1659-1663.
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION--DIFFICULTY OF PRESERVING IT--LETTERS FROM
LORD CLARENDON--BISHOP WREN'S RELEASE--THE
RESTORATION--CONVOCATION--SAVILIAN PROFESSORSHIP--ROYAL
SOCIETY--'ELEPHANT IN THE MOON'--PEMBROKE CHAPEL BEGUN.
Yet bethink thee that the spirit whence those princely bounties flowed
To the ties of private feeling all its force and being owed;
Severed from the bonds of kindred, taught his lonely heart to school,
By his Father's chastening kindness or his Church's sterner rule;
Oft to spots by memory cherished, where his earliest love began,
In his age's desolation, fondly turned the childless man.
_Phrontisterion_, by Dean Mansel.
All was confusion, doubt and anxiety in the country; the Royalist plots
failed; the Parliament was powerless; no one knew whether Monk intended,
as was still hoped by a few, to bring back the King, or to support the
Parliament, or to make himself dictator; those were keen eyes which
could discern through the darkness any ray of approaching light.
Nowhere perhaps did matters seem more desperate than in the Church. Her
discipline and order, barely revived by the murdered Archbishop, had
been for eighteen years trampled upon and neglected; 'by the
licentiousness of the times,' many were growing up unbaptised and
ignorant of Christianity. The number of bishops living was but small,
many sees being already vacant when the Civil War broke out, and
imprisonments and hardships had so reduced the Prelates that, in 1659,
but ten survived, one of whom, Dr. Brownrigg, Bishop of Exeter, very
soon died. Of the nine others, many were very old; the Bishop of London
(Juxon) was very ill, and the Bishop of Ely was in prison. How was the
succession to be preserved if the troubles of the times continued? The
Scotch Church had been reduced by persecution; the Irish Bishops were in
as evil a plight as their English brethren, and the difficulty of
communication was great. There was then no daughter Church in America or
in the Colonies to render back in time of need the grace they had
themselves received. It was hardly possible for the English Bishops to
meet for consultation; but the indefatigable Dr. Barwick was
authorised[69]--
'not only to ride about among them all, and by proposing and
explaining to each what was thought for the Church's Service; to
collect the opinions and resolutions of every one of them upon all
difficult affairs; but also to procure the communication of all
that was needful between their lordships and His Majesty, which he
frequently did by letters written in characters' (_i.e._ cypher).
[_LETTERS IN CYPHER._]
Great difficulties lay in the way of the first step--a canonical
election--and in the face of the watchful enmity of the Church of Rome,
no doubtful step could be taken; and even were this difficulty
surmounted and three Bishops got together, the risk of imprisonment and
death to both consecrators and consecrated needed no one to point it
out. The two with whom Dr. Barwick principally consulted were the
Bishops of Ely and Salisbury. Many letters passed between Dr. Barwick
and Mr. Hyde,[70] at Brussels, in one of which, written on July 8,
1659,[71] the latter speaks of--
'much preferring the Bishop of Ely's judgment and advice in that
point (the method of election) before any man's. I pray remember my
service with all imaginable reverence to my Lord of Ely and assure
him, that the King will always return that candour, benignity and
equality to both the Universities, which he wishes; and I hope all
who shall be entrusted by him in that great affair will be as just
and dispassioned in all their interpositions and look upon them as
equal lights to learning and piety and equally worthy of all
encouragement and protection. And if at present my Lord of Ely will
recommend any person to his Majesty for the Bishoprick of Carlisle,
he shall be approved. And if my Lord will transmit a list of
persons to be specially recommended to the King for any dignities
of the Church, I dare promise the persons shall find that they
could not have been better recommended. I know not what more to add
but my hearty service to your sick friend,[72] whose health I pray
for as a publick concernment. To yourself I shall say no more but
that I shall think myself very faulty if I do not serve you very
heartily, and if you do not with the first receive some evidence of
the sense the King hath of your service.
'I am very heartily, Sir, your most affectionate servant,
'HYDE.'
These letters, thirty-six in number, were transmitted in cypher, and
with the utmost precaution and considerable delay in awaiting a safe
opportunity; the one quoted from is endorsed 'Received not till Aug.
29.' Nor was the cypher, however carefully contrived, always a security
when the letters fell into the wrong hands. Dr. Wallis, the
mathematician, was a most skilful decypherer, and was the person who
decyphered the King's papers taken in his cabinet at Naseby, though the
Royalists considered this a vain boast until Matthew Wren, the Bishop's
eldest son, obtained the proof of it from Dr. Wallis himself. One
important letter from Dr. Barwick to Mr. Hyde fell into Dr. Wallis'
hands; Mr. Allestry his coadjutor coming from Brussels was seized and
imprisoned as soon as he landed. Bishop Morton of Durham, the last
surviving Prelate of the province of York, had died, as his epitaph
says, 'deprived of all his goods except a good name and a good
conscience.' The rising in Cheshire had been unsuccessful. Monk refused
to give even his brother any hint of his intentions, and made no reply
to the letter which King Charles sent to him from Breda. In short,
matters were as adverse as it was possible for them to be, but yet Dr.
Barwick was undiscouraged; with fresh precautions the correspondence
with Mr. Hyde was resumed, and in truth the matter pressed; 'for,' says
Dr. Barwick, writing in Sept. 1659, after mentioning his circuit among
some of the surviving Bishops,[73] 'I fear this winter will go hard with
some of them that may worst be spared in the due performance of such a
work.' It is evident that Dr. Barwick was able to see and consult the
imprisoned Bishop of Ely whenever it was needful. These hurried
meetings, full of anxiety and peril as they were, must have been a great
refreshment to the Bishop, who thus still took part in the work of the
Church. He declined to send any list of names to the King, though he
pressed Dr. Barwick to accept the Bishoprick of Man. Mr. Hyde[74] wrote
a letter in September, which was not received till November 10, where he
says:--
['_WHAT IS TO BECOME OF THE CHURCH?_']
'The King hath done all that is in his power to do; and if my Lords
the Bishops will not do the rest, what is to become of the Church?
The conspiracies to destroy it are very evident; and if there be no
combination to preserve it, it must expire. I do assure you the
names of all the Bishops who are alive, and their several ages, are
as well known at Rome as in England, and both the Papist and the
Presbyterian value themselves very much upon computing in how few
years the Church of England must expire.' ... And again: 'His
Majesty is most confident that the Bishop of Ely will give all the
assistance and advice which his restraint will permit him to do....
I do beseech you,' says the next letter, 'present my humble service
to my Lord of Ely, whose benediction, I do hope to live to receive
at his own feet. I pray send me word our sick friend is in perfect
health.'
But little progress appears to have been made, since Mr. Hyde writes,
Nov. 28:--
'I can say no more with reference to the Church, but that if there
be nothing hinders it but the winter it be quickly over, whilst
preparations are making; and yet, God knows, it will be almost a
miracle, if the winter doth not take away half the Bishops that are
left alive; and I must still lament that some way is not found that
the Bishop of Ely may be at liberty; which would carry on this work
more than any expedient that I can think of.'
An entry in Evelyn's diary shows the general state of affairs at this
time:--
'_October 11._ The armie now turned out the Parliament. We had now
no government in the nation; all in confusion; no magistrate either
own'd or pretended but the souldiers, and they not agreed. God
Almighty have mercy on and settle us!'
Evelyn was not slack in doing what in him lay towards this much-desired
settlement:--
'_November 7._ Was published my bold "Apologie" for the King in
this time of danger when it was capital to speake or write in
favour of him. It was printed twice, so universally it took.'
A fast was kept in secret, apparently about once a fortnight, by the
Churchmen in London to pray 'for God's mercy to our calamitous Church.'
On _February 3, 1660_, Evelyn writes:--
'General Monk came to London from Scotland, but no man knew what he
would do or declare. Yet he was met on all his way by the gentlemen
of all the counties which he passed, with petitions that he would
recall the old, long-interrupted Parliament, and settle the nation
in some order, being at this time in most prodigious confusion and
under no government, everybody expecting what would be next and
what he would do.'
Later in the same month Mr. Hyde wrote almost in despair to Dr.
Barwick:[75]
'It would be very good news if I could hear of my Lord
of Ely being in full liberty, to whom I pray present my humble
service. The truth is I have but little hope of the business of the
Church but by his being at liberty, and therefore I hope he will
make no scruple of accepting it if it be offered, or if it can be
reasonably obtained.'
The suspense which Evelyn describes had not long to be endured. On
February 11, the very day after Monk had dismayed the city by breaking
down its gates and allowing the soldiers to march about it in triumph,
he turned out the Parliament then sitting at Westminster, and called
together the former one, to the great joy of the people. From this
moment all hearts and wishes turned to the exiled royal family as the
one hope left of tranquillity and order; thus suddenly, when the
royalist hopes were lowest, their hearts' desire was given to them.
[_BISHOP WREN'S RELEASE._]
Monk, now in supreme power, did not forget the Bishop of Ely, whose
fellow-captive he had been and who must have rejoiced to see Monk at
last justify his confidence. On March 15 the lieutenant of the Tower
received the order 'That Dr. Wren, Bishop of Ely, be discharged from his
imprisonment.' Thus the eighteen years of captivity came to an end, and
the Bishop came forth from the Tower, an old man of seventy-five,
broken by many sorrows.
It cannot have been with unmixed joy that he once more trod another path
than that wonted one on the leads of the Tower. True, the King was
coming home in peace to a people longing to receive him. This return was
a promise of deliverance for the Church, and an end to that difficulty
of preserving the Apostolical Succession which had so nearly proved a
fatal one. And yet, the flood, which in those eighteen years had passed
over the land, had swept away many whom the Bishop loved well. The King
might return in triumph, but he was not the sovereign whom, from his
youth, Bishop Wren had loved and served. The primate with whom he had
worked, had been cruelly murdered; and none could restore the wife and
children who had pined and died during the long years of his
imprisonment. The Church, however, remained, and for her Bishop Wren
would work while life lasted. Part of his employment in the Tower had
been the writing of treatises and sermons, one of which on the Scotch
Covenant, from the text 'Neither behave thyself frowardly in the
covenant,' he dispersed over the dioceses of Norwich and Ely, lodging
the while where he could in London, as he was not yet allowed to go back
either to Downham in Suffolk or to Ely House in Holborn. It appeared, as
was truly said, as if he had not been 'so much released as thrust out of
prison.'
Homeless and penniless as he then seemed, Bishop Wren's spirit was in no
respect daunted; when he left in safety the Tower where he had once
thought to lay his head on the block, he planned the thank-offering
which he would make to God. His children, from whom he had been so long
separated, who were scattered everywhere and had been reduced to the
greatest straits, he with much difficulty gathered together again, and
they awaited the event of Monk's decision.
[_THE RESTORATION._]
At length came that 29th of May so often described in history and
fiction. Evelyn's[76] account of it is interesting, as that of an
eyewitness:--
'This day his majestie Charles II. came to London, after a sad and
long exile and calamitous suffering both of the king and church,
being seventeen yeares. This was also his birthday; and with a
triumph of above 20,000 horse and foote, brandishing their swords
and shouting with inexpressible joy; the wayes strewed with
flowers, the bells ringing, the streetes hung with tapestry,
fountaines running with wine; the maior, aldermen, and all the
companies in their liveries, chaines of gold, and banners; lords
and nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windowes
and balconies well set with ladies: trumpets, music, and myriads of
people flocking even so far as from Rochester, so as they were
seven houres in passing the citty, even from two in afternoone till
nine at night. I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and blessed
God. All this was don without one drop of bloudshed, and by that
very army which rebelled against him.'
By degrees, matters settled down to a more ordinary level. The Church
Service was restored at Whitehall, and on June 28 Pepys mentions[77]
'poor Bishop Wren going to chapel, it being a thanksgiving day for the
King's returne.'
The vacant sees were now filled up as speedily as possible. Bishop Juxon
was translated to Canterbury, Sheldon succeeding him as Bishop of
London; the northern province, then wholly without bishops, had its
losses supplied.
The Prayer Book was not by any means commonly used again for some time.
Pepys characteristically says--[78]
'_July 1._--This morning come home my fine camlett cloak, with gold
buttons, and a silk suit which cost me much money, and I pray God
make me able to pay for it. In the afternoon to the Abbey, where a
good sermon by a stranger, but no Common Prayer yet.'
In the following November, to quote the same writer, 'men did begin to
nibble at the Common Prayer.' Matters were really progressing, the
cathedrals and the court chapels as well as those in the Bishop's
palaces setting the example. In February (1661) Evelyn heard 'Dr.
Baldero preach at Ely House on St. Matthew vi. 33; after the sermon the
Bishop of Ely gave us the blessing very pontifically.'[79]
[_ELY HOUSE._]
Ely House was an ancient possession of the see,[80] the gift of William
de Ludd, who in the reign of Edward I. gave the house and endowed it
with his manor of Ouldbourne, a name which soon grew into Holbourn. The
garden and its strawberries are immortalised by Shakespeare. It was
leased to Sir Christopher Hatton by Bishop Cox in Queen Elizabeth's
reign, and a struggle between the Hatton family and the Bishops of Ely
then began which lasted until 1772.[81] In Wren's time, the Bishops had
recovered some of the buildings, and he had lived here before the
rebellion. During that time the house had been used as a prison for
'malignant priests,' especially those of the city of London, and he must
have found the whole building sorely defaced and injured.
The chapel, dedicated to S. Etheldreda, is a beautiful piece of Gothic
architecture; and there, when it had been cleansed and restored to some
order, many of the new bishops were consecrated, and Bishop Wren
assisted at that preservation of the Apostolical Succession which but
two years before had seemed well-nigh hopeless.
Much was done at Ely House. In the May of 1661 the Convocation of
Canterbury met in S. Paul's, its marred, plundered condition not inaptly
showing the adversities through which the Church of England had passed.
The Convocation had much work before it, the most pressing being to
prepare a service for the baptism of those of riper years and for May
29. In order to this a committee of both Houses of Convocation was
formed, which met at Ely House, and of which Bishop Wren appears to have
been the ruling spirit. Many were still half afraid of their true
position and afraid of the Puritan party; eighteen years of confusion
and persecution had slackened all discipline, and many things seemed
natural to the new generation which neither Bishop Andrewes nor
Archbishop Laud would have tolerated for a day. It is implied in Dr.
Barwick's Life that many of those who should have upheld the Church
discipline were willing, from a mistaken notion of conciliation and
peace, to let it go. Bishop Wren set his face resolutely against this
doctrine.
[_REVISION OF THE PRAYER BOOK._]
In November the Convocation met again. Dr. John Barwick had been
appointed to the deanery of S. Paul's, and in spite of very failing
health, had resumed the weekly Communions, daily prayers, and musical
services of the cathedral, and had succeeded in making the choir, where
the Puritans had stabled their horses, once more fit for Divine service.
At this session of Convocation the Prayer Book was finally revised,
after the Bishops had heard at the Savoy Conference all that the
Puritans could urge against it. Bishop Wren had been actively engaged in
this work, and suggested a considerable number of alterations and
additions, many of which were adopted. A large number of grammatical
errors had crept in to the old book: for example, 'which' instead of
'who' was in almost all the collects and the Apostles' creed. It still,
by some oversight, survives in the Lord's Prayer.[82] 'The altering
whereof,' says Bishop Wren, 'if it may seem strange at first to
unskilful ears, yet will it not be a nine days' wonder, but for ever
after a right expression in all our addresses unto God.'
Page after page he corrected with the utmost care, from the very
title-page and calendar to the end. July has the characteristic note,
'Out with Dog-days from amongst the Saints.'--A considerable number of
his suggestions are part of the Prayer Book to this day. The final
clause of the prayer for the Church Militant beginning 'We also bless,
etc.,' though not Bishop Wren's composition, as he intended to have
replaced the Commemoration of the Saints and the Thanksgiving as it
stood in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., is yet due to his
suggestion. The whole series of notes and emendations is very
interesting, though they are more than can be given here. Two things
plainly appear: that he wished to return as nearly as possible to the
first Prayer Book of Edward VI., as the one most closely resembling the
offices of the Early Church; that he was very desirous to have the book
made as full, as plain, and as clear as the English language could make
it. He was anxious that no needless stumbling-blocks should remain in
the path either of Churchmen or of Nonconformists, but at the same time
he had no intention of bartering any portion of Church truth or
discipline for the doubtful advantages of 'comprehension.'
It is a proof that he was not, with all his high-minded firmness, the
persecuting prelate of Puritan pamphleteers, or the sour and severe man
which, in early days, Lord Clarendon thought him, that both in Norwich,
his former diocese, and in the one he then ruled, most of the clergy
renounced the Covenant.[83]
S. Bartholomew's day, 1662, was the time fixed for those who refused to
conform to the Church to resign their livings. It has been easy to
represent this as a piece of cruel tyranny, as the turning out of a body
of pious men who were labouring in the work which others neglected. In
truth, as even Milton says, they were 'time-servers, covetous,
illiterate persecutors, not lovers of the truth, like in most things
whereof they had accused their predecessors.' To this grave indictment
must be added that they were, in the strictest sense, intruders, thrust
into charges by Cromwell's authority, while the true priests were
imprisoned, fined, forbidden to minister, or even to teach as
schoolmasters, and literally left to starve.
'The majority of these were dead and none had been ordained to fill
up the gaps, during all the long years since the Church's
overthrow.... Of the eight thousand intruding Nonconformists, a
bare two thousand--1700 would probably be nearer the
number--refused conformity.
'In other words, the Church of the Restoration had to begin her
work with a clergy of whom at least three-fourths were aliens at
heart to her doctrine and her discipline. To the politician this
result was most satisfactory; to the Church little short of
disastrous.'[84]
[_GARTER RECORDS RESTORED._]
One of the earliest appointments made at the Restoration was that of Dr.
Bruno Ryves[85] to be Dean of Windsor and Registrar of the Garter. In
the August of 1660, Christopher Wren went to Windsor, and solemnly
delivered to the Dean the three registers and the note books of the
Order of the Garter, which Dean Wren had, with so much difficulty,
recovered and hidden carefully until, at his death, he transferred the
charge to his son. Dean Ryves gave a written acknowledgment to
Christopher that he had safely received the books, and the service his
father had done in preserving them was fully admitted. Gresham College
had been cleansed and set in order after the Restoration, and
Christopher resumed his lectures there, which were largely attended.
After one of these lectures given in November, Lord Brouncker, Mr.
Robert Boyle, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Dr. Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray and
others withdrew with Wren to his room, where they discussed a project
for a philosophical College or Society. It was not an entirely new idea,
for it had been a favourite scheme of Evelyn's, also of the poet
Cowley's.[86] It was not a matter to be arranged in one sitting, and
accordingly they settled to meet weekly in Wren's rooms after his
lectures, and agreed that for incidental expenses each should pay down
ten shillings and subscribe a shilling weekly. A list was made of
between thirty and forty probable members, among them those previously
mentioned, and Christopher's old friend Sir C. Scarborough, Dr. Seth
Ward, Matthew Wren, Cowley, Sir Kenelme Digby, Mr. Evelyn and others.
Sir Robert Moray undertook to explain the project to King Charles, and
brought back a gracious message that he well approved of it, and would
be ready to give it every encouragement. One of the first orders of the
Society was that Wren should at the next meeting of the Society bring in
his account of the pendulum experiment, with his explanation of it: this
experiment related to 'the determination of a standard measure of length
by the vibration of a pendulum.'[87] There followed experiments for the
improvement of shipping, in which Wren worked with Dr. Petty and Dr.
Goddard. It was a question to what mechanical powers sailing, especially
when against the wind, was reducible; 'he showed it to be a wedge; and
he demonstrated how a transient force upon an oblique plane would cause
the motion of the plane against the first mover. He made an instrument
that mechanically produced the same effect and showed the reason of
sailing to all winds.'
But to give all Christopher's experiments would be to write over again
the already well-told history of the Royal Society. It had few more
assiduous members.
[_SAVILIAN PROFESSORSHIP._]
In 1661, Christopher resigned his Gresham Professorship, in order to
accept the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy, at Oxford.[88] It had
been held by Dr. Seth Ward, who was soon afterwards made Bishop of
Salisbury in succession to Bishop Hyde. Shortly after his appointment,
Christopher had a command from the King to make him a lunar globe,
according to the observations made with the best telescopes. He
constructed one 'representing not only the spots and various degrees of
whiteness on the surface, but the hills, eminences, and cavities moulded
in solid work.' This curious toy was highly admired, placed in the
King's cabinet at Whitehall, and esteemed a great 'rarity.'
In this year Wren took his degree as Doctor of Civil Laws, Oxford, and
received a similar honour from the University of Cambridge. King Charles
purposed paying a visit to Oxford, and the Philosophical Society both
there and in London resolved to give him an entertainment. Lord
Brouncker wrote from London to Wren to consult him. Wren wrote back:--
'My Lord,--The Act and noise at Oxford being over, I retir'd to
myself as speedily as I could to obey your Lordship and contribute
something to the collection of Experiments designed by the Society,
for his Majesty's Reception. I concluded on something I thought
most suitable for such an occasion; but the stupidity of our
artists here makes the apparatus so tedious that I foresee I shall
not be able to bring it to anything within the time proposed. What
in the meanwhile to suggest to your Lordship I cannot guess.'...
'Geometrical problems, and new methods, however useful, will be but
tasteless in a transient show.' He enumerates various things which
he had thought of and rejected: 'designs of engines, scenographical
tricks, designs of architecture, chymical experiments, experiments
in anatomy, which last are sordid and noisome to any but those
whose desire of knowledge makes them digest it.' 'Experiments of
Natural Philosophy are seldom pompous, and certainly Nature in the
best of her works is apparent enough in obvious things, were they
but curiously observed; and the key that opens treasures is often
plain and rusty, but unless it be gilt it will make no show at
Court.'
He proposed to show an experiment with a 'weather wheel to measure the
expansions of air.' Another--'no unpleasing spectacle--of seeing a man
live without new air as long as you please;' this was to be effected by
an instrument of Wren's invention which cooled, percolated, and purified
the air. Also 'an artificial eye truly and dioptrically made as big as a
tennis-ball.'
['_SO MUCH TATTLE._']
'My Lord,' the letter ends, 'if my first design had been perfect I
had not troubled your Lordship with so much Tattle, but with
something performed and done. But I am fain, in this letter, to do
like some chymist who when Projection (his fugitive darling) hath
left him threadbare, is forced to fall to vulgar Preparations to
pay his Debts.'
The King appointed Wren as assistant to Sir John Denham, the
Surveyor-General of Works. Sir John had been appointed by Charles I., in
reversion during the lifetime of Inigo Jones, surveyor at that time, and
had succeeded, at Inigo Jones's death, to what was then but a barren
honour. Evelyn, who had a dispute with Sir John about the placing of
Greenwich Palace in that very year, says: 'I knew him to be a better
poet than architect, tho' he had Mr. Webb[89] (Inigo Jones's man) to
assist him.' Of this Charles II. was probably aware, and anxious to
supply his deficiency. That his choice should have fallen upon Wren,
unless Evelyn's friendship suggested it, is remarkable, as, until then,
Wren seems to have made no special study of architecture. No doubt the
practical experience learned in the details of the assistant-surveyor's
work was afterwards very serviceable to him. He appears to have had a
most retentive memory as well as a very quick eye and power of
apprehension. In spite, however, of these calls on his time he was
assiduous at the Society's meetings.
The death of Laurence Rooke, his friend and fellow-labourer, threw more
work on his hands. Rooke was succeeded in the Geometry Professorship by
Isaac Barrow, afterwards a well-known divine who, in his first Latin
oration, eulogised the Savilian Professor as 'formerly a prodigy of a
boy, now a miracle of a man, and a genius among mortals. Lest I should
appear to speak falsehood, it will be enough for me to name to you the
most ingenious and excellent Christopher Wren.'[90] It was a high
compliment, but Barrow knew that his audience would heartily re-echo it.
It is to be hoped that Barrow's lectures were somewhat shorter than his
sermons, which, fine as they are, were not always listened to with
patience.
[_A LONG SERMON._]
'On one occasion, when he was long preaching in the Abbey on a
holiday, the servants of the Church, who on those days showed the
tombs and effigies in wax of the Kings and Queens to the common
people, fearing to spend that time in hearing which they might more
profitably employ in receiving, caused the organs to blow until
they had blowed him down.'[91]
On March 25, 1663, the Society was finally incorporated by a charter
from the King, with a preamble written by Christopher Wren, explaining
its objects. The style of the preamble is far more florid than is usual
in Wren's writing: it has in it the exultation of one who is
accomplishing a long-cherished scheme. One paragraph is evidently
intended as a defence against certain attacks which were made upon the
English philosophers as they had been in past times against Galileo:--
'Not that herein we would withdraw the least ray of our influence
from the present established nurseries of good literature and
education, founded by the piety of our royal ancestors and others,
and whose laws which as we are obliged to defend, so the holy blood
of our martyred Father hath especially endeared to us, but, that we
purpose to make further provision for this branch of knowledge
likewise, Natural Experimental Philosophy.'... 'Taking care as in
the first place for Religion so next for the riches and ornaments
of our kingdoms, as we wear an Imperial Crown in which flowers are
alternately intermixed with the ensigns of Christianity.'
King Charles, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert, always a lover of
experiments, were among the first members of the Society, and its
beginning was prosperous enough; but Court favour has always created
some envy. It happened that in the self-same year Butler,[92] then
secretary to Jeremy Taylor's friend, Lord Carbery, published his famous
'Hudibras.' It created a great sensation; the Court read it, the town
read it; Pepys, hearing 'the world cry it up so mightily, tried twice or
three times reading to bring himself to think it witty.' It was in
everyone's mouth, and Butler naturally thought himself sure of
promotion. None, however, came to him, and he directed his bitter wit
against those more fortunate than himself, the members of the new Royal
Society, and Bishop Sprat in particular, in a poem called 'The Elephant
in the Moon,' which opened as follows:--
['_THE ELEPHANT IN THE MOON._']
'A learn'd Society of late,
The glory of a neighbouring state,
Agreed upon a summer night
To search the moon by her own light,
To take an invent'ry of all
Her real estate and personal.
* * * * *
To observe her country how 'twas planted,
With what she abounded most or wanted,
And make the proper'st observations
For settling of new plantations,
If the Society should incline
T' attempt so glorious a design.'
With sharp touches indicating the various Members of the Society the
satire continues, telling how they see in the moon, through the
telescope, marvellous things, and an appearance of an immense elephant;
they agree that a record must be made, and during the discussion who is
to write it, one of the servants peeping through the telescope discovers
that a _mouse_ has got in between the two glasses! It, and a swarm of
small flies, are the causes of the mysterious phenomena, the vast beast,
the marching and countermarching armies which have been so learnedly
explained![93]
The Society does not seem to have paid much attention to the poet, and
the experiments went on as usual. A different task was presently offered
to Wren by the King. When he married Catharine of Portugal, he received
Tangiers, Tripoli, and Bombay as part of her dowry. Tangiers was
reckoned as a very important place to the English, whose sailors were
still constantly harassed by the Moorish pirates, and the fortifications
of the town were a pressing care. King Charles offered, through Matthew
Wren, then Lord Clarendon's secretary, a commission to Christopher Wren,
as one of the best geometricians in Europe, to survey and direct the
works at the mole, harbour, and fortifications of Tangiers, offering him
an ample salary, leave of absence from his Professorship, and a
reversionary grant of Sir John Denham's office. Flattering though the
offer was, Christopher declined it on the ground of his health, and
begged the King to command his duty in England.
[_A WARM FRIEND._]
He no doubt judged wisely, and the refusal gave no offence at Court.
Perhaps the leave of absence might not have been easily obtained, for
the following letter from Dr. Sprat shows that Wren was already
embarrassed by the difficulty of being in two places at once:--
'My dear Sir,--I must confess I have some little Peek against
you--therefore am not much displeased, that I have this occasion of
telling you some ill news. The Vice-Chancellor did yesterday send
for me to inquire where the _Astronomy Professor_ was, and the
reason of his absence so long after the beginning of the _term_. I
used all the arguments I could for your Defence. I told him that
_Charles the Second_ was King of _England_, _Scotland_, _France_
and _Ireland_; and that he was by the late _Act of Parliament_
declared absolute Monarch in these his dominions: and that it was
this mighty Prince who had confined you to _London_. I endeavour'd
to persuade him that the drawing of lines in _Sir Harry Savill's_
school was not altogether of so great a concernment for the benefit
of Christendom as the rebuilding of _St. Paul's_ or the fortifying
of _Tangier_; (for I understood those were the great works in which
that extraordinary Genius of yours was judg'd necessary to be
employ'd). All this I urged, but after some Discourse, he told me,
that he was not now to consider you as _Dr. Bayly_[94](for so he
ow'd you all Kindness) but as _Vice Chancellor_, and under that
Capacity he most terribly told me that he took it very ill you had
not all this while given him any Account of what hinder'd you in
the Discharge of your Office. This he bid me tell you, and I do it
not very unwillingly because I see that our Friendships are so
closely ty'd together that the same Thing which was so great a
Prejudice to me (my losing your Company all this while here) does
also something redound to your Disadvantage. And so, my dear Sir,
now my Spite and Spleen is satisfied, I must needs return to my old
Temper again, and faithfully assure you that I am with the most
violent Zeal and Passion, your most affectionate and devoted
Servant,
'THO. SPRAT.'
Wren had also employment at Cambridge, of a kind he would have been loth
to put in other hands. His uncle, the Bishop of Ely, had instantly on
his release determined to give a chapel to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge,
where he had been a scholar under Launcelot Andrewes,[95] and he
employed his nephew as his architect. Upon this work and its endowment
the Bishop expended 5,000_l._, the first money he received after his
release. His personal habits were austerely simple; for the last twenty
years of his life he drank no wine, and only ate off a wooden trencher,
practising fasting and abstinence with great strictness. He had never
spent any of the revenues of his see upon his children, and now he made
the chapel his heir, bestowing upon it an estate at Hardwick in
Cambridgeshire.
The chapel, which has a peculiar interest as Wren's first architectural
work, is built in the classical style he was to make famous in England,
and bears his mark in its beautiful proportions, the richness of its
stucco ceiling and the pannelled wood-work. The plain glazing of the
windows and a something of bareness about the whole, are probably to be
accounted for by the necessity of limiting the expense to a fixed sum.
Its first stone was laid May 13, 1663, by the Master, Dr. Frank, acting
for Bishop Wren, who was not present.[96]
[_A SAD RETURN._]
It was probably at the same time that Wren executed some repairs in Ely
Cathedral which had suffered, like every other grand church, from the
fury of the Puritans. Bitter indeed must have been the regret with which
the surviving clergy returned to find the fabrics of their churches
plundered and laid waste, and their flocks scattered or corrupted.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] _Life of Dr. Barwick_, p. 201.
[70] Afterwards Lord Clarendon.
[71] _Life of Dr. Barwick_, p. 424.
[72] Probably Bishop Juxon, more than once alluded to under this
name in these letters.
[73] _Life of Dr. Barwick_, p. 437.
[74] _Life of Dr. Barwick_, p. 449.
[75] _Life of Dr. Barwick_, p. 496.
[76] _Diary_, May 29, 1660.
[77] _Diary_, vol. i. p. 112, ed. 1828.
[78] Ib., p. 114.
[79] _Diary._
[80] _Repertorium_, vol. ii. p. 273. Newcourt.
[81] In that year the last Lord Hatton died; the bishops resigned
Ely House to the Crown, and received No. 37 Dover Street in
exchange. The chapel, after years of neglect, has also been
suffered to pass out of the hands of the Church into those of
the Romanists. See _Walks in London_ by A. C. Hare, vol. ii.
pp. 196-201.
[82] _Fragmentary Illustrations of the History of the Book of
Common Prayer_, edited by the Bishop of Chester, p. 47, _et
seq._
[83] Bishop Kennet says, 'One particular will appear' (from Bishop
Wren's _Register_), 'that there were but few of the parochial
clergy deprived in this diocese (Ely) in 1662, for not
submitting to the Act of Uniformity, though more of the old
legal incumbents had been sequestered about 1644 than in
proportion within any other diocese.'--Grey's Examination of
Neale's _History of the Puritans_, vol. iv. p. 328. From the
same authority it appears that most of the clerks deprived in
1662 had other callings, _e.g._ cobbling, gloving, skinning,
bookselling, husbandry, and to these they generally returned.
Some of his clergy had come to him in the Tower for institution,
in the early part of his imprisonment, and that many were
faithful to him is evident from the fact they were expelled
their livings for 'following Bishop Wren's fancies,' no other
crimes being pretended against them.--_Annals of England_, p.
392.
[84] See an interesting article, _The Church of England in the
Eighteenth Century_, in the _Church Quarterly Review_, July,
1877, p. 321, _et seq._ It is not however quite accurate to
say '_none_ were ordained,' for Bishop Duppa held secretly
'frequent ordinations of young loyal church scholars,' among
whom was Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury.--_History of the Book of Common Prayer_, Lathbury,
p. 296.
[85] Dr. Bruno Ryves, Dean of Chichester in 1642, was in the city
during Sir William Waller's siege, and left a description of
the sack of the cathedral and robbery of its plate by the
commander and his troops. Dean Ryves was fined 120_l._ and
deprived.--_Memorials of the See of Chichester_, p. 286.
[86] Abraham Cowley, born 1618; educated at Westminster; was the
intimate friend of Lord Falkland and of the poet Crashaw.
Cowley followed Henrietta Maria to Paris, remaining steadily
loyal. He died 1667.
[87] _History of the Royal Society_ (by C. R. Weld), p. 96. Galileo
is said to have first discovered the use of the pendulum as a
measure of time, while watching the oscillations of the bronze
lamp in the cathedral at Pisa. A pendulum clock was long
reckoned a 'rarity.' Bishop Seth Ward presented one, made by
Fromantel, to the Society in 1662, in memory of his friend Mr.
Laurence Rooke, late Astronomy Professor at Gresham College.
[88] Founded 1619 by Sir Henry Savile. He required that the
Professor should explain the Ptolemaic and Copernican and
other modern astronomical systems, should teach and read on
Optics, Dialling, Geography and Navigation. He was to be of
any nation in Christendom, provided he was of good reputation,
had a fair knowledge of Greek, and was twenty-six years of
age. If an Englishman he must have taken his M.A. degree. The
choice of a professor was to lie with the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the
University, the Bishop of London, the principal Secretary of
State, Chief Justices, the Lord Chief Baron, and Dean of
Arches. _Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 188. Ayliffe.
[89] He married Inigo Jones's daughter.
[90] _Lives of the Gresham Professors_, Ward, p. 97.
[91] Isaac Barrow, born 1630. He was so little studious as a boy,
and so fond of fighting, that his father used often solemnly
to wish that if it should please God to take one of his
children it might be his son Isaac. When, however, in 1677, he
did really die, the Lord Keeper (Lord Nottingham) sent his
father a message of condolence, importing that 'he had but too
great reason to grieve, since never father lost so good a
son.' Dr. Isaac Barrow, Bishop of Man, 1663, and S. Asaph,
1669, was his uncle. _Life of Dr. Barrow_, vol. i. p. ix., ed.
1830. Among his poems is the following, which seems to be
incomplete:--
AD. DD. CHR. WREN.
Ad te, sed passu tremulo vultuque rubenti,
Fertur ad ingenii culmen, opella levis,
Nec quid vult aliud (quid enim velit haud tibi notum)
Quam ut justum authoris deferat.--_Ib._ vol. viii. p. 541.
[92] Samuel Butler, born 1612, died, it is said, in great poverty,
and was buried in S. Paul's, Covent Garden, 1680.
[93] Wren's lunar globe will be remembered. _Vide supra_, p. 125.
The satire made some sensation and caused La Fontaine to write
_Un Animal dans la Lune_, in which, courtier like, he pays a
compliment to Charles II., and hints at the happiness of
England at peace and able to give herself 'à ces emplois,'
while France was at war with Holland, Spain, and the Empire.
[94] Dr. Richard Bayley, President of S. John's College.
[95] Bishop Andrewes bequeathed 332_l._ to the library of Pembroke
College.
[96] Some alterations have recently been made at Pembroke, in
which, under the late Sir G. Scott's orders, the chapel has
been lengthened by about 20 feet, the stucco of the exterior
stripped, and the red brick pointed.