IX. Family life amongst the Nonconformists, in the reign of the later
Stuarts, framed itself after the Puritan model; and in the memoirs
of Oliver Heywood and Philip Henry, windows are open through which
we discover their domestic habits. Saint Bartholomew’s Day became a
solemn fast in commemoration of the ejectment,--sometimes held in
fellowship with a neighbouring minister or ministers,--when “the
Lord helped His servants, with strong cries, many tears, and mighty
workings to acknowledge sin, accept of punishment, and implore
mercy.”[323] Sometimes, when none but the family were present, each
person prayed in turn, the minister, the wife, the two sons, and the
maid, beginning with the youngest. Heywood, in his _Diary_,
alludes to a particular friend--“a solid, gracious, useful, peaceable,
tender-hearted Christian,” with whom he had “many a sweet day of
prayer; and,” he says, “a few days before he died, we were at a
private fast together in Ovenden-wood; and, oh! oh! how melting and
affectionate was his heart for his children, a son and daughter, both
here this day!” At another time, the same minister speaks of a private
fast with two of his brethren, “about a special business, and our
judgment was desired in an intricate matrimonial case, which seems
something dark.”[324]
It is said of Thomas Aquinas that he had “the gift of tears;” and his
weeping at church is mentioned amongst the signs of his saintship. The
same gift seems to have been possessed by this Nonconformist family.
When Heywood’s two sons devoted themselves to the work of the Christian
ministry, and a solemn domestic service of worship celebrated the
event, as one of the ministers read the 48th chapter in Genesis, and
came to the words, “The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless
the lads,” tears stopped him; all wept. He says in prayer “God helped
all;” and he adds: “God wrought strangely in my heart; oh! what a flood
of tears, what pleadings with God! I can scarce remember the like.”
At night again, they prayed, “sobbing and weeping,” like David and
Jonathan, “until David exceeded.”[325]
Loyalty to the Stuarts beat in the bosoms of these Nonconformists,
notwithstanding the treatment which they received; for we learn that,
in the month of May, Mr. Heywood, his children, and his servant,
spent several days with Mr. Angier at Denton, one of which days was
the anniversary of Charles’ return, when there was a service in which
Heywood took part.[326]
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
They had their family meetings. Nathaniel Heywood, with his wife and
his sons, visited Oliver; and the brother and uncle felt it a comfort
to have “these three couples of Heywoods to meet together”--“a rising
generation, all very hopeful.”[327] We fancy how they talked that April
time--in the oak parlour, as the window was thrown open, during a burst
of sunshine, after a shower which had drenched the fruit-blossoms and
the rose-buds. We may guess the topics from incidents in connection
with the Stanley family: Nathaniel might relate the story of his
being taken by a party of soldiers, while preaching in the chapel at
Bickerstaff, when Lady Stanley, who attended the service, came out of
her gallery, and placed herself near the pulpit door, hoping to overawe
their spirits and obstruct their designs; and how, when he attended the
sessions at Wigan, Lady Stanley came with her husband, and others, to
speak on behalf of the persecuted clergyman.[328] And Oliver might be
led to recur, by the force of association, to the visit of himself and
Mr. Angier to Sir Thomas Stanley of Alderley, when, being requested
to pray in that large family, the first morning he was tempted to
study and speak “handsome words from respect to the company;” but,
reflecting to whom he prayed, and that it was no trifling matter, he
set himself to the exercise in serious earnestness, and God helped him
to speak devoutly, with respect to the state of their souls.[329] The
hospitalities of Broad Oak were the praise of all the country round.
The dwelling stood by the roadside, and any one travelling that way
met with a cordial welcome at the bright fire-side, where the silenced
Presbyter, Philip Henry, exemplified the virtues of a Bishop, “like
Abraham sitting at his tent-door in quest of opportunities to do good.
If he met with any poor near his house and gave them alms in money,
yet he would bid them go to his door besides, for relief there. He was
very tender and compassionate towards poor strangers and travellers,
though his charity and candour were often imposed upon by cheats and
pretenders.”[330] “This man,” says a competent witness, “(ever since
I knew him, and whilst I was his neighbour) was careful to rise early
on Sunday mornings, to spend a considerable portion of his time in his
private devotions and preparations, then to come down and call his
family together, and, after some short, preparatory prayer, to sing
a Psalm (commonly the 100th), and then read some part of the sacred
Scripture, and expound it very largely and particularly, and at last
kneel down with all his family and pray devoutly; with particular
references to the day and duties of it, and the minister that was to
officiate. After which a short refection for breakfast, he made haste
to church, and took care that all his family that could be spared,
should go in due time likewise: sometime he was before the preacher,
and often before the rest of the congregation; (as once particularly,
when I gave them a sermon in that place, he and I walked together
a considerable time before the people came;) he behaved himself
reverently and very gravely in the church during the service; stood
up commonly at prayers, and always, in my time, wrote a sermon after
the minister. When the morning service was ended, he commonly invited
the minister to dine with him, who seldom refused; and many others,
who either lived at a distance, as Mrs. Hanmer, Sir Job Charleton’s
daughter, married to a Justice of Peace in that country, or else
such as were poor and needy. His discourse homewards was sweet and
spiritual; at table it was seasoned as well as his meat; edifying,
and yet pleasant, and taking; never wild or offensive. After meat and
thanks returned, they commonly (I think constantly) before departure
from table, sung the 23rd Psalm. Sometime after, when the servants
had dined, he propounded to such guests as he thought in prudence he
should not be too free with, to retire into the parlour for a while,
till he had attended upon his family, repeated over the sermon and
prayed with them; after which he returned to his guests again, and
having entertained them with some short discourse, he retired awhile
himself, and by and by, called upon his family to go to church. After
evening service and sermon ended, he retired again till six o’clock
(then called for prayers, catechised, took an account of children and
servants of what they remembered at church, which accounts were given
sometimes very largely and particularly), sung a Psalm, kneeled down to
prayers (which consisted more of praise and benediction than at other
times), and at last, his children kneeling down before him (to beg his
blessing), he blessed them all, and concluded the service of the day
with the 123rd Psalm; save that after supper, he retired for about
half-an-hour more into his study before bed-time. Sometimes after the
public service ended at church, he gave some spiritual instructions,
and preached in his house to as many as would come to hear him; and
in his last years, when the Incumbents grew careless in providing
supplies for two or three neighbouring churches and chapels, and the
people cried out for lack of vision, he set up a constant ministration
and preaching at home, never taking anything by way of reward for his
pains, unless with a purpose to give it away to those who were in
greater necessities.”[331]
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
That a sad colour tinged the joys of the Nonconformists must be
confessed. How their Anglo-Saxon gravity might become more grave,
and the light which sparkled over the home-life of their neighbours,
might, in their own case, be darkened,--we see plainly enough when
we recollect the perils which brooded over them even in seasons of
calm, and the cruel interruptions which they suffered in the cloudy
and dark day. Heywood speaks of officers sweeping away his chests,
his tables, his chairs, his bed,--in short all his goods, except a
cupboard and a few seats; and the same person was, for holding a
religious meeting, imprisoned in York Castle.[332] How could such men,
with all their tenderness, help being stern in their faith, and solemn
in their pleasures? If genial they could not be light-hearted. They
did not weep, as their enemies often said of them that they did, with
a hypocritical whine; nor did they laugh, as some of their enemies
really did, with affected glee,--their tears and smiles were genuine
as the rain and the sunshine from heaven. Life was not to them, as
to some others, a gay comedy,--it had in it a tragic cast; yet they
never regarded it as a drama acted on the stage, but always as a real,
earnest battle, fought in the open field, under the eye of God.
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
Let us pass from the homes of Oliver Heywood and the two Henrys to
the mansion of a Nonconformist nobleman already noticed--Philip Lord
Wharton, the good Lord Wharton, as he is called, to distinguish him
from a descendant of a far different character. In the pleasant
village of Woburn, in Buckinghamshire, situated on the river Wick, a
tributary to the Thames,--which in its course through a delightful
district, turns the wheel of many a paper mill,--there stands, under
the shadow of richly-wooded hills, and adorned by a stately row
of poplars, a goodly house; connected with which are stables and
fish-ponds, pertaining to a far nobler residence which once occupied
the site. The estate, before it came into the possession of the
Whartons, exhibited much magnificence, of the feudal stamp, containing
a palace for the Bishops of Lincoln, and a chapel with a small cell
adjoining, called Little Ease,--where Thomas Chase, of Amersham, was,
in 1506, privately strangled for heresy, and where Thomas Harding,
of Chesham, was confined in 1532, previously to his being burnt at
the stake. This ancient and stately house became a great place of
resort for Nonconformist Divines. Manton and Bates, Howe and Owen,
were often entertained under the hospitable roof, and the shadows of
these departed ones still pleasantly haunt the spot, as the Puritan
residents of the neighbourhood conduct strangers through the gardens,
and relate to them the legends of the old dwelling. There--during one
of the severe attacks of his fatal malady--Owen wrote his last and
justly admired letters to his Church; and there, under the operation
of the Five Mile Act--the house being above that distance from High
Wycombe--the Nonconformists of the neighbouring town used to assemble
for worship. The chapel formed a convenient place for the purpose; and
within its walls the voices of eminent Divines, Owen and Howe, for
example, might be often heard. Thither came Puritans from Wycombe and
Farnham, and Langley and other places; and one can see them in the
dress of the period, with their steeple-crowned hats, and their short
cloaks, coming down the hill-side, or crossing the green--not in large
groups, but singly, stealthily picking their way to avoid observation,
a peasant from a neighbouring farm wading on foot, a burgess from the
good town of Wycombe, riding his little cob. When the service was
over on Sunday forenoon, and the Wycombe people and other folks from
Marlow and Beaconsfield, and stragglers from a greater distance, were
putting on their hats and cloaks, and preparing to unfasten their nags
and to turn homewards, the noble host would invite the people, in
Buckinghamshire phraseology, “to stop and take a sop in the pan,” that
they might avail themselves of the privilege of attending worship again
in the afternoon.[333]
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
The curious and quaint structure of Hoghton Tower, in the County of
Lancaster, is also connected with the Nonconformist memories of the
seventeenth century; for there Howe preached a part of his sublime
discourse concerning “The Redeemer’s dominion over the invisible
world.” And from the exquisitely tender dedication prefixed to it, we
gather that it was occasioned by the death of the eldest son of Sir
Charles and Lady Hoghton, to whom the tower belonged. The dedication
indicates that the bereaved parents had sprung from “religious and
honourable families, favoured of God, valued and beloved in the
countries where He had planted them;” and that their early homes had
been “both seats of religion and of the worship of God, the resorts
of His servants; houses of mercy to the indigent, of justice to the
vicious, of patronage to the sober and virtuous; of good example to
all about them.” Addressing her ladyship, the preacher says: “Madam,
who could have a more pleasant retrospect upon former days, than you?
recounting your Antrim delights; the delight you took in your excellent
relations, your garden delights, your closet delights, your Lord’s Day
delights! But how much a greater thing is it to serve God in your
present station, as the mother of a numerous and hopeful offspring;
as the mistress of a large family; where you bear your part, with your
like-minded consort, in supporting the interest of God and religion,
and have opportunity of scattering blessings round about you.”[334]
The graceful allusions, which the author makes to the family circle
at Hoghton, brings before us a domestic picture, which may serve as
a pendant to that of Broad Oak, the accessories of a Nonconformist
minister’s household being alone exchanged for those of a baronet.
From the title and dedication of another sermon by the same Divine,
“Self-dedication discoursed in the anniversary thanksgiving of a
person of honour for a great deliverance,”--namely, the preservation
from death by a fall from a horse of “John, Earl of Kildare, Baron of
Ophalia, first of his order in the kingdom of Ireland,”--we gather that
it was a Puritan practice to celebrate distinguished family mercies
by annual religious solemnities. Two sermons by the same writer on the
words, “Yield yourselves unto God,” are inscribed “To the much-honoured
Bartholomew Soame, Esq., of Thurlow, and Susanna his pious consort;”
with the notice, that one day in the previous summer the author
preached the sermons under their roof.[335] The circumstance shows,
that sometimes elaborate addresses, fitted for public audiences, were
carefully prepared for a small number of persons, such as could be
accommodated within the entrance-hall, or in one of the apartments of a
country gentleman’s house.
In some Nonconformist families, as was quite natural, romantic
incidents occurred. Major-General Lambert, who figured prominently in
connection with Cromwell, and who was kept a prisoner in the days of
Charles II., had a son very unlike himself as it regards religion.
This gentleman became acquainted with the widow of Charles Nowel of
Merely--a lady who was of the family of Lister, of Arnoldsbiggen. The
union with her first husband had been a runaway match, contracted in a
covered walk within her father’s grounds; after which the bridegroom
fell into the water, and was drowned, in returning home with the
license of marriage in his pocket, so that he and she never met again.
Young Lambert married this ill-fated maiden-widow; and then it turned
out that the tastes of the couple were utterly unlike--he much addicted
to pleasure, she against it; he going to church at Kirkby, Malham-dale,
she walking every Sunday to the Dissenting meeting-house at Winterburn.
His father, the Major-General, wrote a letter, rebuking him for his
extravagance; and his wife invited Mr. Frankland, the Nonconformist
pastor, to come and preach in Craven, with a view to his benefit;
this the gay sportsman at first opposed. But a change came over him;
he himself invited Oliver Heywood to be his guest, and showed him his
pictures--“he being an exact limner:” one would hope he also became a
penitent Christian. Lambert was seized with palsy in January, 1676,
about which time his mother died in Plymouth Castle.[336]
During the first three centuries of the history of Christianity, and
the more than ten persecutions which annalists have numbered, the
professors of the Divine faith had to suffer, far beyond what the laws
in their utmost severity could inflict. Imperial rescripts carried out
to the letter, or magisterial commands going further, were terrible
beyond description; and popular fury shouting, “The Christians to the
lions,” became more cruel still. But another source of suffering, to
minds of sensibility exceeding the rest in the bitterness of anguish
which it produced, was when the husband persecuted the wife, and the
father the child. Tertullian tells us that there were many such cases.
The annals of the Church of the Restoration afford parallels in this
last, as in other respects, to the records of older times.
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
Agnes Beaumont, the daughter of a Bedfordshire yeoman, lost her mother
when very young. Her father sometimes went to hear the preaching of
John Bunyan, but he afterwards conceived a strong antipathy to that
famous minister. The girl manifested religious feeling, and joined
Bunyan’s Church, when a lawyer, who had wished to marry her for the
sake of her father’s property, became her inveterate foe. But the
daughter remained faithful to her convictions; and this circumstance
so provoked her father’s irritable temper, that he opposed her going
to hear the favourite preacher any more. On a particular occasion,
however, she extorted his consent to attend once. It was the depth of
winter. Weary of wading through the mud, and overtaken by Bunyan riding
on his way to the place of worship, she was reluctantly permitted by
him to sit, pillion-fashion, behind him on horseback, when the two
were met by a clergyman, who immediately invented a scandalous report
respecting the minister and the maid. Agnes, after attending the
meeting, found the door of her house barred against her admission.
“Who is there?” asked Beaumont, as she knocked. “’Tis I, father, come
home wet and dirty: pray let me in.” “Where you have been all day, you
may go at night,” was the answer from the other side of the bolted
entrance. She went and sought shelter in a barn. The morning brought no
relenting to the heart of her unnatural parent; and he declared that
she should not enter the house, unless she promised never to go to a
meeting again so long as he lived. “Father,” she answered, “my soul is
of too much worth to do this. Can you stand in my stead, and answer
for me at the great day? If so, I will obey you in this demand, as I
do in all other things.” Much painful excitement followed. At last,
fearful of being disobedient, the young woman promised never to go to
a conventicle as long as he lived, without his consent. This softened
him a little, and they were reconciled; but as she reflected upon her
promise, it struck her that she had been unfaithful to her conscience,
and she passed through great spiritual distress. Soon afterwards
Beaumont fell ill, and retired to rest. His daughter, hearing him
moaning in his chamber, rushed to his assistance, and found him struck
with death. Fatal disease had been brought on, most likely by violence
of temper; and the poor girl, through the villany of her pretended
lover, now had to face the accusation of having murdered her parent.
Though, on the coroner’s inquest, her innocence was established, her
implacable enemy perseveringly maintained, that she had privately
confessed the crime, the object of which was to marry Bunyan, who had
a wife living at that very time; the villain also, without one atom of
evidence, charged her with committing arson.[337] More of revenge than
persecution entered into the conduct of this man; yet, for a while,
Agnes Beaumont, for her religious constancy, endured the most violent
parental anger, probably not uncommon in those days, and akin to that
which fell upon many a pure-minded maiden in Carthage or in Rome.
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
The domestic and private life of the Established clergy and
their friends, as they appear in the biographies and gossiping
literature of the day, assume a rather different aspect from that
of the Nonconformists. Such a dignitary as Reynolds, who had been a
Presbyterian, would no doubt preserve, in his palace at Norwich, many
of the Puritan habits of the Commonwealth--would gather around him,
as far as possible, a godly household, in sympathy with him in his
spiritual tastes--would continue to converse much after the fashion of
by-gone days--and with the adoption of the Episcopalian formularies in
the cathedral and chapel, would connect, in more retired devotion, the
use of extemporaneous prayer, and of Scripture exposition. And such
a parish pastor as Gurnall would, in a similar way, continue Puritan
usages in his quiet parsonage at Lavenham. We must look elsewhere for
characteristic habits and customs of the Episcopalian stamp. Of an
Anglican prelate, enjoying his palace, and engaged in his diocese, a
good specimen is afforded by the memoirs of Seth Ward, the Bishop of
Salisbury.[338]
He was renowned for hospitality. The clergy, even the meanest curates,
were welcome at his table; and people of quality, travelling between
London and Exeter, stopped at the Wiltshire city, and dined at the
palace. He was a hearty entertainer, we are told, assuring his guests
that he accounted himself but a steward, and pressing upon them the
enjoyment of the fare which he plentifully provided. He would not ask,
“Will you drink a glass of wine?” says his biographer, with amusing
minuteness; but he would call for a bottle, and drink himself, and then
offer it to his friends. The poor were relieved at his gates. He had
a band of weekly pensioners; and when he went out for a walk in the
streets or on the plains, he gave money to all who solicited alms; and
when children saw him in his coach or on horseback, they would rush
from their play, to shout, in expectation of a largess, “The Bishop is
coming.” Being a capital horseman, he would ride twenty miles before
dinner, and not mind following the hounds, if he “by chance chopt upon”
them. After dinner and “a dish or two of coffee or tea,” as soon as the
bell “tilled,”--to use the Salisbury phrase,--he called for his robes,
and went to church, taking with him his visitors.[339]
Of another kind of dignitary an example is afforded in the memoirs of
the Honourable and Reverend Dr. John North. He was Clerk of the Closet
to Charles II.; possessing “a very convenient lodging in Whitehall,
upon the parade of the Court, near the presence-chamber,” where his
table was provided from the Royal kitchen, and he enjoyed the company
of His Majesty’s chaplains. People who had nothing else to do, would
say to one another--so North’s brother reports--“Come, shall we go
and spend half-an-hour with Mr. Clerk of the Closet?” but when they
went with the expectation of getting “a glass of wine or ale,” the
wary Divine, by the advice of an old Courtier, would not offer so
much as “small beer in hot weather,” lest he should be overdone with
visitors. In consequence of this prudent determination, he lived “like
a hermit in his cell, in the midst of the Court, and proved the title
of a foolish French writer, _La Solitude de la Cour_.” “Divers
persons,” however, particularly ladies, “far from Papists,” were wont
to repair to this spiritual officer for a different purpose, thinking
“auricular confession, though no duty, a pious practice,” and seeking
“to ease their minds” by means of that Anglo-Catholic custom. He did
“the office of a pastor or _parochus_ of the Court,” somewhat
after the fashion of the mediæval Clerks of the Closet, who were,
in fact, Court confessors. “And I have heard him say,” proceeds his
brother, “that, for the number of persons that resided in the Court,
a place reputed a centre of all vice and irreligion, he thought there
were as many truly pious and strictly religious as could be found in
any other resort whatsoever; and he never saw so much fervent devotion,
and such frequent acts of piety and charity, as his station gave
him occasion to observe there. It often falls out that extremes are
conterminous, and, as contraries, illustrate each other: so here virtue
and vice.”[340] We are glad to hear such testimony, and, when we think
of Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin, we cannot altogether doubt it; but,
as this Court Divine lived in a cell, he could not know much of what
went on around him in the Court.
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
Noble families observed the duties of domestic worship; and, from
the same source as that from which the last illustration is drawn,
it appears how the household of the princely Duke of Beaufort, at
Badminton, attended to this practice. There was breakfast in the
Duchess’ gallery, which opened into the gardens, where perhaps a deer
was to be killed; and half-an-hour after eleven in the forenoon the
bell rang to prayers; and at six in the evening the best company went
into an aisle in the church, where the Duke and Duchess could see if
all the family were present. Her Grace had divers gentlewomen with her,
commonly engaged upon “embroidery and fringe-making; for all the beds
of state were made and finished in the house.”[341]
Instead of extemporary effusions, Episcopalians used the daily prayers
of the Church, or selections from them. On special occasions the
minister of the parish performed the office; and an amusing instance
occurs of the neglect of this custom on the part of a gentleman who
had the honour of entertaining the Judges on the Western Circuit. “He
himself got behind the table in his hall, and read a chapter, and then
a long-winded prayer, after the Presbyterian way. The Judges took it
very ill, but did not think fit to affront him in his own house. Next
day”--who the narrator is may be guessed--“when we came early in the
morning to Exeter, all the news was that the Judges had been at a
conventicle, and the Grand Jury intended to present them and all their
retinue for it; and much merriment was made upon that subject.”[342]
Devout Anglicans attended strictly to the private duties of religion.
They kept fasts and festivals in their own houses, as well as at
church; and in their morning and evening devotions they used portions
of the Common Prayer, or forms supplied by Taylor and Andrewes. They
read the sermons of those Divines, and of Sanderson and others; perhaps
also the annotations of Hammond or some kindred expositor. At a later
period, _The Whole Duty of Man_ became a very popular book with
the class of persons now described.
I conclude these illustrations of Anglo-Catholic life with the account
of the death of an Anglo-Catholic young lady:--
“Upon Thursday, the 1st of February, my most dearly beloved daughter
Grimston fell sick of small-pox.
“She had, from the beginning of her sickness to the last period of her
breath, an understanding very entire, and so perfect a patience that
her demeanour towards them who were about her was not only holy, but
cheerful too.
[Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.]
“She received the sentence of death with the greatest tranquillity
of soul that is imaginable, and sent for Mr. Frampton (the household
chaplain to the Master of the Rolls, in whose house she died). To him
she made an excellent confession of her faith and life, and opened all
the burdens of her spirit, wherein were found no heavier matters than
a few angry words spoken seven years since, and some small errors of
that nature. But [there followed] a most solemn repentance for all
transgressions, whether remembered or forgotten. This being done,
she did, with great devotion, receive the blessed sacrament, and the
absolution of the Church. Before she composed herself to die, she
first took a most kind and comfortable leave of her dear husband--who,
from the beginning of her sickness till the hour of her death, never
left her chamber--praying God to bless him, and that he might never
find the want of her. Then she recommended her little girl to my wife,
entreating her to take her into her family, if it might not be too
great a trouble, and desiring her not to weep, for she was happy. She
remembered almost every relation she had in the world by name, and
offered up a particular prayer for them. I had never seen her after
the second day of her sickness; but she prayed most devoutly for me,
and desired all that were present to tell me from her, that, if prayer
were made in heaven, she would never cease to pray for me there so long
as I lived here: an expression so amazing from a child, and withal so
piercing, that, in the midst of all my spiritual joys, I feel a sorrow
great enough to break my heart if I would give way to it. For within a
few minutes after these words uttered, she surrendered up her blessed
soul into the hands of God Almighty, who, by the assistance of His
most blessed Spirit, had prepared and fitted her for Himself. And now
she hath left her dear husband, and his family, and mine, as full of
mourning and lamentation for the want of her as can possibly consist
with Christian patience and submission. On Monday next she is carried
from hence to her grave, in St. Michael’s Church, near Gorhambury.”[343]
X. As during the Commonwealth, so after the Restoration, different
opinions were entertained respecting the observance of Sunday.
Puritans were not all of one mind upon that matter. Extreme men argued
thus:--“If honest labour be forbidden, much more honest recreations;
for recreation is but the means to prepare and fit men for labour;
therefore, if labour, which is the end of recreation, be forbidden,
much more recreation, which is but the means to labour.”[344] But
Baxter, who was himself strict in the observance of the day, and who
then walked for his health _privately_, lest he “should tempt
others to sin,” observed, with great moderation, “The body must be kept
in that condition (as far we can) that is fittest for the service of
the soul: a heavy body is but a dull and heavy servant to the mind,
yea, a great impediment to the soul in duty, and a great temptation to
many sins.” “When the sights of prospects, and beautiful buildings,
and fields, and countries, or the use of walks, or gardens, do tend to
raise the soul to holy contemplation, to admire the Creator, and to
think of the glory of the life to come (as Bernard used his pleasant
walks), this delight is lawful, if not a duty where it may be had.” Of
music and moderate feasting he says, when they “promote the spiritual
service of the day, they are good and profitable.”[345]
[Sidenote: OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.]
Owen, perhaps, was more strict in his views of Sabbath observance
than Baxter; yet he spoke of its being no small mistake that men have
laboured more to multiply directions about external duties than to
direct a due sanctification of the day according to the spirit and
genius of Gospel obedience; and he did not deny that some, measuring
others by themselves, tied people up unto such long tiresome duties,
and rigid abstinences from refreshments, as clogged their minds, and
turned the whole service of the day into a wearisome bodily exercise
which profiteth little.[346]
Between Puritans and Anglicans a great difference continued upon the
Sunday question. Jeremy Taylor, speaking of persons who objected to
have meat dressed upon the Lord’s Day, or to use an innocent, permitted
recreation, says--“When such an opinion makes a sect, and this sect
gets firm, confident, and zealous defenders, in a little time it will
dwell upon the conscience as if it were a native there, whereas it
is but a pitiful inmate, and ought to be turned out of doors.”[347]
Thorndike denied the obligation of the Fourth Commandment upon any but
the Jewish people; he based the authority for the Lord’s Day on the
Apostolic custom of the Church, and he disapproved of the Sabbatarian
strictness of the Puritans.[348] Sanderson pleaded for recreations,
“walking and discoursing” for “men of liberal education;” but for
the “ruder sort of people,” “shooting, leaping, pitching the bar,
and stool-ball,” rather than “dicing and carding.” “These pastimes,”
he said, were to be used “in godly and commendable sort,” with great
moderation, at seasonable times, not during Divine service, nor at
hours appointed by the master of the house for private devotion, but
so as to make men fitter for God’s service during the rest of the
day, and all this was to be done, not doubtingly, _for whatsoever
is not of faith is sin_; nor uncharitably, for in this, “as in all
indifferent things, a wise and charitable man will, in godly wisdom,
deny himself many times the use of that liberty, which, in a godly
charity, he dare not deny to his brother.”[349] Although the _Book
of Sports_ had lost its authority, its spirit revived after the
Restoration, and amusements in accordance with its provisions were
encouraged, in some cases, without any checks or any religious teaching
of the kind adopted by Sanderson. Cosin, indeed, in a sermon upon
Sunday observance, quotes a remark by Augustine, which condemns all
vain and idle pastimes--“Some people keep holy day for the devil, and
not for God, and should be better employed, labouring and ploughing
in their fields, than so to spend the day in idleness and vanity,
and women should better bestow their time in spinning of wool, than
upon the Lord’s Day to lose their time leaping and dancing, and other
such wantonness.”[350] Borough magistrates enforced the observance
of the Sabbath; not only were corporations, attired in their gowns,
required to attend church, morning and afternoon, but all masters were
ordered to cause their apprentices to be at Divine service at the
same time.[351] In the houses of such as disliked Puritanism, scenes
of levity, if not dissipation, often desecrated the holy hours. After
attendance at church, time was spent in a manner at variance with the
previous devotions.
[Sidenote: RECREATIONS.]
Pious Anglicans after the Restoration loved the first day of the
week with all the fervour of George Herbert;--and what some of them
said with reference to recreations, shocking as it appeared to
Puritans, proceeded not from a desire of self-indulgence, but from
a consideration of weakness in other people,--still, the Sabbath
remained the Puritans’ peculiar treasure. They put on it the highest
price. To them it seemed the jewel and crown, the bloom and flower
of the week, the torch which lighted up its dark days, the sunshine
which from eternity streamed down on the waters of time. Unwisdom,
sinking into superstition, betrayed itself in the strictness of their
conduct, provoking ridicule, and producing reaction; but it should
not be overlooked that it was from their great love to the festival,
that they were so careful to frame rules for its preservation. Some
treated Puritan habits as pitiable, and regarded the men as insanely
melancholy, but the latter esteemed themselves objects for envy rather
than commiseration, since in their own hearts they made the Sabbath “a
delight, the holy of the Lord, and honourable.”
XI. The idea of “a Christian year,” a sanctification of the seasons
of nature by Gospel memories, is undeniably beautiful. This theory of
time, adopted by the Church of England, reappeared at the Revolution,
and days which mark the progress of the old earth’s journeys round
the sun were stamped anew with sacred names, and entwined with the
history of the Redeemer and His Apostles. Christmas celebrated the
Incarnation, and Epiphany the infant appearance of Jesus to the Magi at
Bethlehem, with subsequent manifestations of His glory; Lent was the
spring period, set apart for fasting and prayer, preparatory to the
commemoration of Divine mercy in the atonement of Christ. Palm Sunday
is not recognized in the English Prayer Book. On the Sunday before
Easter no reference occurs to our Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem in
the proper Lessons, the Epistle, or the Gospel. But Easter itself,
after the sorrows of Good Friday, is a high and holy festival, when
the Church breaks out into songs of joy because of the Resurrection
of her Lord. At the close of the forty days following, come Rogation
Week, with Holy Thursday, and then Whitsuntide--a season associated
with Christ’s Ascension, and culminating in the celebration of
Pentecost. Trinity Sunday crowns the whole, and invites the faithful to
contemplate the comprehensive, the fundamental, the mysterious doctrine
of a distinction in the Godhead. The character and history of St. John
the Baptist, and of the Apostles, St. Matthias, St. Peter, St. James,
St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon and St. Jude, St. Andrew,
St. Thomas, are in succession bound up with certain days, the series
terminating in the festival of All Saints.[352]
[Sidenote: RECREATIONS.]
With these seasons, observed from ancient times, various recreations
had become connected in the middle ages. Many of them survived the fall
of Popery, and with exceptions and changes, came once more, at the
Restoration, into general fashion and indulgence. To say the least,
they brought around sacred things the strangest and most incongruous
associations. Some, indeed, were very much worse than strange and
incongruous. Christmas Eve shone with the blaze of the Yule log, and
its bountiful accompaniments of good cheer. The Christmas carol echoed
through the family hall with gay music from the minstrels’ gallery.
The Christmas hobby-horse cut strange capers, and Christmas-boxes
were given freely to young and old. The Lord of misrule, the foot
plough, and the sword dance, Yule doughs, mince-pies, Christmas-pies
and plum-puddings added to the tide of fellowship and pleasure at
that mid-winter season. All the glories of Twelfth night, which threw
old men and old women, as well as little children, into ecstasies
of merriment, were engrafted on the feast of Epiphany. Easter
holidays, Easter liftings, Easter eggs, and all sorts of Easter fun,
gathered in strange, grotesque, often revolting, contrast round the
professed acknowledgment of the greatest of the redemptive miracles
of Christianity. Rogation Week, with Ascension Day in its centre, had
long been the chosen time for sacred processions and litanies, and now
again in England, on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of that week,
parochial perambulations revived; charity children carried flowers;
the clergy with singing men and boys, all in sacred vestments, and
with churchwardens and parishioners, beat the bounds of the parish,
and under Gospel oaks, and other Gospel trees, the Incumbent read the
Gospel, according to an old custom, in which had originated these
familiar appellations. The idea of such perambulations, sanctioned by
the Church, was--that processional worship should be offered to the
Almighty, that thanks should be given to Him for the promise of a good
crop, or that prayer should be offered for His mercy on the prospect of
a bad harvest. But the gathering together of all sorts of idle people,
and the habit of drinking which obtained amongst them, led to most
deplorable excesses.
Superstitious and absurd practices cropped up profusely on St.
Mark’s Eve. With St. John’s Day was coupled the use, in decoration,
of the birch, the lily, and St. John’s wort, and at night bonfires
illuminated the villages of “Merrie England.” St. Peter’s Day had
similar illuminations; St. James’ Day was a time for eating oysters,
and Allhallow Even was devoted to nut-cracking, apple-catching, and the
ancient game of quintain. The feasts of the consecration of churches
degenerated into rush bearings, hoppings, and all kinds of rustic
amusements, in which, as Bishop Hall observed in his _Triumph of
Pleasure_ “you may well say no Greek can be merrier than they.”
The theory was to unite the remembrance of Christian facts and
Christian names with particular seasons in the lives of men, to
interlink religion with social intercourse, to recognize recreation
as a human necessity, to hallow it with Christian influences, and to
allow joy, on account of the events recorded in the Gospel, to express
itself in innocent festivities. But nobody can fail to see that if
this was the theory, the practice did not correspond with it, for the
history of the amusements common in England at these festivals after
the Restoration, as before, abounds in proofs of revelry and riot, most
unseemly in the estimation of sober Christians. A distinction ought
to be made between the use of festivities at Christmas, Easter, and
other seasons, and their abuse; between what is harmful and what is
innocent; and also it must be allowed that, whilst Churchmen, in the
days of which we speak, mingled recreation with religion, some of them
also mingled the spirit of religion with recreation, and condemned
all vicious indulgence; but the fact still remains, that amongst the
lower classes, and the upper as well, in cities and towns, and in rural
districts, a large amount of social demoralization existed under the
cover of Christian symbols, and in union with professedly Christian
observances. This fact should not be overlooked in an Ecclesiastical
History of England.
[Sidenote: RECREATIONS.]
Different ideas respecting amusements are marked badges of religious
denominations, and one of the dangers of all Puritanism is a tendency
to separate between recreation and religion, and to regard them as if
antagonistic, from mistaken views of the condition and necessities
of human nature; views which ignore one side of the mind of man, and
narrow the range of social sympathies. Some good men of the Puritan
class did, in consequence, look sourly on several very innocent
sorts of pleasure; but the morbid, ungenial restriction of feeling,
ascribed to the Puritans in general, has been greatly exaggerated, and
to some extent, so far as it really existed, an excuse may be found
for it in the persecuting treatment which they, as a body, received
from those who were foremost in promoting the revival of old English
customs. The distinctive amusements of the Church festivals the Puritan
disliked, condemned, and opposed. Indeed, many disliked, condemned,
and opposed the festivals themselves, from a strong conviction that
they were superstitious in their origin, their character, and their
tendency. They devoutly believed in the events which those festivals
commemorated, and thought that they should be remembered, not at
particular seasons, but all the year round. Their idea of the festivals
was not such as to redeem the recreations which had clustered round
them; and the recreations themselves were, to their religious and moral
tastes, exceedingly offensive.
After all which has been said to the contrary, however, numbers of the
Puritans--under the later Stuarts, under the earlier ones, and under
the Commonwealth--were genial and even “facetious”--to use a word
applied to some of their best men--full of pleasantness, and by no
means averse to certain English amusements. Many demonstrations of joy
they made in common with their neighbours. Feasting and sending gifts
to one another, the ringing of bells, making bonfires, and sounding
trumpets, with thundering of ordnance on great national occasions, had
been recommended in so many words from the chief pulpit of Manchester,
by the chief Presbyterian minister of that City. If Puritans objected
to drinking healths, some had no objections to see the street-conduits
running with claret. Anti-prelatists, like prelatists before, and
Nonconformists, like Conformists after the Restoration, indulged in the
sports of fishing and shooting; they followed the hounds, and they went
a hawking.
Cock-fighting is an old English amusement, especially at Shrove-tide,
and, strange as it may seem, an eminent Puritan minister, Henry
Newcome, allowed his boys, when that season came round, to “shoot
at the cock.” He amusingly expresses in his diary a fear lest the
youngsters should come to mischief in so dangerous a game, and
therefore prayed to God that He would preserve them, as he thankfully
acknowledges God was pleased to do; and he mentions that on one
occasion he had particular reason to be alarmed, since what was meant
for the cock threatened danger to the boy, for “Daniel’s hat on his
head was shot through with an arrow.” Yet the careful and devout
father never indicates an apprehension of there being anything wrong
in the game itself.[353] Nonconformists condemned card-playing, and
other games of chance, but if the late Nonconformists resembled their
Presbyterian predecessors, they amused themselves with balls and
billiards. The game of shuffle-board was a Royal amusement, and a
board for playing the game is mentioned in an inventory of the goods
belonging to Charles I., which were seized at Ludlow Castle. Boards
of this description had lines drawn across them at one end, and the
players stood at the other, the object being to push or _shove_
flat pieces of metal across the lines, without causing them to fall off
the board. Newcome liked to play this game, as appears from his diary,
only he was afraid of taking “too great a latitude in such mirth,” and
thought it his duty to let some “savoury thing” fall at the time, and
if he cracked a jest, he considered himself as thereby incurring a debt
for an equal amount of serious discourse. The Presbyterian minister,
who tells these stories of himself, was a young man at the time to
which he thus refers, and he lived beyond the Revolution, but it is
very probable that in after years he continued cautiously to practise
his early favourite amusement. There is, however, no reason to believe
that his taste in this respect, and his habit of indulging in it, is to
be taken as a specimen of Nonconformists’ recreation in general.
[Sidenote: CHARITIES.]
XII. The charities revived or established after the Restoration,
springing from the benevolent spirit of Christianity, call for some
notice. Visiting the venerable hospital of St. Mary, in the City
of Chichester, with its spacious hall, spanned by an arched roof,
and its rows of tiny rooms built on either side, as if in a covered
street, with its chapel and altar table, and other provisions
for Episcopalian worship on Sundays and week-days, and with its
old-fashioned men and women finding rest in their declining days,
after the toils and troubles of life; or visiting the like venerable
hospital of Bishopgate, in the City of Norwich, with somewhat similar
arrangements, we see the kind of place in which benevolent people loved
to shelter the aged and the infirm in the days of Charles II. After the
banishment--during the Commonwealth--of the ancient religious services,
and of the old spirit of these quaint retreats--not, however, to the
violation of the charitable purposes of the foundation--those services
took possession of them again at the Restoration. The same may be said
of numerous almshouses in different parts of the country.
New ones of a similar description were established. Bishop Ward’s
College of Matrons, for the maintenance of ten widows of orthodox
clergymen, may be mentioned as an instance. He disliked it to be called
an hospital, it being intended for those who were well descended,
and had lived in good reputation. He purchased land in the Close at
Salisbury, on which to erect the buildings, and the Cathedral being
so near, they were required to attend worship there, both morning
and evening. The same prelate endowed an hospital at Buntingford,
in Hertfordshire, the place of his birth, for ten aged men, each to
receive ten pounds a year.
Some persons, in founding almshouses, required that all the inmates
should “be conformed to the Church of England, according to the
Thirty-Nine Articles,” and placed under the ban of exclusion all such
as should not profess, or follow the Protestant religion, or should
absent themselves from the parish or castle church without cause.[354]
Others devised bequests in a more catholic spirit, providing “that poor
boys may be instructed in the principles of the Protestant religion,
and in the fear of the Lord, and also to read and to write, and to cast
up accounts, that so they may be blessed in their souls as well as in
their bodies, and may be a blessing to their masters, and may for ever
have cause to bless God for the fatherly care” of the Mayor on their
behalf.[355]
[Sidenote: CHARITIES.]
The name of a singular kind of person, who signalized himself by his
beneficence, may also be introduced.
An epitaph on a tomb-stone in the Chapel of Jesus’ College, Cambridge,
records his deeds:--“Tobias Rustat, Yeoman of the Robes to King Charles
II., whom he served with all duty and faithfulness in his adversity
as well as prosperity, both at home and abroad. The greatest part of
the estate he gathered by God’s blessing, the King’s favour, and his
industry, he disposed in his lifetime in works of charity, and found
the more he bestowed upon churches, hospitals, universities, and
colleges, and upon poor widows and orphans of orthodox ministers, the
more he had at the year’s end. Neither was he unmindful of his kindred
and relations in making them provision out of what remained. He died a
bachelor the 15th day of March, in the year of our Lord 1693, aged 87.”
Dr. Sutcliffe, in the reign of James I., founded and built a college
at Chelsea “principally for the maintenance of the true Catholic,
Apostolic, and Christian faith, and next, for the practice, setting
forth, and increase of true and sound learning against the pedantry,
sophistries and novelties of the Jesuits, and others, the Pope’s
factors and followers; and, thirdly, against the treachery of the
Pelagians, and Arminians, and others, that draw towards Popery and
Babylonian slavery, endeavouring to make a rent in God’s Church,
and a peace between heresy and God’s true faith--between Christ and
Antichrist.”[356] Although patronized by the King, this indefinite
scheme for maintaining truth in a controversial age came to nothing,
and Charles II. appropriated the ground occupied by the college to
the famous Royal Hospital for superannuated soldiers. Everybody is
familiar with the imposing edifice near the banks of the Thames, and
with the stories about Nell Gwynn’s influence, in the establishment
of the foundation, but it is not generally known, that a number of
persons, besides the King, took part in the work, and that it is really
a monument of national as well as of Royal munificence.
Tillotson, in one of his sermons, commemorates the benevolence of a
London merchant:--
“He (Mr. Gouge) set the poor of St. Sepulchre’s parish (where he was
a minister) to work at his own charge. He bought flax and hemp for
them to spin; when spun he paid them for their work, and caused it
to be wrought into cloth, which he sold as he could, himself bearing
the whole loss. This was a very wise and well-chosen way of charity,
and in the good effect of it, a much greater charity; than if he had
given to those very persons (freely and for nothing) so much as he made
them earn by their work, because, by this means, he rescued them from
two most dangerous temptations--idleness and poverty. This course, so
happily devised and begun by Mr. Gouge, gave, it may be, the first hint
to that useful and worthy citizen, Mr. Thos. Firman, of a much larger
design, which has been managed by him some years in this city, with
that vigour and good success, that many hundreds of poor children,
and others, who lived idle before, unprofitable both to themselves
and the public, now maintain themselves, and are also some advantage
to the community. By the assistance and charity of many excellent and
well-disposed persons, Mr. Firman is enabled to bear the unavoidable
loss and charge of so vast an undertaking, and by his own forward
inclination to charity, and unwearied diligence and activity, is fitted
to sustain and go through the incredible pains of it.”[357]
[Sidenote: CHARITIES.]
Such instances of Christian benevolence are quite as worthy of being
recorded in ecclesiastical history as the strifes of controversy, and
the changes of government, and it may therefore be added in reference
to “the useful and worthy citizen, Mr. Firman,” just mentioned, that,
although he was a person of singular and heterodox opinions, he
distinguished himself above many who condemned his errors; and left
behind him a name for active and unwearied charity, which entitles
him to a place in the same honourable list with Howard, Fry, and
Peabody. The details of his beneficence are minutely recorded in his
interesting life: besides establishing a linen manufactory entirely
for the employment and benefit of poor spinners, he visited prisons,
and redeemed poor debtors; he was a zealous supporter of Christ’s and
St. Thomas’ Hospitals; he largely gave away Bibles, good books, and
catechisms; he diligently helped the French Refugees; he evinced a deep
interest in the sufferings and relief of the persecuted Irish, and he
was an eminent contributor to the wants of the poor.[358]
Nor were missionary efforts altogether neglected. Sir Leoline
Jenkins--who, in 1680, succeeded Sir William Coventry as Secretary of
State--was touched by the large amount of spiritual destitution amongst
the Navy and in the Colonies, and with a view to the supplying of it,
he instituted two fellowships in Jesus’ College, Oxford, the holders of
which should go out to sea as Chaplains of the Fleet, or proceed to
“His Majesty’s foreign plantations, there to take upon them a cure of
souls.”
In July, 1649, an ordinance had been passed by the Long Parliament for
the propagation of the Gospel in New England. A collection for the
object having been made in every parish, a large sum was realized in
consequence. With this money certain lands were purchased of Colonel
Beddingfield, a Roman Catholic Royalist, the annual proceeds of which
were to be devoted to the mission. But after the Restoration, the
Colonel seized back the property for his own use, and it was only after
legal proceedings,--in which Clarendon, as Lord Chancellor, behaved
most equitably,--that it was recovered by the trustees. Charles II.
granted the Society a new Charter of Incorporation, of which Robert
Boyle became president; and Mr. Ashurst, an influential and pious
citizen, and alderman of London, who had been treasurer before,
reaccepted that important post. Richard Baxter took an active part in
the proceedings at home, and John Eliot, a missionary to the Indians,
carried on its operations abroad. Letters are preserved which passed
between the illustrious Divine and the illustrious Evangelist, and
from one written by the former we learn that, although, from reasons
connected with the peculiar character of the times, numbers were
unwilling to leave England just then to embark in this new expedition
of religious zeal, many would have been glad to have gone amongst
“Persians, Tartarians, and Indians,” to preach the Gospel, had they
but understood the language. Hints respecting universal language--a
dream which occupied the thoughts of Wilkins, the Bishop of Chester,
and inspired George Dalgarno’s _Ars Signorum_--occur in Eliot’s
letters, showing that he leaned towards the Hebrew tongue as the
all-comprehensive vehicle of instruction--the tongue which, he said,
will be spoken in heaven, and which, by its “trigramical foundation,”
is “capable of a regular expatiation into millions of words, no
language like it.” Baxter was strongly excited by the deplorable
destitution of the Gospel, but it inspired more of despair than of
hope; it paralyzed rather than stimulated effort. “He that surveyeth
the present state of the earth, and considereth, that scarcely a sixth
part is Christian, and how small a part of them are reformed, and how
small a part of them have much of the power of godliness, will be ready
to think that Christ hath called almost all His chosen, and is ready
to forsake the earth, rather than that He intendeth us such blessed
days below as we desire. We shall have what we would, but not in this
world.”[359] There are also several letters from Eliot to Boyle,
written with touching simplicity--reports, in fact, of the missionary
work in New England--in which the apostle to the Indians addresses
the President of the Society as a right honourable, deeply learned,
abundantly charitable, and constant, nursing father.[360]
[Sidenote: CHARITIES.]
Boyle devoted to the New England mission, £300 a year during his life,
and, by his will, bequeathed a legacy of £100; and although several
persons of distinction were nominally connected with the scheme, he was
its moving-spring, its power and life. The meetings for the transaction
of its affairs, which he commonly attended, were held at Alderman
Ashurst’s residence in London--the first board of foreign missions in
Protestant England, and the first mission-house of that kind in its
enterprising metropolis. Missionary operations on a much larger scale
were commenced after the Revolution.
XIII. I have recorded several incidents which occurred in the
Universities. Nothing like a history of those great institutions comes
within the purpose of this work, nor is there any need to describe
their state after the Restoration, as in former volumes I described it
before that event:--because, during the Commonwealth, the Universities
were extraordinarily circumstanced, but at the Restoration they
returned to their normal condition, in which they have continued ever
since. A few notices, however, indicative of the studies and habits of
the members, may be appropriately included within this chapter.
Sancroft conveys an unfavourable impression of the state of things
at Cambridge in the year 1663:--“It would grieve you to hear of our
public examinations; the Hebrew and Greek learning being out of fashion
everywhere, and especially in the other Colleges, where we are forced
to seek our candidates for fellowships; and the rational learning they
pretend to, being neither the old philosophy, nor steadily any one of
the new. In fine, though I must do the present society right, and say,
that divers of them are very good scholars, and orthodox (I believe)
and dutiful both to King and Church; yet methinks I find not that old
genius and spirit of learning generally in the College that made it
once so deservedly famous; nor shall I hope to retrieve it any way
sooner, than by your directions who lived here in the most flourishing
times of it.”[361]
Not only would the transition from Puritan to Anglican occasion
inconvenience, but a transition also occurred from the study of the
old to the study of the new philosophy,--from Aristotle to Plato,
and from the pursuit of metaphysics to the investigation of physical
science. Lucas founded a professorship of Mathematics in the year 1663,
to which office Barrow was the first appointed, and in his inaugural
address, he eulogizes that department of knowledge which he was about
to teach.[362]
[Sidenote: UNIVERSITIES.]
Another great change at Cambridge, consequent upon the Restoration, is
seen in the decline of Calvinistic theology, the return of Anglican
opinions, and especially the progress of the Latitudinarian schools of
Divinity, described in a subsequent portion of this work. Turning to
less important matters, it may be observed that Royal mandates became
too common, and provoked refusals from the College authorities. Dr.
Cudworth, Master of Christ’s, politely apologized for declining an
order for the election of a son of Sir Richard Fanshaw, as a Fellow,
pleading that “since the Restoration, their little College had received
and obeyed ten Royal letters; and even received a manciple imposed
by letter, though it was a thing never known before.” “When mandates
are so plentifully granted they cannot possibly be all obeyed.”[363]
North set himself decidedly against these mandates, as most mischievous
abuses, and contrived by pre-elections to obviate their occurrence.
“Out of the several years, four or five one under another, he caused
to be pre-elected into fellowships scholars of the best capacities
in the several years; which made it improbable another election
should come about in so many years then next ensuing, for until all
these elections were benefited there could be no vacancy, and that
broke the course of mandates whilst he lived.” North was a High Tory,
an advocate of absolute monarchy, a severe disciplinarian, and an
austere man in his personal habits. Although his opinions accorded
with those prevalent in the University, his conduct as the Head of
a College made him unpopular; and it happened, one evening,--when
sitting in his dining-room by the fire, the chimney being opposite to
the windows, looking out into the great quadrangle,--that a stone was
sent from the court through the window. He was “inwardly vexed, and
soon after, the discourse fell upon the subject of people’s kicking
against their superiors in government, who preserves them as children
are preserved by parents; and then he had a scroll of instances, out of
Greek history, to the same purpose, concluding that no conscientious
magistrate can be popular, but in lieu of that, he must arm himself
with equanimity.” He differed at times from the senior fellows, and
at a meeting for business, when eight of them had determined to have
their own way, and carry a point on which they had previously agreed,
one of them attempted to effect his object by saying, “Master, since
you will not agree, we must rise, and break up the meeting.” “Nay,” he
replied, “that you shall not do, for I myself will rise and be gone
first.”[364] This brought them round. The relation of such an incident
gives an idea of the High Church Don at Cambridge much better than any
general description, and throws amusing light on the social life of the
University.
The election of a new Chancellor was then, as it generally is, an
exciting event for the University men, and every kind of influence
was brought to bear upon the success of the respective competitors.
In 1671, the Duke of Buckingham entered into a contest with the Earl
of Arlington, for the enjoyment of the honour, and obtained the
prize; Williamson, the Secretary of State, having without effect
canvassed on the opposite side. Leading men apologized to him for not
supporting his candidate, of which an instance appears in the following
communication:--
[Sidenote: UNIVERSITIES.]
“For Joseph Williamson, Esq., Whitehall.--Sir,--My worthy
friend,--This morning, about seven, I received the favour of
your letter sent me by Dr. Turner, of St. John’s, and Dr.
Cudworth our Master received another from you to the same
effect. But we were so far engaged before, having been visited
(as we call it here, for the Duke of Buckingham) on Sunday or
Monday last, and the inclinations of the University lay so
against an Oxford man (you know our academical humour) that
no good could be done so late for my Lord Arlington, but the
Duke was chosen this day with a _nemine contradicente_. You
know, dear Sir, my personal obligations to you are such, and
peculiarly in my expectancy for the professorship, that you
might command not only my own suffrage, but all the friends I
could make if it had been in time.
“Believe me to be your much obliged and humble Servant,
JOHN CARR.
“CHRIST’S COLL., CAMBRIDGE,
_May 11, 1671_.”
There are other letters amongst the _State Papers_ on the same
subject, including one from Dr. Cudworth, to Williamson, excusing
himself for supporting the Duke instead of the Earl.
Charles II. visited Cambridge on the 4th of October in the same year,
and the whole body of students wearing academical habits, according to
their several degrees, lined the streets as His Majesty visited the
various buildings. He was received by the new Chancellor and the other
authorities, who presented him with a “fair Bible,” accompanied by a
short speech from the public orator. The King visited the University’s
libraries and the Colleges of Trinity and St. John, and after dining at
Trinity he saw a comedy acted there, with which he expressed himself
well pleased.[365] In 1674, the Duke of Monmouth succeeded the Duke of
Buckingham in the Chancellorship, and in that year we find the former
sending a curious communication to the Eastern University.
By His Majesty’s desire he noticed the liberty which several persons in
holy orders had taken to wear their own hair and perukes of an unusual
and unbecoming length, and rebuked them for it, strictly enjoining
that all such, who professed the study of Divinity, should wear their
hair in a manner more suitable to the gravity and sobriety of their
profession. He also blamed them in His Majesty’s name for reading
sermons, and commanded that preaching from MS., which took a beginning
with the disorders of the late times, should be wholly laid aside,
and that preachers should deliver their sermons, both in Latin and
English, by memory or without book, as being a way of preaching which
His Majesty judged most agreeable to the use of all foreign Churches,
to the former custom of the University, and the nature and intention of
the holy exercise itself.[366] These injunctions were anticipated at
Oxford, where James, Duke of Ormond, continued Chancellor from 1669 to
1688.
[Sidenote: UNIVERSITIES.]
“It is not long since,” writes Dr. Ralph Bathurst, President of
Trinity, “we had notice of the Duke of Monmouth’s letter, written
by His Majesty’s command, to the University of Cambridge, against
_long hair_ and the _reading of sermons_. It was here thought
advisable to obviate the like reproof to ourselves, by an early
compliance with His Majesty’s desires, though we think ourselves much
more blameless than they, especially in the last particular. To this
end, I have this day published a programme, the copy whereof I have
made bold to send you.”[367]
With this amusing insight into academic life, may be coupled another
of earlier date. Williamson, Secretary of State, presented to Queen’s
College, a silver trumpet and two pairs of banners. Thanks were
returned by Dr. Thomas Barlow, in the name of the Society, and the gift
was described as “most welcome, not only for its cost and curiosity,
but for its congruity to them who by statute are to be called to dinner
with a trumpet, though fitter for him to give than for a poor College
to receive, to call them to a mess of pottage and twopenny commons. It
will be used on all solemn days, but at other times their old brass
trumpet will serve the turn.” In another letter, it is remarked,
“The Provost, and all the company, highly extol them, and are very
grateful for them. The trumpet was long sounded in the quadrangle,
wine was drunk through the hall, and venison pasties were at every
table, there being a whole buck from Lady Foster, of Aldermaston,”
besides Williamson’s from Woodstock.[368] Old Christmas and Candlemas
customs were revived, and the senior undergraduates amused themselves
at night before the charcoal fires by bringing in the freshmen, and
making them “sit down on a form in the middle of the hall, joining to
the declaimer’s desk,”--where they were required to “speak some pretty
apothegm, or make a jest or bull;” and if the thing were not done
cleverly, the unhappy wight was punished by the seniors, who would
“_tuck_ him--that is set the nail of their thumb to his chin, just
under the lip, and by the help of their other fingers under the chin,
they would give him a mark which sometimes would produce blood.”[369]
A picturesque usage occurred on Holy Thursday, when the Fellows of New
College walked to Bartholomew’s Hospital, which was decked with fruit
for the occasion, and then, after reading the Scriptures, and the
singing of hymns, they offered silver to be divided amongst poor men;
then they proceeded to Stockwell, where, after reading the epistle and
gospel for the day, the Fellows in “the open place, like the ancient
Druids, echoed and warbled out from the shady arbours, melodious
melody, consisting of several parts, then most in fashion.”[370]
[Sidenote: UNIVERSITIES.]
The conduct of persons who from time to time acted the part of
_Terræ filius_, had been complained of under the Commonwealth;
it continued to be complained of after the Restoration. The excesses
into which these lawless students were wont to run, with other
corresponding extravagances, appear to have reached their greatest
height in 1669, at the opening of the Sheldon theatre. South once, as
University orator, delivered a long oration, in which he satirically
inveighed against Cromwell, the Fanatics, the Royal Society, and the
new philosophy:--and then pronounced encomiums upon the Archbishop,
the building, the Vice-Chancellor, the Architect, and the Decorator,
concluding with execrations, cast upon Fanatics, Conventicles, and
Comprehension, “damning them _ad inferos, ad Gehennam_.” At the
same Commemoration, the _Terræ filius_ gave so general offence,
that Dr. Wallis says: “I believe the University hath thereby lost more
reputation than they have gained by all the rest.” “The excellent
Lady,” he adds, “which your letter mentions, was, in the broadest
language represented as guilty of those crimes, of which, if there were
occasion, you would not stick to be her compurgator.”[371]
Complaints of the same kind were made years afterwards. The Bishop of
Oxford, writing December 14, 1684, complains:--“The _Terræ filii_
in this place have of late taken to themselves such licenses as were
altogether intolerable, their scurrilous discourses passing not only
the bounds of decency but of common humanity, so that it was necessary
for the University to oppose sharp remedies to so prevailing an
evil.”[372]
Within eighteen months of the date of the Oxford decree for burning
the books of Milton and others, there occurred another Act conceived
in the same spirit. Lord Sunderland wrote to the Bishop of Oxford, Dr.
John Fell, complaining of John Locke,--“He being,” remarks the Bishop
in reply, “as your Lordship is truly informed, a person who was much
trusted by the late Earl of Shaftesbury, and who is suspected to be
ill-affected to the Government, I have for divers years had an eye upon
him, but so close has his guard been on himself, that after several
strict inquiries, I may confidently affirm that there is not any man in
the College, however familiar with him, who has heard him speak a word
either against, or so much as concerning the Government.” Yet, although
Locke was so extremely cautious, the Bishop professed the greatest
zeal in seeking his expulsion, and, after describing what he himself
meant to do, adds: “If this method seem not effectual or speedy enough,
and His Majesty, our founder and visitor, shall please to command his
immediate remove, upon the receipt thereof, directed to the Dean and
Chapter, it shall accordingly be executed.” A warrant, immediately
despatched by Sunderland, signified the King’s pleasure, that John
Locke should be removed from his student’s place, to which the Bishop
obsequiously replied: “I hold myself bound in duty to signify to your
Lordship that His Majesty’s command for the expulsion of Mr. Locke from
this College is fully executed.”[373] This disgraceful deed originated,
it is true, with the Sovereign, but the part taken by the Bishop, and
the Dean and Chapter of Christchurch, with the silent acquiescence of
the University, demonstrates what must have been the political and
ecclesiastical atmosphere of the place at that time.
We here terminate these somewhat rambling notices of the
ecclesiastical, the religious, and the academic life of the period;
and proceed to notice, in the next chapter, a very important subject
connected with the state of the English Churches, which has not
received from historians the attention it requires.