DONCASTER CHURCH. THE RECTORIAL TITHES SECURED BY ARCHBISHOP SHARP FOR
HIS OWN FAMILY.
Say ancient edifice, thyself with years
Grown grey, how long upon the hill has stood
Thy weather-braving tower, and silent mark'd
The human leaf in constant bud and fall?
The generations of deciduous man
How often hast thou seen them pass away!
HURDIS.
The ecclesiastical history of Doncaster is not so much to the credit
of all whom it concerns, as the municipal. Nigel Fossard in the year
1100, granted the advowson of its church to St. Mary's Abbey, York;
and it was for rather more than two hundred years a rectory of two
medieties, served by two resident rectors whom the Abbey appointed. In
1303, Archbishop Corbridge appropriated it to the abbey, and ordained
it a perpetual vicarage. Fifty marks a year out of the profits of the
rectory were then allowed for the Vicar's support, and he held the
house and garden also which had formerly appertained to one of the
Rectors. When upon the dissolution of the monasteries it fell to the
crown, Henry VIII. gave it with other monastic impropriations to
Archbishop Holgate, as some compensation for the valuable manors which
he made the see of York alienate to himself. The church of Doncaster
gained nothing by this transfer. The rectory was secured by Archbishop
Sharp for his own family. At the beginning of the present century it
was worth from £1000. to £1200. a year, while the Vicar had only an
annual income of £80. charged upon that rectory, and £20. charged upon
a certain estate. He had no tithes, no Easter offerings, and no other
glebe than the church-yard, and an orchard attached to the vicarage.
And he had to pay a curate to do the duty at Loversall church.
There is one remarkable epitaph in this church upon a monument of the
altar form, placed just behind the reading desk.
How, how, who is here?
I Robin of Doncaster, and Margaret my fere.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost. A. D. 1579.
Quoth Robertus Byrkes who in this world did reign
Threescore years and seven, and yet lived not one.
Robin of Doncaster as he is now familiarly called by persons
connected, or acquainted with the church, is remembered only by this
record which he has left of himself: perhaps the tomb was spared for
the singularity of the epitaph, when prouder monuments in the same
church were despoiled. He seems to have been one who thinking little
of any thing beyond the affairs of this world till the last year of
his pilgrimage, lived during that year a new life. It may also be
inferred that his property was inherited by persons to whom he was
bound by no other ties than those of cold affinity; for if he had felt
any concern for their welfare, he would not have considered those
possessions as lost which were left to them.
Perhaps a farther inference may be fairly drawn, that though the
deceased had stood in this uncomfortable relation to his heirs at law,
he was too just a man to set aside the course of succession which the
law appointed. They who think that in the testamentary disposal of
their property they have a right to do whatever it is legally in their
power to do, may find themselves woefully mistaken when they come to
render their account. Nothing but the weightiest moral considerations
can justify any one in depriving another of that which the law of the
land would otherwise in its due course have assigned him. But rights
of descent cease to be held sacred in public opinion in proportion as
men consider themselves exempt from all duty to their forefathers; and
that is in proportion as principles become sophisticated, and society
more and more corrupt.
St. George's is the only church in Doncaster, a town which in the year
1800, contained 1246 houses, 5697 souls: twenty years afterwards the
houses had increased to 1729, and the inhabitants to 8544. The state
having made no other provision for the religious instruction of the
townspeople than one church, one vicar, and one curate—if the vicar
from other revenues than those of his vicarage can afford to keep
one—the far greater part of the inhabitants are left to be absenters
by necessity, or dissenters by choice. It was the boast of the
corporation in an address to Charles II. that they had not “one
factious seditious person” in their town, “being all true sons of the
Church of England and loyal subjects;” and that “in the height of all
the late troubles and confusion (that is during the civil wars and the
commonwealth,—which might more truly have been called the common-woe)
they never had any conventicle amongst them, the nurseries and seed
plots of sedition and rebellion.”—There are conventicles there now of
every denomination. And this has been occasioned by the great sin of
omission in the Government, and the great sin of commission in that
Prelate who appropriated the property of the church to his own family.
Hollis Pigot was Vicar when Daniel Dove began to reside in Doncaster;
and Mr. Fawkes was his Curate.