wulstan ... ... 1062 Aegebred Thomas ... Nicholas 1113 Guarin ... ... ... 1124 Ralph David 1 143 Osbert . . 1145 Ralph de Bedeford ... 1146 : A.D. ' Robert Skinner... ... 1663 1 Walter Blandford ... 1671 ! James Fleetwood ... 1675 : William Thomas ... 1683 1 Edward Stillingfleet ... 1689 I William Lloyd 1699 j John Hough ... ... 1717 ■ Isaac Maddox ... ... 1743 I James Johnson ... ... 1759 I Brownlow North ... 1774 i Richard Hurd 1781 FfolHoit H.W.1 I Cornewall J I Robert James Carr ... 1831 Henry Pepys ... ... 1841 j Henry Philpott 1861 [Extracted from the Rev. Pro- fessor Stubbs's " Registrum Sacmm Anglicanum."] Worcester. A D. Senatus ... ... ... 1189 Peter 1196 Randulph de Evesham... 1203 Silvester de Evesham ... 121 5 Simon ... ... ... 1216 William Norman ... 1222 William de Bedeford ... 1224 Richard Gundicote ... 1242 Thomas ... ... ... 1252 Richard Dumbleton ... 1260 William of Cirencester... 1272 Richard Feckenham ... 1274 Philip Aubin 1287 Simon de Wire... ... 1296 John de la Wyke ... 1301 Wolstan de Braunsford... 1317 Simon le Botiler ... 1339 Simon Crompe ... ... 1339 348 APPENDIX. John de Evesham Walter Leigh ... John Green John of Malvern John Fordham... Thomas Ledbury John Hertilbury Thomas Musard Robert Multon ... A.D. 1340 1370 1388 1395 1423 1438 1444 1456 1469 William Wenloke Thomas Mildenham John Weddesbury William More ... Henry Holbech A.D. 1492 1499 1507 1518 1535 [From Green's * ' Survey of the City of Worcester, " 1764.] Deans of Worcester. Henry Holbech, alias Rands [last Prior] ... John Barlow Philip Hawford, alias Ballard [last Abbot of Evesham] Seth Holland ... John Pedor [Pedder ?] Thomas Wilson Francis Willis ... Richard Eedes ... James Mountague Arthur Lake Joseph Hall William Juxon ... Roger Manwaring [Main waring] Christopher Potter Richard Holds worth [Vacant eleven years John Oliver Thomas Warmestry William Thomas George Hickes ... William Talbot... Francis Hare ... 1541 1544 1553 1557 1559 1571 1586 1596 1604 1608 1616 1627 1633 1635 1646 ] 1660 1661 1665 1683 1691 1715 A.D. James Stillingfleet ... 1726 Edmund Martin [Marten] [1746] 1747 John Waugh ... ... 1751 Sir Richard Wrottesley 1765 William Digby 1769 Hon. St. Andrew St. John 1783 Arthur Onslow 1795 John Banks Jenkinson ... 1818 James Hook ... ... 1825 George Murray .. . ... 1828 John Peel 1845 Hon. Grantham Munton Yorke 1874 Lord Alwyne Compton 1879 ['* Survey of the City of Wor- cester," by Valentine Green. 1764.] [*' Fasti Ecclesice Anglicanse," compiled by John Le Neve, corrected and continued from 1 715 to the present time, by J. Duffus Hardy, vol. iii. 1854.] WORCESTER. 349 APPENDIX B. The Wiccii. The etymology of the name is as obscure as the origin of the tribe. It has been derived from roots synonymous with salt wells {e.g., in " Droitwich") ; with swine abounding in the forests which fringed the Severn ; with the Roman word for a street (" vicus with a Scandinavian word for an inlet or fiord (e.g., in viking ") ; with words signifying war and the winding bank of a river. The last of these deriva- tions tallies with the migration of the tribe westwards from the winding banks of the Avon, and with the fact of the Cotswold Hills being called "Mons Wiccisca." Possibly the first syllable of "Wigera- ceastre,"^ an old form of " Worcester," may be from the same root. Traces of the name linger apparently in "Wychwood," " Wichenford," "Wyke," "Wyche," " Powick," &c. The title of the chieftain (in Latin, dux, regulus, subregtilus) of the tribe varied in various periods, as well as the authority which he exercised. At one time, according to Palgrave, his authority in Worcester was as great as the authority of the King of Essex in ^ Al. Wigeornaceaster. 350 APPENDIX. London. The Wiccii showed their prowess when, with their British aUies, they contended successfully against Ceawlin on the downs of the White Horse. They took no part in the great struggle of English and Normans at Hastings. APPENDIX C. The arms of the see of Worcester are : — Argent, lo torteaux, 4, 3, 2, i. It is uncertain when these arms were first intro- duced or used, but it is most probable that they were derived from the coat of Bishop Godfrey Giffard (i 268-1301), though Thomas, in his "History of Wor- cester Cathedral" (p. 153), says, '-'Not that any man can say that this noble prelate (Godfrey Giffard) gave his arms to the bishopric of Worcester, as St. Thomas of Hereford, surnamed Cantelupe, did the arms of the Barons Cantilope to the bishopric of Hereford, for that the arms of the bishopric and priory of Worcester are merely spiritual, the torteaux signi- fying the Eucharist." Green, in his "History of Worcester," also mentions that the torteaux signify the Eucharist, and adds : — " The Gififards of Weston [? Wootton], in Gloucester- shire, to testify their descent from Bishop Giffard, give the arms of the bishopric of Worcester, being* argent charged with 10 torteauxes [stc] signifying the Eucharist." WORCESTER. The arms of the dean and chapter of Worcester are : — Argent 10 torteaux (the same as the see), a canton azure ; thereon the Virgin Mary ; in her dexter arm the Infant Jesus, and in her sinister hand a sceptre all or. It is curious that in the seal given by Henry VII I, ,1 A.D. 1 54 1, only the arms of the see are given. They alone are represented in an initial letter in the registers of Prior William Wenlock, a.d. 1490, and Prior John Weddesbury, a.d. 1509. In the register of Prior Moore, a.d. 15 18, the arms are ten torteaux ; two, two, three, two, one ; impaling those of Moore. In another register of his, a.d. 1529, only the arms of the see are given. The arms of the see, and of the dean and chapter (the same as the see with a canton), were figured on the organ gallery in the cathedral. The seal of the commissary of the dean and chapter (1612) bears only the arms of the see. This coat, and not that of the dean and chapter, was represented on the tombs of Dean Wilson (d. 1586) and Dean Wilkes Cd. 1596). It would appear from instances, that the priory had no distinct coat from the see, though it was very common in similar cases for the dean and chapter to adopt the arms of the see. But the arms of the dean and chapter have been, in later times at any rate, blazoned wrongly in several instances, e.g., on ' The name of our Lord does not occur in the dedication of the cathedral until Henry VIII. named it "The Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary." 352 APPENDIX. Dean Eade's (d. 1604) monument in the cathedral, and in Green's "Worcester" (1789). The correct form appears to be that figured by Thomas and Tanner, the canton taking the place of one of the four torteaux in the chief line. INDEX. [The names of the Bishops of the Diocese are printed in SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS.] Adeliza, Queen, 60 Aegelwig, abbat of Evesham, 48 Aelfgar. Earl, 45 Aelhune, 25 Alcock, John, 116 ; his splendid entry, 116; his episcopate, 118, 169; archi- tect and author, 120; por- trait of, 121 Alcester, 18; Monastery, 113 Aldulf of Worcester and York, 27, 33 Aldwin, first prior of Malvem, 51 Alexander II. Pope, 47 Alexander de Hales, famous schoolman, 66 Alfred, Prince, murder of, 38 Alfred, 63 king, restores tranquillity, 26 Alfriek, near Worcester, 26 Alien Priories, 95 Allen, Dr., commissary of Cardinal Wolsey, 158 Alphere, Duke, 32 Alvechurch, manor house at, 75 Amblecote, parish of, 8 Anabaptists, the, 260, 286 ; at Bromsgrove, 314 2 Anchorites, I3g Architecture in the Diocese, 7, 58 Arden, Thomas, preb., 203 Aries, Council of, 12 • Arthur Prince, 120 ; burial of, 129; his chapel, 133, 139, 341 Articles, the six, 207 Astley Priory suppressed, 138 ; parish of, 251 Augustine, 12 Avechurch, Robert, sacrist, 157 Avignon, 88 Babington, Gervas, 237 Badly, Thomas, trial and execution of, 102 Ball, Thomas, founded a chantry, 114 Baldwin, 66 Ballingiiam, Nicholas, 211 Bangor, massacre of monks of, Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, 63, 65 Barnet, John, 88 ; treasurer of England, 89 Barton Church, Tower of, 79 Basle Council, 105 A 354 WORCESTER. Bath, abbey of, 15, 23, 104 Battenhall, 144 ; visited by Elizabeth, 212 Baxter, Benjamin, 281 Richard, 220 ; his be- lief in witchcraft, 223 ; his charges against Mr. Dance, 233 ; conferences with War- mestry, 242 ; at Kiddermin- ster, 252 ; his rule of his flock, 254 ; his preaching and life, 257 ; his petition for the ministry, 258 ; op- posed by the Quakers, 260 ; his views on episcopacy, 275 ; at Savoy conference, 278 ; his licence refused, 280, 314 Bayeux, Thomas of, 47 Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, 78 ; William de, 85 ; Guy, 96 ; Sir John, 124 ; his burial, 135; Richard, 135 Beauchamps, their castle de- molished, 66 Beauchamps of Powick, 78 Becket, murder of, 64 Bekeford Priory, 138 Bell, John, 141 ; his appoint- ment, 186 Benedictine rule enforced, 22; by Dunstan, 28 ; at Fleury, 30 ; at Gloucester, 32, 78 Benge worth, parish of, 227 Berkely, a harbour of refuge, 23, 32 Berkely, Sir Henry, 214; Sir Rowland, 269 Bevery, Isle of Beavers, 39 Bewdley, 130 Beynon, I'homas, non-juror, 302 ; imprisoned, 303 Bibery (Briberia), 65, 188 Bilney, the martyr, 177 Bilson, Bishop, 9 Thomas, 217 Berkhamstead, 46 Bishampton Church, additions to, 139 Bishops, British, 12 Bishop's Cleeve, 167 Bisley churchyard ' ' reconciled " after bloodshed, 112 Black death, the, 93 Blandford, Bishop, his diary, 168, 194; translated to Ox- ford, 293 Blewett, " Dr. of Fysike," 154 Blockley, bishop's manor-house at, 67 Blois, William of, 74, 75, 82 Bohun, Edmund, 301 Boleyn, Anne, 180 Boniface VIII., usurpations of, 87 Bonner, Bishop, 141 ; his pa- rentage, 198 Books in churches, 228 BoSEL, Bishop, 17 Bourchier, Thomas de, 105 ; his visitation of St. Wulf- stan's Hospital, 106 Bourne, Mr., of Battenhall, 197 ; Sir John, 204 ; his complaint against the bishop, 205, 216 Bransford, Wulstan, elected bishop by the monks, 88, 90 Bredicot, ii Bredon, monastery founded, 23 ; lapses to the bishop, 24; sacked by Danes, 26; church, 114 ; manor of, 167 Brian, Reginald, 88, 90; death of, 93 Bridges, Colonel, 268 Brihteag, 35, 44 Bristol, 7, 48 ; St. Augustine's Monastery at, 62 ; pestilence, 93 ; chantry in Trinity Church, 114 Brome, Nicholas, 12 1 INDEX. 355 Bromwich, Thomas, of Kemp- sey, 281 Bromsgrove, 286, 287 ; church restored, 344 Brown, Thomas, dean of Salis- bury, 105 ; bishop of Ro- chester, 106 Burford, deanery of, 8 Burgoyne, Robert, commis- sioner, 172 Burton, WiHiam, abbat at Bristol, 178 Bushley Church restored, 92 Cadwallon, 14 Caerleon-on-Usk, ii Calfhill, James, dies before consecration, 211 Cambrensis, Giraldus, 66 Cambrigge, Henry, 99 Canterbury, obedience to, 59 Cantilupe, Walter, 9 ; the ideal feudal prelate, 75 ; his re-consecration, 76 ; joins Simon de Montfort, 77 ; ^his death, 77 Canute, 27 ; his quiet rule, 35 ; journey to Rome, 37 Canynge, William, his ordina- tion, 115 Carpenter, John, 107 ; his energetic rule, 107 ; licenses private houses, 1 10 Catherine, Queen, divorce of, 123, 187 Cattley, Rev. R., 342 Ceavvlin, 13 Cecilia, duchess of York, 114 Celibacy of clergy, 55 Census of the diocese, 287 Chalchythe, Council of, 20 Chantries founded, 96, 1 14 Charter, the Great, 67 Chaucer, his picture of national profligacy, 93 Chesenall, Hugh, no Choirs, meeting of the three, 236 Chrodegang, rule of, 22 Church, denationalisation of the, 39, 73 ; poverty of, 283 Churches, desecration of, 112 Cirencester, 13 Cistercians, 66, 78 Claines parish, right of burial in, 128 Clare, Sir Ralph, 220 ; attends Baxter's service, 244 ; oppo- nent of Baxter, 256, 269, 277, 278 Clarendon on church prefer- ment, 269 Clarence, Duchess, her funeral at Tewkesbury, 136 Clement IV., 79 Clement VI., 90 Clifford, Richard, 100 ; his embassy to Germany, loi Clopton, John, no Clovesho, Council of, 19, 20, 21, 22, 32 Cobham, Lord, 103 CoBHAM, Thomas, 9, 88 ; his learning, 90 ; visitation articles of, 94 " Collationes Regni," 219 Cologne, 42 Combes, John, of Stratford, 182 Communion Tables, 229 Conformity Act, 286 Conqueror, the, his policy, 57 Conquest, the, effects on the Church of, 56 Conrad II., Emperor, 35 Consistory Courts, 310 Constance, Council of, 96, 104 Convocation, proctors in, 9, 79, 285 Cooper of Moseley, 281 Corbett, Ursula, burnt at War- wick, 220 356 WORCESTER. Cotheridge, parish of, 251 Courtenay, Archbishop, 91 ; visitation of, 96 COUTANXE, John of, his tomb, 80 Coventry, Lord, 268, 269 Cradford, Hugh, schoolmaster, 129 Cranmer, Archbishop, his visi- tation of Worcester Priory, 158 Crediton, see of, 57 Crenkhehorne, Dr., his vision, 183 Crofr, Dr. Herbert, 262 Sir Richard, 130 Cromwell, Oliver, 250 Thomas, 151 ; his com- missioners, 157, 161 ; peti- tioned by Bishop Latimer, 163 Cropthorne, parsonage of, 79 ; Church, 139 Crowle, church endowed, 114, 144 Crowther, Dr. Joseph, 285 ; a non-juror, 302 ; his history, 305 Crusades, the, 66 ; the last, 86 Cyneburh, abbess of Glouces- ter, 15 Dandolo, baptism of 264 Dance, vicar of Kidderminster, 233, 277 Danes, invasion of, 2, 25, 26 ; a distinct people in England, 27 ; massacre of, 33 Daniell, Master, organist, 129 Davis, John, persecution of, 197, 205 Deaneries, 9 '* Decay of Christian piety," 249 Deerhurst, 14 ; Monastery founded, 23, 26 ; ruins of, 59; united to Tewkesbury, 113, 138 Deneberht, 20 Deorham, battle of, 13 Despencer, Henry le, 136 Robert le, 58 Didbrooke Church, fugitives butchered in, 112 Doddenham, parish of, 251 Dodderhill, hospital at, 78 Doddeswell, Dr., preb., 262 I Dodford Priory, united to Halesowen, 113 Dominicans, 78 Dowdeswell, William, proctor for the chapter, 285 Droitwich, ii Dudley, John, earl of War- wick, 188 priory at, 65 ; dispute about, 76 DuNSTAN, 9, 22, 28 ; bishop of Worcester, 29, 55 Durham, 51 Dumbleton, prior of Worces- ter, 79 Dursley Church, 1 14 Eadberht, 25 Eadwine, 14 Ealdred, his versatile cha- racter, 40 ; resists Griffiths, 1 41 ; his embassy to Ger- many, 41 ; his journeyings to Jerusalem and Rome, 42 ; his death, 44, 45 Earle, John, 291 Ecclesiastical landowners, 56 Edgar, favours monasticism, 28; his charter to St. Mary's, 31 Edgehill, battle of, 293 Edric, first abbat of Glouces- ter, 35 Edward I., 81 ; at Worcester, 85 INDEX. 357 Edward II., 89 | Edward IV., repelled from a j church at Tewkesbury, 137 Edward VI., rewards Latimer, 174; attempts the reunion of Gloucester and Worcester, 192 Edward the Confessor, holds Parliament at Gloucester, 42 Edward, Prince, 41 Egwin, 9, 17; founds monas- tery at Evesham, 18 Elizabeth, Queen, visits Wor- cester, 211; seizes episcopal manors, 167 Elmley Castle, chantry at, 96 Lovett, chantry at, 96 Ely, 33 Ely, Nicholas of, 79 Endowments, 9 Eric, the Good, 51 Ethelbald, rebuked by Boni- face, 19 Ethelmund, the ealdorman, 23 Ethelred, 14, 15, 19; liberality of, 23 Ethelred, son-in-law of Alfred, rebuilds Worcester, 26, 33 Ethelstan, grandson of Alfred, 27 Ethelwald, Bishop, 29, 30 Evesham, Abbey of, 4, 18 ; school of religious instruc- tion, 26 ; restored, 27 ; changes by Oswald, 32 ; its greatness, 35, 56, 66, 69 ; abbat of, 73 ; the monks assert their independence, 76 ; abbey depopulated, 93, 113; its tower preserved, 170 ; its demolition, 171 ; Wesley at, 243 battle of, 77 Hugh of, archdeacon and cardinal, 83 Evesham, John of, prior of Worcester, 88 Excommunications, 224 ; con- sequences of, 311 Feckenham, 4; forest of, 81 Fecknan, John, the champion of Rome, 140, 141 Thomas, founder of Bap- tists, 315 Feklon, the, 6 Fell, Dr., 249 Freake, Edmund, 214; his visitation inquiries, 214; his death, 216 Fitzhamon, Robert, 38 Fitzherbert, Dame Alice, abbess of Polesworth, 165 Fitzhugh, Osbert, 65 Fladbury Monastery, 24 Fleetwood, James, at Edge- hill, 293 Fletcher, Richard, 216 Fleury, centre of the Benedic- tines, 30, 33 Florence of Worcester, 5 Foley, William Thomas, 258; family, 282 Forrest, Dr., denies royal supremacy, 184 Fox, George, his threefold estate of Antichrist, 259 Franciscans, 78 " Fratres saccati," 79 Friars, growing popularity of, ^5 Frith, bishop of London, 75 Gainsborough, William of, 87 ; ambassador to France, 89 ; lecturer at Oxford, 90 ; his arrival as bishop, 91 Gardener, Stephen, Arch- deacon, 139 Gauden, John, 9 ; his ambi- tion, 290 358 WORCESTER. Germanus, friend of Oswald, 32 George III., his visit to Wor- cester, 340 Gerrald, Abbat, 59 Ghinucci, Jerome, 123 GiFFARD, Godfrey, 79 ; his magnificence, 80 ; his liti- gations, 81 ; quarrel with monks of Worcester, 82 ; with abbat of Westminster, 82 ; death, 85 GiGLis, John, 123; his plu- ralities, 123 GiGLis, Silvester de, 123, 128; enriches Tewkesbury, 135 Gilbert, abbat of Gloucester, 61 Gilpin, Bernard, 211 Glendower, Owen, incursion of, 94 Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, 81 Robert, earl of, 58, 61 seat of bishop, 6, 1 1 ; 13 ; St. Peter's, founded, 15; monastery, 23; sacked by Danes, 25 ; retains its secular character, 32 ; mon- astery reformed by Wulf- stan, 32 ; St. Peter's, 42 ; reconsecrated, 50 ; the nave, 58 ; damaged by fire, 59 ; fall of tower, 63 ; re-con- secrated, 96 ; south aisle added, 92; the tower, 134; nave enlarged, 139; bishop- ric separate, 168 Godric, abbat of Winchcombe, 49 Godwin, Earl, 38, 40, 41 Goldcliffe, priory of, 1 35 ; suppressed, 138 Gomer, Isaac, conversion of, 264 Gray, Walter, 70 Green, John, prior of Wor- cester, 98 Valentine, the historian, 134 Griffith, John, non-juror, 302 ; his clandestine mar- riage, 303 the Welsh chieftain, 41 Grimley, 144 ; advowson of. 188 Grindal, bishop of London, 209 Guilds in Worcester, 96; their property confiscated, 175 Gunhild, Princess, 35 Hako, king of Norway, 27 Halesowen monastery, 66, 113; church, 134 Halesworth, Dr., vicar-gene- ral, 128 Hallow, advowson of, 188 ; visited by Queen Elizabeth, 212 Hammond, 270; death, 271 Hampton Lovett, chantry at, 96 Lucy, 60 Hampton-upon-Avon, 188 Hanbury, lordship of, 188 Hardicanute, 38 Hare, dean of Worcester, 341 Harington, Sir John, 237 Harold, 40 ; his escape to Ire- land, 41, 45 ; death, 46 Hartlebury fortified, 77, 80 ; chantry at, 96 ; visited by Queen Elizabeth, 211 ; li- brary, 339 Hatfield, Council of, 15 Hawford, abbat of Evesham, 170 Hayles, 66 ; Cistercians at, 78 Heath, Nicholas, 169; op- poses Somerset, 176; dis- placed by Edward VI., 186 ; INDEX. 359 his appointment, 187 ; in House of Lords, 188 ; de- prived, 189 ; his episcopal acts, 190; reappointed, 195; promoted to York, 196 Heathored, 19 Hemenhale, Thomas, 88 Heming, churchwarden oflnk- berrow, 283 monk of Worcester, 53 Henbury, manor of, 167 Henry II., 62 ; his quarrels with Becket, 64 Henry HI. at Worcester, 75 Henry VH., mandate for ca- thedral churchyard, 113; visits Worcester, 139 Henry de Soilli, abbat of Glastonbury, 69 Henwick Hill, 70; water supply from, 126 Hereford, diocese of, 7, 40, 42 Roger, earl of, 48 Herman, bishop of Ramsbury, 42 Hertford, Council of, 15 Hertland, John, 103 Hertlebury, Richard, 125 Hickes, dean of Worcester, 296, 298 ; his changes in king's school, 300 ; deprival, 301 ; death, 302 Hildebrand, 47 Hill, Dr. Thomas, 281 Hindlip Hall, visited by Queen Elizabeth, 212, 238 Hodges, Archdeacon, 245, 285 Holdsworth, Dean, retirement of, 243 Holbeck, Henry, dean, 168 Holt, Sir John, 107 Holz, Sir Philip, 170, 17 1 Hooper, John, 9, 141 ; of Gloucester, 174; dislike of ceremonies, 186; translated to Worcester, 192; his theo- logical opinions, 193 ; per- sonal character, 194; mar- tyrdom, 195 Hopkins, William, preb., 298 ; improves cathedral library, 299 ; his work, 300 Hornyold, Father, escape of, 313 Hough, John, 9, 329; his munificence, 330; his letters, 331; death, 333 Hungerford, Sir Walter, 104 Hurd, Richard, 9, 338; death, 341 Hyett, Philip, no Hylsey, John, Prior, 178; in- fluenced by Latimer, 179 Hysebehrt, Abbat, 22 '•'Icon Basilik^;," authorship of, 290; translation of, 291 Independents, first congrega- tion of, 315 Innocent III., 68 lona, 12 Isabel, Princess, espousal of, 89 Isca, or Caerleon-on-Usk, 1 1 James 11. , at Worcester, 296 Jefferies, Mrs. Joyce, 244 ; diary of, 246 Jennings, Robert, 274 Jeroyle, R., commissioner of Cromwell, 162 Jews, aversion to, 67 ; expelled from England, 86 Jodbury, Don John, 117 John, King, his death at Wor- cester, 33 ; founds monastery at Halesowen, 66; his burial, 67 Johnson, Henry, parson of Broadmas, 203 Johnson, James, 335 Samuel, his writings, 300 36o WORCESTER. Kemsey, II ; chapel, 25; manor house at, 77, 80, 85 ; church, 114 Kennett, Bishop, 270, 291 Kenulf, 19, 23 Keyt, Thomas, non-juror, 302 Kidderminster, 23; under Bax- ter, 252 ; church restored, 344 Kimberley, William, of Red- marley, 282 KiNEWOLD, 27 King, John, inquisition before, 124 King's evil, touching for, in Worcester Cathedral, 296 Kington, 287 Kinver, grammar-school at, 139 Knightwick, manor of, 84; seized by crown, 167 ; parish of, 251 Lacey, John, charge against, 103 ; Walter de, 48 Lambert, John, examination of, 183 Lamplugh, Dr. Thomas, 293 Lanfranc, archbishop of Can- terbury, 46 ; at Bristol, 48, 59 Langland, John, 92 Langton, Archbishop, 73 Latimer, Hugh, petitions for Malvern Priory, 163 ; his spoliation, 173 ; disputations at Bristol, 177; made bishop of Worcester, 180 ; his visi- tation, 181 ; his episcopal acts, 183; his sternness, 185; his retirement, 186 Laud, Archbishop, his orders to the cathedral, 230 Linwern, John, no Lawerne, James, prebendaiy, 167 Layamon's " Brut," 71 Lechmere family, patrons of Bonner, 198 ; shelter Bax- ter's brother, 200, 282 Lecturers, 234, 235 ; royal injunctions about, 237 Ledbury, William of, prior of Great Malvern, 82, 83 Leofgar, bishop of Hereford, 42 Leofric, Earl, 38 Leofsin, 35 Leominster, abbess of, 39 Lichfield, made an archbishop- ric, 20 Clement, last abbot of Evesham, 140, 162 ; retires on a pension, 170 LiFiNG, or Living, 37 ; de- prival and restoration of, 38 ; his resistance to Sweyn, .39. Lindisfarne, 12 Little Compton Church, ap- propriation of, 114 Llantony priory, 62 ; prior of, 99 Lloyd, William, 9, 319; his political partisanship, 320 ; Queen's almoner, 323 ; his efforts for comprehension, 324 ; his school, 325 ; his death, 328 Lollards, in Malvern Chase, 96, 109 Long Itchington, 44 Lotharingian prelates, 39 Ludlow, 129 Lulsley, 251 Lynn, William, 88 Lyons, Council of, 79 Lyttleton, Thomas, no Maddox, Isaac, 335 Maidstone, Walter, 84, 88; his poverty, 91 INDEX. 361 Mainwaring, Dean, charges against, 231 Malmesbury, William of, 38 Malvern, Great, Priory, found- ed, 51 ; the nave of the church, 59 ; dispute on election of the prior, 65 ; settled in favour of the bishop, 74, 76; church re- consecrated, 76 ; freed from the bishop's jurisdiction, 84; church restored, 134; peti- tion for maintenance, 163 ; the land alienated, 172; the church restored, 344 John of, at Council of Constance, 96 Little, abbey at, 119 the name, 3; the chase, 81 Manger, 67 ; excommuni- cates John, 68 ; consecrated by the Pope, 68 ; his dis- pute with the monks of Evesham, 69 Married clergy, prejuflice against, 204 Marsh, John, non-juror, 302 Martin, Dr. Edward, 341 Martley, parish of, 251 Mathewe, John, 275 Maude, Empress, at Worces- ter, 33, 61 Maurice, Thomas, non -juror, 302 ; his death, 307 Medeshampstead (Peterboro'), monastery of, 44 Medical science, 154 Medici, Julian de, 123 ; resignation of, 155 Mercia, i, 3, 4, 11, 13; converted to Christianity, 14 ; diocese of, 15 ; its supremacy unfavourable to the Church, 20 Mildenhall, Prdor, 126, 128 Milo, Earl, 61 MiLRED, 19, 24 Mogys, William, no Monasteries, number of, 3 ; not exempt from the bishop's control, 21 ; at first mis- sionary, 23 ; vested in the bishop, 34 ; independence of, 55 ; sources of supply to the kings, 125 ; patrons of learning, 140 ; road- makers, 141, 151 ; exag- gerations about, 161 Monasticism, reaction in favour of, 28 ; revived in the North, 51 Monk's Kirby Priory, 138 . Monmouth, Geoffry, 71 Montfort, Simon de, 77 Morgan, Philip, 103 ; at Council of Constance, 104 ; at Basle, 105 MORLEY, George, 233 ; con- troversy with Baxter, 250, 271 ; his reception, 272; his articles of inquiry, 274; his relation to Baxter, 275, 280 Morton, John, archbishop of Canterbury, 122 Morton, Robert, 122 Moore, bishop of Ely, 248 Prior, his diary, 142 ; family, 144 ; life and occupa- tion, 144, 147; literary tastes, 148 ; hospitality, 149, 151 ; sources of income, 152 ; liberality, 153; i-eceives in- junctions from Cranmer, 159; retires to Crowle, 161 ; harassed in retirement, 172 Richard, 243 Simon, 260 Musard, Thomas, his estimate of Prior Moore, 155, 160 Mynors, Robert, minister of Dormiston, 275 362 WORCESTER. Nanfan, Sir John, 136, 139 Neckham, Robert, sub-prior of Worcester, 154 Roger, prebendary, 168 Newent, Priory, suppressed, 138 , Robert, Almoner of Tewkesbury, 108 Newington, advowson of, 188 Nicholas II., Pope, 43 Nicholas IV., Pope, 85, 86 Nicholls, George, his answer to Baxter, 256 Nonconformity, growth of, 287 Noneys, Roger, abbat of Eve- sham, 69 Non-jurors in the diocese, 302 Norman, William, appointed prior of Worcester, 74 Norrice, Ralph, non-juror, 302 North, Hon. Brownlow, 336 NoRTHAL, William, 68 Northfield Church, "recon- ciled " after bloodshed, 112 Northfolk, Prebendary, 203 Northumbria, reconversion of, 12, 14, 16 Norton, 11 ; chapelry, 114 Nott, Charles, 245 Gates, Titus, plot, 313 Oddingley, terrible murder at, 344 Gdensee, Benedictines at, 5 1 Gdo, bishop of Bayeux, 29, 58 Gffa, his pilgrimage to Rome, 17 ; his behaviour to the dio- cese, 19, 23 Gftfor, 17 Oldcorn, Father, execution of, 239 Oley, Mr. Barnabas, treasurer of the cathedral, 266, 293 Oliver, Dr., dean of Wor- cester, 262 ; president of Magdalen College, Gxford, 263 ; Proctor in Convoca- tion, 285 Olverton, church of, 104 Gmbusley, 4 Gnnanford, a harbour of refuge, 23 Gnslow, Dean, 242 Sir Arthur, 242 Grleton, Adam, accused of conspiracy, 90 Gsbern, William Fitz, 58 Gshere, 15 ; founds monas- teries, 23 Gsric, 7, 14; founds Gloucester Abbey, 23 Oswald, 9, 14, 15 ; founds Pershore Monastery, 23 ; his character, 29 ; he takes the I monastic vow, 30; his mon- I astic reforms, 32 ; promoted I to York, 32; his activity and j munificence, 33 ; his relics, 33) 52, 61 ; his shrine carried I in procession, 126 ! Oswaldslow, hundred of, 31, 81 Overdo. !e, Sir William, 130, 132 Pageham, John of, 63 Pakington, Lady Dorothy, 248 ; Sirjohn, 273, 278 ;his family, ; 282; Sir John's election : opposed, 320, 328 \ Panting, Henry, non-juror, 302 j Parker, Archbishop, letters to I Sandys, 208 Parker, Rev. G., 344 Parry, Henry, 237 , Passing-bell, 228 I Pates, Richard, deprivation I of 167, 196 ; deposed by I Queen Elizabeth, 201 I Patrick, Bishop, 315 INDEX. Peckham, Archbishop, 81 ; a Franciscan, 85 Pembroke, Earl, 70. Penance in Ilanbury Church, 311 Penda, 13, 14 Perambulations, 225 Pershore, abbey of, 15; mon- astery founded, 23 ; changes by Oswald, 32 ; abbey, 56, 58 ; architecture of nave, 58 ; church restored, 76 ; state of discipline in, 166; monas- tery surrendered, 172; con- venticles at, 287 ; church restored, 344 Peterborough, 23 ; (Medes- hamstead), 33 Peverell, Thomas, loi ; pre- sides over the trial of a Lol- lard, 102; his death at Hem- bury, 103 Philpott, Henry, 9 Pinnocke, W,, 172 Plowman, Piers, Vision of, 92 Poleworth, nunnery, its good repute, 165 Poitiers, battle of, 90 Pontigny, abbey of, 68 Poor Law, its origin, 176 Potter, Dean, 241 Powick, church, assigned to Great Malvern Priory, 84 Poyntz, Nicholas, 1 10 Prada, 14 Premonstratensians, 66 Prestbury, church of, 99 Preston-upon-Stour, church, 137 Prestvvood, 238 Price, John, chancellor of the diocese, 219 Prideaux, John, 9, 232, 241 ; retires to 13redon, 245 Pryse, David, canon of Llan- daff, 103 j Puncheon, John, vicar of New- bold Pacey, 202 Pyllesden, William, 1 10 Quakers, 260, 261; treatment of, 285, 286, 324; trial of George Fox, 306, 313 Ralph, Robert Fitz, disputes about his consecration, 68 Ramsbury, see of, 40, 42 Ramsey, monastery, reorgan- ised by Oswald, 32 ; new church of, 33 Randulf, prior of Worcester, 70 Ravenshill, 26 Rayneswick, church of, 99 Redemptionists. Sec Trinita- rians. Reddall Hill, 8 Registers, care of, during the Commonwealth, 247 Remigius, bishop of Lincoln, 49 Restoration, state of the cathe- dral at the, 267 Reynolds, Bishop, 315 Mr. Edward, 293 Reynolds, Walter, 87 ; chan- cellor of England, 89 Ridley, Bishop, leaves Bushlev Park, 198 Ripple, monastery at, 15 ; foundation of, 23 ; lapses to the bishop, 24 ; chantry at, 96 Roberts, Thomas, non-juror, 302, 304 Roger, 63 ; his embassy to Rome, 64, 65, 66 Rome, growing pretensions of, 54, 73 Rouse, Thomas, no Rowley Regis, 8 Royal Supremacy of Edward VL, 187 3^4 WORCESTER. Rudge, Mr., founds a le( at Evesham, 234 Russell, Sir John, 214 Rustand, papal legate, 76 Sacheverel, 327 Saltmarsh, Peter of, 76 Sahvarpe Church, enlarged, 134 Sampson, 57 ; his appoint- ment, 59 Sancroft, Archbishop, 301 Sand, Samuel, non-juror, 302 Sandford, Roger, prebend, 168 Sandys, Edward, 168, 201 ; his earlier history, 202 ; his visitation, 203 ; his answer to charges, 206 ; offends Archbishop Parker, 208; to London and York, 210; his letter to Bishop Gilpin, 24 Sandys, Hon. Edward, 336 Sarum Use, the, 71 Saunders, Henry, 203 Savage, Sir John, 198 Saxulf, bishop of Lichfield, 16 Scrob, Richard, son of, 58 Scudamore, John, commis- sioner, 173 Scherston Church, 136 Seabroke, Thomas, abbat of Gloucester, 134 Sedgeburrow, 11 Serjeant, Richard, of Stone, I 281 Serlo, of Gloucester, 50; abbat, 59 Seymour, the lord admiral, execution of, 184 Shaw, Robert, prebendary, 203 Sheldon, William and Francis, 172; Ralph, 172 Shelmerdon, Robert, 203 Sidbury, 70 ; hospital at, 85 Simon, 60 ; consecrates Stan- tony Priory, 62 Skipside, George, 198 Shrawley, parish of, 251 Shrewsbury, battle of, 13 Skinner, Robert, 292 Skull, William, 145 Slave traffic at Bristol, 48 Sluys, naval victory of, 90 Smethwyke, Don John, 125 Smith (or Peynter), William, of Ombresley, 196 Emmanuel, rector of Hartlebury, 274 Somerset, Duke of, 176 Spilsbury of Bromsgrove, 282 St. Alban's, 33 St. Germain, see of, 37 ; John of, elected bishop by the monks, 87 St. John, dean, 134 St. Oswald's Hospital, 78 St. Wulfstan's Hospital sup- pressed by Wolsey, 158 Stanewell, John, abbat of Per- I shore, 166; surrenders Per- I shore, 172 Stephen, 61 ; his lawless reign, 64 Stigand, archbishop of Can- terbury, 45 Stillingfleet, Edward, 9, 298 ; his liberal views, 315; as a preacher, 316; conver- sation with William HE, 317 Dr. James, dean, 341 Stiward, earl, 38 Stoke Episcopi, lordships of, 188 Stourport, 343 Stratford-on-Avon, church of, 94, 104; manor of, 188 Streaneshalh (Whitby), monas- tery at, 16 Sture-in-Usmere, monastery at, 23 Sunday-schools, the first in Worcester, 315 INDEX. 365 Sutton, Henr)', proctor for ihe clergy, 285 Swegan, or Sweyn, earl, 39 Sylvester of Evesham, 71 Symond's Diary, 219 Talbot, William, dean, 301, 328 ; bishop of Salisbur}-, 341 Tatfrith, Bishop elect, 16 Ta\-istock, 40 "Taxatio," the, 86 Taylor, Ralph, non-juror, 302 Templars, suppression of, 85 Temple Balsall, church of, 85 Tenison, Archbishop, 318, 324 Tewkesbury (Theocsbury), 1 1 ; monastic cell at, 14 ; abbey, 23 ; its nave, 58 ; consecra- tion of, 60 ; re-consecrated, 76, 112, 113; enriched, 135 " The Triple Obligation," 19 "The Whole Duty of Man," 248 Theobald, Archbishop, 79 Theodore, -^Irchbishop, 9, 1 5 ; influence of, 21 Thomas, William, his care for the cathedral sers'ices, 294 ; his hospitality, 294 ; his loyal mind, 296 ; his death, 297 Thornborough, Giles, preben- dar}-, 260 Thornborough, John, 236 ; his reforms in the cathedral, 238 ; his epitaph, 240 Thoresby, John, 88 ; chan- cellor of England, 89 Throckmorton, Thomas, 109 Theulf, 60 Tilhere, 19 Tillotson, Bishop, 315 Tithes, appropriation of, 57 Tombes, John, leader of the Baptists, 314 ^ Tomkins, Nathaniel, prebend, 260 . Tostig, 42 j Townshend of Elmley Lovett, diary of, 219; his estimate I of witchcraft, 223, 262 Tracey, William, suspected of ' heresy, 200 Tredington Church, 99 Tw)Tiebo. John, 114 Tyndall, Edward, 200 ' Urban V., Pope, 91 Urban VI., Pope, 95 I Urse, rebuked Edward, 44, 48 ; his foundations at Mal- I vem, 51, 58, 70 ■ Upton, II, 3+4 "Valor Eccle5l\sticus,*' 86 Vaux, Lawrence, warden of Manchester, 204 Wakefield, battle of, 116 , Wakefield, Henry, 88; trea- I surer of England, 89, 91 ; i his mandate against the Lollards, 96 Wakeman, John, bishop of Gloucester, 168 Walden, Robert, founds a chantry, 99 Walter, bishop of Hereford, 46 ; archbishop of York, 85 Ware, Richard of, abbat of I Westminster, 82 Wannestry, Dr., conference with Baxter, 242, 259 ; dean of Worcester, 263 ; his mis- sionary zeal, 264 ; state of ; his cathedral, 265 i Warren, Mr., 246 I Waugh, Dean, 336, 341 366 WORCESTER. Warwick, Henry, duke of, Isabella, countess of, 135 Wearmouth monastery, 23 Webbely, Humphrey, pre- bendary, 168 Weddesbury, prior of Wor- cester, 127 Weld, Peter, 136 Welsh, forays with the, i 1 Werefrith flies to France, 26 ; translates the dialogues ! of Gregory the Great, 26 | Weremund, 19 Wesley, John, at Evesham, 343 West bury Monastery, 23, 32, 33 ; attached to Worcester, 35 ; restored, 50, 62 W^estminster Abbey, founda- tion of, 46, 56 ; royal favour to, 58 Westvvood, St. Maiy's, 65 ; nunnery, 915, 238 Whitborne, Richard, 171 Whitby, conferences at, 12 ; monastery, 23 Whitechurch, abbat of Hales, 172 Whitgift, John, 213 Whitstane, Benedictines at, 78 Whittlesey, William, a canonist, cQ Wiccii, the, i, 5 ; never Danish, 27 Wick, mansion at, 80 Wicliffe, at Lutherworth, 96 Wigforth, duke, 22 Wilfrid succeeds Egwin, 18 Wilfred, bishop of York, 18 William I., his grant to Wor- cester, 47 Willmot, Thomas, vicar of Bromsgrove, 314 Wilson, Thomas, dean of Worcester, his extreme view, 207 ; his bad manage- ment of property, 215 Wilson, Thomas, non-juror, 302 Wilson, Thomas, jun,, non- juror, 302 Winchcombe Monastery, 20, 23 ; reformed by Oswald, 32, 48 ; re-consecrated, 76 Winchcombe, Ralph of, 50 Winchcombe, Tideman de, 98 ; his loyalty to King Richard, 99 Winchelse)', archbishop, 80 ; orders inquiries at Glou- cester, 94 Winchester, 41 Winifred, bishop of Lichfield, 15 Winwood, battle of, 14 Witches punished, 222 Wodverley, parsonage of, 79 Wolverhampton, St. Peters, 57 Woodford, Mr., of Upton, 246 Withington, monastery at, 15, 23 Wolsey, Cardinal, 139, 151 Worcester, political importance of, 2 ; limits of the diocese, 6, 8 ; bishops suffragan of Isca, 1 1 ; Roman outpost, 1 1 ; pillaged by Danes, 26 ; menaced by Slaude, 33 ; resists ship momey, 38 ; sacked, 39, 61 ; diocesan synod at, 52, 73 ; see vacant, 59 ; under an interdict, 61 ; plundered, 68 ; tournament at, 74 ; sacked by Barons, 77 ; by Owen Glendower, 94 ; visited by Elizabeth, 211 ; King's school at, 300 W^orcester Cathedral, 5, 31 ; rebuilt, 39 ; its ciypt, 58 ; INDEX. damaged by fire, 59 ; re- dedicated, 71 ; fighting in, 84 ; "reconciled," 94; choir stalls, 126 ; corporation lecture in, 235 ; profaned by troops, 241 ; first service after the Restoration, 262 ; repairs to, 328 ; great re- storation of, 341 Worcester Priory, 56, 57 ; litigation with Oseney, 65 ; growth, 70 ; sufierings in the plague, 79 ; library, 1 1 1 ; manorial rights, 124 ; water supply, 126 ; visitation of, by Cranmer, 158 ; by Dr. Allen, 158 ; dissolved, 168 Worcester, St. Clement, 65 St. Helen, 74 St. Mary, monastery of, 22, 23 ; church, 30 St. Michael's Church, 30 St. Peter's, founded by Saxulph, 16 ; the mother church of the diocese, 20, 21 Worcester, William of, 139 Worcestershire agreement,, the, 259 Worthington, John, non-juror, 302 Wrottesley, Sir Richard, dean, 341 WuLFSTAN I., 9 ; enforces the Benedictine rule, 32 ; also bishop of York, 34 ; his character, 35 WuLFSTAN II. rebuilds cathe- dral, 39, 43 ; his consecra- tion, 45 ; his submission to the Conqueror, 46 ; his troubles, 47 ; stops slave traffic, 48 ; repels rebels, 48; his litigation with Aegel- weg, 49 ; his new cathedral, 51 ; patron of learning, 52 ; his death, 53 Yarrow, ir.onastery at, 23 York, see of, 3, 41, 42 York, Thomas of, 59 THE END. 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