1641-1647.
BISHOP WREN ACCUSED--WESTMINSTER ABBEY ATTACKED--IMPRISONMENT OF
THE BISHOPS--BISHOP WREN'S DEFENCE--'UTTERLY DENIETH ALL POPISH
AFFECTIONS'--THE GARTER JEWELS--ARCHBISHOP LAUD
MURDERED--CHRISTOPHER AT OXFORD--PHILOSOPHICAL MEETINGS.
For though outnumber'd, overthrown,
And by the fate of war run down,
Their duty never was defeated,
Nor from their oaths and faith retreated;
For loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shined upon.
_Hudibras_, pt. iii. canto 2.
The concession Bishop Wren had thus made did not satisfy the Commons,
and on July 20 they drew out the report into twenty articles of
accusation, containing all the former charges and several additional
ones, among which were the setting up of altar-rails, ordering the Holy
Communion to be received kneeling, ordering the reading of the 'Book of
Sports,' and preaching in a surplice; causing by prosecutions 3,000 of
the King's poor subjects to go beyond the sea.
For these offences they prayed that Bishop Wren might answer, and suffer
such punishment as law and justice required. The articles were
transmitted to the House of Lords at a conference, and were read by Sir
T. Widdrington, Recorder of York,[32] who prefaced them by a venomous
speech against the Bishop of Ely, whom he compared to 'a wolf devouring
the flock; an extinguisher of light; a Noah, who sent out doves from the
ark, and refused to receive them back unless they returned as ravens, to
feed upon the carrion of his new inventions, he himself standing with a
flaming sword to keep such out of his diocese.' He accused the Bishop of
raising fines for his own profit; called him a great robber, a
malefactor, 'a compleat mirror of innovation, superstition, and
oppression: an oppugner of the life and liberty of religion, and a
devouring serpent in the diocese of Norwich.'
These are but a few phrases from Sir Thomas's speech; he used no
argument, adduced no proof, but contented himself simply with clamour
and reviling, and these were amply sufficient. In the Long Parliament it
was enough to accuse anyone, especially a bishop, of Popery,
superstition and 'innovation'--which was a term invented by Bishop
Williams, then as now commonly applied to the oldest dogmas and
practices of the Church--to insure his imprisonment, or at the least a
heavy fine. In Wren's Diary opposite the day of the month is merely,
'Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered.' Dr. Pierce, Bishop of
Bath and Wells, was attacked at the same time; but at first no active
steps were taken against them, perhaps because the Commons found matters
not yet ripe for a wholesale imprisonment of the Bishops. Dr. Wren well
knew that matters would not stop here, and while awaiting the next
attack began to prepare his Defence against the Articles of Accusation.
The mob in the meanwhile were encouraged by caricatures, libels, and
invectives to rail against the Bishops and impute every misfortune and
every trade failure to them, by which means the Puritan leaders
contrived to stir up a yelling mob of men and women.
[ATTACK ON WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
[THE DECOY DUCK.]
All petitions against the Church were received and the petitioners
encouraged and praised. The populace insulted the Bishops whenever they
appeared, and threatened their lives. Westminster Abbey was attacked,
when the Bishops were there, by a violent mob, led by Wiseman, a knight
of Kent. The officers and choirmen of the Abbey with the boys of the
School, among whom must have been Christopher Wren, defended it
gallantly, and the fray ended when Wiseman was killed by a tile thrown
from the battlements by one of the defenders. After this the Bishops who
were in London met in the Deanery at Westminster, the lodging of
Williams, Archbishop of York, who had just been translated from Lincoln
to York, in succession to the late Archbishop Neile,[33] to consult what
should be done. At the Archbishop's suggestion, they drew up a paper,
remonstrating against the abuse offered them, and the manner in which
they had been hindered from coming to the House of Lords, their coaches
overset, their barges attacked and prevented landing, and they
themselves beset and threatened. They claimed their right to sit in the
House of Lords and vote, and protested against all that had been done
since the 27th of that month (December, 1641), and all that should
hereafter pass in time of this their forced and violent absence. This
paper was signed by the Archbishop and eleven Bishops, of whom Bishop
Wren was one, and presented to the King, who delivered it to Littleton,
the Lord Keeper, to be communicated next day to the Peers. The Lord
Keeper, who had already deserted his benefactor, Lord Strafford,
contrary to the King's orders showed the paper first to 'some of the
preaching party in both Houses,' and then to the Peers. Upon the reading
a conference was desired between the Houses, and the Lord Keeper
declared that the Bishops' paper contained 'matters of high and
dangerous consequence, extending to the deep intrenching upon the
fundamental privileges and being of Parliament.' The Commons, whose
part, like that of the Lord Keeper[34] was pre-arranged, impeached the
Bishops of high treason; the usher of the Black Rod was despatched to
find and bring them before the House. They, lodging in different parts
of London, were not all collected until eight o'clock on the winter's
night, and then, their offence being signified, were committed to the
Tower.[35] The Bishops of Durham and Lichfield, both aged and infirm,
obtained leave to be in the custody of the Black Rod. The other bishops
were carried to the Tower on the following morning. A libellous
pamphlet was published at this time, entitled 'Wren's Anatomy,
discovering his notorious Pranks &c., printed in the year when Wren
ceased to domineer,' has in the title-page a print of Bishop Wren
sitting at a table; out of his mouth proceed two labels: on one,
'Canonical Prayers;' on the other, 'No Afternoon Sermon.' On one side
stand several clergy, over whose heads is written 'Altar-cringing
Priests.' On the other, two men in lay habits, above whom is this
inscription, 'Churchwardens for Articles.' It serves to show what were
considered as really the Bishop's crimes, and that he had a fair
proportion of faithful clergy.[36] The Archbishop of York had served the
Commons' turn in procuring the King's assent to Lord Strafford's
death-warrant, and had enjoyed for a short time a remarkable though
transient popularity both on that account and as Laud's bitter opponent.
The Commons were, however, soon weary of him, and gladly availed
themselves of the pretext afforded by the protest to throw him aside. A
pamphlet was published, which had a great success, entitled the 'Decoy
Duck,' in allusion to the fens of his former diocese of Lincoln, in
which he was represented as only released from the Tower in order to
decoy the other bishops there. It was thought prudent that the bishops
should make no attempt either to see each other, or Archbishop Laud, who
had preceded them to that dreary lodging, so that only loving messages
passed between the prisoners. So many bishops being in custody, and five
sees vacant, the Commons took their opportunity, and brought in a Bill
depriving the Bishops of their seats in Parliament, and of the power of
sitting as judges or privy councillors. It was feebly opposed by the
Churchmen, who had been alienated by the prelates' desertion of Lord
Strafford, and was finally carried. The remark made a little later by
Lord Falkland on Sir E. Deering's 'Bill for the Extirpation of
Episcopacy,' when the Churchmen, weary of their attendance, left the
House at dinner-time, and did not return--'Those who hated the bishops,
hated them worse than the devil, and those who loved them did not love
them so well as their dinner,'--appears to have been applicable to this
occasion also. Not very long after the first-named Bill had passed, some
of the bishops were set at liberty, but Bishop Wren was not released
until May 6, 1642.
[IMPRISONMENT.]
It was a brief respite. He went down to his diocese, to a house at
Downham, near Ely, where his wife and children were living, and there,
August 17, he kept the last wedding-day that he and his wife were ever
to celebrate together. On August 25 King Charles set up his standard at
Nottingham and the Civil War began. On the 30th of the month Bishop
Wren's house was entered by soldiers and he was taken prisoner, without,
it will be observed, the shadow of a legal charge against him. On
September 1st he was again thrown into the Tower, leaving Mrs. Wren with
a daughter only eight days old and mourning for their son Francis, who
had died in the previous month. Matthew, the eldest son, was then only
thirteen years old. Bishop Wren's was a singularly steadfast, hopeful
nature, and it may be that he expected to be speedily released by the
victorious Royalist armies. Could he have foreseen the duration of his
imprisonment and the miseries which were to befall the Church and the
country, even his dauntless spirit might have been crushed. He did not
seek an interview with Archbishop Laud, lest they should be accused of
plotting, and so each injure the other. Otherwise it would not have been
difficult, as the Archbishop was at first carelessly watched, in the
hope that he would, by escaping, rid the Commons of a difficulty. The
Archbishop 'would not, at seventy years, go about to prolong a miserable
life by the trouble and shame of flying,' though Grotius sent him an
intreaty to copy the example of his own marvellous escape from
Loevenstein Castle twenty-one years previously.[37] The services in the
Tower Chapel, where they probably met at first, could have given them
little comfort, marred and mangled as the services were by the
intruders, who came often with no better object than to preach insulting
sermons against the prelates.
Dr. Wren busied himself in the completion of the 'Defence,' to which
allusion has been made in the first chapter.[38] It is too long to allow
of being set out in full, but a few points may be touched upon. Of the
'fifty painful ministers' whom he was said to have excommunicated, for
some of the sentences there was, as has been said, very sufficient
reason. As the Bishop says, 'Excommunication doth by law fall upon
those that are absent, either from visitation, or synods; and
suspension is a censure which in the practice of those courts is
incurred in one hour and taken off in another, and is of little or no
grievance at all except it be wilfully persisted in.' He complains of so
vague a charge, not stating who the clergy were, and proceeds as well as
he can recollect to mention those who had fallen under his censure. For
those whose licence to preach had been withdrawn, the greater number
ought never to have received it at all; one had been a broken tradesman
in Ipswich, one a country apothecary, another a weaver, another 'no
graduate, not long translated from common stage-playing to two cures and
a publick lecture.' Yet still when all were reckoned who had ever been
censured or admonished, the Bishop thinks that the fifty will hardly be
made up.[39]
[BOWING TO THE ALTAR.]
It is a curious instance of the temper of the times that one head of so
serious an indictment should be that 'To manifest his Popish Affections,
he in 1636, caused a crucifix to be engraven upon his Episcopal seal.'
Bishop Wren carefully addresses himself to the defence of this point,
and to that of bowing at the name of our Lord, and to the Altar.
'He began so to do by the example of that learned and holy Prelate
Bishop Andrewes, now with God, under whom this defendant was
brought up from his youth, and had depended upon him more than
forty years since, and constantly and religiously practised the
same upon all occasions ... as his own years and studies increased
he found first, the bowing at the name of the Lord Jesus, had not
only been practised by the clergy but had also been enjoined to all
the people, ever since the first reformation, as appeareth by the
Injunctions, 1^o Eliz. Cap. 52, thereby to testify our due
acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and Eternal Son
of God, is the only Saviour of the world, in whom alone the
mercies, graces and promises of God to mankind for this life and
the life to come are fully and wholly comprised, 1^o Jac. Can. 18.'
For bowing to the Altar, while setting out how old a practice of the
Church it was, designedly continued at the Reformation, how a like
reverence was paid always to the King, or to his chair of estate if he
was not in the Presence Chamber,
'No Christian would ever deny that bowing or doing adoration, was
to be used as a part of God's worship, the affirmative act being
necessarily included in the negative precept, "Non adorabis ea,
ergo adorabis Me."' 'No more as he humbly conceiveth is it any
superstition, but a sign of devotion, and of an awful apprehension
of God's divine Presence, to do Him reverence at the approach into
the House of God, or unto the Lord's Table....
For the crucifix--
'He utterly denieth all popish affections, and saith that
the figure of Christ upon the Cross may be had without any popish
affection, and that the said figure upon his seal did itself
declare what affection it was to manifest. For there was this posy
engraven with it, "[Greek: En hô kosmos emoi kagô tô kosmô]," being
taken out of S. Paul, Gal. vi. 14.... In an holy imitation whereof
this defendant beareth divers coats of arms (as the use is) upon
the said seal, to wit, the arms of the See of Norwich, and the arms
of the See of Hereford, and of the Deanery of Windsor, and of the
Mastership of Peterhouse, together with his own paternal coat of an
ancient descent; he, considering with himself, that these were
emblems all, and badges but of worldly and temporal glories, and
desiring that the world should have a right apprehension of him,
and to testify that he did no way glory in any thing of this
transitory world, but humbly endeavoured to wean himself from all
temporal and vain rejoycing, he therefore caused such a small
figure of Christ on the Cross to be set over all the said coats.'
He adds that he principally used it in signing 'presentments of
Popish recusants.' ... not to say that although the said seal lay
all the year long locked up in a chest, but at the time of sealing,
and that when any sealing there was no worship done by any; yet
nevertheless, as soon as he understood that any had taken scruple
at it, he presently, to avoid all pretence of scandal, caused the
said seal to be altered and the figure of Christ to be wholly
omitted.'[40]
[_EASTWARD POSITION._]
The part of the Defence, which has been most challenged, is that for the
use of the 'Eastward position.' It is, however, important to remember
that the Bishop had to defend himself against the charge, that once,
while celebrating in the Tower Church at Ipswich, he had 'used
idolatrous actions' in administering the Holy Communion, Consecrating
the Elements with his face eastward, elevating the Paten and Chalice
'above his shoulders and bowing low either to or before them when set
down on the Table.'
The charge of 'idolatry' divides itself into three heads. The last two
Wren met by a full denial, the first he confesses, while explaining his
reason for his position in _that special instance_, when, as he says,
the Elements being on the middle of the Holy Table, 'were farther from
the end thereof than he, being but low of stature, could reach over his
book unto them and yet still proceed in reading the words without stop
or interruption and without danger of spilling the Bread and Wine ...
and he humbly conceiveth that although the Rubrick[41] says that the
Minister shall stand at the north side of the Table, yet it is not so to
be meant as that upon no occasion during all Communion time he shall
step from it.' For the rest, the whole tone of the Defence is brave and
dignified; and despite the knowledge that his life was at stake, despite
of the 'humbly conceiveth' which runs through it, it is evident that the
Bishop considered his position to be in reality unassailable, and that
he was more or less condescending in making these explanations. There is
an irony in the studied simplicity with which the scholar and theologian
explains elementary truths and ordinary rules of church discipline to a
House of Commons who certainly stood in need of instruction in such
matters.
The Bishop, when his part was done, and he had received notice to
prepare for trial on a day appointed, put his manuscript, with an
injunction of secresy, into the hands of a lawyer who was supposed to be
friendly, that he might give his advice on the technical and legal
parts.
'The person,' says the 'Parentalia,' 'thus intrusted discovering
(on the perusal) matters of such moment, as he conceived might be
very expedient for the Prosecutors to be forewarned of, betrayed
his trust, and to ingratiate himself treacherously delivered up the
Bishop's papers to the chief persons in power of the governing
faction. The consequence thereupon was--that the resolution which
had been taken to bring him to trial for life was suddenly
countermanded and an order by the House of Commons made to continue
him in prison during their pleasure.'
[_GARTER JEWELS._]
So began the long years of Bishop Wren's captivity. Few trials could
have been harder for a man of vigorous active nature to bear than this
one which rendered him powerless, when all he held dear was at stake,
loaded him with calumnies and prevented his uttering a word in his
defence. The diary gives no hint of what his feelings were. In silence
he resigned himself, resolved to afford no triumph to his enemies. Dean
Wren was somewhat better off, though he had his share of misfortunes.
The valuable plate and treasures belonging to the Order of the Garter
were a serious responsibility, and, though the treasure-house was
strong, he could not feel that it offered a sufficient security. The
plate and armour were not easily hidden, but the Diamond George and
Garter of Gustavus Adolphus he determined, if possible, to save.
Accordingly, with the help of one trustworthy person and every
precaution for secresy, he dug a hole in the treasury floor and there
deposited them, concealing the place with the utmost care, and leaving a
note in the hand of one worthy person intimating where the jewels might
be found in the event of his death. He had good cause to rejoice in this
precaution, for a few months later, in October 1642, down came
'one Captain Fogg pretending a warrant from the King and demanding
the keys of the Treasury, threatening if they were denied him by
the Dean and Prebendaries, to pull the Chapel about their ears.'
As his threats had no effect, he forced the stone jambs of the doorway
with crowbars, and carried off all the treasures except those which the
Dean had buried. These, however, did not long remain secure, for in
1645 they were discovered and placed in the keeping of Colonel Ven, then
governor of Windsor Castle, and finally, through several hands, reached
the trustees of the Long Parliament, who sold the jewels to Thomas
Beauchamp, their clerk. The Deanery was not spared during the first
pillage of the chapel, though the Dean possessed a formal protection
from the Committee of Public Safety, but was ransacked by the soldiers,
and the Registry of the Garter, sealed by order of the House of Lords,
broken open, and the records stolen. Dean Wren lost many things of
value--books and manuscripts dear to the careful scholar, and also
plate, including two large silver tankards, the gifts of the Elector
Palatine. Of his own effects the Dean was only able, after an interval
of six years, to recover one harpsichord valued at ten pounds; but he
succeeded, after much expense and frequent attendances at Somerset
House, by the favour of the trustees' chairman, Major Wither, in
regaining the registers of the Order of the Garter, known from the
colours of the velvet in which they were bound as 'the Black, the Blue,
and the Red,' though not until a considerable space of time had passed;
they contained all the principal records of the Order, and were
therefore very valuable. The diamonds however, he was never able to
regain, or the Altar Plate. After the first plunder of the Chapel and
the Deanery Dr. Wren appears to have left Windsor and to have followed
the Court for a time.
Christopher, meanwhile, was at Westminster advancing steadily in
learning, while the loyal principles of his family must have been
confirmed by the whole tone of the school which was ardently royalist.
South, in a sermon for January 30, says,[42] speaking of Westminster:
'Upon that very Day, that black and eternally infamous Day of the King's
murder, I myself heard, and am now a witness, that the King was
publickly prayed for in this School but an hour or two (at most) before
his sacred head was struck off.'
[_INCREASING TROUBLES._]
Whether at this period Christopher ever saw his uncle in the Tower does
not appear. The Bishop's position was sad enough. During 1643 and 1644
his diary records the death of five of his children; in the monotony of
his prison life these sorrows must have pressed on him with double
force. Nor was there any consolation to be derived from public matters.
The royal cause, prosperous at first, grew less and less so, as the
King's lack of money became an ever-increasing difficulty. Another
grief, keenly felt by all Churchmen, was the order of the Parliament for
the abolition of the Prayer Book and the alteration of the Thirty-nine
Articles in a sense pleasing to the Puritans. Then came the
long-deferred trial of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was treated with
a cruel disregard of his high position and of his age, every kind of
insult and indignity being offered him. He however rose superior to it
all, and defended himself with an eloquence, vigour, and courage which
dismayed and enraged his enemies, though it could not change their
purpose. The Bishop of Ely's name was frequently mentioned, and his
promotion objected to as one of the Archbishop's crimes; but no further
steps were taken against him then, as he was safe in custody, and the
Commons had enough on their hands.
In his defence, the Archbishop thought it prudent to say nothing
respecting the Bishops whose advancement was objected against him,
deeming it for their interest to entangle them as little as possible in
his misfortunes. They were able to speak for themselves he said, but the
memory of the dead Archbishop Neile he warmly defended. The trial was
long protracted in order to give a specious colouring of justice to the
predetermined sentence.
For this Prynne 'kept a school of instruction' for the witnesses, and
tampered with the Archbishop's papers, of which he had forcibly
possessed himself. The spirit that guided the whole trial was shown in
his reply to one who said the Archbishop was a good man. 'Yea, but we
must make him ill.' The Peers raised a feeble opposition. The King,
whose consent the Parliament had not attempted to procure, sent to the
Archbishop by a sure hand, from Oxford, a full pardon under the Great
Seal, but neither received the least attention.
[_ARCHBISHOP LAUD MURDERED._]
On January 10, on Tower Hill, the unjust sentence was fulfilled. Few
things are more touching than the account given by his chaplain and
biographer, Heylin, of the way in which the Archbishop met that cruel
fate. It is some comfort to remember that, though the Church Services
were then forbidden, yet his enemies did not interfere, but suffered the
Burial Service to be read in All Hallows, Barking, where he was first
interred. After the Restoration, the coffin was removed to S. John's
College, Oxford, and buried under the altar in the chapel. He left
Bishop Wren and Dr. Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, executors of his will.
It contained a great number of bequests for charitable foundations,
especially for his native town of Reading; but as his whole estate had
been taken from him, these were unfulfilled. His murder was an immense
triumph to all the Sectarians in England and Scotland, who probably
considered it as a death-blow to the Church.
The Bishop of Ely in his cell must have listened in grief and horror to
the tolling of the Tower bell which proclaimed the bloody death of the
friend with whom he had laboured for many years, latterly his patient
fellow-prisoner. The entry in the diary is brief: 'Parce, O Deus
Requisitor sanguinis.' The same fate seemed very near to himself, and he
was ready to follow the Archbishop; but he had eighteen years of close
imprisonment to endure, and a different work to do.
Early in 1644, George Monk, then a colonel in the King's service, was
taken prisoner by Fairfax in his attack upon the army besieging
Nantwich, in Cheshire. He was imprisoned first at Hull, and then, as he
was thought too important to be exchanged except for some considerable
prisoner, he was sent to the Tower, and there remained two years. The
Tower charges were high, and a long confinement in its walls was a
strain upon the resources of a prisoner, which reduced those, whose
fortune, like that of Monk, was scanty, to extreme poverty. The King,
who knew Monk's condition, contrived to send him a hundred guineas, and
upon this he existed for some time, and resisted the offers of Cromwell,
then rapidly rising in power and authority.
Somehow or other, Monk contrived to obtain several interviews with
Bishop Wren, who did his best to confirm the soldier in his loyalty. He
perceived that Monk, whose popularity with the army was very great, and
whose military talents were thought to be of a high order, might one day
be a valuable ally, and a useful counterpoise to Cromwell. At length,
when the King's cause appeared for the time lost, and Monk himself was
reduced to extreme poverty, he yielded to Cromwell's request, and
accepted a commission in the Irish army, under his kinsman Lord Lisle.
Before his release, Monk had a final interview with the Bishop of Ely,
and, as he knelt to ask the Bishop's blessing, bound himself with a
solemn engagement never to be an enemy to his king, and said he was
going to do his majesty the best service he could against 'the rebels in
Ireland, and hoped he should one day do him further service in England.'
Bishop Wren held firmly to his trust in Monk's loyalty, though many
things might well have shaken his confidence. In the curious life of Dr.
John Barwick, one of the King's most faithful agents, from whom Sir
Walter Scott may have taken many of the features of his indefatigable
plotter 'Dr. Rochecliffe,' it is said that[43] 'he' (Dr. Barwick) 'often
heard the Right Reverend Bishop of Ely promise himself all he could
wish from the General's fidelity.' As Monk gave no other hint of his
intentions, refusing even to receive Charles II.'s letters, this
assurance was precious to the Royalists.
[_CHRISTOPHER AT OXFORD._]
In 1646, Christopher Wren left Westminster, and at the age of fourteen
went up to Oxford, and was entered as a Gentleman Commoner at Wadham
College. He had, young as he was, distinguished himself at Westminster,
inventing an astronomical instrument, of which no description remains,
and dedicating it to his father in a short Latin poem,[44] which has
been often praised for the flow and smoothness of its lines; a set of
Latin verses in which the signs of the Zodiac are transformed into
Christian emblems, is, in spite of its ingenuity, much less successful;
a short poem on the Nativity also in Latin, belongs probably to the same
date, and is of the same order of poetry.
Far more graceful are the playful lines cut on the rind of an immense
pomegranate sent to 'that best man, my dearest friend E. F., by
Christopher Regulus,' in which on the 'Pomo Punico,' as he calls it,
Christopher rings the changes on 'Punic gifts' and 'Punic faith,' and
declares his pomegranate is connected neither with the one nor the
other.
One English poem, an attempt to paraphrase the first chapter of S.
John's Gospel, fails of necessity from the impossibility of such an
attempt, and Wren handles the English verse far more stiffly and
uneasily than he did the Latin. What however is striking is the
penmanship of the 'Parentalia' autograph; the writing, the capital
letters, and the little flourishes are executed with a delicate finish
really remarkable.
There is no date to this autograph, but the handwriting appears firmer
and more regular than that of the dedication to his father, and it was
probably an Oxford composition.
Christopher came up to Oxford a slight, delicate boy, with an
understanding at once singularly quick and patient, readily seconded by
very dexterous fingers, and keen powers of observation. He brought with
him a reputation for, in the phrase of the day, 'uncommon parts,' and
speedily showed that besides a classical education, he had acquired a
strong bent for the experimental philosophy of the 'New learning.'
Oxford, when Wren came there, was not only the seat of learning, it was
a Court and a Camp as well, to which all the Royalist hearts in England
turned. In the midst of these curiously differing influences,
Christopher pursued his studies under the care of the 'most obliging and
universally curious Dr. Wilkins,'[45] as Evelyn calls him, a man as
devoted to experiments as Christopher himself. Dean Wren had been in
Bristol with his daughter and son-in-law, accompanying Prince Rupert,
and on the Prince's unexpected surrender of the town to Fairfax (1645),
seems to have returned with Prince Rupert and Mr. and Mrs. Holder,
either to his own living of Great Haseley, or to Mr. Holder's at
Bletchingdon.
[_KING CHARLES LEAVES OXFORD._]
In those times no place could long be a tranquil habitation. The King's
affairs went from bad to worse, and at length the near approach of
Fairfax with his victorious army made it evident that Oxford could no
longer be a safe refuge for the Court. King Charles accordingly left
Oxford in disguise, and, attended only by Mr. Ashburnham and Dr. Michael
Hudson,[46] who was well acquainted with the lanes and byeways of the
country, proceeded by Henley-on-Thames and St. Albans, to Southwell in
Nottinghamshire, throwing himself on the loyalty of the Scots, then
encamped at Newark. How unworthy of his confidence they proved to be,
and how they finally sold him to the Parliament, are matters of history
too notorious for repetition here.
Oxford, thus saved from the ruin of a siege, capitulated to Fairfax June
24, 1646, on the express condition that the University should be free
from 'sequestrations, fines, taxes and all other molestations
whatsoever.' But the Parliament was not famous for keeping its
engagements, and at once proceeded to break through those made with
Oxford and reduce it to the same condition as Cambridge, which they had
devastated in 1642. A passage from 'Querela Cantabrigiensis,' which is
supposed to be written by Dr. Barwick, gives some idea of what this
condition was:
'And therefore,' he says, 'if posterity shall ask "Who thrust out
one of the eyes of this kingdom, who made Eloquence dumb,
Philosophy sottish, widowed the Arts, and drove the Muses from
their ancient habitation? Who plucked the reverend and orthodox
professors out of their chairs, and silenced them in prison or
their graves? Who turned Religion into Rebellion, and changed the
apostolical chair into a desk for blasphemy, and tore the garland
from the head of Learning to place it on the dull brows of disloyal
ignorance?" If they shall ask "Who made those ancient and beautiful
chapels, the sweet remembrances and monuments of our fore-fathers'
charity and the kind fomenters of their children's devotion, to
become ruinous heaps of dust and stones?"... 'Tis quickly
answered--"Those they were, who endeavouring to share three Crowns
and put them in their own pockets, have transformed this free
kingdom into a large gaol, _to keep the liberty of the subject_:
they who maintain 100,000 robbers and murderers by sea and land,
_to protect our lives and the propriety of our goods_ ... they who
have possessed themselves of his majesty's towns, navy, and
magazines, _to make him a glorious king_; who have multiplied
oaths, protestations, vows, leagues and covenants, _for ease of
tender consciences_; filling all pulpits with jugglers for the
Cause, canting sedition, atheism, and rebellion, _to root out
popery and Babylon and settle the kingdom of Christ_:... The very
same have stopped the mouth of all learning (following herein the
example of their elder brother the Turk), lest any should be wiser
than themselves, or posterity know what a world of wickedness they
have committed."'[47]
[_PHILOSOPHICAL MEETINGS._]
Wadham College probably suffered less than many, as its head, Dr.
Wilkins, who had married Cromwell's sister, was very submissive to the
then Government. As matters settled down somewhat at Oxford towards
1648, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Jonathan Goddard, Dr. Wallis, Mr. Theodore Hank,
who came from the desolated Palatinate, and Mr. S. Foster, the Gresham
Professor of Astronomy, met together weekly, 'to discourse and
consider,' writes Dr. Wallis, '(precluding theology and state affairs),
of philosophical enquiries, and such as related thereunto: as physick,
anatomy, geometry, astronomy, navigation, staticks, magneticks,
chymicks, mechanicks, and natural experiments with the state of those
studies as then calculated at home and abroad.'
The meetings, at which Christopher Wren, young as he was, appears to
have been a constant attendant, were frequently held at the house of Dr.
Goddard for the convenience of his having there a workman skilled in the
nice work of grinding glasses for microscopes and telescopes. Dr.
Goddard became body physician to Cromwell, was by him made Warden of
Merton College, Oxford, and subsequently represented the university in
Parliament. Dr. Wallis, a famous Oxford mathematician, was employed by
the Parliament to decipher the King's cabinet of letters taken at
Naseby, and also was proved by Matthew Wren, the son of the Bishop, to
have deciphered several very important letters sent by Charles II. to
England, and intercepted at Dunkirk.
As by degrees these meetings were more largely attended, and men came
who held very different opinions from those of Dr. Goddard and Dr.
Wallis, the exclusion of theology and politics from the discussions was
a needful precaution. Many inventions of Christopher's date from this
time, a design for a reflecting dial for the ceiling of a room,
ornamented with quaint figures and devices, some Latin lines ending in a
chronogram of his age, and the date of the invention, suggested probably
by the one in the rectory at East Knoyle, which he had known from a
child; an instrument to write in the dark; and an instrument of use in
gnomonics.[48] At the same time he had attracted the notice of Sir
Charles Scarborough, a friend of Dean Wren's, then just rising to fame
as a surgeon. Christopher, whose health, as has been said, was delicate,
fell dangerously ill and considered that he owed his life to the skilful
care of his new friend. Dr. Scarborough, who could recite in order all
the propositions of Euclid and Archimedes, and could apply them, found
in his patient a kindred spirit, and induced Wren, young as he was, to
undertake the translation into Latin of the 'Clavis Aurea,' by the Rev.
W. Oughtred, a mathematical treatise of great reputation.
[_MR. OUGHTRED._]
That Christopher was able to satisfy the old man is evident from the
preface, even while making allowance for the complimentary style of the
time. Mr. Oughtred speaks of--
'Mr. Christopher Wren, Gentleman Commoner of Wadham College, a
youth generally admired for his talents, who, when not yet sixteen
years old, enriched astronomy, gnomonics, statics and mechanics, by
brilliant inventions, and from that time has continued to enrich
them, and in truth is one from whom I can, not vainly, look for
great things.'[49]
Mr. Oughtred was a Canon of Chichester, and after the siege of the city
and the wanton sack of the cathedral by Sir E. Waller in 1642, deprived
and heart-broken, wandered to Oxford, refusing the offers of home and
emolument which came to him from France, Italy, and Holland. He gladly
availed himself of young Wren's services in the work of translation,
which he had not energy to undertake himself, and waited, hoping for
better times. When at length they drew near, and he heard of the vote
passed at Westminster (May 1, 1660), for the Restoration of the Royal
Family, the relief was too great, and Mr. Oughtred 'expired in a sudden
ecstasy of joy.'[50]
Dean Wren, in the meanwhile, though deprived of his living, does not
seem to have been in any personal danger, having a protection from
Parliament, possibly obtained by his friend the Elector Palatine, or
Speaker Lenthall, by favour of which he boldly attended the Committee
Meetings at Somerset House. He made an attempt to gather together the
Knights of the Garter, and addressed the following petition, an
autograph copy of which is contained in the 'Parentalia':
'_To ye Right Honble ye Knights of ye Most Noble
Order of ye Garter._
'Dr. C. Wren Register and Secretarye of ye sd Most Noble Order of
ye Garter in discharge of his sworne service.
'Prayeth, that according to ye commission directed to all ye Honble
Peers of ye said Most Noble Order or to any Three of them [to
muster and consult in ye absence of ye Sovraine upon all such
emergent occasions as may concerne ye advancement or indemnity of
ye said Most Noble Order]
'It may therefore please your Honors to give yr. consent for some
sett Time and Place of meeting with such convenient speed as may
best stand with ye great Affairs. That yr. humble Servant ye
Register may Represent to yr. Honors some few Things, w^{ch} hee
humbly conceaves may much concerne ye Honor & Interest of ys. Most
Honble Order to bee provided for.'
'I delivered this Petition in ye Parliament Howse before they sate,
Jan. 23d. 1647.' (O. S.)
[_GOD'S PRISONER._]
A copy of this Petition he sent to the Deputy Chancellor. It would seem
to have startled the Knights, and Dr. Wren evidently wishes the way
smoothed. His letter, also an autograph, is headed
'Copye of my letter sent to the Deputie Chancelor for removal of
some scruples w^{ch} arose among ye Knights of ye Order before ye
Time of their meeting in Council.'
'Honble Chancelor.--I have no pticular aime in this my humble suite
to ye Lords of ye Order to propose any private or Personal Interest
of my owne, or any other man's, much lesse to engage their Honors
in anything that may seeme to contest w^{th} or dissent from ye
Highe Court of Parliament wherein they now sit & from whence I am
not ignorant ye Most Honble Society of ye Most Noble Order receaved
as at first Life and Being soe now holds its establishment. My
humble & earnest desires, are to represent such Things only as I
humbly conceave may nearly concerne ye Honor & Interests of their
Most Noble Order. To w^{ch} (next as yr. Selfe Honored Sir) I am by
oath obliged: (to preserve ye Honor thereof, & of all in itt to my
utmost Power) For zeale of this duty w^{ch} upon ye intimation of
what I here profess, I presume they will not reject, I beseech you
to give y^m this assurance as yf itt were from ye tender of my owne
mouthe, who am at this period God's Prisoner, & under Him,
'Yr servant, C. W.'
Whether the Dean succeeded in gathering the Knights together, and what
the 'Things nearly concerning their Honor' may have been if they were
_not_, as the letter implies they were not, the King's deliverance, the
'Parentalia' does not say, neither does it give any hint of the illness
to which the end of the Dean's letter appears to point.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] _Vide supra_, p. 17.
[33] R. Neile, successively Bishop of Rochester, Lichfield,
Lincoln, Durham and Winchester, and Archbishop of York, died
1640. Godwin speaks strongly of his loyalty to Church and
King, and the hatred borne to him by the Puritans.--_Praesul.
Ang._
[34] 'The Commons not being able to come at their intended
alterations in the Church while the Bench of Bishops remained
entire in the House of Peers, formed several schemes to divide
them.'--_Hist. of the Puritans_, vol. ii. p. 388. Neale.
[35] 'We, poor souls,' says Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, in his
_Hard Measure_, 'who little thought we had done anything that
might deserve a chiding, are now called to our knees at the
bar, and charged severally with high treason, being not a
little astonished at the suddenness of this crimination
compared with the perfect innocency of our own intentions,
which were only to bring us to our due places in Parliament
with safety and speed, without the least purpose of any man's
offence; but now traitors we are in all the haste, and must be
dealt with accordingly. For on December 30, in all the
extremity of frost at eight o'clock on the dark evening, are
we voted to the Tower; only two of our number had the favour
of the Black Rod, by reason of their age, which though desired
by a noble lord on my behalf would not be granted; wherein I
acknowledge and bless the gracious Providence of my God, for
had I been gratified I had been undone both in body and purse;
the rooms being strait, and the expense beyond the reach of my
estate.'--_Annals of England_, p. 420.
[36] _Biographical History of England_, vol. ii. p. 157. Grainger.
[37] _Vide Life of Barnevelde_, vol. i. p. 408. Motley.
[38] P. 26.
[39] 'Certainly,' says Nalson, 'notwithstanding this black
accusation (he is speaking of the 'fifty painful ministers'),
there cannot be a greater demonstration of the innocence of
this worthy prelate than the very articles; and that this
accusation wanted proof to carry it further than a bare
accusation, and a commitment to the Tower, where, with the
courage and patience of a primitive Christian, he continued
prisoner till the year 1660.'--_History of the Puritans_, vol.
ii. p. 223. Grey, Examination of Neale's.
[40] It is curious that nearly as violent an attack was made a
hundred years later upon Bishop Butler (the author of the
_Analogy_), because, when Bishop of Bristol, he put up a
plain, inlaid, black marble cross in the Chapel of the Palace
there. He died 1752.
[41] The Rubric before the Prayer of Consecration in the Prayer
Book of 1559-1604, was simply:--
'Then the Priest, standing up, shall say as followeth.'
The first rubric of position at the beginning of the service had
placed him 'at the north side of the Table.' For a full and
very interesting defence of Bishop Wren, see _Worship in the
Church of England_, Right Honourable A. B. B. Hope, and, _Dean
Howson 'Before the Table,'_ by the same author, in the _Church
Quarterly Review_, January, 1876.
[42] South's _Sermons_, vol. v. p. 45, ed. 1727.
[43] _Life of Dr. Barwick_, p. 267, ed. 1724.
[44] See _Appendix I._
[45] Dr. Wilkins published a book (_A Discovery of a New World_),
concerning the art of flying, in which he said he did not
question but in the next age it will be as usual to hear a man
call for his wings when he is going a journey, as it is now to
call for his boots. The Duchess of Newcastle objecting to Dr.
Wilkins the want of baiting places on the way to his New
World, he expressed his surprise that the objection should be
made by a lady who had all her life been employed in building
castles in the air. (_The Guardian_, No. 112. Addison.) This
scheme does not seem to have reached the length of an
experiment!
[46] A most zealous Royalist; King Charles called him 'my
plain-dealing chaplain,' because Dr. Hudson told him the truth
when others would not. He was murdered at Woodcroft House,
Northamptonshire, 1648. _Desiderata Curiosa_, p. 378. Peck.
[47] _Annals of England_, p. 432.
[48] i.e. the art of dial-making.
[49] _Lives of the Gresham Professors._ Ward, p. 96.
[50] _Memorials of the See of Chichester_, p. 290.